Wolf's Eyes

by Jane Lindskold

“No, Mother.” Derian could hardly keep from laughing further at the memory. “You don't understand. Firekeeper then went on to explain that she would have punched the man in the gut but she didn't want to hurt her hand on his dress corselet and she had to take him out quickly because Blind Seer was heading for his throat.”

  “She brought that wolf to a duke's manse?”

  “Blind Seer goes everywhere with her: bodyguard and companion both. I spoke out of line when I said that I was the one person she trusted. She trusts me to guide her actions, but Blind Seer she trusts with both body and heart.”

  “You speak as if the wolf is a person,” Vernita said. “You've spent your entire life around animals. I don't think you would do this lightly.”

  “Never, Mother.” Derian shrugged and bit into another cookie. “Blind Seer is as much a person as I am—and not just in Firekeeper's opinion. I've watched him since Bear Moon when Firekeeper first introduced him to me and Race. Blind Seer is as clever as any human—and more so than many I've known.”

  “Oh.”

  The monosyllable was noncommittal, but Derian grew defensive.

  “Mother, she talks to him and he to her—I am certain of it! Queen Zorana's edicts encouraged us to forget everything that came before the Civil War. Mostly I agree with her wisdom. Our nation started fresh, without all the deadwood of Old Country traditions that would have weighed us down. I doubt her wisdom where it applies to the history of our own lands since the earliest days of colonization.

  “Lord Aksel Trueheart gives regular lectures to those who wish to listen—much to Lady Zorana's embarrassment. Perhaps Firekeeper's arrival spurred Lord Aksel in that direction, but of late the topic has been what the New World was like when the earliest settlers arrived. Their records to a one agree that in those days there were animals far larger and far wiser than any we know today. Then, some fifty years after colonization began, almost to a one they vanished. Where did they go?”

  Vernita humored him. “Across the Iron Mountains?”

  “That's what I think,” Derian replied, flushing slightly as he realized he'd been ranting. “That's exactly what I think. I think they figured out that they couldn't compete with our bows and arrows, our swords and armor, with the magics of the Old World wizards. Those who admitted it left. The rest were slain.”

  Footsteps on the wooden floor announced Colby's arrival.

  “I heard similar stories when I was a boy,” he said, joining them at the table and pouring himself a mug of beer, “from an old, old woman who belonged to my society. She claimed to have them from her own mother, who had lived in the foothills of the Iron Mountains and seen some of the wise beasts herself. Human life is short and memory a chancy thing, but I believed her. She had a relic, a bear claw long as a scythe blade. It was an impressive thing.”

  Vernita grinned at husband and son. “I consider myself cautioned to keep an open mind. Colby, you're home early.”

  “Brock came and told me Derian was here. We've heard enough at the stables of the king's planned departure for me to guess that this might be Derian's last visit for a while, so I turned the day's work over to the journeymen with promises that you would review their books yourself.”

  “Thanks,” Vernita said dryly.

  “In any case, I want to go hear King Tedric's farewell speech.”

  “Is that today?” Derian asked, surprised. “The word I had is that he doesn't depart for another few days yet.”

  “He doesn't,” Colby replied, “but apparently he has decided to scotch rumors by speaking with the people himself now, rather than later.”

  “Wise,” Derian said. “Just this morning in the market I heard some remarkable tales, including one that he was dead and this journey was simply an attempt to conceal the fact until the nobility could fight out who would be his heir.”

  “That one will be easily ended,” Colby agreed, “but I wonder what new ones this will begin?”

  “I can't say,” Derian grinned, remembering. “Actually, I'm curious about what the king will say myself. Firekeeper met with him yesterday, but she refused to say anything of what passed between them. The earl was nearly mad with rage and frustration.”

  Both Vernita and Colby looked as if they wished to ask more, but they respected Derian's professed ignorance. After all, hadn't he just finished boasting that he was the only person Firekeeper trusted?

  Derian sighed inwardly. Let them keep their illusions. On this matter, Firekeeper had been as persistently mute as a stone.

