“What about me?”
“Ah, you. You are his kitling, the one he can’t lose through growth or time. You are not of the Pride,” she added, but she ruffled Kaylin’s hair—which had long since come loose from its binding—with affection as she said the words. “He brought you home,” she added, “and we saw you—hairless, furless, like our young.”
“But Severn’s—”
“Corporal Handred is not like you, Kaylin. But he understands and accepts his role here.” There was no question in the words. “Come,” she said, and growled.
Severn bowed again. “I will wait for Kaylin in the carriage.”
“Good. It is not a good time to be in the Quarter without escort.”
“Kayala, I can take care of myself.”
“Of course you can,” was the smooth reply. “We can all hunt and kill. But the trick to living in a city that is so crowded and so dangerous is to avoid having to kill.”
Marcus had four other wives—five in total. Each of his wives had their own room, or rooms, and each of them had their own growls. They had different ways of showing submission, and of expressing rage. Kayala could do either without consequence, but if Kayala was the eldest, she was a far cry from old.
Then again, Marrin at the Foundling Hall was old, and you didn’t cross her.
Tessa was next in line, and her fur was a slate-gray that was almost black. Her whiskers were dark, and her fur was shorter than the fur of the rest of her Pridlea. She was fastidious while eating and grooming, and of the five wives, Kaylin thought her the most dangerous. But for all that, she was often the friendliest as well, and little human foibles didn’t bother her.
She didn’t, however, react well to the sight of blood, and Kaylin did her best not to bleed around her.
Graylin—a very unimaginative name—had been the runt of her litter, and her parents, convinced she wouldn’t survive her childhood years, had been less than attentive. Kayala said that Graylin was almost feral when this mistake in judgment was acknowledged. If Tessa was the most fastidious—by a whisker—Graylin was the least, by a whole lot more. She had been civilized to the point where she could eat in a large group and not go nuts about food distribution—but she seldom left the Pridlea. She had the softest voice, the softest purr, and the most tangled fur.
Reesa was golden in color, just like Marcus or Kayala, and she looked younger. Her eyes were large for Leontine eyes, and she seldom blinked, which some people found discomforting. Reesa thought this was funny, and after a while, Kaylin had to agree. Like, say, a year of visiting at mealtimes.
And Sarabe, the youngest of Marcus’s wives, was also a russet-colored Leontine—a color that was considered unusual, although Kaylin had met one other, at least, that bore the same red fur. Only the face, the hands and the feet were fringed in the more traditional gold. Sarabe liked to sing. Singing Leontines were a bit more than Kaylin could handle for hours at a time.
She wasn’t singing now. None of them were even speaking. They sat curled up on each other in what looked like the end result of a football tackle, and didn’t bother to get up when Kayala escorted Kaylin into the common room. In the common room—which had a Leontine name that Kaylin had never had much luck pronouncing, to the gleeful amusement of Reesa—dinner was served, and matters of concern to the Pridlea were discussed. Marcus, oddly enough, was seldom invited to the common room. He came for meals, and for discussions about his children, and he left as quickly as he could. Kaylin, loving this room at thirteen, had never understood why.
But if the common room was not his room, it was clear that his absence marked it, and not for the better.
Sarabe jumped up. “The kits will want to see you,” she said. Kaylin, watching bodies roll to either side at the sudden lurch of Leontine momentum, smiled. She’d been on the inside of these pile-ons as a child, and she had been allowed to play with Sarabe’s kits if she asked politely. Where “asked politely” meant speak in Leontine. Sarabe was the most…human of the Leontines. She was also a good deal younger than Kayala or Marcus.
“The kits will have to wait,” Kayala replied.
The kits were triplets—this was fairly common for Leontines—and they were all girls. None of them had Sarabe’s coloring; two were gray, and one was a pale brown. Sarabe had noted this lack with satisfaction, and Kaylin had never asked why; she understood that Sarabe was a bit self-conscious.
“Easy for you to say, Kayala. You won’t have to deal with their cries of outrage.”
