The Dragon of Despair (15 page)

“It will be dangerous work,” Firekeeper warned, “for the humans have bows and can shoot from the cover of their walls. Still, taking away the growing stuff will force them to consider leaving when autumn comes, even if they are brave through the summer. With no game to eat and no fresh growing things, they should have dipped deeply into those supplies they brought from the east.”

The One Male flattened his ears.

“But what if others come, bringing supplies with them, as your Fox Hair did?”

“Don’t let them get here!” Firekeeper replied, a trace exasperated. “Drive them back as they mount the trail. Terrify their beasts. If these stupid creatures run away the humans alone will not haul the sacks and bags. Humans are weak in all but their ability to harness others to be their strength.”

“That will take many wolves,” the One Male said doubtfully. “Some to drive away the browsers and grazers, some to haunt the gap in the mountains and maybe some ways east, some to tend our young…”

“There have been enough not of our pack or our blood coming here to look and then to brag of their prowess as those who would slaughter naked, hairless, fangless humans,” Firekeeper said, some of her indignation at the insults she had suffered rising forth. “Let them test their mettle on more delicate work.”

“Firekeeper has a point,” Blind Seer commented from where he had been silent witness to this small conference. “If the Beasts are given tasks, then the ones with the hottest blood may find it cooled enough for thought.”

“We can but try to get them to help,” the One Female agreed, “and we did ask for you to tell how the humans might be beaten. I can see how this trail runs from here. If loss of game, grain, and growing things is not enough, then we must hunt their foolish animals. That will not be easy, for the humans are sure to keep them locked within that wall of tree trunks they have been raising.”

“Only,” Firekeeper said, “until they must let them out to graze. It is a shame that we have not Royal songbirds and other little creatures here.”

She thought of the tale she had heard the autumn before—a tale that gave reason why such creatures were nearly unknown. She wondered if any but her saw in it a warning against past pride and impetuosity.

“The songbirds could have sneaked within and ruined the stored grain and such. Still, we should have opportunity to go after the goats and cows and mules if the need arises. If nothing else, your singing should dry the udders of even the calmest cow.”

“Your plan is good,” the One Male said after considering its details and ramifications. “I hope only that we can convince the others to adopt it. Quick slaughter would be easier to manage and lend less risk to ourselves as well.”

“True,” Firekeeper replied, “but if we slaughter these humans, others may come to avenge them. Certainly, I have heard no proof of great powers among humankind, but we cannot be certain they do not exist. Think of those things you sent me to hunt last autumn. What else might come out from hiding places if we give the humans cause?”

“A wise argument,” the One Female said, “and one we shall use in our turn. However,” she continued, and her entire mien was solemn, “if the One of the humans does not do as you wish, I do not think the Beasts will tolerate this intrusion or others like it. This land is ours and ours it must remain.”

“Even,” the One Male added, “if many of us must die to preserve it.”

VI

THE BOWSTRING SNAPPED BACK
, stinging Elise across her cheek so sharply that she knew there would be a welt. Tears flooded her eyes, temporarily turning the landscape into wobbly pale green shapes. When she dashed them away, she saw her father, Baron Ivon Archer, glaring at her, disapproval in every line of his black-bearded face.

“I don’t ask much,” he said, “but can’t you at least keep the bow held straight and strung?”

Elise felt a momentary desire to burst into tears and run back into the house, but she fought it down.

“Can’t you,” she replied sourly, “accept that I’m simply not cut out for archery?”

“No,” Baron Archer answered. “I cannot. Your grandfather won this land for us with his bow. I have upheld the tradition. My sister Zorana is a fine enough archer that she was welcomed in the ranks during the last war. I will not have the heir to this grant unable to even shoot.”

“I can shoot!” Elise protested, but even she knew her protest was weak. Her training to this point had been with a target bow so light and with such an easy draw that a child of eight could manage it. Baron Archer wanted her pulling a bow proper to her weight and strength.

Her father’s only reply to her protest was to extend her bow—somehow dropped when the string had slapped up against her cheek—in mute command that she restring it and they continue.

Elise obeyed, leaning with her full weight on the bow to string it, then putting arrow to string and pulling it back. Her arm shook slightly and she could feel sweat beading down her temple from the effort. When she loosed the arrow, the string snapped against her wrist guard, not her face, but the arrow went wide, burying itself for a moment in the outermost ring of the target before gravity pulled it loose and it toppled to the ground.

Baron Archer handed her another arrow. Elise fit it to the string. So it went, sometimes the arrow flying wide, sometimes hitting the target, rarely placing anywhere near the center. Still, Elise didn’t injure herself again and she counted that as a small victory. What Baron Archer thought, she didn’t know, for he rarely said anything and when he did it was always to remind her to adjust her stance or posture or some such thing.

If Elise hadn’t known that her father mostly approved of her, the entire process might have made her furious, for, despite her fair-haired loveliness and the sea green eyes about which had been written several poems, she was neither weak-willed nor a fool. She simply wasn’t a warrior and that was something Baron Archer could not understand.

Previously, Baron Archer had concentrated his efforts at military training on his nephew Purcel, but Purcel had died in King Allister’s War and his younger brother, Kenre, was only eight years old. Perhaps, even if Purcel had been alive, Ivon’s attentions would still have shifted to his daughter. Events over the past year had forced Ivon to think much more about the reality that Elise would be his heir.

The sun had shifted so that the target had to be moved at least once, and it might have had to be moved again before Baron Archer relented, but Ninette, Elise’s confidential maid, came hurrying down the path.

“A messenger has arrived, Baron,” she said. “Lady Aurella thinks you and Elise both need to come and read what he has brought.”

