Baron Archer dined with them, but before the sweets and cheese he returned to his command. Lord Rolfston, never wishing to seem less the warrior than his rival, excused him-self soon thereafter. Soon Jet and Sapphire also departed, each having accepted temporary military posts. Sapphire now rode with the cavalry under the command of Earl Kestrel. Jet was learning to hate drilling with the foot soldiers and to hate even more their sly smiles as they invited him night after night to join them on visits to the camp followers’ tents.
Elise was glad to see them go. Sapphire's pain was obvious to her though her cousin hid it bravely. Elise feared that her own sympathy would seem too knowing and so guarded her own words and then worried that she seemed cold. Every word Jet spoke, every courtly gesture he made infuriated Elise, but this fury was directed not at him, but at herself for allowing romanticism and ambition to overwhelm her native good sense.
Their departure left Elise with Melina and Opal just as she had planned. She brought out a cunningly crafted miniature game board. For a wlule they played hopping pegs and gossiped just as if they were at home. When Ninette brought out elegant goblets of strongly flavored mint cordial, Elise dis-solved the sleeping powder into two of them. Lady Melina and Opal, absorbed in counting the score and arguing over the values of various strategies, never saw her.
When Melina drank her goblet to the last honey-green drop, Elise felt like dancing. Opal, ever her mother's shadow, did the same. Glancing at Ninette, Elise hid a smile at the sign the other woman made her. As planned, Ninette had shared her mistress's hospitaUty with the sour crone who waited on Lady Melina. The signal meant that Nanny too had drank the sleeping draught. Elise's part in the exchange of the necklace was completed.
And indeed after another round of their game, Lady Melina yawned, delicately patting her Ups with a beringed hand.
“I apologize, dear Elise. It must be all your good food on top of rising with the sun. I am so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
Opal blinked owUshly. “Me, too. May I beg to be excused?”
Elise feigned drowsiness herself. “Of course. Let me walk you back to your paviUons. Ninette will dash ahead and tell Nanny to expect you.”
She escorted her guests back and returned to her own tent, brimming with triumph. Then she set in place the river cobble Firekeeper had brought her the night before. It was a pretty thing when seen in dayUght, greyish white, veined with black, smooth-poUshed by the rapidly flowing waters of the Barren.
Elise settled in to wait for Firekeeper to arrive and claim the substitute necklace. Surfeited with success, she worked a piece of embroidery near a lamp to pass the time.
Time passed. Ninette finished cleaning up from the dinner party and came in to help Elise braid her hair for bed. More time passed. Ninette went into her own curtained alcove and blew out her candle. Still more time passed. Elise finished one rose and began on another. She heard the guards change shifts and fought sleep.
After the second guard shift, Elise was no longer tired. She realized that something had happened to delay Firekeeper, perhaps for the entire night. It need not be that the wolf-woman was in any difficulty. Undoubtedly she had been sent scouting. She might not return before dawn. Elise pricked the canvas and drew some pink thread through, her mind racing.
She could not hope to give Lady Melina the sleeping drag twice and go undetected. Perhaps it was her own nervousness, but the more she remembered the sorceress's gaze the more it seemed to her that beneath the drowsiness there had been a hint of suspicion. The embroidery canvas dropped unheeded into Elise's lap. She knew what the only course of action left to her was, but she took another several minutes to work herself up to it.
Then, moving like one in a dream, Elise rose from her cot. Among her clothing were some riding breeches dyed dark forest green and a matching long-sleeved blouse. Donning these, Elise then stepped into the soft leather house slippers she wore around the tent, for she was no Firekeeper to go barefoot. Lastly, she tucked the substitute necklace into the band of her breeches.
Walking softly on the carpeted floors of the pavilion was easy. She left her lit candle on the table, protected by a tin shield, and stepped into the night.
Outside, the stars and moon were dimmed by light high clouds that raced along, pushed by a wind unfelt by those on the ground. Elise waited until her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, then moved purposefully toward the Shield encampment.