“I can, if you prefer.”
Reesa laughed. It was a grim laugh. She rolled to her feet next. “Kitling,” she said to Kaylin.
Kaylin nodded. “I suppose you were expecting me.”
“I was expecting you last night,” Reesa replied gravely, her gaze unblinking gold as her eyes met Kaylin’s and held them.
Kaylin winced. “We were up in the Tha’alani Quarter. I had to heal,” she added. “The crowd there is ugly. And there are more Swords gathered in one spot than you see anywhere, even Festival.”
Reesa hissed. It was the Leontine version of a whistle. Well, this hiss, at any rate.
“And I had to force Perenne to carry me up to the damn dome to talk with the Hawklord,” she added. “Mallory’s in charge of the office.”
This drew a round of a different type of hiss from all of the wives, even Kayala. “You will have to keep us apprised of the situation in the office,” the Matriarch said. Kaylin didn’t like the word “Matriarch,” but it was, Marcus assured her, the right Elantran word for his wife.
“I’ll trade,” Kaylin replied, tensing slightly.
Kayala became still. “Trade?” she said.
“Keep me apprised of the situation in the Quarter. The Hawklord said that Marcus goes on trial in the Caste Court in five bloody days.”
“It is true.”
“Can you agree to this?”
“No. There is no trade among kin,” Kayala replied.
Kaylin said nothing for a long while. “Not a trade,” she finally managed. “I’ll tell you what’s happening in the office anyway—Marcus clearly did.”
Kayala nodded. “We will tell you what we can. Sarabe, start.”
Sarabe looked away.
“Why Sarabe?” Kaylin asked Kayala.
“Because it is Sarabe’s tale, to start. And if we have all become a part of it, it is still hers.”
Sarabe looked at her hands. She sat still, looking at them, until Reesa put an arm around her shoulders, flexing her claws with unvoiced worry. Worried Leontines could often appear, to the non-furred, the same as angry Leontines. When Sarabe spoke at last, it was to Kaylin.
“Kitling,” she said softly, “you have met my sister.”
Kaylin was confused. And, being Kaylin, showed it. “Your sister?”
Sarabe nodded. “Not long ago, you visited her. You helped her deliver her cub.”
Kaylin’s eyes widened. “Is that where she got my name?”
Sarabe nodded gravely. “It was much discussed in the Pridlea, but Marcus insisted.”
“Was that bad?”
Silence.
“I’ve come as a midwife to other Leontines before.”
“Yes.”
“Sarabe, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.” She paused, and then said, “But your sister mirrored me. She wants to talk to me.”
Kayala’s growl was instant, a low thrum of sound more felt than heard.
“Kayala, she’s allowed to contact me. I licked her baby clean at birth.”
“Why?”
“She asked,” Kaylin replied with a shrug. “I knew it was an honor, so I did it.”
All of Marcus’s wives now looked at each other in turn. The silence—a silence that was very unusual in the Pridlea—was heavy. “We told him,” Kayala said at last. “Sarabe—”
Sarabe said nothing.
“Guys, look—Marcus needs help. And to help him, I need to know what’s going on.”
“You will likely kn
ow more than we know by the time you have finished speaking with my sister,” Sarabe said at last. “But I will say what I can. You’ve noticed my fur color?”
Kaylin nodded. “I like it,” she offered.
“I don’t. And my sister does not. It marks us, and we are forbidden sons because of it.”
“Forbidden…sons.”
“Yes.”
A thought—an unwelcome thought—occurred to Kaylin. “You can choose the sex of your cubs?”
“No. We cannot. We merely have the duty to see that if sons are born, they do not survive. Don’t look at me like that, Kaylin. You don’t understand our history. You don’t understand what the color of our fur means.”
“No. But I’m listening.”
