Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart (33 page)

Casting a glance toward where Ninette—now fully and somewhat unhappily in her mistress's confidence—was keeping an eye out for anyone who might chance upon them, Elise spoke:

"I've had little chance to speak with Citrine as of yet. Her mother is keeping her away from even her usual playmates like little Kenre Trueheart. Tomorrow night, however, there is a dinner and small dance at the Shield/Redbriar home. I'm certain I'll be able to talk with her there. Now, I must go."

Gifting each with a small smile and a gracious curtsy, Elise left them with such promptness that her departure could have seemed flight.

After watching her out of sight Doc turned to Derian.

"My cousin asked me to speak with you informally about the post he offered you for this winter. He'll be heading to Kestrel lands in a few days and hopes that you'll accept and travel with us."

Derian nodded. "I've been considering it seriously. It's certainly an attractive offer and one that would permit me to see Firekeeper again—if she ever comes back."

"
When
she does," Doc said firmly. "You say she promised you that she would visit you again. Surely she would be more comfortable on the Kestrel Grant. Part of the North Woods are still wild and there would be good hunting for Blind Seer."

"She might not come back at all this winter," Derian said.

"But the earl has offered you a post as riding instructor to his children and as advisor on his stable," Doc reminded him. "It's not makework. Duchess Kestrel let the stable slide for a time and Norvin had other projects with which to occupy himself."

"That's true," Derian admitted. "Otherwise he wouldn't have needed to hire mounts from my parents when he set out west."

"Exactly," Doc said. "Do come out. You'll have friends there, which is more than you can say in any of the other places you've been offered posts."

Derian nodded. "And I'd see another part of the kingdom. I've only been out that way once or twice and then usually in the summer. We have one stable—an affiliate with a relative of my mother's—and they don't need much managing."

"Did you know," Doc asked with an abruptness that Derian realized was part shyness, "that the earl has also asked Elise to spend some time this winter with his household? He has two sons, both of whom are within a few years of Elise's age. The elder—Edlin—will be heir."

"Matchmaking?"

"I expect so," Doc said. For the first time in their acquaintance, Derian saw the desperate sorrow that underlay Doc's undeclared devotion to Elise. "It would be a good match. Their holdings are on opposite sides of the kingdom, true, but that could be seen as spreading influence, rather than concentrating it in the north."

"Has Elise accepted?" Derian asked.

"Not yet. Nor has she declined."

Doc's expression became wry.

"As with you, Derian, the earl has hinted to Elise that her presence would be a comfort to Lady Blysse should she return from the wilds."

Derian couldn't help but chuckle. "He plays people as Race plays the flute—knowing just the right stops."

"Why then," Jared said abruptly, "would he then also ask me to make myself free of his home this winter? He's no fool—he must know that I… care for the young woman. Nor is he cruel. Do you think he might…"

"Hope you could win her?" Derian shrugged. "Now, that's an interesting thought."

"Maybe," Doc added bitterly, as if the thought had just come to him, "he uses me as bait to get her there."

"Right now," Derian said bluntly, "your presence might not be an advantage. She seems uncertain of herself."

Doc hit the table with his fist.

"If only I had something to offer her!"

Derian thought he had nothing to say, but found his tongue working anyhow.

"I'll come out this winter," he promised. "Even if Elise does not, you'll be glad for a friend and so," he added, knowing it was true, "will I."

Jared reached out and gripped Derian's hand in wordless thanks.

"In any case," Doc added, "other interests seem to be pressing north. Perhaps it is just as well that we have an excuse to head that way, with or without the lady."

Derian thought from the touch of desperate hope in his friend's eyes that Jared Surcliffe would much prefer "with" to "without."

W
hen the convocation of the royal beasts reformed in the middle of the next morning, early comments from bear and boar to the general company caused Firekeeper to think that some negotiating among various groups had been going on.

She was certain of this when the puma—who had been fervent in his avocation of her acting as the Beasts' agent—rose languid and golden in the morning sunlight, stretched, and addressed the convocation in general.

