Wolf's Eyes

by Jane Lindskold

  Still fuming, Derian strode through the halls of West Keep, his boots ringing against the flagstones.

  Damn Norvin Norwood, though! “Inciting civil war”! It would not be Blysse who would be so accused, but Norvin himself. Unhappily, Blysse would not be immune to censure. No one who looked into those dark eyes could believe she was as innocent as she truly was. Derian himself had his doubts from time to time.

  Running up the steps to the highest observation tower wore Derian out enough that he was glad to pause. Leaning on the stone sill, he looked out into the gathering darkness. Drizzle was falling, making the night seem hazy and unreal. In the light from the rising moon—about half-frill tonight—Derian imagined that he saw his charge flitting across the cleared zone about the keep's walls and darting into the forest.

  That was imagination, though. If she was out there, he would never see her. Time and time again during the first weeks of their stay in the keep, Race Forester had tried to track Blysse, tried to learn where she was going. Finally, he had given up, admitting that her skills were nearly supernatural.

  Privately, Derian believed that having learned from Race how he read tracks, Lady Blysse simply took care to avoid leaving those traces for which the woodsman would search. Certainly, anyone who could have so much trouble tying a bodice lace or eating with a spoon could not be gifted with supernatural powers.

  Remembering the woman's still execrable table manners, her refusal to wear shoes, her tendency to growl at any and all of the keep's dogs, Derian felt a wide, ironic grin light his face.

  So Earl Kestrel thought that he could use the woman as a pawn in his political games? He was going to discover that he had a wolf by the tail and daren't let go.

  FAT WARM RAINDROPS greeted Firekeeper when she emerged from her window into the courtyard surrounding West Keep. She cast a glance to right then to left, probing each shadow with her gaze. Race, however, seemed to have permanently given up their game of hide-and-seek.

  Slightly disappointed, she climbed the wall and dropped to the damp earth on the other side. No Race here either. Dismissing him from her thoughts, she loped over to the tree line, swung up into the branches of a spreading maple, then crossed from there into another of its kind. The moonlight made the journey easy, so easy that she arrived at the rendezvous before Blind Seer.

  The blue-eyed wolf silently glided beside her as she was bending her head to drink from the nearby brook.

  “If I were a mountain cat,” he said, “I would have broken your back.”

  “If you were a mountain cat,” she replied, punching him on the shoulder, “I would have smelled you a mile off. How is the hunting?”

  “Good,” he answered. “Even the latest of winter's sleepers are long awake. The deer grow fat on the new grass. I grow fat on the deer. Do they feed you well in your stone lair?”

  “Enough,” she said, “though much of what they eat tastes odd. Did I tell you that Fox Hair insists I eat as he does now? He's so slow! I could clear the platters while he is spreading butter on his bread.”

  “Two-legs are not wolves,” Blind Seer replied practically. “Their ways are not ours.”

  'True.”

  They sat for a while, watching the play of moonlight on the rippling waters of the brook.

  “For how long does your trail go with mine?” she asked, suddenly interrupting the silence. “Hawk Nose sent a mes-sage this morning and since then Fox Hair has smelled of bitter sweat. I heard him giving orders for supplies to Steward Daisy. When we went out for a riding lesson, he spoke with the groom about the readiness of the horses for the road. I think that soon we three outliers get called to the human pack.”

  “Do you want my trail to follow yours?” the wolf asked, leaning against her. “You've lived in that great stone lair one moon's death and another's new borning. Surely you've con-firmed what the Cousins told me. Two-legs do not like wolves, even little ones like the Cousins. I don't think that they will like me at all.”

  Firekeeper flung her arm around his great furry neck.

  “They will be terrified of you,” she said with great confidence. “Never doubt it. Still, I would have you run with me longer. I can dance a few dances and prattle in their tongue, but my blood is a wolf's blood for this veneer of humanity.”

  “Wolf's blood has always run beneath your naked hide,” Blind Seer affirmed. “But I have no wish to see my blood spilled by one of those arrows Race shoots so straight.”

