Caimbeul had never been to Wolffgard before and had not been on Red Wolf soil since the Lycan Rebellion, when Waejontor annexed that swath of land now called the Hellblade Corridor and cursed or consecrated depending on which side you were on it with the blood of lycan princes from each of the Nine Great Clans.
Pandeena spied the woven arbor standing in the middle of the garden at the same time that Caimbeul did: a wedding arch. The bride and groom walked through it together in symbol of their joining. It would be left there until the bride became pregnant, and then taken down as a signal to the community that their mating had proved successful. A lycan bride's duty was to produce her first cub as soon as possible. The sooner an arbor went down, the more the male's reputation in the community increased.
"Who married?" Pandeena asked.
"Our princess. We were beginning to think she wouldn't ever stop lusting after that filthy sa'necari who abandoned her."
Pandeena smiled back at Odhran. "Who was the lucky wolf?"
"Not a wolf. But, at least he isn't sa'necari." Odhran's tone sounded a bit off, and Caimbeul wondered at that.
Pandeena tilted her head to the side. "Who?"
"Malthus Estrobian. He's a strong male. He'll have the princess swollen with a proper heir for old Claw in no time."
The breath caught sharply in Pandeena's lungs, tightening her chest, and she glanced at Caimbeul, who gave her a tiny nod. "I'm happy for her," Pandeena lied.
"A wedding is always a happy event," said Caimbeul. "I can't wait to congratulate them."
"The lawgiver from Sweet Fishes presided over it. He's gone back to his village now. I expect you'll want to visit all the villages," said Odhran.
"In time in time." Caimbeul pulled at his grizzled chin.
Odhran knocked on the manor's door and a nibari answered. The delicate brunette was hugely swollen in the last stages of pregnancy. Claw had acquired a young nibari stud last winter named Klaudi, and to test his fertility had bred three of his females to him as soon as they came into season. Nibari had a ninety day cycle, rather than the twenty-day cycles of human and lycan females, with a two week window of fertility. Rumor had it that Klaudi had been thoroughly exhausted by the time that all three of the females had caught.
"Hello, Isbeth." Odhran winked at her belly with a grin. "We're here to see your master. Pandeena has brought the new lawgiver."
Isbeth nodded to him, and ushered them into the great hall. A huge hearth at the far end dominated the room and there were four looms set out to the side of it. Clusters of furniture filled the chamber. Six people sat in the hall.
Merissa's mother Aisha, and her paternal aunts, Fianait and Searlait, sat at their looms near the hearth working the delicate kazamerie wool that their family was famous for. Aisha had gone grey with age and very little of her youthful brown coloring remained in her heavy hair. Fianait, although younger than her brother Claw by a handful of years, had thinning white hair that she wore in a bun. Searlait, the youngest, had a single white streak through her fading chestnut hair. Merissa had been a change of life child for Claw and Aisha; looking at Searlait, Pandeena could tell that Merissa had gotten her coloring from Claw's side of the family.
Merissa sat in a chair near the looms with Malthus beside her, his hand possessively on her arm. She had the flushed look of a newlywed when the mating began in earnest. Pandeena noted that Merissa had set aside her usual attire human styles that showed her body off and wore instead the traditional lycan wraparound robe that could be easily opened to facilitate their shape changing. However, Pandeena suspected that shape changing was not the reason Merissa wore it, since it also made it easier for Malthus to get her clothes off. Pandeena had no doubt that Malthus would get a child on her very quickly if he was fertile. A lycan child would inherit the valley, since Merissa's bastard son Darmyk had been born sa'necari.
If Malthus were the Butchering Serpent, as Pandeena suspected, then he was sa'necari and they were rarely fertile at the age that this mon appeared to be. Yet, when Pandeena had touched him briefly several weeks ago, she had detected nothing to suggest he was anything more than true human. If he was not the Serpent, then he was allied with that mysterious, faceless sa'necari who had systematically murdered hundreds of her race. Of that, at least, Pandeena was certain. Some kind of link did exist. She hoped that Caimbeul would uncover it.
She shook herself free of her thoughts before she stared too long at Malthus and gave her suspicions away. "Congratulations on your marriage, Merissa and Malthus."
"Thank you," Merissa responded politely. She regarded Caimbeul closely. "For some reason, I expected you to look like my Uncle Brock, Aunt Fianait's twin brother."
Fianait chuckled. "Brock was such a handsome young wolf."
"Have I disappointed you?" Caimbeul asked.
Merissa blushed. "No, not at all."