"The wolf pup with human form has asked most reasonably why we ourselves did not go after these enchanted objects. I here request that honorable battle-bird, the raven, to speak for his kind."

The raven flapped his wings once, setting up a miniature storm of leaf mold and dust, then croaked:

"I speak for all my kin on this matter—the ravens, crows, and jays. Simply put, we are clever of beak and talon, sharp of eye, and swift of flight, but never have we possessed the means for opening locks or of gaining access to rooms closed and barred against even human access."

"And," squawked a jay, lest any miss the point, "it is supremely unlikely that Queen Valora keeps her treasures on display on her dressing table—or that many windows would be conveniently open in wintertime."

Then the puma said, "But you agree that this stealing is essential—that it must be done?"

The raven spoke, "Again, for all my kin, I say yes."

Next the puma put the same questions to the hawks and eagles and received a similar reply. Then he turned his inquiry to the raccoons and foxes. Their reply was as the wingéd folks' had been—that against human buildings, locks and keys, even their nimble paws and legendary slyness could not avail.

The puma licked one of his forepaws in a thoughtful manner and continued—and there was such predatory power about him that even the largest and fiercest of the Beasts did not question his sudden domination of the discussion.

"So we admit we have a need and a desire, but not the means to gain what we want. The human-shaped wolfling, though, she would not be baffled by doors and locks. Her hands are made for the undoing of these."

Firekeeper, who had kept silent to this point as if mesmerized, now gave tongue.

"I cannot cross the oceans—nor can I walk unheeded among humans. You seem to think that they are indistinguishable from each other, but I tell you, among them I stand out as a white crow among the black."

And here a huge, knife-winged gull—a bird Firekeeper was certain had not been among their company the day before—spoke from where he squatted on a rock near the puma.

"And if I told you, Firekeeper, that no crossing of the ocean was needed? Then would you take on this hunt?"

"I might," she replied cautiously, "be more inclined."

"Then know that on the day when the two human kingdoms celebrated their alliance through the marriage of their heirs—"

(Fleetingly, Firekeeper realized how her experience of human culture had shaped her thoughts. Before that time, she would have heard what the seagull said as something like "when the two rival territories joined through the mating of their young.")

"—then did Queen Valora leave her new capital upon a fleet ship and sail to Silver Whale Cove, and there stare longingly at Revelation Point Castle, as might a young gull when a whaling vessel has hauled alongside a dead deep dweller but not yet cut through the hide into the succulent flesh!

"In her arms, against the fullness of her bosom, she held a metal box. Never, through all the long vigil, did she release it, though her husband, King Harwill, offered more than once to spare her. And when the news was brought to her by a ship even more fleet than her own—though not constructed for sailing on deep water…"

The puma growled, "Stay to the point, fish-eater."

"She carried the box below with her," the gull said hastily, glancing at the claws the tawny cat idly bared. "Yet that very box…"

And here the gull's squawk rose with triumphant smugness. "That very box was seen by one of my kin—seen as it was encased in a larger box of wood, well padded within, and its true cargo disguised.with an abundance of dried fish. This box was put upon a ship for the mainland, a ship that carried one of the queen's underlings. The underling went on to Eagle's Nest—as the humans so…"

A dry cough from the puma halted the gull's commentary in midcry.

"The box remains in a storehouse in Port Haven, doubtless to be called for when the underling has built a nest for it. So the items we wish rest on the mainland, little wolf, beyond our beaks and claws, but not—we believe—beyond your fingers."

"Likely," Firekeeper protested, "this servant of Valora will have moved the box long before I can come to that place. Have you forgotten that I lack wings? The journey to Port Haven—a city to which I have never been—will take me hands of days."

"We have not forgotten," the gull said, a trace disdainfully. "And one of my kin now watches the place where the box was put. She knows the look of the big box, the look of the small, and the look of the man who brought it there. If it is taken away, she is to follow."