  “No,” Firekeeper considered. “This is a problem, but I think, from what Fox Hair has shown me, from the tales he has told me, that where the two-legs den together, there are many such buildings as the keep. There you may not be able to hide from their eyes as easily as you have done here. Best that they know you are my companion. They hold some odd respect for me. It may extend to you, as fear of the adult wolves protects the pups.”

  “Perhaps,” Blind Seer said. “We must think further on this.”

  “But not for too long,” Firekeeper said. “A season is changing, not of the world, but in my life. I cannot turn from the humans until I know more.”

  “And I,” admitted Blind Seer, “cannot turn from you, even if following you should mean my death.”

  DERIAN HAD ANTICIPATED having difficulty getting Blysse ready for the journey. What he had not anticipated was having trouble with the horses.

  On the morning of their scheduled departure, however, the young woman was calm and collected, but the equines were edgy, requiring the assistance of two grooms to calm them while Derian inspected girths and pack straps.

  Chestnut coat burnished and glossy from several weeks of easy living, Roanne snaked back her ears and tried to nip the groom standing nearest to where she was tied.

  Race's buckskin and Blysse's grey were hardly any better behaved, though the latter, having been chosen specifically for his placid temper, continued to chew a wisp of hay while rolling a white-rimmed eye at anything that moved.

  Lady Blysse, dressed in her favorite battered leather vest and hacked-off trousers, came out of the keep, carrying the saddlebags the kitchen staff had packed for them. Her dark eyes sparkled, dancing with what Derian hoped was anticipation. Seeing the curve of her lips, he feared that it was mischief.

  “Give me those packs,” he said, surreptitiously eyeing them to see if she might have stolen something.

  She did so, and as he was loading the bags onto the pack mule, Blysse cocked her head, catching some sound of which he was unaware. Then, the smile broadening across her face, she loped across the cleared kill zone surrounding West Keep toward the forest.

  Race, who had been chatting with Steward Daisy, come forth to see her guests safely on the road, shouted after her:

  “Come back here, Blysse!”

  The young woman slowed, waving her hand to indicate that she had heard, but kept going.

  “Blysse!”

  This time she halted right at the edge of the scrub growth bordering the meadow. With her left hand, she made an elaborate beckoning gesture toward something in the woods; with her right she made the sign for Race and Derian to wait where they were.

  Derian's heart began to beat faster. He wondered if there might have been more truth to Earl Kestrel's tale of Blysse's survival than even that facile politician had ever dreamed. Could Prince Barden be out there in the forest, ready to emerge only now that he had been assured that his daughter would be treated well?

  Derian glanced over at Race and saw that the woodsman had grown pale, his breath coming fast and shallow. Doubtless, being more superstitious than Derian, he feared not a living prince, but a vengeful ancestral spirit. Surreptitiously, Race fingered a talisman hanging from his belt, invoking his own ancestors’ protection against this imagined threat.

  Oblivious of their reactions, Blysse repeated the beckoning gesture more urgently, drawing forth whatever lurked within the suddenly mysterious trees. Several pounding heartbeats later, without the least whisper of motion, an enormous grey wolf slipp
ed from the cover to stand at the young woman's side, so close that his fur brushed her leg.

  A more usual wolf's head might have reached to her waist; this beast's reached nearly to her chest. Moreover, his eyes were not the more usual tawny gold or deep brown of a wolf, but instead a brilliant blue.

  Steward Daisy screamed once and would have again, but Race smothered her mouth with his hand. One of the grooms began muttering invocations for ancestral protection. Derian looked at Race and found that, like him, the forester's shock was melting away beneath the glow of comprehension.

  “Well,” Race said, his taut voice betraying his tension. “Now we know where she's been going every night.”

  Derian nodded, feeling a grin split the stiff mask of his face. “And is Earl Kestrel ever in for a surprise.”

