For Jim, my angel on Earth

and

For Dad, Gwydion, and Haley, three of Heaven's newest angels

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

BOOK

ONE

Chapter I

Lying on his back in the darkness of his bedchamber, King Allister of the Pledge listened to his wife's soft breathing.

Pearl was pretending to be asleep, even as he was.

Twenty-two years of marriage made fairly certain that neither was fooled. Those same twenty-two years made certain that each would maintain the farce.
He wondered if the same things kept her awake. There had been so much. The war—King Allister's War, they were calling it now, as if he had started it. And maybe he had. He had certainly done his part to end it.
The coronation earlier that day—all those people kneeling before him, swearing oaths. Some had been truly happy, he thought, but others… He thought he'd seen all the faces that men turn on each other, but he had seen a new one now… the eyes had been flat, holding no expression at all, while lips smiled or frowned; you could almost taste the calculation going on behind them. He'd never had power before, so he'd never seen this bland face that ambitious men turn to power.
But why should he fool himself? Ignoring the true reason for his sleeplessness was as ridiculous as this game of pretending to Pearl that he was asleep. At least that game served some purpose; at least each could believe the other might be resting.
Valora's letter. Whether his eyes were opened or closed Allister could summon the text of it before him, seeing it as glowing silver words against velvet black, though the real letter had been neatly written in prosaic black ink upon fine vellum. He'd first discovered the letter—and the queen's treachery—soon after their arrival.
Allister Seagleam, king in all but crown, had arrived with his family and retainers at Silver Whale Cove mid-afternoon the previous day. The castle itself—a massive stone structure along whose walls both rounded and square-built towers alternated—had been built close to the water, on a high point jutting into the cove. Named Revelation Point Castle for some event in Bright Bay's colonial past, it was the traditional seat for rulers of the area.
They were hardly through the arched stone gateway before they learned that Queen Valora, the former Queen Gustin IV, had departed on schedule as promised, taking with her rather more of the castle staff than was polite, and leaving those who remained in an uproar as they prepared for the formal coronation that was to be held the next afternoon.
The Keeper of the Keys, an elderly Pelican whose family had held the post since the days of Gustin I, had been the first to hint that all might not be right. He'd knelt in front of Allister, offering his homage as was his due and duty.
"I'm Ivory Pelican, Your Majesty," he'd said, extending in front of him a square, flat cushion of dark purple New Kelvinese silk upon which rested a highly polished bunch of keys. "My title is the Keeper of the Keys."
"I recognize you," Allister had said, "and confirm you in that title and its tasks and honors, unless you have reason to wish to be relieved of them."
He'd recited that formula many times in just the few hours since his arrival at the castle. The entire thing would need to be redone subsequent to the formal coronation, but these interim oaths were necessary, confirming that he wasn't out to strip everyone of their rank and privilege just because he'd managed to strip the queen of her throne.
All the other times the person so reassured had made some small speech of thanks and had then hurried off to do whatever needed to be done—maybe pausing along the way to reassure kith and kin that their particular royal stipend wasn't about to be stopped.
This time, though, Lord Ivory had rocked back on his heels and given his king—for although not yet formally crowned,
Allister Seagleam effectively had been king for these twenty-odd days—a look that might have been sly, but that just might have been a bit sad.
"Well, Your Majesty," Lord Ivory had said, keeping his voice low, "if you can spare an old man a few minutes, I believe there is something you should see."
Allister had found those minutes. Accompanied by Shad, his eldest son and heir, and a brace of trusted guards, he had followed where the old Pelican led.
Any onlooker would have immediately seen the likeness between father and son. Shad was as fair of skin and hair as his father, but where Allister was lean and with a vaguely scholarly untidiness to his bearing, Shad had inherited House Oyster's rounded lines from his mother. When he'd been a boy, the uninformed had often mistaken this apparent plumpness for softness, but now that several years at sea had put muscle on him, Shad showed promise of a whale-like solidity that did not preclude grace.
But where they were most alike was in a frank curiosity regarding the world around them, a curiosity that Shad did not bother to conceal as Lord Ivory Pelican led them into reaches of the castle that before this day had been the private quarters of the now-deposed Queen Gustin IV.
Allister was less a stranger to the castle. His father had been Prince Tavis, brother to Gustin III, third in line to the throne after his elder sister, Princess Seastar—that is before Gustin III had finally fathered his little Valora, a child born fairly late in his life, after others had become ambitious for the throne.
Prince Tavis had never held much hope that he or his son would be king. Indeed his own mother, Queen Gustin II, had entered into a pact with King Chalmer of Hawk Haven to wed Tavis to Chalmer's daughter Caryl in a pledge for peace between the kingdoms. The pact did not include the power to enforce those ideals. Perhaps that was why it had failed.
But Tavis's son by that marriage had frequented the royal castle as a child, escorted by his father, who—much though he resented being a playing piece in kingdom politics—would not let his son be dismissed as an inconvenient nonentity.
Prince Tavis had made certain that his son would bear a title—that of duke—and hold lands he could pass on to his own children. More than that, he could not do; and when he died at sea, a comparatively young man of fifty-six, it was whispered that he had welcomed death.
By then, however, Allister had made peace with his odd place outside of the usual order. His was no Great House, yet he was first cousin to the queen. He attended sessions of court, held office, sailed for a term in the navy. Each of these roles gave him access to different parts of the labyrinthine castle, yet he could swear that he had never before even seen the door to which Lord Ivory led him that day.
"This, Your Majesty," said the Keeper of the Keys, "is the door to the Royal Treasury."
Allister frowned. He knew perfectly well where the treasury was. He'd been in and out of it many times in his early twenties, when he did a stint as an auditor. Lord Ivory saw the frown, and thinned his lips over old teeth in what a shark might call a smile.
"The Royal Treasury, Your Majesty," he repeated. "The one that only the monarch goes into. The crown jewels are kept there… and other things. She who is now Queen Valora made a visit here before she left. She said she had to leave the crown for you."
"And you keep the keys for this treasury?" Allister asked.
"I do." Lord Ivory shook out a fat silver key from the bunch on his ring. "Shall I open the door for you?"
Allister knew Ivory Pelican was toying with him and disliked the game, but he couldn't see any reason not to play along. The crown that had fit Valora's dainty head would look ridiculous on him, but two of the former Gustins had been male, and one of their crowns should do. He had no wish to add having a new crown crafted to the reasons for delaying his coronation.
Besides, there were things other than crowns among the crown jewels of Bright Bay, and Allister felt ice in his gut at the thought of finally seeing them.
"Open the door," he said, hiding his sudden fear with brusqueness.
"One moment, Your Majesty." Lord Ivory selected a smaller, rather utilitarian key from his bunch and used it to open a wooden cabinet tucked in an alcove along the hallway. "You will need light."
He drew out several triple-wicked candles set ready in a silver-gilt candelabrum. Lighting them from one of the wall sconces, he extended the candelabrum to the king.
"Give it to Shad," Allister said. "I'd like him to come with me."
"Only the monarch goes into the treasury." Lord Ivory protested.
"Someday Shad will be king," Allister said firmly. "I think I'll start a new tradition."
He glanced at the guards, longtime retainers from his own estate. As of yet, he didn't know who he could or could not trust from the castle guard. He didn't quite trust Valora not to leave behind some faithful retainer with orders to slip a knife between his ribs.
The captain of the guard, Whyte Steel gave Allister an almost imperceptible nod. He, too, was seeing assassins in every shadow.
Muttering protests, Lord Ivory unlocked the door. Thanking him, Allister stepped over the threshold. He could hear Shad behind him. The young man's breathing came quick and excited, but to any less proximate to him than his father, Shad probably seemed quite calm.
Lord Ivory shut the door behind them, but Allister was certain that with Whyte Steel on the other side it would open again. Then he turned his attention to the chamber.
It wasn't large, maybe five feet to a side, but there were six sides, each of equal length. As if to make up for its comparative smallness, the room was very high. The windows at the top of each wall were narrow slits. Set halfway up each wall was a pale block of stone carved with intricate patterns.
Allister had seen their like before, elsewhere in the castle. They were remnants of Old Country magic, enchantments that—if tales more than a hundred years old were to be believed—had once shed a soft, clean light all through the building. It was said that such routine magics had continued to function for years after the Plague, but had gradually failed because no one remained who knew how to renew their power.
Ever quiescent, the carved blocks inspired awe, but they could not hold Allister's attention long, not with the huge treasure cabinet that was built into half the room demanding his attention.
The cabinet was crafted from polished maple the reddish-gold of honey, and fit neatly into three angles of wall. Its doors were closed, but a silk ribbon braided in the sea green and gold of the royal house hung from the faceted crystal door pulls. Two keys depended from the ribbon: a silver one, twin to that which Lord Ivory had used to open the door to the treasure room, and a smaller, golden one set with emeralds.
"Well, I see that the king need not always bring the Keeper of the Keys whenever he wishes to change his hat," Allister said, trying to lighten his own mood. "How kind of Valora to leave these behind. Shall we see what is in the cabinet?"
Shad nodded.
As expected, the golden key opened the cabinet, revealing that the doors had been cleverly hinged so that they folded back into a neat packet that did not impede access to the interior, even in this small space. Good workmanship, perhaps from the days when the Old Country still ruled, but nothing that a competent carpenter could not do today.
Within, three sets of shelves were revealed. To the left, on the highest shelves, were the crowns worn by the previous Gustins. Allister recognized several as those worn by Valora's father. He guessed that the other set of masculine-styled crowns had belonged to Gustin I, also called Gustin Sailor. There were many of these, as if Gustin Sailor had enjoyed showing off his newly won privilege. That fit what Allister had heard of the man—his own great-grandfather.
Below the crowns there were a few scepters, but these had never been much used in Bright Bay. Allister recalled Prince Tavis saying that his own mother had said they were damned heavy to hold for long periods of time. She had preferred a gavel of solid oak with which to hammer for silence. The lower shelves on this side were empty, waiting for future monarchs to fill them. Allister felt a momentary surge of awe when he realized that he and Shad would be among those to hold that honor.
The right-side set of shelves held much more prosaic treasures: ornate boxes containing rings and bracelets, jeweled weapons, pendants, and other such pretties. These were personal property of the kings and queens of Bright Bay. Seeing slight scuffing on one empty section of shelf, Allister guessed that Valora had taken away her own boxes. He wondered if she had made free with anything belonging to, say, her father or grandmother.
Allister barely glanced at the jewelry, his attention claimed by a set of closed doors in the center of the central unit of shelves. Here again a key waited for him on a braided ribbon. It was also gold, its ring shaped like the fat body of a whale, the teeth worked cleverly into the whale's spout.
Allister doubted that a twin of this key rested on Lord Ivory's ring. Indeed, he had seen it before, dangling on a chain worn at the throat of his grandmother, Queen Gustin. She had never been without it.
Twisting the key in the lock, Allister opened the cabinet. Beside him, Shad turned from peeking into the various jeweled boxes, waiting to see what must be kept trebly locked away. Both of them suspected they already knew.
The center door creaked slightly when Allister opened it. Inside there was nothing but a roll of pale vellum tied with a bright blue ribbon. Impressions in the plush velvet showed that once there had been something else kept here, something that had left an indelible mark on the fabric.
Even before he unrolled the scroll, Allister knew that he had been betrayed. All that waited was to learn how severely.
"My Royal Cousin," began the missive in what he recognized as Valora's own hand. It continued:
 

Yes. This is where they were kept.

I wonder—how long after your arrival did you wait to seek the Royal Treasures? Did you run immediately to gloat over what you had won? Somehow, knowing you, even in my darkest moments I cannot believe that this was the case. Even if the treasures were on your mind, you would be too courteous, too polite to the claims of those who had awaited your arrival to simply order them away.

Knowing you, I suspect that you had to be reminded that there were treasures for you to claim. Did Pearl say that she needed a crown for her pretty head? Did some flunky hint gently that you were overlooking something important? Or did it take the Keeper of the Keys offering his fealty to suggest that you seek out this room?

I told old Ivory to remind you, you know. That much I've done for you. Actually, I've done a great deal more. My last gift to the people I was born to rule is taking from them the shadow of Old Country magic. Those three trinkets have been the excuse for war, not just recently, but from the days of our great-grandfather Gustin Sailor.

So I've taken them with me. Now, no one will have reason to fear Bright Bay. If they choose to fear me, isolated on my Isles, well, the ocean is my moat.

How will anyone know what I have done? I shall tell them. On the day of your coronation, letters will be delivered by hand to the rulers of Stonehold, Waterland, New Kelvin, and Hawk Haven.

Enjoy your reign, Cousin, long as it may last.
 
The letter was signed, "Valora, Queen of the Isles."
Allister had made no effort to hide the scroll and so Shad finished reading moments after he did.
"She's angry, isn't she, Father?" The young man tried to smile, but the expression failed to reach his eyes.
"She is," Allister agreed. He let the scroll roll shut. "Fortunately, for us, enough of the nobles of Bright Bay have remained loyal that she is unlikely to try to retake her throne by force. Even if she makes an alliance…"
He rubbed his free hand over his eyes, feeling a headache coming on. There were so many possibilities. Valora could ally herself with one of Bright Bay's rivals—Waterland came immediately to mind. Of course, she put herself at risk, then, unless she could keep them from taking over in the guise of giving aid. The threat of Old Country magic might be enough. Then again…
Once more Allister rubbed his eyes.
"Bring the candles closer, Shad. I want to see if we can guess what was here."
Shad obeyed and the warm yellow glow illuminated three distinct depressions in the velvet. The first was roughly rectangular, about as long as Allister's hand from the heel of his palm to his longest fingertip, but only as wide as three fingers. The second depression was the largest: a face-sized oval set upon a long handle. The third was quite small: a perfect circle blurred at one edge, as if whatever had been there was irregular in shape.
Father and son studied these ghost images for a long moment; then Shad ventured:
"I'd say the smallest impression is of a ring. I've seen the like in Mother's jewel box."
"A ring," Allister agreed, "with some sort of setting. Yes, that seems likely. What do you think of the other two?"
Shad shook his head. "I'm less certain, but the large one could be several things: a fixed fan, a hand mirror, even a mask on a stick."
"Good guesses," Allister said. "You have a sharp eye. The last one could be too many things—even a small box holding something else entirely. We must ask, especially among the older courtiers, and see if anyone has ever seen these treasures. Unhappily, Gustin Sailor kept them a secret, so it is possible that no one currently alive but Valora herself may have seen them."
"That seems likely," Shad agreed with a sudden grin. "You saw the expression of horror on Lord Ivory's face when you said you were bringing me in here with you. Clearly, you violated some antique precedent."
Allister stared at the rows of crowns, giving in for a moment to the very human impulse not to think about something too horrible to contemplate. Then he turned to his son.
"Let us continue violating precedent, then." He handed Shad the key to the Royal Treasury door. "Bring your mother here when she has time and ask her to select crowns for both of us. She has a good eye. Tell her to feel free to choose jewels to wear as well, but to remember that we do not wish to appear like gaudy conquerors, only to express proper respect for the dignity of the occasion."
Shad nodded. "I can do that." He paused, toying with the key. "But, Father, what are we going to do about that?"
A toss of his head indicated the empty cabinet where three ensorcelled items should have rested.
Allister took the whale key and relocked the cabinet.
"We certainly cannot send a fleet to chase Valora down and reclaim them. We don't even know for certain what we seek, and she is right: The ocean is now her moat."
The king considered further as he helped his son shut and relock the polished maple doors, then handed him the gold and emerald key.
"I will write King Tedric of Hawk Haven. As he is our ally, he deserves to know of this development from us, even if our letter cannot reach him before Valora's does. Doubtless hers is already in Eagle's Nest, awaiting the appropriate date for delivery. Then, we shall go ahead with the coronation and then begin plans for your wedding to Crown Princess Sapphire."
"Shall I tell her," Shad asked hesitantly, "what has happened?"
"Do," Allister replied decisively. "Sapphire is present as her kingdom's representative to our coronation. Make certain that she knows that you are informing her officially, at my request. Sapphire is a proud girl, quick to feel a slight."
"Proud, yes, but brave, too," Shad said, "to come here in advance of her people with just a small honor guard."
"I'm glad you appreciate her courage," Allister said, "since you will marry her before the moon turns full again."
Shad nodded. "I do. I only wish things were simpler."
King Allister squeezed his son's shoulder. "We've accepted—some would say usurped—a throne and a kingdom. Nothing will ever be simple for us again."
In the darkness of his bedchamber, King Allister tossed, unable to keep up the pretense of sleep any longer. Beside him, Pearl sighed and moved close to him.
"It will be all right, Allister," she said, with the same soft certainty that she had once used to banish their children's night fears.
"Will it?" he asked, and was surprised by the harshness in his own voice.
"It must be," she said. "We must make it so, whatever it takes."
"I feel a fool, trusting Valora." It wasn't the first time he'd said this, not even to her.
"We had no choice," Pearl said, accepting some of the guilt as her own, "as we saw it then. Maybe even Valora herself didn't know what she intended to do. Maybe the impulse to claim the treasures came to her only when the time came to relinquish her kingdom and her power."
But King Allister of the Pledge, remembering the angry fire in Valora's ocean-blue eyes when she finally agreed to surrender Bright Bay's throne and accept a lesser kingdom in its place, thought that Valora had known even then what she would do, and cursed himself once more for not anticipating her treachery.

Chapter II

Despite the strong, chill wind blowing in from the bay, the young woman remained perched upon the castle parapet, her dark brown eyes gazing out over the waters of Silver Whale Cove. Perhaps for warmth, perhaps for companionship, her right arm was flung around the neck of the enormous grey wolf seated beside her, his elegant head higher than her own.

"So much water," she said at last. "Derian told me it would be like this, and that the ocean beyond this bay makes the bay itself seem a cattle pond by comparison."
"And Queen Valora is fled over that ocean," the wolf added, "taking with her these magical treasures we have heard so much about."
He laughed, a dry sound that to most human ears would have sounded like nothing more than a faint snort. His blue eyes danced with amusement as he continued:
"And so this Valora steals a victory at a time when all expected her to flee tail-tucked, like a yearling too full of springtime strength who has been pounded by the One Male."
"I wish, Blind Seer," the young woman said a trace reproachfully, "that I was as certain that what Queen Valora has done is amusing. Both King Tedric and King Allister are very stern these days. Crown Princess Sapphire hides her rage but thinly. I have heard that the seamstresses who are fitting her for her wedding gown tremble when they must approach her."
"True, sweet Firekeeper," the wolf agreed. "Our friends are worried, but then there is nothing more humiliating than being bitten on the nose by prey you had thought dead. The kings are old Ones who think about the consequences, but Sapphire only feels the shame."
Firekeeper shared Blind Seer's laughter this time before returning her attention to the bay.
"There will be no running after Queen Valora to bring the treasures back. I understand that now. I had not thought there was a river so wide that it could not be forded or swum, a pond so broad that one could not run around its edges to the other side."
A raised voice from inside the castle interrupted their discussion.
"Lady Blysse! Lady Blysse!"
Firekeeper, who had accepted Blysse Norwood as a name to which she would answer, groaned.
Blind Seer commented slyly, "Crown Princess Sapphire is not the only one who snaps at the seamstresses, eh, Fire-keeper?"
In reply, the young woman punched the wolf in the shoulder. Swinging her long legs down from the stone wall, Firekeeper called to the woman inside:
"I am here. Wait and I will come in to you."
A kerchief-covered head popped out one of the narrow windows in the castle's stone wall. The woman's face beneath the covering was shriveled with age and lined from sour temper.
"Lady Blysse!" she shrieked. "What are you doing out there?"
Firekeeper answered, just a slight note of exasperation in her voice, "Looking at the water."
"Be careful! You'll fall!"
Deeming this last not worthy of reply, Firekeeper paused in her descent only long enough to make certain that Blind Seer had leapt safely down from their shared perch. The wolf, however, experienced no more difficulty with the descent than she had, despite the fact that he was easily the size of a small pony. Nature had blessed him with dexterity, flexibility, and a singular lack of imagination regarding risk—traits Firekeeper shared.
Thus, when Firekeeper and Blind Seer slipped through the window into their room, it was the waiting tirewoman who was pale and shaking.
"I really must protest!" she began, her voice shrill.
"I wouldn't, Goody Sewer," came a male voice from the doorway. "She doesn't understand."
Firekeeper, who indeed had been growing frustrated, brightened at the familiar voice.
"Derian!" she cried in relief. "The meeting then is over?"
Without standing on ceremony—a trait Goody Sewer clearly disliked—Derian Carter strolled into Lady Blysse's room. He was a tall youth, possessed of dark red hair tied back by a black ribbon into a fashionable queue, and fair skin dusted with freckles. Hazel-green eyes that could be as changeable as the sea twinkled now with laughter.
"We are in recess," he replied. "When did you arrive?"
"Early this morning," Firekeeper said, "in a wagon with Doc. Blind Seer permitted himself to be covered with blankets, but still the horses shied when they caught his scent. I had to snarl at them most fiercely."
Derian Carter, more inclined than most to take Firekeeper literally, grinned.
"We asked for you," Firekeeper continued "but we were told you were in a meeting. A note was left for Doc and he told us what it said."
"The meeting was King Tedric's business," Derian said in a tone of voice that warned her not to pursue the matter further. Then he turned his attention to the tirewoman, who had been listening, curiosity warring with impatience.
"I beg you, Goody," Derian said, "to refrain from scolding Lady Blysse even when she acts in what must seem to you a foolish manner."
"But if she falls!" the woman began.
"No one will blame you," Derian soothed. "I assure you. No one who knows her well maintains for long the illusion that anyone but Lady Blysse is responsible for her actions."
Goody Sewer frowned, her critical gaze fixed on the young woman with clear dissatisfaction.
Lady Blysse Norwood did not fit the usual image of a young noblewoman. Lean and slim, almost to boyishness, Blysse wore scuffed brown leather pants cut below the knee and a matching leather vest. Her bare feet were dirty and callused. Her only adornment—if such a practical item could be classified thus—was a sheathed hunting knife in whose pommel gleamed a large, deep red, cabochon cut garnet.
"I came here," the tirewoman explained, "to fit the young lady for her gowns and found her perched out on the parapet!"
"Did she come inside when you called?" Derian asked.
"Yes," the woman admitted grudgingly.
"Then all is well," Derian concluded. "Please, go ahead with your fitting. I won't get in the way. I have a few minutes before I need to return to my meeting."
Firekeeper hid a grin, but Blind Seer, cheerfully aware that no one but Firekeeper would understand what he said, commented,
"Fox Hair is determined to pull the woman's tail. What has she done to him?"
"If," Firekeeper replied in the same language, "she has been acting toward him as this castle's staff did to Doc when we arrived, she has been treating him as if he is as untrained and untried as I was when first I came forth from the forests."
"Well," Blind Seer said philosophically, "when the moon was last full this seamstress served another mistress, and her pack and Derian's were vowed enemies. Not everyone has taken well to the changes."
Firekeeper nodded and, to the evident shock of Goody Sewer, began undoing the carved toggles that held her vest closed over her small but definite breasts.
"Lady Blysse!" the woman shrilled.
"Derian has seen me without clothes before," Firekeeper said with a patience she didn't feel and continued to undress.
Derian, however, perhaps feeling he had teased the woman enough, politely turned his back.
"I have been Lady Blysse's personal attendant these last six or so moonspans," he explained, "but my starveling waif has become a young lady. I shall remember her modesty even though she does not."
The tirewoman, who—no matter what she pretended—could not have failed to hear the stories of how Lady Blysse had been discovered in the wilds west of the Iron Mountains early the past spring, sniffed but did not pursue the subject. Indeed, Goody Sewer's easy acceptance of Blind Seer—as terrifyingly huge a wolf as any storyteller could dream—gave lie to her pretended ignorance and naughty indignation. That she trusted Blind Seer not to make dinner of her meant she had heard something of Lady Blysse's peculiar history.
"Try this gown on first" was all the tirewoman said. She held up a long-sleeved gown in dark blue fabric, banded at wrist and throat by ribbons in the Kestrel sky-blue and scarlet.
"I had the pattern cut along the measurements the post-rider brought, but there will certainly need to be alterations."
Firekeeper, now naked except for her underclothing, stepped into the gown and let the woman fasten it As she stood, trembling slightly at the proximity of a near stranger, she asked Derian:
"How is Elation? We have not seen her since we arrived."
Derian's tone grew worried as he replied, "She was with me until shortly before I arrived at the city," he said. "Then she took off. Last I saw her, she was flying west."
Firekeeper was also concerned. The peregrine falcon had taken quite a liking to Derian and wouldn't have left him without good reason. Still, she decided there was no need to worry the young man further.
"The hunting birds," she offered, "migrate like most other wingéd folk. It could be that her blood called her."
She grinned suddenly, remembering how once Derian had not believed her when she said she could understand what animals said to her.
"It's not as if Elation could tell you where she was going," she added.
Derian chuckled. "That's true. How are you feeling these days? You look well."
"Doc says that my wounds are healed," Firekeeper replied, "though I will have some new scars."
A sniff from the tirewoman indicated that she had noticed the liberal patterning of scars across Firekeeper's skin. Not a one of the young woman's limbs was free from the silver and white lines: some mere gossamer tracery, a few heavily seamed with scar tissue. Two comparatively fresh scars—one on Firekeeper's back, the other along her thigh—remained livid red, fading along the edges into dull pink.
With his back turned, Derian's expression couldn't be seen, but his voice expressed his satisfaction at the news.
"Well, you can't expect to get away without any marks. You were nearly dead from your injuries and even Doc's healing talent can't free you from all the consequences of your impulsiveness."
Firekeeper recognized the teasing note in Derian's voice and let the apparent insult stand, though, coming from another, the accusation that she had acted without thought would have been a fighting matter.
At a prod from the tirewoman, Firekeeper raised her right arm so that Goody Sewer could adjust the pins in that sleeve.
"Doc has gone to learn what is expected of him for the wedding," Firekeeper said to distract herself. And to see if he can "accidentally" meet with a certain young lady, she thought, but she said nothing, respecting Sir Jared Surcliffe's dignity.
"Doubtless," Derian said, "he will take the time to familiarize himself with the public areas of this fine castle."
Again, something in Derian's tone—this time a warm undercurrent of laughter—made Firekeeper suspect that he had understood her unspoken thoughts as well as what she said aloud.
"I hear that we were among the last of the Hawk Haven wedding guests to arrive," Firekeeper continued, realizing to her astonishment that she was making conversation—a concept she would not have understood five moonspans before.
"Only the mother of the bride," Derian said, a note of tension entering his voice, "has failed to arrive. Some say that she will not attend, recently widowed as she is."
"Furious at her daughter," Blind Seer commented, "if the truth would be known."
Derian, of course, didn't hear the wolf's comment, and went on:
"Lord Rolfston's death is less than two moonspans past," he said, "but still many consider Lady Melina's absence a bad omen for the marriage."
Goody Sewer spoke around the pins held in her pursed lips. "How can it be a good omen if the mother of the bride—the proximate ancestress—refuses to attend? I say that Duke… King Allister should postpone the wedding until appropriate mourning for the bride's father is ended and her mother is willing to attend."
"You aren't the only one who thinks that," Derian said easily, "but King Allister is of another mind—as is his son. If Shad is willing to risk bad omens on his wedding day, I say we should support him. It's important to seal the truce between Bright Bay and Hawk Haven."
Goody Sewer could hardly disagree without seeming openly disloyal to her new monarch and his heir apparent, but her silence was eloquent. The chime of distant bells made any reply unnecessary.
"Time for me to return to the meeting," Derian said. "See you later, Firekeeper."
"I hope so," Firekeeper replied.
Firekeeper smiled after the retreating figure. It was good to be back with her first human friend. In the wash of pleasure she barely heard the tirewoman's question.
"Excuse me," she said politely. "I wasn't listening."
"I could tell that!" the older woman griped. "I said you can take off that gown and try on the next one."
Firekeeper cooperated, being careful not to damage the fabric or snag the ribbons. The next gown Goody Sewer handed her was the silvery grey of a wood dove's plumage, and deliciously soft. It reminded Firekeeper of the first fabric she'd ever touched—a lamb's-wool shirt Derian had given her.
"Who was that arrogant redhead?" the tirewoman asked, twitching straight the gown's long skirt, then lowering herself on creaking knees to pin the hem. "I've seen him about these past several days, ever since the contingent from Eagle's Nest arrived, but never to speak to. He gives himself airs."
Firekeeper thought that a less true thing had never been said about her friend and she carefully framed her reply.
"He's Derian," she said, smoothing the sleeve of the gown against her arm, "Derian Carter. Some are calling him Derian Counselor since the war."
She bared her teeth in a gleeful grin that was not completely kind.
"He's one of Earl Kestrel's retainers and youngest counselor to King Tedric of Hawk Haven," she continued, taking wolf-like pride in the strength of her pack. "A very important person."
The astonishment and consternation on the tirewoman's face when the old woman looked up from her pinning was precisely the reward for which Firekeeper had hoped.

"I hope this finds you well. Firekeeper and I arrived early this morning, along with Blind Seer. Fortunately, cousin Norvin had done as promised and we found the guards prepared not only to accept my rather ragamuffin charge as Lady Blysse Norwood but also to admit a giant timber wolf into the castle walls. There are times that having Norvin Norwood, the Earl Kestrel, throwing his weight around makes life a lot easier.

Race Forester had come down from Hope a few days earlier, and he and Ox met us in the stables and took over the horses and luggage. Apparently, the combined pressure of the wedding guests and the fact that Queen Valora took about half the castle staff with her has put quite a strain on hospitality. They told us that Derian and the earl were in some high-level meeting, but that we might find you free.

While staying with Hazel Healer, I availed myself of her extensive library and her even more extensive knowledge of herbs and simples. I wish I'd known half of what I do now before King Allister's War began. There'd be a few more soldiers recovered from the aftereffects of their wounds. Ah, well, next war.
 
Here, Jared seemed to think he might have been too flippant, for there was a blot where he had let the quill rest and his tone when he resumed was much more formal.
 

Knowing your ladyship's sincere interest in the healing arts—as evinced by your labors in the infirmary following the battles—I would be happy to share with you some of the knowledge I have acquired. I am currently quartered with Earl Kestrel's party. Perhaps out of concern over Blind Seer we have been given an entire tower in the northeastern portion of the castle. A message sent there would find me and I would be honored to call upon you at your leisure.

I remain your servant…"
 
The letter was signed simply "Jared Surcliffe," but he had added his title—Knight of the Order of the White Eagle—as an afterthought.
Elise sighed. She hadn't quite figured out if Sir Jared—"Doc" to his friends, and she had thought herself one of those friends—was interested in courting her or not. After her experience with Jet, part of her had no interest in romantic entanglements, but she did like Doc and didn't wish to discourage him if he was interested in her.
Elise started to reread Sir Jared's letter, then realized that both Ninette and the crown princess were waiting for her. She scribbled a quick reply inviting Sir Jared to call on her at his convenience. As she sealed it with the House Archer crest, she worried that she had been too formal, but decided that it was better than being too familiar.
"Ninette," she said, handing the letter to her maid, "find someone who can deliver this to Sir Jared's quarters. He's staying with Earl Kestrel's party in some northeast tower."
"I know where that is," Ninette answered promptly. "One of Earle Peregrine's servants was complaining that Kestrel had been given an entire tower when they had to make do with a couple of suites. I explained about Blind Seer, but I don't think they were mollified."
Elise shook her head. Up to this point, most of Hawk Haven's Great Houses had chosen not to interact too closely with Earl Kestrel's peculiar ward, not wishing to grant her more legitimacy than was her due. House Peregrine, Elise's mother's birth house, had been more friendly than most, so this new stuffiness didn't bode well. Firekeeper, although she had not been chosen the king's heir, remained one of Tedric's favorites, and had been chosen by Sapphire as a wedding attendant over more highly ranked ladies. Apparently, this irked at least some of the representatives of King Tedric's Great Houses.
However, all Elise said to Ninette was "Meet me in Crown Princess Sapphire's suite as soon as possible. Don't stop to gossip overlong with Valet."
"Yes, my lady," Ninette said, a trace offended.
Elise put a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you, Ninette. I'll need all the support I can get."
Mollified, Ninette bustled off. Elise took up the bag containing her embroidery, squared her shoulders, and went off to rejoin her cousin.

Chapter III

The wedding was a grand affair. As it was also in some sense the wedding of their two kingdoms—though that part of the marriage would not be consummated until both King Tedric and King Allister were become ancestors—made it an even more important event. For any of the heads of Bright Bay's five Great Houses to refuse to attend would be tantamount to declaring that the oaths they had sworn to King Allister were so much air.
None made that choice, though House Lobster had a new head—Duchess Faelene, the younger sister of the previous duke, Marek.
Old Marek Lobster had chosen to ally himself with Queen Valora. Indeed, he hardly had a choice, since his son, Harwill, was married to the queen and had taken the new title of King of the Isles. The uproar in House Lobster had been quite fierce, a source of gossip in both court and streets, but it had been simply a more public version of the choices being made in each of the noble families.
Yet old Duke Lobster was present after a fashion. Newly retitled Marek, Duke of Half-Moon Island, he had come as the Isles' representative to the wedding. To refuse him would have been to threaten the tense neutrality between the two realms. Duke Half-Moon's retinue was small, almost humble. He had brought no guards, no more servants than were perfectly proper for himself alone. As he was a widower, he did not even have a wife accompanying him.
In addition to his sister, several formidable women of Duke Half-Moon's generation were present. Foremost among these was Grand Duchess Seastar Seagleam, the late Gustin III's sister, and King Allister's aunt. Lesser in rank but perhaps more interesting to the gossips was Lady Brina Dolphin. Smiling with gracious vindictiveness, Lady Brina made herself highly visible at every gathering.
Gustin HI had divorced her in order to marry Lady Viona Seal, who would bear him Valora. Valora's defeat was seen by many—including those of the Seals who had allied themselves with the Isles—as House Dolphin's vindication.
Although Shad and Sapphire would celebrate their marriage a second time before the nobles of Hawk Haven, several of Hawk Haven's noble houses had chosen to send representatives to this wedding as well. The Great Houses of Goshawk and Gyrfalcon were each represented by their Heads. Such would be expected of Goshawk and Gyrfalcon, for Sapphire was a granddaughter of those houses. Duke Peregrine, Queen Elexa's brother, had planned to attend, but illness—really nothing more than advanced age—had forced him to send his heir. Wellward's example, however, shamed the remaining houses into sending at least a token representative.
Earl Kestrel was present for his house, but also at the express invitation of Princess Sapphire, who had desired that Lady Blysse serve as a wedding attendant. The Barony of Archer was represented by the entire family, again because Princess Sapphire had wished Lady Archer to be a member of her wedding party.
Still, no one really expected any of Hawk Haven's Great Houses to challenge King Tedric's choice of heir. Their protest would be against the public promise that someday the two kingdoms, rivals these hundred years and more, would be united.
"And so," said Firekeeper to Blind Seer as she mused over these complexities while bathing the morning of the wedding, "they sniff each other's backsides, trying to decide whether they are to be friends."
"And Lady Melina's absence and that of her children," the wolf replied, "becomes the raw wound in this great love-fest—a wound with dirt in it, for Duke Gyrfalcon, her own elder brother, is here."
"Here and howling to the moon about his sorrow that his younger brother Newell turned traitor," Firekeeper agreed.
"A loud howl does not mean a true hunter," Blind Seer said pedantically, "only an open mouth."
Firekeeper's brow furrowed. She, too, had trouble trusting the head of a family that had whelped both Newell and Melina Shield.
"Elise says that after the wedding, everything will be all right."
"Which wedding?" the wolf asked.
"I don't know."
The gown Firekeeper was to wear as a wedding attendant featured two parts: an underdress with a gently scooped neckline and long full sleeves, covered by a floor-length surcoat. The ensemble's essential simplicity—necessitated by the short length of time which the hastily recruited corp of seamstresses had been given to do their work—was disguised by the richness of the New Kelvinese silk from which it was made. The underdress was snowy white shot with silver, while the surcoat was an elaborately patterned crimson brocade.
The wolf-woman struggled into the underdress without much difficulty, but was glad when Derian knocked at her door as she was trying to reach the lacings at the back.
"May I?" he asked, running the cords expertly to and fro.
"If you don't," Firekeeper said practically, "I don't know who will."
"You're welcome, too," Derian said, thumping her gently on top of the head with his knuckles. "Today of all days, mind your manners."
Firekeeper sighed. "Must I wear these?"
She held up two dainty slippers, sewn from the finest dyed leather and decorated with scarlet tassels.
"You must," Derian replied without hesitation.
"And the hat?" Firekeeper said hopelessly, pulling on over her tousled hair a sweet little conical headdress bordered with a modest padded circlet.
Derian looked up from tying a bow at the top of her lacing and laughed heartily.
"Yes," he said when he had his breath, "you must wear the hat, but not like that. You look ridiculous."
"I feel," Firekeeper retorted, a trace sulkily, "ridiculous."
"Here," Derian said. "I'll show you how to do it right. Thank the Horse that I have a sister!"
He plucked off the offending headgear and took a brush to Firekeeper's hair. The thick, brown mass had grown a great deal since the early spring when she had stopped chopping it short with a minting knife, long enough to be pulled back into a short queue—if she pinned back the stray ends that tended to tumble into her face.
"Today," Derian said, "a queue won't do. Not only is that a man's style, but you can't have a little bush sticking out from under the hat. We'll fan your curls out so…" He arranged her hair to his satisfaction, "then put the hat on, tilted slightly to the back so the circlet frames your face and the cap covers the dome of your head. There! Now that's pretty."
He showed Firekeeper her reflection in the mirror. She studied herself for a moment, then nodded reluctantly.
"That does look better," she admitted. "But why wear a hat? We'll be inside the castle. It won't rain."
"Because," Derian said cheerfully, "the crown princess wants you to wear it, the earl wants you to wear it, and you don't want to cause trouble over such a little thing—not since you agreed to be an attendant."
"I didn't know I'd need to wear a hat and shoes." The latter were a particular sore point and she glowered at the inoffensive slippers.
"You'll be happy enough for boots when winter comes," Derian predicted. "Consider this a rehearsal."
"Never needed boots before," the wolf-woman growled.
"Correction," Derian said. "You never had them. I assure you, you'll find them a great improvement over wrapping rabbit skins around your feet."
From where he had been dozing in the sunlight, Blind Seer yawned and chuckled.
"Derian is right," he said. "You'll take boots when winter comes. Consider this dressing fancy protection against a different kind of cold."
"Now look at yourself," Derian said, turning her before a full-length panel of polished silver, "and tell me you don't look quite the lovely lady."
Firekeeper again studied her image in the mirror. She still had difficulty with the idea that reflected images bore any relation to reality. Still, she had to admit that the person in the mirror looked rather like the other ladies she had seen bustling about the castle. She nodded grudging acceptance and let Derian fasten a pearl and ruby choker about her throat.
"Thank you," she said.
"And now for the crowning glory," Derian said with a chuckle. He extended her Fang, the hunting knife that had once belonged to Prince Barden. "I'm told you have permission to wear this strapped around your waist beneath, the surcoat."
"That's right," Firekeeper replied smugly. "My Fang does not leave me. Princess Sapphire agreed and even had a new belt made for it."
"Wise," Derian said, casting a critical glance at the weather-stained leather of Firekeeper's more usual gear. "Really we're going to have to teach you how to maintain leather."
Once the new belt was strapped loosely about Firekeeper's hips, the knife was not very visible. The part that was most so—the hilt with a large cabochon-cut garnet in the pommel—might be mistaken for a peculiar piece of jewelry.
Now that her own costume was complete, Firekeeper examined her friend's attire. Derian was dressed in knee breeches, waistcoat, and frock coat, all of a deep forest green. The color set off his red hair nicely. His stockings and shirt were off-white, and the silver buckles on his brown shoes shone with polish.
"You look a gentleman," she said approvingly.
"My mother helped me select this outfit along with several others when I went home after the war," Derian said. "She has a good eye for expensive clothing."
"And ambitions for her pup," Blind Seer added. The wolf was in a rather sour mood because, despite Firekeeper's repeated requests and Princess Sapphire's approval, he had been barred from the wedding.
Firekeeper knelt next to him and rubbed his head, ignoring the coating of fine silvery-grey hairs this left on the red brocade of her surcoat.
Derian forbore from commenting on this sartorial offense, only sighed.
A rap at the door summoned them. Elise, attended by Ninette, waited in the corridor. She was dressed identically to Firekeeper. The combination of strong red and silvery white went well with her fair complexion and made her golden hair seem to glow. Ninette was clad in a neat gown of salmon pink. Ironically, it was more elaborately embroidered than the one worn by her mistress, since it had come from her existing wardrobe, rather than having been hastily pieced together for the occasion.
Firekeeper gave Blind Seer a parting hug and hurried to join Elise.
"You look lovely," Elise said, reaching out to brush the worst of the wolf hair from Firekeeper's surcoat. "Now, remember, take small steps."
Firekeeper sighed, recalling lessons in deportment.
"Have a good time, sweet Firekeeper," Blind Seer called after her.
To all the listeners but one, his words came as a low, mournful howl.

Chapter IV

From his seat in the front row of a first-tier balcony, Derian Carter saw the assassins attack. Unfortunately, he was unable to do anything to prevent them. All he could do was lean forward and add his voice to the hundreds raised in spontaneous cries of warning.

"Look out!" he heard himself yell, and even as the words were ripping their way from his throat he thought how foolish they were.
Jared Surcliffe was on his feet trying to leave the balcony, his efforts slowed by those guests who were crowding forward for a better view.
"Let me through!" he commanded, pushing his way through. "I'm a doctor."
Such was Sir Jared's authority that the panicked mob did part—at least sufficiently to let him squeeze by.
Derian kept to his seat, knowing that by the time he reached the floor whatever was transpiring would be over. Instead, he set himself to witness every motion, for perhaps that testimony would prove of some later use.
Even as Sapphire had broken the thread with which she had stitched closed the wedding pouch and the assembled guests had spoken their joint blessing, four pairs of men had suddenly risen from their places among the rows of foreign guests.
No one commented or made move to stop them as they crossed the few steps that took them to the front. They were foreigners and couldn't be expected to know the details of the ritual. Indeed, the fact that they were garbed and equipped in a similar fashion suggested that they were special attendants, moving to escort their honored masters to congratulate the bride and groom.
One man in each pair bore a stout, heavily ornamented walking stick. Upon reaching the front row, he swung this at the guard closest to him, a fast, hard, practiced move that was hardly signaled by his body language until the action was already under way.
Although not expecting any such attack—indeed, distracted by the need to pronounce the ritual blessing—each guard automatically moved to block the walking stick with the elegantly beribboned spear he held in one hand. As the guard did so, the true nature of this seemingly insane attack came clear, when the second man of each pair dove for the space now opened in the ring of guards.
Sir Dirkin and Sir Whyte had positioned the guards so that each had the space of a broad-shouldered man between him and the next. This was partially so that the guards would not block the view of those very important guests seated in the lowest, closest bank of seats, partially so if action was called for they would have room to move. Shoulder-to-shoulder looked very impressive on parade, but it made bringing sword or spear into play rather difficult.
Three of the assassins who moved for the openings their partners had created leapt onto the dais with ease. The fourth was tripped by the butt end of the spear held by the guard at the other end of the gap, a quick-moving fellow whose reward was a knife thrown to bury itself to the hilt in his throat, fountaining blood over his white scarf.
The guards wore breastplates painted with their personal arms over dress uniforms that included highly polished helms, but no one had thought full armor—including highly uncomfortable neck protection—necessary, since the guards' role was to be ceremonial and preventative, not combative.
Having lost one knife, the assassin rolled clear of the spear point another guard thrust at him. Derian saw a look of studied panic on the assassin's face and realized that the man knew he was doomed, that his only wish was to cause sufficient distraction that those who had broken onto the royal dais would have time to perform their task.
Fascinating as that struggle was, Derian's gaze was drawn irresistibly to where the assassins raced toward the bride and groom. Long knives shone bare-bladed in the torchlight. Shad had grasped Sapphire and thrust her behind him—a gallant impulse but one doomed to failure, for the warrior princess was determined to remain at her new husband's side.
Bride and groom had taken their stations for the ceremony near the center of the dais, away from the encircling ring of guards, but the rest of the royal party stood near the edge. With remarkable clarity of purpose, the guards nearest to the monarchs bounded onto the dais, putting themselves between danger and their rulers. Other guards helped the threatened wedding celebrants down from the dais—all the celebrants, that is, but one.
At the first crash of spear and staff, Firekeeper—who Derian had noted seemed edgier than even her nervousness at taking part in the ceremony could account for—had leapt from her place next to Elise, racing to intercept the assassins. Her Fang was in her hand and a furious howl tore from her lips. All illusion that Firekeeper was a gentlewoman vanished with that cry. She was animal fury entrapped by a long gown.
The distant howl that answered hers did nothing to sustain the gentlewomanly illusion.
Firekeeper stumbled slightly against the swathing fabric of her skirt, but she didn't pause to tear the gown short. Instead, with another howl, she flung herself onto the closest of the three assassins. The man was slimly built and the impact staggered him, but he retained his balance. Flailing he steadied himself, simultaneously bringing into play a slightly curved knife with a curious, dull sheen to the blade.
Derian heard the words that ripped out of his own throat as distantly as if they'd been uttered by another person.
"Firekeeper! Poison!"
Whether or not she heard him, the wolf-woman twisted away from the knife blade's first thrust. Unworried about the niceties of civilized combat, she then bit the assassin solidly on the throat. Blunt human teeth might not do the damage of a wolf's fangs, but buried in unprotected flesh they did cause pain.
The assassin yelled. Against the general uproar that now filled the Sphere Chamber, Derian could not differentiate that single voice, but he saw the man's mouth open, revealing stained and broken teeth. The knife in his hand came down, snagging in the swathing scarlet fabric of Firekeeper's surcoat.
Firekeeper had wrapped one arm about her victim's shoulders, forcing him to bear her weight. Her teeth still worrying his throat, she brought her Fang up and into his side. It skidded against some hidden armor, sliding up uncontrolled for a moment before she readjusted.
Releasing the man's throat, Firekeeper spoke to the assassin. Again, Derian had no idea what she said, but he was struck by the curious calmness on her face. Elsewhere on the dais, fear, anger, and horror were evident, even on the faces of the professional soldiers. Firekeeper alone fought as if she were hunting—purpose dominating her actions.
Whatever she said to the assassin cowed him. The knife slipped from fingers suddenly nerveless. He slumped. Firekeeper snarled at him and he dropped to the carpeted floor, arms and legs spread wide.
Without another glance at her victim, Firekeeper turned to defend the prince and princess, but that battle was over.
Sapphire leaned against Shad, the silver white of her surcoat dyed scarlet, the scarlet soaked with blood. The high heirloom crown had fallen to the floor and her hair spilled in a dark curtain that hid the nature of her injuries from immediate inspection.
Shad held his newly wed wife close, his face pale with shock. Still, his control was that of a battlefield commander. He saw that some of the guards who were trying to enforce order on the panicked mob of what had been wedding guests were pushing back a single man determined to get forward. In a bellow trained to carry over storms at sea, Shad shouted:
"Let the man through! That's Sir Jared of Hawk Haven. He's a doctor!"
The guards, who must have been hearing something similar from Doc's own lips, let Sir Jared through immediately. The mob quieted as one at the sound of the crown prince's voice, their panicked shouts fading to a dull murmur so that for the first time Derian could sort individual voices from the general noise.
As Sir Jared half-ran through the parting crowd he nearly slammed into the one figure who moved to intercept him.
"Elise!" he said in surprise.
"I'm here to help," the young woman said stubbornly.
"Good," Doc answered without pause. "Get someone to fetch my kit or any med kit. Mine's in my room."
Sir Jared hadn't stopped moving even as he spoke. Elise turned to obey his orders and found an inconspicuous brown-haired man coming toward her, the requested kit in his hand.
Derian had no idea how Valet, Earl Kestrel's personal attendant, had gotten past the guards, but Valet had the gift of always seeming to be in the right place at the right time. Doubtless the guards had responded to his purposefulness as something welcome in the madhouse around them.
"Valet!" Elise exclaimed in relief.
"Sir Jared's medical bag, my lady," Valet said, handing it to her with a short bow.
Elise spared no time in thanks, but hurried to where Shad had lowered Sapphire to the carpeted dais. Valet crossed to Firekeeper's side.
The wolf-woman stood with her foot solidly planted in the small of her captive's back, clearly waiting lest she be needed. However, the other assassins had been well and wholly dealt with.
Faced with the potential murder of Shad and Sapphire as penalty for anything less than thoroughness, the guards had not attempted to take prisoners. The two other assassins who had reached the dais were dead, their blood spreading to stain the snowy carpet crimson. The one who had failed to cross onto the dais was also dead, bludgeoned by several guards impatient to revenge their fellow's death.
The four club wielders had fared only somewhat better. Two had been knocked out almost immediately. A third had apparently experienced a surge of initiative and had moved toward King Allister. The king's guards had made short work of him.
The fourth club wielder had fled into the crowd, but had made the mistake of choosing the section of seats occupied by the denizens of Bright Bay's minor but extremely warlike Shark Barony. Required by law to always bear arms, the Sharks proved that their elaborately bejeweled belt knives were more than decoration.
In fact, Derian thought, the speed with which the assassins had been dispatched spoke poorly for the entire plan. What a waste of eight lives—for the three assassins who had survived would doubtless be executed. What purpose had the attack served?
True, Sapphire was wounded—perhaps badly—but there was ample medical assistance near. True, there would be those who would speak long and loudly about the ill omens of this wedding. Still, that alone didn't seem enough to merit such an act—not when the same eight assassins could have done their work elsewhere and with greater hope of success.
Frowning thoughtfully, Derian turned and joined those few remaining wedding guests who were now filing from the balcony.
What purpose had the attack served?
 
