The Dragon of Despair (25 page)

“Clever,” Elise said, and meant it.

“Norvin is that,” his mother agreed a touch complacently. “You are known to have interest in foreign things, so the material that was chosen to distract Citrine was also chosen so as not to bore you. What do you think?”

“It will do,” Elise said, and her smile made the simple words into praise, “at least until we vanish off into New Kelvin.”

“Time enough to worry about that when you are ready to go,” the duchess said calmly. “Happily, the child’s instability provides ample reason for Sir Jared Surcliffe to call. The crown princess requested he come all the way to the capital this past winter. It would seem odd if he not call on her here. Grateful Peace has been Jared’s patient as well. If the doctor should get interested in the lessons and choose to stay…well, that won’t seem odd at all.”

Something in the duchess’s tone caused Elise to blush once more, this time more deeply. She was certain that Duchess Norwood was teasing her, but the lined old face looked so completely innocent that Elise didn’t dare comment.

“Will that serve?” the duchess asked.

“Admirably,” Elise replied. “It is easy to see that you were once a soldier. You plan just like my father does.”

Duchess Kestrel accepted the compliment with a gracious nod.

“Now, I think it best that you and your entourage relocate as quickly as possible. Luella agreed to take Agneta and Lillis away for a few days so that they would not be here when Citrine arrived. Tait was not a problem, but the girls are so much of an age that it would be awkward keeping them apart—that is, it would emphasize Citrine’s instability. However, the delay in your arrival means that Luella may return before you can leave. Will you be insulted if I send you off tomorrow morning?”

Elise shook her head.

“Not at all, Your Grace. Quite honestly, I have been relieved at the level of composure Citrine has maintained thus far. Her friendly greeting of Edlin was quite a bit more than we dared hope; she has been rather apprehensive of men to this point. Tell me, were they ever particular friends?”

“Not that I recall,” the duchess replied. “Ask Edlin, though. He has a playful streak and may have involved himself with the children at some point or in some fashion that I am unaware. I rarely travel to Eagle’s Nest now that Norvin is available to serve as my representative. I could have missed something. Is it important?”

Elise started to shrug, realized that was an ungraceful motion, and settled for a shake of her head.

“I don’t know, Duchess. It is simply that I am trying to understand anything that will make it easier to help Citrine. Her reaction toward Edlin was unusual, therefore, I thought it worth examining.”

“Wise,” Saedee Norwood replied. “Very wise. Well, don’t forget to ask Edlin when you get a chance. Would you mind writing me every few days and keeping me current on the situation? I think it best that we not have unwarranted comings and goings between our houses lest it be difficult to keep visitors away. However, I would like to know how things develop. My grandson can bring your letters to me. An hour’s walk is nothing to him and doubtless he will have a horse or two with him. The boy acquires pets like a dog acquires fleas.”

“Writing you will be no problem at all,” Elise said, wondering if, for all her courtesy, the duchess saw her as a girl, even as she saw Edlin as a boy.

Elise decided that the duchess could hardly avoid doing so. After all, it had not been many years ago that Elise and Edlin both had run about these grounds, pulling each other’s hair and shouting insults. She would take the duchess’s courtesy as it was offered—freely and with no condescension. In return, she would seek to do nothing that would make the duchess regret her courtesy and trust.

After taking her leave, Elise went to inform Ninette of their plans and to make ready for the next—though thankfully very short—leg of their journey.

ON THE ROAD WEST
, Firekeeper hadn’t much minded her pace being tied to that of Derian and his horses. On the return trip she came to resent it greatly. She longed to push to her limits, walking only when she could not run, sleeping without regard as to whether it was night or day and then only for as long as her body demanded. The plodding steadiness of the string of horses, the need to seek a campground as soon as night approached, the loss of all the good night became almost more than she could bear.

Blind Seer, catching fire from her own impatience, took to ranging on his own, sometimes sleeping for part of the day and then running to catch up. Firekeeper missed the blue-eyed wolf more than she cared to admit, but she couldn’t blame him for his choice. In any case, the horses had learned to tolerate his scent, but they did not like it and their edginess slowed what progress they did make.

More than once Firekeeper considered hurrying on ahead, leaving Derian to follow at his own pace. Elation, traveling with them for some inscrutable purpose of her wingéd-folk mothers, dissuaded her.

“There are predators who would find him all too tasty,” the peregrine falcon warned, “and not all of these are to be found in the wild lands. Derian will be in different danger when we reach the lands where humans are thicker. Even I could not protect him by myself. If I were so inclined,” she added rather hastily.

Firekeeper could not disagree, no matter how much she wished to do so. Derian had made the journey west with no other human companion but herself because he trusted in her protection. To abandon him now would be as bad as leaving a puppy to starve.

Derian himself was aware of her impatience—he would have been hard-pressed not to, with her readying the horses for the road in the dank bleakness of false dawn and pressing them down the trail into twilight, urging him just a little farther with a promise of a campfire ready at the trail’s end.

One night after particularly grueling travel through heavy rain, Derian sat drying his boots over a sheltered fire in a deserted shack no one but Firekeeper would have found, so overgrown was it with vines and close set with young saplings. He was thoughtful and without his usual quips or conversation.