  “Let me close the office,” Vernita said, “and call Damita and Brock in. We may as well go as a family. The younger ones don't seem at all aware that they're living in important times for the history of Hawk Haven.”

  THE PAVED ASSEMBLY AREA outside the speaker's tower of Eagle's Nest Castle was normally more than large enough to hold those who came to hear news from the royal court. Here, once early in the morning and again at sunset, a herald stood on a platform within the tower and made announcements. Most of the time these were routine, hardly more important than the crying of the hours. Other times they included some interesting tidbit: the resolution of a crucial court case, the passage of a law, the birth of a child into the nobility. Each week a post-rider carried the same news to every surrounding township.

  The assembly area was usually strained to capacity when at midday on each full moon, King Tedric himself came to the speaker's tower. From this lofty perch, but full in view of his subjects, he reassured his people that all was well and gave the blessings of the royal ancestors.

  Today, the usual idlers and newsmongers could hardly find a place to stand. It seemed as if most of the town and a fair portion of the surrounding countryside had come to hear the king's speech. Pressed into the throng, craning his neck to get a good look, Derian was once again made aware of how much more—well—noble the nobility looked from a distance.

  At this distance, most of the lines on King Tedric's face vanished. Those that remained gave his features a look of regal dignity. No one could tell that the snow white hair was a wig or that his eyes were yellowed with age. Crowned in gold and diamonds, Tedric looked the storybook picture of a king, and Derian was aware of the covert glances of respect directed at he himself from neighbors and friends who knew of his employment in the castle.

  It's as if, he thought wryly, I'm somehow improved by having been close to that old man once or twice. I doubt their opinion would change if they knew the king doesn't even know me from the other servants.

  Standing a few steps back from the king were several members of the court. Derian recognized Queen Elexa, at-tended by Lady Aurella, Steward Silver, and Sir Dirkin East-branch. He knew that the rest of the court would be standing in the interior courtyard, unable to stay away from this important speech, although doubtless court gossip and mmor had revealed everything that would be said.

  Indeed, initially there were no surprises for Derian. As he had in private conference the day before, the king informed his people of his proposed journey to Hope in order to confer with diplomats from Bright Bay.

  A soft murmur swept the crowd at this news. Not everyone was, like Derian's family, in a position to hear the earliest hints of travel. Except for occasional journeys to family estates or to the seats of his Great Houses, the elderly monarch had not left Eagle's Nest for years.

  The king continued, informing his people that Queen Elexa would administer daily business in his absence, but that he would be in regular contact with her through carrier pigeons.

  “My heir,” he said, his still powerful voice carrying easily over hushed throng, hardly needing the amplified repetition from the heralds to be heard at the farthest reaches, “has been named in my will, a copy of which remains here in Eagle's Nest, a copy of which goes with me. I shall not reveal who I have selected in any other fashion at this time.”

  From this astonishing announcement, he moved onto the formal blessing from the ancestors, but Derian hardly listened. Although most around him s
tood with their faces up-raised to accept the power of the blessing, a few could not resist whispering.

  He goes to meet with the Pledge Child!

  Allister Seagleam will be our next king! Why else wouldn't the king name his heir publicly?

  There'll be unhappiness in the court tonight!

  Pledge Child…

  Over and over those two words were repeated, rustling like dry leaves in the hush, practically taking on the force of an incantation from an Old Country tale.

  Moving through the crowd after the king had retired, Derian listened to the gossip and conjecture, wondering at the fidelity of an image. Allister Seagleam was hardly a child any longer. Indeed he was a man grown with grown sons, but the image of a child born to fulfill a promise of peace persisted. Even if King Tedric named Allister Seagleam heir, could any man live up to such a legend?

  AS KING TEDRIC HAD PREDICTED, immediately after the announcement that his choice of an heir was to be known only upon the reading of his will, rapid arrangements were made so that many of the candidates could join the royal train.

  Grand Duchess Rosene's fury when she learned how her brother had resolved the matter was magnificent to behold. When she finished raging, she began issuing orders.