Elise took the medical bag from Valet and, snagging her skirts in one hand, raced up those same steps that, what seemed like a hundred years ago, she had mounted with all due decorum, worried only about the many eyes watching her every move.
A small group was clustered around the crown prince and princess, but Elise shouldered her way through without ceremony.
She extended the bag to Sir Jared. He glanced up, the worried frown on his face making his Kestrel family nose look even more beaky than usual.
"Hand me several small separators, would you? Then get out the blue bottle labeled sterilizing wash—the blue one, mind."
Elise did as ordered, finding the requested items easily. Sir Jared had given her some emergency medical training when the recently ended war was in the offing and she'd become familiar then with his personal organizational system.
She became rather worried when he requested the blue bottle of sterilizing wash. From past experience she knew that this was the concentrate he kept and usually diluted before use. Indeed, a glance showed her that there was a pale green bottle containing the dilute solution ready in the bag.
Sir Jared used the separators to hold open the edges of a long nasty slash that began low on Sapphire's right rib cage and extended below her right breast, rising into her left breast and stopping just below the aureole of her left nipple.
"Princess," he said to his patient, "this is going to burn worse than salt and vinegar. I suggest you scream."
Crown Princess Sapphire was, despite the amount of blood she had lost, quite evidently conscious. However, she was so pale that the white oval on her forehead had vanished into the general hue of the surrounding skin. Her reply was prefaced by a small, defiant smile:
"I'll take your suggestion, Doc."
The fingers of one of Sapphire's hands were wrapped around Shad's. He squeezed them gently.
"Ready?" the young groom asked his bride softly.
Doc, however, knew better than to give warning. With a nod of thanks to Elise, he took the blue bottle and splashed the undiluted solution into the open wound. It coursed down from the peak of Sapphire's breast, flowing through the wide slash and across her side.
Sapphire screamed, a shrill, raw sound, and promptly passed out.
"Well, that's for the good," Doc muttered. "Lady Elise, let's remove the fibers from the cut while she's out, and then close. Someone get us some better light."
Elise didn't know who obeyed the knight's command, but the area over them brightened almost immediately. Working quickly lest Sapphire reawaken, they used tweezers to remove the worst of the intrusive material lest it foster scarring and infection.
"Let's close now," Doc said.
Elise nodded and turned to remove clean needle and heavy thread from the kit bag. In the near distance, she could hear a self-assured voice insisting:
"But I am Lord Rory Seal, the Royal Physician, the medical attendant to the royal family. I insist on being let through to the crown princess! I would have been here sooner, but I was seated—quite improperly—toward the back and couldn't get here."
Firekeeper's husky voice answered him.
"Doc is with them. Others are hurt. Go there."
Lord Rory was clearly indignant. "I tell you. I am the physician to the royal family! The title has been in my family for seventy-five years!"
"Go."
Firekeeper must have made some threatening move, for when next heard, Lord Rory's voice was slightly more distant, but complaining still:
"Treating guards and vassals is beneath me! I am physician to the royal family!"
Elise sighed. Firekeeper possessed a fine sense of hierarchy but no patience at all with those who had not proven themselves to her personal satisfaction.
Holding the edges even, Elise held Sapphire's wound closed while Doc stitched through the pale flesh. A certain tension in the muscles under Elise's fingers told her when the crown princess returned to consciousness, but since Sapphire chose to play possum, Elise respected her wishes.
"Unhappily, there still may be a scar unless we are very lucky," Doc said, placing his hands over the wound. The vague look of intense concentration that indicated he was using his healing talent came over his face. "But the breast was not cut deeply and should still function, and the poison on the blade should have been washed out of the flesh. We are fortunate that her wound bled so freely and the knife didn't tag an organ or the circulatory system."
Shad looked relieved. "Thanks, Doc."
He bent to kiss Sapphire's face.
Sir Jared started to smile, aware of the honor inherent in the prince's informality; then he stared at a small ripped patch on the young man's left shoulder.
"Why didn't you tell me you'd been hit?" he snapped, holding the young man in place and taking a closer look at the nearly bloodless puncture wound.
"It was only a small cut," the prince protested. "She …"
Without pausing for words, Sir Jared grabbed for a knife to clear away the torn remnants of the prince's waistcoat and shirt. When this action was completed, he bent Shad forward with one hand and held him in place.
"Blue bottle," he barked at Elise. Then to the prince, "Where poison may be concerned, there is no such thing as a small wound."
"Yes, sir," Shad said. What Elise could see of his face suddenly looked young and scared. "Sapphire was so covered with blood and my wound didn't hurt very much…"
Shad's apology ended in an abrupt shout of pain. Sir Jared had splashed the remainder of the undiluted sterilization wash into the puncture wound.
"I apologize, Prince Shad," Jared said, letting his patient sit upright again. "But I didn't care to delay longer."
He sopped a bit of cloth in the solution running down Shad's back and pressed it over the wound.
"We'll need," he said, "to keep this rag right here until I can get more solution. Lady Elise, if you would hand me some of the long bandaging strips?"
Elise did so. As she finished helping Sir Jared tie the bandages snugly in place, she became aware that the small crowd gathered around them—which before had mostly consisted of guards—had been augmented. The queens Pearl and Elexa were now present along with a man with silvering hair who must be Lord Rory.
"I wouldn't have overlooked the crown prince's injury," he was saying to Queen Pearl. "I know my duty to the throne of Bright Bay. Ever since my grandsire's day when our family was first honored with this position, we have taken the health and well-being of the royal family most seriously…"
Queen Pearl nodded absently, almost, but not quite, ignoring Lord Rory entirely. Without regard for her gown, she knelt on the blood and medication soaked carpeting next to Sapphire and Shad.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come earlier. We had to do something about the panic and," she glanced up at Lord Rory who was now expostulating to a blank-featured guard, "we knew you were in good hands."
Sapphire, no longer feigning unconsciousness, lifted a hand and took Pearl's.
"Thank you, Mother," she said simply. "We never doubted your concern."
Shad, still holding Sapphire's head on his lap, nodded agreement.
"And," quavered Queen Elexa, her anxiety apparent despite her best efforts to remain calm, "what is your assessment, Sir Jared?"
The doctor rose respectfully to his feet and bowed, even while making his answer.
"I am hopeful," he said, "that both will recover. Princess Sapphire has lost a great deal of blood and should be given liquids—especially beef broth and teas containing strengthening herbs that I will supply—and restricted to bed. Prince Shad…"
Sir Jared looked grave. "Prince Shad may have taken some poison into his system. I recommend that he be kept quiet for at least a full day. Exertion would speed any poison through his system. With Your Majesties' permission, I would like to inspect his wound again as soon as he is settled in bed."
Elise had spent enough time with Queen Elexa to realize that the sudden tranquility that descended over her features was more indicative of concern than any hysteria would be.
"I see," Elexa replied very softly. "Pearl, what do you suggest?"
"The young people's suite," Bright Bay's queen replied, "has been prepared for them. However, it is hardly furnished as an infirmary."
Elise saw both Shad and Sapphire look vaguely embarrassed and realized that this should have been their wedding night, the consummation of their union. Doubtless, Jared's concern about exertion spreading poison—not to mention the raw nature of Sapphire's wounds—would make that final ritual impossible.
Queen Pearl continued, "There is a room here on the ground floor that could be refurnished as an infirmary. Then they would not need to be carried as far."
"Is it," Queen Elexa asked, "secure?"
"We will make it so," Pearl said firmly.
Peripherally, Elise noted that stretchers were being brought into the Sphere Chamber. Doubtless some servant as efficient as Earl Kestrel's Valet had anticipated the need.
After kissing her son and his bride, Queen Pearl rose to give orders. Shad looked about somewhat anxiously.
"My father," he said, his voice making the words a question, "and the others. Tell me, who else was injured?"
Firekeeper, who had been standing a few paces away in watchful silence, took it upon herself to answer.
"Two guards were killed," she said, "and three others wounded enough for a doctor's care. The kings were not hurt—the guards made sure of that."
Her expression was grave. Looking up at her report, Shad and Sapphire saw the ruin of Firekeeper's gown and generally disheveled appearance for the first time.
"They attacked you?" Sapphire asked, a slight note of incredulity evident despite the weakness of her voice. Elise thought she might have even been jealous.
Firekeeper, however, replied with a short, barking laugh.
"Oh, no. They no attack me. I attack them."
"Lady Blysse," Queen Elexa said with a fond smile for the wolf-woman, "captured one of the assassins. Even now, he has been taken for questioning."
The ice that entered the queen's smile promised nothing good for the man.
The arrival of a servant with the news that the infirmary would be prepared by the time the crown prince and crown princess could be carried to it ended the conversation. Sir Jared departed with the stretchers, speaking politely to the still vociferating Lord Rory.
Elise remained behind, unwilling to get in the way. She stood a long moment staring down at the red stains splattered over the once snowy carpet. Firekeeper came to stand beside her.
"Why?" she asked, her query as simple as a child's. "Why?"
Elise met the confusion in the dark brown eyes squarely.
"I don't know," she replied, "but I have all sorts of terrible suspicions. Come with me. We'll get you cleaned up and change into simpler clothing."
"No dancing tonight?" Firekeeper asked a trace sadly. The wolf-woman loved dancing and music above all other human arts.
"No dancing," Elise said. "Not of the sort you mean, but I dare say we'll have much fancy word dancing before this is concluded."
Firekeeper sighed. "Such is so much easier with wolves."
The distant echoing howl of Blind Seer, still trapped in the tower above, gave lie to her words.
 
"We have some information," King Allister said to the nobles and counselors crowded into a meeting room rather too small for a gathering of this sort. Usually, the Sphere Chamber would have been used, but it was still being scrubbed clean after the events earlier in the day. "I have called you all here to me in order that rumor be squelched as rapidly as possible."
The king of Bright Bay swallowed a sigh and an impulse to rub the back of his hand across his eyes. Even such a small display of the grief and exhaustion he felt could be misinterpreted. Instead, he sipped from the goblet of watered wine on the table before him and surveyed the gathering.
Most of those here before him were members of his own kingdom, representatives of the houses and families who had been invited to the royal wedding. There were also, however, members of the Hawk Haven contingent. He recognized Baron Archer and his daughter, Elise, Earle Peregrine, and Earl Kestrel. Derian Carter was also present, as was his right as king's counselor. So, rather surprisingly, was Lady Blysse, her great grey wolf leaning against her leg and crowding the aisle.
These King Allister was comfortable with. He was less happy, given what had been discovered about the assassins, to have the diplomatic representatives present, but they were—not only the dignitaries from New Kelvin, Waterland, and Stonehold, as must be expected, but also from the Isles. To oppose a representative from the Isles attending the meeting would have been too close to an accusation—an accusation for which, as of yet, there was no proof. So fronted by friends, probable enemies, and those whose motives were as yet unclear, King Allister must give his report.
At least he felt certain of King Tedric, who sat to his right, his expression weary, bland, and vaguely concerned. Between them they had decided that King Tedric would keep silent, act the role of the shock-broken dodderer, and see what he could learn from the expressions of those gathered before them.
Putting down his goblet, King Allister continued:
"Doubtless rumors are growing with each breath that passes. I charge you to join me in ending them."
Duke Oyster, the king's father-in-law, indicated that he wished to be recognized. Allister did so, knowing that Reed Oyster was flaunting his own new importance by demonstrating to his fellow heads of house that he could interrupt the king.
"Your Majesty," Reed said, the tones of a practiced orator rolling out despite the muffling effect of the crowded chamber, "one of the most damaging rumors is that your royal self and the crown prince were both slain or mortally wounded. Do you intend to address this?"
Allister replied, "I myself will appear later today to address the populace. My captain of the guard, Whyte Steel, is making security arrangements. Crown Prince Shad is keeping to his bed for the time, under the advice of his medical attendants."
There was a flurry of motion as others signed for recognition. This time the king chose not to acknowledge them. He had done his part for Pearl's father and further cemented the support of that important ally. However, even for political reasons he was not about to turn this audience into an interview. Too much could get out of hand.
"Pray wait," he said firmly, "and listen to what I have to say. You may find your questions answered. In any case, this room is close and overfull. Despite the coolness of the autumn, we certainly do not wish to remain contained at tight quarters any longer than necessary."
A ripple of laughter acknowledged the wisdom of this last statement. When the gathering had stilled, King Allister went on, this time staying to the items on his prepared statement.
"First of all, I am pleased to report that both my son and his bride are recovering from the injuries sustained in the attack."
He went on to itemize the injuries in some detail, having decided that enough people would have seen the blood that pretending at less gravity would only incite the rumors he was trying to quell.
"Poison," he added, "was used. However, owing to quick action on the part of the attendant physicians, we may hope that its effects have been neutralized."
Ancestors, he thought, grant that this prayer is granted!
King Allister knew from consulting with Sir Jared Surcliffe that both victims were still in danger. Indeed, although the knight's healing talent could speed the mending of flesh and bone, it could not neutralize poison. There was some thought that it could even hasten the poison's effect by making healthy the flesh that would carry it. Still, Princess Sapphire's color was returning nicely, and Shad, scared by the risk he had inadvertently taken, was remaining dutifully in bed, his younger brother Tavis doing duty as both trusted attendant and watchdog lest the crown prince forget himself.
"Although both Prince Shad and Princess Sapphire are expected to recover," the king continued, "we did not escape without losses. Several of our guards, both those of Bright Bay and those of Hawk Haven, were injured. Two men were killed."
The king eulogized those who had died in the course of protecting him and his family. As the words flowed easily from his lips, he found himself wondering which of the studious and sorrowful faces before him was nothing more than a mask. Certainly someone here knew the truth behind the attack.
"Lastly," Allister said, "we have determined some facts about the assassins. Thanks to the quick actions of several of the guards and of Lady Blysse Kestrel, who took it upon herself to go to the bridal couple's defense…"
He paused while those present craned around to stare at Firekeeper. Stories of her fighting skill, greatly exaggerated, were some of the favorite about the castle and town. These the king felt no desire to quell, for he hoped they would protect her. For the same reason, he had agreed to let Blind Seer, the wolf, have fairly free run of the castle and grounds—as long as he remained with his mistress.
Firekeeper claimed, though Allister kept his private doubts, that it had been the wolf's howl that had first alerted her to the possibility that evil was afoot.
"We have captured alive three of the assassins. Under careful questioning, they have admitted their identities and nationalities."
He allowed himself to enjoy the drama of the moment. Not a word of this had gotten out, he was certain. Beside him, King Tedric appeared to be drifting to sleep, his wig slipping slightly over his forehead. Allister wasn't fooled, but he hoped that others were.
"The assassins were Waterland residents. They belonged…"
King Allister was forced to bang the base of his scepter on the table to restore silence, so great was the outcry at this announcement. Cries of "Treachery!" filled the room, countered by fervent denials from the members of Waterland's diplomatic contingent.
Anticipating some such reaction, King Allister had alerted the guards closest to the Waterland contingent's seats to be ready to defend them. The guards did their part valiantly, though their stiff, wooden expressions showed how they felt about putting themselves between those who might have arranged for the deaths of their fellows and just retribution.
Order restored, King Allister scowled at his audience. Peripherally, he was aware of King Tedric blinking and straightening his wig as if the commotion had awakened him from a doze.
"If," Allister said icily, "I had proof that the distinguished representatives from Waterland were aware of the assassins presence among their servants, I assure you that they would not be sitting so comfortably in this hall.
"The assassins belonged," Allister said, picking up where he had left off when interrupted, "to a subclass within Waterland unfamiliar to those of us who reside in Hawk Haven and Bright Bay. As you are all aware, Waterland advocates the practice of slavery."
There was a low growl at this, but no one spoke aloud, not wishing to attract the monarch's wrath. Still, the residents of both Hawk Haven and Bright Bay had ample reason to be aware that Waterland practiced slavery. Prisoners from naval engagements, if not ransomed, were routinely sold at the general market. Many were never heard from again.
The breadth of the White Water River where it separated Waterland and Hawk Haven made slave raids difficult if not impossible, but all along the kingdom's northern border parents frightened disobedient children with tales of slave raiders who swooped down and took those who didn't know their place. There might have been some truth to those tales, but King Tedric had not been able to say for certain.
"There are two classes of slave," Allister went on pedantically, "the born slave and the 'found.' Sometimes, as it has been explained to me, if a born slave shows particular talent for physical arts—strength or grace or courage—that slave is offered the chance to train as an assassin. If the assassin slave then performs a 'job' successfully, he or she is given his or her freedom.
"I will not pretend to understand the finer points of this peculiar and, to me, distasteful system. It has been explained to me that such assassins are commonly employed in Waterland to decide matters we would assign to legal courts and local custom."
The Waterland ambassadorial party looked rather angry at this, but King Allister continued blandly on:
"The assassins who attacked my son and his wife were these assassin slaves. As of yet, we have not determined their owners. When we do so, perhaps we will learn more."
"Surely," exclaimed Duke Oyster in exasperation, "the members of the distinguished contingent from Waterland must know who owns their own attendants!"
The senior Waterland ambassador was a corpulent man who looked as if he had never missed a meal, but had taken care to eat plenty in anticipation of the possibility. Since Allister had confirmed that the assassins were from Waterland, he had been steadily—almost frantically—signaling to be recognized.
Given that the assassins had worn Waterland colors, he had probably already found himself on the receiving end of a good deal of angry questioning. Before this, he could save himself by replying—in all honesty—that the kings had requested he hold his silence until the meeting. Now he must justify himself or face the consequences.
"Your Majesty," he said, nearly groveling once Allister had acknowledged him, "I beg your leave to explain some essential details regarding this matter."
"Speak on," Allister replied cordially.
"First of all," the diplomat, one Opulence Alt Rosen, said, "you should know that I had no part in choosing my entourage."
There were mutters of disbelief, but Opulence Rosen forged on, huffing a bit as if he were running uphill.
"I was already in this part of the world, serving as an observer for my government during the recent military events. When the joyous union of the two heirs was announced, I, of course, included the news in my report home. In interests of saving costs, I was told to remain and represent Waterland at both weddings. However, several members of my entourage were to rotate home in order to report more fully. A new support staff was sent out so that I would not be unduly inconvenienced."
Earl Kestrel made a slight scoffing sound that could easily have been ignored, but Opulence Rosen chose to respond as if questioned.
"I assure you, sir, that I had nothing to do in the choice of my new staff. I was somewhat surprised by its size, but decided that this must indicate the honor in which my government held the weddings."
"Staff, you say," Duke Oyster said, ignoring protocol once more. "Does that mean these killers had other skills?"
Opulence Rosen smiled weakly. "They did, but to be honest, their primary role was as honor guards. As such, they were an extension of my formal costuming, as it were."
"If His Majesty will permit," the Waterland diplomat continued, "I discerned some disapproval when the question of slavery was raised. I would beg your leave to explain further how the custom of the assassin slave arose. I would not wish your people to think we of Waterland value human life lightly."
King Allister nodded. He'd heard this explanation already and knew that Opulence Rosen would do himself no favors by giving it, but he had no desire to appear to be censoring any information related to the assassination attempt.
"Speak," the king replied, "but remember that this is not a lecture hall and keep to the point."
"Thank you, gracious Majesty," Opulence Rosen replied, bowing deeply before continuing to the assembled group, "As many of you already know, Waterland has no hereditary nobility. All that a father can pass to his son or a mother to her daughter is the wealth—whether in property, goods, or coin—that the family has accumulated. Our rulers are made up from a consortium of the most wealthy adults in the land.
"I shall spare you the details," Opulence Rosen added hurriedly, sensing the less than patient mood among his listeners. "What is essential for you to know in order to understand the place of the assassin slave in our society is that we place so great a value on human life that each person is accorded a monetary worth. Slaves who wish to acquire their freedom may purchase it or earn it. In this way, the estate is not diminished in value.
"However, not all slaves have the means to earn their worth in coin. Our wise founders felt there should be other means for them to earn their worth. Taking a risk of one kind or another can provide one of these means."
"Such as killing someone," interrupted Baron Shark.
The diplomat smiled in a thin facsimile of geniality.
"Yes, that's right, or building dams, or any number of other dangerous jobs that—since they create the risk that the owner might lose his or her entire investment—need to be compensated for in coin."
"And your point," King Allister prompted dryly, "is?"
Opulence Rosen flushed, though whether in anger or embarrassment was difficult to say.
"What I wish your people to realize, Your Majesty, is that the owner of an assassin slave may choose not to use that slave for his or her own needs. However, in all fairness to the slave, we believe that the slave should be permitted to employ its complex and exhaustive training before it becomes useless through age or injury. Thus, the assassin slave's services are often hired out to another contractor.
"I mention this most particularly because I wish you to understand that discovering the owners of these slaves who acted here during the wedding may not lead you to whoever set them on the good prince and his bride. They may have been contracted out to another party and the original owner may be innocent of any complicity."
Duke Oyster snapped out, "Tell me, Your Opulence, do you hire these assassins to foreign contractors?"
"I," Alt Rosen answered carefully, "do not currently own any assassin slaves, nor, given my earnings as a foreign representative for my nation, would I think it wise to hire them abroad. However, there are in Waterland who do so, who even prefer to do so since such contracts have fewer domestic ramifications."
Red-faced with fury, Duke Oyster surely would have said more, but King Allister hammered once again for silence.
"Thank you, Opulence Rosen, for clarifying the place of the assassin slave within your society. Let me further inform those gathered here—since Your Opulence has already assured me upon this point—that you and your associates will be assisting us in every way possible as we work to track down the original owners of these slaves. Indeed…"
The king permitted himself a humorless smile. "Indeed, Opulence Rosen will be remaining with us in Bright Bay indefinitely while other members of his party return to Waterland to undertake the necessary research. Since we are greatly concerned for Your Opulence's safety in these troubled times, we will be assigning guards to follow you wherever you go and to remain close to you at all times. In this way, your safety will be assured."
King Allister stopped, sipped his watered wine. He didn't need to actually say the word "hostage" to make his intent clear to everyone present. To the man's credit, Alt Rosen concealed his dismay quite well.
"I thank Your Majesty for your concern for my person," he said.
Bowing stiffly, he resumed his seat.
King Allister nodded graciously, then resumed addressing the general assembly.
"That concludes my remarks regarding the current tragic happenings. If there is some rumor I have failed to address, I have some few moments remaining before my next appointment during which I may attempt to answer your questions."
Taking this opportunity, Duchess Pelican asked about the possibility that the canceled festivities—a ball and several banquets—would be rescheduled. The king regretfully announced that the events would not be rescheduled out of respect for those who had died in defense of their monarchs.
This decision was well received. The next question was less easily dealt with—all the more so because it was raised by young Derian Carter, who was apparently unaware that he was treading on sensitive ground.
"Your Majesty," the red-haired youth said seriously, "what puzzles me is why the assassins chose to strike during the wedding. Surely there would have been better times and places. Did your interrogation reveal anything that might help this make sense?"
Had King Allister believed the young man was playing at politics he would have given some bland answer, but that wouldn't do in the face of Derian's evident sincerity. Brushing him off would raise more questions than the young man's query had brought out into the open.
"A bit, Counselor Derian," the king replied. "The ceremony enabled them to get near to all of their targets at one time. Even at a banquet or ball, the parties in question would have been more spread out.
"The targets," Allister went on, anticipating the question, "were first of all the bride and groom—preferably as one. Then myself and/or King Tedric, followed by my younger son Tavis, my daughters, and, if the assassins' luck extended so far, any ranking nobles within reach. Since the queens are not in line to either throne, they were relatively safe. Since successful assassination would have thrown one or both of our allied nations into chaos, it is impossible to deduce from those orders who the contractor for the assassinations might have been."
A sort of guilty thrill went through the audience as all the members realized that they had been in at least some danger. Earle Peregrine of Hawk Haven, representing her quite elderly father, asked:
"And have measures been taken to protect the targets?"
"Considerable measures," King Allister assured her, "including plans for the dispersal of this noble company so that we will not remain so vulnerable."
That provided an ideal note upon which to end the meeting. Suddenly, everyone was eager to get out of the crowded room. As they left, Allister overheard anxious discussions beginning as to how soon it would be polite to take leave of both castle and city.
Allister retired alongside King Tedric. Once they were vanished into a more private area, the old monarch looked at his nephew and smiled sardonically.
"You put the wind up them nicely, Allister. You have the makings of a fine king."
"I put the wind up, all right," Allister agreed, "but I must wonder how that wind will fill their sails and to what harbors it will drive them."

Chapter V

Once again, Firekeeper and Blind Seer sat upon the parapet, but this time instead of facing the bay they faced inland. This time, instead of watching the roar and crash of the seemingly endless waters, they watched a receding stream of humanity as most of the wedding guests departed the castle at Silver Whale Cove.

As before, the young woman sat with her arm flung around the neck of the great grey wolf, and those who looked back upon the castle and chance glimpsed the sight shivered in themselves, remembering her bloodied hands and gown, and the rumors that she had attacked an assassin with her teeth. The fact that these rumors were true did nothing to stop them from being enhanced.
Despite the numerous persons who had witnessed the attack, more than one forwent the evidence of his or her own eyes in favor of the lurid tales that told how the wolf-woman had ripped out the assassin's throat with fangs suddenly as sharp as a wolf's own. Never mind that the man had been taken from the Sphere Chamber alive and walking—albeit somewhat stiffly—under his own power. Enough dead men had been carried away to "prove" the tales.
Firekeeper knew something of what was being said and, far from being troubled by it, was amused. Had the tales been told about Blind Seer she would have been infuriated and worried, for the wolf could not speak to defend himself. She, however, could do so and would do so, confident in not only the protection of two kings and their heirs apparent but in her own strength.
Firekeeper, still in her teens and already the slayer of several powerful men, remained rather innocent. She did not realize how little the strength of a single person mattered against the tides of politics or how little the protection of kings and their heirs might count when fear came alive.
But this afternoon two days after the wedding of Crown Princess Sapphire and Crown Prince Shad, Firekeeper wasn't thinking about fear and its consequences; she was more concerned about the immediate question of who had tried to kill two people she rather liked. She had not had time to meditate on the question in privacy, though she had listened to several heated discussions of the matter. Now, taking advantage of the fact that no one needed her to sit with an invalid or threaten a prisoner or any other of the many tasks that had enlivened these past few days, she took the time to think about what she had learned.
Wolves regularly attacked their rivals in power, so the idea of killing to gain position was neither alien nor repulsive to her. The use of assassins she had filed as yet another of the curious tools—like swords and bows—that humans created to make up for their lack of personal armament. What she still had to puzzle through was the subtle strategies involved in killing those who were expected to inherit power rather than those who held the power itself.
It had been explained to her by Derian and Elise that Shad and Sapphire were not only people themselves but emblems of the truce between their nations, that killing them might devastate that truce, that at the very least the confusion and backbiting that had reigned in Hawk Haven in the months before King Tedric had chosen Sapphire as his heir could be expected to begin again, that…
It had all been explained and when explained made sense, but to Firekeeper's way of thinking, which was still rather direct and inclined toward personal violence when frustrated, the sense was in violation of everything she wanted to believe about how things should be run. The human way of doing things seemed far too complicated and had a tendency to end in foul actions like wars.
"Of course," she said to Blind Seer when her thoughts had led her this far, "in the wolf way a wise old One like King Tedric would fall prey to the first young pup with spring-hot blood. That would be a pity."
"True," the wolf replied, "for as I see it where wolves need strength and hunt-wisdom in their Ones, humans need something else, a type of wisdom that touches on things other than whether the prey can be safely taken."
Firekeeper mulled over this for a time. "You're right, but humans wouldn't need that different wisdom if they weren't always biting at each other. Once wolves decide who are the Ones and where each is placed within the pack, then they are wolves together. Humans don't seem to understand that they are a people."
"I think," Blind Seer replied, narrowing his blue eyes against a sudden gust of wind, "that is because they are not. Even wolves challenge each other when one pack crosses the territory of another."
Firekeeper sighed and said in the tone of one making an admission much against her will, "You are refusing to let me make simple and comfortable generalizations, dear heart. As much as it tastes of gall in my mouth, I must admit you are right."
The wolf huffed out his flanks in a deep laugh, which the woman shared, but, even as she shared Blind Seer's laughter, Firekeeper wondered if he could understand how much her desire to see the wolf way as a better way than that followed by the humans came from her deep desire to continue believing as she had until that previous spring—that she was a wolf.
To believe otherwise was unsettling; more than unsettling, it left her uneasy, prey to nightmares in which fires and almost-forgotten faces played too great a role. Only when she calmed herself with the repeated refrain that no matter her shape and what others might call her she—Firekeeper—was a wolf did those uncomfortable memories (for when she was asleep she knew them to be memories) leave her alone.
Moreover, and this was something that Firekeeper had hardly admitted even to herself, as she watched her friends and acquaintances dance their courtship dances she wondered at how indifferent she was to human ideas of beauty and suitability. It never occurred to her that she was young to have such feelings, since by wolf years—even those longer years lived by the Royal Wolves of which Blind Seer was one—she was quite mature.
Firekeeper had always seen herself as a pup to the wolves of greater strength, stealth, and speed, but now among humans she could judge herself—never seeing the incongruity of using those same qualities as her basis for judgment—as a great wise One. Even a man in armor and bearing a sword might fall before her—as she had proven when she had battled Prince Newell, the traitor of Hawk Haven. Conveniently, she chose to overlook how severely wounded she had been in that battle and how had it been a battle fought wolf to wolf some third challenger would have finished her before she might howl her victory before the pack.
Saying nothing of this confusion of thoughts, many hardly shaped into words, Firekeeper merely hugged Blind Seer harder and said as she had so often said before:
"I will never understand humans."
Blind Seer, though not quite four years old, was already wise enough to know that nothing he could say would be a suitable reply to that statement. He thought, however, that as long as Firekeeper continued to think thusly, she would indeed never understand humans.
"Why," Firekeeper said, raising a question she had meant to ask for some time but had continually put off in the chaos of the preceding two days, "did you howl me warning during the wedding?"
"I caught a scent upon the wind," the wolf replied directly, "a scent of one who might have borne you or the others ill-will."
He did stop speaking then, dangling the information just out of her reach as he might have a bone. Wolves, like humans, were fond of teasing.
"Who?" asked Firekeeper, tugging the short fur behind one of his ears in mock threat.
Had they been somewhere less precarious than on the edge of a castle parapet, doubtless the wolf would have pounced her and they would have wrestled for a while until one or the other won temporary dominance. Blind Seer, however, was not one to risk himself or his beloved packmate for a game. He surrendered graciously, folding down his ears to protect them from further pinching.
"It was the scent of the woman they now call Queen Valora," Blind Seer replied, "she whom they called Gustin IV when we first met her. The scent came to me over the waters as I sat out on the parapet over the bay where we had sat that first day."
Firekeeper sat up so suddenly that her balance might have been threatened if it had not been schooled by sleeping in the treetops on many a lazy afternoon.
"Valora! Was she in the castle?"
"I don't think so," the wolf said, "for her scent was faint and mixed with the salt scent of the waters. When I looked out, I saw many ships. I think she was there on one of them, out on the waters, waiting to see if the killers did their work."
"But you never scented her inside the castle?"
"No fresh scent," the wolf assented, "and I have checked as we have gone hither and yon these past days. Her scent lingers in a few accustomed places, but it is all old and dead."
Firekeeper's first impulse had been to leap down from the parapet and head inside to seek out someone—perhaps King Tedric—and tell him what she had learned. However, between the motion and the thought she paused.
Derian now believed that Firekeeper could understand what Blind Seer said to her, but he had long experience of her company. Also, though he might not realize it, there were times that he himself came close to having ears to hear such speech. His hearing was best with horses and their ilk, but even that came closer to an uncanny understanding of their needs and motives rather than spoken words.
Derian's special perceptiveness, however, was more a handicap than an advantage in Firekeeper's current dilemma. He alone seemed to realize how clearly she understood Blind Seer. Elise seemed willing to grant the wolf greater than usual intelligence and perceptivity. Most of the rest of Firekeeper's human circle simply took comfort in their belief that the feral woman had greater than usual control over her unusual pet.
"Someone," Firekeeper said, pausing with one leg on either side of the parapet on which she had been sitting, "should be told what you scented, but who would believe us?"
"Derian," the wolf replied, some of her own doubt in the cant of his ears, "might believe us, but could he get anyone else to believe?"
"And what good would that belief do us?" Firekeeper added. "You yourself say that Queen Valora didn't come into the castle. Perhaps she merely wished to observe the festivities from a distance. Humans often like to look upon what gives them pain—consider Doc's mooning over Elise."
Blind Seer sighed agreement. In this, at least, he was willing to assent that humans were incomprehensible, even by one who wished to comprehend them.
"Still," Firekeeper said reluctantly after a further pause, "I should at least tell Derian. It is possible that Queen Valora knew of the assassins—perhaps they were even her tools—and hoped to come into the castle when the killing was done."
Without further discussion, they left their vantage point. Some of the departing guests, looking upward and seeing the vanishing blur of grey fur and brown leather, hastened their paces without conscious volition, glad to be leaving a place where wolves and wild women walked unchecked and unchallenged.
Derian Carter set down the quill with which he was writing a letter to his parents when Firekeeper and Blind Seer walked into his room unannounced. The young woman's expression was lit from within with a strange intensity, an intensity he fancied he saw mirrored in the gaze of the blue-eyed wolf.
"You alone, Fox Hair?" Firekeeper asked.
The query was no mere politeness, Derian realized. Blind Seer was sniffing as if to catch any intruder's scent, and Firekeeper moved to check behind the window hangings.
"I am," Derian assured her, "though I might not have been. You really should learn to knock. I could have been entertaining."
Firekeeper wrinkled her brow for a moment. "Oh, you mean you could be with someone I shouldn't see you with like the kitchen maid at West Keep, right?"
She grinned wickedly and Derian was reminded of his younger sister, Damita. He glared at Firekeeper as he might have at Dami under similar circumstances. He hadn't been aware that his charge, then barely capable of speaking simple phrases and seemingly caught up in a flood of new experiences, had been aware of that harmless flirtation.
Firekeeper's expression became suddenly grave.
"You are alone, Derian. I… we… have something very serious to talk to you."
"Tell," he corrected mechanically. "Yes, I'm alone and if you shut the door securely no one should be able to overhear us."
Firekeeper took him at his word, checking the door and even sliding the bolt shut so that no one else would walk in unannounced.
Frankly curious now, Derian waited while she settled herself on the carpet before the fire and rested her arm on Blind Seer's back.
"You remember," Firekeeper began, "how on the morning of the wedding, during the wedding, Blind Seer howled."
"Certainly," Derian replied. "I thought he was sulking because he hadn't been invited."
Firekeeper shook her head, her solemnity unbroken though usually she would have returned some teasingly defensive remark.
"No, he no sulk. He trying to tell me something, to warn me to be careful, that he smelled something he didn't like."
"Go on," Derian prompted when she paused.
"What he smelled was…"
Again Firekeeper paused.
"Go on."
"He smelled Queen Valora."
Though the words were out, Firekeeper did not relax. Indeed, she stiffened further as if expecting her account to be challenged. Given that she was saying she was reporting for a wolf, Derian could understand her defensiveness. Still, he'd seen too much of the sympathy—of the apparent communication between the two—to automatically dismiss what she said as fancy.
"Where did he smell Queen Valora?" Derian asked, deciding that this was the safest question.
"Out on the water, out on the bay," Firekeeper said. "The wind was coming from that direction," she added as if this was crowning proof.
Derian felt himself starting to frown and struggled to keep his expression neutral.
"As I recall," he said, thinking aloud, "there were a good number of boats out there."
"Many," agreed Firekeeper, who still had trouble with numbers higher than ten. "I see them while I get dressed. Elise say later than many want to come to wedding but cannot and so go to water to watch building as if watching building was watching wedding."
She looked as if she found this idea rather incredible, but was willing to countenance that Elise understood humans better than she did.
"I remember something similar," Derian agreed, "and you are saying that Blind Seer caught and recognized one scent among so many at such a distance?"
Firekeeper nodded stubbornly.
"He say so. He could do so."
"But he caught no other scent?"
The wolf huffed out through his nose—a rather disdainful snort. Firekeeper replied (fleetingly Derian wondered if "translated" might not be a better term),
"He say he smell many other scents but no other one that is so very important not to say maybe dangerous. He cry warning to me so that I be on guard."
"Why would he think that Queen Valora would bear you any grudge?"
Firekeeper looked impatient for the first time. "Not me, Fox Hair, no, but she bear this grudge—a fat, heavy one, I think—for King Allister and King Tedric and many others. If it is going to rain, more than one gets wet."
"I see," Derian answered rather lamely.
He was trying to decide what to do with this peculiar information. Could he expect anyone to believe that a wolf—no matter how impressively large—could have isolated one scent from so many and at such a distance?
He realized with a start that he hadn't even considered that most would doubt that Firekeeper could understand Blind Seer's report or that the wolf had the intelligence to positively identify the scent of a woman he had only seen at a distance. At least he assumed that Blind Seer had never been close to Queen Valora. Who knew where he and Firekeeper had been during their nighttime rambles?
One thing at a time.
"Firekeeper," he said, "what do you want me to do with this information?"
"I think," she said uncertainly, "that someone should know, especially since the killer slaves come to the wedding."
Derian nodded. "Did you have anyone in mind?"
Firekeeper grinned triumphantly. "I tell you!"
Unable to help himself, Derian laughed. "You minx! Now it's my problem! Is that what you're saying?"
Firekeeper sobered. "I wish I feel it that simple. Maybe it nothing. Maybe Blind Seer smell wrong…"
The wolf huffed.
"Maybe," Firekeeper continued giving him a hug, "maybe Queen Valora just watching the wedding like others. Maybe she not know killers is there. Maybe, though, she know and wait to find if her den is empty and waiting for her to come back."
Derian drummed his fingers on the table.
"No one knows who sent those slaves," he said, "but it does stand to reason that if certain parties sent them they wouldn't have been content just to create chaos and then step back. Now •some might have—Stonehold, maybe, or even Waterland. I understand that Waterland is wondering if the current shift in power means that Bright Bay isn't going to be able to rival them in naval power anymore. They might have wanted to make certain that would be so.
"And maybe," he continued, "Queen Valora decided to take advantage of having all her enemies in one place to make a strike. Even if no one was killed, she'd have made them nervous and nervous people make mistakes."
He made a sweeping gesture toward the window through which the retreating parties of former guests were still visible.
"Look at that. Think of the rumors they'll spread, of the doubt and fear and uncertainty." He rubbed his eyes. "My dad collects rumors, you know, from the travelers who hire horses and carriages from his stables. Rumors do a lot more than people think. Given time, they might even end up doing as much harm as if the prince and princess had really been killed."
Firekeeper nodded. "So I think, though only not so much. What should we do? Do we keep this, just us three, or do we tell someone?"
Derian felt quite acutely how young he was and a certain unfair desire to lay this responsibility on older shoulders.
"King Tedric," he said, "doesn't leave for Hawk Haven until tomorrow or the day after. He wanted to make certain that he could honestly report that Sapphire was out of danger. Let me see if I can get an appointment with him.
"It might not be possible," he cautioned, when Firekeeper leapt to her feet in sudden enthusiasm for his plan. "I only said I'd try."
But three hours later, Derian, Firekeeper, and Blind Seer were admitted into the king's presence.
The king wasn't alone, but then neither of the kings, nor the queens, nor any of the princes or princesses had been alone since the assassins' attack. Now that the first shock of that attack was over, Derian had heard there was some grumbling from the younger parties, but he doubted that there would ever be any from King Tedric.
At seventy-five, the old king had given the last forty-seven years of his life to ruling the kingdom he had inherited from his father, King Chalmer. Reportedly once imperious and even arrogant, Tedric had changed with the years—not softened, but mellowed, and like an aged wood, he was stronger for the seasoning.
Derian was this king's youngest counselor and though he had grown somewhat comfortable with attending large meetings and even speaking out when needed, he was still acutely aware whenever he met with the king in smaller gatherings that he was young enough to be the great man's grandson.
Rising from his deep bow, Derian gave a briefer but still polite bow to the king's guard, Sir Dirkin Eastbranch, and took the seat the king indicated to him. Firekeeper sat, as was her custom, on the floor beside Blind Seer. The wolf did not lounge as he had in Derian's room, but sat bolt upright, so his head was far higher than the woman's.
It said much about both the king and his guard that neither showed even a reflex trace of nervousness at the wolf's presence.
"Well, Derian Carter," the king said, coming to the point without any waste of time. "What is this you felt so urgently that I needed to hear about?"
If there was the faintest of twinkles in the pale brown of Tedric's washed-out eyes, Derian felt comforted by it rather than threatened.
"Well, Your Majesty, Firekeeper came to me with this story…"
As concisely as possible he told the tale as Firekeeper had him, adding the information he had garnered from his own questions. Out of fairness to Firekeeper, he spoke not one word to protect himself from accusations of being too credulous, but spoke as if he believed—as he realized that he did—both that she could understand the wolf and that the wolf could read the winds as humans read print.
When he finished his report, the king said mildly, "Well, that's interesting indeed. I wonder…"
Closing his eyes, he sat silently mulling over the information for so long that even Derian, who respected him with something close to awe, thought he might have fallen asleep. At last, the king opened his eyes and said:
"If Valora was behind the attack on Sapphire and Shad then she must be sorely disappointed. Nor do I find it surprising that Duke Half-Moon, her representative, was among the first to take his leave. Still, as pleasant as it might be, we cannot take her mere presence in the vicinity as proof of guilt. We can stand warned, but we cannot act, not without risking war."
When Derian glanced at Firekeeper, he found the wolf-woman's expression unreadable.
"We could not," King Tedric continued, speaking directly to Firekeeper, "even if our witness was more prominent than one keen-nosed wolf. For all we know, this is precisely what whoever sent the assassins was hoping for—that we would accuse Valora and that she could then use such accusations to trigger a war. Many of those who now stand neutral would choose her side if they felt that King Allister and myself were acting in a high-handed fashion."
Firekeeper spread her hands widely. "But what to do? We do not want to start a war, but I think Queen Valora does. What to do to stop this?"
"We keep alert," the king said, "and calm and give no reason for outcry against us. The longer we act in such a manner, the longer will those neutral parties see us as the bastions of a solid kingdom and Valora as the warmonger rather than the wronged queen seeking to return to her people."
"It seem wrong," Firekeeper said, voicing the protest Derian could not bring himself to speak, "to let her do harm and not harm back."
"True," the king said, "but my hope is that Valora—or whoever was behind this attempt, for we have no definite proof—will harm herself."
Firekeeper looked puzzled. "How?"
King Tedric answered her with a question of his own. "Don't wolves drive the deer?"
The young woman frowned. "Yes and when they run then we catch the slow and weak."
"And sometimes," the king continued, "don't you catch those who make themselves slow and weak when they trip right over their own feet?"
Firekeeper nodded, smiling her understanding. Derian wished he felt as certain that Queen Valora could be made to trip.
Firekeeper asked, "Will you tell King Allister what we tell you?"
"In confidence," Tedric replied, "even as you have told me. I think Allister's Whyte Steel can be trusted, but we must keep this close. After all we cannot have new rumors starting that kings are now taking counsel from little girls."
Derian knew that Firekeeper would have growled if anyone else had called her such, but the king's age was so great that even she saw he had earned the right.
"We try," she said, stroking Blind Seer's fur, "Blind Seer and me, to do what we can to make, you safe."
"We appreciate that," the king said, "and someday, in the ungrateful fashion of kings, we may call upon you to do even more."
Derian wondered at the force in those simple words and felt himself squaring his shoulders as if he was a soldier called to duty.
A chiming of bells made the king sigh.
"As much as I would rather prolong this visit," he said, "that announces my next appointment. Keep what you have told me to yourselves. Trust that I will pass it on where it will do the most good."
"We do, Your Majesty," Derian said.
Firekeeper nodded agreement and rose lithely to her feet. Together they bowed and took their leave. As they left, they were surprised to see Doc waiting to come in, his expression grave and a rolled piece of paper held loosely in one long-fingered hand.
"Anything wrong with your patients, Doc?" Derian asked, regretting his impulsiveness even as he spoke. If either Shad or Sapphire had taken a turn for the worse, Doc would certainly not speak of it in a public hallway.
Doc, however, smiled reassurance. "No, this time I am the patient—after a fashion. I'll see you later."
Leaving them mystified, the knight entered the royal presence. As the door shut behind him, Derian realized that Firekeeper was looking at him, clearly expecting him to clarify Doc's cryptic statement.
"I don't know what he meant," Derian said honestly, clearly disappointing not only Firekeeper but the two listening door guards as well. "But I suppose he'll tell us later."
Firekeeper shrugged. "I'm hungry. Let's get something to eat."
Beside her, Blind Seer opened his mouth to show his teeth, panting in what seemed obvious agreement.
He understands us, Derian thought, far better than we do him. Any of us, that is, he amended, but Firekeeper.
"I could use something myself," he said aloud. "Let's drop down to the servants' hall. There's usually at least bread and cheese."
Derian thought that it said something about Firekeeper's character that neither he nor she thought it at all remarkable that Lady Blysse Kestrel should go from an audience with a king to dining in the servants' hall. What Derian didn't consider was that it said something about himself as well.

Chapter VI

At about the same time Firekeeper and Blind Seer were heading off to see Derian, Lady Elise Archer went to call on her cousin Sapphire—and to take her turn as interior chamber guard.

