Compromising Positions (7 page)

“Here, you eat it.” Sibyl pushed it toward her. “You must be starving.”

“I ate a rabbit on the way,” Kirstin confessed, her mouth full of warm bread. “But this is delicious.”

“There’s more where that came from, lass,” Moira assured her with a pat of her hand on Kirstin’s. “I’ll get ye a bowl. Ye see if ye can get this one t’eat.”

“Thank ye.” Kirstin washed the bread down with a swallow of mead from the cup Moira set in front of her.

“Moira, this is Kirstin,” Laina said, making the introductions. “She’s a midwife in our den—and a healer. She came t’help wit’ Darrow.”

“Och, well he’s a handful,” Moira agreed with a laugh, putting a bowl of stew down in front of Kirstin, who dug in, her stomach making grateful, growling sounds. “We can certainly always use an extra set of hands ’round ’ere.”

She glanced at the door where the maid had disappeared.

“They’re afeared of us,” Laina explained to Kirstin, speaking of the maid who’d left soon after bringing Darrow’s dishes down. “Wulvers.
Demons.
”

“They’re young and foolish.” Moira brought out a knife and began slicing the bread. “Do’na pay attention to ’em. Lady Sibyl, please will ye eat some bread? I’ll butter it fer ye. Mayhaps some jam?”

Moira brightened at this, rushing off to get some.

“Och, I need me bairn.” Laina gave a little groan, sitting back in her seat and pressing her breasts with both hands, her face pained. “He’s not ready t’wean.”

“Ye can express yer milk,” Moira suggested. “Since yer bairn’s away and yer husband’s not yet up to the task.”

The old woman chuckled at the way Kirstin gasped, looking at the younger woman’s shocked face.

“She’s not married, this one?” Moira observed with a toothy grin.

Kirstin flushed, eating stew faster.

“Kirstin?” Laina laughed. “Nay, she’s not found ’er mate, nor had ’er first estrus.”

“Isn’t she a little old?” Moira blinked in surprise.

“Oh, she’s had ’er first moonblood,” Laina told her, explaining to the confused Scotswoman. “Wulver woman have their first moonblood sometime during our thirteenth summer. That’s when we can starting changin’. Into wulvers, ye ken?”

“Hm.” Moira’s face didn’t smooth out—she still looked puzzled.

“After our first moonblood, we’re ready to be mated,” Laina explained.

Laina’s words even had Sibyl interested, Kirstin noticed. Sibyl was listening, spreading the brambleberry jam Moira had brought over onto a piece of buttered bread.

“But we do’na have our first estrus—when we go into heat—until we find our mate.”

“So ye only bleed once?” Moira asked in awe. “And then not again until you mate?”

“Aye.” Kirstin agreed, dunking her bread into her stew. It was venison, thick, fatty and rich. And utterly delicious.

“Och, I wish I was a wulver then!” Moira exclaimed with a laugh, taking a seat at the low table with them. “I’d stay a maiden forever.”

“Well, there’s something to that.” Laina smiled, glancing over at Kirstin. “A wulver woman who’s never mated always has control over her change.”

Kirstin nodded in agreement. She still had full control over when she changed from woman to wulver and back again. There were very few wulver women who went their whole lives without finding their true mate, although Kirstin often thought she might end up like the old midwife, Beitrus, who had trained her and taught her all her healing skills. Mayhaps that was her calling after all, she mused, taking another swig of mead.

“But it isn’t matin’ that brings on estrus,” Kirstin interjected. “It’s
findin
’ yer mate.”

Moira gave them a puzzled shake of her head, looking between the two wulver women as if trying to figure something out. Then, slowly, realization dawned on her, even before Kirstin explained.

“A wulver woman doesn’t hafta remain chaste,” she told Moira, knowing how shocking that sounded to the Scotswoman. It had been even more shocking to the Englishwoman who was now their
banrighinn
—their queen. Maidenhood was highly prized in the human world, she’d discovered. “After our thirteenth year, we reach maturity. We can be wit’ whomever we choose after that. But we can’na become wit’ child ’til we meet our true mate.”

“Yer true mate?” Moira mused, mulling this over.

“Aye. Wulvers have one true mate.” Laina smiled, glancing toward the ceiling. Darrow was upstairs, recovering—her one true mate, the father of her bairn. “Fer life.”

“How d’ye know ye’ve found ’im?” Moira asked. “Yer one true mate?”

“Oh, believe me, ye know.” Laina’s smiled widened, her eyes dancing. “Besides, a month later, ye change into a wulver during yer estrus, and ye can’na change back ’til it’s through.”

“Ye can’na control it?” Moira asked, eyes growing big. “And I thought bein’ a Scotswoman was bad!”

Sibyl snorted, saying through a mouthful of bread and jam, “Try being an Englishwoman.”

