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.
Lady Elise, heir apparent to the Archer Barony, thought she would break something if she stayed in the same room with her temperamental second cousin one moment longer. Quickly, on the excuse of fetching something from her own rooms, she stepped out into the hallway and pulled the heavy oak door firmly closed.
It wasn't that Elise didn't feel a certain degree of sympathy for Sapphire, the young lady admitted to herself as she hurried along the polished flagstones of the corridor. The strain on Sapphire had been unrelenting for several moonspans, ever since the competition for who would be named King Tedric's heir apparent had been brought to a head when Earl Kestrel had brought out from the western wilds a young woman he claimed was the sole survivor of Prince Barden's ill-fated colony.
True, Elise herself had been under some of the same strain as Sapphire, but in the end she had been able to return to her familiar, comfortable responsibilities. It was Sapphire who now found herself heir apparent to the thrones, of not one but two kingdoms, who in a few days was to marry a man she hadn't even met until two moonspans before. It was Sapphire who was learning that the prize was not nearly as sweet as it had seemed when it hung out of reach.
Reaching the suite she shared with her parents, Elise quickly slipped inside. Her father, she knew, was attending the council called by King Tedric—part of Sapphire's bad temper was that wedding preparations had made it impossible for her to attend the entire meeting. Elise hoped her mother would be with Queen Elexa, whose frail health had suffered during the journey from Eagle's Nest.
The central parlor was empty when Elise entered, but the door to her own room opened almost immediately and a slender woman in her mid-twenties stepped out and curtsied.
"Good afternoon, my lady."
Elise smiled tiredly. "Good afternoon, Ninette. Are my parents about?"
"No, Lady Elise. Your father is still in council. Your mother left word to say she will remain with Queen Elexa until shortly before the banquet this evening."
Elise smiled, feeling a little guilty at her sense of relief. It wasn't as if her parents were responsible for Sapphire's mood.
"I can only stay for a moment, Ninette," Elise confided. "I'm fleeing my cousin and made the excuse I needed to fetch my embroidery."
Ninette, who had known Crown Princess Sapphire for long enough not to be completely in awe of her new title, grinned wickedly.
"I do have something that might distract you, Elise," Ninette said, dropping her formal manner as she often did—with Elise's heartfelt approval—when they were alone. "You had a visitor while you were away. Sir Jared Surcliffe came to call. When he found you weren't in he left a note."
Elise felt herself flush and covered whatever excitement she might have shown by speaking, perhaps, she feared, too quickly.
"So Sir Jared and Firekeeper have arrived from Hope," she said. "That's wonderful! Did they have a safe journey?"
Ninette was too aware of her poor relative's debt to Baron Archer's family to blatantly tease Elise, but her pale brown eyes shone with mischief as she made her apparently routine report.
"Sir Jared said that they had some difficulties with Blind Seer in the more populated areas, so they avoided all the settlements along the post-road and camped instead. He—Sir Jared, I mean, not the wolf—looked brown and healthy."
"Didn't Sir Jared and Firekeeper," Elise asked, more as a prompt than because she really needed to know, "take lodgings with Hazel Healer in Hope?"
"That's right," Ninette agreed, "and Sir Jared says that Hazel sends her greetings to both you and the crown princess."
"And Firekeeper's wounds?"
"Are healing nicely," Ninette said, "and she hopes you'll come and see her. She didn't want to come by herself because your parents might not like Blind Seer in their quarters."
Elise nodded, wishing Ninette would stop prattling and give her Sir Jared's note. "That was considerate of Firekeeper." Then, "You said Sir Jared left a note?"
Ninette relented and pulled a folded and sealed missive from her apron pocket.
"Here it is. He wrote it here when he found you weren't in, saying he didn't care to disturb Princess Sapphire."
Elise grinned, wondering if Jared had learned of Sapphire's fit of temper when King Tedric dismissed her from the meeting to have her wedding gown fit and to rehearse the responses for the ceremony. That Prince Shad had been similarly dismissed had not sweetened Sapphire's mood a whit, though it showed that he was being given no special privileges.
Elise took the note, noticing that the wax was impressed with Sir Jared's arms: a hand outstretched with the palm impaled by arrows. Deciding that she would not care to be questioned if either of her parents returned unexpectedly, she drifted into her bedchamber.
"Ninette, see if you can find my embroidery. Then there's no reason for you to miss the fun, so bring your own kit and come along to Sapphire's sitting room. Perhaps having a larger audience will remind her of her dignity and force her to behave."
As Ninette bustled about finding the requested items and putting her apron aside, Elise finally broke the wax seal.
"Lady Archer," the missive began with rather foreboding formality; then the hurried scrawl relaxed into a more conversational tone.
"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.
Firekeeper still could not understand the human penchant for eating in company. Even less so, she could not understand the human desire to combine business and meals.
True, a wolf pack shared a kill, but not from any great desire to do so—rather because any who departed the scene would be unlikely to get a share. The Ones ate first and if, as was often the case with smaller prey like a deer, the Ones devoured most of the meat, the rest of the pack was left with the hide and bones—and sometimes not even that.
Any wolf who made a solitary kill was not required to share with the rest. Indeed, the pack would have thought such generosity unnatural. Only puppies were given greater consideration, as Firekeeper—ever a pup in the ranking of her pack—knew well. She would have starved if the others had not brought her a portion from kills made too far away for her to join the pack. Even so, she did not repay this indulgence by sharing the products of her own efforts at fishing or hunting. That was neither required nor expected.