There were two armed guards outside the door to the makeshift infirmary, and more patrolled the gardens outside the windows. Shad and Sapphire both had balked at having other guards inside the room, and a compromise had been reached. Someone they viewed as a friend rather than a henchman—no matter how loyal—was to stay within the room. That person was given a bell-pull with which to alert the corridor guards and instructions to raise a fuss at the least suspicion of trouble.
As with most compromises, no one was completely happy, but as everyone was less unhappy the arrangement worked out.
Elise was scheduled to relieve Prince Tavis, who had taken the early-morning shift. The young prince didn't leave immediately when she arrived, but stayed to finish the game he was playing with his brother. It was a complicated tactical game in which one side took the role of the pirates and the other that of a naval contingent sent to hunt them out. Each piece seemed to have its own values and rules for moving and attacking.
Though the board was rather pretty, and the carved and painted pieces representing the ships were absolutely darling, Elise was rather relieved that no one expected her to learn it. Sapphire, on the other hand, all but panted to have a chance. When Elise came in, she was alternating between reading the rules pamphlet and asking questions about the game in process.
After greeting all present, Elise accepted the bell-pull from Tavis, freeing him to concentrate on his game. At times the arguments over moves became rather heated—so heated that Elise, who was an only child, was startled that such furious debate could be followed by laughter and even cheers at a particularly good move by one player or another.
For her part, she pulled out her embroidery and arranged her chair to make the most of the midmorning light. After a while, Tavis left, still arguing that his brother's winning tactic had been unfair. Shad, who had been playing the pirates, laughingly told him that expecting fairness from pirates had been the downfall of far too many naval commanders.
"Elise," Sapphire said soon after Tavis had departed, "do you think you could put that sewing by and give me a hand? I think I understand how to move the pieces now, but our beds are too far apart for us to play even with the table set between them."
"But if I," Elise said, divining her thought, "came and moved your pieces for you, then the board could stay where it is."
"Exactly!" Sapphire replied, pleased.
Elise was pleased, too. The distance which the newlyweds' beds had been set had been dictated by the wishes of both the attending physicians—who wanted to make certain that their patients were not tempted into unwise actions—and by those concerned with security, who wanted to make certain that there were no narrow avenues to block any defensive actions should they prove necessary.
As with the need for someone in the room at all times, this arrangement had rather irked both Shad and Sapphire. Elise had overheard the prince saying to his father that the only thing worse than being married to a beautiful woman and being forced to delay the wedding night was being locked in a room with her day and night and not being permitted even to hold her hand.
King Allister had replied rather dryly that Shad and Sapphire could be put in different rooms, if that would be preferable, and Shad had quickly stopped complaining.
Elise was rather happy that her quick agreement had kept the complaints from starting again. Privately, she was in sympathy with the newlyweds, but she couldn't forget the blood-soaked carpet in the Sphere Chamber or the whiteness of Sapphire's face after she had been wounded. If prudence would prevent this happening again, so be it.
For the next hour or so, Elise obediently moved naval ships along the paths Sapphire dictated. She was even getting a feeling for the strategies involved in constructing effective search patterns when there was a knock on the door and the porter announced Lord Rory Seal, the Royal Physician.
Elise swallowed a groan as Shad politely thanked the porter and said that Lord Rory should be admitted. She couldn't help it. She didn't like the pompous nobleman. It wasn't just that she felt annoyed at how he treated Sir Jared, it was that even to someone with her limited training in the healing arts he was so obviously incompetent.
Perhaps, Elise admitted to herself, barely competent would be a fairer description. Lord Rory knew enough to act the physician, but Elise thanked her patron Lynx that Sir Jared, not Lord Rory, had been the first on the scene when the assassins had attacked.
Superficially, Lord Rory looked exactly as a trusted family doctor should. A man in his middle forties, he was tall enough to possess an aura of command, but not so tall as to be intimidating. His build was precisely right, hinting at an athletic youth maintained into his mid-years, but without some frantic attempt to pass for younger than he was. In repose, his face bore lines that hinted at deep thought—though Elise preferred to believe that they indicated a need for spectacles. His hair was heavily, but attractively, touched with silver. He wore no beard.
Elise couldn't help but notice that the leather bag in which Lord Rory carried his physician's tools was unscarred and showed no sign of having been through weather. Equally, the tools within were perfectly kept—and hardly used. Moreover, they lacked the variety and personalization she had seen in Doc's bag, the sense of items added as they were discovered, tested, and found useful.
All in all, Elise didn't like Rory Seal a bit, but though she would have been happy to retreat to her embroidery, a sense of responsibility acquired with her field training kept her nearby. It would have been wrong to leave Sapphire and Shad at the Royal Physician's clumsy mercy.
"Well, how are you two lovebirds?" Lord Rory said heartily, clearly believing that he was privileged beyond formalities—at least in private. Elise had noted, again to his detriment, that when kings or queens were present, he was correct enough that a ruder person than herself might have said he was groveling.
"My wound is nearly healed," Sapphire replied bluntly, "and I grow tired of staying in bed."
Shad, who had, as Doc had predicted, actually had taken more damage from the poison introduced into his system than had been initially obvious, said much the same.
Lord Rory laughed in his bluff and hearty manner.
"Now it's good to hear you speaking that way, but," and here he paused to twinkle in what Elise found a nauseating manner, "that's for wiser heads to decide."
Sapphire, who had been wounded before in battle, clearly found this condescension infuriating but she held her temper as befitted the heir to two thrones. Shad, perhaps because longer experience had inured him to the man, did not seem offended. When requested, he showed becoming meekness as he extended his wrist so that his pulse could be taken.
Shad may, Elise thought, swallowing a giggle, be the perfect husband for Sapphire. His patience has been tested by far more trying people.
Coming closer, Elise affected an air of maidenly modesty when the time came for Lord Rory to inspect Sapphire's vital signs and the healing wound. He had shown his inexperience before, becoming quite embarrassed when opening the princess's gown to check the slice along her side and into her breast.
Elise spared him the worst, opening the buttons on the gown and parting the fabric just wide enough to permit him to see the cut. It was healing neatly, helped along by Doc's talent so that the stitches could probably be removed soon.
Lord Rory, however, barely glanced at the cut, his flushed face and nervous glances in Shad's direction making quite clear that he feared the prince's ire for taking such liberties, especially with his yet unbedded bride.
This time Sapphire showed no mercy.
"How are the stitches, Lord Rory?" she asked, her query forcing him to take a longer look and even to touch the healing flesh to either side.
"They are holding nicely," Lord Rory replied hastily. "Very nicely."
"And when shall they come out?" Sapphire pressed. "I've had such procedures before and found that when they feel this way they are usually ready to be removed. Perhaps they should be taken out now. Lady Elise has assisted with such many times before."
Lord Rory stood up and frowned a fatherly frown that held just a hint of a condescending smile.
"Now, young lady, it is not your place to dictate such important medical decisions. Nor should you put such burdens • on your pretty cousin."
Elise replied dryly, "I assure you, it would be no burden at all. As Sapphire said, I have assisted in far more onerous operations."
Sapphire continued pushing her point, speaking demurely, those dangerous blue eyes held downcast and modest.
"Indeed, Lord Rory, I am eager to have the stitches removed. They are a barrier to my doing my duty to husband and kingdom…"
A choked-off gurgle of laughter from Shad almost interrupted her.
"And a princess must not be prevented from doing her duty to her land," Sapphire concluded with amazing steadiness.
Elise admired how Sapphire managed to look both innocent and powerfully seductive as she peered up at the physician through her thick, blue-black lashes.
Lord Rory colored to the silver hair at his temples.
"I do not…" He stopped and began again. "I shall take the matter under consideration," he replied.
Then, packing the few items from his bag with almost indecent haste, Lord Rory took his leave.
Once the door was firmly closed, the three let their laughter roll forth.
"You had him scared, darling," Shad said admiringly.
"You did," Elise agreed. "I thought he was going to admit that he didn't know how to tell when stitches should be removed."
"I doubt he does," Shad said, somewhat more soberly. "His position is purely hereditary and I think he has taken advantage of the fact that neither my grandfather in his elder years nor my cousin Valora in her younger ever put themselves in direct danger of injury in battle to avoid learning a surgeon's skills. He has drawn a stipend from the court for feeling the wrists of the queen and her husband a few times a year and praising them (and by inference himself) for their remarkable good health."
"How," Elise asked, "did his family ever get the position if they have no interest in the healing arts?"
Shad sighed. "You must have noticed that the court of Bright Bay is far more enamored of titles than is your homeland."
Elise nodded. Queen Zorana, the founder of Hawk Haven, had been so adverse to titles that she had restricted them, by law, to the barest minimum. Superficially, Bright Bay had appeared to do the same, but during Elise's sojourn in the castle at Silver Whale Cove she had seen that this was not the case.
"I did notice," she said, trying to stay polite though she had inherited a prejudice against such "unzoranic nonsense," as King Tedric called such titles. "I've met the Warmer of the Shoes, the Keeper of the Keys, and the Holder of the Chalice, along with a few others that escape me now."
"Those type of titles started with King Gustin I," Shad explained. "He was torn between wanting to be able to claim—as your Queen Zorana did—that our kingdom was starting afresh after Old Country domination. At the same time, I think he was more vain than she was."
"Differently vain," Sapphire said with what Elise thought amazing fairness given that her cousin had usually wanted herself and whatever she could claim as her own to be the unquestioned first and best. "From what I've heard, Queen Zorana had her share of vanity as well."
"Whatever the case," Shad said, acknowledging the interruption with an affectionate smile, "Gustin Sailor decided that he could have it both ways. He simplified the landholder titles in a way not all that different from Queen Zorana, but he also added a slew of new titles. Some of these he granted to himself, like Protector of the Weak—which he claimed was forced on him by some of the common folk. Other titles were given to those who had served him particularly well."
"Like knighthoods in Hawk Haven?" Elise said.
"Pretty much," Shad agreed, "but the difference was that while your knighthoods are nonhereditary, lots of the titles that Gustin I invented were hereditary. Apparently, Lord Rory's grandsire, the first Royal Physician, had the healing talent, just as Sir Jared does. The talent, however, did not pass to his children; nor, apparently, has it passed to his grandchildren. To make matters worse, even if it had, the title was worded in such a fashion so that it passed to the original man's heir, not to a logical successor. So even if there had been a member of the family with the talent—I think there was a niece who would have been better qualified than his heir was—the title bypassed the person with it and was handed down as if it was a sack of gold coins."
"That doesn't seem very smart," Elise said, trying to be polite, "but I guess it wasn't that different from what King Chalmer did when he gave the Great Houses their emblems and names."
"Gustin the First wasn't smart in a lot of ways," Shad agreed bluntly. "What he was was decisive, charismatic, and clever—but you can be clever without being smart. He saw the titles as a way of rewarding those who had served him well, and of binding them and their families more closely to him. I don't think he worried much about the consequences that might crop up a hundred years later."
"Like," Sapphire said with a disdainful sniff, "having the royal family's health overseen by a complete incompetent."
The porter's knock wasn't completely unexpected. Sir Jared also liked to make a morning check on his patients, but he waited until Lord Rory had come and had been given ample time to depart lest there be unpleasantness. Unlike Lord Rory, Sir Jared was warmly—if peevishly—greeted by the bedridden couple.
Elise found herself wishing that Sapphire reserved for Doc a trace of that courtesy she accorded to Lord Rory. Then she scoffed at herself.
Silly! Sapphire's only courteous to Lord Rory because she can't stand him. Her relaxed—if rude—way with Doc is her way of saying that she trusts him.
As for herself, Elise found herself unable to banter along with the others, who were describing—in increasingly colorful language—the agonies of their "imprisonment." She stood by and assisted the physician with his examinations, writing down pulse rates and other such figures, but she found herself suddenly without words. It troubled her, for she did not wish to seem either cold or haughty, but somehow the very ease with which Sir Jared accepted her help left her feeling out of place.
Elise distracted herself by listening to Sapphire's latest turn.
"Please, Doc," the princess was pleading, her tones theatrical, "release me from these silken bonds you have placed in my flesh, for they keep me from my new-made husband's side."
Sir Jared allowed himself a brief smile, gone almost as it formed, and turned from his inspection of Shad's wound.
"Your Highness would not wish to leak blood and pus onto that selfsame spouse, now would you? Trust me, had we pressed the wound too swiftly, that, rather than kisses, would have been what you would have showered upon him."
Sapphire wrinkled up her nose in distaste at this rather ugly image, then leaned back against her pillows.
"Honestly, Sir Jared. The wound feels so much better. Shad turned and let me look at his wound and it isn't even in the least bit angry-looking anymore. If we're kept like this much longer, I'll start thinking there's some conspiracy."
Sir Jared nodded. "Well, we can't have that. Let me have a look at you."
Sapphire opened the front of her gown herself, folding back the fabric matter-of-factly. Elise had to remind herself that her cousin was a soldier to keep herself from thinking Sapphire unduly immodest.
"There!" Sapphire said triumphantly. "Pink and clean and not a hint of soreness. Press harder if you'd like," she prompted. "I won't wince."
"I'd prefer if you would if there is need," Jared said sternly. "At the least suspicion that you're hiding anything from me, I'd wait. The stitches won't be in danger of becoming ingrown for days yet."
Sapphire nodded. "I'm being honest with you. Do you think I'm such an idiot as to lie to my doctor?"
"It's been done," Doc said mildly. "However, my inspection agrees with your statements. The wound is clean of infection and knitting nicely. I can clip out the stitches and report to King Tedric that I think you're ready for action—indoor action, no riding or sailing or such for several days yet. You've lost lots of blood and your body will have robbed muscle to rebuild it."
From his bed Shad asked, "And me, Doctor?"
Sir Jared grinned. "I would have given you a clean bill of health several days ago, but I'm not your doctor, nor did I care to challenge Lord Rory. I thought my patient would heal better in congenial company."
Prince Shad looked momentarily angry; then he had the good grace to laugh.
"Will you pass on your recommendations, Sir Jared? I'm certain that Lord Rory can be made to think that they're his own if my mother goes to work on him."
"Very well, Prince Shad. I'll do my best."
Doc turned to Elise.
"Would you assist me in freeing your cousin, Lady Elise?"
Elise longed to say something witty, something like, "If a bold knight like you needs a mere maiden's aid, then gladly, sir," but cleverness escaped her.
"I'd be happy to," she said, and fancied that she sounded stiff and formal.
But as always all awkwardness vanished once they were at work. Elise handed Doc scissors and tweezers, holding everything steady when Sapphire—who predictably refused anything to dull the slight pain of the removal—jumped at the tugging.
Sir Jared distracted his patient by telling a funny story; then Shad leapt in with a sea tale about two men in a small sailboat with an overactive boom. The punch line was predictable, but set them all laughing nonetheless.
Sapphire inspected the healing incision with the help of a small hand mirror. Then she said in the tones of someone who is trying out a plan for the first time,
"Elise, what do you think King Tedric would do if I asked him to make Sir Jared Hawk Haven's Royal Physician? I've been thinking that if we did that and if we acted as if the title had been in place—just that no one had thought to mention it to Lord Rory—that would smooth out these matters of precedence rather nicely."
"Isn't there already a person who holds that post?" Elise asked. "I'm certain I've met him."
"There is," Sir Jared said. "It's a job, not a title, and the man who holds it is very good. He's probably responsible for King Tedric and Queen Elexa being as healthy as they are. The only reason he isn't on this trip is that he strained a shoulder in a riding accident shortly before their departure and agreed to stay behind because he could ask me to take over for him."
"I see," Sapphire said thoughtfully. "Let me think a moment."
After slightly more than a moment she said, "Still, there should be something we can do. Let me write a note to King Tedric explaining Doc's difficulty."
"I really don't have any difficulties with Lord Rory," Jared protested. "I simply avoid him when possible and humor him when necessary."
Sapphire looked annoyed.
"You shouldn't need to," she said bluntly, "not with your talent and your training. Elise, could you reach me writing materials?"
Elise did so, aware of her own mixed emotions on the matter. On the one hand, she agreed with Doc that he could deal with Lord Rory, title or not. On the other, she would like to see him recognized for what he could do. After all, King Tedric's physician might not have enough time to deal with all the members of the newly expanded royal family—especially if Sapphire and Shad got down to the business of producing heirs.
Although he never had spoken of it to her, Elise had the feeling that without Earl Kestrel's patronage, Sir Jared would lead a rather hand-to-mouth existence. Knighthoods were nice, but as a younger son of a small landholding family, he could expect little or nothing in the way of inheritance. Official patronage by the royal family would practically guarantee him a thriving medical practice.
While Elise was musing thus, Sapphire finished her letter. After sanding the wet ink and shaking the paper, she leaned over to slide the damp missive over to Shad.
"What do you think?"
Elise was impressed that Sapphire would bother to consult anyone—another change from the headstrong young woman she had known all her life. How much of that arrogance might have been Lady Melina's influence or, conversely, how much of Sapphire's new tact might be due to King Tedric?
Perhaps most importantly, how lasting would the changes be? Once the thrill of her new titles and marriage had worn off, Sapphire could quite easily lapse back into her former manner.
"Clear, concise, and well thought out," Shad said, setting the letter down on the table. "What King Tedric's reply will be, however, I cannot say."
"Nor I," Sapphire said, blowing lightly on the letter to make certain that it was reasonably dry before folding and sealing it. "Now, Sir Jared, see if you can get an appointment to deliver this to King Tedric in person. If you cannot, at least make certain that it is delivered to him."
Sir Jared dipped a bow that, to Elise's eyes, was at least a trifle mocking.
"As Your Highness commands," he said. "Perhaps I should take my leave immediately so as to better effect your wishes."
Sapphire arched an eyebrow slightly, as if not entirely certain whether or not she was being teased.
As Doc took his bag in one hand and the letter in the other, Shad said, "And Sir Jared, you will use your influence wherever possible to get me a clean bill of health?"
"I promise," Doc said, and with a bow to Elise and another to Sapphire, he departed.
"You were pretty quiet, Elise," Sapphire said. "Don't you like Sir Jared? I think he's quite fine—interesting, intelligent, even handsome if you like that type."
Elise managed a smile. "I like him fine, too, cousin. I just didn't have anything to say."
And, she added to herself, I'd better practice finding things to say unless I want to chase him off completely. After all, once we leave this place how often are our paths likely to cross again? I'd hate to lose a friend just because I think I might like him a bit more than just as a friend.
Admitting this to herself, for the first time she wondered what her parents would say if a penniless man of no title came courting her. Discouragement flooded her breast as she realized that no matter her own wishes in the matter her father, the baron, would probably show Sir Jared the door.

Chapter VII

Derian was packing in anticipation of Earl Kestrel's departure for Hawk Haven the next day.

Though his hands moved efficiently, Derian's thoughts were far away from his present task, wondering which of several choices for future employment he should make. He was still amazed by how his market value had risen among people who wouldn't even have looked him in the face a few months before. Then a shrill screech at his window jolted him into the present.
Revelation Point Castle was equipped with glass windows—many of these relics of the days when it had belonged to some noble of the colony of Gildcrest—but no pane of glass, no matter how thick or how well set, could keep out the cry of a very large peregrine falcon, not when she was determined to be heard.
Derian leapt to his feet and flung open the window, unmindful of the faint, chill drizzle that had just begun to fall. The peregrine in all her glory swept in and took a perch on the back of a chair near the fire. It was a heavy chair, carved of solid maple and upholstered with heavy brocade fabric stuffed with horsehair, but even so she nearly toppled it. What her talons might have done to the finish could be left to the imagination, for—some might have thought by design—she had chosen the chair over which Derian had hung his outdoor coat when he had come in hours before.
"Elation!" Derian said, stroking lightly along her head and back feathers with his index finger. "Fierce Joy in Flight! I thought you'd gone forever!"
He had to swallow hard then to stop a sudden welling of emotion that was quite unmanly—there might even have been tears.
Elation purled and chuckled deep in her throat in response, and Derian felt certain that the sounds were more than meaningless expressions of contentment. As with Blind Seer, he had ample reason to think that Elation understood him far better than he did her.
"Well, I'm glad to see you, too," the young man said. "You look well fed, so I'll hazard you've been taking care of yourself as usual. Let me close the window."
He did so, noting that the drizzle was rapidly turning into steady rainfall.
"I hope that Firekeeper and Blind Seer have the sense to come in out of the rain," he said to the falcon, "but who can say with those two."
Elation flapped her wings slightly, perhaps to shake off the raindrops, but Derian couldn't help but feel that she was commenting on the incomprehensible motives of wolves.
"I was just packing," he said. "King Tedric departs tomorrow for home and Earl Kestrel is too mindful of opportunity not to leave with him. We'll go slowly, for Queen Elexa's health must be looked after. I think the king will be glad to have the earl's entourage added to his own. Counting myself—though I'm not certain Earl Kestrel would—we'll add four good fighters to the company, and Valet is priceless when matters of personal comfort are in question."
Derian kept talking, enjoying the peregrine's listening silence. "And then there is Firekeeper. She cannot be overlooked. Blind Seer will terrify the horses, and Firekeeper herself will run off into the night, causing comment and gossip. Still, though we travel through territory that is technically friendly, I will be happier knowing that she is there scouting for us. Race Forester has a human perspective and that means he trusts sometimes. I don't think Firekeeper ever trusts a stranger."
This time the falcon did reply, a thin, peeping noise that Derian was at a loss to interpret.
He continued packing in relative silence for a bit, but whereas before his thoughts had been his company, now he simply relaxed into happiness that the peregrine had returned. Perhaps because he hadn't wanted the loss to hurt, he hadn't let himself admit how much he had been worried about her.
City born and bred though Derian was, he had been given ample opportunity to see how the nobles valued a good hawk. That Elation was superlative went without saying. He had seen the covetous glances she had attracted back when the armies were gathered at the twin towns of Hope and Good Crossing.
For all his recent honors, Derian knew himself a commoner and knew there were those who wouldn't think him worthy of such a bird. That the bird had chosen him, not the other way around, would matter not at all. Most would not believe the truth if they were told it, and those few who did would probably not be among those who would covet another's possession.
But as real as the possibility that Elation had been interred in some alien mews, snapping at her keeper and tearing at jesses twined around her ankles, this had not been what Derian truly feared. It had seemed far more likely to him that as whimsically as the bird had taken a fancy to him, she could grow bored. After all, she had arrived with Firekeeper, transferred her attentions to him, and now, quite possibly, some third party or interest had lured her away.
And now Elation had returned and sat drowsing by his fire, leaving the occasional line of hawk chalk to be scrubbed from his coat and his floor. Derian could not have been more content.
A thumping on his door broke his tranquility.
"Come in," he called, and the door was flung open and Firekeeper and Blind Seer romped in.
Both were bedewed with raindrops and panting hard, but they seemed to have escaped the worst of the rain. Firekeeper, Derian noted, was barefoot.
"Where are your boots, Lady Blysse?" he asked sternly.
She turned to him, all wide-eyed innocence.
"They were tugged off by the mud. The forest floor is wet and full of wet places. I stepped in one before I know what it is and away go the boot."
"Boot?"
"I could not run in just one, could I? I left the other for the creatures to chew on."
"Those boots," Derian said with a sigh, "cost what a good farmer might earn in a year. You are absolutely incorrigible."
"What that?" Firekeeper asked, honestly perplexed.
"Never mind. It wasn't a compliment."
While they had been talking, Firekeeper had been shaking off the worst of the rain from her hair and combing the damp locks into some sort of order with her spread fingers. It didn't seem to bother her that her vest and breeches were wet and, as the leather had been treated to shed water, they probably weren't too uncomfortable.
Blind Seer, fortunately, had apparently shaken off earlier, probably all over the guards in the courtyard, who would have been too scared to protest.
Derian noted that neither woman nor wolf seemed surprised to see Elation there and surmised that the falcon had sought them out first.
"Derian," Firekeeper said, sitting herself in front of the fire with Blind Seer next to her—the room promptly became suffused with the odor of damp dog—"I have a problem. Elation tell me that I am wanted back home."
"Home?" For a moment Derian was puzzled; then he understood. "You mean with the wolves?"
Firekeeper seemed pleased by his quick comprehension.
"Yes, with the wolves and…" She stopped, and Derian had the definite impression she was leaving something out.
"The Ones," he prompted.
She nodded. "Yes, the Ones. They wish to see me."
"Can't it wait until spring? Travel across the mountains is going to be difficult this time of year. Elation could carry a message, perhaps. It's easier for her."
The peregrine preened as if accepting his praise.
Firekeeper shook her head. "No. I am wanted now and if I not go, they may be angry. You not want me to make wolves angry, do you?"
"I don't," Derian agreed. He'd gotten used to Blind Seer, mostly by thinking of the wolf as a unique individual. The idea of an entire pack of such wolves was rather terrifying.
"Then I must go and you must help me talking."
"With the wolves?" Derian started, less than happy with this thought.
True, he'd planned to make a trip west—perhaps in the comfortably distant spring—in order to place markers on the graves of those who had been of Prince Barden's party. However, a trip when autumn would be wheeling into winter…
Firekeeper reassured him. "No, Fox Hair, not to the wolves, to the humans. I need to tell Sapphire I no be in wedding at Eagle's Nest. I need to tell Earl Kestrel, since he call me his ward and daughter." She sniffed slightly at this presumption. "I need to tell the king because he have been kind to me.
"I not worried about the king," she continued, "for he make no claim to me, but I worried about the earl and the princess."
Derian nodded. "As always, Firekeeper, you have put your finger on those who would be most likely to be offended. Let's see. If we see the king first and he gives his permission, the others could hardly deny it, but then they might be offended—as if you were pulling rank…"
He mused for a few moments. "I think I have it. You should see Princess Sapphire first, since the earl's immediate objection will be that you might offend her. When you get her permission, then you should see the earl. That way you can use the king as a reserve if either of them balk."
"Do you think they balk?" Firekeeper asked, her brow furrowed with worry.
"I think they might, initially," Derian replied honestly. "But I'll let you explain in your own words and stand by as backup."
"Be easier," Firekeeper grumbled as if to some comment Derian had not heard, "to just go, but then someone would be sent to look for me."
"Probably your humble kennel keeper," Derian said, pointing his thumb at his own chest, "with Race Forester as backup. Do us a favor and don't send us on such a chase. I know we couldn't find you if you didn't want to be found."
Firekeeper grinned agreement. "I make it easy on you then, Derian Fox Hair, even if it make it harder on me."
Although Crown Princess Sapphire and Crown Prince Shad had both been permitted out of bed, for now their freedom was restricted to the castle's main building—no stables, kennels, kitchens, storage buildings, or mews. Their guards didn't even want to let them outside the building, but Doc's insistence that fresh air and sunlight—pallid though the autumn sunlight was as it filtered through the mist from the bay—were needed for the pair's recovery to full health extended their parole to a few of the interior gardens.
However, by the time Firekeeper had told Derian her story and they had discussed their strategies, it was time to dress for dinner. After the dinner—really a formal banquet to honor the departing Hawk Haven nobles before sending them on their way—Sapphire found time to grant Firekeeper a private audience.
Shad was not with her, his time being even more in demand than hers since this was the kingdom where his father reigned. In any case, it was Shad's job to make himself visible to as many of the visitors as possible in order to quell rumors that he was ill or dying.
When Firekeeper, Blind Seer, and Derian were conducted into the crown princess's presence, the dark-haired beauty was in a mellow mood. Apparently, Derian thought, the much anticipated wedding night had been a success, nor had it hurt the proud, young woman's sense of well-being to be fawned over by the many who had much to gain by acquiring her favor.
Immediately upon their entry, Derian could tell that Firekeeper's bow—the same she offered to any but King Tedric—was not sufficiently deep and formal to please the princess. Apparently Sapphire's opinion of herself had changed over the last several days—or maybe, he thought, recalling how Sapphire had behaved during the trip from Eagle's Nest to Hope in the days before King Allister's Wal, maybe it was returning to where it had been before the shocks of being murderously assaulted, revolting against her mother's domination, and experiencing her first pitched battle had granted her greater perspective and humility.
And maybe, Derian added to himself, Sapphire doesn't like that she is not the heroine of that fracas in the Sphere Chamber. If anyone stood out from the crowd, it was Firekeeper. Sapphire has never cared to have her light dimmed by another's.
Firekeeper started speaking almost at once.
"Am glad to see you are strong again, Princess Sapphire," she said, and her tone was sincere.
Sapphire looked somewhat mollified.
"I have great favor to ask of you," Firekeeper continued. "Wish not to come to Hawk Haven and be at second wedding."
A gamut of emotions rippled across the princess's face: surprise, indignation, and, finally, something like scorn.
"I suppose," Sapphire said, her tone so expressionless as to constitute a gibe more pointed than open disapproval, "that you are afraid that there will be another attack."
"I no such afraid," Firekeeper replied without heat. "King Tedric too greatly value you to take such risk. Am sure will be careful guest-watching. Even if was assassin come," she added in admiring tones, "you should be match for all."
The little bitch is flattering her! Derian thought in astonishment. Though why that should surprise me I don't know. Isn't all thai jaw-licking, groveling, and backside-sniffing that I've seen dogs do a form of flattery? Wolves must do it too. I've let Firekeeper know that Sapphire has the potential to harm her and she's doing the equivalent of rolling over.
Sapphire also seemed startled. Almost certainly, knowing Firekeeper possessed a fighting spirit to match her own, she had expected gibe to be answered with gibe. Faced with no return shot, the princess was forced to ask:
"Why don't you want to take part in my second wedding?"
Firekeeper pulled a sad face. Again Derian was reminded, uncomfortably, of a dog.
"I have had message from home pack. I am wished there soonest, before winter closes the mountains to my feet. If I wait until after your next wedding, which is not to be until Boar Moon has nearly turned her face, then I should not be able to go as I am called."
Sapphire hadn't been raised by a domineering mother for nothing. She understood the compelling force of family summons. Nor did she wish to lessen herself in the eyes of the silently fascinated bodyguards who stood their posts—one near the door, one near the window—by asking just how Firekeeper had received this message from home.
Or maybe. Derian thought a touch grudgingly, she has somehow learned of Elation's return and put two and two together.
Mollified by Firekeeper's nearly begging her permission, Sapphire's haughty mien had softened.
"I accept that you are not afraid to attend this second wedding," she said, granting the concession graciously, "but I will be sorry not to have you present. Tales of your swift Fang will have preceded you and many will be disappointed not to see you at my side."
Though you won't mind having her out of the way, will you? Derian thought.
Derian had to swallow a grin. Firekeeper was handling this very well. It wouldn't do for him to queer her pitch.
"Then I have your permission, Crown Princess?" Firekeeper asked.
"And my wishes for a swift and safe journey," Sapphire replied. She added with the complete confidence of someone who knows she is offering a prize that cannot be claimed, "If you re-cross the mountains east before the wedding is concluded, please come to Eagle's Nest. There will be a place for you among my attendants."
Firekeeper bowed, more deeply this time, acknowledging Sapphire's kindness.
"When do you leave?" Sapphire asked, formal manner gone and only common curiosity remaining.
"Tonight, if I can speak with King Tedric and Earl Kestrel before, next night if not. It is better for Blind Seer if we go by darkness."
There was nothing groveling in the wolf-woman's manner now. She stood slim and proud, her hand lightly resting on Blind Seer's back. She spoke of a journey many days' travel to the west, into mountains already feeling the first fingers of winter, as if she were going around to the corner milliner's to buy ribbons for her hat.
Sapphire studied her, a trace of her guarded attitude returning.
"Good luck then. If your feet carry you into Hawk Haven again, you have my permission to call upon me."
And, Derian thought sardonically, you rather hope she doesn't take you up on that little invitation. Right, Princess?
Firekeeper accepted this dismissal. Derian made his own parting bow suitable for the occasion and Sapphire's perception of his rank. King Tedric could afford to chat informally with carters' sons, secure in his place. Sapphire—at least as of yet—was not confident enough.
As Derian had predicted, neither Earl Kestrel nor King Tedric presented Firekeeper with any obstacle to her departure. True, the earl asked many questions, including some rather pointed ones regarding the likelihood of his adopted daughter's return.
"I cannot know," Firekeeper replied honestly, "until I know what I am wished for. But I have found friends I care about in these east-lands and if nothing prevents me, I will come back."
King Tedric offered Firekeeper a much more sincere invitation than Sapphire's to call on him upon her return.
"For I believe that you will come back, dear child. If we are still alive, either myself or Elexa would welcome you quite warmly."
Firekeeper smiled at him and dipped into her deep bow rather more quickly than might have been expected. Derian, rising from his own bow, saw the tears that brightened her dark brown eyes.
In the end, though Earl Kestrel—through Valet—tried to press soft boots, warm clothes, food supplies, and even the use of Patience the grey gelding on Firekeeper, the only things that the wolf-woman would take with her were a good whetstone for her Fang, a canteen that could be strapped to her belt, and a small container of salve that Doc assured her would hasten healing of any of the cuts and braises she was certain to receive.
She already had her flint and steel and clearly considered herself well—even overly—equipped for her journey.
Derian walked Firekeeper to the castle gate and a few steps beyond, out of earshot of the guards.
"Please take the boots, Firekeeper," he said, holding out a pair and some thick socks. "I've seen the rocks at the lower reaches of the Barren Lands. During the war some of Bright Bay's scouts told tales about how sharp the rocks become higher up—sharp enough to cut thick leather."
Stubbornly, Firekeeper shook her head. "Boots rub my feet raw. Why not let rocks do what boots do?"
Derian gave up.
"Be careful, then," he said.
"Always."
Then, to Derian's astonishment, Firekeeper stood up on her toes and kissed him lightly on the cheek. It was a completely sexless act—like a kiss from a sister—but it touched his soul. As far as he could remember, the only person he had ever known her to kiss was Blind Seer.
The wolf, in turn, gave Derian the deep bow that he had heretofore reserved for King Tedric.
"Thank you, Fox Hair," Firekeeper said softly. "Without you to nursemaid me, I could never have become human. If I live, I promise to visit you again. If I die, Elation—or one of her kin—will be sworn to bring you my Fang as word."
Before Derian could find a reply the wolf-woman had turned and begun running. It should have been impossible on such a well-traveled road, even on a misty night, but before Derian could dash away the tears that suddenly welled hot in his eyes, Firekeeper and Blind Seer had vanished.

Chapter VIII

King Allister didn't know whether he was relieved or disturbed when the last of his high-ranking guests departed Revelation Point Castle.

He sincerely liked Uncle Tedric and Aunt Elexa, but he had never stopped worrying about their safety from the moment that fast-traveling post-riders had brought him the word that the king and queen had crossed the border into Bright Bay. Queen Elexa's fragile constitution was a matter of record, but that would not have helped Bright Bay if her health had failed while she was within the boundaries of a kingdom that so recently had been not simply a political rival, but a bitter enemy.
Nor was King Tedric's health much stronger, and the assassination attempt—though apparently directed at members of Allister's own household—had not made for a relaxing visit.
Someday, Allister thought, I will look back upon these unsettled times and smile at my fussing.
And now that the foreigners had left, King Allister had no doubt that the internal kingdom politicking would begin in force. He'd already had numerous private requests for favors. This morning would be the first time those claims could be pressed in public.
When the Hawk Haven party had been seen off with due pomp and circumstance, Allister proceeded to the Sphere Chamber. The room was cleaned now—all but the white carpet, which had defied all attempts to remove the bloodstain.
With a glow of the same inspiration that had made her a good household manager for a duke with no duchy, Pearl had insisted that when the carpet was dry it be rolled and stored in the main treasure vault to be brought out on the anniversary of the attempt as a reminder "of the blood spilled to make this kingdom strong."
Never mind that much of the blood belonged to the assassins—the symbolism was good.
The Sphere Chamber had been remodeled into its usual business mode. Ornate carved screens divided the rounded central dais into two halves. Behind the screens, clerks and secretaries could do their tasks without impeding majesty. In front, an imposing but surprisingly comfortable throne had been placed for Allister along with several good—but definitively not throne-like—chairs for Pearl, Shad, and Sapphire should they choose to attend morning business.
Pearl would not. She had told Allister that she had her hands full doing a steward's job—in this case finding permanent replacements for the staff Valora had taken with her. Those servants hired in preparation for the wedding now wanted their positions—and wages—formalized. Those borrowed needed to be returned.
The servants from Pearl and Allister's former household could fill only so many positions at the royal castle—most were needed to maintain their former estate. Allister was not giving up the place, modest as it might seem by the family's current standard of living.
At the very least, the estate could provide an inheritance for Tavis or one of the twins. Pearl might need it as a dower house if Allister predeceased her. He had no illusions that Sapphire might prove a difficult daughter-in-law. In a worst-case scenario, he might need it as a retreat himself.
As today was the first return to business as usual since the wedding, King Allister did not expect a quiet day. Still, he was somewhat surprised at the number of people waiting in the seats fronting the dais. This would almost certainly mean his afternoon would be filled with private appointments, for not everyone would want to discuss their business in front of a crowd.
Swallowing a nostalgic sigh for those days when he could count on hours to himself for reading or riding about his lands—or even playing with the children—King Allister mounted to his throne. As he had expected, both Shad and Sapphire joined him. He was pleased they were looking so well. When he had seen them first placed in the makeshift infirmary, pale from pain and loss of blood, he had dreaded that neither would survive.
A former undersecretary of Queen Gustin IV, promoted to Chief Court Clerk because of his familiarity with Bright Bay's royal rituals, made the usual announcements and then came to the king's side.
Although Allister had no plans to dispense with the services of the woman who had been his personal secretary for many years, he thought he could have done worse than this young man. A junior scion of House Seal—something like the second son of the current duchess's youngest sister—he did not even bear a title.
His given name was Bevan, a frequent appellation in that particular house; however, he had asked the king to call him "Calico," a nickname he had been given because of several large brown birthmarks that spread unattractively over his face and hands—and for all the king knew, over other parts of his body as well. Allister admired Calico's courage in embracing his deformity rather than attempting to deny it. It spoke well for his ability to see things as they were.
Bowing to the king and his heirs with just the right degree of deference, Calico said, his tone pitched for their ears alone:
"Grand Duchess Seastar Seagleam has requested the first audience. She is not here yet, so should I move to the next order of business?"
Allister thought for a moment. He knew his aunt. She would take offense at being skipped, even if the fault was her own. Gustin III's younger sister was rather sensitive about being passed over. She might even have timed her arrival specifically in order to create a scene.
"Let us give the grand duchess a moment more. Hand me a stack of papers and send a runner you can trust to be discreet to learn if she is on her way."
They had barely begun this subterfuge when the grand duchess, accompanied by her son, Dillon, swept into the Sphere Chamber.
So she did hope to cause a scene, Allister thought. A point to the navy, rather than the pirates.
He perused the documents and then gestured Calico to him.
"I believe you may begin the regular order of business now," the king said, permitting his clerk to see just a hint of a smile.
Calico remained the soul of perfect decorum as he moved to the desk set to one side of the dais.
"King Allister of the Pledge," he announced in a booming voice that hinted at herald's training in his past, "is pleased to recognize the Grand Duchess Seastar Seagleam."
Seastar Seagleam was about the same age as King Tedric and, like him, she showed her years. Those years had marked her in a different fashion. Where Tedric was a bent old eagle, she possessed an upright, if stiff, posture. The grand duchess's wrinkled skin was powdered, giving it a translucent glow. Like many of her age and generation, she wore a wig, but it was not tinted to make her appear younger. She wore the white of age with a dignity that made it seem a crown.
She rose with grace rather than speed and swept up to the dais, eschewing her usual cane of carved rosewood for her son's arm.
A good move that, the king thought. It permits her to bring Dillon to the fore without my express permission.
Lord Dillon Pelican—unlike Allister himself before his coronation, he bore his father's name rather than his royal-born mother's—handed his mother onto the dais and took one of the seats left empty in the front row of petitioners.
Grand Duchess Seastar had remained at Revelation Point Castle when most of the guests departed. Allister had no illusions that she had done so out of loyalty to himself or belief in his dreams. Indeed, for many years, while Gustin III had remained childless, the grand duchess had imagined that she herself or one of her sons would ascend to the throne of Bright Bay.
Valora's birth comparatively late in her father's reign had not immediately dashed Seastar's hopes. Children do die, or are awarded regents if they take the throne at too young an age.
Only when Valora had assumed the throne did Seastar swallow her dreams, and by all reports that had been a bitter draught. Now, with the restructuring of Bright Bay, her ambitions had awakened again. Her son Culver had borne the title Crown Prince—though no one but his mother had expected he had a chance for the throne. Valora was young and healthy and would certainly bear an heir. Indeed, Culver himself had done little agitating for power. He was a strong sailor and had gone from a respectable career in the navy to captaining a merchant vessel.
Allister rather liked his cousin Culver, but he was less certain about Dillon. Dillon had all his mother's ambition and little of his brother's drive. He also possessed good political sense—a potentially dangerous trait, for it meant he could see his own advantage and would be willing to be used by others.
All of this sped through Allister's thoughts in the time it took for Grand Duchess Seastar to progress to the dais and make her deep curtsy to the throne.
"Nephew," she began, and Allister knew she used the title to remind any who might forget her relation to the throne, "in a few days' time you will be departing Bright Bay to attend Crown Prince Shad's second wedding in Hawk Haven."
She managed to say "second wedding" with an intonation that made the affair seem vaguely scandalous. From the corner of his eye, Allister saw Sapphire bristle slightly—perhaps believing herself safe since the grand duchess was turned in such a way that she could not see how her barb had hit home. Dillon was watching, though, and he would report.
I must find a tactful way to speak to Sapphire about hiding her reactions. They run too close to the surface and, whether likes or dislikes, they can be used against her—and against my son.
"That is so," Allister replied mildly.
"And when you depart, your heir apparent will depart with you."
"He must," Allister said, managing to time his words so they were not quite an interruption, "as it is his wedding."
There was a light flutter of laughter at this, enough to discommode the grand duchess for a breath's pause.
The king reflected, Doubtless she was about to say something such as "and the Princess Sapphire will also be gone," underlining the absence of those in immediate line for the throne. I think I see where she is heading. Unhappily, she is in for a shock.
Old hand at politics that she was, Grand Duchess Seastar regained her poise without much difficulty. She had grown accustomed to Allister's self-effacing manner when he was merely Allister Seagleam. The twenty-some days that had passed since his formal coronation had not been enough to reeducate her, but the king had no doubt she would not forget again.
"With you and your heirs away not only from the capitol but from the kingdom," the old lady continued, "the question has arisen as to who will hold the reins in your absence."
"I thank you, Grand Duchess Seastar," Allister replied, carefully not omitting her title, "for raising a matter that I had planned on addressing myself. In my absence, I have appointed two of Bright Bay's nobles to act as joint regents."
Seastar frowned slightly. She had heard nothing of this, but then Allister had sworn the parties concerned to absolute silence—a thing they were more than willing to do given the favor he was showing them.
"Duke Dolphin and Earle Oyster will act as regents in my place. I had thought to ask my father-in-law, Duke Oyster, to act as regent, but he begged for permission to travel to his grandson's wedding—a return of the courtesy that so many of Hawk Haven's noble houses accorded us by sending their representatives here."
That stung! Allister thought, smothering a certain boyish glee. Aunt Seastar never offered to make the journey to Hawk Haven herself, nor even to send either Dillon or Culver. She was too eager to have them here to profit from my absence to realize that she was acting less than the great lady she wishes to be thought.
"Duke Dolphin has graciously agreed to send his wife and heir to the festivities in his stead. Although he is not a young man, his health is unquestioned and with Earle Oyster as his deputy, he will have someone on hand should pirate trouble arise."
By common euphemism any naval trouble was assigned to pirates, though many times it had its inception in Waterland or other, more distant, sea powers. It beat declaring war.
And I expect that when good sailing weather comes again, Allister thought, Valora's fleet will add to the number of "pirates" combing the waters.
Grand Duchess Seastar, who had clearly meant to gracefully offer herself or her son as regent, recovered with a swiftness that did her credit.
"Your thoughtfulness in this important matter," she said with a somewhat forced smile, "is appreciated. Having heard no announcement of the regency, I had mistakenly supposed that the excitement of Crown Prince Shad's wedding had driven such relatively distant matters from your mind."
Allister gave her a gracious nod, resisting the automatic impulse to bow to her as he had all his life.
"I had intended to make the announcement tomorrow. Today was filled enough with the departure of our fellow monarchs. Still, I thank you from the depths of my heart for your concern for the safety and stability of our realm."
The grand duchess dipped a curtsy and took her leave. As Calico called the next order of business—a report from the Illustrious Commissioner who had charge of roads—King Allister mused:
Well, Aunt Seastar's going to be upset, but even so she cannot blame me. Oyster has been my firmest support from the start and Dolphin is still eager to repay Gustin's lineage for the insult Gustin III gave their house by divorcing Lady Brina. As fine as Grand Duchess Seastar's titles are, I must conciliate my Great Houses before worrying about lesser nobles.
Then he turned his full attention to the road commissioner's report. This particular commissioner was of Lobster blood, if he recalled correctly. Her house had been the most fragmented by the recent upheavals and clearly she was making certain that her new king would have no doubts where her loyalties lay—with Bright Bay, which had entrusted her with care of its central road network. If Allister was careful and courteous, he could turn that abstract loyalty into one to himself, personally.
Allister leaned forward slightly to demonstrate his attention, took a few notes, smiled at a particularly salient point.
Shad and Sapphire sat side by side, also listening. Their expressions were set but attentive, their fingers—off where they thought them hidden from sight—were discreetly intertwined.

Chapter IX

Even when they did so, Allister had known that he and Uncle Tedric had been pushing the limits of probability when they had set the date for the second wedding for a mere fifteen days after the first. Still, there had been little choice in the matter.

Boar Moon shone down on late autumn, a time when the early harvest had already been gathered and most farmers were turning their energies to preparing for the first snowfalls. In the northern parts of Hawk Haven, he had heard, there would be snow before the moon finished waning. Bright Bay was enough farther south and her climate was so influenced by the great bay at her heart that winter took a bit longer growing severe, but once the cold set in it always seemed reluctant to let go.
The first wedding had taken place on the twenty-second day of Lynx Moon, about as soon after King Allister's coronation as was reasonable, given the distances some of the guests were required to travel. The second wedding, therefore, could not be scheduled any sooner than the ninth day of Boar Moon.
After the assassination attempt, Allister and King Tedric had discussed delaying the wedding a few more days, but they had decided against it. Already they were tempting the forces that ruled wind and rain; to delay further would tempt cold as well. Moreover, Hawk Haven was farther north. The capital, at Eagle's Nest, lay somewhat closer to the mountains.
Yet if they did not hold the wedding in early Boar Moon, it must be delayed until winter had released its grip on the land and the worst of spring's rains were past—late Horse Moon or even Puma Moon.
True, a hardy group might actually travel more swiftly once the snow was on the ground and wheels could be exchanged for sled runners, but it would take a deep freeze indeed to ice over the Barren, and King Allister had no wish to trust his loved ones to a semifrozen river rife with ice floes.
Moreover, much as he loved her, he was the first to admit—perhaps second after Pearl herself—that his wife was not a hardy traveler. Women Pearl's age still commanded ships or rode to battle—she was just past forty, after all—but Pearl Oyster was not of that type. She was a settled noblewoman who never rode if there was a carriage to hand, had never sailed for herself since her sons had grown eager to take the lines, and rejoiced in a well-managed household.
The twins were still slim girl-children, as light and delicate as the fish and flower for which they were named. Minnow and Anemone might start out finding a multiday sleigh trip exciting. (Even with perfect conditions, they couldn't hope to cover the necessary distance in less than four days.) By the end they would be shivering and miserable, their noses bright red and running, hardly the perfect appearance for maiden wedding attendants.
But as much as King Allister loved his family—and he did so with the open heart of an unambitious man who had never needed to dream his children into anything more than the people they were—it had not been consideration for them or their needs that had made him urge King Tedric to let the wedding remain on its scheduled day.
It had been politics.
A delay until even Horse Moon—if the roads were not sodden with mud—would give the schemers half a year to plan and plot. Rumors would be spread that the wedding had been delayed because the truce was weakening, because Shad and Sapphire had grown to hate each other, because one or both were ill.
In winter, rumors spread with the speed of a skater across the ice and grew around firesides like exotic plants in a New Kelvinese hothouse. Half a year of rumors could destroy his reign more neatly than an assassin's dagger. Best instead that they go ahead and finish the formalities.
Shad and Sapphire would winter in Hawk Haven as planned—King Tedric's age and health made it unwise for his heirs to be too far away when they might be needed. In return, several of the younger members of Hawk Haven's court would winter in Bright Bay. Allister knew that Sapphire was hoping that one or more of her younger sisters would be among that number, but Lady Melina's recent behavior made that uncertain.
Our young guests won't be hostages, Allister thought with grim humor, not really, not quite, but that won't stop those who think the worst of rulers from seeing them as such.
So it was that on the second day of Boar Moon, King Al•lister and a fairly sizable entourage prepared to depart from Revelation Point Castle. In the back of his mind, Allister was aware that King Tedric and his party would not yet have arrived home—and that they would not until just a few days before their guests.
Since the trip out from Eagle's Nest had taken King Tedric's party six days, Allister had hoped that his group—which after all contained no invalids—could do it in less.
One look at the long train of horses and carriages, baggage wagons and overburdened mules quenched that hope. Allister had not been king long enough to feel he could do as he desired—stride down that line like a captain inspecting his officers and strip those traveling with him down to bare essentials.
Don't forget, Allister, he told himself, that they are making a brave venture into enemy territory. They'll want to make a good show, put on their best finery for our new allies. Don't ruin their pride.
Shad, still holding his left shoulder somewhat stiffly, rode up beside Allister.
"Don't worry, Father," he said, his words for the king alone. "We'll make it there no later than the evening of the seventh. Sapphire and I have discussed tactics, and have decided that we'll ride to the point, keeping up the pace and shaming those who would go too easy."
Allister chuckled.
"You can do that where I can't," he admitted. "You're still touched with the glamour of your newlywed state."
"And what better way," the prince added, showing that he too had been thinking of how vulnerable their position was, "to quell any rumors that Sapphire and I might not like either each other or this arranged marriage than to be urging everyone on?"
"You're a good son," Allister said almost complacently.
"And Sapphire is a fine wife!" Shad nearly glowed in his enthusiasm.
Allister followed the direction of Shad's gaze and saw his new daughter-in-law swinging into her horse's saddle. Gone was the elegant bride, gone the pale invalid. Here was the warrior whose appearance had enchanted the troops fighting before the walls of Good Crossing. Today she didn't wear armor or sword, only a hunting knife at her belt, but her steed was the mighty Blue she had ridden into war.
The Blue was actually a pale grey, but Lady Melina's desire that her children be clad and accoutered in keeping with the theme of their names had extended to horses. If there were no blue horses, then one must be created—in this case, by means of dye.
When the Blue had been relocated some days after the final battle of King Allister's War—he had fled during a particularly bad press—Sapphire had reclaimed him, treated his wounds, and then permitted her mount to go back to his former color. To her evident delight, the Blue's mane and tail turned out to be a smoky blue-grey, quite striking against his paler coat—and an ample reminder of his former gaudy glory.
"Lead on, son," Allister said. "Gather up your lady and tell whoever Whyte has assigned to point guard that we're to get under way. There's no better way to convince the stragglers to stop straggling than to give them no choice."
Shad trotted his own mount—a dark bay with off stockings white almost to the knee—to join Sapphire. Allister accepted a hand up into the carriage that had been prepared for him. Later, he would ride up and down the line, visiting with his companions and consolidating his reign a bit more. However, he had agreed with Whyte Steel's recommendation that to begin the journey in that fashion would be to invite trouble.
And not just from assassins—if any are about, Allister thought. Too many would press for the honor of riding in my vicinity. The main roads of Silver Whale Cove are wide, but we'd bottleneck them just the same.
For the first several days of their journey the weather remained clement and the king kept to his resolve to mix with his entourage as much as possible. The autumn air was crisp and his mount—a sorrel with the undignified name of Hot Toddy—was smooth-gaited at both walk and trot. Toddy's canter was like flying, but Allister rarely had the excuse to press the horse that fast.
Instead he rode at easy pace, always dogged by one or more riders—even if his own court had not taken advantage of the king's availability, Whyte Steel would not have left him unprotected. Nor were the members of his own entourage the only ones who sought to get close. The passage of the royal group from Hawk Haven had not quelled the enthusiasm of those who lived anywhere at all near the road for spectacle.
So many people crowded the verges, especially whenever the group passed near a town or village, that Allister idly wondered who precisely was left to get in the harvest. If the baskets of hand-polished apples and other fresh goods—from pastries to eggs—they were offered were any indication, it had been a good harvest, despite the fighting farther west.
They were forced to turn away many of the gifts, or no people, only groceries, would have arrived in Hawk Haven for the wedding. Still, at night when the temperatures dropped, Allister found himself glad for a mug of hot cider to warm his insides.
The day after they crossed the Barren at Rock Fort and left Broadview behind them, the weather turned ugly. Rain washed down in torrents, turning the packed road sticky with mud. The sailors among them pulled out foul-weather gear and rode on as if this were nothing more than a squall at sea. Sea chanties were bellowed out to answer the force of the wind until even the horses seemed encouraged.
Uncle Tedric should be home by now, Allister thought as he guided Hot Toddy around the puddles. He'd long ago left the singing to those with better voices and fallen to daydreaming about what awaited them in a day or two more. And there will be fires blazing in all the hearths and thick quilts on the beds.
That evening, when they made camp in a farmer's barns, Whyte Steel reported to the king that the people much admired his fortitude and noble bearing against the elements.
"They're saying that you contemplate great matters of state," the guard captain said, "and so ride as if through a soft spring day."
Allister laughed. Truly the mystique and aura of a king held a unique power if it could make people believe such nonsense.
"Don't tell them, Whyte," he said, still laughing. "I'm just sealing my lips to keep from drinking rain by the gallon."
"I won't," Whyte replied with frightening sincerity. "I most certainly will not."