“Sibyl’s been workin’ on our cure.” Laina put her arm around the redhead’s shoulder. Sibyl almost smiled, which made Kirstin’s heart feel a little bit lighter.

“A cure for the curse?” Moira laughed. “Oh what a happy day that would be!”

“Well, the
wulver’s
curse,” Laina countered. “It wasn’t broken soon enough for my mother, but maybe it can be for our daughters.”

“Raife and Darrow think it’s a fool’s errand.” Sibyl picked the crust off her bread. “They keep telling me I’m wasting my time. But too many wulver women have paid the price for not having control over their cycles.”

“Men, they never understand the woman’s plight.” Moira sighed. “No matter their species, do they?”

“They’re stubborn animals, regardless.” Laina squeezed her arm around Sibyl, who rested her head on the blonde’s shoulder.

“Especially wulvers.” Sibyl wrinkled her freckled nose and sighed.

“He loves ye,” Kirstin assured her. She knew it was true—she’d seen it in his eyes. Sibyl was his one true mate, and always would be. “He’ll come ’round. He’s jus’...”

“Raife.” Sibyl said his name with such longing it made Kirstin’s heart break for her.

“Aye.” Laina rolled her bright, blue eyes—all wulvers had blue eyes—and groaned.

“I want to give Darrow time to heal,” Sibyl said. “But the truth is—he’s probably already well enough to travel. I’m still shocked that wound didn’t kill him instantly.”

“I told ye, wulvers heal vera fast.”

“That’s an understatement.” Sibyl laughed, and Kirstin thought how good it was to hear her laugh again.

“D’ye want more t’eat, Lady Kirstin?” Moira asked, nodding at Kirstin’s empty stew bowl.

“It’s jus’ Kirstin—and yes, actually, I’ll take another bowl.” Her appetite was incredible all of a sudden. Moira got up to get her more food and Kirstin noticed Sibyl was finally eating a little of her own stew.

“The truth is,” Sibyl said. “I’m afraid, if I tell Raife that Darrow could travel now—he’ll go... and leave me behind.”

“Nuh, he would’na do that,” Moira exclaimed, putting a new, steaming bowl of stew in front of Kirstin, who dug right in. “Would he?”

“He’s stubborn.” Kirstin made a face. Talk about understatements.

“Well, then we’ll have to keep Darrow recoverin’ in bed.” Laina’s eyes brightened. “Ye ken?”

“Aye.” Kirstin’s smile widened as she caught on to Laina’s plan. “Until Raife starts comin’ round.”

“Oh, aye!” Even Moira brightened “And there are plenty’o’ways ye can bring a man back to ye, lass. They’re simple creatures, in t’end.”

“How?” Sibyl looked around the table, frowning. “He won’t talk to me, he won’t even
look
at me! He leaves a room if I come into it.”

“Trust us.” Kirstin’s heart felt a lot lighter, knowing that both Laina and Moira were in on this new plan to get Sibyl and Raife together again.

“Ye leave it to us, lassie.” Moira chuckled, patting Sibyl’s hand. “He won’t know what hit ’im.”

“That man is more stubborn than a corpse.” Sibyl slid off her horse, tying it to a tree.

“Aye,” Kirstin agreed, doing the same, tethering her horse as well.

Moira had made them all a delicious breakfast. The women had gathered around the kitchen table, laughing at Donal’s jokes—the man’s eyes lit up from the inside every time he made Kirstin laugh—when Raife came in. He saw Sibyl and froze.

“Come in, eat!” Moira called, waving him into the room. She even bravely put herself between Raife and the exit, but it was no use.

“I’ll meet ye at the catacombs,” Raife said stiffly to Donal, giving him a nod and turning to go. He actually had to dance his way around Moira, who moved from side to side, insisting he stay and have something to eat, but in the end, he’d escaped.

The men—Raife and Donal—were already there. Their horses were tethered across the field. Kirstin couldn’t help remembering seeing Donal across the clearing, head bent, praying at this burial cairn and the memory filled her with a warmth she was coming to both understand and expect.

They’d tried to talk Laina into coming with them to explore the first den catacombs, but she didn’t want to leave Darrow, even if Moira said she’d look after him. Not that Darrow really needed that much looking after—his wound was healing nicely and it had taken all three women finally telling him their plan to keep him in bed, at least until Raife came around, to finally subdue him and keep him from jumping on a horse and heading to the catacombs himself to take part in the wolf pact reaffirmation.

Laina confessed privately to Sibyl and Kirstin that she was going to take Moira’s suggestion and see if Darrow could alleviate some of the pressure she was experiencing because she was without her nursling. Before they left the castle, Sibyl had warned the pair not to do anything too strenuous, but Kirstin had heard the moans coming from their room before the two women had even reached the end of the hallway.

