The Black Wolves

by Kate Elliott

The reeve was speaking as if she had no idea Lifka had been gone. “Once you’ve completed your training and are safe to care for your eagle on your own, you’ll be granted leave to come home. I give my reeves a three-day pass home once a month although a few marshals only allow leave twice a year. Which if you ask me…” She glanced back, a frown flickering across her face.

  The Runt was racing after them with that funny hitched run he had, back legs pushing in tandem. Lifka knelt, and he barreled into her and licked her on the nose.

  They were out of sight of the compound, nothing but fields and orchard. Birds sought bugs in the rice field. Alon and Denas and Nanni appeared on the path, on the Runt’s trail.

  She waved. They halted. The clan didn’t need the Runt. They had better-natured dogs, and enough mouths to feed.

  “Can I bring him along?” she asked the reeve.

  The woman took a long look at the Runt. He put down his ears.

  “Slip might eat him. A tidy morsel like that will be sorely tempting.”

  “Slip?”

  “That’s your eagle’s name.”

  “Will the eagle kill me?”

  She shrugged. “It’s rare for an eagle to kill its reeve, and anyway Slip is a particularly sweet-natured eagle. I can’t say I blame him for killing that prick Auri, though I do feel bad for the soldier. It’s not his fault Auri was too lazy-handed to tether the eagle properly.”

  Lifka blinked about ten times at this blunt speaking. But the truth was, the two kills had happened so fast and she had been so fixed on the eagle and the Runt that she hadn’t really examined the bodies nor fully absorbed their wounds. It was more like a story someone had told her. She hadn’t the leisure to dwell on it and be afraid of what could not be changed.

  “Are you saying I can take the dog?” she asked instead.

  “On your head, then. No business of mine.”

  Marshal Dannarah started walking again, stride clipping away the distance. Lifka gathered up the dog. Denas and Alon and Nanni waved again and danced luck to her; she heard their voices as from an impossible distance, and she knew that if she lingered she would cry. Then Mum would ask, and the lads could never lie to Mum, and so Lifka had to put on her strong face.

  She waved a last farewell and hurried onward with the pouch bouncing on her back and the Runt clutched to her chest. He panted in contentment.

  “What’s it like, being a reeve?” Lifka asked when she caught up.

  Marshal Dannarah cast her a look. “I’m not sure I know any longer what it is like. But for you, Lifka, I promise you, it will not be easy.”

  17

  Dannarah knew she had avoided the palace for too many years. If she was honest with herself, it wasn’t just her complicated relationship with King Jehosh that had kept her away. Walking alone where she had once walked with the people she loved best had become too painful, and she had let the pain win. Auri’s death offered the perfect opportunity to test the waters of the palace again, and maybe see if she could pound a little sense into Jehosh.

  The spectacular approach made her smile with the same pure joy she had felt in her first months as a reeve: Simple astonishment at seeing the world in a wholly new way. The city stood on a spur of ground at the confluence of the River Istri with its tributary, the Lesser Istri. Law Rock’s high promontory rose at the prow of the city where the rivers met. Below it, the darker waters of the Istri blended with the faster, lighter Lesser Istri in a constant ecstatic union.

  When humans had carved a thousand steps up the landward cliffside of Law Rock, they had promptly constructed four complexes on top set around an open space called Justice Square: council hall, Assizes Tower, storehouses, and reeve hall. Her father had turned the council hall and storehouses into a palace, and Atani hadn’t altered much. Now, scanning Law Rock from above, she was struck dumb by how Justice Square had been filled in with stately buildings and tiny courtyards crowded around a huge square Beltak shrine. The shrine her father had built for her mother had been small, placed out of the way. This architectural monstrosity stood at the center.

  She and the other three eagles circled down to Palace Hall, the reeve enclosure with its open yard and big wooden perches. The chief marshal administered the six reeve halls from here, although in the last five years Auri had split his time between Palace Hall and Argent Hall.

  On-duty fawkners hurried to take care of the eagles while off-duty reeves and fawkners gathered in the shade to stare. They studied Lifka especially. She looked dazed as she gaped at the view. She had rigged a sling to hold the anxious little dog against her chest like a snarling baby.