There were many more tents here than in her own doss: a smalUsh one for Jet, one large enough to stand in for Sapphire and Opal, a square-bodied one for Lord Rolfston, and a fine pavilion for Lady Melina. Sometimes Opal slept with her mother. Other times Nanny did so. Only Lord Rolfston must negotiate to share his wife's sleeping space. Lady Melina claimed he snored.
When she passed his tent Elise had to agree. The deep, steady vibrations shook the air even through the muffling of thick canvas. Within, the noise must be terrible. Elise fought down a nervous desire to giggle. Then the reaUzation of what she was about to do hit her and she sobered instantly.
Reaching Lady Melina's pavilion, Elise ducked inside be-fore she could lose her nerve. The air was thick and muggy with trapped breath. The interior of the paviUon seemed so dark and close that she nearly panicked and ran outside again, never mind her mission. Then she stilled herself.
Over the last several days she had been in here many times, usually fetching something Lady Melina had forgotten. Opal hated running errands for her mother and such a menial task was beneath Nanny's dignity. Both had been happy that the newly dutiful daughter-in-law was willing to do it.
Now Elise called the floor plan into her mind's eye, counted the steps as she had done earlier when she had in-tended to pass the information on to Firekeeper, never dreaming she would need it for herself. At six steps, just as she had estimated, her hand touched the curtain. Another three steps and she could hear Lady Melina's breathing. There was no mistaking the characteristic scent of lilacs that permeated her bed linens.
Firekeeper claimed to know how to see in the dark, but Elise had no such skill. Instead, she moved her hand to where the top of Melina's head should be. Slowly, carefully, she brought it down until she touched ever so lightly the top of the older woman's head. Tracing her fingertips along the sleeping woman's hair, Elise estimated where her throat must be.
The next step was something she never would have dared if she hadn't known Melina was dragged. She touched her again, hoping to feel the body-warmed silver of the necklace. Instead she felt skin. Again. Again skin. A desperate terror rose within her. What if Lady Melina took the necklace off after all and stowed it away? What if this was all a terrible mistake?
Resisting the impulse to flee, Elise tried again. On her fourth try, she touched metal. A sob of relief rose unbidden in her throat. She swallowed it before she made any but the faintest sound, then stood like a stone, listening. All she heard was the steady, distant roar of Lord Rolfston's snoring.
Reaching with both hands now, Elise slid herfingersalong the necklace until she felt the clasp. Undoing this without being able to see it proved nearly impossible. Her hands fum-bled until she pretended that she was reaching up behind her own neck, undoing a similar clasp as she had hundreds, even thousands of times before. The clasp opened and she slipped the necklace off.
Grasping the necklace in her teeth, Elise quickly took the counterfeit from her waistband. Thankfully, it was warm from contact with her body. She placed it against the sleeping woman's throat. Melina stirred restlessly, muttered some-thing.
Hurriedly, Elise fastened the clasp. The original necklace still held between her teeth because she did not trast herself not to drop it, Elise turned slowly, walked three steps, and found the curtain.
The doorway out of the pavilion was comparatively easy to find, the variance between dark and darker easy for her adjusted eye to see. Six steps and she was to the pavilion door and outside. Not wanting to cross the Shield compound again, she slipped behind Lady Melina's
tent. Now she dropped the necklace into her hand, holding it sotightlythe metal dented the skin. Elise was nearly back to her own tent when she realized someone had followed her.
Sapphire Shield, clad in a long sleeping gown that looked black in the faint starlight but was almost certainly dark blue, stood in the open ground in front of the Archer tent watching her. She motioned Elise into Elise's own pavilion. Elise obeyed, not because Sapphire held her bare sword in her hands but because she wanted the relative privacy. Her father and his man were with Baron Archer's command. Only Ninette was within and she knew everything of importance.
When they were inside, Sapphire said in low tones:
“I saw you coming out of my mother's tent.”