  “Although I wish to go, it would be an undue risk at my age. Tedric should have more respect for his own aging bones. If Bright Bay wishes to negotiate, he should insist that their emissaries come here.”

  Rosene had made the same argument to her brother to no effect. Tedric had refused to even admit that there was sense to her position, thus increasing her pique. Now, Rosene shored up her diminished sense of self-importance by as-signing positions to her family members as a general might order troops.

  “Aurella, of course, must remain here with Queen Elexa. To have her do otherwise would be to our own detriment.”

  Elise thought that it was a good thing that her grandmother could not read minds, for Elise knew that there was no way, commanded or not, that Aurella Wellward would leave the queen at such a time. Aurella's loyalty to her Wellward aunt might even exceed that to her husband's family—Ivon and Elise herself excepted.

  “Ivon, of course,” the elderly matriarch continued, “must be with his troops. If Ivon's name is the one on that sealed document Tedric was waving about so arrogantly, he was most certainly chosen at least in part for his martial prowess. No need to undermine that reputation at this critical moment.”

  “Thank you, Mother,” Ivon said dryly. To his credit, much of his attention had been given to reviewing the roster that had been delivered to him soon after the king's announcement.

  “Purcel will also be with his company,” the matriarch continued. “Therefore, upon Zorana and Elise falls the responsibility of keeping an eye on my brother. You must make certain that Tedric makes no unwise decisions, that he does not overlook the value of his own kinfolk in favor of a glamorous newcomer.”

  “Your wish is as my own, Mother,” said this newly mild Zorana. “Aksel can remain here to guard our interests and watch the smaller children.”

  “Fine. He is useless on a campaign—nothing like the Truehearts who bore him. Your son's talents clearly come from the Archer side of the family.”

  Zorana nodded, not even bristling at this dismissal of the father of her children.

  “I don't think any of your other children need to be taken along,” Grand Duchess Rosene continued to her daughter. “They are young and almost certainly out of the running.”

  “I am bringing,” said Zorana with a flash of her old fire, “my daughter Nydia. If I am King Tedric's heir—as is still possible despite your recent dismissal of my chances—Purcel as my heir will need to shift his focus to national matters. Nydia will then become heir to our family properties. It is time her education is expanded.”

  “Nydia is,” protested the Grand Duchess, “but thirteen. Until this point you have not cared overmuch about her education, even though she would follow if Purcel was killed on one of his military ventures.”

  “I care now,” Zorana said firmly.

  The tension in the air between mother and daughter was a palpable thing. Elise imagined that she could pull it, tug it, twist it like taffy until it grew white, hard, and immobile.

  Grand Duchess Rosene was the one to relent. “If you wish to expose your thirteen-year-old daughter to the risks of a traveling military encampment, so be it. Perhaps,” she added sourly, “we should also include Deste and little Kenre. Are you certain that you are not ignoring their education?”

  “As to them,” Zorana said, her mildness now a mockery, “I shall be ruled by you, but I thank you for your concern. Perhaps you may devote some of your time here in the capital to their lessons. You shall have little else to do.”

  Offended, Rosene swept out, unwilling to discipline her daughter in these sensitive times. Zorana took her leave a few moments after. She spared a completely false smile for Elise.

  “We shall be much in company, Niece. Certainly, your cousin Sapphire will not welcome you into her pavilion and I wonder if Jet will be so much about. He has himself to prove, you understand.”

  “Certainly, we follow the example of our elders,” Elise answered with a flicker of her own mallce. “I wonder sometimes if Purcel does take after his mother's side of the family. He is such a noble warrior.”

  This curiously mild Zorana. did not deliver a scathing reply, as the one of a few weeks ago might have, but the glower she directed at Elise still shot a shiver of fear into the young woman's soul, one that lasted even after her aunt had departed.

  “Was that wise?” Ivon asked, distracted from his papers. “Your aunt Zorana has been much disappointed of late. It is the hungry wolf that bites.”

  “True,” Elise admitted, thinking of Firekeeper and knowing that this was tme.