"And steal?" asked the raccoon—who had been among those most adamantly against Firekeeper's involvement in the theft.

"And steal," the gull replied, "but we fear that she will not be given the chance."

The argument that followed this reply gave Firekeeper a chance to marshal her thoughts. The task did seem more possible now, but still she could not help but recall how she was the white crow when in human company. Her newly cropped hair would not help the situation, either, for all women in both Bright Bay and Hawk Haven wore their hair long—augmenting its length with falls and twists of purchased hair if needed or even resorting to wigs.

Firekeeper had worn a wig once—back during the days when Derian was teaching her in West Keep—and had found the thing smothering and given to slipping into her eyes. Surely she could not chase after this box so encumbered.

Eventually, with much squawking from the raven, and the intervention of the elk in a squabble threatening violence between the raccoon and the fox, the Royal Beasts resumed their convocation.

The elk now took up the matter:

"Speed is indeed important," he said, his voice seeming too high to emanate from his great chest, "and I am prepared to humble myself to its cause. Firekeeper, among the humans did you learn to ride their horses?"

"Poorly," she admitted, but her admission was shaded with pride. "They feared having a wolf astride their backs so only the most mild would carry me."

"I would more fear a puma than a wolf," the elk said thoughtfully, "if it was a matter of backs. Therefore, myself and one of my brothers will carry you from the shores of Lake Rime northward. Much of the journey will be through mountain lands, but we know passes and hidden valleys and can so go swiftly."

Firekeeper did not much care for this assumption that her participation had been agreed upon, but she was so awed by the elk's offer that she was temporarily rendered mute.

"And," said the Mother Kestrel, "several of the wingéd folk—corvid kin and raptors both—will risk the crossing of the Iron Mountains ahead of you. We will be your far-flung eyes and ears so that you do not chase down this box only to learn you have been tracking echoes."

"And we wolves," said the One Female, "will cross the mountains with you, hunting for you and breaking trail through the snow so that you may travel with speed and safety."

This last offer, though simpler than the others, made the greatest impression on Firekeeper. For all of her life she had listened to the teaching tales of the Ones. Every spring, every winter, every autumn, every summer there was a new tale to caution against crossing the Iron Mountains and venturing into those dangerous lands.

That all her home pack—her mother and father and brothers and sisters—would risk that crossing to assure her speedy journey made Firekeeper realize how seriously the wolves viewed this matter of enchanted objects.

It had been on her tongue to ask what gain was there to be had for her if she did this dangerous thing. Now she realized how human that thought was. Wolves might tear the very meat out of a pack mate's mouth, but they did not deny the weak the bones.

Here she was thinking not like one of a pack, but like some mad creature who had forgotten that no matter how flush was summer's hunting only the joined strength of the pack carried the wolf through the coldest freeze.

"I see," Firekeeper replied lightly, "that we have fine winter hunting here. I can do my part in bringing down the game. When do we leave?"

There was no applause as there might have been in a human council when the champion took up the gauntlet, but the stillness that held for a long moment was as resounding.

Then the raven angled his head to look at the sun.

"We have spent the best part of the sunlight in chatter," he said, "and the elks travel best by day."

"Still," the elk snorted, "we should travel while there is light. I say we should not wait."

In reply, Firekeeper rose and the One Female and Blind Seer rose with her. The peregrine Elation took to the air, calling back:

"I tell your pack that you come, ground runners!"

"And, too, you might find a meal waiting at this day's end trail," the puma purred, vanishing with a flick of his tail.

The gull surged into the air with a heavy, awkward beating of his wings, heading east—presumably to brief the watchers as to the result of this meeting. Firekeeper hoped that Lake Rime had surrendered several sleepy fish to his belly.

Her own was feeling a bit empty, for she had dined early and the morning had been long; she was not ungrateful when the bear lumbered over and thrust a sticky and somewhat dirty chunk of honeycomb at her.

She thanked the bear and turned to the elk, who was just finishing a slightly heated discussion about best routes with the One Female and a jay.