  “Reyad, you and Lifka stay here in the hall. I want you to go over all the parts of the harness with Lifka again. Oil and repair all four harnesses. It’s the best way to get acquainted with the gear.”

  Reyad frowned.

  “Next time you can tour the rock,” added Dannarah, seeing his disappointment.

  “Yes, Marshal,” he said, acquiescing.

  Dannarah walked with Tarnit to the gate.

  “You never command him to show me all the parts of my harness,” said Tarnit.

  “I’m pretty sure you already know where all your parts are.”

  “That dog is a little monster.” Tarnit held up her left hand to display the reddened marks where the dog had nipped her last night. “I was just trying to pet it.”

  “Go easy, Tar. Not everyone melts immediately beneath your irrepressible charm.”

  “You say that as if it’s a good thing.”

  “Try it on this sour face I see ahead of us.”

  At the gate a man wearing the tabard of a palace steward confronted them. He carried a reeve’s baton although he was clearly no reeve.

  Tarnit greeted him with her sunniest smile. “Well met, ver. A fine day, is it not?”

  “By whose order are you come to Law Rock?” he said curtly.

  “It’s Marshal to you, ver,” replied Tarnit, letting her smile widen aggressively.

  His stance grew more belligerent as he tried to use his greater height to intimidate. “By whose order are you come? What is your purpose here?”

  Dannarah had had enough. “By my own order, as marshal of Horn Hall. I am come to see the king.”

  The man’s gaze skipped along their shaved-down hair and sleeveless vests. “Reeves must stay in the reeve enclosure. I will assign a person to take your message to the king’s clerks. You can wait for a reply.”

  Dannarah tapped him on the chest with her baton. “What is your name?”

  He blinked, startled by the way she had assertively stepped in on him. Around the forecourt, people were turning to stare. “Steward Toughid,” he said tightly.

  Dannarah nodded. “An honorable name to honor a soldier who died in the service of King Anjihosh the Glorious Unifier. Anjihosh being, I will now mention politely, my father. So you can get out of my way or I will crack you over the head with my baton on charges of obstructing a marshal about her duty. I am here to see my nephew the king.”

  He retreated. Dannarah led Tarnit onto the plateau of Law Rock. There were soldiers everywhere wearing tabards embroidered with crossed spears. Every path was paved with swept stone. She quickly lost her way in an unfamiliar maze of colonnaded porticoes, walled and gated paths, and buildings crammed one up against the next. The fittings on every gate and door were polished to a brilliant gleam. Palace stewards garbed in red and gold stared disapprovingly at the two women. The shrine walls gleamed whitely in the sun. Beyond the walls rose ranks of noble-lance trees native to the empire, and above their spearlike crowns shone the gilded dome of the inner shrine precinct dedicated to Beltak.

  Dannarah recognized a portico with a shaded passage painted with grand herons on the hunt and hapless frogs trying to hide beneath lilies. “Ver, isn’t that the way to the palace barracks?” she called to a passing steward.

  He cast an anxious glance over his shoulder. “That is now the priests’ living quarters, verea. Not permitted for w
omen to walk there.”

  “How do I reach the King’s Audience Hall? At this time of day the king must be holding the court assizes.”

  He hesitated, as if he felt he ought to refuse, but instead he pointed down another narrow walled street. It led to a portico she recognized as the entrance to the King’s Audience Hall although last time she had been here this entire area had been a gracious courtyard fitted with shaded benches so supplicants had a place to wait in comfort. No petitioners waited today to beg justice from the king, not as they had in her father’s and brother’s day.

  Soldiers blocked the main doors. Tarnit’s brow lowered into an entirely unfamiliar broodiness as she eyed their hostile stances. Dannarah pushed past them into the hall.