  “And speaking of wolves,” Ivon continued, his thoughts following the same course, “you have a great advantage on this campaign. You alone have a foothold in the Kestrel camp. Do not forgo that contact now that King Tedric has made his decision. Personally, I cannot believe that he has chosen Lady Blysse, but if he has, we must cultivate her. Make yourself her familiar; learn what you can.”

  Aurella added. “Do not forget that you are growing into a pretty enough young woman. Earl Kestrel has surrounded his ward with men. One of them may talk freely to you even if Lady Blysse will not.”

  Elise nodded, but she doubted that Derian could be moved in his loyalty to Firekeeper and the wolf-woman would confide in no other. Sir Jared, perhaps… A tingle of anticipation melted the ice in her soul at this excuse to speak further with the knight.

  “Yes, Mother. I will remember what you have said.” She paused, uncertain if she was really asking for advice or merely being clever. “But should I risk this? What if Jet is offended?”

  “Jet Shield plays his own games,” Aurella said dryly. “As he always has. He will only treasure you the more if he thinks others value you. Still, keep Ninette nearby. Give Jet no reason to question your honor.”

  Ivon Archer stood and began gathering his papers. Then he turned to his daughter, a wry expression, not completely without sorrow, on his face.

  “Welcome to the adult world, my daughter. Whether or not we win the crown, you will always need to know how to use people against each other. Such is our duty to our barony. My father won lands and titles for us with his keen arrows in battle. To preserve those honors, our weapons must be more subtle.”

  Elise dropped him a deep curtsy. “Then we will go together into this new battle, Father. Let us not flinch from whatever we must do to honor our noble ancestor.”

  Ivon clapped her on the shoulder and was gone. When Elise glanced at Aurella she saw no sorrow, no unexplained tears upon her mother's cheek, only a stem countenance lit brightly from within by pride.

  BOOK

  THREE

  XV

  SEVERAL DAYS ON THE ROAD put Firekeeper into the best shape she had been in since she left the wilderness
to reside in West Keep. Indeed, she realized that she might be in far better condition than she had ever been, since her body at last had ample food with which to build its strength.

  In the wilds, she had hardly ever had enough to eat. Summer's glut quickly vanished as soon as the first frost killed the plants with which she supplemented her diet and forced the little animals into hiding and hibernation. Stealing the occasional squirrel hoard (and eating the squirrel when possible) did not make up for the loss of sweet fruits and slow, fat rodents. Without the generosity of the wolves, she would have shriveled into nothing, her body consuming itself in a desperate effort to keep lit the spirit's fire.

  Three moon-spans of steady eating had changed Firekeeper from a slat-sided, feral waif into something recognizable as a young woman. A thin coating of fat now padded her muscles and buttocks. To her slight consternation, she was even developing small, round breasts. Despite devouring more than many grown men at any given meal, regular exercise had kept her from becoming soft. She could still climb like a squirrel, swim like a fish, and outran a trotting horse and she did so on a regular basis.

  Each day, the king's train started moving as soon as dawn crossed into pale daylight. It was mighty thing, ostensibly meant to provide for the elderly monarch's comfort and security, in reality meant to impress the Bright Bay diplomats with a reminder of what Hawk Haven could bring to bear if treachery was intended.

  Scouts preceded the entire body, fanning out to the sides. Race Forester was often among them and he was the only one who was ever aware of Firekeeper's presence in the sur-rounding woods.

  Following the scouts were wings of light cavalry, the riders armored in leather, armed with bows as well as swords. The heavier cavalry rode closer to the king's carriage, the dust they stirred considered a fair trade for the safety their presence offered.

  Here, too, rode the members of King Tedric's court, some in carriages, some on horseback. Elise traded back and forth between the two conveyances, but her cousin Sapphire remained on horseback. Sapphire wore armor after the fashion of the light cavalry, the leather portions dyed deep blue, the metal protecting the joints polished to bright silver. A long sword was sheathed across her back, its pommel set with a bright stone that some said was a sapphire and others insisted was merely glass. Over one arm or slung from her saddle she carried a shield with her personal device: a silver field emblazoned with an octagonal sapphire.