  But Norvin Norwood, Earl Kestrel, was not the only one due for further surprises. Even as Lady Blysse took her first step toward them, the great wolf pacing at her heel, a shrill scream pierced the morning air.

  A blue-grey blur plummeted out of the sky, resolving into a perfect peregrine falcon the size of an eagle. The bird circled once about woman and wolf, then came to rest atop the baggage packed on the mule. Ruffling its feathers, it shifted from one foot to the other, cocking its head so that it could study each of the humans from brilliant golden-rimmed eyes.

  This critical inspection proved too much for Steward Daisy. Sobbing, she fled into the safety of the castle walls. Using her departure as an excuse, the two grooms hurried after; ostensibly to comfort her, in reality to put solid stone between themselves and a woman whose companions were giant beasts out of legend.

  Having long since relegated these to a subordinate position in her private hierarchy, Lady Blysse seemed indifferent to their reactions. Her dark gaze was upon Derian and Race. The tightness in her shoulders relaxed only slightly when she saw that neither of them had made any offensive move.

  Race's dog Queenie had not been so much the coward as to flee from her master, but as the wolf closed the distance, she cringed and whined. Derian fought back an urge to do something similar by speaking to Race as if this encounter were the most usual thing in the world.

  “I'd forgotten until now,” he said, “that when I first spotted her footprint, there was a wolf's print beside it.”

  Race nodded.

  “I hadn't wanted to remember,” Race admitted, “not once we found her to be but a girl and so ill used.”

  “Then there were the wolf's howls we heard each night while we were west of the gap.”

  “Fewer and more distant,” Race added, his voice back to normal now, “once we crossed, but still out there, as if they were watching us.”

  “I guess they were,” Derian said, “or at least they were watching her.”

  “And the falcon,” Race continued, “it sure looks like the one that attacked me when I tried to put a rope on Blysse.”

  “It does,” Derian agreed, remembering pushing Race out of the striking range of those talons. “I wondered then, but there's been so much else to wonder about.”

  “I didn't want to wonder,” Race admitted. “I didn't like where that wondering led me.”

  Listening to their conversation but not commenting, Lady Blysse halted her advance before the horses’ panic at the proximity of the wolf reached the point where they might do themselves harm.

  Derian wondered that the equines showed even this much control, then realized that they must have been aware of the wolf's presence for a long while, far more aware than the humans had been. What to him was a complete surprise was to them a long-borne menace.

  “Well, Blysse,” Derian said, “are these your pets?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head vigorously and giving Queenie a disdainful look. “Queenie pet. Wolf and falcon are my friends.”

  Her careful speech showed Derian how important it was to Blysse that he and Race understand her. Even with his constant badgering, she still tended to drop what she viewed as nonessential words. If she was specifying that these animals were friends, rather than pets or property, it was an essential distinction—at least to her.

  “Friends,” he repeated, taking in a breath so deep that his lungs ached. “Well, I guess you had better introduce us then.”

  Blysse nodded solemnly, then indicated the wolf. In some distant part of his mind, Derian was amused to see that she used the little court mannerisms he had been careful to teach her.

  “This is Not-Seeing Seer,” she said carefully.

  By this point, Derian wouldn't have been at all surprised if the wolf had spoken with a human voice. It did not. In-stead, it took a step forward and stretched out its forelimbs in a credible, non-groveling, bow.

  Automatically, Derian bowed in return and Race gave a short jerk in imitation. Smiling now, Blysse gestured to the peregrine falcon.

  “This is…” she paused, as if having trouble translating the bird's name, “Fierce Joy in Flight.”

  The falcon didn't bow. Instead it made a soft, mewling cry, quite conversational in tone.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Derian responded solemnly.

  “The same,” Race said. To himself he muttered, “I must be dreaming this!”

  “No dream,” Derian said. “Though it would be easier if it was.”

  He looked at Blysse. “I suppose that the wolf and the falcon are coming with us.”

  She looked puzzled, then worked through the essential parts of the question to get at its meaning.