Chapter X

When Firekeeper awoke the next dawn, there was frost on the grass and the lake waters nearest to her were rimed with ice. She, however, was quite comfortable—reluctant indeed to leave her warm nest against Blind Seer's flank. Embers from her fire still glowed. She vaguely recalled waking just enough to add a bit of wood, but the stack she had made the night before was almost gone. Had she used that much wood?

Answering the question written on the wolf-woman's thought-wrinkled brow, Elation swooped down from her perch in a nearby tree and picked up one of the chunks of wood as lightly as if it had been a rabbit. With artistic control, the peregrine dropped it onto the embers, fanning them into a blaze with the wind beneath her wings. Young flames licked the dry wood and caught easily.
"So I nursemaided you through the night," Elation squawked. "Bee Biter has flown ahead to tell the others of your coming. When will you be ready to begin?"
Blind Seer rose and stretched. Without his blanketing warmth, Firekeeper was happy enough to leap to her feet and jog in place to get her blood running.
"Food," she hinted, whining in the fashion of a very small pup, "would be welcome if the great lady of the air could bring me some. I am as hollow as a bear-stripped bee tree."
"I have anticipated your need," Elation replied, not quite boasting, "and your breakfast hangs in the tree."
Breakfast proved to be another rabbit. Firekeeper skinned and gutted it, tossing the offal to Blind Seer, who snapped it down in a single gulp before racing off to find himself something more substantial.
Doubtless Earl Kestrel would not have found fire-seared rabbit a suitable repast for his adopted daughter, but Firekeeper was well satisfied. The sky had not lost dawn's pink before she was fed, washed, and ready to go.
"Below," she said, admiring the view east from their vantage, "the clouds are like sheep on a well-chewed pasture. Here the sun is bright and warming."
She blew her breath before her, laughing at the white puff it made in the chill air.
Crossing the Barren River proved to be a matter of leaping from rock to rock. It was not an easy task. Many of the rocks had not yet been smoothed by the action of the waters; some rocked, though they had seemed firm to the test. Both wolf and woman were splashed by the icy waters rushing through the narrow channels between the rocks, but neither quite fell in.
On the other side, they shook themselves as dry as possible. Privately, Firekeeper missed just a bit the thick towels she had used at the castle. As she dried off, she noticed that the water beaded on the oiled leather of her breeches and vest. Her skin, by contrast, beaded from cold where the water had splashed it.
A fair enough trade, Firekeeper thought, enjoying the whimsy of the image.
Once she was as dry as she could get within her limited means, Firekeeper fell into the easy jog of a traveling wolf. Giving his coat one more great shake, Blind Seer dashed away from the ensuing shower of spray.
As they ran, they set their course somewhat away from the shore of the lake, for the footing near the water varied, inviting a twisted ankle or trapped paw. Here there was dark, glittering sand ground from the rock, there heaps of brambles or branches tossed up by the waters.
Everywhere there were chunks of basalt. Many of these were deceptively rounded and smooth, but Firekeeper had learned that their bubbled edges chewed into skin like small teeth. Where the rock had more recently broken, it was often straight-edged and sharp.
Farther from the lakeshore, however, there was mountain meadow and beyond that forest. Running felt good after the past several days of creeping and climbing. The kinks in the wolf-woman's muscles smoothed out and the dry grass underfoot felt like a carpet after the sharp stones of the Barren River Canyon.
Wolf-like, she didn't brood about the inevitable descent. That would be dealt with in its time. Nor did she brood about the summons from the Royal Beasts. Elation had assured her that if they pushed on past dark they could round the lake before the next dawn. Pushing forward, therefore, was what the wolf-woman concentrated on. The answers would come of themselves and time.
Several times they stopped to rest and nap. Firekeeper ate only lightly, accepting what Elation brought her with humble groveling. Elation's finds were worth the thanks, indeed. . Although the peregrine herself ate nothing but flesh—and that preferably not only warm but still pulsing with the life of the creature that had grown it—Elation had made herself a scholar of human tastes. Twice she brought chunks of honeycomb, clotted with crystallized sugar. Once she brought a tattered bunch of wild grapes, tart and juicy. Nuts were awkward for the falcon to carry, but after Firekeeper cobbled her a sack from a still damp rabbit hide, the falcon brought them in such quantity that Firekeeper found herself wondering what squirrel would starve that winter.
The wolf-woman spared little sympathy for the squirrel, but cracked the nutshells in her fist or between her jaws as she ran.
Day dimmed into dusk. The night sky darkened and then gleamed with hard, white stars. The moon rose, thin now, but fattening. At last a shifting wind brought Firekeeper the scents of many beasts gathered together. From the depths of the forest, a pale white form bounded to meet them at the tree line's edge.
"Mother!" Firekeeper howled in delight.
She rolled on the ground at the silver wolf's feet, rubbing her head against the she-wolf's jaw and whining in an ingratiating fashion. The wolf gaped open her jaws in a fashion a human would have found alarming. No food came forth, but Firekeeper, who had often been fed this way, reached inside the fanged jaws and touched the lolling tongue.
"Mother," she repeated, more quietly.
The she-wolf licked her, then licked Blind Seer, who rubbed against the silver wolf, almost knocking her off her feet with the force of his greeting.
"You've grown," said the One Female approvingly, "as has Little Two-legs. The hunting is good east of the mountains?"
Blind Seer gave a short barking laugh. "It could be. Not only are there deer and elk and rabbits, but the humans keep creatures they make stupid so that they can control them. Horses are not bad—some of them have spirit—but sheep and chickens beg to be eaten. What threat is a cow, especially when she has had her horns sawn off, or a bull once he's been gelded?"
"You hunted such?" The One Female's tone mixed curiosity and a certain degree of disgust—or maybe envy.
"No," Blind Seer drawled. "Instead, humans trembling in fear of my size and power carried already killed meat to me on sheets of beaten metal. I grew fat without effort—and would have grown fatter but for the need to watch over sweet Firekeeper."
Firekeeper snorted and punched the blue-eyed wolf in the shoulder. She glanced from side to side, sniffing the air.
"Is the One Male with you, Mother?"
"No. He remained to mind the pack. The puppies are growing both bold and stupid. We did not dare leave them with only the lesser wolves to discipline them."
The next moments passed as the One Female brought them up to date on the status of their pack—a fairly large one, as the hunting in their territory was good and the Ones wise leaders. A yearling had broken his back in a fall. A two-year-old had dispersed and was reported to be hunting with a single male to the northwest. Two of last spring's puppies had died: one of a fever or some poison, another from tangling too boldly with an elk.
"Elk do have horns—or rather antlers," the One Female commented mildly, "and none of his birth siblings will forget that lesson."
Firekeeper nodded somberly. She had experienced such losses before. A Royal Wolf pack did not produce pups every year as did the Cousins, but if its size diminished, the answering urge replied. In all her life with the wolves, she could only recall two years—and one of those dimly—that there had not been pups in the spring, and never once had every member of a litter survived into the following spring.
"Others wait," the One Female said, turning the conversation away from family matters, "to meet you and speak with you. Would you rest first?"
Firekeeper considered. "What do you advise?"
"Cry sleep," the One Female said promptly. "Bee Biter reported when you began this day's run. None will doubt that you are tired."
"I am, most honestly," Firekeeper admitted, smothering a yawn behind her hand.
"Then rest," the One Female said. "If you need food, I will hunt for you. Best that you face these questioners with a clear mind and full belly."
Blind Seer growled as at a faintly scented danger.
"Mother, they don't intend to harm Firekeeper, do they? I must warn you, if they have summoned her so far only to hurt her, I will spill their blood and all of mine if that is what is needed to defend her."
The One Female nipped him lightly on his left ear.
"Foolish pup! Do you think I would have nurtured Little Two-legs only to give her to enemies when she finally learned to hunt on her own? No, they don't intend to harm her, but they are worried, and worried creatures have tempers sharper than a winter thorn tree."
Blind Seer relaxed, content with his mother's reassurance.
"Still, I believe I will not leave Firekeeper's side."
"Sleep hungry then," the One Female said, approval in the slow wag of her tail, "and sleep lightly."
Elation, waiting unheeded all this time in a tree above their heads, called down:
"I will tell them that Firekeeper will be rested when next dusk comes. You wolves sleep well."
"You've made a friend of that bird," the One Female said after Elation had flown off. "A good thing. Perhaps you should make other friends among her kind. It would be useful."
"Why, Mother?" Firekeeper asked.
No answer came. Instead, the she-wolf curled herself into a ball, making a nest for herself among the dead leaves at the base of a tree.
Firekeeper stared at the One Female for a long moment. Then she shrugged acceptance of her silence.
Going to the lakeside to wash and drink, the wolf-woman was aware of shadowy figures bulking large against the trees a short distance away. From them she caught wisps of scents that should not be blended. These watchers did not trouble her, nor did she greet them.
Rejoining the wolves, Firekeeper rested herself against Blind Seer's side. Even though she lay cradled between the wolves' great bodies she felt cold, chilled from within by apprehension of what the dawn would bring.
Her fears followed her into sleep.
The wedding. Assassins surge out of the gathered throng. Firekeeper's heart squeezes tight in her chest, tighter than the gown that tangles her feet as she tries to move.
Move she must. Blind Seer's warning echoes in her ears. To fail would be to fail not these kings and queens, not these nobles and diplomats, but to fail him—he who has trusted her to hear his cry and be his hands and feet.
"She must live. Someday we will have a need of her."
The Sphere Chamber is transformed, become King Tedric's field pavilion. Once again, Firekeeper circles round and round, her blood trailing only slightly behind her. Prince Newell laughs mockingly. Then he is dead.
Firekeeper wants to rest, but the assassins are near. They want Sapphire and Shad. She alone stands between them. "Someday we will have a need of her." They must live. Someone has a need of them.
She raises her head, claws through the fog that enshrouds her mind, focuses on the assassins. For a moment, their features become clear.
She knows them. They are her friends.

Chapter XI

Derian had not been invited to attend either the banquet or the ball the day before the wedding, but he did not feel slighted. Those grand events were mostly for the guests who had traveled a fair distance to attend the wedding. He was at home. Home, however, was not proving as relaxed and comfortable a place as he might have wished. It wasn't that his parents didn't make a big fuss over his achievements. It was precisely that they did.
"Deri," his mother said to him one evening after dinner a few days following his return home, "your father and I need to speak with you—in private. Shall we use my office?"
Despite her framing the last as a question, Derian knew an order when he heard one. So did Brock. The little boy looked wickedly delighted.
"Oh! Derian's in trouble! Derian's in trouble! If he's smart he'll run on the double!"
Brock's impromptu rhyming—amusing only when it wasn't directed at you—was cut short by a barked command from Colby Carter.
"Enough, Brock! Obviously, you're overtired. To bed with you, my lad, and don't spare the soap when washing. Damita…" This last was directed toward the thirteen-year-old, who was looking on with an expression of pleased superiority. "… make certain Brock washes above his cuffs and around the back of his neck."
"Yes, Father." Damita looked delighted to have an excuse to boss her younger brother.
"But, Father!" Brock began with the faintest hint of a whine. "I'm not…"
"Tired or not," Colby cut in, "it's bed for you. Any more arguments and I'll ban you from the stables tomorrow."
Brock swallowed his protests immediately. The next day promised to be busy and exciting. Numerous noble visitors to the city—and even better, in Brock's opinion, their horses—were expected to arrive.
Other important people had rented carriages to take them to the castle for the introductory banquet or had ordered that the vehicles and teams they kept at Prancing Steed Stables be polished and prepared for use. Brock had been anticipating a day of running hither and yon, making himself "useful." Being banned from the stables would mean remaining at home and doing his lessons under his mother's critical supervision.
Derian sympathized with the boy, his momentary annoyance at being teased vanishing. At that moment, he wouldn't have minded being sent to bed himself. He'd spent the last few days working over at the stables, and his muscles ached from the unaccustomed labor involved in mucking out stall after stall.
Today had been particularly busy because, in addition to all the other traffic, Steward Silver had sent all the castle's overflow to Prancing Steed Stables. Derian knew this was meant as a compliment to him—one of the small benefits of being a king's counselor—but after the huge train from Bright Bay arrived, late and muddy from bad weather on the road, he would have been just as happy to have seen the business go elsewhere and go home to the fresh bread and bean soup he knew Cook had planned for that night's dinner.
Whenever Derian closed his eyes, all he could see were hooves needing to be cleaned, and every flank and mane he'd groomed that day—not to mention other, less lovely stuff.
Derian's eyes had drifted closed while Colby scolded Brock, but he was thrust from the edges of drowsiness by the heat of a mug of cider pressed into his hands.
Vernita stood over him, the amusement in her expression tinged with severity.
"Shall we go to my office?" she said.
Vernita Carter had been considered one of the great beauties of her day, and even after bearing three children she retained a certain elegance. With his increased knowledge—gained largely from conversations with Ninette—of the arts gentle-born women used to maintain and enhance their own appearances, Derian thought that his mother could still put any woman her age to shame if she cared.
But Vernita Carter didn't care—at least not on a day-to-day basis. She had passed over several quite interesting proposals of marriage to accept one from Colby Carter. Together they had built the small carting business he had taken over from his parents into a concern with stables in most of the major towns and villages of Hawk Haven.
Colby's parents now lived in semiretirement in Port Haven, managing the stables there with Colby's younger sister. Vernita's mother—her father had died some years ago—managed the stables in Broadview. Numerous other relatives benefitted from various aspects of the business—either as independent affiliates or as direct employees. And Derian stood to inherit the entire operation someday.
I'm glad, Derian thought as he settled into a chair in his mother's office and looked at the neat stacks of contracts and other documents on the tables and desks, that I won't be expected to take over for a long while yet. I don't know half of what is involved in something this complicated. I know a good horse and how to avoid the obvious swindles, but I'm glad that I won't be in charge for a long, long time.
It never occurred to him until his parents brought up the subject that he might not take over at all.
"It's not," Colby hastened to say, "that we'd be disinheriting you, son, not at all. Simply put, you have prospects that your younger brother and sister do not."
Derian frowned. "Prospects?"
Vernita looked impatient.
"Derian, you're smarter than this. Think! Your nineteenth birthday is next week. Already you have been made a king's counselor."
"The king is old!" Derian protested. "Sapphire doesn't think much of me—doesn't think anything of me as far as I know."
"Nonsense," Vernita snapped. "Son, think about what you just did. You said 'Sapphire,' speaking of the crown princess by her first name not with irreverence, but with the casualness of close contact."
"I'd never" Derian said, "speak so to her face."
"Of course not. You're not a fool, but you might to someone else—say Lady Archer—and, more importantly, Lady Archer would not think you were taking liberties."
"Lady Elise," Derian said, "has her head on straight. She doesn't go for false pomp."
"But don't you see, Derian," Vernita persisted. "You know her well enough to know that. Many of the nobles of your generation are not strangers to you. The nobles belonging to your father and my generation know that King Tedric selected you as a counselor. Whether or not the crown princess also selects you doesn't matter right now. You can use that favor to find yourself other patrons. Then, even if the crown princess does not offer you the counselor's ring, you will benefit."
"And," Colby added weightily, "your brother and sister will be secure.
"I don't know," Colby continued, stretching his legs out toward the hearth, and speaking with the deliberation of a man who preferred not to make speeches, "if you realize how much business your connections brought to us these last few days. We don't have a spare stall. I sent business to Tolken Farrier and his sister—and they're paying me for the privilege. We'll make the price of the new buildings in just this next week."
Vernita ruffled through a stack of papers until she came up with one on which she'd drawn columns.
"This is my estimate of how much business we would have taken in without your connections," she said. "I based my figures on how we've done during major festivals these last five years."
"And the important thing is," Colby added as Derian scanned the columns, "that if we do a good job for these people—as we will—many of them will return to our stables again and again. They'll seek out our affiliates in other towns."
"All because of me?" Derian asked hesitantly.
"Not quite," Vernita replied kindly, "but because of you, we were given the chance to show our services to these people. You gave us exposure that otherwise would have taken us years to gain through word of mouth."
Derian stared at the figures on the sheet of paper. His mother had drummed enough mathematics into him that he could see the sense in them.
"Then what do you want me to do?" he asked, setting the paper down and wrapping his fingers around his mug of cider.
"Take one of the positions you have been offered," Vernita said. "Earl Kestrel's continued patronage would be useful. He'll be Duke Kestrel before too long. The duchess's health is good, but her years are against her. His son, Lord Kestrel, is about your age and if you make a good impression with him, you will be secure for life."
Vernita rose and stirred the fire. "That's one course, a good, safe one. However, you could take a position with someone else for a time. Didn't you say that Earle Peregrine spoke with you?"
"Her steward did," Derian admitted, "though the nature of the post was unclear."
"And you said that one of Bright Bay's nobles had spoken with you," Colby prompted.
"Not directly," Derian said, "but one of Duke Oyster's people did mention that they will be needing someone to act as liaison between the kingdoms, smoothing the way for reunification."
He regretted the cheerful boasting he'd done immediately after his return home. His parents had taken that information in a direction he hadn't considered.
"Oyster," Vernita said, "that's Queen Pearl's birth house, correct?"
"Yes, ma'am," Derian said.
"And the firmest supporter of King Allister," she added.
"Yes, ma'am."
"I saw," Colby added relentlessly, "how many of the Bright Bay people knew you by sight and greeted you warmly. You have obviously made the type of impression we had hoped our son would make."
Derian groaned. Setting down the now empty mug, he thrust his face into his hands.
"I need to think," he said, hearing to his dismay a wail not unlike Brock's in his voice. "I'd never considered any of this. I knew you wanted me to make connections, but I always thought I'd simply make a decent marriage and come home again. This…"
He trailed off and was both comforted and embarrassed to feel his mother patting his arm.
"There, there, Deri," his mother crooned. "I know it is a great deal to take in."
"And never," Colby said, "think we're throwing you out, but we have hopes for you beyond mucking stalls."
Derian nodded weakly. "I know."
That night his dreams were not restful and late the next afternoon when the worst of the rush was over—for the guests were all gone to the banquet—he asked his father to be excused.
Colby agreed so readily that Derian knew he felt a bit guilty about the pressure they'd put on him.
Derian pulled a knitted wool cap over his hair and hunched himself into a barn coat. Then he went out to walk the streets of the city that had always been his home—and that he had always believed would continue to be so.
The sky was clear, as if the rain that had so carefully muddied the roads for King Allister's entourage now regretted its work and was striving to make amends by shining with almost summertime brightness.
Is it lucky or unlucky for the bride if it rains on her wedding day? Derian mused. I never can remember. Looks as if tomorrow will be bright enough.
Passing through the gates into the walled section of town, he walked along some of the trade streets, glancing at the wares laid out on display. Along Weaver's Row doors stood open so that the workers at their looms could enjoy the pleasant daylight. Derian exchanged casual greetings here and there, enjoying the friendliness.
Turning along Blacksmith's Way, Derian noted that the last of the active smithies was gone, moved outside the walls because of the neighbors' complaints about the noise and smoke. There were shops here instead, some selling ironwork but others selling a mixture of goods. Many of the shops had been converted completely to residences—though many of the shopkeepers had always lived above their shops.
I recall Tannery Row has gone much the same way, Derian thought, despite the guild's complaints. Still, the air is kept fresher with the smellier trades outsides.
He was heading for the Market Square when he heard a dull, almost monotone, but somehow musical sound: the plunk-plunking of someone alternately plucking and strumming on a fat-bodied guitar.
Derian's head snapped up like Roanne smelling hot oat mash. This was a sound he hadn't heard in far too long, the sound of a street musician absorbed in his woes. That the same instrument could be played far more dexterously—made to ripple and sing like a laughing brook or trip through all the dances ever danced—didn't matter to Derian.
This was a music engendered in the dark reaches of the heart and soul. It took its rhythms from the slow beating of the pulse and the dragging of reluctant breath. It had never set the pace for sailors at sea or for farmers bringing in the harvest. It was city music, introspective and forlorn.
In short, it fit Derian's mood perfectly.
He found the musician seated cross-legged on a low bench outside a tavern that had closed for the slow hours of the afternoon. A depressed-looking dog, lean and black with drooping ears and large brown eyes, lay with its head on the man's well-traveled boots. It raised its head as Derian came close, then lowered it with an audible sigh.
The musician didn't look up as Derian approached. He was a scraggly fellow with hair of an indifferent brown pulled back into a loose queue. He was neither bearded or clean-shaven but rather looked as if he'd forgotten which style he preferred and had settled for something halfway between. The clothes he wore were grubby with street grime and mud, but not greasy.
His guitar, however, was spotless, rubbed to such a shine that Derian fancied he could catch the scent of the polishing oil. An empty tin cup rested by the musician's feet with a worn token set in the bottom as a hint to potential patrons.
Derian leaned against a wall, thrust his hands into his pockets, and listened. After several minutes, as if at last realizing he had an audience, the man started to sing. His voice was rough and slightly cracked but like his plunking on the guitar oddly melodious.
Unlike most of those who sang for their supper, this man didn't launch into a tale of heroism or popular legend. Instead he began:
 

She left me in summer, when the sun was bright

But without her lov'n, I was cold as winter night.

I forgot how to smile, forgot how to frown.

My heart she had frozen, like snow on the ground.
 
The musician moved his lament into autumn, when the abandoned lover couldn't see the beauty in the colors of the trees or smell the rich scents of the harvest. Only beer gave him some comfort but left him:
 

Wish'n I was dead, with a pain in my heart

and an ache in my head.
 
By winter the musician was warming to his theme, growing more passionate as he crooned about the beauty of ice and the softness of snow, the embrace of sleet and the glitter of cold.
Derian tossed a couple of tokens into the musician's cup and turned away before the song could pass through spring and return to summer. He didn't want to know if the unknown subject found redemption or some chillier and more permanent peace.
As he continued his way to the Market Square, Derian hummed the infectious lament to himself.
You can't call it a tune really or even a melody, but it's music nonetheless, he was thinking when a voice called out his name.
"Derian!"
The voice was female, robust, and terribly familiar. Derian looked up from his contemplation of his boot toes and saw a rounded figure swathed in cloak and shawl, a basket over her arm, waving to him from across the Square. There was no market today, so nothing impeded his getting a clear look at her: Heather the baker's daughter, the girl he had been walking with before he'd been hired by Earl Kestrel.
"Heather," he said, bending to bestow a chaste kiss on the round, red cheek she held up for his salute. "How are you?"
She smiled up at him, her bright smile tinged with something wicked.
"Well enough, Merry Deri." Her smile became arch. "I'm betrothed now, or will be as good as, by the end of next moon-span."
Derian recalled that like him Heather had been a cold-weather baby. She'd be nineteen next month and old enough for a completely respectable betrothal. The fact that they both were on the verge of legal adulthood had added a certain very interesting tension to their strolls—and to the occasional visits to her father's flour shed or to some infrequently used barn.
As Heather gossiped amicably about their mutual acquaintances, Derian recalled their time together. Heather hadn't been a tease, not quite, for she'd made clear that a public promise of marriage was her price for letting him get any farther than the inside of her well-rounded blouse.
Derian might have given her that price, too, but he was a bit more experienced than Heather imagined—or she wouldn't have risked tempting him. There had been a girl or two who worked around the stables who hadn't been adverse to a roll in the hay with the boss's son. Their willingness had kept him less than desperate and so free.
"You know, Deri," Heather was saying, a change in her tone bringing him back to the present. "I liked you quite a lot. I cried myself to sleep at night for weeks when you rode off west with Earl Kestrel. Cried and cried."
"I'm sorry," he said awkwardly.
"I thought you'd get eaten by a bear or something," she continued, shifting her basket from arm to arm.
Derian politely took it from her. It was heavy with fresh-baked loaves, wrapped against the chill.
"Can I walk you wherever you're going?" he asked.
"I'm delivering these to the Archer Manse," she said. "I'd be glad for the company."
Elise's house, Derian thought. And I have an invitation to call.
He resolved to keep his hat pulled well down over his hair and slouched a bit, shuffling his feet against the cobbles.
"My father," Heather said, "told me that you'd come back alive, but you'd never come back to me. He was right enough."
"You," Derian said indignantly, "refused to see me when I called!"
"I did," she sniffed. "I wasn't going to cheapen myself walking out with a fellow who was living with another woman—seeing her stark naked by all accounts."
Derian shrugged. That had been true enough. He hadn't really been living with Firekeeper, but he'd seen her naked often and had found it embarrassing rather than stimulating.
Still, he didn't bother to defend himself. He had no desire to resume his relationship with Heather—or to anger her almost-betrothed. Heather wouldn't be above teasing her fellow with the threat of a rival, just to make sure that her sweetheart cared.
"Father said," Heather prattled on, "that if I waited for you it would be just like it had been for him and your mother."
"My mother!" Derian was astonished.
"Sure." Heather was delighted at having information he lacked. "Didn't you know that they were sweethearts? Daddy still says that she was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen. Makes Mother right annoyed at him, but it slips out from time to time, especially when he's had a cup too many."
"My mother and your father?" Derian repeated more calmly. "Really?"
"Sure, back when they were younger than we are now, seventeen, maybe," Heather said with the loftiness of her almost nineteen years. "You mother had bigger dreams than being a baker's wife, though. She dumped Daddy when he got serious about her and eventually married Colby Carter. Guess she was right about his prospects. They've made a real business out of just a few carts."
Heather sighed. "And my father is still baking bread and so that's what my husband will do, too. I'll be baking babies in my oven and delivering loaves."
"There are worse things," Derian offered awkwardly.
Heather gave him a defiant smile, but there was something ugly beneath the grin.
"Lots worse, like being a boot-lick for the nobility or a kennel keeper for a naked girl who eats raw meat. At least my husband will be his own man."
She tugged her basket from his arm and tore off down the street. Derian stared after her, too astonished to be angry or even hurt. That would come later.
Distantly, he thought he could hear the guitarist plunk-plunking away.
She left me in winter…

Chapter XII

"First of all, little wolfling," the puma began in a voice like velvet, "even the humans know themselves strangers to this land. They call it the New World or the New Countries, as if they had created it by stumbling upon it, but like all lands this one has been here since the oceans suffered portions of the earth to rise above them.

"You may have also heard their tales of how these lands were uninhabited, ripe for settlement, eager for the axe and the plow. This is not true. We Royal Beasts lived here and our tales say we have always lived here, though our tales may miss some fragment of the truth.
"Suffice to say that we lived here long before the coming of the humans. Were it not for the tales the wingéd folk brought back from their migrations, we might have thought that there were no other peoples than those we already knew."
Firekeeper, who had been living and breathing politics since her departure with Earl Kestrel the previous spring, thought she detected a ripple of uneasiness on the part of some of the Beasts. The doe folded back her ears and the boar grunted to himself, but no one challenged the puma, so he continued his tale unchecked.
"When the humans first landed their boats on these shores it was at a place far from here. Some of our kind went to meet with them and indeed for a time the humans behaved as visitors in our land. They agreed to the limits we set and we even made treaties after the human fashion."
The bear shook himself and muttered sleepily, "They had not the wit to read the warnings in claw-marked trees or the noses to scent other kinds of markings."
"Nor," the puma continued, "did they seem able to share the land with others. I have my territory, but it is the territory of the wolves as well, and of birds and even of fish. Sometimes we challenge each other, but when a challenge is ended and a particular conflict solved, we go back to sharing. Humans cannot even share land with each other—and never with those they fear."
The doe spoke, taking up the thread of the tale with an enigmatic glance at the puma.
"And so, Firekeeper, the time came that the humans exceeded the amount of land the Royal Beasts had permitted them. More humans came across the oceans, wanting still more land. Some of the Beasts fought—challenging the human right to claim our territories as their own. And then we learned that they had claws sharper than the puma's, armies larger than packs of wolves. Lastly, we learned that these seemingly naked creatures had weapons more terrible than any we had been born to—the power of what humans now call Old Country magic."
"When first the humans came," the One Female said—her storytelling recalled to Firekeeper the many stories she had heard in her childhood—"they were mostly sailors and merchants and farmers. Later, as the colonies grew and were founded by many nations of the Old Country, the humans began to contest among themselves. Clearing away trees a hundred and more years old is great labor. A beaver enjoys damming streams, but digging courses to carry water to fields would defy the most optimistic mole. You have seen the dens humans build, the trails they cut… None of this happens easily. Soon the newcomers thought that it would be more efficient to take the first comers' lands from them—as a bear might steal a young wolf's kill."
The bear opened both eyes and reared in astonished protest.
The raven squawked, enjoying his role as meeting head, flapping wings that spanned nearly Firekeeper's full height when spread.
When the bear had halted—already halfway across the ground to the One Female—the raven said:
"Tell your tale, wolf, but remember that you are not speaking before your pack. Keep insults to yourself."
Firekeeper was astonished when the One Female abased herself, pressing her belly to the ground and whining.
"I did forget my manners," she said, "speaking as I was to one of my pups."
The bear collapsed back as if deciding against the effort to rise, but Firekeeper could tell that there was bad blood between this creature and her mother. At the folding of the raven's wings, the One Female continued the tale:
"When the humans first fought those Beasts who challenged their right to claim territory, they fought mostly with their false fangs and claws. Worst were the arrows, for they came from a distance and often from secret. Still, we held our own against even these. The wingéd folk especially learned to spot the archers, and how to spoil both their hiding and their aim."
Judging from how the gathered raptors shifted from foot to foot and admired their talons or honed their curved beaks against branches, the wingéd folk had spoiled more than those long-ago archers' aim.
"When the humans began to fight each other, however, a new and terrible force entered our land, and with its coming we learned to feel true terror of humanity. No longer did they seem naked creatures, but more akin to a poisonous insect that seems small and weak, but injects fire and sometimes death into its bite."
The elk—who had been digging furrows in the soft forest duff with his spreading rack—now took up the tale, his telling recalling the wind moaning through bare tree branches in the dead of winter.
"We had long known that humans possessed magic. Indeed, that was one reason we had treated with them as equals rather than dismissing them as Cousins, for one of the things that separates the Royal Beasts from the lesser Cousins are the magical gifts that occur from time to time.
"Among the first humans to come there had been those who could communicate with us—not as freely as you do, Firekeeper, but in a halting fashion. Almost every ship that had made the long voyage across the oceans had carried someone who could whistle up a wind. Early in our meetings, their healers used their talents for our good rather than reserving them for their people alone.
"But when the humans began to war among themselves, there came from the Old Country those who were gifted beyond some talent. These sorcerers came in many varieties, but one and all they possessed an ability we did not have—the ability to channel power in multiple ways, not merely one, as with a talent. Through rotes and rituals, they shaped the magical force. The greatest among them not only used these spells, they could enchant objects so that the least talented among them became suddenly sorcerous."
The kite spoke from her high perch.
"At first they directed these powers against each other, but when they had resolved their wars, the sorcerers acted against us. No talon is so sharp as to cut fire that explodes out of empty air, no bite tears so deeply as to seize lightning from the skies. And our tales tell of other things—of magics that warned of our approach so that even the stealthiest were detected, of invisible shields that wrapped the humans' limbs so that they were unbiteable.
"Eventually, solemn counsel was held among the Royal Beasts. There was much land east of the Iron Mountains, so much that the humans would be many years filling the space. We resolved to flee—flock and pack and herd—to make those mountains our stronghold.
"We had learned that iron weakened the sorcerers' power, though it did not appreciably weaken the abilities of those with inborn talents. We had noticed that the sorcerers were reluctant to chase us into the mountains and wondered if the very iron ore so plentiful in some of the mountains' rock caused them discomfort. And we had learned that humans were lazy. Surely they would not pursue us if there was no need and room enough east of the Iron Mountains for them to spread."
In a sharp voice, like but unlike the barking of a dog, the vixen spoke on, "It was a well-thought-out plan, yet not all the Royal Beasts chose to abide by the decision of the council and no one forced them to do so.
"Initially, those who remained behind found it easier to hide themselves, for they were few and more careful not to confront the humans. Even so, within a few generations none of the larger Royal-kind remained alive east of the Iron Mountains. Some of the wingéd folk did go east, but these did not do so out of stubbornness or stupidity. They went—even as the peregrine Elation has so recently done—to spy out human doings.
"As Royal-kind passed into human legend, any humans who might chance upon an unusually large hawk or an especially brilliant jay dismissed the evidence of their own eyes—an easy thing to do, for it is hard to judge the true size of a flying creature."
The sun had risen high during the deliberations and the tale-telling that followed. When the fox paused and a crow was about to take up the telling, the kestrel Bee Biter interrupted:
"Much time has passed and I am hungry, yet I would not miss the smallest part of this story, for it is rare to hear it told in full. Let us pause and hunt… and graze," he added with a glance at the herbivores among the gathering. "I suspect that Firekeeper would like time to think on all she has heard."
The raven glanced around the circle and saw that many were in agreement with the kestrel.
"Then we shall adjourn," he squawked, "until evening time brings the sun low."
The Royal Beasts melted into the forest or soared into the air until Firekeeper stood alone but for Blind Seer and Elation, looking around in wonder at what had been a crowded glade.

Chapter XIII

When the glade filled once again with the graceful and impressive figures of the Royal Beasts, the sky still held faint light, but the interwoven branches of the overarching trees sufficiently dampened the reddish glow so that it was as if shadows rather than substance kept company therein.

The first to pick up the tale was a Beast that Firekeeper had not noticed earlier in the day, a boar raccoon so burly and powerful that he might have been taken for a small bear. In the direct fashion of the Beasts, he did not waste breath on preamble, but took up the account precisely where the vixen had left off.
"And so we traded land for security and once we were gone from their ken, the humans preferred to forget our existence. A few adventurous types made forays into the mountains and occasionally beyond, coming after furs and such other things as humans treasure. Royal policy remained avoidance rather than confrontation, so those humans who returned told of thick forests, of untamed lands, of clear streams, but never of our kind."
The raccoon paused then and in the dim light Firekeeper, who knew how to see in the dark far better than did a human, could see him twisting and intertwining his dexterous black fingers as if undecided how best to continue.
Glancing about the glade, she saw signs of the same indecision and wondered at it. Before she could whisper a question into the One Female's ear, the puma gave an arrogant stretch and snapped his long, tawny tail against the rock.
"Much time passed," the puma said with a growling purr. "How much, we cannot say precisely, for Beasts do not record time as humans do. Moreover, our lives—though long by comparison with those of the Cousins—are often shorter than those of humans. We think of time in terms of seasons—the summer when the deer ran as fat and thick as blackberries in a thicket or the winter when the cold was so severe that even the water in the deepest lakes and fastest running rivers froze.
"Suffice to say that much time passed. We never forgot humans, but some of our fear abated, for they seemed content to stay east of the Iron Mountains and to fight among themselves rather than trouble us. We told our cubs and pups, fawns, piglets, and fledglings enough to keep them cautious, listened when the wingéd folk brought happy news of war or sorrowful news of wide-sailed ships, and returned to our ways.
"Then came the day a raven—or was it a crow?—brought a curious tale."
"It was a raven," said the raven, interrupting without fear of the long claws that suddenly unsheathed from the puma's paws and scraped against the rock. "And this part of the tale is mine."
The enormous black bird fluffed out the feathers on his legs and neck, made a seeming of ears grow upon his head, and strutted up and down in front of Firekeeper—a clownish yet somehow also frightening sight.
"The tale the raven brought was one of death," the raven croaked in a voice so ancient and hoarse that Firekeeper found herself convinced that this was the very raven who had borne the tale. "Death, but not from war, not from age, not even from murder or from intrigue. This was death from sickness—a sickness that spread with the speed of breath or touch, a sickness that caused the victim to burn from within not so much with fever but as if a secret fire that fed on the human spirit had been kindled within."
"We ravens watched freely and openly, for the deaths were so frequent and so plentiful that there was not a town or village, castle or cottage that lacked its flock of carrion eaters. Any who saw us glimpsed in our vast wingspans and triumphant swagger omens of their own deaths.
"Now you may ask," the raven said, turning a bright, beady eye on the listening wolf-woman, "were we not risking the wrath of the sorcerers? Initially, we were indeed chary of these, but some moonspans of watching taught us a great and wonderful thing. Those who burned fastest and brightest and who never ever recovered from the plague were those who practiced sorcery. From the merest apprentice to the mightiest wizard, they died.
"The talented fared somewhat better, but among these too—as far as we could tell—not a one escaped the sickness. Some of these, however, did mend. Nor did those without any hint of magical gift escape the plague, but among them it was more likely to leave behind battered, broken, and shaken souls who—if they escaped further illness, starvation, or murder at the hands of the wild ones who, seeing death all around, forgot law—then they might live."
The One Female rubbed her muzzle against Firekeeper's arm, for the feral woman had started to tremble at this cool account of chaos.
Firekeeper understood now why the humans always spoke of the plague in hushed voices and hurried on to other subjects. Even as a thing many more than a hundred years gone, it was terrible to contemplate.
She suspected, too, why there was so little magical talent among the Great Houses of Hawk Haven and—as far as she knew—Bright Bay and elsewhere. The plague had killed those with sorcery, weakened those with a trace of talent, and left those without either to rise to power.
Fleetingly, she wondered if Zorana the Great, so revered in Hawk Haven, had been among those the Royal Beasts termed the "wild ones," the forgetters of law, but further speculation on this must wait, for a crow had taken up the tale from the raven.
It cawed loudly as if realizing that Firekeeper's attention had fled, and said:
"Seeing how the Fire Plague touched those with talent, we feared for ourselves and our own, since—as you know—talents occur among Royal Kind. But these fears proved rootless. Even those among the ravens and crows who had dined on the flesh of sorcerers killed by the plague—a thing we did with enthusiasm and glee before we realized there might be danger of contagion—even these remained firm and fit and healthy.
"After much time, the Fire Plague burned itself to ashes and was no more seen, but by then the world had been transformed. The population of humans in this land had been reduced to a quarter of its former size—not all by plague, but by the attendant menaces the raven has already mentioned as well. There were no sorcerers remaining in the land and an aversion to sorcery in any form—extending in some places to even the relatively innocent talents—had become universal among humanity.
"Moreover, the Old Country rulers who had once dominated these colonies fled early in the plague cycle. Perhaps they hoped for healing in their homelands—for by all reports the use of magic there was so prevalent as to make what we saw here seem nothing. If so, they were disappointed, for the Fire Plague had burned more fiercely in those lands.
"However, we crows believe that they fled because many of them had been cruel and contemptuous rulers, and they feared the retribution of their subject peoples even more than they feared the plague. Those foreign-born who remained were more likely to die, though whether this was because they possessed more latent magic or whether they were simply less hearty, having had others to perform all labor for them, is a matter we never have resolved."
"Or," muttered the bear, "cared to resolve. It was enough to have them gone."
A jay took up the narrative as if the bear's interruption had been intended.
"Indeed, we cared not a dry berry husk. Other questions were raised at our councils—practically from the moment that we realized the extent of the plague and what it was likely to do to our onetime enemies.
"The foremost of these questions was whether we should finish what the plague had begun. Should we wipe humans from the face of the land? There was much contention on this point, but in the end the lesson of the songbirds was recalled and the council decided to let humans live as they had lived before—with one exception.
"One of the things that had made sorcery so terrible to us was that its power could be separated from its creator. We decided that these objects of power could not be left in human hands, that we would steal them, one and all, and…"
There was a slight awkward pause, and once again Firekeeper felt that something was being held back.
"And," chattered on the jay with perhaps a trace too much haste, "so keep them from being used against us in the future when humans might have forgotten their fear of sorcery. We were helped in this course by the humans themselves. Many a sorcerer's stronghold was burnt from the library outward, many a wand or staff was tossed into the flames. Still, there was work for us to do."
The One Female spoke. "Nor did we larger creatures leave all the thieving to the jays and crows and ravens. Royal Wolf packs crossed the mountains for the first time in living memory. We hunted down those bandits who had taken booty from their dead masters and when the bandits were dead themselves our wingéd allies bore away the spoils. Pumas hung from tree limbs and screamed from crags so that horses fled in terror. Herds of elk blockaded armies, braving arrows and spears to hold them. Clever-fingered raccoons and sly foxes slipped into camps and cottages, and removed artifacts tied into bags and boxes.
"Doubtless we took things that were not sorcerous in nature, for it was then a rare talent among us to be able to scent magic. Doubtless innocent books were consigned to flames, but we wished to be thorough.
"Even then," the One Female continued, "we had heard rumors of what Gustin Sailor possessed, but he had fled to a stronghold and always had an army about him. Since his contention with his former allies was over those very objects, Gustin Sailor took care never to let them leave his keeping, for he could not trust that Zorana Shield might not force or bribe someone to steal the enchanted artifacts from him."
"When," added the doe almost kindly, "the Royal Beasts saw no indication of magic being used by this first Gustin or the Gustins who followed him or indeed by any in his court or household, we thought the rumors were as dry grass: filling, but without solid sustenance. We thought that he—as had many of our own—might have been fooled by a certain shine or elegance in crafting into believing that such an ornate thing must be sorcerous."
"And," asked Firekeeper, "do you know otherwise now?"
The doe said honestly, "We do not, but we fear lest there be truth in the tales. Queen Valora—according to our spies—is an angry woman, one who would unleash a rabid dog even at the risk of being bitten herself. She has never seen the Fire Plague, has only a faint dread of magic. Now, like the sorcerers of old, she may see only a means to power, to domination of those who bested her, and to rulership."
"Your spies?" Firekeeper asked.
"The wingéd folk," screeched an eagle with pride, "have not let humans go completely unobserved. We resist being taken captive—though this has happened from time to time—but as you have already been told, we continue to watch. During this last war our spies knew where Queen Gustin IV lurked, letting others fight her battles, and we knew the fury she concealed at being stripped of her place."
Without much hope, Firekeeper said, "Cannot your own agents steal these objects? I cannot cross the ocean without being noticed, nor can I walk into the queen's stronghold. What about the clever-fingered raccoons or the sly foxes or those famous thieves—the ravens and crows?"
Murmurs rose at this protest and Firekeeper realized that some of the Royal Beasts were no more pleased by her possible involvement than she was herself. Murmurs became roars and screeches, howls and hoots and growls.
Perceiving that the council had degenerated into unredeemable argument, the raven adjourned the meeting again, this time until midmorning, so as to permit time for sleeping and hunting.
Shortly before dawn, when she had fed and run and chased some of the fear from her soul, Firekeeper curled herself for sleep between the warm bodies of the One Female and Blind Seer.
The blue-eyed wolf, who had listened to all that had been said but had held his tongue as was proper for a young wolf in the company of his elders, now asked his first question:
"Mother, what is the lesson of the songbirds?"
"Hush," the One Female said, lifting her silver-furred head and scanning the forest with amber eyes. "This is not the time or place for that tale. Ask another night and I may tell you, though in truth it belongs to the lore of the Ones."
Wolf-obedient, Blind Seer submitted to her wisdom—knowing as always that it was backed up by the threat of her fangs.
Firekeeper wondered some as she drifted off to sleep, but her mind was so full of new thoughts that she could not hold another.

Chapter XIV

Derian found the days subsequent to the royal wedding pleasant ones. The weather was an ancestral blessing, making working at the stables a joy—sunny enough to feel warm, cool enough that there were no flies.