Claw sat near the hearth in a large chair with a stand beside it. A small pipe rack with six pipes and a jar of tobacco rested in the center of the stand. He put his pipe aside, and rose when they entered. "Pandeena, who have you brought us?"
"Our new lawgiver. Caimbeul of Running Horse is now Caimbeul of Wolffgard."
Caimbeul and Claw looked to be the same age, both grizzled and gray, yet still hardy. The three old lycans at their looms gave Caimbeul polite dips of their shoulders and went on about their weaving.
Claw looked astounded at his good fortune, and the bright smile that spread across his grizzled features took ten years off his age. "I met you when I was sixteen."
Padruig Caimbeul shook his head. "You have it wrong. We met several times during the Rebellion. We spoke last on the Day of Despair just after they dumped Tarrant's body at your feet."
"You're right." The shadow of remembered nightmares gathered in Claw's dark cobalt eyes. "Memory has become a labyrinth. Bright and clear before the Rebellion and lost in shades of gray until a few years after it."
Claw shoved the dark mood aside and gestured for everyone to sit with a wave of his hand. "Isbeth, get us some mead and some wine. As I recall, you'd rather have red wine, than mead, Pandeena?"
Malthus frowned slightly, and then lowered his head with a glance to the side at Merissa. "Let's go upstairs. There are things we should be doing."
Merissa flushed, placed her hand on his, and rose with him. "You'll excuse us?"
Pandeena nodded and settled into a chair beside Caimbeul. "Certainly. And, yes, Claw, you remembered my preferences."
Isbeth headed for the kitchens at a gesture from the chieftain.
"Yah. My great grandbitch was fireborn," Caimbeul said. "I figure I've still another five or six centuries left in me."
"And we'll be glad to have them." Claw took up his pipe, scraped it out and refreshed the tobacco, then struck a lucifer and lit it. He had barely taken four puffs when he set it aside, sagging back in his chair with a grimace, kneading his left arm.
Pandeena frowned. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," Claw growled, in an annoyed tone, adding grudgingly, "I've been getting these pains."
"Have you spoken to the healer?" Pandeena leaned forward in her seat, regarding Claw for a long time. "The valley depends upon you. You must take care of your health."
"I don't need her. They go away." He made a dismissive gesture and started smoking again.
"How long have you been having them?"
"A week or two. It's nothing. It'll pass."
"Is Kynyr around?"
Claw shook his head. "He's gone to Hell's Widow for a few days. Errands. He'll be back tomorrow."
"I'm looking forward to meeting this Kynyr Maguire," said Caimbeul. "I have heard a lot about him." I'm going to break his bloody nose and then see if Pandeena can still call him handsome.
Pandeena flushed. "Come on. There's things you need to see. People to meet."
* * * *
Merissa climbed the stairs to the suite she shared with Malthus. Her parents had moved her into a larger suite of rooms, now that she sh
ared her bed with a husband. Malthus walked with his arm around her, whispering eroticisms into her ear and kissing her neck.
As they went down the hallway, Darmyk ran up to her. He pulled at her skirts. Kenly, his maned hunting cat stalked along behind him, his ever-present companion, and guardian that at one hundred and fifty pounds no one in their right minds would mess with. Darmyk was nearly three years old, but like most children of lycan blood, he was as coordinated as a human child of seven and precocious in his speech.
"Mama, I want to show you something."
She looked into his eager face, and felt a twinge of unhappiness. Since marrying, Merissa had very little time for her son, except when Malthus went into the village for something, over to help with the refugees at the sanctuary camp, ran errands in Hell's Widow, or off to hunt in order to supply the camp with meat. The rest of the time he spent opening her legs at every opportunity. It was not that Malthus was unskillful no, he was very good in bed just that there was so much of it, and so little of anything else.
"I can't right now, Darmyk. Please go play with Ros and Lyrri."
Darmyk looked intensely disappointed. "All right, mama." He walked off with downcast eyes.
She watched the little boy go and it tugged at her heart that she couldn't play with him as much as she used to.
"He'll be okay." Malthus slipped his arm around her waist and nibbled at her ear. "He needs to learn to do without you more. Especially once we give him a little brother or sister."
"I know."
Merissa had confided her feelings to her mother about Malthus' sexual appetites, and been advised that it would pass, that it was natural at this point in a marriage, and that she should give him what he wished like a proper wife. Her father had been blunt and to the point as soon as they exchanged their vows, telling her and Malthus, "Get me an heir. One that will be acceptable to the clans."
The clans rarely allowed themselves to be governed by a bitch; it nearly always had to be a dog wolf. Neither she nor Darmyk would be acceptable to the elders should something happen to her father.