“Yes,” Elise said calmly, revealing what she held in her hand. “I've stolen your mother's necklace.”
Sapphire's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Even in light from the single candle on the table, Elise could see her hand move restlessly along the hilt of her sword. A pang of pure terror soured Elise's stomach. What other controls might Melina Shield have put on her children? But Sapphire said only a single word.
“Why?”
Ihe truth rose unbidden to Elise's lips. “I want to set you free.”
Sapphire's eyes widened. “How much do you know?”
“Enough. Enough to know about pain that never fades from wounds that seem to be healing and about the biting of ants.”
“We must do it tonight,” Sapphire said. “Before my mother learns anything is different.”
“I left a substitute,” Elise said with pardonable pride.
“I'm certain it is beautifully crafted,” Sapphire said, “but can we be certain it is enough?”
Elise shook her head. “No, we can't, but I know nothing about how to perform a disenchantruent.”
A husky voice spoke from the doorway. “Hazel Healer may know. We must ask her.”
Firekeeper stood in the doorway, the oval river rock in her hand.
“I only just come,” she explained, “from across the river. I see this, then I hear. You not need me after all, Elise.”
Elise nearly crumpled, her knees suddenly weak as she reaUzed that all her risk had been for nothing. Then she straightened.
“I handled it,” she said simply. “And my cousin is right. We need to do something with this as soon as possible.”
Firekeeper turned. “Then I am away to Hazel. Can you two come to her house or do I bring her here?”
Elise glanced at Sapphire. Sapphire frowned thoughtfully.
“The road to town is going to be watched and we'll be obvious. There's no rale against our going to town, but I'd prefer not to raise comment. These tents with their canvas waUs are as public as a street.”
A wicked grin lit the wolf-woman's face. “Why not the forest? I think every sort of thing goes on in that forest. I meet you there with Hazel.”
“Do you think she'll come?” EUse asked.
“Oh, yes,” Firekeeper grinned again, and EUse found her-self thinking what a predatory thing a smile could be. “I will ask her very nicely.”
ELISE TOOK ADVANTAG E OF THE WALK to the edge of the forest to tell Sapphire everything she knew, including what they had learned from Hazel about both trance induction and enchantment. In return, Sapphire told her a Uttie about what it was like being a daughter of Melina Shield.
“I'm not certain I have ever had a choice of my own in my entire Ufe,” Sapphire said. Her tone was blunt, without a trace of whining. “And much of the time I'm not certain I even minded. While others worried about what color to wear, I always knew. My jewels, my horses, my pets, even my playmates were all neatiy chosen within two parameters: whether they were blue and whether they fit the traditions and mystique of my noble ancestors.”
“And you never minded?” EUse asked hesitantiy.
Sapphire shrugged. “It didn't seem much different from how everyone else I knew Uved. My parents didn't encourage us to cultivate friends outside of the Great Houses. There was even some debate about your suitability, you know.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Archer is a lesser house, but in the end Mother decided that the close relationship to the Crown could not be ignored. Moreover, your mother is a Wellward and intimate with the queen.”
“I see.”
Sapphire's tone was so matter-of-fact that EUse found it easy not to take offense. Her cousin was reporting history—past history—not getting in a subde dig.
“When did you start,” Elise asked, changing the subject, “resenting your mother's control?”
“Not until recently,” Sapphire admitted, “not until you and Jet pushed me down in the running for the Crown and diminished me in her eyes. Then I got angry at her as well as at you.”
“Not at your father?”
“Father,” Sapphire said in those same level tones, “doesn't matter. He has never mattered. He may be the king's nephew, the only son of Grand Duke Gadman, but he doesn't matter—except that he has good connections and came with generous holdings.”
They had reached the forest trail by then. Casting about with the narrow beam from their lantern, they found a fallen tree trunk set alongside the path several paces within the fringe of trees. The lack of bark and low polish along its upper surface testified that they were not the first to employ it as a bench.