Waking in his own room with the bottle window and his initials carved into the doorframe seemed nicer than being waited on by servants in any of the castles in which he'd stayed. The smell of burnt sugar as Cook sprinkled the breakfast bread, the sound of his mother and Damita arguing about the appropriateness of her current outfit, even Brock bursting in to show Derian the progress of his latest effort at wood-carving were better than plush tapestries and vintage wines.
Derian came to a tentative peace with his parents' expectations. This was not out of any nobility in his own soul, but because he realized that he was indeed a different person than the young man who had ventured out with Earl Kestrel the previous spring and that he now had very different options open to him. The young man he had been the spring before had been full of prickly pride and quick to take offense—even if that offense had remained unvoiced—at slights real and imagined. Firekeeper had been a large part of the change, Derian mused. While he had been teaching her, she had been teaching him.
The wolf-woman's fierce loyalty to those who deserved her respect, her open scorn for those she despised might not be safe reactions, but they were honest. Derian now found that he sometimes tried to examine issues as she might and chuckled to himself as he imagined himself trying to explain to her why he resisted taking on a job with some noble patron.
Derian: "I have my place here at home with my family. Why should I go elsewhere?"
Firekeeper: "Young wolves have pack, but still they disperse."
Derian (stubbornly): "But, why should I? I have everything I need here."
Firekeeper: "And you need nothing else? You no get things from going elsewhere?"
Derian (exasperated): "Of course I have." (Thinks, almost guiltily, of the ruby counselor's ring glowing with soft fire in his family's shrine.)
Firekeeper: "Wolves have sharp fangs and thick fur. I have neither so I use these." (Gestures to clothing and to belt knife.) "I think not dispersing be like me biting with dull human teeth—I can if I must, but it is stupid if can have knife."
Derian (thinking aloud): "And the things I can learn, the people I can meet—not to mention the tokens I can earn—those are all like knives. If I stay here, I'm biting the challenges of the future with dull human teeth when I could have had knives."
Firekeeper (looking slightly puzzled as she often does when confronting a long speech): "Yes. In human world there is not just One Male, One Female—there are many who are Ones. It isn't reasonable, but it is so. If you would be a wolf among rabbits, you need to have fangs."
Derian, who had been currying the sorrel riding horse belonging to King Allister as he framed this mental dialogue, laughed to himself with such gusto that the horse's ears flicked back as if asking what the joke might be.
Firekeeper might say what Derian had just imagined; she might also say that if Derian could rale his pack, why did he want to be a lesser wolf elsewhere?
"The point is," Derian said, continuing his mental dialogue, "I don't rule 'my pack'—not yet and not for a long time if the ancestors are kind and can do without my parents for a while. That being the case, what I'm really saying when I say I want to stay here and work with the family business is that I want to stay a child. And while that might be nice for a while, I'd hate myself before long."
Having reached this temporary truce with himself, Derian dove with true enthusiasm into both his work for his family and his private project for Elise. He confided some of the details of the latter to his father, knowing that Colby had learned so much from other people's gossip that he eschewed the vice himself.
"What I'm trying to learn, Father," Derian said one morning as they walked out to the stables, "is if this man, Waln—or any of his associates—is making plans for an unannounced journey. How do you think I can find out without being obvious?"
Colby scratched his head, a gesture he had affected for so many years in his self-appointed role of simple stable man that it had become habit.
"Well, he hasn't made arrangements with me, son," Colby replied, "though the horses the diplomats from the Isles rode here from Bright Bay are in our stables, but then, if Baron Waln is involved in skulduggery he might not want to work through us—you being connected to the Crown and all. Yet he's not local and the Horse Fair won't be until the spring."
That was a long speech for Colby Carter and he fell silent as they continued on through a more crowded portion of the streets. When they had passed through the wall and were in more open country again, Colby said:
"Your man'll want to hire and, even if the lady you mentioned is involved, he won't want any trace of her involvement. That rules out using her family's mounts."
Derian offered his own partly formed plan. "I'd thought to check the other livery stables, but I hadn't worked out how to ask without making clear what I was doing."
Colby brightened. "Tell them you're asking because the same gent came asking us and we think he's trying to undercut local business and tie up resources. He's a foreigner and we can use that to our advantages. Don't be too coy—be indignant."
Grinning, Derian slapped his father on the shoulder.
"That's the very thing!"
He went to it that very day, using the excuse of going around to the various stables to collect Prancing Steed Stables' portion of the stabling fees so that his visit would seem even less obvious.
Luck wasn't with him on his first few stops. Happily, neither was the resentment he had thought he might meet in his role as fee collector. The flush of business at what should have been the beginning of the slow season—combined with the fact that gentle-born patrons stood for a higher tariff than did the merchants who usually would have provided the bulk of trade—made for good humor all around.
This continued as Derian passed on to the smaller stables and carting establishments. For these he could not use the excuse of collecting the Prancing Steed's share, but he'd worked out a ruse involving asking after their available space and resources—implying but never promising that the Carters might be bringing business their way.
And I'm not precisely lying, Derian comforted himself, for if the plans Mother and Father have for expanding our business into Bright Bay come through, we will indeed need extra hands.
He ended each spiel with a variation on the same theme.
"We've heard—and in fact my mother intends to bring the matter before the guild next meeting—that some of our foreign guests don't understand fair trade. There's one fellow—and I won't name names, just say that he's a big man from across the water—who's been going around promising his business to several stables. The word is that he's getting the best price he can by offering a solid commitment, but…"
And here Derian let his voice drop. "The thing I've heard is that he's offered that commitment to more than one stable!"
Eventually, Derian got the information he needed and as he pieced together the picture his respect for Baron Waln rose a notch.
Waln had indeed made contracts with several stables, but never for more than two animals. In this way he had acquired three good horses—these trained for either riding or hauling, a brace of pack mules, and a light wagon that converted with comparative ease to sleigh runners.
Along with the last Waln had contracted for a driver, the promise being that the man would be paid for a round trip in advance and if he proved satisfactory he'd be given the wagon in the bargain.
Smart, Derian thought admiringly, for he's buying the man's loyalty as well as his services and since Baron Endbrook doubtless plans to return to the Isles, he won't care to ship the sleigh home.
To each of these businesses—whether the owners expressed indignation or the sly satisfaction of those who felt they had a good deal done and to perdition with anyone else—Derian suggested that they keep their part of the bargain and let the unnamed foreigner break the deal. Then the guild could step in and take punitive action.
The various guilds spread their influence throughout both Hawk Haven and Bright Bay. Since the Isles had been until recently a part of Bright Bay, they also fell under standard guild rules and regulations. At times of all but full-fledged war, the guilds had actually served as a form of international government, maintaining standards between the two nations.
No one expected them to do otherwise now that the labeling on the map had changed. A carter, therefore, could expect that a broken contract would be avenged.
Derian finished his rounds with a firm sense of pleasure at a job well done.
The information he had gathered confirmed Elise's guess that Baron Endbrook—and quite possibly Lady Melina—planned a journey somewhere other than back home to the Isles. The question remained—where?
Derian studied a mental map of the region, working out possibilities.
At this time of year, the southern reaches of Hawk Haven—in which Port Haven itself lay—might or might not see snow. A wagon capable of sleigh conversion would be overkill—especially since the post road between the capital and the port boasted several establishments where a wagon could be traded for a sleigh if the weather turned ugly.
In any case, Derian had already learned from his father that the diplomatic contingent from the Isles had arranged to hire riding horses and a baggage wagon all the way to Port Haven. Therefore, Waln wasn't making those arrangements—not that Derian had really thought he was.
In the northern sections of Hawk Haven, however, as the post-riders already reported, snowfall was becoming regular. A sleigh-convertible wagon would be a good idea, since it would be difficult to say in what condition the roads might be.
Derian reported his findings to Elise and Dog during a quiet moment at the Kestrel ball, the only one of the numerous post-wedding festivities to which he had been invited. The trio had retired to a private room that Doc, as a resident guest of the household, secured for them.
As Derian talked, he noticed that Elise seemed tense and unnaturally stiff, especially when she greeted Doc. Inwardly he sighed, sensing yet another development in that undeclared romantic drama.
Derian finished his report by saying, "I plan to find that wagon driver if I can. His name is Orin Driver, called Fox since his father has the same name but belongs to the Hummingbird Society. Fox is a bit of a scoundrel—as might be expected of someone who'd take a job which anyone could guess must be a bit shady. Still, I may be able to get him a touch drunk and learn the route they're taking."
Doc nodded his approval.
"Good. Now, I think you're right in guessing that Waln is planning on taking a trip north. If we rule out a meeting with someone in Hawk Haven, he's going either into New Kelvin or Waterland. Waterland is a possibility, but not my favorite."
"Why rule out Hawk Haven?" Derian asked.
"Because he could meet almost anyone in Hawk Haven more easily and with less fuss here in Eagle's Nest. The royal wedding itself is excuse enough for a journey here."
"I'll buy that," Derian said, "so you prefer New Kelvin."
"I do, but let's rule out Waterland first." Doc gestured as if he was writing. "Rather like diagnosis of an illness, don't you see? We rule out the less likely and then we have a better idea what is likely. Then we can find a way to treat the illness."
The knight glanced at Elise and the young woman managed a tepid smile.
"Right," Doc continued. "Now, Waterland certainly seems a possibility. One, the assassins who attacked at the first wedding were from Waterland. Two, Waterland has been—until recent events—an enemy of Bright Bay and an ally of Hawk Haven. It is still unclear what new alliances they might find profitable. It could be that Baron Endbrook is going there to plead his country's case."
Elise stopped looking wan and tense long enough to protest, "But the Isles have long sheltered pirates and privateers! Waterland wouldn't make an alliance with them!"
Doc grinned. "They would if those same pirates and privateers could be turned against Bright Bay's shipping rather than Waterland's. Remember, Waterland traditionally chooses the course that leads to the greatest financial profit."
"That is true," she admitted, relaxing now that they were discussing international relations—one of her favorite subjects.
Doc continued his diagnosis.
"Both of these reasons can explain why Waln might go to Waterland, but we are left with several reasons to discount them. One, as an Islander, he would probably choose to go by sea."
"Even at this time of year?" Derian asked, with a landsman's distrust of ocean tempers.
"I think so, but," Doc said, showing a trace uncertainty, "I could be wrong. My second reason is stronger. What advantage would he gain in taking Lady Melina to Waterland?"
"None that I can see," Elise said, "but there would be a possible advantage in 'taking her to New Kelvin. She is known to have great interest in things sorcerous and they nearly worship the old ways."
"Just my thought, Lady," Doc said enthusiastically. "Moreover, the waistcoat Baron Endbrook wore to the wedding was made of intricately figured New Kelvinese silk—a kind they do not usually export but that is sold in markets in Dragon's Breath. I have seen the like on traders coming from New Kelvin to wine-fests."
"That's a slim thing on which to base a judgment," Derian protested.
"True," Doc said, "but I do find it interesting that—as far as I can tell—Baron Endbrook is pretending relative ignorance of New Kelvin."
"That is interesting," Elise mused, "and combined with his interest in Lady Melina…"
"It may just mark his destination," Derian interrupted, forgetting protocol in his eagerness. "It fits nicely in with the convertible wagon I mentioned earlier. New Kelvin is north and west of here. The likelihood of snow will be greater."
"Crossing the White Water River from Hawk Haven is one way into New Kelvin," Doc added. "It still isn't precisely simple, but there are recognized crossings."
"I hadn't realized," Derian said uneasily, "that we were so vulnerable on that border."
"Oh, we're not," Elise said distractedly, speaking like one whose thoughts are mostly elsewhere. "The White Water has cut deep canyons and the ice is broken by rocks that make for treacherous spots that freeze and thaw unpredictably. Still, as Sir Jared says, there are ferry points and much of our trade with New Kelvin crosses during the winter months."
"Thank you, m'lady," Derian said.
He tried to sound flippant—afraid her serious mood would return—but genuine respect crept into his voice. After all,
Elise's own lands were all the way across Hawk Haven from the White Water. Who would ever have guessed she'd know so much about distant lands?
Elise smiled and seemed to come back to the present moment.
"I enjoy such things, Derian. Now, I rather agree with Sir Jared that New Kelvin seems more likely than Waterland—especially if Lady Melina is involved. I seem to recall my mother saying that she—Lady Melina—went there when she was about my age and talked about the journey for a long time after."
"A return trip in itself, then," Derian said excitedly, "might be reason enough for her to link up with the baron."
"True," Elise said slowly. "Lady Melina and Lord Rolfston's family has never had as much money as the gems and fancy horses might seem to indicate. I heard rumor that the estate Jet is taking over carries a good deal of debt.
"But," Elise continued after a moment, "a pleasure trip would not be reason for the baron being so secretive—unless he fears his wife learning and social scandal. I'm afraid I will continue to think the worst of Lady Melina."
Doc nodded gravely. "A wise thing to do. However, the fact that we can all think of reasons why Lady Melina might legitimately travel with Baron Endbrook, and the fact that neither New Kelvin nor the Isles are our declared enemies…"
"Remember, the New Kelvinese got plenty pissy when we went to Bright Bay's aid against Stonehold," Derian reminded him.
"But they never declared war nor sent aid to our enemies," .Doc said.
"At least," he added, "that I know."
He glanced at Elise as he said this and the young woman shook her head.
"No, not that I have heard either. Am I correct in thinking that you feel, Sir Jared, that the evidence we have to support our suspicions is, as of yet, fairly flimsy?"
She didn't sound affronted—as she would have had the right to do, given that she was the one who had started suspecting Baron Endbrook—merely interested.
"Not at all, Lady Elise," Doc replied levelly, "simply that we have knowledge of Lady Melina's character that most do not and since we are sworn not to share that knowledge we are in something of a bind."
"I agree with you," Elise said. "That's why I spoke with the two of you rather than my parents. My mother may not particularly like Lady Melina, but she thinks of her as a charlatan. As far as I know, my father doesn't consider Lady Melina much at all—except as sister to a traitor and another failed competitor for the throne."
. "Faint praise," Derian said, needling her deliberately, "for your confidants, eh?"
Elise colored and seemed for a moment the same lovely and uncomplicated girl he had mooned over for a time the previous summer. Then a certain gravity settled on her features once more.
"I trust you," she said firmly, "both of you, like the brothers I never had. Is that praise enough?"
Derian grinned. "Better."
"We can't stay closeted here much longer without causing comment," Elise said. "What do we do to get more evidence?"
"I'll do what I can to make acquaintances among the New Kelvinese diplomats," Doc offered. "It isn't easy. I know because I've already tried—I'm honestly interested in their herb lore. Still, since some of their trade is medically related, I have an excuse to keep pressing. I won't ask anything direct about this matter, but I hope to learn a thing or two that will make it easier for us if—Eagle spread her wings against it—we need to cross the border after Baron Endbrook."
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."

Chapter XV

Elise felt like a perfect beast for how she had avoided Doc at the Kestrel ball, but her conversation with Lady Aurella was too fresh in her mind for her to encourage him, even to the extent of accepting a dance.

The following day brought the Redbriar/Shield fete. The intricate unwritten rules of precedence had decreed that it must be scheduled later than those events held by the Great Houses—that is, if the family hoped for any guests to be available to attend. Yet, the very fact that King Allister and his family delayed their departure for Silver Whale Cove to attend gave the gathering a social importance beyond what it would usually command.
The cynics said that this was simply because King Allister wished Ruby and Opal to travel in company with his own party and that they could hardly be expected to depart before their own family's entertainment.
The less—or perhaps more—cynical said that this delay was King Allister's way of acknowledging his daughter-in-law's birth family and that acknowledgment conferred a rise in status to a house that was—factually assessed—neither a Great House nor a lesser.
Rumor was rife that Crown Princess Sapphire was agitating King Tedric to make her brother Jet a baron and confer title of "lady" upon her younger sisters.
Elise had her doubts about this last. She knew too well the rivalry between Sapphire and Jet—a rivalry that had come to a head with Sapphire's appointment as King Tedric's heir apparent.
That Lady Melina might be agitating the king, her uncle, or her birth daughter the crown princess to grant these titles, Elise could well believe. Thus she was rather surprised, upon her arrival at the fete with her parents, to find Lady Melina effacing herself in favor of her handsome son.
It was Jet who stood at the door greeting his guests as they arrived, not—as any who knew her would have expected—Lady Melina. Nor was Lady Melina readily evident in any of the more public rooms.
Jet reported—claiming Elise for a dance to do so—that his mother's spirit was quite broken by recent events.
"My father's death," the dark-haired young gentleman said, looking sorrowful, "was a greater blow to her than anyone imagined. Mother says the absence of his presence is like having a wall of the house blown away in a sudden storm."
Elise, who knew that Lady Melina had barely spoken to her husband and had frequently refused him her bed—this last being common gossip in the war camp last autumn—took this piteous description with a grain of salt. Certainly Lady Melina wanted everyone to believe her in deep mourning. The question was why?
If Lady Melina's behavior was nearly impossible, finding an opportunity to speak with Citrine was easier than Elise had dared hope. The eight-year-old could hardly compete for attention or dance partners with her older sisters and was almost pathetically glad to have Elise visit with her.
"I wanted so much," Citrine confided in Elise as they took seats at a little table off the dance floor, shielded from notice but where they could watch the dancers, "to go to Bright Bay with my sisters, but Mother said I was too young."
"Maybe your mother needs your presence to comfort her in her loss," Elise said, curious if Citrine would agree with what Jet had said.
Citrine shook her head angrily, her round eyes flooding with indignant tears.
"Mother doesn't care!"
The little girl almost stammered in her anger and frustration. Then she trembled and her fingers drifted unconsciously to the cognac-dark facets of the citrine imbedded in the band encircling her brow.
"Not about Father, at least," she said more softly. "I heard her say to Nanny—I was under the bed looking for my doll—that she was glad to have him gone."
"Glad?" Elise blurted, horrified that an eight-year-old should overhear such things.
"She used some other word." Citrine waved this minor point aside with a gesture of one plump hand. "But from her voice I could tell she was glad. They'd quarreled, you know, about Sapphire."
"I'm not surprised," Elise said. "After Sapphire lost her gemstone headpiece?"
"Yeah."
Elise was tempted to press for more detail, but realized that she would only be pumping the child for old gossip.
"So, why do you think your mother doesn't want you near for comfort?" Elise asked, feeling unpleasantly filthy as she grubbed in what was clearly a fresh wound. "Sometimes we don't give our parents enough credit for being weak."
If Elise hadn't been Citrine's self-appointed favorite cousin, the little girl might have merely snorted and refused to answer. Even so, the look of scorn Citrine turned on the older girl was withering.
"If Mother needs me, then why is she sending me to some people in the east—people I don't even know?"
"East?" Elise said, puzzled. "Winter at the seaside?"
"Just about," Citrine said sulkily. "And Mother won't be there and I won't know anyone."
Elise didn't like herself an iota more for continuing to cause her little cousin pain—all the more so because if Citrine hadn't been fond of her Elise doubted that she would have talked even this much. Plump she might be, a mere eight-year-old she might be, but Citrine shared a certain dignity with her eldest sister, Sapphire, a dignity that Ruby and Opal both lacked.
Therefore Elise didn't belittle Citrine by asking her if she was sure of her facts. Nor did she offer her platitudes. Instead she asked, with adult directness:
"Do you know why she's sending you there?"
Citrine shook her head, and for the first time Elise realized that an undefined dread underlay the child's defiance.
"No," Citrine whispered. "I don't. Ever since Sapphire stopped wearing her circlet, Mother hasn't liked to let us too far away. Then all of a sudden, the day of the wedding when I was asking again if I could go to Bright Bay with Ruby and Opal, she looked at me—right at me—and told me that no I couldn't, to stop whining like a baby, and that I was going somewhere else for the winter where I could do her more good."
"That's what she said?" Elise asked. "Where you could do her more good?"
"That's it," Citrine said. "And I am. You don't cross Mother, not when she gets that look."
Her voice, which had risen slightly as she narrated the events of this peculiar exile, now dropped again.
"You were lucky, you know, not to marry Jet." Citrine's eyes teared up suddenly. "But I'm sorry you're not going to be my sister after all."
That pitiful confession broke Elise completely. Forgetful of her gown, forgetful of not wanting to attract attention to this little conference, she gathered Citrine into her lap and hugged her.
"You can still be my sister," she whispered fiercely in the little girl's ear, "maybe not by law, but in my heart. I never had a sister, but I'd be glad to have you."
For some reason, this set them both crying. Elise felt the rounded hardness of the gemstone fastened to Citrine's brow pressing against her breast and resolved to someday free Citrine—just as Sapphire had been freed—from her mother's domination.
Citrine's sudden storm of tears vanished as quickly as it had arisen and her round face was sunny.
"Thanks, Elise," she said. "I'm sorry I was such a baby. I've been so scared and nobody wants to talk to me."
"That's what big sisters are for," Elise assured her. "Talking to."
"Not mine," Citrine said with characteristic bluntness. "At least not the other ones. I'm just the baby nuisance to them."
Unwilling to stir up another storm, Elise settled for hugging her.
"When do you leave for the seaside?"
"Tomorrow or the day after," Citrine replied. "I've only stayed this long because Mother thought I should be seen at the party."
Once again, the little girl was clearly echoing her mother's words, but without Elise's broader knowledge of the intrigue in which Lady Melina might be involved they did not trouble her. To Elise, however, that "should be seen" had a distinctly ominous ring. She put her worries from her with an effort.
"Well, then," Elise said brightly, "you should indeed be seen. Come with me and we'll wash that smudge off your nose and then we'll see if we can't find a pair of gallant souls who want to dance."
Citrine glowed and put her fingers confidently in Elise's hand. As they went on their quest for partners, Elise found herself wishing that she had a brother for Citrine to marry. Then she chuckled to herself:
There you go, arranging other people's lives in the same fashion you yourself have been resisting. Maybe Citrine wouldn't want to marry your brother—if you had one—or maybe he wouldn't want to marry her!
Still, though she laughed the thought away, Elise felt vaguely awkward, understanding for the first time from her heart—rather than merely from lessons in etiquette and procedure—how and why her parents might want to arrange their only daughter's life.
It was not comfortable to realize that their interests might be directed toward insuring Elise's own happiness, rather than merely working toward their own gain. And this realization made it even harder for Elise to resist their desires.
With Citrine trying hard to walk in a dignified fashion beside her—but nonetheless bouncing just a bit—Elise made her way to where two young scions of Bright Bay's nobility stood sipping punch and studying the dancers.
"I understand," Elise said, smiling, "that the next dance is Clover in Springtime. My cousin and I thought you might not know it and would enjoy showing you the steps."
Both of the young men—boys really would be a fairer term—colored while still managing to look quite pleased.
"We'd be honored," said the elder of the two—a youth of perhaps fifteen. "We've seen it danced at a few other events here in Eagle's Nest, but it isn't done in Bright Bay."
"Though," his friend said with an almost scholarly thoughtfulness, surprising in one who couldn't be more than thirteen, "it does resemble the dance we call Dolphin Pod—at least in some steps and the general cadence of the music."
Conversation came easily as—after introducing themselves—Elise and Citrine showed the young men what they would need to know to comport themselves with sufficient skill. When the current dance ended and the two couples proceeded out onto the floor, Elise glimpsed an expression of proud satisfaction on her father's face before Baron Archer returned to his conversation with another of the foreign guests.
Not all our victories are won on the battlefield, Elise thought as the music began and she subtly steered her partner through the first steps. The most important ones may be won in places like this.
Elise's satisfaction at this thought, however, was muted by a glimpse of Lady Melina entering the room, attended by a small entourage of men—Baron Endbrook of the Isles among them. Elise concealed a shiver, thinking that Lady Melina was far more skilled than she at manipulating the social battlefield and wondering what victories the older woman might have already achieved.

Chapter XVI

King Allister and his party began their return journey to Silver Whale Cove on the fourteenth day of Boar Moon. Without Sapphire and Shad dispensing cheer among their fellow travelers, the group seemed much smaller, although in fact it was larger by the addition of four young ladies and their various attendants.

The young ladies were Deste and Nydia Trueheart, the daughters of Lady Zorana Archer and Lord Aksel Trueheart, and Ruby and Opal Shield, daughters of Lady Melina Shield and the late Lord Rolfston Redbriar. In point of fact and order, only the latter two had been specifically invited, but when Lady Zorana—a forceful woman not above trading on her close kinship to King Tedric to get what she wanted—chose to assume that her daughters were included in the invitation, King Allister had accepted them without protest.
Pearl's reminder of the son Zorana had so recently lost certainly played a part in softening the king's heart. He hoped that Pearl wouldn't regret her sympathy, for managing the young ladies would fall much into her sphere.
Allister had narrowly escaped taking along a handful of other young people—scions of various Great Houses—but had been saved from this influx by a rumor which suggested that the girls were not so much guests as hostages for the safety and good treatment of Prince Shad in his new home.
This was ridiculous, but as the rumor served Allister, he didn't particularly mind. In fact, the giggles and gossip coming from the carriages had been a nice balance to the emptiness he felt when they took their departure, leaving Shad behind in Eagle's Nest.
The odd thing was that this was hardly the first time that Shad had been away from his family. Indeed, over the past several years Shad had served in Bright Bay's navy and, had the ancestors not chosen to make Allister king, Shad would have spent the greater part of the next several years—if not decades—at sea, coming home at last to whatever estate was his inheritance.
But this time, Allister thought, Shad is going from us not merely into unfamiliar waters, but into a way of life none of us can imagine. Now he must learn to reign—not simply to command—and he must learn to be a married man, not simply a promising youth. I wonder if I'm feeling the first touch of old age's frost.
Allister laughed at the idea. In truth, he had rarely felt more alive or more anticipation for what the future would bring. The trip to Hawk Haven had solidified his relations with some of those members of his court about whom he had felt uncertain. In an unfamiliar place, surrounded by people for whom strange customs and accents were familiar, the guests from Bright Bay had formed a tenuous bond that their king looked forward to twisting into a stronger rope.
Allister was not so naive as to think that the trip had been enough to win over those who were inclined to be his enemies—not in the least—but he was certain that he had progressed in forming alliances with those whose feelings were more neutral.
Reports from the two regents he had left governing in his stead at the capital were promising. Grand Duchess Seastar was taking advantage of his absence to promote her sons, but not to the point of encouraging treason. Mostly she seemed interested in having Culver made an admiral and Dillon being promoted to some important but not too onerous position at court.
Earle Oyster, who had taken charge over investigating the assassination attempt in the absence of both the king and Whyte Steel, reported (in cipher!) that she had run into nothing but dead ends. She apologized to her brother-in-law for her failure and begged his permission to continue. As of yet, Opulence Rosen was not agitating to return home to Waterland and she still hoped to learn something from him or his correspondence.
Let her keep trying, Allister thought. There is nothing to be lost by appearing firm, but I suspect that the Opulence knows no more than anyone else and that no one will be foolish enough to write anything incriminating.
Really, given that no one irreplaceable had been killed and that Shad and Sapphire had become heroes in the eyes of the public, Allister could almost be grateful to whoever had attempted the assassination. It didn't hurt to have one's heirs popular with those who would be ruled by them. Not only did their popularity solidify the future, but it strengthened the present reign as well—at least until the heirs apparent grew ambitious for the throne. Shad and Sapphire would have plenty to keep them busy, so that they should not be in a hurry for more responsibility.
King Allister chuckled softly to himself, thinking that had not there been so much blood and the injuries to both Shad and Sapphire and the slain guards, his political adversaries might have thought the entire thing a put-up job on the part of the king. All the tales being told and ballads being sung would nicely keep both Shad and Sapphire vivid in the public imagination, even when their duties carried them off into Hawk Haven.
Some of the king's cheery mood left him as he thought of the guards who had died, those men in their shining dress armor, so proud to have been chosen to attend upon the royal family. Death in the line of duty had been common enough of late—King Allister's War had seen to that—but even so the king should invent some posthumous award to recognize this particular sacrifice on this unusual battlefield.
Such an award would provide incentive to those guards who—as they had every day since the assassination attempt—continued to put themselves between their king and possible disaster. Since Allister had refused to be locked in a carriage, feeling that this would simply mean that their undeclared enemy had won a smaller victory, the guards had a difficult task indeed. Still, a king who hid in fear soon became no king at all.
Allister nudged Hot Toddy with his heels and the sorrel trotted up toward the middle of the line, where Queen Pearl rode in a carriage with her ladies. On the way, he passed Nydia Trueheart—now her family's heir apparent—and Prince Tavis riding side by side, engrossed in a competition to discover who could recite from memory more lines out of the canon of some New Kelvinese poet.
The rhythmic syllables—never mind that they were in a language Allister didn't understand—provided a completely nonmartial counterpoint to the thudding of horse hooves on the dirt road and jingling of harness leathers.
Life seemed very pleasant indeed. Even the weather changing to rain the next day, transforming the roads to mud couldn't alter Allister's sense of deep contentment. The weddings were over, the coronation concluded. Now he could get onto challenges he understood without ceremony to fetter his energy.
Swinging down from the saddle, Allister hummed softly as he helped shove yet another wagon out of a patch of sticky mud. Discovering Tavis behind him, placing his own shoulder against the wagon's side while still reciting poetry to a laughing Nydia, only added to the music in the king's heart.

Chapter XVII

Elation's report, upon the falcon's return to Eagle's Nest was not encouraging.

That is, Derian thought, if we all believe that Firekeeper is actually translating.

The difficulty with that excuse was that Derian knew that the three of them—Doc, Elise, and himself—did believe. As Derian had said to Firekeeper two days earlier, it was easier to believe than not.

And that makes the three of us—four if you count Firekeeper—mad as a kitten in a catnip patch, at least as far as most of our circle of acquaintances would judge us. "A gull," Firekeeper reported, "was there when Elation come to Port Haven, but Waln had come and gone. A crow followed him, but the gull had heard nothing back from the crow."
"Which direction did he go?" Derian asked.
"North," Firekeeper replied, "on the back of a horse with his saddlebags more full."
"And that's the last any have seen of him?" Doc asked.
"The last the gull have," Firekeeper said. "Certainly the crow—unless blinded—continues to see him even now."
A certain twinkle in her dark eyes made clear she was trying to lighten the mood.
Elise rose from the chair where she had been sitting doing fancy work when they had called on her so that she could hear Elation's report firsthand. Her embroidery hoop slid to the floor unheeded, nor did she notice when Doc picked it up and set it on a delicate three-legged table.
"And I cannot learn anything about where Citrine might have gone," Elise said, beginning to pace. "She left Eagle's Nest with her mother two days after the family fete. Although it was generally assumed that they went to some of the family's country holdings, I've found excuse to write and the post-rider brought back my letter undelivered."
"Citrine did tell you though," Derian said, recalling Elise's report the day following the Redbriar/Shield fete, "that her mother planned to take her to the shore. Isn't that correct?"
" 'East to the seaside,' " Elise replied, quoting the little girl as best she could, "to stay with some friends of her mother's she didn't know."
Firekeeper growled—a distinctly bestial sound, not the human facsimile. Derian wasn't surprised. Citrine, along with her slightly younger cousin Kenre Trueheart, had been the first friends the wolf-woman had made at Eagle's Nest.
"Easy," he said to the wolf-woman, patting her arm. "Lady Melina won't let her daughter come to harm."
"Hah!" was Firekeeper's unbelieving retort.
Derian's feelings weren't hurt. He had to admit that he didn't believe his own reassurance, but he kept that doubt to himself..
"If Ruby or Opal were here," Elise continued, pacing back and forth with a steady, restless tread, "then I would certainly be able to pry something out of one of them, but they've gone to Bright Bay."
"And Jet?"
Doc asked the question Derian had wanted to ask but hadn't dared, recalling too well Elise's former infatuation with the handsome young man.
"Jet?" Elise frowned. "I don't think he'd tell me anything and if he got suspicious he'd be certain to report to his mother."
"Do you think he knows how to contact Lady Melina?" Derian asked.
Elise spread her hands in a pretty gesture of frustration.
"I don't know, but I don't think we can take the risk that he can. Our best hope is that the crow Firekeeper mentioned will somehow get a message to someone who can contact Firekeeper."
Firekeeper nodded. "I ask a kite with broad, fast wings to go to the gull at the shore and then to find us here if there is news from the crow. When we leave here a raven will watch and send the kite after us."
"I'm fascinated," Doc said. "Is this usual behavior?"
Firekeeper snorted. "Not one bit! The corvid kin mock and tease the raptor kind, but for this, for fear of the sorcery coming to power, they will give up ancient rivalries for a time."
Elation squawked and ruffled her feathers in something that looked remarkably like agreement.
"North," Derian said, seizing on something solid. "The report is that Waln went north. That confirms our guesses."
"And the wagon and horses that he arranged for?" Doc asked.
"No confirmed report beyond a day from the city, but one of our regular drivers told me that he passed what could have been that rig on the road heading north."
"Very well," Elise said, ticking points off her fingers rather like her father the baron organizing his archers for battle. "Let us assume then that Baron Endbrook and Lady Melina departed separately to minimize comment. Let us further assume that Baron Endbrook—who had a full day's head start, remember—went to Port Haven while Lady Melina took Citrine to these 'friends.' "
Firekeeper, who had been studying the map of Hawk Haven, now looked up with a frown. She still had trouble thinking of lines on a map as honestly representative of places.
"This 'seaside'—it means what it say? I mean, it means at the side of the sea?"
"That's right," Derian said.
"On this," Firekeeper gestured at the map, "I can cover Hawk Haven seaside with my thumbnail—it is a little place between river and river."
She pointed at the Barren to the south and the White Water to the north.
"Why would Lady Melina leave her there? Is it because it is close to the sea and this Waln come from over sea?"
"Possible," Doc said thoughtfully, "but you must remember, Firekeeper, that a good many people live in that thumbnail space. None of us are precisely good friends with Lady Melina and it is quite possible that she simply wanted her daughter to have a new experience. In fact…"
Doc's face lit as if illuminated from within by a new idea.
"In fact, who is to say that Lady Melina isn't "bringing Citrine with her to New Kelvin?"
"Citrine said nothing about going there," Elise replied dubiously. "She was rather upset about this seaside trip."
"True." Doc's words tumbled over each other in his hurry to get them out: "But if Lady Melina didn't want her own going to New Kelvin to be known at large she wouldn't tell Citrine precisely where they were going. She might even lie to her so that if anyone did question Citrine about her—or her mother's—plans, the little girl wouldn't be able to give the game away."
"It does make sense," Elise said slowly, her worried expression lightening. "And it's not at all unlikely that Lady Melina would want her daughter to have a chance to see New Kelvin, given that she herself remembered her own trip there so fondly. It makes perfect sense, when you think of it that way."
She beamed at Doc.
"And I'd been so worried about Citrine!"
Doc flushed from his recently grown beard to his eyebrows.
Derian spoke up quickly lest Elise have a chance to remember that she had been treating Doc like a piece of particularly useful furniture—something you didn't abuse, but you didn't really notice either.
"Good," he said heartily. "Then we will assume Citrine is with her mother. Now, to take up Elise's reconstruction of events. After Baron Endbrook does his business in Port Haven, presumably he will join up with Lady Melina—and Citrine—at some inn. That's where they'll also meet up with the hired wagon and horses."
"Sounds reasonable," Doc said. "It even makes more sense now that Waln opted for a wagon rather than horses. Citrine's too small to make that long a ride astride a horse, and a pony would tire out."
"And be noticeable," Elise added. "A rider or two alongside a wagon could be almost anyone, but a little girl on a pony…"
"Little girl with citrine on forehead," Firekeeper added, indicating where Citrine, like all her mother's children except for Sapphire, wore a sparkling gemstone.
"Yes," Elise nodded. "Even if Citrine wore a hat or scarf, it could slip. Better have her wrapped in furs or blankets in the wagon with the luggage."
"If they don't want to be noticed going into New Kelvin," Derian added practically, "they'll pose as merchants. As you noted, Elise, this is a good time of year for trade with New Kelvin. I didn't think to check if Waln also arranged for cargo."
"We'll assume for our purposes," Doc said, "that he did or that he has plans to pick up something along the way. I didn't have much luck with the New Kelvinese before they left for home—they're a closemouthed lot, or at least those I met here were. Still, I did have a couple of decent chats with a younger fellow—hardly more than a servant. I got the impression that he had encountered Baron Endbrook before this, but he didn't want me to know.
"Mind," the knight added hastily, "I may have been seeing what I wanted to see. At the very least, I did pick up some trivia about the customs of the country that could come in handy."
"So you think that we might need to pursue this into New Kelvin?" Elise said slowly.
"Yes," Doc said bluntly, and Derian nodded his agreement.
"I go," Firekeeper said, tracing her finger along the map of the New Kelvinese border. "I go wherever and however far I must to steal those three things."
The wolf-woman looked at them all, her dark eyes serious and her expression quite worried.
"I promised."

BOOK

TWO

Chapter XVIII

By the night of the twenty-sixth of boar moon, Baron Endbrook and Lady Melina were a half-day's ride from Plum Orchard, the town on the White Water River from which they planned to cross over into New Kelvin.

Their route had been fairly direct once they left the rendezvous with the smugglers. They had joined up with a road that led between Plum Orchard and the royal post-road. Since Plum Orchard was the major crossing point between the nations—the others, farther west, were less convenient to Port Haven—the road was well maintained, and despite the wagon's slower pace they made reasonable time.
The weather was flowing in that mysterious and subtle transition which carries autumn into winter. Most of the trees were leafless and those that still bore foliage sported rags of greyish brown rather than the flamboyant scarlets, yellows, and oranges that represent the vegetable world's last desperate declaration of life. The days that were not overcast hosted a sharp, biting wind beneath a clear blue sky that made Waln wish for the dull grey days—even with their threat of rain.
Now that their party was reduced to three, Baron Endbrook became more intimately acquainted with Lady Melina. Although she maintained all of her ladylike airs with Fox, she softened toward Warn. Several times a day she mounted the serviceable dapple grey Waln had purchased for her and rode alongside him. At these times she would chat lightly and pleasantly, telling tales of her childhood or the court. Despite the subject matter, Waln felt she was talking with him as equal to equal. A time or two he even thought she might be flirting with him.
When she did not ride, Lady Melina retired to the back of the wagon, where, seated on a heap of bedding that did something to absorb the jolts of the road, she buried her attention in several books she had packed along from Eagle's Nest.
When she took up these studies she was so absorbed in her own world that she noticed nothing else. Several times Fox Driver had needed to warn her to get into cover when rain began to fall—a thing he never failed to do after she had viciously scolded him when a few raindrops plopped onto the printed pages.
Before too many days had passed, Waln learned that Lady Melina's books—which at first he had superstitiously shied away from as potential treatises on magic—were nothing so exotic. They were merely writings on New Kelvinese language and culture.
New Kelvin had not been colonized by the same Old Country that had founded Gildcrest—the original colony of which Bright Bay and Hawk Haven were halves and the Isles a sprig. Waln supposed, given their destination's name, that the founding nation must have been named Kelvin.
Whatever the truth of that matter, the language spoken by the New Kelvinese was quite peculiar. Waln had learned enough to respond to common greetings, to offer thanks, and to ask very simple directions, but even this sparse knowledge had been enough to convince him that he did not care to invest more of his time in that direction.
New Kelvinese was full of round sounds ending in "a" or "o," of drippingly liquid polysyllables, and sharply accented phrases. It was—so he had been told—a language that turned even the simplest request into poetry, a language filled with idiom and allusion, not a language that was inviting to a plain-spoken merchant sailor like himself.
Lady Melina, however, seemed obsessed with it. When she wasn't poring over her texts, memorizing rules of grammar and form, she was laboring over volumes of poetry or drama. Even on horseback she did not abandon her studies. Several times when Waln had ridden up alongside her, he had heard her chanting rhythmic phrases. When questioned, Lady Melina had explained that these were parts of poems.
A few she had recited for him in all their musical fullness, but when he had asked her to translate she had refused with a giggle that was definitely coquettish.
Apparently, Lady Melina told him, a common entertainment among the better classes of New Kelvinese was poetry recitation. Another was a game that involved one person reciting a line from a poem or play—and not necessarily from the opening—and then challenging the rest of the group to continue the piece from that point.
For Baron Endbrook, whose idea of a pleasant social occasion involved dancing or perhaps drinking and telling sea stories, this sounded impossibly dull. Lady Melina, however, seemed to be looking forward to joining in on at least some of these socials.
He wondered—after a particularly long recitation after which she colored and glanced up at him through her lashes—if she was contemplating other entertainments as well. He found himself restlessly anticipating the day when they would have some privacy from Fox. He had married Oralia after he had given up a sailor's life, and his mother's profession had made him feel nothing but revulsion for those women who sold themselves.
Lady Melina was different from these. She was a born noblewoman—not one newly promoted to title, like his wife. Though he despised himself as a snob, Waln realized that Lady Melina's rank drew him almost as much as her personal charms. And he realized with a mixture of guilt and almost painful desire that she could tempt him into infidelity where no other woman could.
Occasionally, Lady Melina put her grammars aside and studied instead a book illustrated with colored woodblock prints of some of the designs the author/artist—a silk merchant from Eagle's Nest—had observed in his travels. The author also offered his conjectures as to the significance of the designs and of the manner (painted or tattooed) that they were applied.
Discovering her fascination with these, Baron Endbrook spent an evening or two looking at the paintings with Lady Melina while she peppered him with questions regarding which designs he himself had seen. Since his hosts had seemed one chaotic swirl of color, Waln was less helpful than she had hoped, but under her persistent questioning he was able to remember enough to satisfy her.
"If the author is correct in his conjectures," Lady Melina said, almost reverently shutting the book after one of these sessions, "and you are correct in your remembering," she added with what he took for affectionate severity, "then it is likely that those who interviewed you were representatives of the same group, but whether that group corresponds more closely to one of our Great Houses or to a Society is uncertain. The author has failed to ascertain even such a basic point."
"How," asked Waln, "do you figure that they are all members of the same group?"
"Several times you have mentioned the use of a tight spiral design," she said, sketching the representative pattern on the back of his hand with the tip of one finger. "This seems to be one of the signature designs. Significant, too, is the predominance of the color orange in the paint near the eyes."
Waln nodded, only partly convinced and very distracted.
"There's an awful lot of color all of them seem to wear," he cautioned.
"And doubtless it seems applied without rhyme or reason to the untutored eye," she replied severely, "but my sources indicate that to the knowledgeable they are as distinct as, say, types of ships would be to a sailor."
Waln didn't care to argue, that not being his job. Nor did he wish to alienate Lady Melina, not when they were growing so comfortable together, not when they were nearing a town where they might stay at an inn with the luxury of private rooms.
No. Most certainly he did not wish to alienate her now.

Chapter XIX

With one thing and another, Boar Moon had nearly passed into Owl Moon before the Kestrel party settled in at the Norwood estate. Had it not been for the charge laid upon her by the Royal Beasts, Firekeeper would not have minded the passage of time in the least.

For one thing, she finally got a chance to know her adoptive grandmother, Duchess Kestrel. Saedee Norwood was a nice enough woman, even if the edge of her tongue could be a bit sharp when she was displeased. However, she was canny, had been fond of hunting and woodcraft in her youth, and didn't believe in young people being idle. That meant she didn't try to keep Firekeeper from running wild. If anything, she encouraged it.
Another pleasant aspect of the trip was being reunited with Derian and Elise, neither of whom Firekeeper had spent much time with since King Allister's War had ended.
But even the wolf-woman's pleasure in her friends' company was troubled by the fact that not one of the wingéd folk had brought news regarding the whereabouts of Lady Melina and Baron Endbrook. Not even Elation's frequent scouting missions turned up any indication of where the pair might be, and Firekeeper came to accept that her prey might be lost to her—if not forever, then for longer than she'd like.
"I wish," she said to Blind Seer one afternoon shortly after their arrival at the Kestrel estate, "that birds howled. Then the crow or gull or whoever knows where those two have gone could howl us the news."
Blind Seer chewed at the edge of one forepaw pad in a philosophical manner.
"It might not do any good even if they could," he replied, "for to whom would they howl? If we howled, no Cousin could carry a complicated message. It must be the same for the wingéd folk."
"True," Firekeeper sighed, "but I cannot simply wait."
"Why not?" the wolf replied. "Waiting doesn't seem any more useless to me than chasing off after game that may not be where you seek it."
"We know," Firekeeper countered, "that they are going to New Kelvin."
"We think we know," the wolf said with slight emphasis on the word "think."
Firekeeper chewed at one knuckle in unconscious imitation of the wolf and his paw. She was still doing so when there was an interruption.
She and Blind Seer had been relaxing in a room the wolf-woman particularly liked—a southern-facing chamber walled along most of one side in panes of glass. The forest on the other side of this glass wall had been cleared away and a lawn—sheep-mowed in the warmer months—stretched in lazy green openness. The sun kept the room moderately warm. Old carpets were heaped deeply on the floor, perfect for sprawled sunbathing.
Norwood family legend said that the glass-paned wall had been built using a remnant of the old magic. Earl Kestrel, who had traveled some in his younger days, said that the New Kelvinese still possessed nonsorcerous means for building just such a room.
Never mind which story was true. The room was open, warmer than the outdoors, and shielded from the wind. Because the humans found it chill—it lacked a fireplace—Firekeeper and Blind Seer could escape the bustle of the house party without being precisely rude.
However, several people had learned the location of this favored refuge and one of these came strolling in at that moment.
Edlin Norwood, Earl Kestrel's son and heir apparent, was a tall, slender youth, a year or so Derian's elder. His face was angular—and rather surprisingly lacked the distinctive Kestrel nose. His features were topped with a cap of black curls, for he wore his hair unfashionably short, on the excuse that otherwise it pulled from its queue and got in his eyes. Those eyes—pale grey and very similar in shade to his father's—danced rather than brooded. All in all, Edlin Norwood was a young man who thought well of the world.
Although, past his majority, and therefore entitled to be called Lord Kestrel, Edlin was more usually styled Lord Edlin, as if he were yet a boy. For Firekeeper, who longed to prove herself a competent adult in either of her worlds, Edlin's permitting himself to be so addressed was a mystery.
Firekeeper had been introduced to .this new "brother"—along with the three other Kestrel children—immediately upon her arrival. Tait, the next in line, was a short, rather chunky lad of seventeen who was caught between a boy's build and a man's. Facially, Tait more resembled his father than not, though his hair was sandy rather than dark. Toward Firekeeper he had been distant, but not unkind.
The two girls, Lillis and Agneta, were still clearly uncomfortable with their newly adopted sister. They were not so uncomfortable that Agneta—age eight—had failed to inform Blysse with cheerful self-importance that although Blysse was the elder by seven years, Agneta was actually the "big" sister because Blysse's recent adoption made her the younger within the Kestrel birth order.
Whatever his siblings' reactions, Edlin was clearly fascinated with Blysse. Whenever possible, he peppered her with questions about her childhood—questions she answered rather shortly, newly aware of the former enmity between the Royal Beasts and humankind.
Edlin, however, was not discouraged by her terseness. Nor was he intimidated by Blind Seer. Edlin liked dogs—one of his prides was a kennel of red-and-white spotted bird dogs, similar to Race Forester's Queenie.
In his interactions with the wolf, Edlin Norwood chose to treat Blind Seer as he would any big dog—that is, he accorded the wolf distance and respect. Edlin always held out his hand for the wolf to sniff, never stared down at him, and even sat on the floor or a low chair lest the wolf think he was attempting to dominate.
Now, breezing into the room, Edlin held out his hand to Blind Seer and then, when the wolf sniffed it politely, plopped down onto the rug. Firekeeper had learned that the courtesies Derian had taught her didn't always apply between brother and sister. Edlin, by walking in on her like this, was treating her no differently than he would Lillis or Agneta.
The wolf-woman, with her own strong sense of hierarchy—for even wolf pups fought each other until an acknowledged order was arrived upon—wasn't at all sure she liked sibling informality. However, she didn't know how to get rid of Edlin without insulting him—and she knew enough of human customs to know that insulting heirs apparent was a bad idea.
"Hi!" Edlin greeted her brightly. "I thought you'd like to know that Mother is back at last, bringing with her the rest of the house party, what?"
Firekeeper nodded, her pulse quickening a bit. The only member of the Kestrel family she hadn't met was Lady Luella Kite, the earl's wife. Race Forester had warned Derian that Lady Luella hadn't been completely delighted by her husband's adoption of Blysse—less because anything about Blysse herself offended her than because the adoption had been a Kestrel matter and the earl, caught up in his own dreams of power, had not consulted his wife until after he had gained the duchess's approval.
"When do I meet Lady Luella?"
"She's resting from the road now," Edlin replied a touch more seriously, "and told Father that shortly before dinner would do."
Firekeeper swallowed a groan.
"Formal dress," she said aloud. "I must see Derian."
"I say!" Edlin said quickly. "I have news for you about that, too. Grandmother thinks you're too old to have a male attendant—especially one as young as Counselor Derian."
"I have heared that," Firekeeper admitted, "from other lips. What do I do? Ask sister's maids or maybe Ninette?"
"Grandmother has someone for you," Edlin replied, "if you like her that is. She's a woman who does all sorts of things for Grandmother. Most of the lady's maids are frightened of the wolf, you see, but Wendee isn't."
"Wendee?"
"Wendee Jay," Edlin clarified, grinning as if he'd just offered Firekeeper a present.
"When," Firekeeper asked, feeling a vague despair that Edlin could talk so much and say so little, "do I meet this Wendee?"
"As soon as you want," Edlin said. "Shall I have someone bring her to you?"
Firekeeper remembered her human-style manners.
"This room cold, maybe I meet her in my room?"
"I say, that sounds great!" Edlin replied. He rose, bowed slightly to Blind Seer, and then paused. "And don't worry about Mother. She's no monster and I think she'll like you a whole lot, just like I do!"
He dashed out then. Firekeeper got to her feet and brushed off her breeches.
"He seem younger than Derian," she said at last, "but they tell me he is older by a year's turning and more."
"Edlin likes you," Blind Seer replied with a dry cough, "and from what I have seen of human males liking a female can make them frolic like puppies."
Firekeeper, thinking of the times she had caught Doc laughing overloud at a joke or humming to himself just because Elise had smiled at him, nodded.
"I don't like Edlin—not like that," she said stubbornly. "I will tell him."
"Not wise," Blind Seer warned her. "Even puppies have sharp teeth and no matter how he frolics now, Edlin Norwood is not a puppy."
Firekeeper sighed and then bolted to the stairs nearest to her room, running as if she could outrun these awkward social entanglements. Blind Seer loped behind her, nipping at her heels.
Wendee Jay was not at all what Firekeeper had expected. In her experience, lady's maids had fallen into two categories. Either they were like Ninette, Elise's companion, a genteel-appearing woman of fairly young years, or they were older women, bossy and officious, often assuming their importance among servants was equivalent to that of their mistress among her peers. In both cases, more often than not they were unmarried.
Elise had explained that a married woman could not be expected to keep the odd hours a lady's maid did. If a maid married, she either left service entirely or was reassigned to a post with a more regular schedule.
The first thing that was clear about Wendee Jay was that she was a mother, for the little girl with pale blond hair who clung around her neck when Wendee entered Firekeeper's room was obviously her daughter.
"I'm sorry I had to bring Merri along, but my. mother and my older girl, who usually watch her for me, are busy helping get the banquet ready for this evening. That's where I was when Lord Edlin found me."
Firekeeper nodded, studying this woman who wasn't afraid of wolves—as she clearly wasn't, having glanced to where Blind Seer lay apparently dozing in front of the fire and then dismissed him.
Wendee was slightly taller than Firekeeper, with dark blond hair, blue eyes, and a voluptuous figure that turned her simple kitchen dress and white apron into something remarkable.
"But here I'm talking like you know me," Wendee went on, showing a touch of shyness, "because we all feel like we know you. I'm Wendee Jay. This is—as I suppose you must have guessed—my daughter Merri."
"And I am…" Firekeeper hesitated, knowing that here she was Lady Blysse, but feeling that someone who would be dressing her and such should call her by name. "Firekeeper, but also Lady Blysse."
"Whichever name suits the situation," Wendee said with a lack of fuss that Firekeeper immediately appreciated. "Well, Lady Blysse, Duchess Kestrel asked if I'd tend you while you're here and I will do so, if only as a favor to her. She's been good to my family. We have a cottage here on the grounds which is nice."
Seeing Wendee switch the child from hip to hip, Firekeeper remembered her manners.
"Please sit. We just keep Merri from Blind Seer. He not eat children, but not likes ears and tail pulled either."
"Who would?" Wendee replied practically. She set her daughter down next to a chair and handed her a doll from a pocket of her apron.
Once the child was settled, Firekeeper—aware that Lady Luella might summon her at any time—explained her need.
"I need someone to help me with formal attire," the wolf-woman explained. "I not do laces myself."
"Who can?" Wendee shrugged. "Laces are impossible. I like comfortable clothes myself, work smocks and such, but there are times a woman wants to look elegant and then it's laces and slippers and taking four or five times as long to get ready."
Firekeeper heaved a heavy sigh of agreement.
"Today, Earl Kestrel's wife has come and I need formal attire. Can you help?"
"In a heartbeat," Wendee promised. "First we ring for bathwater. You've been running outdoors and even in cold weather that leaves a stink."
Wendee pulled a short rhythm on the bell-rope.
"That will get hot water up here. Next we pick out what dress you should wear."
Wendee began arranging things so efficiently that Firekeeper relaxed enough to ask her new maid some questions about herself. Wendee told her that she'd been an actress before children tied her closer to home, and that—though there was nothing wrong with routine domestic work—she still preferred a job that challenged her.
Without being prompted, Wendee began talking about Lady Luella.
"She's a fair mistress, though I don't think she particularly likes her diminished importance in what is, after all, the duchess's establishment. She much preferred when she and Earl Kestrel were younger and had their own residence, but several years ago Duchess Kestrel began turning over more and more of the responsibility for running the Norwood Grant to her son. That meant living here, so she could confer more closely with her son.
"Lady Luella has never quite gotten over having to make the choice between living apart from her husband and giving up being mistress of her own estate. It's strange but, when the earl travels—as he did so much of last year—Lady Luella's taken to digging her heels in and staying behind. Says the children need to have some stability. I think she's fighting her reflection."
Firekeeper, who had been dutifully scrubbing the dirt from her feet, wondered if she'd misheard.
"What?"
"Fighting a nothing that seems like something," Wendee clarified.
Although this didn't help much, the mention of fighting brought Firekeeper's main concern to her lips.
"How I make Lady Luella not see me as a fight?" Firekeeper asked bluntly.
"Well, we'll start by putting you in this gown," Wendee said, the very fact that she didn't ask for clarification showing that she was aware of Lady Luella's resentment regarding Blysse's adoption. "Most of your stuff looks as if it was designed for court—I guess it was—but we don't want to put you in something that screams 'Kestrel.' That'll just remind Lady Luella that she's annoyed at the earl."
The gown Wendee eventually selected was one of the simpler ones Firekeeper had acquired along the way, a pretty light brown frock trimmed with a darker brown and touched with lace at wrist and throat.
"But you should wear the blue and pink beads," Wendee went on, "no need to deny the Kestrel connection. Then we'll put your hair up—is it true you trimmed it with a knife?"
Firekeeper nodded.
"Well, we can't mend that, but we'll tuck the ragged ends under a nice girlish cap, so you look a bit younger and more helpless. The knife stays, doesn't it?"
Firekeeper nodded again.
"That's what Valet warned me. Very well, since it stays, we'll belt it on nice and plain. No need to have anyone think it's a negotiable point."
In less time than Firekeeper could have imagined, she was clean, gowned, and groomed. Wendee Jay looked at her in satisfaction, then scooped up Merri, who had fallen asleep on the rug.
"Judging from the light, Lady Luella should be sending for you soon. Wait here and be prompt when someone comes for you. Remember," Wendee paused in the doorway, "she probably wants to like you, but you'll need to give her a reason why she should do so."
With those cryptic words, Wendee darted out the door. Firekeeper could hear her footsteps, light in spite of the child she carried in her arms, as she pattered away and down the nearest servants' stair.