“In times past,” Sarabe continued, “we would have been drowned at birth. My sister and I. But our mother was young, and foolish, and the old ways are not as strong in this city as they are among our other tribes. My mother’s husband—that is your word, yes?—was old and also foolish, and he had lost many wives to birthings. He desired cubs, and when we were born, he approached the Elders, and he petitioned for our lives. He understood that he could not hide us. He could not dye our fur, and expect us to survive in the world without the blessing of his Elders. He was a friend of Marcus, his mentor. He was unusual in many ways for a Leontine, and if Marcus is unusual, my father is often blamed.” She shot a side glance at Kayala, who nodded.
“Because we were girls, and at the urging of many of the more liberal of our kind, he was granted his petition and we were allowed to grow. There was no certainty that we would survive to adulthood—many who are otherwise unmarked do not. But we were not seen as a threat. Indeed, it was thought that none would take us to wife, and we would find no Pridlea, and have no children, of our own.
“It is in our children that our greatest threat lies,” Sarabe added.
“You have children.”
“I was blessed with three daughters,” Sarabe said. “I do not know what Marcus would have done had one of my cubs been a son.”
“He would have drowned him,” Kayala said firmly. “And if not he, then one of us.”
Kaylin couldn’t believe her ears. She asked Kayala a question in her high, broken Leontine, and Kayala reached out and ruffled her hair. “We are a dangerous people,” the Matriarch told Kaylin, “and our ways are harsh. But better the death of the son than the death of the race.”
“You’re talking about babies,” Kaylin said, finding no easy way to express her outrage in Leontine. Which, given that Leontine was her language of choice for cursing, said something.
“You may have noticed that babies do not stay young,” Kayala replied. “Reesa, stop that—we just replaced that table.” Reesa obligingly pulled her claws out of the wooden surface. Kaylin had always wondered what Leontines outside of the city used for scratching posts—or dinner tables—but she wasn’t certain at this moment she wanted to know. “Babies grow. And the sons who are born to those who bear the witch-fur grow into something wild and dangerous.”
“I’ve practically lived with Marcus for eight years. He doesn’t move a piece of paper without telling you all about it. As far as I can tell this is true of all Leontine men. Hells, he might ask you first on a good day. You’re saying—”
“Marcus is a kit,” said Tessa firmly. It was full of affectionate amusement. “He understands that the Pridlea is his in name only, and he doesn’t meddle.” The warmth of the smile left her face, leaving fangs in its wake. “Not all men are as smart, and not all men are as…what is your word? Casual?”
“Laid-back, maybe.”
“Laid-back. Doesn’t that mean dead?”
Probably, to a Leontine. “It means relaxed.”
“Ah! Yes, that is the word. Relaxed. Not all men are as relaxed or as sensible as ours.”
“Marcus desires our happiness,” Kayala said gently. “He always did. He learned, as he grew whiskers, that our happiness and his were entwined—but he wanted our happiness first. You must have noticed the way he takes you into his own shadow, Kaylin? He wants what is best for you.”
“Getting yourself thrown into a Caste jail while vultures rule the Hawks is not what is best for me. And it doesn’t make me happy either.”
Graylin hissed.
Kaylin lifted a hand, palm up, in immediate surrender. “I’m sorry,” she told them all quietly. “I don’t know where that came from.”
Kayala batted the side of Kaylin’s head. It hurt. It did not, however, send her flying, which told Kaylin it was meant affectionately. “You are like us, when you worry,” she said. “We understand.”
“He always notices the strangers,” Sarabe continued, her voice so soft it was hard to hear. “He always notices the outcasts or the misfits. He speaks unkindly, but while he bares fangs and exposes claws, he stands between us and those who mean us harm. Many of his brothers think he is—what is the word, Kayala?”
“I don’t think Kaylin needs to hear the word,” Kayala replied sharply. Which probably meant it was, in Kaylin’s line of work, a useful word. She held her peace, however.
“They think he is weak,” Sarabe continued, choosing a less colorful, and entirely Elantran, substitute. “Because he doesn’t fight unless he needs to. But if he is cornered, he can kill. We’ve seen it, and we know.”
“If you’re cornered, you can all kill.”