  The walls were still painted in gold and silver patterns as she remembered them. But where a tapestry depicting lions and gazelles had once hung there now sprawled a mural depicting the triumph of the young King Jehosh over the northern kingdom of Ithik Eldim, when he had toppled the Eldim king from power after a war that had lasted seven years. In the painting Jehosh towered above his generals, soldiers, and courtiers. Beneath his outstretched sword knelt captured prisoners, conspicuously not including the king’s daughter he had seized and married to become his second wife. Tiny figures of enslaved children lined up in ranks at his feet, foreign children as young as five and six brought south to be sold to Hundred clans eager to expand their workforce with captives who need not be paid except in food and shelter and who had no family to redeem their debt. She scanned the ranks for children who looked something like Lifka and found a few; the features of the children were as varied as those of sailors in any port.

  As a girl Dannarah had been allowed to sit behind a latticework screen and observe the proceedings when her father presided over an afternoon assizes court during which he passed judgment on cases brought before him. When Atani ruled she had sat directly beside him, when she wasn’t out on reeve business. Now the room was filled with men seated at low desks, busy writing in ledgers and account books. On a raised dais Jehosh lounged on a brocade couch draped with cushions and gold fringe. A square gaming table rested before him, another man seated at each side, two in profile and one with his back to her.

  Courtiers and underlings gathered about them, an audience eagerly attending to a game of four-sided castles. They were actually taking wagers; strings of coin changed hands in the most inappropriate fashion as the four players traded jocular insults and moved pieces.

  When her father had sat in stern judgment, his Qin bodyguards had stood behind him like the silent promise of justice. Atani had presided with a sad compassion that often reduced criminals to tears. Today a priest of Beltak wearing the beaded headdress and veiled face covering of a high exalted observed the gaming men with a vulture’s patience.

  A weight like stone tightened in the pit of her stomach at the sight of a Beltak priest standing above the king.

  As she strode forward men fell away from her path because they did not quite know how to respond to an older woman who demanded space for herself in this all-male company.

  Jehosh looked up and, seeing her, stood. “Aunt Dannarah!”

  Everyone leaped to their feet, for no one could sit when the king stood. They stared as she took the steps up to the dais without so much as asking permission to approach. The hall fell quiet. She glanced again at the priest. She had a hunch he did not speak the language of the Hundred, while Jehosh and his cronies had grown up using both languages.

  So she spoke in the Hundred-speech, not in Sirni.

  “Nephew, I am come with an urgent message. Chief Marshal Auri is dead. He was killed by his own eagle.”

  Jehosh glanced at the priest, whose narrowed eyes suggested exactly the annoyance she had hoped for. The king’s mouth quirked with amusement.

  “Let me get us privacy,” he answered in the same language.

  He gestured. As the men cleared out, she examined him. Jehosh was now a man in his midforties, dressed in the simple military fashion his grandfather Anjihosh had favored. He wore his long hair neatly pulled back into an elaborate topknot and kept his strong chin clean-shaven. Three rings commemorated his three signal victories in the Ithik Eldim wars in the early years of his reign.

  At length she found herself alone with Jehosh, his three gaming companions, and the lurking priest. If she had ever seen this particular priest before she could not know, as she could only see his eyes. One of Jehosh’s companions was Supreme Captain Ulyar. Another was his childhood friend Lord Vanas, who had married Jehosh’s younger sister. The third wore a general’s tabard. He looked familiar but she could not place him. Like Jehosh, they all appeared assuredly aware of their authority and status.

  “The sad news about Auri we have already heard,” Jehosh said, still in the Hundred-speech. “His wing flew in with his corpse, which has been taken to the shrine.”

  “May he find peace in the Shining One’s embrace,” she said. The priest fairly radiated sanctimonious disapproval with his rigid stance. “There will have to be a reeve convocation to elect a new chief marshal.”

  Jehosh’s gaze flicked down to the board. He would win, she saw, as the others likely hadn’t noticed yet that his army was arrayed in a manner to tear theirs apart in good time. He always won games.

  “You must wish to clean up and have some refreshment, Aunt Dannarah,” he said. “Lord Vanas will see you and your attendant suitably settled. Place them in the cliff room of my personal audience suite, Vanas. We need to finish our game and then I am pledged to meet with the guild heads to enjoy a theatrical performance this afternoon.”