Since she had come to live with humans, Firekeeper had learned that they did not exist on the same feast-or-famine regime. Indeed, many moons had turned their faces since she had felt the gnawing depths of true hunger. However, this had not changed her basic nature. She struggled—mostly to please Derian—not to bolt her food and almost always remembered that growling when a person spoke to you was not a proper response.
Today, at the banquet where King Allister was hosting the many nobles gathered in anticipation of the marriage of his son and the crown princess of Hawk Haven, Firekeeper was having trouble remembering her manners.
Wisely, Derian had made certain that Firekeeper had something substantial to eat before getting dressed for the banquet. Therefore, Firekeeper was not precisely hungry. However, the sight of the fat roast pigs carried to each table made her almost pant with eagerness. The juicy roasts were surrounded by heaps of carrots and potatoes. Deep pottery bowls of apple sauce were set at each end of the table, along with trays of sliced bread and butter.
Firekeeper's early dinner had consisted of several bowls of thick seafood chowder and a hunk of fresh bread. That repast was forgotten now that quantities of juicy flesh were near. It was probably lucky for decorum that Blind Seer had been convinced to stay behind in Firekeeper's rooms, for the wolf would most certainly have overcome his shyness at the presence of so many strangers before the lure of so much food.
Firekeeper growled softly in her throat as Earl Kestrel, the host for this table, paused to make some quip to the woman on his right before beginning to carve. Derian, elevated from the servants' halls to a place at his master's table by his favor in King Tedric's eyes, nudged her.
"You can't possibly be hungry," he said, pitching his words for her ears alone. "Not after what you've already had to eat."
"He's so slow!" Firekeeper protested.
"And you and I will be among the last served," Derian reminded her, "as our relatively low rank requires. Cultivate patience."
"I could eat Patience," Firekeeper grumbled, referring to the grey gelding that was the only horse indifferent enough to its own fate to willingly carry her.
"Pretend," Derian suggested, "that Earl Kestrel is the head of your wolf pack and that if you leap on that pig before he's ready to let you he'll beat you bloody."
Firekeeper tried, but it was difficult. Small, hawk-nosed Norvin Norwood, dressed neatly in breeches and waistcoat of sky-blue brocade over shirt and hose in scarlet, looked anything but threatening. His silvering black hair and neat beard were freshly trimmed. His pale grey eyes twinkled at the jests of the woman beside him, yet there was an intensity about him, a feeling of a strung bow, that reminded Firekeeper that this little man had charged into battle against men twice his size and that they—not he—had fallen.
Such rememberings kept her under control until a dish with thick slices of pork and heaps of vegetables was set before her. Firekeeper even managed to eat with what she thought was dainty control, wiping her fingers on a chunk of bread and cutting potatoes into quarters before raising them to her mouth.
Except for Derian kicking her periodically when he thought she was getting too enthusiastic, Firekeeper was content until a light, fluting voice said:
"Goodness, Earl Kestrel, do you starve your poor ward?"
The speaker was a woman past her first youth seated about halfway down the table. She was wearing a bright yellow gown laced with pale green ribbons. Ropes of smoothly polished amber beads were looped around her rather long neck and two large amber nuggets depended from her earlobes. Hair a slightly darker shade of honey-gold than the gems had been twisted into a towering coiffure threaded through with a few more amber beads.
Firekeeper had been introduced to her when the guests came to table and now struggled for the woman's name. After a moment, it came to her: Lady Ceece Dolphin, a noblewoman of Bright Bay, scion of one of their Great Houses. She was sister to a duke, Firekeeper recalled. No one of any real im
portance, as the wolf-woman saw things, for neither Lady Ceece nor her children would come into the family's title. Indeed, Firekeeper thought title alone hardly any reason to grant someone respect. Humans, she had learned, thought otherwise.
Earl Kestrel answered Lady Ceece, his tone free of rancor.
"We don't starve her," he said, "but the poor child was near starvation's edge when I found her in the wilds this past Horse Moon. She has yet to overcome her enthusiasm for a well-filled plate."
Lady Ceece replied somewhat grudgingly, hearing her own rudeness in the earl's courtesy, "Well, she certainly doesn't look overfed."
Sir Jared Surcliffe, Earl Kestrel's cousin, commented, "We only arrived today after several days' hard travel from Hope. I'm famished and the food is excellent. Cousin, would you cut me another slice from that roast?"
Even as the wolf-woman admired how the two men had clipped the barbs from Lady Ceece's words, Firekeeper considered the tensions evident in the large banquet hall. She was no stranger to social tension, having been brought into Hawk Haven as Earl Kestrel's piece in a play for the throne of that kingdom. The tension she sensed here was different. She slowed her attack on her plate of pork as she tried to sort out the reason for that difference.
Certainly, the strife over the throne of Hawk Haven had been bitter enough. There had been tears and screaming, bartering of lives for some imagined advantage, even hints that murder could be done if the prize was certain enough. Yet beneath it all there had been a sense that those who fought were all bound by a common interest.
It had been, Firekeeper thought, excited by the comparison, like wolves fighting over a kill. There had been no question who owned the kill. It belonged to the pack—or in this case, the kingdom. The question was who would get the best portions.
When the struggle had been resolved, almost everyone had settled back into their old patterns. A few bore wounds—Elise's disillusionment over Jet Shield was one such—but they were as no more than the routine slashes and cuts one wolf might give another. If trouble arose, the pack would rejoin, rivalry forgotten until the new crisis was past.
Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart Page 3