Chapter XX

Elation returned the day after Firekeeper met with Lady Luella. The peregrine falcon's knife-edged wings cut through the flakes of a late-afternoon snow flurry like a physical embodiment of the last rays of daylight.

Firekeeper and Blind Seer were running circles in the snow, leaping to catch the large, fluffy white flakes before they could touch the dry grass of the lawn. Once again—despite Lady Luella's outspoken disapproval—the wolf-woman had discarded the boots procured for her. Though these were light things of the softest leather, shaped to her foot by a patient cobbler and lined with fur, she still claimed they made her clumsy. The woolen hose were not as bad, but she discarded them when they grew sodden.
The peregrine soared in to land upon a stone pylon set on the fringes of the garden in memory of some youthful deed of the current duchess. Settling herself, she folded her wings with a disapproving squawk.
"Mad creatures and wolves!" she cried. "Who can tell the difference?"
"Shrieking winds and the words of the wingéd folk," retorted Blind Seer. "One and the same to these ears."
Firekeeper booted him gently in the ribs.
"Perhaps that is so," she said, "but perhaps today Fierce Joy in Flight has some news for us."
"Perhaps," replied the falcon a trace sulkily, "but if my words are as empty as shrieking winds…"
"Then the fault lies in the listener's ears," Firekeeper responded soothingly. "Tell me your news. My ears are tuned to your cries."
"I have flown long and hard, through ugly weather," said the falcon, unwilling to be so easily pacified.
"There is ample game in these fields for so mighty a hunter," Firekeeper said, "and a warm perch for her by the fireside. Will you come inside or tell your tale here?"
Elation permitted herself to be appeased.
"I have found the crow," she said, preening lightly. "And he has told me of those he followed."
"Did he not stay with them?" Firekeeper asked, dismayed.
"He was worn to a windblown leaf from his following," Elation replied, "but he did not forsake his task until he found a replacement to take it for him. By good luck, another of the corvid kin—a raven—found him before I did. The raven has taken up the chase."
"So they are lost to us again." Firekeeper sighed, then brightened. "But what was the crow's news? What direction do the treasures go and is Lady Melina yet with them?"
"North," the falcon replied, "and, yes, she is."

Chapter XXI

Terror gave a strange complexion to the events surrounding Waln's flight from the Stone Giant Inn. Afterward, he could never quite remember how he managed to evade his pursuers. On the other hand, small fragments remained extraordinarily vivid. He recalled the exact pattern of bare branches and elegant, almost polished, thorns in the bramble he'd pulled to cover him when he lay in a ditch, holding his breath. He remembered listening to his pursuers thundering off after his horse—which he'd loosed as a diversion—but he could never recall just when he got to his feet and continued south.
There had come a time when he sat on a rock staring down at his boots, which he held in his hand. His feet were wrapped in scraps of fabric he'd torn from the elaborate waistcoat he'd worn to dine with Lady Melina. Judging from the mud caked upon these makeshift slippers, he must have been walking in them for some time, but he could remember neither making them nor walking in them.
All Waln could guess was that he'd decided that leaving boot tracks in the snow along the verge of the road wouldn't be a good idea. He would have liked to depart the vicinity of the road, but he wasn't certain enough of his bearings—clouds having robbed him of the guidance of the stars—to risk leaving it entirely.
Again he came to himself, at midday, to find himself buried deep inside a haystack. Oddly, Waln's first thought was that this was not the best hay—it smelled musty and slightly rotted. Only after he had formed that thought did it occur to him to wonder how he had come to be buried inside a haystack and, even, where he was. He had been too absorbed in Lady Melina's company and the promises hinted at in her smiles to notice details of the local landscape.
His skin felt damp and he guessed that he'd been sweating. Further examination of his surroundings caused him to suspect fever, for his breath—when he cautiously surfaced from the hay—was visible even though the cloud-shrouded sun was high overhead.
Waln lay buried in the hay, wondering where he was, how far he had come, how intent the pursuit might be, and a dozen other things, each thought chasing the other in a jolting circle, like a cat chasing its tail.
He must have drifted off to sleep again, for when hunger awakened him he discovered that darkness had again fallen. His thoughts were clearer now, but a trace of fever-induced whimsy made him feel rather like a mouse as he tunneled his way to the surface.
The night proved to be clear and crisp. The upper layer of hay snapped with frost as he pushed through it. There was no visible moon, but his eyes were already adjusted to what faint light there was.
His haystack stood against the side of a small animal shelter. The shelter was empty now, but smooth, rounded droppings suggested that goats had been kept here. That would explain the condition of the hay, as well as the lack of concern for its keeping. Goats were notorious for eating anything.
At that moment, Waln rather wished he were a goat. His meal with Lady Melina had been the night before and his excursions had burnt what little he hadn't purged from his system as a candle flame burns a moth. Although the islander carried extra flesh on his big frame—flesh his body was doubtless consuming even now—his stomach clamored its emptiness, accustomed to being filled three or four times a day whether it needed to be or not.
After assuring himself that he was alone, Waln eased himself from the haystack. He noted with idle curiosity that he was wearing his boots again. He didn't recall putting them on. The muddy pieces of waistcoat were stuffed behind his belt.
Fever mounting again as he exerted himself, Waln was pleased to find that his unconscious self was such an organized and efficient type of person. He rather wished he could just go away again and let that other self take over. However, not knowing just how to call up that other self, he decided he'd better not chance it. He might just fall asleep in the snow and freeze.
There was a hut off to one side of the goat pen. Its door was open, swinging at a drunken angle from the upper pair of a set of leather hinges. The lower hinge was broken or had been eaten by mice or rats.
Waln picked his way over to the hut. He realized that he was tiptoeing—a ridiculous thing as he was moving across open ground. He made an effort to stop himself, but as soon as he stopped he realized he was tiptoeing again—doubtless some attempt on the part of his hidden self to be stealthy.
The hut proved to be empty. The thin dusting of snow across the floor showed only rodent tracks—tiny, eyelash-fine traceries for the feet and a long, narrow track for the tail. These converged around a large hunk of bread, apparently broken from a larger loaf and abandoned with the carelessness of plenty where it had fallen near the open door.
With no thought for the dirt or gnaw marks on the bread, Waln scooped up the bread and shoved it into his mouth. As he chewed, feeling the grit against his teeth, he squatted down on the floor, blotting up loose crumbs with the tip of one finger. These he stuffed in after the bread, disregarding the fact that he shoved in more dirt than bread. He wished he'd not scared the mouse away, his mouth watering at the image of that warm mouthful.
Clarity of thought returned just enough to make Waln feel revolted at this descent into bestiality, and with that revulsion came an awareness of his predicament.
The bread—while not precisely fresh—had not been completely stale. Nor was it the heavy black bread one would expect a goatherd to drop. This bread had been a pale honey-brown in color, the color of the rolls that had graced the dinner table he had shared the night before with Lady Melina.
Therefore, the person who had dropped it had quite possibly been hunting for Waln. Perhaps the searcher had overlooked the haystack because both the hut and goat shed were nearer and were so much more obvious hiding places. The same late snow that had frozen the top of the haystack would have disguised any prints Waln would have left—especially if the searcher had come by when the light was poor.
Waln realized with a sudden thrill of fear how fortunate he had been—and that he dare not stay here a moment longer. The haystack might not escape a second inspection.
He did remain long enough to thoroughly search the hut, hoping to find some provision hidden away against need. However, though he searched with all the cunning he'd gained in his streetwise youth, he went unrewarded.
Satisfying his belly with great handfuls of the cleanest snow he could find, Baron Waln Endbrook trudged out into the darkness. When the wind began to blow and snow to fall, all he felt was gratitude at the certainty that his trail would be covered.
His mind centered itself on a dream of fire, a reddish-orange glow that gradually resolved itself into the memory of a gem-stone glimmering with citrine fire upon the forehead of a little girl.

Chapter XXII

Firekeeper had been aware that someone was following them since their first day on the road from the Kestrel estate. By the second day, she was certain—as Blind Seer had been from the start—who their shadow was.

A peculiarly wolfish element in her sense of humor kept Firekeeper from telling her companions—a waggish desire to learn if they would notice they were being pursued. It was an impulse akin to that which led a puppy to jump from hiding to pounce a littermate, a "got you that time!" sort of laughter. That the pursuer might prove a problem never crossed her mind. Indeed, that he could track them so closely without the others ever knowing he was near only made Firekeeper raise her estimation of him.
Of course, that estimation had never been high.
Near evening on the second day after their departure from the Kestrel estate, the little band reached the town of Stilled. Snow mixed with sleet drove down slantwise, sliding into every crevice, soaking the travelers to the bone despite their winter wraps.
When she had lived with the wolves, Firekeeper had retreated to a cave on such days. If she had fuel, she huddled near a fire. If she did not and one of the wolves chose to stay with her, she huddled next to the wolf. Otherwise, she shivered. While so trapped, she usually became quite hungry, but hunting had been out of the question. Food had been the dream through which she had passed the hours.
Today the wolf-woman was not hungry, but she was learning that being icy and wet could be even more unpleasant. She was also exquisitely lonely.
Blind Seer had not quite abandoned her but, knowing that his presence would keep her from taking shelter in the town, he had made his excuses and vanished into the surrounding area. Doubtless, he had found himself a comfortable spot in some hollow, and was letting the snow settle around him, insulating him from the worst of the cold. After a while, not even the passing rabbits would know the wolf was there.
Come dawn Blind Seer would make his own river crossing and meet them on the other side.
The town of Stilled took its name from the partial dam that here quieted—or stilled—the raging torrents of the White Water River. Creation of the dam had been a major engineering feat undertaken in the time of Earl Kestrel's grandfather, but it had been worth the effort and expense. Before, trade had only come across farther east, effectively ruling the Norwood Grant out of the economic opportunities just across the border.
The dam could not stop the river's force, but it could redirect it, thus making ferry traffic possible, especially during the winter, when the river ran lowest. In the spring, passage was impossible, the torrents of snowmelt resisting any obstacle. Then the people of Stilled opened the floodgates and let the waters run through. Spring was planting time in any case, not a time for trade.
Tomorrow morning—weather permitting—Firekeeper and her companions planned to take the Stilled ferry across into New Kelvin. Blind Seer could make his way across the dam itself, trusting footholds a human would find slick indeed. In fact, the wolf had already done so, running ahead the night before their departure to test Elation's scouting and circling back to meet them along the road.
Firekeeper knew Derian had been relieved when she had reported that Blind Seer could get across the White Water on his own. The young man had been devising various plans to get the wolf across without attracting undue attention—attention that might at the least delay them and at the worst somehow reach the ears of Baron Endbrook and Lady Melina, alerting them to the possibility of pursuit.
Fox Hair worries too much, Firekeeper thought fondly. He's like a mother wolf with too many pups for her teats and no nursemaid about.
The image of Derian as a mother wolf amused and distracted Firekeeper so that she forgot her discomfort and was even surprised to find their saddle train coming to a halt before what was, even to her eyes, clearly an inn.
She couldn't read words painted on the sign over the door, but the picture—glimpsed whenever the wind swung the sign back into a somewhat vertical position—seemed to be of a mouse sitting on its haunches, an extraordinarily long tail twisting out behind it.
The warm orange glow through the opaque glass of a front window immediately conjured up images of firelight and comfort. As they stopped and Derian was stiffly swinging down from Roanne's saddle, the orange light was blocked by a form about the size of a human head. Moments later, the big front door was flung open.
A cloaked and hooded figure smelling of beef and roses burst forth.
"Welcome to the Long Trail Winding," it said in a contralto bellow that carried easily over the wind. "Come in out of the cold."
"The horses and mules…" Derian began.
"Send 'em round the side," the innkeeper interrupted, "to the left. I've already rung so the gate will be open. We've stabling enough. No one's out on a night like this and our last big group left two days ago."
Before the innkeeper had finished her speech, Firekeeper had already stepped onto the porch. The wolf-woman's immediate impulse was to rush to the comfort indoors, but she knew Derian would not come inside until the horses and mules were settled.
Elise would be useless in this matter. Doc and Wendee might be somewhat better, but Firekeeper had reached an accommodation with these particular animals. She moved over to where Wendee was mounted on Patience and helped her down. Wendee gave her a grateful smile.
"Thanks," Wendee said. "I'm a bit stiff."
Firekeeper, who had run most of the way rather than get chilled, nodded. She knew she'd be stiff, too, if she'd sat on a plodding horse in the cold and wind.
"Get into warm," she said. "I help Derian."
Then she turned to Patience.
Move! she growled, slapping the horse on the rump.
The gelding was only too glad to move, even without its sometime rider's encouragement. Patience wasn't an equine genius, but it had scented the stables. If the mules had been inclined to argue—and Firekeeper wasn't certain that they actually were—Firekeeper's growl got them hurrying along at a brisk pace. A few even trotted.
At the stable they were met by two young men who stated that "Ma would have their heads for the soup pot" if they let guests of the inn remain uncomfortable any longer than absolutely necessary.
Derian took one look at the neat stable, grinned his thanks, and started unstrapping their baggage. Firekeeper helped him carry the few necessary bags inside.
"We can trust those fellows with the rest of the load," Derian said to her once they were outside again—the cold and damp seeming all the worse for the temporary respite in the stable. "I think the innkeeper's some sort of cousin of my mother's. My parents have an agreement with them, and I'll just make certain that the innkeeper knows who I am."
Whether whatever Derian said to the innkeeper was necessary, Firekeeper didn't know. The innkeeper—a distinctly fat woman with mouse-grey hair and a cheerful laugh—seemed delighted to have more guests. She sent hot wine to their rooms, plied them with bread and soft cheese as soon as they came down to the common room, and set before them not only the beef stew Firekeeper had scented, but a side of roast venison as well.
Some hours later when they were warm, dry, and well fed, sleet no longer rattled against the windowpanes. By the time Firekeeper had retired to the room she was to share with Elise and Wendee Jay, the stars were bright against a sky that looked like freshly brushed black velvet.
"No, you don't," Elise said, looking over from where she stood bent over, brushing her hair, the steadily repeated strokes making it look like a wheat field rippling in the wind.
"No, I don't what?" Firekeeper asked, astonished at the rebuke.
"No, you don't go running around outside of town howling for Blind Seer," Elise said. Her lips formed numbers as she counted the brush strokes.
Firekeeper, who had been thinking of doing precisely that, was offended.
"Why should I no?" she asked indignantly. "I no get lost."
"Not and won't" Elise corrected. "Because it is dark and cold out there, because you've been chilled to the bone and you need to rest before tomorrow."
"Think of this," Wendee added soothingly from where she was hanging their damp clothes on a line the accommodating innkeeper had strung before the fire. Her hair was already tightly plaited, her flannel gown tied close to her throat. "The wolf has probably got himself nice and warm. He doesn't need you to wake him up."
Wendee's argument convinced Firekeeper to stay in. Still, as she drifted off to sleep on the pallet before the fire, looking up at the shadows the dangling laundry cast in the flickering light, she wondered how she could feel so alone though crowded into a room with two other women.

Chapter XXIII

The condition of the palms of his hands and the fabric of his breeches, rather than any clear memory, testified to Waln as to the nature of his escape from New Kelvin.

Dirt had been so thoroughly ground into both—and into his knees where the breeches had become unbuckled, leaving the fabric to ride up. One stocking remained gartered.

The other drooped around his boot top. The seat of his trousers was stiff with grime. The nature of the dirt fascinated him. Sandy grit had left its mark beneath his skin, tiny black dots like amateur tattooing. There were smears of clay interspersed with sour fecal-smelling material, even small bits of chaff. From these—and smatterings of memory—he deduced that he had hidden in many an unsavory hole while making his way back to the White Water River.
Once there he had stowed away in the covered cargo section on one of the ferryboats—he remembered that in detail, including the way his stomach had growled and surged bile up his throat when he dared not pry open one of the crates holding cheeses a few inches from his nose.
He had dropped overboard when the ferryboat had been dragged onto rollers on the gravel strand at Plum Orchard—no one wanted to unload cargo in the mixture of sleet and rain that began when the ferry was halfway across, but they hadn't trusted the vessel to the unpredictable waters.
Doubtless the ugly weather had been the best friend Waln could have asked for, but at the time he had cursed the icy water that soaked him seemingly to the very core of his soul. He'd broken into a warehouse near the edge of town. It was mostly empty, thus unguarded.
Amid the relics stored within he had found a partial case of water-spoiled dried meat, a wedge of elderly cheese, and a partial barrel of sour wine. With rainwater gathered in an old bottle and the bottom of a metal box for a cook pot, he made himself a banquet. There was wood enough to burn from old packing cases and crates. At least the foul weather without meant that he did not need to worry about anyone spotting what smoke eddied out through the warehouse roof.
Though he ached for respite, Waln left before dawn the next morning. His fever had burned from him, but he could feel it lurking, waiting for an excuse to return. He hiked overland, clinging to the banks of the White Water for guidance and because something deep within him took comfort from the presence of living water.
Sometimes his fever must have returned because for long stretches he was accompanied by phantoms. Once his mother came and walked with him, mincing her way over the sand and gravel in too-tight shoes. Waln asked her who his father was. She only laughed and vanished.
From a shack along the riverbanks Waln stole a heavy old coat and an oilcloth hat with a floppy brim. From the line outside a farmhouse he stole a pair of long workman's trousers and a smock. He regartered his stocking with a bit of string and carried those provisions he scrounged in a square of fabric bundled on the end of a stick.
His reflection, when he glimpsed it in a quiet pool at the edge of the river, was so unlike the robust Baron Endbrook that he doubted his pursuers—even if they should glimpse him across the breadth of the White Water—would know him. Bent with weariness, limping in boots never meant for so much walking, he was incarnated as the man Walnut the whore's son would have become had he never escaped to sea—a thief and beggar, weary, wounded, and alone.
Oddly, Waln's hatred did not center itself on the queen who had sent him on this mission, nor upon the woman who had betrayed him. It rooted in something he had trusted as he had never trusted either queen or lady—in the two items he had taken from Lady Melina as guarantee of her fidelity: a necklace of sparkling gemstones and a little girl with red-gold hair.
With this hatred to fire his heart, Waln tramped on long after darkness had fallen. The wisdom of both thief and bully kept him from stealing a horse, though he passed many set out to pasture when the days were fair—as the weather turned soon after his escape, as if regretting the discomfort it had caused him.
A bit of clothing or a few eggs or a chunk of bacon from a smokehouse might not be missed; if it was, it was not likely to be pursued. A horse, however, especially one strong enough to carry a man of his size, would be missed. Horse thieves were usually dealt with on the spot.
So Waln kept his stealing small, the hours of his walking long. The river proved a true guide and late one night the clear cold air carried on it the salt tang of the sea.
In order that he be able to retrieve Citrine Shield when he returned from New Kelvin, Waln had been taught the land way to Smuggler's Light. As Princess Lovella's campaign long years ago had proven, Smuggler's Light could be reached by land, but only with great care.
Happily, Waln had assumed that he would be coming to the swamp directly from New Kelvin, so the landmarks he had been given were visible as soon as the swamp was in sight. A tall cypress with a boulder at its base marked the beginning of the trail. This was apparent as soon as dawn pinked the sky, but Waln waited until daylight shone clear and bright to venture further.
Winter had stripped the deciduous trees of their leaves, but the swamp was home as well to thick growths of long-needled pines that seemed all the more dense amid the skeletons of trees and vines. Despite the chill wind that whipped at the baron, the footing remained marshy beneath his boots, the taint of salt and the warmer temperatures here to the east of New Kelvin having kept frost from the ground.
Tying a bundle containing a flitch of bacon to his belt, he converted his stick to a walking staff, testing before each step. The Isles had their share of swamp and marsh, so Waln was familiar with the tricks it could play: mudholes without apparent bottom, sand spread lightly over water, hummocks that rocked or sank when you jumped on them.
In addition to watching his footing, Waln kept alert for the trail markers. None of these were as crude as a blazoned tree or a cairn of rocks. The smugglers preferred more subtle signs. Two bird's nests in the crotch of a dead scrub oak marked one turning, a sapling "chance bent" along the ground made a long pointer. By these and other signs, Waln made his way.
He had just realized that the fiat grey in the near distance was dressed stone overgrown with vines when a voice spoke to him from above:
"Name yourself and your business."
"Rain riders," Waln said, "seeking shelter from the storm."
"Come along, Baron Endbrook," the voice said. "We had not looked for you so soon and garbed so fashionably."
There was dry laughter beneath the words, holding within it mockery and menace. With a sudden seizing of his heart,
Waln Endbrook wondered if he had come to a refuge or to yet another betrayal.

Chapter XXIV

The man who had greeted Baron Endbrook outside Smuggler's Light proved to be Longsight Scrounger, one of the leading figures in the pirate organization. Nor had it been complete chance that he had been waiting to meet the baron. Lookouts had spotted Waln almost as soon as he entered the swamp; reports of his progress had been passed along to the lighthouse.

"We might even have pulled you out if you'd blundered into a boghole," Longsight said. "Then again we might not have."
He grinned at his own joke, showing a jagged front tooth, broken some said when he bit another pirate's arm to the bone during a brawl.
Longsight had taken Waln into the lighthouse and encouraged him to bathe and dine. It was only after Waln had suddenly nodded up from a guilty drowse following an excellent meal of fish poached in white wine that he thought to wonder whether the door to his room was locked.
The baron decided not to bother checking. He'd walked into the pirates' lair freely. It was up to them to decide whether he was their guest or their prisoner. For now he needed rest more than freedom, and sleep was not denied him.
Waln's dreams were full of storm-tossed seas through which he piloted a ship crewed by skeletons. Eventually the ship was wrecked against rocks the crystal blue of Lady Melina's eyes.
He swam to shore, where he spent an eternity slogging through swamps in a thick fug of summer heat. He struggled on endlessly, pushing through vines that wrapped around his limbs, twisted around his throat.
Several times he nearly strangled, but always the pressure relented just before his heart burst from lack of air.
When Waln awoke, clear light was shining in through the narrow window in his room. A girl with hair the color of fire or fine brandy was seated at his bedside reading a book. Seeing he was awake, she put down the book and dashed away—presumably to fetch some adult. Only when she was gone did Waln realize that the girl had been Citrine Shield.
He slept again before anyone returned to speak with him. When he awoke, the light had dimmed and a man waited nearby. Waln could not recall seeing him before, but judging from how the man reached over and took his wrist to test his pulse Waln thought he must be some sort of healer.
"Fess Bones," the other said by way of introduction. "Here, drink some of this—it's just water."
Waln did as he was told, realizing he felt wrung-out, so weak that he could hardly get his fingers to close around the handle of the heavy pottery mug. Fess Bones helped him, wiping the water that dribbled down Waln's chin as neatly as a mother might.
"You've been sick these past two days," Fess reported. "Fever rose the very night you arrived. You slept the night through and all the day following. Woke once this morning—we thought you were with us—but the fever dragged you down again. It's evening now. How do you feel?"
"Thirsty," Waln croaked. "Weak."
"You can have more water in bit. Let your stomach learn to swallow what you just drank. I'll see if the kitchen has any broth and tell Longsight you're awake and likely to live."
Fess was back some indeterminate time later with a container of warm fish stock.
"Longsight says you're to rest. He'll talk with you come morning."
Waln wanted to disagree. His task was too important. He needed to get news to Queen Valora, but when he tried to speak his throat would not obey him. He let Fess Bones spoon fish stock into him, drank more water, drifted back to sleep.
When Waln awoke once again, darkness had fallen. Someone else sat vigil with him, just visible in the flickering candlelight—a weathered old crone with a scar through her right eyebrow and the top of her left ear missing. She gave him water and broth, helped him use the pot, then settled back in her chair to nap.
Waln himself was at last wide awake. In some ways he felt more alert than he had since meeting with Lady Melina at the post-house, his mind clear, his thoughts cogent. He wondered if his family had missed his letters or had simply believed that some vagary of winter shipping had delayed them, wondered how he could get a message to Queen Valora, wondered how she would take the news of Lady Melina's betrayal.
The queen was certain to be angry—furious. A sudden realization chilled Waln as if the fever was returning. What if Queen Valora took her anger out on him?
Somehow the thought had never occurred to him. He'd fled toward her, trusting the queen to avenge the wrongs done to him and, through him, to her. Why had he never seen that Queen Valora would most likely strike out at the nearest person holding part of the blame?
Lying on his back in the dark room, listening to the rasping snores of the old pirate woman in the chair beside his bed, Baron Endbrook frantically reworked his plans.
Before, in some vague fashion he had thought to take ship for the Isles, to let Queen Valora assume responsibility for the entire mess. Now Waln realized that if he hoped to return home with some shreds of his reputation intact, he must act at once. Fortunately, the very secret nature of his embassy for her made it unlikely that Queen Valora would inquire after him too publicly lest embarrassing information come to light.
He had time. The thought comforted him. He had time, time to put pressure on Lady Melina, to regain the artifacts, to make his own deal with the New Kelvinese to activate the artifacts or—better—to simply get off this cursed mainland. Queen Valora could find another ambassador.
After he had the artifacts back, then Waln could tell Queen Valora the truth. If nothing had been lost but a little time, surely she would be willing to accept that the heirlooms' secrets had not been unlocked—especially when she realized how close she had come to losing them entirely.
All through the long hours of darkness Baron Endbrook lay awake. When dawn filtered pale and chill through the narrow window the crone ceased her snoring. She moved flaccid lips over bare gums and smiled pinkly at him.
"Sleep well, ducks?"
"Well enough, mother," Waln replied politely. "Do you think Longsight will see me today?"
The crone cackled mirthlessly.
"Oh, yes, he'll see you. The question is will you be wanting to see him again once he's done with you."

Chapter XXV

Theirs was a meeting of bullies—of strong men who used that strength unmercifully to control those weaker, but who also were willing, almost eager, to surrender to the control of one stronger than themselves. Such a desire to surrender is at the secret heart of most bullies—but does little to comfort those they pound to submission.

Longsight Scrounger was not the lord of the pirates. Indeed, it was a matter of debate whether that legendary personage existed. What Longsight was was a good sailor, a better pilot, a mean hand with a sword or club, and, finally, a man possessed of a talent—a singular skill for finding things. Longsight could find fresh water, a lost piece of jewelry, sometimes even something as vague as the best path or a safe cove.
Had Longsight not been a bully, he might have become a dowser, a wealthy man honored throughout the Isles and perhaps beyond, but Longsight craved power more than he did respectability. Among the pirates, his gift gave him a slight edge. Those stronger than him valued his talent as an intangible asset, worth cultivating even if they despised the man. Those weaker than him feared Longsight not only because of his own not inconsiderable strength, but because the looming shadow of those others who considered him a tool difficult to replace.
The arrangement was one that satisfied Longsight perfectly and he came to the room where Waln sat up in bed to meet him with the equanimity of one who knows he has the upper hand and will enjoy using it to deliver a beating.
Waln Endbrook had learned to hide the bully beneath a veneer of fine clothing, beneath his ownership of a merchant fleet, beneath the influence money can buy, but he had never ceased to be a bully at heart. His wife, Oralia, knew that—fearing and loving him as only a willful woman broken can love. His servants knew that and worked harder to avoid his wrath.
His children had yet to make the discovery, for Waln doted on them and punished his servants rather than his darlings. Someday they would learn, however, and a new battle would be joined. Waln might even end up the loser, but that day was long in the future.
For now, Waln hardly thought of his children, his wife, his money and influence. When he did he thought of them as things at his disposal, extra fists with which to batter his opponent. Although he knew enough of Longsight Scrounger to respect him, he also trusted in his own strength.
Longsight might have sensed this as he strolled into the sickroom, for the cocky greeting he'd intended—a clever bit about Waln having survived the fever maybe just to give their hangman a bit of practice—melted on his lips.
Instead he hitched up the chair, spun it around, and sat backward, with its ladder back between him and Waln. He asked much more neutrally:
"So, how are you feeling?"
"Weak as a kitten and sour as vinegar," Waln replied, which was neither completely true nor completely false.
Certainly he wasn't himself—no man could be who'd traveled the distance he had half-fed and poorly clad with winter freezing his bones by day and by night. Still, he'd lived hard enough as a youth to know that a couple of days' good feeding and rest and he'd be himself again.
There was no advantage to telling Longsight that, so Waln contented himself with a faint, self-deprecating smile.
Longsight, feeling more confident, grinned at him.
"So, how'd you end up like that? Last time I saw you, you were riding high and mighty with a noble lady at your side."
Lady Melina's name, unspoken, rested like a threat between them. There had been no way to keep her identity from the pirates, not with her daughter kept among them and her with that damned gemstone on her forehead.
Waln hadn't worried. There would have been no advantage to the pirates in spreading the information, not while Waln held the upper hand. Now, however, the knowledge was transforming into a threat.
Concisely, as he had rehearsed through the dark hours of the night with only the snoring crone for audience, Waln recited an edited version of events. He had to stay close enough to the truth for Longsight to know what he must to help him, but he didn't need to tell all.
For one, Waln didn't need to tell how he'd been panting after the woman like a dog after a bitch in heat. Instead, the way Waln told the story, Lady Melina had ensorcelled him and made him her slave. Only the threat to his own life had broken the spell, necessitating his mad dash, leaving some—unnamed—valuables in the evil woman's possession.
The odd thing was, this version of events made more sense to the baron than the reality he knew. Lady Melina was a nice-looking piece, but he'd seen better, had better—much better. His own wife was more attractive if it came down to that.
There was Lady Melina's high birth and the lure of that conquest, but would that have been enough to make him act like an idiot? Intellectually, Waln knew that had been the case. On some deeper level, he could almost feel the tendrils of enchantment that had wrapped around his soul and made him act as he otherwise would not have.
For a fleeting moment, Waln wondered if perhaps he should take his account—this version of it—before Queen Valora. However, now that his head was clear, prudence won out—that and the discovery that he had acquired an aversion to powerful women.
Waln had expected Longsight to sneer at him, to ridicule and mock him for his weakness. What he hadn't entertained was the possibility of being believed. Longsight, however, was nodding slowly, as solemn as judgment.
"We've seen something of her mother's power these long days since you left the girl, Citrine, with us."
The baron noted that Longsight's knuckles, where he grasped the back of the chair, grew white as he told the tale.
"One of my young bucks—looking, he says, to please me, but I think he meant to steal it for himself—backed the girl into a corner and was setting about cutting that jeweled diadem from her head.
"The girl set up such a screaming that we heard it from the light to the cellar. Even when my buck—Red Stripe, they're calling him now—put his hand over her mouth and near suffocated her the girl just kept screaming. Shrill as a seagull she was, but not near as melodious. Even after she shouldn't have had air to yell, she kept hollering and wailing.
"I came thumping up the stair in time to whack Cime—him that's Red Stripe now—on the head before he killed the girl out of fear. As soon as she calmed down, the girl herself told us what happened—and later I checked the story with Cime before sending him for a lashing, so I know it's true."
Longsight's voice dropped low and fearful.
"The girl ended with saying—prissy as a schoolmarm I had back when I was a lad, she was—'My mother bound that stone to me when I was just a baby. I've worn it since, though at times I've hated the thing. I'd give it to you if I could, but take it from me and I'll die.'
"I tell you, Waln, my blood ran cold to hear a child talk that way. There was truth in it. That's why I have no problem believing that the Lady Melina trapped you by sorcery. If she'd do such to her own child, she'd do it to a stranger."
Amazed by this bit of good luck, Waln considered that perhaps he should have expected this reaction. No profession he knew—except possibly the legendary market gamblers of Waterland—created such faith in superstitions as that of the sailor. It grew out of challenging wind and water, from all the little rituals one fell into almost unconsciously when trying to propitiate that which could drown you without thought or malice.
Warn adapted his tactics swiftly, unwilling to risk Longsight's awed terror transforming into angry resentment at his own fear.
"I'm going to get my own back from Lady Melina," Waln announced sternly, "whether she is a sorceress or not, but it's a foolish man who sticks his hand in a fire knowing he'll be burnt. Not until I've got her softened up will I go after her."
Longsight's eyes narrowed and he looked stern, but Waln noted the nervous way his tongue traveled around his teeth, pausing at the broken one, as if testing all were there.
"I can't send any men with you," Longsight said. "Winter is when the Light is most defenseless—the swamp firms some with the cold and the waters near the shore are yet navigable. My trust is holding this place and I will not weaken it for you—even if you go after that sorceress."
Or, thought Waln with irony, aware of his own growing confidence, perhaps especially if I do.
"I wouldn't expect that of you," he said aloud, trusting to his own strength that Longsight would let the hint of mockery pass. "I want to use your network, not your men. Lady Melina needs to be softened, as I said. All I want, for now, is someone to deliver a message."
"A message?" Longsight looked interested.
"That's right." Waln's smile became cruel. "Before I agreed to escort her to New Kelvin, I extracted safeguards from Lady Melina, meant to assure her good behavior. One of them you hold here—the girl, Citrine."
Longsight nodded, but again his tongue flickered round his lips.
"Now the lady trusted to have me murdered as she had my man Driver murdered. Then she would have ransomed back her daughter from your keeping."
At least I believe she would, thought Waln with a trace of uneasiness, for on this belief lay the foundation of his new plan.
"I want to send Lady Melina a reminder that her daughter is in my keeping—and an assurance that though she must believe me dead, that I am very much alive and ready to oppose her."
Longsight grinned. "You believe she is in Dragon's Breath?"
"I do," Waln said, "or if she is not, that there will be those in the Dragon Speaker's service who will know where she is. Can you get a message there—a message and a small package?"
"I can," Longsight replied. "I'll even wait to charge you postage till the spring."
"No need," Waln said airily. "When I am stronger, I can draw funds from a contact in Port Haven."
Longsight looked pleased.
"We'll keep the girl on trust till we're paid," he said with a sudden return to toughness.
Waln knew he had won for now, but he didn't dare alienate Longsight—not just yet. He made a show of lowering his gaze as if the concession had been forced from him. In reality, he had never intended to take Citrine away from the lighthouse. She was much more secure there than any place he could hide her.
"Of course, Longsight. However you wish."
Longsight was pleased. Without fully standing, he managed to twirl the chair under him so that he could lean against the back.
"Tell me now, Baron Endbrook, what size package do you need to send?"
"Nothing very large," Waln assured him, "just a lock of hair—and a finger or two."

Chapter XXVI

As eager as Firekeeper was to find lady Melina, steal the three items, and hurry back west, her first glimpse of Dragon's Breath transformed her impatience into care—rather as a wolf who has scented what she thought was a solitary deer might pause to reconsider her tactics when she realizes that what she has surprised is a rutting buck with a twelve-point rack. While Derian, with Elise as translator, undertook the tedious and confusing task of registering their party as foreign traders, Wendee and Doc were put in charge of finding them a place to stay.
Edlin was assigned to grooming their assorted beasts, a job he did with something like good grace. His role in saving them from the bandits had helped make him one of their number, but he was aware that he was an interlope, and was eager to prove his continued worth.
Edlin hinted to Firekeeper that he'd enjoy "Little Sister's" company down in the stable, but Firekeeper wasn't about to encourage his puppyish affection. With Blind Seer ghosting behind her, she joined Doc and Wendee.
The innkeeper had loaned them one of his sons, a youth with enough of both languages to act as a translator in case Wendee's New Kelvinese wasn't sufficient. In turn, Wendee's New Kelvinese was sufficient to assure that the boy didn't distort their needs for his own gain.
The innkeeper's boy led them immediately from the quieter fringes of town to a secondary market area outside the ancient walls. Inside the main walls—as in Eagle's Nest—stabling for the horses and mules would be prohibitively expensive. Moreover, the boy explained, that part of the city had become the purview of the sodalities. Very rarely did any building come up for rent, and the market there welcomed only the products of the sodalities themselves.
Firekeeper followed a few steps behind the rest, trying not to show her terror at being surrounded by this sprawling city. She took some comfort from knowing that Blind Seer was trailing them, seeing how well he could conceal his presence from the daylight world.
"Given the pong of trash and night soil," the wolf said, "even though cold has deadened some of the reek, I should not alert the duller noses. We will be helped in that the New Kelvinese limit the numbers of herbivores on the streets during the day—fewer to catch my scent and be properly terrified."
"And the dogs?" Firekeeper had asked. "These people do keep dogs."
"I'll growl 'em to silence," the wolf replied confidently.
Firekeeper knew that in reality Blind Seer was no happier than she about their surroundings, but like her he had changed since their first venture into what humans persisted in calling "civilization." Moreover, he had promised to help her in the undertaking the Royal Beasts had laid upon her, and he could not do that from outside Dragon's Breath.
Elation, as usual, was gone on some business of her own. She might be following Derian; then again, she might be hunting out some of the wingéd folk—perhaps the very crow who had followed Lady Melina north.
Actually, as they twisted through the streets, Firekeeper began to have a sneaking suspicion that Blind Seer could have walked openly at her side with Elation perched on his back and no one would have noticed. Even to her, limited as her exposure to human customs had been, the people of Dragon's Breath seemed weird.
The stories Wendee had told along the road had prepared her somewhat for the wide use of face paint, but she decided that no mere tales could have prepared her for the reality of the wildly colored faces—or for the smell of the preparations used to achieve the effect.
There didn't seem to be one single preparation in use, but many involved oils and dyes that had quite strong odors. Spices, nutmeats, flower petals, pulverized minerals all mixed together into an olfactory storm that made Firekeeper struggle not to pinch her nostrils shut.
And then there was the clothing. Much of it resembled the long straight robes Wendee had purchased in Gateway—although more brightly colored. Sometimes two or three such robes had been layered over each other to provide protection from the cold. Other passersby wore long coats trimmed in fur or brilliant tapestry brocades.
These, however, were the comparatively normal New Kelvinese.
Firekeeper nearly lost sight of her companions the first time a truly exotic figure paraded past. It was a man—at least it seemed to be male—clad all in bronze-colored tights. These tights were not merely formfitting. They were padded so that the man's limbs had more form, so they were exaggeratedly defined. Stylized muscle groups along the man's arms, legs, and chest had been worked out with careful anatomical detail; his penis protruded before him like a spear, balls swaying below with every stride.
The man's face had been stained reddish-bronze, his eyes rimmed in black, his nose tip painted so that it appeared to spread across his face in an oddly bovine fashion. The enormous headgear he wore continued the illusion. Flaring ears and long bronze horns created the impression—even for Firekeeper, who usually saw reality and had difficulty seeing mere art—of a bipedal bull.
She swiveled around as the man went by and saw that his outfit included a tail that, rather than dragging limply on the ground behind him as she might have expected, bounced and waved like a natural tail of flesh and bone.
What astonished her almost as much as the bull-man was that no one else seemed to notice him, no one but herself, Wendee, and Doc. Even the innkeeper's son, who was young enough that he should have been delighted by such a colorful figure, passed the bull-man without slowing, pausing only when he realized that he had nearly lost those he was intended to guide.
After they had threaded through the streets for a bit longer, Firekeeper realized why these exotic figures raised no comment. Many they passed on the crowded streets in this part of town could have rivaled the bull-man in complexity of costume and pure gaudiness of finery.
Within the next hour Firekeeper saw so many wildly attired figures that she finally didn't bother to turn and stare after each one. There were people dressed as birds or beasts, people dressed as the night sky in robes set with mirrors, people parading beneath amazing hats—some so large that they required support yokes resting on the wearer's shoulders.
Nor were the domestic animals immune to the general passion for costuming things as what they were not. The horses wore—at the very least—horns jutting from their foreheads or antlers on their headstalls. Their coats had often been colored some unusual shade. Firekeeper had a sudden insight to where the dyes once used to color Princess Sapphire's Blue must have been bought. She wondered if Lady Melina had been inspired by her youthful visit to New Kelvin.
Oxen with intricately curling horn sheaths hauled carts covered in bells and streamers. Even the dogs—though they encountered few of these—were adorned with things that glittered and flashed. Only the birds were, by and large, untouched by the human passion for decoration and seemed drab and plain by contrast.
Within a few hours after noon, Derian and Wendee had located a landholder who seemed interested in renting a portion of her premises to them.
She was a fat woman with rolling chins that effectively disguised the location of her neck. Because of the New Kelvinese custom—fairly universally observed as far as Firekeeper could tell—of shaving the front of her head to a point just above the tips of her ears, the woman appeared to have an extremely large head—or at least a vast expanse of face.
This face was stained bright pink, the color of certain late flowers—the flowers that must compete for the attention of bees who have been jaded by the entire spectrum of spring and early summer. Her eyebrows were stained a darker pink, as were her lips. The blue eyes that confronted the world from this wash of rose were startling in contrast.
Somehow, Firekeeper whispered to Blind Seer, I expected them to be red, like those of a rat seen at night.
The wolf snuffled his agreement. "At least her gown is green. More pink and I would think we had opened a door into the sunrise."
"I am," the pink-faced woman announced haughtily, "Hasamemorri."
She spoke Pellish with a formality that suggested that she had learned it much as Elise had learned New Kelvinese, from books and tutors rather than from daily use.
Wendee said something in New Kelvinese, doubtless a request about the property they had been told Hasamemorri had to rent.
Hasamemorri raised a carnation-pink eyebrow, possibly, Firekeeper thought, considering their previous encounters, at Wendee's archaic phrasing. Wendee, however, had learned it was better to show at least some knowledge of the local language. The locals were either amused or flattered. They took not being told that one among them spoke New Kelvinese—as the trio had learned at their first stop—as an insult.
Hasamemorri said something else. Though she didn't invite them inside, Firekeeper saw her relax slightly.
"Curious about us," Blind Speaker commented. "And she has stabling for the horses. This time I checked."
Firekeeper nodded thanks. They'd wasted a long hour negotiating with a promising landholder only to learn too late that although he owned stable space it was currently leased out. She didn't pass the news on to Wendee. Wendee had learned enough to ask early on.
Wendee continued to speak in New Kelvinese for another phrase or so; then she switched to Pellish.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," she said. "I can't say what I need to in your fine language."
"I doubt," Hasamemorri replied fairly amiably, "that the texts of the great playwrights contained the words you need for discussing a rental. Would you and your companions come within?"
Doc nodded acceptance. Firekeeper spoke quickly before anyone could accept for her.
"Please, Wendee, Doc—I want to stay out here and watch the people."
Wendee gave a quick glance toward Hasamemorri, but the pink lady seemed pleased rather than offended.
"Let the child remain without," she said grandly. "Come into my parlor."
A cup of something hot and smelling lightly of mint was sent out to her. It wasn't tea, quite, but it wasn't alcoholic, so Firekeeper sipped it as she watched the New Kelvinese go by. She tried to think how she would paint herself if she were to pass as a New Kelvinese. None of the designs she saw appealed to her, but the imagining amply amused her.
Doc and Wendee emerged in good humor.
"We have a place and at a decent rent, too," Wendee said as they walked briskly back to the inn. "It turns out that Hasamemorri has trouble with arthritis or something in her knees."
"Nothing that losing a few hundred pounds wouldn't help," Doc muttered.
"And Doc made much of the pain recede," Wendee continued blandly. "In return for his continued services, we're to have the entire ground floor—Hasamemorri prefers the upper apartments. There's a kitchen we can share and she'll even loan us a maid once a week and allow us to combine our laundry with hers for a small additional charge."
Much of this information rushed through Firekeeper's mind as water would over a rock. Still she grasped the essentials.
"And the horses and mules?" she asked, just to be safe.
"There's a good stable out back," Wendee assured her. "We have to supply our own feed and labor, but that's no trouble."
"Good," Firekeeper said. "Now we can find Lady Melina. People will hear of Doc and come to us with stories."
"I doubt it will take long for us to get a line on her," Wendee agreed optimistically. "Right, Doc?"
Doc, perhaps contemplating an undefined period of time during which he must daily contemplate Hasamemorri and her abused knees, replied with unaccustomed fervor:
"I sincerely hope so!"

SIR JARED SURCLIFFE, HEALER.

SPECIALIST IN BROKEN BONES, WOUNDS,

AND COMMON AILMENTS.

NO MIRACLES!
 