“Firekeeper,” he said at last, “if you’re so worried about getting this news quickly to the king, why not have Elation carry him a message?”

The wolf-woman snarled, less at Derian’s suggestion than because his words spoke a private war she had been fighting with herself.

“I cannot,” she replied stiffly. “I refuse to have Kestrel words carried to king by Elation. I cannot make…”

She paused, hunting for a word.

“Exception?”

“Yes, that. I cannot do for me except as I do for them. Otherwise, I do become what the Beasts fear, one who will betray them to the humans.”

Firekeeper didn’t tell Derian that Elation had already made a similar suggestion and that she had refused the falcon for the same reason.

Derian nodded. Rain, lighter than what had plagued them during the day, pattered against the layer of pine boughs with which Firekeeper had temporarily restored the roof. The horses were visible through a gap in one side of the shack, shifting uncomfortably against their pickets when the wind changed, bringing the rain their way. Mostly they were content, pleased enough not to be moving. The warm mash Derian had insisted on preparing hadn’t hurt either.

“In a few days,” Derian said, “we’ll be in more civilized lands. I was thinking. I could leave the mountain ponies with some farmer, promise to pay him for keeping them until my father can claim them—or even to reward him if he brings them to Eagle’s Nest for me. Roanne’s faster than they are. We might make better time.”

Firekeeper felt a warm flush of gratitude. She knew something of human values now and knew that Derian already stood to be in great trouble with his father over the mules he wasn’t bringing back. Now he was offering to leave the mountain ponies as well.

“No,” she said. “Is kind of you, but Roanne cannot go so fast on roads of mud. We may as well bring the ponies. We are as far behind if she is hurt going fast.”

Derian nodded. “True enough. Weather’s foul.”

Firekeeper understood with that split perspective that was so useful—and so uncomfortable. On the one hand, she could see how the weather was unpleasant for human-style travel. It wasn’t great for wolf travel, either, but a wolf would have borne whatever the weather had to give, driven by hunger or by need. If there was no need, the wolf would lie low until the weather was better. Wishing for the world to be what it was not wasn’t usually an option.

In the distance, a wolf howled. Not Blind Seer, a Cousin probably. They would be ranging out, hunting to feed their pups, enjoying the warmer days. She wasn’t afraid of them. Even if they were attracted by the scent of the horses, she felt certain she could drive them back. Cousins were timid creatures unless pressed and she had many ways to convince them that easier game lay elsewhere.

Once Derian had banked the fire and settled into his bedroll for the night, Firekeeper went outside for a final patrol. The rain had abated and the skies were clearing, clouds breaking up into thin white wisps that showed the stars behind.

The comet was up there, too, coldly burning against the black. It had changed little in size or shape though the moon had waxed and waned and waxed again since its appearance. Firekeeper found its constancy unsettling, seeming a reminder that no matter how those beneath the moon’s sphere changed their lives, some things were unchanging.

“Ever wonder where it was before it came here?” Blind Seer asked, stepping silently over the damp bracken to lean against her leg.

“Often,” Firekeeper replied. “Humans have stories of this, or of ones like it. Queen Elexa wasn’t certain whether all the stories were about one or about many. Still, comets are rare. I wonder when this one will migrate to its other hunting grounds.”

“A Waterlander might know,” Blind Seer said, surprising her greatly. “I have heard tell that they look to the stars as the humans of Bright Bay and Hawk Haven look to their ancestors.”

“I think I may have heard that, too,” she said. “I hadn’t realized you cared about such things.”

“I care about anything that might touch you, dear heart. Even lights in the sky that do nothing but distress you.”

“Maybe someday we will go to Waterland and ask them about the stars,” Firekeeper said. “Maybe someday we can go many places. I still would like to find where the songbirds went.”

“Curiosity,” the wolf said, “Little Two-legs.”

“I know,” she replied, hearing the implied criticism but not stung by it.

Blind Seer was nearly as curious as she was or he would never have left the ordered patterns of the wolf packs to accompany her east. He would have dispersed, roamed for a time, fought his fights, perhaps won a mate. Certainly won a mate. Firekeeper couldn’t imagine Blind Seer as one of the lesser males, valued for his strength and hunting prowess, but content to settle in a lesser role and never build a pack of his own.

She wondered why the thought of Blind Seer as a leader of his own pack made her so sad and knew in her heart that she was perfectly aware why. For now, for all her professed curiosity, she decided not to pursue it. Time enough, always time enough.

When Firekeeper finally slept, she dreamed she rode astride the comet—or was it Blind Seer whose tail streamed out so broad and bright behind?—and that they traveled to places where time and earthly limitations mattered not at all.

X

THE HOUSE WAS
as comfortable as Duchess Kestrel had promised. Indeed, it was nearly the equivalent in size and elaborate appointments of the family residence on the Archer Barony lands. The comparison brought home to Elise that the difference between a Great House and a lesser one went far beyond titles and wealth, but into their relative places in history as well.

Not only had the Great Houses been in place since the creation of the kingdom, but their founders had often held lands—or claimed them after the departure of the Old Country rulers—before the kingdom’s creation. Queen Zorana the First had less granted land as much as confirmed those holdings, and provided the Crown’s tacit support in maintaining that holding.