Elise lowered the bow, grateful for the respite. She didn’t doubt that her mother had asked Ninette to come down rather than one of the other servants because she was one of the baron’s cousins and he always treated her with family courtesy he sometimes forgot with his servants.

Or with his daughter
, she thought, reaching up to finger the welt on her cheek when the baron’s back was turned.

Aurella Wellward knew perfectly well that her husband hated to be interrupted, but that he wouldn’t take his pique out on Ninette. Indeed, he was quite courteous.

“Thank you, Ninette,” he said, glancing up at the sun as if he’d just noticed it had moved—though he himself had been the one to shift the target. “Perhaps we have been at this long enough. Is the news so urgent that we need attend immediately, or does Elise have time to change?”

“I believe the news can wait at least that long,” Ninette said, knowing that Elise would prefer a chance to get clean.

“Very well.” Baron Archer took his daughter’s bow. “I’ll put this up for you, Elise, and we’ll see what news awaits us. Meet us in our sitting room. By the way, not too bad at the end there.”

Elise smiled, knowing this was all the praise she was likely to get and grateful for it. As she and Ninette hurried up the path to the house, Ninette fussed over her mistress’s cut cheek.

“Does it hurt terribly?”

“It stings,” Elise admitted. “Is it likely to leave a mark?”

“Not if we clean it well and put some of that salve Hazel Healer sold us. What is your father thinking? Doesn’t he value his heir’s beauty? He’s lucky to have you, himself such a dour sort!”

Elise wanted to fall in with Ninette’s condemnation, but she was no child anymore and felt she had to be fair.

“He knows my inheritance is dowry enough that I could look like a tracking hound with bloodshot eyes and giant nose, and it would be no matter. Why he doesn’t understand that just because my grandfather won this land with a bow doesn’t mean that I need to hold it with one…”

She let her words trail off.

“Anyhow,” Ninette added in wry agreement. “He probably looked at the welt himself and saw it wasn’t a maiming injury. Ivon’s not a cruel man, just hard.”

Elise nodded and shifted to other matters.

“Any idea what the news might be?”

Ninette glanced around, pausing to make certain they were alone.

“The letter bears the royal seal,” she said softly.

“I hope nothing has happened to Sapphire’s baby!” Elise exclaimed.

The two women hurried inside and up to Elise’s rooms before continuing the conversation. As Ninette dabbed at Elise’s face with a cloth dipped in warm water—sent up ahead doubtless by Aurella, who was very good at anticipating her household’s needs—she continued:

“I don’t know if it has to do with Princess Sapphire or some other matter. Had Lady Aurella not sent me to get you, I would have slipped by the servants’ hall to gather any gossip.”

“Do,” Elise said, “when I go to my parents. The messenger may have details that won’t be included in any official document.”

Ninette nodded, her eyes shining. She rather enjoyed ferreting out gossip.

Sponge-clean, her pale golden hair combed out and then rebraided and fastened in a neat coil at the nape of her neck, Elise hurried down to her parents’ sitting room. Baron Archer was there before her and must have told Aurella about the incident with the bowstring, for though Aurella’s gaze went to the welt and her gaze was sympathetic, she asked no questions.

“I’ve waited for you before opening the packet,” Baron Archer said. Such courtesies were among those he had started to extend Elise over the past winter, little acknowledgments of her right as his heir to be fully involved in the business of the estate. They made up a great deal for his impatience with her in other areas.

Elise nodded and seated herself, folding her hands in her lap and trying to look attentive, not eager. A maid entered, carrying a pitcher of spring water flavored with strawberry juice and a tray of glasses. Baron Archer waited until everyone had been served and the maid had departed before breaking the seal and unfolding the several heavy sheets contained within. He glanced over them for a moment, his eyes darting across the document, gathering the gist.

“It opens with the usual string of formalities and wishes for health and the like,” he said, “which I will skip if that suits you ladies.”

Aurella and Elise nodded, and Ivon continued:

Certain rumors may have reached your ears regarding the situation of certain people with a presumed relation to the throne. However, given the far southern location of the Archer Barony, and its relative isolation at this season when spring rains contribute to flooding and marshy ground, we take it upon ourselves to inform you how matters stand in full.

If any rumors have reached your ears, we ask that you recall them and compare them to the facts as we know them at this time. Possibly they may contain kernels of truth unknown to us. More probably, they will contain distortion of the truth. Either will be useful to us.

Ivon paused to drink, and Aurella commented:

“Cryptic and portentous, not at all like King Tedric’s style. I see the hand of the heirs in this.”

Ivon nodded, setting down his glass and lifting the missive once again.

“Perhaps, my lady. However, King Tedric can be quite cryptic when he wishes. I wouldn’t lay the blame entirely at the young couple’s door.”

He read on:

In the early days of Horse Moon, confidential messengers arrived to us from House Kestrel bearing information just arrived from New Kelvin. As you know, last autumn, Melina, once the bearer of both the title ‘Lady’ and affiliation with House Gyrfalcon, traveled across the White Water River into our neighboring country of New Kelvin in company with Baron Waln Endbrook of the Kingdom of the Isles. Her actions both there and in this country before her departure were such that we were forced to renounce her relation to our kingdom and to exile her from our land.

House Kestrel sent the first information we have had of her since last Wolf Moon. Melina has apparently made an advantageous marriage for herself, becoming the bride of the Healed One of New Kelvin. There is evidence that the marriage was kept secret, at least for a time, giving rise to speculations that perhaps this marriage was thought to be no more welcome to some of New Kelvin’s citizens than it was to ourselves.