"What do you think?" she asked, holding it up for Doc's inspection.
"Neat and concise," he said approvingly. "Since you'll be continuing to assist me, my lady, I'll give to you the task of separating the patients into those we can treat and those we cannot."
Elise—threatened at first by the seeming formality implied in "my lady"—warmed to the inclusive "we."
"I can try," she said.
"Good." Sir Jared rubbed his hands briskly. "Now, my hope is to reserve my talent for where it is truly needed. The rest of our patients we will treat by more usual methods."
"Right," Elise said. "Shall I send in your first patient? There's a friend of Hasamemorri waiting upstairs in her parlor."
Doc looked about his makeshift consulting room.
"I suppose you may as well get her. You can color in the sign later."
That first day—their first full day of residence in Hasamemorri's house—they saw three people. First came the friend of Hasamemorri's—an elderly woman with very bad swelling of the joints. Doc gave her a powder for the pain and an ointment for her joints.
Their second patient was the result of a chance accident a street away. A young man had been caught between a cart and a wall when the donkey pulling the cart was frightened by a sudden noise. Someone had noticed Edlin hanging out the emblem required by the Healer's Guild and Brought the injured man there, not caring about credentials as much as proximity.
Elise's battlefield experience kept her from blanching when the pale, blood-smeared youth was hauled in on a makeshift stretcher constructed from someone's winter cloak. She knelt by him out in the street, checked for blood on his lips, the odor of bowel on his breath.
The brownish red stain the young man had used to pattern his face was distracting, but a gentle inspection with her fingertip was enough to show her what was dye and what was blood.
Doc heard the commotion and came to the door, but he didn't rush to take her place.
"Do we have a chance?" he asked, almost conversationally.
"I think so," she replied.
"Have his friends bring him into the consulting room. The surgery isn't ready yet."
With that, Doc retreated. In the background, Elise could hear him bellowing to Wendee for hot water. With the part of her mind that wasn't completely absorbed in directing the bearers, she made a note to make certain that water was always kept warm on the hob for just such emergencies.
The youth looked more badly injured than he really was. Most of the blood proved to be from abrasions. His worst injuries were cracked and broken ribs, but those that were broken had missed the lungs. There was no bowel perforation.
An hour after he had been carried in he was set in the infirmary, sound asleep from one of Doc's potions.
Their third visitor arrived a few hours after the young man had been brought in, when Doc was sitting in his consulting room drinking very strong tea and recovering from the ordeal.
Knowing how exhausted Doc was, Elise nearly sent this patient away. Superficially, he looked quite healthy. Then he held up one of his hands. It was withered, the muscles gone, the fingers collapsed loosely onto themselves.
"I'm sorry," Elise said to him, wishing her New Kelvinese weren't so formal. She thought it made her sound more severe than she wished. "Sir Jared cannot heal old injuries. His ability is limited to strengthening the body when it must battle new wounds."
The man—she had trouble judging his age because of the concentric lines of yellow and orange he had drawn about his eyes and mouth—frowned. His dull blond hair was drawn back into a tight braid and his loose robe hid the shape of his body.
"I saw that on the sign," he said. "Still, I would speak with Sir Jared. I will pay for a consultation."
Something in the patient's gaze—his eyes were a weird, pale shade without tint of their own—made Elise feel that she could not send him away. There was an aura of command about him that made her suspect he was not accustomed to being denied.
She longed to pass the decision onto Doc, but that wouldn't be right.
"Very well," she said. "Sir Jared is recovering from a surgery and must look in on his patient in a bit, but he is available now."
The man glided past her into the consultation room without further comment, without even bothering to knock. Elise followed him in, signing her apology for the interruption to Doc over the visitor's shoulder.
"Sir Jared doesn't yet speak New Kelvinese," she explained when their visitor looked back at her quizzically, as if wondering why she was still there. "I will translate if you wish."
"I do," he said, "for I lack your tongue. I am Oculios." He continued bowing to Doc and then, a bit uncertainly, to Elise herself.
Elise translated. "He says his name is Oculios."
Doc nodded, said, "Oculios," with a slight smile.
He did pretty well. There was something wrong about how he shaped the vowels. He made the "o" sound too flat—a touch more "ah" than "o"—but it was. recognizable.
Elise settled herself into being nothing but a mouth as Oculios continued speaking:
"I used my deformity to win the sympathy of your pretty assistant. Although," he said, casting a quizzical glance at her from those beringed eyes, "I don't think it worked. However, I have not come to consult you about that old wound."
"Good," Doc replied after Elise had finished, "because I can't do anything about that. Out of curiosity, what happened to the hand?"
"An accident with some heated chemical," Oculios answered after Elise had repeated Doc's question, "when I was younger. I am a member of the Sodality of Alchemists, though I myself am an apothecary by trade."
"Ah, the competition has arrived," Doc murmured.
Elise expected Sir Jared to tell her not to translate that last statement—it sounded a bit obnoxious—but when he didn't, she did her job, not even softening the phrasing as she might have. The addition of a word like "honored" or "respected" or "long admired" would go a long way—and wouldn't be a lie, either, for she knew that Doc did admire New Kelvinese medicines.
Still, Doc wasn't stupid. If he had reasons for being blunt, even a bit rude, she wasn't going to mess up his gambit.
Oculios smiled faintly. "Actually, I am not. Not really. I prefer not to set bones and deal with raw wounds. I lack the training—even if my infirmity didn't make such work practically impossible. In fact, I refer such patients to others. Actually, I am here for two reasons."
He began to tick them off by raising a finger on his strong hand.
"One, I am here as a representative of my sodality. That's an organization quite different from a guild."
Elise frowned slightly, then spoke in her own right.
"Could you explain that, sir? I've never managed to understand that point and my books and tutors—they all seemed to assume that I did." She grinned. "Actually, I'm not certain that my tutor really understood either."
Oculios gave her a sudden smile—the first such that didn't seem like a bit of studied politeness. It turned the lines around his mouth into rippled crescents.
"I can do so," he said. "First, may I have your name? I am aware that I dismissed you unfairly as a mere apprentice to the healer, Sir Jared. You are clearly his partner."
Elise blushed. To herself she furiously tried to excuse the reaction as mere embarrassment at not having made proper introductions. Deep inside, she knew she had colored at hearing herself named so innocently in such an intimate relationship to Sir Jared.
"One moment, Oculios. I must tell Sir Jared what we have been saying."
She provided a quick summary.
Doc nodded. "Good. These sodalities sound important. Learn what you can about them and don't mind pausing every line or so to translate for me. I'll take a summary when you're done."
Elise decided that since this meeting was going to take a while, she may as well be seated. She made a neat curtsy to their visitor as she did so.
"I am Lady Elise Archer," she said.
"Lady Archer," Oculios said, not rising, but dipping his head in the seated equivalent of a bow. "Now, to explain. The guilds here are much like they are in your land—as I understand them, that is—organizations for regulation of business, setting reasonable prices for services and standards of quality for whatever is being sold."
"That seems a fair definition," she agreed.
"Here," Oculios continued, "the guilds are informally associated with various sodalities. The sodalities specialize in related skills, but specialize in the magical elements of those skills."
Elise shivered at this open mention of the forbidden art of magic. If Oculios noticed her reaction, he chose not to comment.
"Most of my art," he said, "consists of tasks a healer or herbalist in your own land would recognize. However, I also am devoted to endeavoring to perpetuate knowledge left to us at the departure of the Founders. In the case of my sodality, we attempt to combine elements into potions and preparations that our records tell us the Founders once used."
"Attempt?"
Elise felt the word slip out before she could school it back.
Oculios went stiff and formal. The lines around his eyes and mouth became rounded, like ripples spreading from a pebble dropped into a still pool.
"In our land, as in yours, much information was lost and damaged during the Burning Death. Where New Kelvin differs from Hawk Haven is that we have regathered much of that knowledge and have it available for our use."
Elise schooled her expression into something wide-eyed, awed, and maybe just a bit scared. Oculios relaxed slightly, apparently pleased by her respect.
"Additionally, it is from the sodalities that the Primes are elected—and from the Primes that the Dragon Speaker is elected."
Elise nodded, on firm ground again. She had studied this peculiar system of government with interest. The Dragon Speaker seemed to be the real king of New Kelvin, but the Speaker ruled at the whim of these Primes. She had thought that the Primes were nobles, but apparently they were more like master crafters who might or might not also dabble in magic.
"One moment," she said, wanting time to adapt her own mental map. "Let me translate."
"So," Sir Jared commented when she had finished. "Oculios is not here as a competing healer, but as a representative of their ruling class."
"Do you want me to translate that?"
"Might as well."
She did. Oculios stretched his lips into one of his formal smiles.
"That is true to a point. My sodality is greatly interested in your use of magic to assist in healing. The form is different than our own, but still it falls in our purview. We would like to study Sir Jared at work."
"That's fine," Doc said, "as long as it doesn't get in the way of my treatments."
"Such," Oculios replied earnestly, "would be counterproductive. My second reason for coming here is purely personal. I am interested in knowing whether Sir Jared would care to purchase preparations from my pharmacy."
Elise translated, and Doc thought for a moment.
"You know," he said finally, "that would be useful. I can only spend so much time grinding powders and combining ointments. Wendee certainly doesn't have the knowledge to buy all the raw materials I need, as she bought bandages and the like this morning. I would have had to buy medicines eventually—if we get business, that is."
Oculios laughed when Elise translated this last.
"Never doubt that you will," he said. "Already the news of the foreigner with the interesting powers is spreading. The work you did today on the young man will help—if he recovers with unusual speed that is."
Sir Jared's professional pride was pricked.
"Would you like to join me?" he asked, rising. Something in his bearing reminded Elise of Earl Kestrel. "I need to check on my patient about now."
"Gladly."
The young man was resting nicely, well enough that Sir Jared asked that word be sent to his parents that he could be taken home that very day.
Although Oculios tried to hide his reaction, he was obviously deeply impressed. After they returned to the consulting room, he spent the next hour negotiating with Sir Jared, working out a trade that involved his goods for the opportunity for himself and selected members of his sodality to observe Sir Jared at work.
The end result was highly satisfactory to them all; indeed, Elise felt as if they might have taken advantage of the man. She said as much to Sir Jared after Oculios had departed.
"Don't worry about him," Jared said with a hearty laugh.
"He'll doubtless be reimbursed for his materials from his sodality treasury and gain in importance for having secured exclusive rights to my time. Did you notice how careful he was to contract for that?"
Elise was relieved. Oculios wasn't the most comfortable person she had ever met. Indeed, his open claims to doing magic made her skin crawl. Still, he had been impressed with Doc and quite ready to pay honestly for Doc's time.
Shortly before the dinner hour, their accident victim's parents came to take him home. There was no negotiating over pay. They simply left a small canvas bag containing the accepted guild rate for such work on the bedside.
They also left a small silk purse containing what Hasamemorri told them was a good-luck token. It was shaped like a man's torso cast in porcelain and glazed a pretty, shimmering blue. Since the token had a hole drilled through it like a bead, Elise strung it on some silk cord and hung it in the window alongside the door, where it was visible from without through the lightly frosted glass side panel.
Hasamemorri, when she descended from above, was temporarily startled at the sight. She studied the swinging token for a moment, then nodded in satisfaction, her fat chins rippling like the congealed gelatin from around a roast.
"Quite nicely done—a foreign touch. It should be good for business."
"Why?" Elise asked. "I thought foreigners weren't liked in New Kelvin."
Teeth were barred in a smile that seemed very white against the pink flesh.
"They are not," Hasamemorri admitted, "but still you are interesting just the same. You are so provocative with your bare faces and odd clothing, but you do magic as well, so you are not as hostile as most foreigners are. You are more like us."
Elise thought she understood, and understanding made her uncomfortable. Doing magic was frowned upon in Hawk Haven. It was not just more unzoranic, like fancy titles. It was wrong.
The talents were different—they weren't magic—they were just like having another sense, like having good hearing or perfect pitch or something. They weren't really magic.
Were they?

Chapter XXVII

Firekeeper was learning the exhilaration of a new kind of chase. Assisted by Elation, by Bold—the crow who had so patiently tracked Lady Melina to Dragon's Breath—and by Derian, the wolf-woman exalted that she was drawing closer to her goal.

Dragon's Breath was no longer merely an intimidating cluster of stone walls, stinking alleyways, and twisting streets. Under the enthusiastic tutelage of the innkeeper's boy, it had resolved into landmarks, even into districts. Oddly, by the time seven days had passed, Firekeeper knew this city far better than she had ever known Eagle's Nest.
Driven by a need to know this new territory in which she was forced to hunt, Firekeeper made herself go out every day, made herself listen as the innkeeper's boy recited the names of buildings, of streets, even of important people. Her dreams swirled with peculiar-sounding place names, twisted them around their Pellish meanings.
Aswatano, the Fountain Court. Gyria Aitulla, the Wizard's Tower. Urnacia, the Sand Melter.
Nor did the feral human confine her prowling to daytime. Each night when her comrades believed her sound asleep in the stable, Firekeeper slipped out into the darkness. Blind Seer pacing beside her was enough to dissuade any of the curs who scavenged through the icy streets.
Something inhuman in her own body language kept two-legged predators at bay. Indeed, they may have disbelieved what their own eyes glimpsed in the glow of moon or starlight In a concession to the winter cold, Firekeeper now wore her trousers long enough to be tucked into the tops of her boots. Her vest was now lined with fur, but she disdained sleeves lest they drag against her arms. A brown wool cap trimmed with fur was suffered to cover her head—a concession not to cold but to the tendency of the trailing ends of her roughly cut hair to get in her eyes.
So lightly clad, so silent in her movement was she that any human prowlers might have believed they glimpsed some wizard's summoning roaming the streets by night on its master's business, and even the worst elements of Dragon's Breath's nightside knew better than to tangle with wizard's work.
By daylight, Firekeeper and Blind Seer did not dare go too close to the palaces in which the most highly ranked members of the various sodalities worked their art. These were beyond the purview of any foreigner except by specific invitation. By night Firekeeper was under no such constraint. She melted into the shadows and vaulted over polished walls, prowling through the winter gardens and leaving behind only the occasional mark of a slim booted foot—and even these only rarely, for Race Forester had taught her how to eliminate the gross marks of her passage.
One night in the garden of the Beast Lorists she was confronted by a brace of tame snow leopards. These massive cats were more naturally gifted in weaponry, but there was a difference between them—they were tame, but Firekeeper was not.
The wolf-woman knew, too, the difference between courage and foolhardiness. She found no dishonor in fleeing a more powerful opponent. After confusing the snow leopards and luring them into a tangle of shrubbery, Firekeeper climbed up and over the wall. Come morning, the leopards' keepers found their charges angry and frustrated, but could offer no better explanation than that some fisher or weasel had come to taunt them in the night.
But even before she knew its true nature, one cluster of buildings teased at Firekeeper, tempting and promising wondrous things. These were Thendulla Lypella, the Earth Spires, the place where the Healed One, king of New Kelvin, lived, the center from which the Dragon Speaker ruled.
Thendulla Lypella stood at a high point at the city's northernmost edge, a cluster of tall, slim towers that reduced to seeming insignificance the complex of interconnected buildings at their base. The towers were crafted of smoothly polished stone and glowed pure white in some lights, pale silver in others, twilight-blue when the sun was at its palest. Some were topped with cone-shaped roofs, shingled in intricately patterned slate. Others were flat-topped, ringed with crenellated battlements that reminded Firekeeper of broken teeth.
No more than a half-dozen people, their young guide told Derian and Firekeeper with peculiar pride, knew their way through the entire complex.
Derian had commented that this seemed a highly inconvenient way to run a center of government, to which the innkeeper's son had replied with that peculiarly New Kelvinese air of superiority that not everyone could learn the mazes that connected the Earth Spires, for they were deliberately kept confusing through the use of magic.
Firekeeper wondered whether this was true. By means of magic—or sometimes by means of ancient magic—seemed to be the boy's most common explanation for anything complicated or confusing. One rather messy night, she'd learned herself about the existence of underground sewers of which the boy was apparently ignorant. He'd bragged that the city's waste was carried away by magic.
Magic or not, the area surrounding Thendulla Lypella did seem the best guarded of any point in the city. As of yet, the wolf-woman hadn't found a way inside. The walls were inconveniently high for climbing. Even if she had managed to find foot- and toeholds on their smoothly finished sides, their tops sloped to a gradual peak that discouraged gripping fingers.
Each of the five gates was constantly guarded, even the broad one nearest to the kitchens where boring things like food supplies and clean laundry were delivered. Firekeeper supposed she could hide herself in one of the supply carts if necessary, but that would mean leaving Blind Seer behind. A slim young woman might hide amid bags of clean sheets; a huge wolf could not.
Firekeeper was beginning to hope that she would not need to penetrate Thendulla Lypella at all when Bold located the artifacts.
The crow had spent much of each day patiently soaring around each of Thendulla Lypella's polished stone spires, inspecting each of the buildings below, which—though small in comparison with the spires themselves—sometimes rose to as many as five stories. With a patience and determination for which his kind was not widely celebrated, Bold landed on windowsills or perched on the edges of parapets—anything to get a glimpse inside.
The peregrine Elation acted as the crow's guardian, and kept him on course when the maze of walls confused him and threatened to send him back over terrain already covered. Elation longed to join the search herself, but knew that she was a showy bird of a type coveted by humans. Moreover, she did not understand the language of New Kelvin and lacked the crow's facility for learning.
In the end, that knowledge of language proved to be the key, though as Derian later commented, no one without wings could have hoped to overhear the conversation that had cinched the crow's suspicions.
Bold had perched on one of the crenellated battlements of a certain tower that for some days had attracted his attention. What had first drawn his attention had been the interesting smells eddying from its vicinity.
First, there was burning, as of many braziers and warming pans. Nearly to a one—Firekeeper did not feel herself a fit judge—the humans felt that even New Kelvinese, mad as they were about tradition, would not choose to winter in tower rooms when, as observation showed, there were plenty of empty rooms equipped with chimneys and other such modern conveniences. So Bold had begun to center his search around this tower.
What was being burned was even more interesting. Bold and Elation scented not just wood and charcoal, as one might expect if a sudden influx of visitors had necessitated these towers being turned into living quarters. They smelled herbs and spices, bone and blood, even melted metals. Had the reek been in the vicinity of the Alchemists' Hall—they were too wise to the dangers of their craft to maintain anything as lofty as a palace—the birds might not have questioned it, but here among the Earth Spires it was an unusual combination.
The spire's windows were opened from time to time, as if a cross draft was welcome despite the chill it brought. Unfortunately, the smooth facade of the structure as a whole had not included jutting exterior windowsills in its design. When the winds whipped about the structures, Bold was often beaten away from his precarious perch and had to make his laborious return on wings that ached increasingly with the passage of days.
He took to perching on the parapets to rest, protecting himself from the winds by huddling between the crenellated battlements. Taking pity on him, Elation dropped the crow things to eat, including things a falcon found rather nasty, like bread soaked in bacon fat. She knew, however, what such flying took out of even her and admired the smaller bird's persistence.
Had it not been for his jealous refusal to abandon one such morsel, Bold would probably have flown away when the two humans emerged onto the parapets. This would not have been cowardice, but reflex. A wild bird, even a Royal Crow, did not linger near humans willingly.
The two humans were apparently seeking a breath of air untainted by smoke and other foul odors, for they reeked of burnt bone and hot metal. They were clad alike in serviceable robes of pale grey, their sleeves tied back from their hands. Their faces were uniformly scarlet, though tattooing showed through the paint. The whites of their eyes were nearly as red as the smeared paints on their faces. Yet for all this, they were cheerful.
"That last may have done it," said one. "I swear I saw an image move within the glass."
"As did I," his companion agreed. "A faint figure but sure. It was deep blue, like a midsummer sky at evening. There was nothing of that color in the room for the mirror to reflect back to us."
"I concur," the first said. "All of us wear working paint and robes: red and dirty white. The walls are grey stone, the carpets old and their colors muddy. Nothing could have given back that hue."
The two men went on in this fashion for some time, repeating as excited people will the details of their victory, embellishing with some small anecdote or flourish until Bold felt as if he had been within the room.
Piece of bread now swallowed, the crow hopped from foot to foot, wondering if he should fly away to spread the news he had or wait to hear more.
"That makes one of the three," the first continued, stilling the crow in his impatience. "The ring and the comb have yet to yield their secrets."
"And even the mirror only begins," blinking his bloodshot eyes. "We are at the beginning of a long road."
"But now," the first encouraged him, "we know this is a road worth traveling. We know for certain that the foreign woman has not led us astray for some odd purpose of her own."
"True," the second replied, then added with some haste, "but then I never doubted her veracity and trustworthiness."
"Never!" the first agreed.
It seemed to Bold that they glanced around uncomfortably, especially at the door they had left blocked open behind them.
"We should be going in now," the first continued. "The thaumaturges will be eager to make another attempt."
"Indeed."
"Leave the door open or closed?"
"Close it for now. We could use the ventilation, but I'm not taking initiative. Tempers are too short."
The sealing of the heavy door closed off any further sound, but Bold had already leapt into the air. A black arrow with glinting eyes, he swept from the heights, plummeting down with all possible speed.
Elation's dive was swifter still, and the peregrine banked at the crow's side.
"News?" she shrieked.
"Find the wolf-child!" Bold replied. "I'll be at the stables. How my wings hurt!"
But the falcon was already gone, and so the crow preserved his pride.
When Firekeeper heard Bold's report she didn't know whether to be elated or dismayed. True, the artifacts were found, but how was she to get to them? The spire in which the New Kelvinese were working was at the heart of the cluster.
Praising Bold, she went to find her comrades. Maybe they would have some solution to what seemed to her an insoluble puzzle.

Chapter XXVIII

Making a map of Thendulla Lypella proved to be a laborious process. First of all, it could not be escaped that the birds saw differently not only from humans, but from each other. The falcon's eye was keener, meant to distinguish the movements of field mice and rabbits among often self-colored surroundings.

The eye of the crow was more oriented toward the general, more, Derian thought, like that of a human. Where Elation saw movement, Bold saw difference—that which had not been present at an earlier time. This was necessary, of course, for a creature who made many of its meals from carrion.
Moreover, neither crow nor falcon tended to distinguish man-made landscape features from natural features. That these two were Royal Beasts, sophisticated beyond their lesser cousins and educated by experience, made the task simpler. After a few requests, they learned to state whether the feature they were describing was natural or created—or at least if they were uncertain.
Had Derian not been responsible for Firekeeper's earliest education in human society—a time when she, too, had struggled to grasp that oddly shaped hillsides might be made by humans and called houses or castles—he might have given up in frustration.
Then there was the problem of Firekeeper herself. Although she was learning to use maps, even beginning to accept that flat two-dimensional sketches might represent a much more complex reality, it was another matter to have her to look upon the work in process and tell whether or not art represented reality. Oddly enough, the birds themselves intervened before the situation could become a deadlock. They were accustomed to seeing the landscape from above and thus had less trouble accepting the "bird's-eye view" that cartographers had adopted as a convention.
Once they understood how a circle might represent an entire tower, how a pair of lines might represent a road, how a thicker line might represent a wall, they were quite willing to critique Edlin's efforts. Bold, with his sharper eye for detail, was the harder to satisfy, but in the end even the crow was satisfied.
The spire in which Bold had pinpointed the New Kelvinese at work was situated among many surrounding buildings. Distances would have been difficult to estimate, for the wingéd folk rarely worried about any distance that could be traversed in a short flight, but here the towering height of the spires themselves assisted.
Lord Edlin had little trouble estimating the spires' relative heights and distances from each other, a thing Firekeeper found untellingly annoying.
"If he do that," she complained to Derian after they had finished and the birds had been sent off to continue gathering information, "why we do all this with the wingéd folk? He just draw from his own eyes then. Surely even he see that towers must rest on earth even if we cannot see that."
Derian shook his head. They had stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. The air was crisp, the light almost impossibly clear and bright. He had seated himself on a bench backing the stone wall of the house. Cold seeped up through his coat and trousers.
"Don't be a pig, Firekeeper," he replied wearily—the mapping had been hard on him, even if he hadn't had to draw a line. To him had fallen the job of translating for Firekeeper as she translated for the birds.
"We needed to know what lies between the spires," Derian went on. "Many of them—as you well know—are mounted on the tops of other buildings. Since we can't fly, we're going to need to go in from the bottom up. That means knowing what's at the bottom—where the paths are, where the guards are, where the cover is, even where we might create the best distraction from outside."
Firekeeper grimaced, but accepted Derian's reprimand without protest. It was, Derian thought, one of the advantages to her wolf mentality. She accepted criticism and correction—when merited—far more easily than most humans her age did.
Fleetingly, Derian thought of his sister, Damita, and her increasingly frequent arguments with their mother. Dami was a few years younger than Firekeeper, but as she grew into her woman's body she was less willing to accept her mother's guidance, was more and more eager to prove herself an adult.
But Firekeeper, Derian thought with a sudden flash of understanding, doesn't need to prove that to anyone. She's proven herself to wolves and humans alike—and now apparently to the Royal Beasts as well or they wouldn't have given her this task.
Thinking of Damita made Derian fleetingly homesick. He knew that Elise had begun writing home now that it would be impossible for Baron Archer to force her to return. Derian thought he should start doing so himself.
If I can find the energy, he thought, heaving himself to his feet. Firekeeper—and the ever-present Blind Seer—had vanished while he was lost in thought and when he opened the kitchen door he could hear her inside chivying Edlin.
"But what is that?"
"A map of the exterior of the spire we need to get inside," Edlin replied.
Derian waited for him to add "What?" or "I say!" or another of his numerous verbal ticks, but none followed.
Firekeeper said slowly, "But the tower—tower is spire, yes?"
"Pretty much," Edlin said, "though usually spires are thinner, pointed on top. Towers can be any tall building, either part of a building or standing on their own. Spires are usually on the tops of towers, right?"
Derian hurried back inside. It sounded like trouble was brewing. When he entered the surgery, which, because of its superior lighting, had been turned into a drafting room, he found that Firekeeper had crossed to a window and was looking out across the skyline toward the complex in question.
"Why," she continued, ignoring Derian's entry, "do we then call Thendulla Lypella the Earth Spires? Some have points, but some do not."
"I say," Edlin said, moving to stand next to her, "you're right, you know. There are as many towers as spires. I really don't know why they call it that."
Derian interrupted.
"You'd need to ask Elise about that," he said, "or Wendee. They're our translators."
"Oh."
Firekeeper gave one more hard stare out the window, then drifted back to inspect Edlin's latest sketch.
"This is the tower-spire?" she asked. "The one we need to get into?"
"That's right," Edlin replied. "From what you told me earlier—from what Bold and Elation told you, what?—I knew how many levels there were. I can even see some of the windows from here. I thought we might like a sketch onto which we can add our notes—you know—this window looks in on a small room, this onto a big one, what?"
"I say!" Derian said. "That's a great idea."
Only after the words had escaped him did he realize he'd fallen into unconscious mimicry. Edlin's pattern of speech was contagious. He bit his lip, terrified that the young lord would take offense, but Edlin had only heard the praise.
"Pretty good, eh?" he said complacently. "It should help save time. No need to go charging in through a door if we know it leads to a closet or something."
Relieved that he hadn't given offense, Derian forbore from commenting that a window wasn't likely to be wasted on a closet. Edlin's logic was good, even if he wasn't the best at expressing what he meant.
Firekeeper, however, stood scowling at the drawing.
"But it is," she waved her hands in the air, miming straight lines, "like this—a box. The tower-spire is a round."
"Cylinder," Derian said automatically.
Edlin shook his head at her.
"Never happy, what?"
He picked up the stick of charcoal he'd been using to rough out his drawing and sketched in a few more lines. Derian wasn't sure how he managed, but suddenly the elongated rectangle possessed a visible quality of roundness.
Firekeeper blinked at the drawing, tilting her head slightly as if willing her mind to accept the representation. Then she smiled.
"Yes! That is more like, but this is—what?—maybe one half?"
"About a half," Edlin agreed. "I can't draw the entire spire in one drawing. It doesn't really have sides—not like a house does—but there's more to it than I can show. I could make a model…"
He selected a piece of paper and drew what to Derian's eyes seemed like a few random lines; then he rolled it into a cylinder and set it on one end. The lines marked where the windows were on the tower.
Firekeeper hit her thigh in a sharp clap of applause.
"I see!" she crowed.
"That's right," Edlin said approvingly, letting the cylinder fall flat again. "But for what we need, it's better to be less literal. It's hard to make notes on something standing up and harder still to read them, right?"
"Right," Firekeeper agreed firmly.
It was apparent to Derian that Edlin had just leapt again in her estimation—perhaps even higher than he had done after their skirmish with the bandits. After all, Edlin had been helpful, but she and Blind Seer were proven the more effective fighters. Human arts, especially when they were useful ones, impressed the wolf-woman more.
Feeling slightly unsettled, Derian wondered if Edlin might actually succeed in his irregular courtship of his peculiar adopted sister. Certainly, for all his foolish mannerisms, Edlin had noticed what Firekeeper liked and was playing to those likings.
Unbidden, Derian remembered how the wolf-woman's lips had brushed his cheek when she had departed for the western wilds. Derian fought down the memory, forcing himself to consider what Earl Kestrel would think if Edlin actually won Firekeeper's hand—for surely that reaction mattered more than what Derian himself might think or feel.
Seeking distraction from these uncomfortable thoughts, Derian glanced to where Blind Seer rested on the hearth rug, head on paws, blue eyes fixed unwinkingly on the young lord. Derian felt an uneasy surge of fear as he tried to decide what Blind Seer might feel about the idea of his pack mate joining with a human.
The giant wolf had become such a usual part of Derian's day that the young man no longer really saw him. He forced himself to do so now and felt his blood chill. Weeks of travel had honed away the fat the wolf had accumulated through easy living in the cities. Even through a thick winter coat, muscle was evident. As if sensing Derian's inspection, the wolf yawned in lazy arrogance, showing gleaming fangs set in jaws that could break a man's arm as a afterthought.
Derian felt visceral, atavistic fear flow through him. Looking upon Blind Seer, even though tie wolf was at rest, he knew who was the hunter, who was the prey.
It seemed to Derian, as he watched Blind Seer's gaze, never wavering from Edlin Norwood, that Blind Seer knew so, too.

Chapter XXIX

"So we have a map," Elise said, inspecting Edlin's completed work that evening after dinner, "and it seems to be a fine one. Now what do we do with it?" Their makeshift household was gathered in Doc's consulting room. The kitchen—filled with the warmth of both ovens and hearth, scented with the spices Wendee had used in preparing that night's dinner—would have been more comfortable, but Hasamemorri or one of her maids was always trotting in or out.

Tonight, when they needed to plan the next stage in their campaign, they required privacy. Chairs had been carried in for all but Firekeeper. The polished maple table on which Doc's instruments were usually spread had been pulled away from the wall and the chairs set about it. Edlin's map had been tacked to the wall in sight of all.
"What do we do with this map now that we have it?" Elise repeated.
She knew she sounded cross, but somehow she couldn't help herself. The first patients had arrived at dawn. Although the usual round of winter complaints—coughs and wheezes and stuffy heads—could have been treated with powders and poultices purchased from any reliable alchemist, Doc's reputation as a miracle worker was such that any with money to spare arrived at their door.
Since Elise had agreed to sort the patients into categories—leaving Sir Jared free to treat those who truly needed him—it fell to her to tell over half of those who lined their hallway that the doctor would not see them, that he recommended that they go to the nearest alchemist (Oculios in this case) and purchase the appropriate preparations.
Most departed meekly, as if knowing that what had prompted them to come here in the first place had been curiosity more than anything else. Some, however, grew obstreperous. More than once Lord Edlin had been called away from his cartography and forced to bodily oust some complaining wretch.
Fortunately, Edlin seemed amused at being asked to act as a house guard. They had yet to meet anyone who could both wrestle with a strapping young nobleman and convincingly maintain their complaint that they were so infirm that they must see the doctor.
"Well, it's a map," Edlin said, looking at her with concern. "We use it to plan our campaign, what?"
He beamed at her. He had every right to be pleased with his handiwork. The reports of crow and falcon had been transformed into straight walls and curving towers. Colored pencils had been used to tint different structures so they could be referred to at a glance. Guards were indicated in red; areas where people—servants and such—tended to cluster had been shown by green dots.
Somehow what Lord Edlin had created was more than a static map—it was a drawing representing a living community, a reminder that the place they must seek to infiltrate was filled with people going about their daily business.
Elise despaired of their ever being able to get more than ten feet inside the gates without being detected. From those patients she did not send away, she had gathered that even to most residents of the city Thendulla Lypella was a mystery, a fine, secret place where the primes met in conclave, the Healed One resided, and from which the Dragon Speaker coordinated the complex resources of the kingdom.
Even the few who had worked inside or knew someone who had worked in the citadel could tell little. Servants were not encouraged to wander outside of where they performed their responsibilities. Those who waited upon those personages privileged to be given residence within the walls were usually housed within. It was said that the most private areas were tended by slaves purchased from Waterland. These unfortunates never left Thendulla Lypella.
"So we can make plans," Elise said. "Well, very good, let's do just that. Well?"
She realized that everyone was staring at her and had the grace to color. Finally, Derian; braver than the rest or perhaps merely more accustomed to the whims of females spoke:
"We all agree that our target is the tower Lord Edlin has shaded in blue, right?"
There were nods all around.
"Unhappily for us, it is not freestanding. Rather it tops a large, rectangular structure—a structure that may or may not be connected to those closest to it."
Derian rose from his chair, pointing with a slim stick swiped from the kindling basket to the light lines Edlin had shaded to indicate places where the information their avian spies had given them was less than perfect.
Elation, perched on the back of his chair, squawked some comment or protest. Firekeeper shushed her. No one else seemed to notice.
My first council of war, Elise thought. How odd. I just realized that this is my first council of war. When I am the Baroness Archer I will be expected to attend many of these—unless I want to be dismissed to the ranks of the noncombatants as my mother and Uncle Aksel Trueheart always are. When Sapphire is queen will she respect those who love conflict less than she? King Tedric does, but Sapphire…
Elise straightened in her seat, recognizing the second component contributing to her crossness. It wasn't just that she was tired. That was part of it, but the truth was, she was afraid, afraid deep down inside, because she knew that whoever was chosen to go inside those walls she must accompany them—she, because she alone spoke the language well enough to pass for a native.
And I want to sit back with the ladies, sit back as I did whenever we went hawking. Ever and always I have left the real risks to others. My grandfather was raised to the ranks of the nobles because of his courage—I pray to the green-eyed Lynx that some of his blood still runs in my veins.
Sir Jared, braced from the several cups of strong tea he had drunk with his dinner, leaned closer to get a better look at the map.
"It seems to me," he said, "and I'll be the first to admit that I am no tactician, that the gate there—south of the big orange building—is the most promising. It has only two guards on it and seems fairly close to our goal."
Firekeeper laughed softly.
"So think I, Doc," she said, "until I go look at it with my eyes. That gate need only two guards because all building near have many windows looking out at it. Also, gate faces on a busy street. It is for…"
The wolf-woman looked at Derian, seeking a word she lacked.
"Processions," Derian supplied, "parades and the like. It seems to be largely ceremonial in function. I can't recall having seen it opened, and a few cautious questions to our young guide seem to confirm that it is used infrequently."
"Just goes to show," Doc said, not at all nonplussed at having his suggestion so thoroughly shot down, "how a map is one thing, but knowledge is another."
Wendee seemed about to offer a suggestion of her own, when there came a knock on the front door. She saw Elise automatically start to rise and pressed her down with a friendly hand.
"Stay put, Lady Elise. You've been answering that all day while I drank tea in the kitchen."
Elise smiled at her gratefully.
"Sure, Wendee. When you're not running off to the market, cooking for a winter-lean household, and taking care of the mending, cleaning, and all else. Then you might have a cup of tea."
Wendee chuckled as she left, saying, "I'll tell them you're not home, Doc."
When she returned a few moments later, her face was oddly pale and all traces of laughter were gone. She closed the door deliberately, but even when the heavy oak was between her and the hallway, she spoke in hushed tones.
"There's a man out there—a rich one I'd say from his clothes. I couldn't see his face—he kept his hood up even when he stepped inside—but there's something about him that says he's used to being obeyed. He wants to see all of us. He knows our names and everything."
"Not a patient then?" Doc queried.
"I don't think so."
Derian quickly pulled loose the pins that tacked the map to the wall and hid it away.
"Do we see him?" he asked.
Firekeeper nodded. "He knows our names, better we know his—and his odor, too—than to go jumping from shadows."
Elise felt herself agreeing and heard Wendee depart. She reentered a moment later escorting the stranger. The cloak he wore was thick black wool, its hood pulled to shadow his features. In the flickering lamplight, it was easy to fancy that he had no face at all.
Derian glanced at Doc and Elise as if expecting one of them to take charge. When neither did so—Elise, still recovering from her momentary fancy, seemed to lack the will—he spoke:
"Greetings. Who are you and what brings you to us?"
The cloaked figure shifted slightly as if studying them all.
"Bold words, blunt and direct, such I would expect from a mere youth who counsels kings."
They waited for the stranger to say more. When he did not, Derian prompted.
"You seem to know us, sir. Who are you?"
Almost reluctantly, the man let his hood drop back. His face had been shaded in degrees of grey and black through which could be seen several tattoos. Like all the upper-class New Kelvinese, his hair was shaved to a point roughly above his ears. The hair remaining was as white as sun-bleached bone. His eyes were impossible to see behind tinted glasses.
Elise judged their visitor to be somewhere past fifty, healthy, but not given overmuch to exercise. She realized that these last assessments were the result of her recent work. Before she would have said that he was too ordinary-looking—if one left out the facial decorations and peculiar hairstyle—to be handsome, but too distinguished to be plain.
"My name," their visitor said, "is Grateful Peace and I come to you in what I hope is shared cause, for I am the enemy of one of your countrywomen—of Lady Melina Shield."

Chapter XXX

Firekeeper felt a certain thrill when she realized that the hunt would take place that very night.

At first there had been some talk of delaying, of making further plans. The great log in the hearth had split in two and begun to crumble to ruddy cinders as the humans discussed possible ways to achieve their goal.

There were difficulties. Grateful Peace could not say for certain just when—if ever—the research teams left off their work on the three artifacts. Some experiments required hours of observation. These were usually scheduled to run through the night, and one or two researchers remained to tend them.
Grateful Peace wanted them to go after Lady Melina and to trust him to retrieve the artifacts. No one—Firekeeper least of all—liked this idea, so Peace was forced to abandon it. Reluctantly, the thaumaturge was forced to agree that whatever plan they settled on must include means to achieve both goals.
That simple decision, apparently, made things more difficult rather than—as Firekeeper had thought it would—easier.
One difficulty that the white-haired man with his smell of grease and old silk had solved for them was how to get inside Thendulla Lypella. Grateful Peace knew of a tunnel—a tunnel branching from one of the sewers Firekeeper had already discovered—that would take them beneath the walls and under the complex. From this tunnel they could emerge into one of several cellars.
However, even this didn't solve all their problems.
Using the map Edlin had drawn, Grateful Peace showed them that the building in which Lady Melina was living and the building holding the artifacts were not the same.
Following this revelation, there was much argument over which goal should have priority—for their group was too few in number to make splitting up a realistic option.
Needless to say, Grateful Peace felt that kidnapping Lady Melina should come first. Firekeeper, however, knew her duty—retrieving the artifacts must come first. The others varied in opinion, but gradually one and all were convinced that perhaps kidnapping Lady Melina should come first. After all, she was the only one who knew where Citrine was, and if she escaped…
This last argument won Firekeeper—albeit reluctantly—over. The wolf-woman was fond of the round-faced little girl, remembered their long conversations in the springtime meadows above Eagle's Nest Castle, remembered, too, that Citrine and her cousin Kenre Trueheart had been the first friends she had made on her own. She thought that gave the girl some claim to her energies, a claim that competed fairly with the one held by the Royal Beasts.
After all, Firekeeper told herself when she thought uncomfortably of how the Beasts would react if she failed, it wasn't as if she was choosing to rescue the girl rather than steal the artifacts. She intended to do both.
Her own decision made, Firekeeper grew restless when the planning continued. To her indignant surprise, Blind Seer chided her for her impatience.
"Don't be such a pup," the great wolf growled. "When you lived in the wilds did you dig after a rabbit without first blocking the exits from its hole?"
"No," Firekeeper replied a trace sullenly.
"Here we are hunting not a rabbit but a den of weasels—weasels we must stalk without waking them, weasels we must catch without hurting. Surely that merits a little thought in advance."
"They are thinking more than a little!" she protested.
Blind Seer huffed at her. "You are still such a pup! I tell you, this is more dangerous than any hunt we have ever attempted. My fur stands on end just thinking of it. Rather would I go into a she-bear's den in spring and attempt to eat her cubs than do what we must do here."
"But you are with me?" Firekeeper asked anxiously.
"I have sworn before our people to be with you," the wolf assured her. "But I do not think they knew what they were asking when they sent you out."
To Firekeeper's surprise, Edlin Norwood was the one who halted the seemingly endless cycle of plan, counterplan, and refinement.
"I say," the young lord said, "but isn't it getting rather late? I mean," he went on diffidently, "shouldn't we get a move on?"
"Are you saying, Lord Kestrel," asked Grateful Peace, a touch of astonishment in his voice, "that we should essay this challenge tonight?"
"Well, I do think so, rather," Edlin replied boldly. "I mean, tonight you got out of there, no one the wiser. Will you be so free another night? What I'm trying to say is that you're at the beck and call of this Ass-fellow…"
"Apheros, the Dragon Speaker," Elise corrected quickly, clearly horrified at this lapse in diplomacy.
Edlin didn't seem to notice her dismay. He simply grinned his thanks for the correction and continued speaking.
"Right, Apheros, well, what if he needs you, Grateful Peace, tomorrow night? What if he wants you to do some watching or whatever it is you do? What if there's some big experiment in the laboratories you need to supervise? What if—and don't get me wrong, old chap, but these things do happen—what if Lady Melina gets her hooks into you again? I mean, we know about the way in through the sewers and all, thanks to you, but we don't really know how to get through them right and how to come out right and a dozen other things. I say we go for it tonight—right now. We have hours and hours of darkness left and folks there in the tower will be getting tired and well…"
Edlin trailed off, a bit confused by the flood of his own eloquence.
"Lord Kestrel," Grateful Peace replied slowly, "does have a point. As I told you earlier, I took my fellow Three, Xarxius, into my confidence this evening as the fastest means of learning about you. I trust Xarxius as much as I do any man…"
"And that," Blind Seer muttered, "is not very much at all."
"… But a servant could have passed on word of our meeting and conclusions might be drawn. However, I will say that I think it unlikely we were betrayed—my servants, after all, are loyal to me. A much more real threat to our success may occur if Lady Melina chooses to act against you."
"Against us?" asked Edlin, surprise making the words sound rather like a gulp.
"You," Peace agreed. "I recognized her anger when she learned that you were residing in the city. It is not impossible that she might choose to have action taken against you. Something as simple as voiding your residence permit—a voiding based on some minor technicality, nothing that could be traced to her—could force you to leave Dragon's Breath. Even if you were able to hide nearby in the mountains—an onerous task this time of year—our chances for a successful raid would be reduced. If she insisted that you be escorted to the border…"
"She could do this?" Derian asked.
Firekeeper noted with some satisfaction that her red-haired friend was clearly worried. If Derian was worried, then it was likely they would move tonight.
"Apheros could, or the Healed One." Peace shrugged. "I can think of a dozen ways that such an escort could be arranged without giving reason for you—or your government—to take offense. Since I believe neither Apheros nor the Healed One are able to refuse Lady Melina anything, it is much the same."
"Then tonight," Elise said, wonder and no little fear in her voice. 'Tonight we must be ready."
"Within the hour I should say," Grateful Peace replied. "I came to you straight from my meeting with Xarxius. We have talked for some hours. Most of the residents of the Earth Spires will have retired. I wish we could know how many are at work in the Granite Tower."
Firekeeper grinned.
"I can have that learned," she said, leaping to her feet. "Elation will fly at night, as will Bold. They can report to us here. I will tell them to look especially for Lady Melina. No need for us to go to her place—her room—if she is with the artifacts."
The wolf-woman felt some satisfaction at Grateful Peace's evident surprise. He hid his reaction well, but there was a momentary widening of his eyes that told her much. The thaumaturge's scent—now that she had learned to separate it from that of his cosmetics—altered, too. She did not need to hear Blind Seer's tail thumping muted applause on the boards behind her to know that she had pulled off a coup.
Still swelled with wolfish pride, Firekeeper woke the birds, explained their task, and promised rewards for swift return and detailed reports.
Cold wind swirled in through the window when she opened it to set the birds free. Above the sky was dark, the stars undimmed, for the majority of the city lights had long since been extinguished.
Once, Derian had told her that the Waterlanders believed that the stars held the undying spirits of all who had walked on the earth. These spirits were thought to look down on the living with interest. Sometimes they even granted wishes.
Firekeeper turned her face to the stars and wished with all her heart that tonight's venture would be successful.

Chapter XXXI

Subconsciously, Grateful Peace had Expected the sewer to be cold and dank. In reality, it was actually somewhat warmer than the area above, insulated as it was by the living rock upon which the city was built. Nor was the subterranean tunnel terribly clammy. Even though the temperature here was somewhat warmer than Peace had expected, it was cold enough to draw most of the moisture from the air. It had even frozen the stench—somewhat.

He began to lead the way down the rounded length of the tunnel, guiding his small band along the narrow but perfectly serviceable walkway that ran along both sides. Each of them carried a torch from the ample supply stocked by the city's sewer workers.
Peace began to lead, but he had hardly taken two steps when the girl, Firekeeper, pushed him gently to one side. She and the wolf glided to the front.
"I can see in this light," she explained in the soft voice people always seem to use when in darkness, the type of voice that acknowledges that darkness carries with it the purest element of the unknown, "if I not look into the torch fire."
Grateful Peace let her pass.
He had wondered how the wolf was going to get down into the tunnel. The ladder was very steep—hardly more than a series of metal rungs beaten into the wall. The platform below was slightly wider than the walkway they now traversed, but hardly wide enough to allow a leaping wolf a margin for error.
He had thought of several alternatives. Somehow he had never considered that Lady Blysse would carry the wolf, supporting it with one arm, guiding herself down the rungs with the other.
That would take superhuman strength, amazing confidence, and trust, so he had never considered it as an option. But she had done it, and if he had not watched the operation with his own eyes he still wouldn't believe it.
True, at the end Firekeeper had been panting hard and the front of her print robe was covered with grey wolf hair, but she had done it. She hadn't even messed her face paint too badly, though there were small patches of red on the wolf's flank where his fur had pressed against her face.
Grateful Peace followed the wolf-woman along the tunnel. It was rounded, a great pipe that in an emergency could carry far more water than it usually bore. It had been designed with snowmelt floods in mind, perhaps, or perhaps in anticipation that someday Dragon's Breath would become a far larger city than it had ever been or ever would be.
Peace didn't really know which was the answer.
We humans are such odd creatures, he thought. Consider the energy we spend speculating on things that are not, that may never happen, that cannot be. Is that what sets this young woman apart from us? She seems to live precisely in the moment, on the cusp of each breath.
"Which way?" came the husky voice from out of the near darkness in front of him.
They had come to a crossing of the tunnels. A new one entered from the east. A bridge had been built here for the convenience of those who must sometimes descend to carry away what blocked the easy flow of this subterranean river.
"Go straight," Peace replied. "We continue north almost all the way."
A grunt was his only reply; then there was the faint sound of soft-soled boots on stone and the occasional click that he imagined might be the tapping of the wolf's toenail against the floor.
In reality, he might be imagining it or transferring sounds from behind to in front The acoustics here were tricky. He'd heard that the Sodality of Songweavers sent their apprentices into the tunnels alone and after dark as part of their test to be accepted as thaumaturges. If they could navigate by sound alone, they were promoted. If not, they could remain in the choir, but were never promoted.
It might be true. Some of the finest musicians in the choir never wore the thaumaturge's mark. On the other hand, it might just be one of those stories that all the sodalities spread around lest their associates think them too soft, too undemanding.
Occasionally, their party passed under another trapdoor. Each time, Firekeeper would pause beneath it, unspeaking, waiting to be told if this was the one. She did the same at each crossroad. Eventually, her silence got on Peace's nerves.
She's watching me, he thought. I'd forgotten what it is like to be watched. I wonder if she is doing it deliberately.
Something of her grin, just glimpsed in the torchlight as she once again turned away and began padding down the tunnel, made him think this was so.
Eventually, they came to a cluster of tunnels radiating from a central point. In the flickering light of their gathered torches, several trapdoors could just be glimpsed.
"We're under the Earth Spires now," Peace said. "Although I do not expect to meet with anyone, progress now in complete silence. I am not the only one who uses these ways."
The air stunk now with a greater concentration of fecal matter. It bore a hint of another scent, too, sulphur blended with a hint of molten copper and a dry musk unlike anything else known.
The sewer workers called it the breath of the dragon. The Sodality of Lapidaries said it was simply a concentration of the same gases that warmed the hot springs and caused mud to boil in certain pools. Certainly, the area surrounding the Earth Spires was rather more active than the rest of the city. This was either because the Star Wizard really imprisoned a dragon here or because the Founders had liked hot water nearby for their baths and experiments.
Either way, Peace was accustomed to the smell. His companions were not. He had to hush them again when they made disparaging comments about the rotten-egg reek. Whispers sometimes carried farther in these tunnels than did louder sounds. Why they did so was a mystery, but mystery or not, it was still truth.
Firekeeper was now staying closer to him. At first Peace thought she was afraid; then he realized that she was simply closing on the circle of light, getting her eyes accustomed to it so that if they emerged into a lit place she would not be disadvantaged.
She must sense—He stopped himself in midthought. Sense! By the skull of the first Healed One—realize, not sense. I am falling under some superstitious reverence for the creature. True, she speaks to animals. True, she is more like something from one of the tales of the Founders' time than I had ever seen before, but there is no magic to her. She is simply strange. She is intelligent enough to realize that we must reach our way up fairly soon, that's all.
Even so, Peace realized he was unnerved. Firekeeper alone would not have done it, but Firekeeper's powers combined with what he had seen Lady Melina do, with what he had heard that Sir Jared could do… It rocked the foundations of his reality.
All my life I have believed myself part of the sorcerers' empire. Now I must face the truth that sorcery is not in us—not at least that I have seen. The kingdom of sorcery lies just across the White Water River and the great irony is they pretend to hate magic!
Firekeeper was waiting under another trapdoor. Peace checked the signs carved into the stone beside it. He nodded and unfastened his cloak.
"This is the door I want," he said softly. "Let me go first. I'll see if anyone is there. Leave your cloaks behind when you come up. They wouldn't be worn in the building."
He didn't say more, hoping they understood that even if someone was in the cellar they would not find it odd if the Dragon's Eye rose from the depths—or if they found it odd, they would not comment.
Reaching up, Grateful Peace set his torch in the. sconce prepared for precisely this purpose. Little bits of burning ash fell on his sleeve and died in the cold of the fabric. Finding the first rungs of the ladder took him a moment, but after that he could have climbed from memory.
He mounted silently, pushed back the trapdoor, caught the scent of a cellar room that was almost never opened.
The key word here, of course, was "almost."