“Raife migh’ be stubborn,
banrighinn
, but he’s our leader fer a reason,” Kirstin reminded her. “He’s both smart and wise. I’ve never known a man wit’ a heart any greater, and he’s as far from a coward as a wulver gets. If he knows the righ’thing t’do, he’ll do it.”

“I just miss him.” Sibyl stood at the entrance to the catacombs, taking Kirstin’s hand in hers with a sigh. “The stupid oaf.”

“Well—he
is
still a man.” Kirstin squeezed her hand. “Which means, he needs to be pushed—or dragged—in the righ’ direction sometimes.”

They looked at each other, grinning.

“Let’s hope this herbal silvermoon does what Moira claims.” Sibyl looked doubtful as the women linked hands. Sibyl’s head came up at the sound of a distant gun shot. “What was that?”

“Poachers?” Kirstin wondered aloud. 

They were on MacFalon land, but reavers—thieves that preyed along the borderlands, always poised to steal a laird’s cattle—were prevalent. Middle March was like a lost world of misfits, where everything rode along a knife edge. The English and Scots clashed constantly up and down the border of their two countries. It was one of the reasons Sibyl was in their midst in the first place. It had been the English king’s idea to “marry the border”—giving English brides to Scottish lairds all throughout Middle March.

“So near the castle?” Sibyl shivered, stepping a little closer to Kirstin. It wasn’t easy being a human woman, Kirstin thought to herself. They were fairly defenseless. Wulver women, on the other hand, could take care of themselves if need be, whether they were human or wulver.

“Could be. We ran into some yesterday.” Kirstin frowned at the memory and her eyes narrowed in the direction of those woods and the trap where she had been ensnared. Had poachers re-armed the trap? It was possible, she supposed—but for some reason, Sibyl’s remark stayed with her.
So close to the castle?
They weren’t that far from the keep. They likely could have walked their way back within half an hour. It was hardly any time crossed on a horse. Poaching on a laird’s land was punishable by death. Would a poacher risk his life so close to Castle MacFalon? She didn’t know. Maybe a hungry one, as Donal had said.

“Did I tell ye, t’was the king’s own huntsman who came along and chased off t’poachers?” Kirstin asked, scanning the edge of the woods for movement. Her wulver’s eyes would be better, but even in human form, she saw more than any person could, even in the dark.

“King Henry’s huntsman?” Sibyl perked up at that. She was English, after all. Sometimes Kirstin forgot. “Mayhaps he has news about the wolf pact?”

“Donal says he’ll defend t’wolf pact, e’en if King Henry does’na,” Kirstin reminded her. She didn’t see or smell anything—her sense of smell as a human was seriously impaired, compared to her wulver one—and decided there was no immediate danger.

“But that would mean war.” Sibyl shivered again, although Kirstin couldn’t tell if it was at the thought or because they were stepping down into the depths of the catacombs. “Between the Scots and the English. Between the wulvers and... everyone. No one wants that.”

“Nuh.” Kirstin’s blood ran cold at the thought of the wulver warriors going to war. They’d armed themselves and had ridden out of the mountain den to save Sibyl and Laina. The memory of hundreds of horses thundering though the mountain, their usually barred, secret entrance thrown wide, still gave her gooseflesh.

She really had believed, if Sibyl went back and offered herself to Alistair MacFalon, that the man would return Laina unharmed and war could be avoided. She hadn’t imagined the depth of Raife’s rage at Sibyl’s self-sacrifice or how he might interpret the act. Jealousy was a strange emotion, she decided, as they reached the bottom of the catacombs.

It had been a very long descent. They were deep underground and it was dark, dank, and cold.

“Did the huntsman bring any word from the king?” Sibyl asked, reaching up to take an oil-soaked torch down off the wall.

“Lord Eldred said he was disarming traps.” Kirstin slipped a flint out of her pocket and used it to light the torch. “Although t’tell the truth—I do’na trust ’im any further than I could toss ’im.”

“When you’re a wulver, I think you could toss him a fair distance.” Sibyl grinned in the sudden, orange-glowing light of the torch.

Kirstin laughed at that. 

“Moira said the MacFalon tombs were to the left, that way.” Sibyl pointed and, with her keen ears, Kirstin though she heard the sound of Donal’s voice. He and Raife were supposed to be performing the yearly wolf pact reaffirmation. It was a quiet ceremony, done once every year between the laird of Clan MacFalon and the leader of the wulver pack. Scotsmen were a superstitious lot, and while there was peace between them and the wulvers, it was a wary one. It wasn’t easy for humans to trust things they didn’t understand, and they didn’t understand the wulvers.

“So t’old den mus’ be down that way?” Kirstin pointed to the right. It was hard to believe that she hadn’t known this part of her own pack’s history until Moira had told them the night before, while Kirstin finished the rest of what was left of the woman’s delicious stew—much to Moira’s delight. 