Once they were seated, they turned the lantern low so as not to waste oil. A chance play of light touched the faceted sapphire set in the band on Sapphire's forehead.
“I never asked,” Elise said, “but I've always wondered, doesn't that headband get uncomfortable?”
Sapphire laughed softly. “You know, I don't even notice it, no more than you notice your shoes if they fit well. I've been wearing it—or one like it—since I was a year old. I'd feel strange without it—naked.”
“You wear it even to sleep or bathe?”
“Always,” Sapphire assured her. “The only time I haven't worn a headpiece like this is when I removed one to replace it with another.”
“Does your mother make any sort of fuss then?”
“You're thinking of sorcery, aren't you?”
“Well, yes.”
“She does, actually,” Sapphire admitted. “The stone from one headband has to be set into the new one—even our family can't afford to replace precious stones of the first water as fast as children grow.”
Snob! Elise thought defensively. Then she felt rather bad. Sapphire was taking a stand against her mother, the person who had defined every waking moment of her Ufe. Certainly, she had the right to hold on to some scrap of pride. Then an uncomfortable thought slipped its way in beneath Elise's sympathy.
What if she isn't taking a stand? What if she's just trying to learn what we know and then plans to turn us over to Lady Melina?
Unbidden, Elise's hand touched her lips as if already the fiery bites of red ants were lacerating the tender flesh. And Sapphire continued, her voice soft but steady in the darkness:
“Mother had studied how to set the stones herself and while she did so I had to sit by and wait. She always gave me something to drink, something rather sweet, that made me feel dreamy. After a while, I'd stop feeling anxious about the funny feeling along my brow where the sapphire should rest.”
Sapphire paused for a moment, then whispered, her words barely audible, “When I was very small, I thought I stopped existing when the stone wasn't there. I was Sapphire—somehow that stone was me—when it wasn't touching me, I was no longer myself. I wasn't anyone.”
“It hasn't always been the same stone,” Elise said, “has it?”
“No.” Elise felt her cousin shudder so violently that the log vibrated beneath them. “Until I was about Citrine's age it was a different stone, a smaller one. Then Mother decided that the smaller one didn't make the same impression. I still remember when she took the band off and, instead of re-moving the stone to set in the new band, put it to one side.
“I screamed when she started setting the
new stone. What I felt was raw panic. I shook. I was nauseated. Tears nearly choked me.
“Only when Mother let me hold the little stone did I calm down. For a while, she let me carry it in an amulet bag Uke the common folk use. Then she took it away. By then I was comfortable with the new stone, even liked it better. The color was more vibrant and the cut better. People admired it. I didn't miss the old stone anymore.”
“And the new stone,” Elise asked, “that's the one you're wearing now.”
'That's right.”
“I hope you can give it up,” said Hazel Healer, stepping out from the shadows, Firekeeper a pace behind her, “because that is going to be the first step, whatever we do.”
The cousins jumped and Sapphire asked, “How long have you been there?”
“Longer than you have,” Hazel answered easily. “Fire-keeper was probably to my house before you changed out of your nightdress and found a lantern. She is very direct, she is. My mare is used to night calls, and I keep my bag packed and beside her in the stables. Even with taking the road around the camp, we made good time. No one stops a healer, you see, not even army pickets.”
Elise felt Sapphire relax slightly and smiled. Her own heart was thudding in her chest but she was obscurely relieved now that someone else was there to share the responsibility.
“You were doing so well,” Hazel continued, “telling Elise about your mother that I didn't want to interrupt, but time is mnning short. The sleeping draught Elise gave your mother should last all night, but varying metabolisms react differently to dmgs. Therefore, I intermpted as soon as our course of action became clear.”
“Clear?” Elise asked.
“That's right.” Hazel didn't elucidate further. “Firekeeper said there is a glade a bit deeper in where a light wouldn't be seen so we can turn up the lanterns. She's gone ahead to kindle a fire.”
Wolf's Eyes Page 48