Chapter XXXII

When she heard Blind Ser's cry of pain Firekeeper froze in place. Hooks of obligation tore cruelly into her heart. One bound her to the artifacts; the other, stronger and deeper, pulled her almost physically toward wherever Blind Seer was.

Thought, as most would understand it, did not play a pan in her subsequent actions. All the wolf-woman desired was to loosen the hook that held her to this place.
Her hands darted forth and seized the boxes from the hands that held them. She wheeled to run, found she could not bare her Fang with her hands full, and thrust the boxes into the keeping of those who—even through the fog of impulses filling her mind—she knew could be trusted.
That action loosened the hook sufficiently that she was free to run to Blind Seer, but—swift as she had been—she saw as soon as she rounded the curve of the stair that she was too late.
The Royal Wolf lay on the floor, his fur soaked with the blood that still flowed from countless wounds. Firekeeper's nose could not be fooled into hoping that the blood was not the wolf's, for though she smelled human blood, most of what clung to the wolf was his own.
As she crouched beside Blind Seer, one blue eye flickered open.
"Lady Melina," he panted. "The ring."
"Did she do this?"
With a weak thump of his tail, Blind Seer answered, "Yes."
Firekeeper glanced into the round tower room, confirming what she had already guessed—perhaps a chance trace of perfume in the air had told her before she thought to ask. Lady Melina was not among those who huddled within, nor was hers the corpse that lay facedown on the floor.
Behind her, she could hear Doc running down the stairs. Knowing well that he could do more for Blind Seer than she could, Firekeeper felt the hook of obligation anchor itself into her heart once more.
"I'll get her," she promised, "and the ring."
Blind Seer said only, "Remember, she is not a wolf."
Her hand still wet with the wolf's warm blood, Firekeeper leapt over him and down the curve of the stair.
As she passed the door on the conference-room level, she heard curses and exclamations. They didn't interest her, except in some small corner of her mind that noted there could be unfriendly pursuit. What had seized her attention was a draft of fresh cold air from below.
Someone had opened the outer door. Did Lady Melina race for aid or merely to her den?
The wolf-woman slowed as she emerged into the cold night and a bit of black detached itself from the surrounding blackness.
Bold the crow cawed, "We saw. Elation follows Lady Melina. I will lead you."
Firekeeper managed a nod of thanks, but held up her hand for a moment's respite. She pushed the door to the Granite Tower closed behind her and shoved a boulder from those collected at the base of the tree against it.
There must be other exits from the tower—even if only the one in the cellar—but this might slow pursuit.
Squawking his approval, Bold took wing. As she followed, seeing the crow as motion against the air rather than as shape or form, Firekeeper thought she knew where they were going.
Grateful Peace's descriptions returned to her, confirming that Lady Melina had fled to her den, rather than seeking help.
The stillness of the complex confirmed the wolf-woman's guess. In the near distance, Firekeeper could hear the guards posted at the ornate front gate talking with casual boredom among themselves. Had Lady Melina wanted aid, she could have found it there. So she wanted something else more.
The ring.
Firekeeper's early life had not shaped her mind to think in twists, but recently she had been given ample lessons in such thought. Even as the need to preserve the ring gave Lady Melina excuse for flight, the desire to steal it—to preserve it for her sole use—would be ample reason to turn away from easy assistance.
Bold banked to a halt before a door that even now stood ajar. Elation perched on the door's upper edge.
"I stopped her," the peregrine said with pardonable pride, "from closing this and locking it behind her—she had a key—but the corridors within are too narrow for my wings."
"Go." Firekeeper commanded even as she stepped inside.
"Help the others to safety. They have two of the artifacts. I will get the third and follow."
She didn't wait for a reply, but darted instead up the stairs. Lady Melina's scent was hot, but the wolf-woman didn't need that as a guide; her memory held Grateful Peace's directions.
Peace had told them that the building stood nearly empty. It was reserved exclusively for foreign guests. After one visit, not many such guests chose to stay within Thendulla Lypella, if they were given a choice, for their freedom was so restricted that it was as if they dwelt within a luxurious prison.
Some, Peace had said ironically, might even suspect that arrangements had been made to watch them.
All but the most essential staff slept elsewhere and even those should be asleep. Since Lady Melina had not alerted the gate guards, Firekeeper doubted she would awaken someone as useless as a maid.
The wolf-woman pelted up the stairs after her prey, her booted feet making soft scuffing noises against the stone, her trailing, bloodstained robe torn away in front—for she had ripped it as she ran to keep it from tangling her feet.
She could feel the short hairs on her neck stand up when she turned down a corridor and saw a partially open door at one end. Noise came through that opening: frantic whimpers and gasping breaths. With shining eyes, Firekeeper ran toward her prey.
Bursting through the open door with such speed that even had anyone crouched behind or beside the portal she would have passed them before they could strike, Firekeeper spun to a halt on a patch of thick carpet before a low sofa.
Lady Melina knelt by a fireplace, her hands pressed against the stones. On her right hand, Firekeeper saw a large ring that didn't quite fit and guessed that this was the third artifact. On the stone bench that flanked the fireplace rested a small hatchet, its blade stained with Blind Seer's blood.
Firekeeper paced forward and Lady Melina stood to meet her, turning rather too quickly, as if she sought to hide something behind her.
Her face had been painted as garishly as that of a New Kelvinese. Not for Lady Melina the simple scarlet worn for work; this color wove a serpent's path emphasizing the upper portion of her face.
Searching for the face beneath the paint, Firekeeper sought Lady Melina's eyes. She found them, cool and pale, glittering from the depths of two sinuous coils.
The wolf-woman felt an odd desire to shout aloud in triumph, but the sight of the bloody hatchet on the hearthstone chilled her spirit. Lips peeling back from her teeth in a snarl, Firekeeper growled:
"That—" She pointed to the ring. "Give!"
"Why?" Lady Melina replied almost casually. Then her voice rose slightly, excitement coursing through its controlled notes.
"Can it be that you know its secret?"
Firekeeper only stared at her, confused.
"No, I see that you do not," Lady Melina laughed. "I see that you are merely a dog fetching for her master."
Firekeeper bristled, but Lady Melina continued on, even pausing long enough to take a seat on the raised hearth.
"I wonder who sent you, pup? Uncle Tedric? Allister Seagleam? Probably. They seem to command you and yet…" Her voice fell into a silky, insinuating softness. "And yet you do not know that what you seek at others' command holds in it the power to grant your heart's desire."
Despite her fury, Firekeeper discovered that she could no more keep from listening than she could will the sun to rise.
"See this?" Lady Melina held out her hand so that Firekeeper could see the ring clearly. "A moonstone held in the jaws of a beast. The New Kelvinese were not slow to pick up on the symbolism, but I think they feared the power we would unleash…"
She chuckled. "No pun intended."
Firekeeper growled, but though some part of her clamored that she should seize the ring and be gone—leaving Lady Melina's head on the floor in token of her coming—she could not seem to stir.
"The moon is an almost universal emblem for change," Lady Melina went on. "Here it is held in the mouth of a beast. Moon/change/beast. It is a simple enough sequence, don't you think?"
Shaking her head was the hardest thing Firekeeper had ever done.
"We haven't yet found the trigger," Lady Melina admitted. "I've suggested mingled blood…"
Blood!
The word burned through Firekeeper's mind, the thunder of her own blood in her ears was like a storm beating against the shore. Amid the noise, she didn't hear what Lady Melina said next, only knew that the ring was being extended toward her, glowing in the firelight as Lady Melina moved it slowly back and forth, back and forth.
"Come, Firekeeper, take the ring," Lady Melina urged softly. "You've always wanted to be a wolf, haven't you? This holds the means. Of course, if you return the ring to King Allister, you'll never have that power, will you?"
The thunder of the waves was ebbing now, being replaced with a gentler susurrus, a sleepy rhythm that held the rocking of a cradle, the swaying of the bough, the caress of waves against a beach.
Firekeeper half raised her hand toward the ring and wondered at the heaviness in her limbs.
"Stay with me, Firekeeper," Lady Melina said gently, "stay with me and I will help you find your dreams. We will discover how to awaken the ring. Then you can have all you desire."
Firekeeper's foot slid forward as if of its own accord. Behind her, a rattling blended into the soft rhythm in her head; even the metallic clink as Lady Melina's left hand slid the hatchet into her grip couldn't break her sense of sleepy peace.
She would be a wolf, a wolf at last. She and Blind Seer would run through the woods, laughing as they plowed chest-deep through the snowdrifts.
Something worried at the edge of her tranquility when she thought of the blue-eyed wolf. She saw him haloed in red, but then the red transformed into the glow of the setting sun behind him. Then they stood shoulder to shoulder, singing the moon as she rose.
Smiling, Firekeeper was stepping forward when the crash of glass against wood and stone ripped through the sound of Lady Melina's voice. A shriek sliced the air.
"Firekeeper!"
An intense shock of pain in the vicinity of her right hip, coming almost as one with the shrill cry, jolted Firekeeper from her dream.
She stood within arm's reach of Lady Melina, but this Lady Melina was anything but tranquil.
The sorceress still wore the ring upon her right hand, but the blue-white stone was covered by Bold. The crow had perched upon Lady Melina's upper arm and now sought to drag the ring from the woman's hand.
Lady Melina might have shoved the bird away, but for the fact that she needed her remaining hand to ward Elation from her face. She had dropped the hatchet in her panic and instantly Firekeeper realized what had caused the pain in her hip.
Neither was Lady Melina a trained fighter, nor had she expected the dual thickness of leather where vest met trousers beneath Firekeeper's tattered robe. Doubtless she had been aiming higher—for the soft abdomen or the vulnerable throat—but Elation's attack had thrown her aim off just enough.
Firekeeper dove into the fray.
The peregrine couldn't achieve the height she needed for one of her stooping dives, but she had sufficient room to batter at Lady Melina with her wings. Already, Elation's claws had drawn blood, blood that beaded against the paint on Lady Melina's face, creating the eerie impression that the sorceress's own blood had rejected her.
Firekeeper staggered slightly as she registered the deep bruise that would be forming where the hatchet had impacted against the bone, but an almost insane fury was replacing the artificial tranquility Lady Melina had created.
The wolf-woman never doubted that she—like so many others—had fallen prey to Lady Melina's particular sorcery. She recalled her own triumph as she had sought, wolf-like, to intimidate her opponent with her stare and knew that in doing so she had opened herself to her enemy's attack.
Remember, she is not a wolf.
Burning with shame, she heard Blind Seer's warning—a warning she had discarded. Had it not been for the intervention of the wingéd folk she would be bleeding out her life at Lady Melina's feet.
Fang in hand, Firekeeper pushed the peregrine aside. Ignoring the new trickle of blood from where a talon had scored her forearm, she pressed the knife blade against Lady Melina's throat.
As from a great distance, she heard Bold's hoarse chuckle of triumph as he tugged the ring free. Heard the flap of his wings as he bore away his prize—never knowing how much temptation he was taking out of reach.
But Firekeeper had eyes only for Lady Melina. Keeping her own gaze away from the fatal crystalline paleness of the sorceress's gaze, she was ready to push the blade home when she heard Elation—who was perched somewhere behind her—say:
"Citrine."
Firekeeper stayed the thrust.
"Where is Citrine?" she asked hoarsely.
Lady Melina did not feign ignorance.
"Will the information win me my life?"
"No, but it may win Citrine's own."
Lady Melina paused; then, to Firekeeper's astonishment, she began to shake—a deep trembling accompanied by the tang of fresh sweat and the faint odor of urine.
"I don't want to die!" the woman wailed.
Firekeeper growled, "Tell me!"
Lady Melina could not crumple—not without driving the knife into her own throat—but her muscles seemed to lose all strength. Close to Lady Melina as she was, Firekeeper could feel the muscles slacken, driven beyond the rictus of terror into the limpness of despair.
"I'll show you where Citrine is!"
"No."
"She's… Please, you can't want to rob a little girl of her mama!"
"You stall. Tell!"
"A house," Lady Melina gasped.
Tears now coursed down her cheeks, splashing hot against Firekeeper's hand. Inadvertently, she drew her hand back slightly, but the Fang still remained within easy reach of that vulnerable throat.
Perhaps mistaking distaste for mercy, Lady Melina gulped out a few words.
"To the east of Hawk Haven, near the swamps. That's where we left her. I don't know…"
Her voice trailed off into racking, panicked sobs. Then, as if her bones had melted, she slid from the hearthside bench onto which she had been pressed.
Lady Melina raised her face to Firekeeper, but she did not try to meet the wolf-woman's eyes, keeping her own downcast in fear. Her posture eloquently spoke of her vulnerability—exposing her throat to the killing blow.
"Please," the sorceress whimpered. "Spare me! Spare me…"
The last was barely audible.
Firekeeper tried to raise her Fang to drive it into that soft, white throat, but she could not make her hand move.
This time, however, there was no external control at work. In her deepest heart, Firekeeper was a wolf, and no sane wolf ever killed an opponent who had surrendered.
"I can't…" she said to Elation.
"You can't let her live. This one is mad. She left her daughter to die. She tried to kill Blind Seer—he is sorely wounded."
"I can't…" Firekeeper moaned.
Lady Melina, eyes still downcast, arms outstretched, rose on trembling legs. She backed until she stood pressed against the stone, her fingers scrabbling as if she would dig herself a burrow there.
"If you can't then," Elation shrieked, beating her wings and rising into the air, "I can!"
But there was not space, even in this large chamber, for the peregrine to stoop and dive as she would have outside. As she floundered, seeking to adapt her strike, there was a loud click.
Lady Melina cried out, this time not in fear but in triumph. A portion of the stone slid from behind her and she backed into a tunnel—doubtless one of those very tunnels of which Grateful Peace had bragged.
Firekeeper recovered swiftly from her shock at seeing surrender transform into flight. Lady Melina darted into the darkness on the other side of the wall.
When Firekeeper would have dashed after her, Elation landed so heavily on her shoulder that the wolf-woman was thrown off balance.
"No!" Elation shrieked. "We have the ring. We know where the child is. Don't throw your life away."
Firekeeper staggered under the weight of the bird. Her hip shouted its own argument against an extended chase through unknown territory.
"The others," she asked. "I told you to get the others away."
"They are away, but needed no help from me to see the wisdom of retreat. Bold saw them beginning their descent from the tower. Blind Seer," the peregrine added in response to an unasked question, "was with them. By now—unless Grateful Peace has betrayed them—they should be clear of this place and on their way outside the walls."
Firekeeper nodded. "Then we, too, must be away."
They eschewed attempting to return to the tunnels, even though the Granite Tower was unbelievably quiet. Elation flew around it and reported that the top floor held two people quite definitely bound, while the next held four sitting down who might well be bound. The next lower floor remained dark—and so presumably empty—while the bottom floor of the tower proper was empty on one side. The other held a room full of people who seemed to be splitting their energies between arguing and trying to pry open a window that might not have been opened for centuries.
Firekeeper thought about finding another cellar and seeing if there was another trapdoor, but in her heart of hearts she was soundly tired of stone buildings, sewer tunnels, and all the rest. Instead, Elation bore the rags of Firekeeper's robe to the top of a shadowed portion of wall, far from where the commotion was centered.
With the cloth to pad the top where someone had strewn glass and other unpleasant things, Firekeeper struggled over the wall. Alternately staggering and limping, with the birds flying ahead to warn her of strangers, the wolf-woman made her weary way to where she could only hope her friends would be waiting.

Chapter XXXIII

Rusty Iron rubbed rough granules into Elise's fingers as she hung from the ladder with one hand and pushed up the trapdoor with the other.

The thaumaturge was above already, prowling somewhere in the semidarkness, searching out the residents, checking if any stood watch. He had explained that no one would question his presence, for the Dragon's Eye went everywhere. However, he preferred that their group's presence not be known if at all possible, for he felt there was still a slight chance that he would be able to redeem himself before his people—a chance that grew more tenuous each time his role in helping the outlanders was confirmed.
Their plan had been that if there was no indication that Grateful Peace had been discovered, the rest were to begin their ascent. They had to do without more complex signals, for any' sound Peace might make would awaken the sleepers, and Peace had been forced to close the trapdoor behind him because of the noise from the falls.
Inside the stone guardhouse the noise from the sewage falls was muted. Even so, the solid little building wasn't silent. Silence would have been preferable, for the same dull rumble that covered the sound of their own cautious movements made Elise uneasily aware how easy it would be for someone to sneak up behind her.
Quickly she turned her head, right, then left. Nothing but vague, unmoving shadow shapes were revealed. Not precisely comforted, but certain that at this moment no one was near, Elise bent over the trapdoor and motioned for the others to climb up after her.
She heard a rasping scrape, followed by a pained whine as Blind Seer hauled himself through the trapdoor. The wolf's stiff straining movements were so unlike the lithe grace with which he had mounted a similar ladder only a few hours before that Elise felt her heart catch in sympathetic pain.
In quick succession, Wendee, then Doc—both of whom had waited below to assist the wolf with his ascent—emerged from the trapdoor. When Doc was through, Elise closed the door.
Her abortive sigh of relief nearly choked her when a high-pitched but strong voice spoke from the center of a dark rectangle Elise had taken for a closed door:
"Don't move nor even breath or I'll land a crossbow quarrel soundly in your liver."
Blind Seer, who had been scenting the air, growled—a low sound, full of anger and frustration. None of the others commented even to that extent.
"Now we," the voice continued, "have our sympathies with escaping slaves, even those who don't come announced, but there is a price for sympathy. Do you have it with you?"
With some surprise, Elise heard her own voice answering:
"We do, but it's under our wraps."
What's going on here? she thought frantically. Where is Peace? Escaped slaves? I think I understand, but what are they going to do to us when they find we don't have their price?
She didn't waste energy wondering how they had been detected. The guards must be so accustomed to the noise from the falls that they didn't even hear it anymore. Some sound out of the ordinary must have alerted this woman.
From elsewhere, she heard the slap of shod feet coming down stone stairs. A man's voice called, "Tymia? What's going on?"
"Alarm," Tymia, as their captor turned out to be named, replied economically. "I've three here and a big dog. Bring a lamp, will you?"
"Right."
Where is Peace? Has he left us here?
Elise tried to frame a bluff, but she knew she was floundering—it was hard to bluff when you knew so little. Their time of residence in Dragon's Breath hadn't been long enough to learn the fine details of slavery in New Kelvin. She hadn't even seen a slave, though she did know that most were owned not by individuals but by organizations.
The price this Tymia had mentioned was doubtless paid in currency, but what would be considered a fair amount? Would she be expected to bring out a coin or a purse?
And where was Peace?
Not one but three new figures were revealed in the glow of the lamplight, a woman and two men. All were young, all wore sleepwear—soft trousers and shirt—augmented by boots and weaponry. One man carried a crossbow. The man with the lamp had a sword belt sloppily girded around him. The woman bore both sword and crossbow, though neither was carried in a ready position. Rather it looked as if she had snatched up her weapons from habit rather than volition.
All four—including Tymia, who was revealed for the first time as other than a shadow—were older than Elise, but still hardly beyond their mid-twenties.
Tymia, who wore a uniform, though one loose around the collar and a bit rumpled, stepped forward, studying them with an intent interest that became concern as she got a better look at her captives. Elise remembered seeing a similar expression on the face of young Indatius in the Granite Tower, and dreaded what was coining.
Whatever slaves typically looked like, it was quite clear that she, Wendee, and Doc did not fit the profile. It said something about how odd they must look that Tymia didn't spare a glance for Blind Seer—and that was her mistake.
The great grey wolf didn't leap—his injuries were too great for that—but in the enclosed room he hardly needed to do more than rush forward. His intelligence was evident in that he did not go for Tymia herself but for her crossbow.
A sharp cracking snap proved that wherever else he was wounded, his jaws were just fine.
Elise didn't wait for a second opportunity to act. Bending her head slightly, she rushed at the man who bore both lamp and sword. He brought up his sword in a halfhearted block, but Elise took her tactics from Blind Seer's book.
Wheeling widely away from the sword, she dove for the lamp and knocked it from his hand. It hit the floor solidly. The newly lit wick snuffed out, sending the room back into darkness.
Here Elise and her companions, who had spent so many of the recent hours in semidarkness, were less inconvenienced than the four guards. However, the guards had the advantage of knowing the layout of the room—and of being armed. Moreover, they were skilled fighters—a distinction none in Elise's company, except possibly Doc, could claim.
The former lamp-holder wheeled after Elise, seeming to follow her by the very movement of the air. As he grabbed at her, she felt the flat of his sword blade slide over her arm as he grappled for position.
She kicked out, by luck catching him in the kneecap. He yelled, but the sound was more angered than pained. It blended with Tymia's shrieks as she backed away from Blind Seer, who, having disarmed her, was apparently pressing her in the dark.
There were other yells as well. Wendee and Doc had not left Elise to attack alone, but they had been several steps behind her, even as the remaining two guards had been behind the one Elise had attacked.
Much confused fumbling followed. A thud announced that someone had slipped in the lamp oil and fallen to the floor.
Elise, however, had little attention to spare for this. Her opponent had grabbed her trailing braid and was using it to reel her head in close to his hand.
Ignoring the sharp pain, she tried to pull away, but he had wrapped a length or so of hair around his hand. Again she tried to kick out, but was jerked up short.
"None of that," he warned. "Or I won't bother with keeping you alive."
Moving without conscious thought, Elise sagged.
Her captor leaned to catch her—discommoded by the fact that he'd imprisoned one hand in her hair, while his sword occupied the other. Elise ignored the pull against her braid, though the pain brought tears to her eyes—and fell further forward.
Instinctively trying to keep his balance, the guard shifted to put his sword arm around her waist. At the moment she felt his hold, but before he could straighten, Elise lifted her feet from the floor. She might not weigh over much, but to her already unbalanced captor, it was enough.
He toppled, falling partly on top of her, flailing to keep from cutting himself on his own sword. He let go of her hair, though his fingers remained painfully tangled.
Knowing too well where he was by the heat of his breath, Elise brought up her elbow. Groaning, he jerked back and she was free.
Firekeeper or Sapphire would probably have knocked him cold, but Elise knew her limits. Skipping back, she assessed the situation.
Tymia's shrieks had turned into moans of fear, but from the sound of them Blind Seer had not killed her. Scuffling in one corner told that either Doc or Wendee or both still occupied the other guards.
Light, Elise thought. We need light.
She fumbled her way toward the trapdoor, hoping to find Doc's kit there. He kept candles for emergencies, along with flint and steel. Elise was no great hand with a tinderbox, but she had learned to manage on campaign.
Then, as if in direct answer to her unspoken wish, there was light. Grateful Peace stood in a doorway, a three-pronged candelabrum in one hand.
By the triple candlelight, Elise saw that Blind Seer crouched over Tymia. The guard was nearly mad with fear, but offered no immediate threat.
The remaining female guard was out cold. Wendee and Doc stood equidistant from the crossbowman, apparently unsure in the darkness how best to close.
When the candlelight flooded the dark room, the man turned to face this new threat. His cocked bow followed his motion as might a pointing finger. When the guard saw a stranger, he pulled the trigger.
Peace screamed and staggered. Once again, there was darkness.

BOOK

THREE

Chapter XXXIV

Owl Moon had been showing her first quarter when Baron Endbrook had sent a messenger to Dragon's Breath with a box for Lady Melina Shield. When Owl Moon had shone fat and round, he had imagined the lady receiving the box and its grisly contents. By the time Owl Moon had waned to a quarter once more, Waln was eagerly awaiting her reply.

Yet he had not been idle as those days passed.
Though pirates and smugglers by profession, scofflaws by choice, killers when needed, there were few among those hardened men and women who dwelled in the Smuggler's Light who had not been shocked by Waln's cool mutilation of young Citrine Shield's hand.
That he had done the deed himself, rather than ordering some lackey to do it for him, had only raised him in their estimation. Given the lives they led, the pirates often mistook the sensation of fear for that of respect.
Since his days as a gutter bully, Waln had learned how to capitalize on others' fears. He would not let the opportunity escape him now.
Even as Fess Bones was binding up the weeping girl's hand, Waln had swaggered down into the common area that occupied the second story of the lighthouse.
Longsight Scrounger, who to this moment had reigned supreme over those gathered in this illicit stronghold, didn't like seeing his vassals shrink from another. Had he been a dog, his hackles would have risen and his lips curled back from his teeth.
Longsight and Waln had been fencing with each other from the moment Waln had arisen from his sickbed, but to this moment neither had struck decisively. They had growled and snarled, snapped and sniffed about for weaknesses, but neither had attacked.
Had Longsight been a different kind of man, Waln might not have even challenged him—he had no desire to be a pirate king. Longsight, however, could not work with anyone else. Either he worked for others or, preferably, they worked for him.
Perhaps the shadow of Queen Valora's influence as much as anything about Waln himself had cautioned Longsight to hold back any attempt to openly dominate Waln, but now faced with what he perceived a challenge to his authority Longsight forgot queen, wealth, and title.
Without their ennobling aura, he saw only a large man, somewhat pale from illness, a man who dared strut into Longsight's hall as if he owned it.
"I must admire you, Waln," Longsight Scrounger sneered, his voice silky as a whiplash drawn lazily over the skin it anticipates cutting, "for how you discipline little girls. So firm! So direct! No wonder Queen Valora uses you for her errand boy. She must recognize a well-trained nursery hand."
Waln didn't speak a single word in response to this taunt.
Never pausing in the lazy stride with which he'd entered the common room, Waln strolled over to where Longsight sat in a high-backed cushioned chair at the best table among those arrayed about the hall.
Right until Waln raised his hand, Longsight might have thought the other man too flustered to fight back. Then lightning strike of Waln's hand as he brutally backhanded Longsight across one side of his face gave answer.
Longsight's head snapped back and impacted with the hard wooden back of his chair. For a bare breath it seemed that he might have been stunned; then Longsight rose to his feet, pushing the chair behind him so that it toppled over and crashed to the floor.
The common room of Smuggler's Light was decorated rather after the fashion of a large tavern. Now it resembled one more than ever as tables were dragged back and chairs scooted aside to open a makeshift arena for the combatants in the center of the floor.
Not one of those men and women who in other circumstances would have followed Longsight Scrounger to the death rose to offer him aid. Not one protested Waln's attack upon their leader. Only the old crone who had been by Waln's bed when he had awakened cried out—and that shrill sound might well have been fierce excitement rather than protest.
Bets were laid on—though few bet in favor of Waln. Rather the pirates bet on how long it would take Longsight to knock the challenger down, how many blows Longsight might need, whether a dirty trick or two might come into play.
To one side of the room, Lucky Shortleg could be heard loudly bemoaning that he had not time to set proper odds.
Yes, the bets were on Longsight. The pirates knew him, knew his ferocity, his tenacity, his skill in a dirty brawl. Those who knew Waln at all knew him as a shipping magnate, a man who possessed wealth and title. They had no idea how he had won those prizes.
Fess Bones—coming down into the commotion after wrapping Citrine's hand in layers of gauze and dosing the girl with a powerful sleeping draught—Fess Bones found many who were willing to take his bet that Baron Endbrook would be the one to stagger from the makeshift arena.
Fess Bones set himself up for life with his winnings from that betting. It was Longsight Scrounger who, when all was ended, spat teeth onto the floor and then collapsed onto the scarred wood, sliding into a puddle of his own blood and spit.
Some sixteen days later, when Fleet Herald, the messenger Waln had sent to Lady Melina, returned to Smuggler's Light, it was Baron Endbrook who stood at the top of the lighthouse overlooking the swamp, and Longsight—recovered from the worst of his beating, though inclined to whistle between broken teeth—who answered the door and then scurried away.
A more loyal lieutenant than Longsight Scrounger Waln could not have asked for, not if he ordered himself one out of his own warehouses. Like Waln himself—who served Queen Valora out of self-interest, tinged with fear—Longsight respected those more powerful than himself. When he had thought Waln physically vulnerable, he had been willing to dismiss title and wealth. Now these became two more chains that bound Longsight like a whining cur at his master's heel.
If Fleet Herald was surprised at this change to the order of things, he said not a word. He merely dipped his bow deeper than he might have and licked his lips nervously.
Looking down at the cringing messenger, Waln felt deep foreboding replace the comfortable self-satisfaction that had been his daily diet since he had defeated Longsight and stomped a few opportunistic types who had thought to take him on when he was—presumably—weakened.
"I expected you days ago," Waln growled at Fleet. "What is your report?"
Fleet made no excuses nor apologies. He knew—as Waln himself did—that he had made excellent time, especially given the winter weather and the nature of his mission.
"The lady sent no reply to your message, sir," he said in as soft a voice as he dared.
"None!" Waln bellowed.
This had been a possibility he had contemplated only in his gloomiest moments. A doting father himself, he had thought the threat to Lady Melina's daughter would bring him some message from the lady. In his brighter moments, Waln had even contemplated a future where the messenger returned with the three artifacts.
Waln considered the possibility that Fleet had stolen the artifacts, but dismissed it at once. Longsight had recommended Fleet precisely because the man was utterly trustworthy in this type of job and had made himself valuable by being so. Fleet would not risk his reputation for cursed artifacts that he—like any sane man—doubtless feared.
Nor did Fleet Herald have a kingdom to support him—as did Queen Valora or Lady Melina—if he turned thief.
"Are you certain there was no message?" Waln asked, giving Fleet every opportunity to say something that would mitigate the circumstances.
"None, Baron." Fleet straightened and met Waln's eyes. "I waited a full day lest she change her mind, but she sent no word to me, nor did she send out any other messenger. From what I gathered, she must have put what you told her from her mind, for she simply went about her duties."
Waln swallowed a groan of despair. He'd been playing at pirate. Now, it seemed, he might need to turn pirate. Certainly, there would be no returning to the Isles—to his family and fortune—without those artifacts…
Not unless he made every effort to regain them. Queen Valora might forgive him then.
Waln had received Fleet in his private chambers, a decadently overfurnished room that took over the entire space once devoted to housing the light. He'd wanted to be alone to savor his triumph and to contemplate his next move.
How could he counter when the Lady Melina refused to play?
Or what if she didn't intend to play his game, but to write the rules for one of her own?
"Go," Waln said to Fleet. "Get some hot food, a good night's sleep. Tomorrow I'm going to want to know everything—no matter how minor—you learned about Lady Melina and her position in New Kelvin."
Fleet gulped nervously as he made yet another slovenly bow and retreated. Waln, turning to watch him go, saw someone on the landing without—someone who had been bold enough to sneak upstairs and listen.
Sunlight caught fire from the gemstone on her brow as Lady Melina's youngest daughter looked in at him. Citrine's big blue eyes were wide and slightly crazed. She waved her maimed hand at him in a parody of greeting.
She was laughing.

Chapter XXXV

King Allister of the pledge had escaped to the castle roof. Somehow, he had never imagined that the greatest irritant of his new kingship would be a houseful of adolescent women.

Royal politics he understood—he'd lived them all his life. Great-Aunt Seastar with her continual angling for position was a problem. So was his perennially offended royal physician. Lord Rory had never forgiven Allister for permitting Sir Jared to treat the newlyweds. So were a multitude of lords and ladies of various stripes of nobility, all determined either not to lose privileges that had been their family's since the days of Gustin I, or to gain new privileges under the new—and presumably manipulable—monarch.
But these things Allister understood. These things he'd been prepared for in some shape or form since Queen Valora first set him to try for the throne of Hawk Haven—never dreaming, of course, that he would end up instead with her throne.
What he didn't understand were young females. He'd brought back four with him from Hawk Haven, and they seemed to have unfolded like the petals of an exotic flower ruffling into multiples of itself. The proliferation had started with a tea party or so, become circles dedicated to embroidery or dancing or some other delicate pursuit.
Pearl had told him that many of the local nobles were offended because their daughters had not been invited to stay at the castle. Gossip said that King Allister expected both of his sons to marry foreign women, and this had encouraged every mother in the kingdom with a remotely eligible daughter to find some excuse to bring her by the court.
Tavis was besieged by every type of woman imaginable. Blushing maidens so shy they could hardly speak above a whisper were at least not offensive, but watching coquettes play their flirtatious games with a youth hardly into his sixteenth year was enough to make Allister's blood boil.
Minnow and Anemone were no better than the rest—though, of course, they were not interested in their brother. However, the hunt for his favor had made them prematurely aware of their own importance in the marriage races. A few moonspans ago at the wedding they had hardly known how to move in a formal gown. Today Allister had seen Anemone modeling a dress—a gift to her from some well-wisher—that made her look far too sophisticated for his tastes.
Until, that is, he had protested too bluntly and she had dissolved into tears, racing for her room trailing brocaded silk and lace after her.
Pearl had given him a look that held a mixture of exasperation and understanding before hurrying after the girl.
And Allister had headed for the roof.
There was a spot on one of the crenellated battlements that he particularly liked when he needed to think. Higher than much of the surrounding castle, it provided a good view of both the bay and the town. Whyte Steel approved of it for security reasons—a single guard could hold the base of the tower, though two were usually posted there. Allister couldn't complain. He hadn't forgotten the assassins.
Hood pulled up around his ears, Allister was leaning back against one side of the battlements, looking out over the ocean, when a peregrine falcon plummeted out of the sky behind him and perched on the stone.
Allister's first thought was Here's a danger Whyte didn't anticipate, or he wouldn't have let me up here either!
The falcon, however, broke from its stoop short of the king and perched on the edge of the battlement.
Allister thought that the bird looked vaguely familiar. As it cocked his head to look at him, he felt certain. He'd never seen a peregrine as large, but for one. It studied him with a certain regal arrogance and then emitted a chuffing, churling noise that so seemed a greeting that he responded.
"Elation, isn't it? Lady Blysse's bird?"
It hunched its shoulders and shrieked softly. Then it lifted one taloned foot. For a moment, Allister thought it was going to preen. Then he saw the lead capsule tied to the leg.
The bird lowered its head and rubbed against the capsule, churring encouragingly—or at least Allister hoped the noise was meant as encouragement. He felt rather nervous for his fingers as he brought them within reach of that cruelly curved beak and those deadly sharp talons, but the bird held its ground and suffered him to remove the capsule—indeed, it seemed grateful to have it gone.
With a preliminary stretching of its wings, it dove off of the tower. King Allister watched it plummet downward, then level off and soar gracefully as if glad to be free of its burden.
Curious and unwilling to face the probable distractions that would meet him if he descended, Allister hunkered down so that the wind might not blow the contents of the capsule from his hands and used his belt knife to cut open the lead.
As he had expected, there was a small curl of parchment within. On it was written in painfully tiny print:
 

King Allister—

If the Ancestors still smile on us, Elation will get this to your hands. Citrine Shield has been taken hostage by those who hold Smuggler's Light. To save her we need their ships prevented from departing into the ocean.

We understand that you have ships patrolling the coast north to the Waterland border, lest certain parties get ideas. Pray divert one or more of these ships to the area near the lighthouse. Keep any ship from leaving.

Explanations can be given to any emissary you would send, but we must beg you act without more than this. Our role is not official, but we will also be begging aid from King Tedric. We do not expect to be refused as Citrine is his heir's sister.

Elation can bear news to us. She will find you a carrier if you wish messages borne to your ship captains. Pray, do not delay. The life of a little girl—at the very least—rests on prompt action.
 
This peculiar note was signed "Jared Surcliffe, Knight of the White Eagle."
Allister was reading the note over for the second time when Elation landed again on the battlement. He noticed a pair of gulls riding the wind slightly above his tower. They were not calling or complaining as would be usual when confronted with a bird of prey in their territory. The king did not think this was coincidence.
"Come," he said to Elation. "I have a reply for you to carry."
He started to hold out his cloaked arm, remembered how cruelly talons could pierce even leather, and added:
"Do you by chance know where my private library window is? There is a balcony outside."
The hawk shrieked, but whether this was "yes" or "no" he couldn't be certain.
He compromised by saying: "I will have a red scarf hung out when I am ready. Please, take your leisure and hunt your fill in the meantime."
The peregrine leapt in the air with such promptness Allister had to believe he had been understood. The gulls followed one at a time, peeling off like soldiers in formation.
Shaking his head in wonder, Allister headed down the stairs, his footsteps becoming more and more rapid as he approached the bottom. He shook off several attempts to claim his time, stopping only to speak with Calico, his court clerk.
"Two tasks for you," the king said. "First, find out how quickly Waveslicer can be made ready for departure. Second, find Queen Pearl. Tell her I would speak with her—not immediately, for I must write several letters first, but at her earliest convenience."
Calico bowed. Curiosity was writ large on his patched face, but he valued the king's trust too much to pry.
King Allister had just finished drafting a reply to Sir Jared and three missives to the captains of those ships that should be in closest proximity to the Smuggler's light, when a knock came on his door. Pearl entered on the heels of her knock.
"Read this, my dear," Allister said, pushing across to her the missive Elation had brought, "but hold your questions while I check these letters."
Queen Pearl did so, her round face becoming quite grave before she finished. When Allister looked up from his own correspondence, he saw that her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
"What madness is this?" she asked, her voice calm and steady. "Who has laid hands on this child?"
"I don't know," Allister admitted. "I know no more than do you. My guess is Queen Valora is somehow at the bottom of this. Her assassins failed to kill Sapphire and Shad, and for some reason she has settled on working her revenge on Citrine. That, however, is just a guess."
"And you will send the ships as Sir Jared requests?"
Allister tapped the instructions he had just written and began to roll them into thin spills that could be inserted within carrying tubes.
"They are here along with a reply for Sir Jared. He doesn't mention timing, but my hope is that any assault from the land will be held until my vessels are present to close off escape by water."
Pearl laid a finger to one side of her face and nodded.
"Surely," she said comfortingly, "that is not an unreasonable hope. Why request support and then not wait for it to arrive?"
"My thoughts exactly."
"But why would anyone go after Citrine without waiting?"
Allister rose and opened the doors onto his balcony, answering Pearl as he secured a red kerchief onto a bit of ornamental carving. Outside, the wind had risen and he was glad to close the door behind him and return to his desk by the fire.
"Because, I fear, Sapphire is hotheaded and impulsive. I don't know what fondness she feels for this youngest sister, but even if she cares little for her…"
"I think she rather likes her," Queen Pearl interrupted.
"… she is quite likely to go to her rescue, even if only to revenge the insult paid to herself."
"Would Sapphire be so impulsive?" Pearl asked, then answered herself. "Of course she would be."
"But that is just a guess," Allister continued. "I desire more information. To get that, I must go to where the conflict is. You will reign in my absence."
"You can't go!"
"Yes," he replied firmly. "Tavis is too young to act as my emissary. Shad is in Hawk Haven. I hate to admit this, but as of yet there is no one immediately available in Bright Bay—other than your father, who is too old for such a voyage—who shares both prominence of rank and my trust. We have been in power too briefly. Therefore, I must go myself. Sapphire and Shad are my heirs as well as Tedric's. Their actions reflect on me—more so if I am not present to deny my sanction to any wilder course they may contemplate."
"I understand," Pearl said. "You will take Waveslicer?"
"Precisely. The shoals that flank Hawk Haven's bit of coastline would force a larger vessel to divert further out to seas. I am sending messages to the captains of the Boisterous, Damselfly, and Sea Stallion. Boisterous is to patrol the ocean side of the shoals to prevent a ship from escaping through there to the Isles. The other two are to come in closer to shore.
"Hawk Haven," Allister continued a trace smugly, "has a navy, but their people are not sailors like ours. Most of their vessels will be in dry dock for the winter. I suspect that is one reason Sir Jared appealed to me."
"One reason?" Pearl prompted gently.
"The other may be something to do with Sapphire or with Valora or some other mystery I don't yet know enough about to understand."
Pearl sighed and pushed her hands through her hair.
"Since there may be danger to Sapphire's other sisters," she said, her tone that of one who plans aloud, "I must restrain Ruby and Opal from going too far afield, and place strong guard on them when they do. That should prove interesting."
Allister looked up from sealing the message capsules.
"Interesting?"
"I believe Opal is forming an attachment. She will not like being so heavily chaperoned. No matter. I was intending to have her freedom curtailed in any case. She cannot be permitted to form any alliances without her mother's permission. It is time she learned the drawbacks of her increased prominence."
Allister rose. "It is difficult to imagine any one of Lady Melina's daughters doing anything without their mother's permission."
"Yes," Pearl agreed slowly, "and that rather makes little Citrine's case all the more interesting. Where is her mother in all of this?"
"I expect to hear momentarily from Hawk Haven," Allister admitted. "Surely Lady Melina will have already appealed to Sapphire. She would not wait for Sir Jared to do so."
"True."
Feeling as if he might be about to make a fool of himself, Allister went and opened the door onto the balcony again. He had dreaded finding nothing there, but Elation was waiting. As he came out, bracing himself against the cold, she gave a shrill cry and two gulls dropped from the skies and landed near.
As if demonstrating what was expected, the peregrine stretched up her body so that the king could easily secure the message capsule. He held his palm flat so that Elation could see the three that remained.
"I'd hoped to send messages to three of my ships," he said. "Could you find another messenger?"
Elation stiffly shook her head—the motion was more a leaning of her entire body from side to side, but the meaning was unmistakable.
"Ah." Allister frowned thoughtfully. "That was probably too much to ask. Could one of the gulls carry two capsules?"
Again the falcon indicated "no."
"Wait then," he said. "I need to make a change."
He hurried back inside and adapted the message he had written for the Sea Stallion's captain, indicating that he should pass on her orders to the Damselfly's captain at the first opportunity.
"That should work," he explained to Pearl. "They're sailing in company."
He went outside again, Pearl accompanying him this time despite his protests that she'd take a chill.
"I don't want to miss this" was all she would say.
Allister turned again to Elation:
"Your message is for Sir Jared. Do your companions here know how to recognize the ships Boisterous and Sea Stallion?"
Elation nodded, a gesture that involved squatting low as if to cover her feet with her feathers then raising her torso as high as possible, and repeating the motion a few times. From slightly behind and beside him, Allister heard Pearl gasp in amazement. He fancied the peregrine was pleased.
"This capsule," he continued, "is for the Sea Stallion. She should be sailing closer to the coast."
One of the gulls edged closer. It was markedly more apprehensive than the falcon and Allister guessed that while Elation was accustomed to at least some human handling, the gulls were truly wild.
Thinking of this and recalling how he had seen gulls use their beaks to neatly flense flesh from the carcasses of whales and sharks, he had to fight to keep his hands steady as he fastened the capsule to the gull's leg.
"This capsule," he said, turning to the other gull, "is for the Boisterous. Weather permitting, she's out in deeper water, closer to the Isles."
Neither gull offered any indication that they had understood him.
"I guess," he said, stepping back to Pearl's side and sliding his arm around her shoulders, "we'll need to trust Elation to translate if needed."
The peregrine shrieked something unintelligible, and without further ceremony the three birds took flight. Elation caught a wind and moved north. The gulls soared higher and headed out to sea.
Clad only in an indoor gown, Pearl was trembling from the chill air, but she insisted on watching until the birds were out of sight.
"That may be," she said, "the most amazing thing I can ever hope to see."
"More amazing," Allister said, drawing her back inside and to the fire, "than Lady Blysse and her wolf?"
"More," Pearl said, "for these came of their own will with no human guidance. Their behavior makes me wonder how much we have been overlooking. Have they been here all along?"
Allister found that the idea made him uneasy, but as there was nothing he could do about it—short of trying to drive every bird from the castle, and that was manifestly insane—he put both idea and discomfort from him.
He and Pearl spent several minutes discussing matters she might need to deal with in his absence; then Calico knocked at the library door.
"The Waveslicer can sail at dawn," he said, "winds permitting."
"We always sail 'winds permitting,' " Allister said with a smile. "Very good. Tell the captain I will be with her an hour before we sail. I will bring two guards with me, but otherwise trust her vessel to supply my other needs."
"Very good, Sire."
Calico paused and, when nothing further was forthcoming, asked diffidently:
"May I know the reason for your departure, Sire? I wish to be of aid and already rumors are spreading."
"Already?" Allister was astonished.
"Your private craft readied at such short notice, Sire," Calico replied. "It could not go without comment."
"I suppose not."
Allister gave Calico an edited version of the truth that included pirate action with possible political overtones but left out Citrine's situation—he and Pearl had decided that Ruby and Opal would be better off not knowing. That he had received his news from an apparently intelligent hawk he also left out. Let Calico assume he had a skilled spy network that even the clerk didn't know about. Such would only add to most of his subjects' respect for him.
"Queen Pearl will take over matters of business in my absence," the king concluded. "With your support, I trust there will be no difficulties that cannot be met."
Calico straightened with pride.
"I will give the queen every assistance."
"I never doubted that for a moment."

Dear Father,

By now you may have received a note from Sir Jared Surcliffe. If you were in doubt as to whether or not to do as he requests therein, I herein request you to do so at the request of your fellow monarch, King Tedric of Hawk Haven.

That being said, I should say that I have no doubt that you will have done so without prompting.
 
There was a blot here, as if the writer had been interrupted.
 

Sapphire, reading this over my shoulder, tells me that I am being unnecessarily cryptic, that I must tell you what you are to do in case Sir Jared's letter did not reach you. Very well. We request that you direct any vessels you have operating in the vicinity of Hawk Haven—as you requested permission to do this autumn in light of then just completed events—to proceed to the vicinity of the former lighthouse known as Smuggler's Light.

Once there, your captains should be instructed to keep any and all vessels, no matter the registry, from departing without being searched. The cargo they are searching for is a girl of some eight years, one Citrine Shield. They should be informed that she may be disguised, drugged, or otherwise unable or unwilling to identify herself.
 
Allister lifted his foot so that his valet might slide his boot onto it. A small smile twisted the corner of his lips. He could imagine Sapphire dictating those orders to Shad. They certainly didn't sound like his son.
The king feared Sapphire would be disappointed in her father-in-law. He had given no such detailed orders—only that ships were to be held against departing. To say more would be to stir up rumors with which he did not care to deal, especially if the matter could be resolved more quietly. He continued reading:
 

Although we ourselves were only informed of matters this morning, we are departing within an hour or so, riding with all haste to the swamps north of Port Haven. If you wonder at our decisiveness, know this.

For some time now, Sapphire has been worried about her sister Citrine. More lonesome for her sisters than she would have believed possible, she had inquired after the possibility of Citrine paying a winter's visit. At first her brother, Jet, put her off with vague excuses. This did not do for long.

Not long ago, Jet was forced to admit that not only did he not know where Citrine was—except that she was in Lady Melina's keeping—he did not know where Lady Melina was either. She has apparently been out of touch with her son and heir since mid-Boar Moon. With any other person, this might be excusable. With Lady Melina, who has delighted in dominating her family…
 
There was a thick crossing out several words in length, then the text continued.
 

… this is a matter for speculation if not outright concern. Therefore, Sapphire was already worried when Sir Jared's news arrived.

This missive will be sent to you by a series of fast riders, these riders directed to press night and day so that you might hear of our actions and be encouraged to have your fleet join us in resolving this matter.

I must go. My horse is ready, my wife champing at the bit.

 
Allister smiled at this last despite the serious nature of the correspondence. Folding the letter and returning it to its sleeve, he found himself dressed.
"Thank you," he said to the valet. "Take a few days' leave in my absence. You deserve it."
"My thanks, Your Majesty."
Pearl was waiting for him without. Allister embraced her and slid the letter into her hand.
"Read at your leisure, my dear. It is mostly Shad's personal views on the matter that sends me to sea. I don't think they need be shared with the court."
Pearl gave him a wan smile and tucked her fingers into the crook of his arm.
"Tavis and the twins are up and ready to see you off," she said.
The next several minutes were occupied with purely domestic matters—indeed, with some of the most intimate moments the family had shared since the coronation.
Then King Allister departed through the sea gate and from there directly on board the Waveslicer. One of the virtues of Revelation Point Castle was that it possessed a deep enough harbor that all but the largest ships could come directly to the dock.
He stood on deck waving for a moment; then, at the urging of Perce Potterford, the guard Whyte had placed in command of the pair who were to accompany the king, Allister went into his cabin. He heard the creak of the lines and the slap of the canvas as the sails caught the wind.
An urgency that hadn't been with Allister while he still had tasks to perform seized him now. Had he thought it would have helped matters, King Allister of the Pledge would have pulled a line or helped haul up the anchor himself.
He knew, however, that his appearance would only make the crew nervous. Sighing, he pulled out a stack of documents that Calico had thrust upon him, and composed himself to wait.