“Yes, she said the silvermoon was supposed to grow by a spring. Are there springs down here?” Sibyl frowned at the high, wide, rock walls. To Kirstin, they were like coming home. Familiar markings and drawings painted the way. She would have liked to spend hours looking at them, transferring them onto paper, but there was no time. They were on a mission to find the silvermoon. 

“There’re springs in our mountain den,” Kirstin reminded her. 

“Oh, yes...” Sibyl looked sad at that and Kirstin knew she was thinking about the hotspring in Raife’s mountain room. The pack leader had access to that spring to bathe and relax in. “So your ancestors once lived down here? I wonder how long ago?”

“Generations.” Kirstin followed Sibyl down passageway. The ceilings were vaulted, high. She wondered at the construction of the place. It was a marvel. Had they carved these out of rock under the ground, or had they built them up? “Me mother’s mother lived in our mountain den. I did’na e’en know this place existed ’til Moira mentioned it.”

Well, that wasn’t completely true. Donal had said something about it yesterday, hadn’t he? When she’d mentioning stopping and seeing him praying. But he hadn’t told her its history, not like Moira had.

“It reminds me of home.” Sibyl gave a little half-smile and she peeked into one of the rooms. “Your home, I mean.”

“’Tis yer home, as well,
banrighinn
.” Kirstin squeezed her hand, peering into the room and seeing it had once been a woman’s room. Dried herbs, old, hung on lines. There was an old table in the center of the room with a few old, cracked mortars and pestles. But the room smelled of healing, a familiar, welcome scent.

“This was a healer’s room,” Sibyl remarked, sniffing the air. Even she could smell it. “I wonder if there is any dried silvermoon in here?”

“Whatever they left here will’na be of any use anymore.” Kirstin looked around. “’Tis all cleared out. They planned their move.”

“It’s not as big as the mountain,” Sibyl observed

“Not as safe, either.” Kirstin imagined the possibilities.

The entire pack could get trapped in a den like this. In their mountain, they were safe within, and they had a valley where they had a running stream and sunlight and they could raise their sheep for wool and meat. In a den like this, they’d have to go up top to hunt. No wonder the MacFalons were wary of the wulvers, she thought. They’d once been much closer neighbors—and she imagined her ancestors had made a meal of a few of Donal’s. The wulvers hadn’t hunted and killed humans for meat in generations, but they had, once.

“You always have such giant kitchens,” Sibyl exclaimed as they reached the end of the passageway that opened into a wide space. A large fireplace took up almost all of one wall, and a long table where all the wulvers had once sat to sup together spanned the big room.

“Wulvers like t’gather in one place.” Kirstin smiled and could almost picture her wulver ancestors tussling and laughing and playing and eating here. Many of the wulvers slept in the kitchens together in a big wolf pile by the fire at night, especially before they were paired off. Kirstin had spent many a night in a big, warm, fuzzy pile of wulvers. There was nothing else like it.

“Moira said the spring was near the kitchen.”

“Aye, ’tis likely,” Kirstin started across the open space. “Water’s life. There’s always a spring in a wulver den.”

“Through here, do you think?” Sibyl edged around the corner of a rock wall and they both heard the sound of running water. The passageway got lighter as they went through it, making the torch unnecessary.

“Beautiful!” Sibyl put the torch into a notch on the wall as they entered the grotto, looking around in wonder. “I wondered how anything could possibly grow down here.”

“Someone carved that into t’rock t’let the light in.” Kirstin looked at the running body water where a slant of sunlight lit its clear surface. It came from high above, an opening in the deep rock. She wondered at the construction of it. Where did it come out, she wondered, on MacFalon land? Had anyone accidentally discovered it before? But there was a grate—metal bars—over the opening.

“Moira gave me a picture of silvermoon.” Sibyl dug into a pocket in her plaid, searching for it, but there was no need.

“It’s righ’ there.” Kirstin pointed to the plant growing up between the rocky crags at the edge of the spring.

“Why do they call it silvermoon?” Sibyl wondered, squatting to gather it.

“’Tis silver in t’moonlight.” Kirstin glanced up at the skylight above. “The leaves’re reflective. You can see’t clearly at night if the moon’s full.”

“Really?” Sibyl rubbed the leaf of one of the plants between her fingers. “I’ve never seen it before.”

“’Tis an ancient wulver plant,” Kirstin told her “I’ve only e’er seen pictures of it. Like the huluppa ye found growing on the borderlands.”

The huluppa was the other plant, mentioned in what was considered the “wulver bible,” that Sibyl was using to try to develop some sort of cure for the wulver woman’s curse.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if it only grew here.” Sibyl frowned at the plant. “I can’t get that damnable huluppa to grow anywhere else. I tried growing it in the wulver valley, but it will not take root. And I can’t find the cure for a wulver curse without it. Your wulver plants behave oddly.”