“Yes, but Marcus doesn’t choose to hunt for sport. He is gentle.”
Tell that to the Quartermaster, Kaylin thought, remembering the carved surfaces of far too many desks.
“Let me continue, then. My sister and I were allowed to live. We were allowed to grow, and we were allowed to request the rites of majority. All of this was considered safe, for us, although many of the more conservative Leontines resented it. They made our lives harder,” she added, baring fangs.
“Sarabe,” Graylin told her, “if you begin to catalogue all wrongs done you, we will be here all night, with Kaylin no wiser.”
Sarabe smacked Graylin, who rolled with the blow. “He is much kinder than his wives.
“But…we were allowed to live normal lives because it was understood that we would never progress beyond the Pridlea, we would have no Pridlea, and no husbands of our own.”
“But…”
“Yes. I have my Pridlea. But it was understood that I would not, when I was born.”
“How did that happen?”
“Kaylin,” Kayala said. “Ask her another time.”
“Sorry.”
“No, it is a good question,” Sarabe said, reassuring her, but also following Kayala’s unspoken command. “And I will answer it—briefly—because it’s relevant.” She dared a glance at Kayala, whose lips had thinned, making her teeth much more prominent. The first time she’d seen this, Kaylin had been terrified; now it was just so much bickering. The Leontines could deal damage, yes, but they were also built to take more of it.
Kayala however considered what had been said, and nodded briskly.
“Marcus took me in when my father died.” She smiled. “His Pridlea was very, very different from my mother’s—it was a bit shocking, at first. But…it wasn’t so fearful. My parents always worried for us. They always watched over us, they always looked at the future with uncertainty. I’m sure it aged them both.
“Marcus did worry about me, but not in the same way. After three days, he treated me like—”
“Like one of his wives,” Graylin said, with a rare smile.
“Which means,” Reesa added, “that he did what she said, more or less, when she said it. I don’t think he noticed it himself, but the rest of us did. There was a bit of a fuss maybe three months in,” she added, the smile growing sharper. “Some people felt that Marcus’s interest in Sarabe was—what is your word? Obscene?”
“I don’t think that’s the right word,” Kaylin replied.
“Actually, Kaylin, it is the right word,” Kayala told her. “They thought it was twisted, and wrong.
A small group of the older Leontines—by which I mean those who conform to the Elders, because some of them were young enough to damn well know better—came to see us.”
Kaylin thought about this for a couple of minutes. “Wait, they came to see you here?”
“Yes.”
“And they were all women?”
“Ah, you understand. No, in fact. None of them were women.”
“But you wouldn’t even let Severn in—”
“Not with his genitalia intact, no.”
Kaylin blushed, and Graylin frowned. “Why are you doing that?” she asked softly.
“Well—it’s—”
“You’ve said much, much ruder things at our table.”
“No I haven’t!” Kayala retorted.
“Yes, you have. You’ve said—”
“Graylin.” Kayala lifted a hand. “Very often, when one curses in a different tongue, it doesn’t feel or sound the same as cursing in one’s own. And Kaylin’s colorful phrases all mean the same thing. She’s tired, hungry or angry. And this is why it’s hard to tell you anything. There are always interruptions.”
“But—”
“Yes. It was wrong, and it was dangerous. We could not, of course, allow them into the Pridlea.”
“Wait—is that where Reesa’s scar comes from?”
“Yes,” Reesa said, with an entirely self-satisfied grin.
And she had thought it odd when Severn had become so completely still. She hated that she could feel so bewildered about people she’d seen for so much of her life. “So they went away?”
“They went away. However, they claimed that Sarabe was being ill-treated in our Pridlea, and they demanded that she leave with them.”
“They said that with straight faces?”
“Bleeding faces, more or less,” Reesa replied. “But if you mean were they serious? Yes.” She shook her head. “We realized at that point that we had come to a crossroad. So we talked among ourselves, and then we informed Marcus of our decision.”
Cast in Fury Page 9