  “With us, yes.” She put her hand on the wolf's head. “He my kin. Falcon is friend. They go with me.”

  “The city,” Derian said, trying to dissuade her, though he already knew the attempt would be futile, “is not a place for wolves.”

  “City can be place for wolves,” she said stubbornly. “I go to city. Wolf goes with me.”

  Derian surrendered. Maybe once she saw a town or two she would change her mind. He doubted it, but it was a pleasant fantasy.

  “Shall we go, then?” he asked. Then he mused to the air, “The horses aren't going to like this at all.”

  “I can run with horses,” Blysse replied. “Not-Seeing Seer will run near me.”

  She laughed. “Maybe then, someone think he dog, not wolf.”

  “There's a chance of that,” Race admitted, speaking for thefirsttime since the introductions had been concluded. “At least they'll give a second thought before shooting.”

  “True.”

  Derian worried about whether Blysse could keep up with the horses now that the party would be traveling on roads rather than navigating rough woodland trails, but he put the worry by. Either she could or she could not. They'd deal with that problem when it became a problem.

  “Well,” Derian said, “I'll loosen the girth on your gelding, but he'll be ready if you get tired. Is that all right, Blysse?”,

  “Yes. No.”

  She bit her lip, her expression showing thefrustrationshe so often felt when her grasp of the language was insufficient for her needs. Derian waited, knowing he would only add to her frustration if he tried guessing at what she needed to say. After consideration, she began again:

  “Yes for horse,” she said. “No for Blysse. My name not Blysse. Wolf call me Firekeep. Firekeeper.”

  Derian had eventually been able to teach her the verb “to keep”—not an easy concept, but one made easier to explain once they were settled where so many things were kept: keys at the Steward's belt, food in the pantry, clothing in a press.

  “Firekeeper,” he repeated. Then, realizing he sounded much like her, he asked, “Why? Why Firekeeper?”

  She touched the bag containing flint and steel hanging around her neck. “King Wolf, Queen Wolf, give me. Teach me.

  She scowled, perhaps reading the disbelief in his eyes. Quickly Derian schooled his expression to polite attentiveness and hoped that Race would do the same. He'd gone to great trouble to teach Firekeeper hierarchical titles and had found that she grasped the concept, if not th
e words, with amazing ease. If she said King Wolf, she meant the wolf with the most authority.

  “King Wolf,” he prompted, “gave them to you.”

  “King Wolf, Queen Wolf,” she insisted. “No wolf make fire but me. I am Firekeeper.”

  Derian let this go, his head reeling with the implications of this simple statement. Not only was he to believe that Blysse could understand what wolves said, he was also to believe that they could teach her how to strike fire with flint and steel.

  More disturbing still was Blysse's repeated identification of herself with these wolves.

  “Blysse…” he began, then corrected himself when she growled and the wolf beside her raised his hackles. “Fire-keeper, you are not a wolf. You are a human, like me, like Race.”

  “I am wolf,” she said placidly. “Wolf with two legs and no fur, but wolf in blood.”

  Race put his hand on Derian's arm. “Leave it, Derian. Leave it. We must get on the road and before we do so, you'd better decide whether or not you want to warn Earl Kestrel about this new development with his niece.”

  “Or if I want to risk Steward Daisy sending word ahead by pigeon.” Derian pressed at his eyes, feeling a headache coming on. “How can I tell Earl Kestrel that Blysse… I mean Firekeeper… thinks she's a wolf?”

  “Don't,” Race said practically, “but warn him about her unusual companions. We have at least a week on the road to figure out what to do about the rest. More if the weather's bad.”

  “At least a week,” Derian repeated, turning blindly back toward the keep, mentally drafting his message. “This is going to be a very, very interesting ride.”

  VII

  USUALLY, ELISE ENJOYED a chance to meet with her cousins. Being related to the king, even so relaively distant a relation as a grandniece, was a difficult role. There were so few people to whom you were just another person, who could forget that royal shadow looming over you. Being heir to House Archer only complicated the matter.