  The hells! Jehosh had just returned to the palace after months away. She wanted to inform him that King Anjihosh would never have sat playing a game before he had thoroughly examined all the books and records and interviewed all his administrators, but for once she held her tongue.

  “My lord king,” said Ulyar, “the god-fearing priests of Beltak who guide us in our daily lives would find it inappropriate for you to lodge women in any of your chambers.”

  “Of course they would,” said Jehosh without looking up, “but Aunt Dannarah isn’t a woman. She is my aunt.”

  Dannarah barely choked down a snort of amusement, and then realized she had in fact chuckled out loud when Jehosh flashed a warning look at her.

  She was not ready to let Ulyar get away with such snide interference so easily. “Supreme Captain Ulyar, I’m sorry to inform you there has been trouble on the roads, prisoners escaping and roaming the countryside at will. That kind of thing never used to be a problem.”

  Ulyar had a fierce frown. “Chief Marshal Auri and I have been in constant communication about these recent disturbances, I assure you.”

  “That’s good to hear.” She looked the priest right in the eye. “Do you need a translation, Your Holiness?” she asked in Sirni.

  The offended flare of his eyes revealed that he did, but he wasn’t about to ask her for one.

  “If you would allow me to guide you, Marshal Dannarah,” said Lord Vanas blandly.

  She, Tarnit, and Vanas walked to the iron-banded door that led into the inner palace. Once they were in the corridor a retinue of stewards and courtiers dogged their heels as if expecting a bone to be thrown over which they could squabble. Vanas escorted her and Tarnit down a curtain-swagged corridor she did not recognize. He was the same age as Jehosh, a good-looking and somewhat portly man with the confidence that comes from knowing you have the king’s ear.

  “Lord Vanas, I haven’t seen you for years. I remember you and Jehosh were great friends as children. You made a charming pair with your antics. As I recall, you served in the Black Wolves in your youth.”

  “Injured in the second Eldim campaign, Marshal,” he said with admirable politeness, “and unable to serve as a soldier afterward, so I found a way to serve the king at court.”

  “That’s right. You married Jehosh’s younger sister and became head of the treasury. I remember hearing ru
mors that you married her in order to get your hands on the treasury.”

  “Do you trust rumors, Lady Dannarah?” he asked without turning a hair.

  “I also remember hearing stories that you endured the brutal training to make the cut as a Black Wolf in order to prove yourself worthy of her.”

  “I like that rumor better.”

  She noted how he smiled as at a fond memory, then frowned as at a gloomy one.

  “I recall her as a quiet girl, like her mother, exceedingly shy,” reflected Dannarah, thinking back to the many happy days she had spent with Atani and his household. “Atani made it clear she wasn’t to be sent south to the empire to marry, as three of our younger sisters were. A fate I escaped myself, I should note. I hope you have been a good husband to her, Lord Vanas.”

  His step faltered as his shoulders stiffened. He increased his stride to force her to trot along after. “Why would you doubt that I had? You never approved of Jehosh and his friends, did you?”

  “Some of the reckless mischief you got up to when you were young might have caused me to doubt your common sense. Certainly Jehosh has made some unwise decisions over the years. I’m not the only person who has mentioned it. In fact, I recall people wondering why Jehosh would have agreed to marry his sister to you, considering that your elder brother Seras murdered King Atani.”

  “Demons got their claws into many people at that time. Seras died that day, too, didn’t he? The demons made sure of that. His death is one act I can honestly thank demons for!”

  “I don’t blame you for your brother’s treachery, but I’ve never understood why you stood back and allowed Seras’s innocent sons to be punished with castration for their father’s crime. They were children. Your own nephews!”

  He gave her a sharp look. “Did you never hear the full story? Seras thought that if he killed King Atani while Jehosh was still young—just twenty-one that year!—then Seras—being older and established as a strong military man—could overthrow an unready Jehosh and make himself king. You were among those who thought Jehosh was unready, weren’t you, Lady Dannarah? Sometimes I think you thought Jehosh would never be ready, never be able to fill the boots of his grandfather and father.”