They entered their chambers, and Malthus locked the door. "I don't want the children walking in on us." He pulled his tunic off and tossed it onto a chair.
Merissa opened her robe and let it fall to the floor, revealing her body.
Malthus sat in the chair, drew his boots off, and untied his pants, shoved them down and stepped out of them. He stood, and Merissa could see that he was already aroused. Malthus took her hand, and led her into their bedroom.
She lay down and he climbed onto the bed beside her, running his hands over her. His fingers circled her stomach. "When it swells, how will you feel?"
"Happy," Merissa answered. "I want your child, Malthus."
He kissed her forehead, her mouth deeply, and then each of her nipples. "Each day, I dream of seeing my son sucking on those lovely breasts."
"But we might have a daughter."
"Whatever, I'll love it." He probed between her legs with his long fingers, played with the knob of her clit. "I want a large family, many children. Some of both. Humans are not as long-lived as your kind. I'm thirty-six. I haven't a lot of time to make them."
"I know." Merissa said, and then gave a long moan of pleasure as he aroused her body, making her impatient to have him inside her.
Malthus licked his way along her and tormented her nipples with his teeth. His cock bobbed tantalizingly against her clit. "You'll always look more beautiful to me when you're swollen with my children, than when you're slender without them."
"Seed me," Merissa moaned again. "Seed me."
Malthus reached down, guiding his knob inside her warm, wet sheath, and began to thrust.
* * * *
Odhran followed Pandeena and Caimbeul as they left the manor after their conversation with Claw. "Shall I fetch your horses?"
"Nah, I'd rather walk." Caimbeul scratched at the stubble on his chin.
"Our lawgiver was teaching the morning classes at the camp," Odhran said. "And then our priest, that was old Tempest, taught the second half, religious stuff and so forth."
"Tempest Anstey?" Caimbeul asked.
"Why, yes, Master Caimbeul."
"Caimbeul's my name, not Master Caimbeul," he said, then added with a wink, "Though to listen to her..." he thumbed at Pandeena, "you'd think it was Old Lecher."
Odhran looked uncomfortable as Pandeena grumbled under her breath and waved him away. "I'll show Caimbeul around. Do you have a lawgiver house?"
"Yes. But it hasn't been lived in since Nevin left. Nikko stayed with his mother."
"Nikko's the dead one?" Caimbeul asked.
"Yes," replied Odhran. "It will probably take a day or two for the house to be made livable." He scratched at the back of his head. "Actually Cahira Sinclair used the house for a bit after Kynyr was wounded."
"Caimbeul can stay with me until its ready," Pandeena told him.
"As you wish." Odhran hurried off.
Pandeena turned to Caimbeul, with her hands on her hips, and a stern expression. "Next time you're wondering why I divorced you, think about how what you just said sounded."
"Then it wasn't just the boy?" Caimbeul asked, sobering.
She looked away from him in discomfort. "No. Losing him was just the last cut of the knife."
"I'm sorry."
"Yes, I'm sure you are," she said, going suddenly brusque. "Come on. If I had thought that anyone else was up to the task at hand, I would never have asked you."
The rustic village contained mostly the traditional longhouses of variegated stone, with newer frame houses sprinkled through, painted in the forest colors beloved of the lycans. A single main street traversed the village, which was almost large enough to be called a small town, with numerous residential side streets. They passed a large assortment of shops and establishments, including two eateries, a couple of taverns, a dry goods, a tanners, and toward the end a blacksmith and a harness-maker. The majority of lycans were no more than semi-literate, hence the graphics on the signs over every place of business.
A block from a large tavern, the Difficult Horse, Caimbeul saw a sign that made him stop in his tracks and stare.
BAROUCHA'S POTIONS
"Tell me that's not Baroucha Seaver"
Pandeena glanced at the sign. "I'm afraid it is."
"Shit. Let's go. I'll want to think about this."
Where human villages tended to be dirty, with streets of dead brown, packed down earth, the lycan main street was thick with trees of all kinds and grass growing in a wide swath down the middle. Trees shaded the fronts and sides of every building, with tree rounds and benches for sitting scattered through with comfortable abandon. The lycans were fond of sitting outside and gabbing with whoever happened by. People stopped to nod at them and acknowledge their priest Pandeena in a mix of politeness and curiosity as they sized up the newcomer walking beside her.
She introduced Caimbeul as they walked, knowing that word of his arrival would sweep the village, and everyone would know by nightfall.
At the northeast end of the village, the road divided into a Y, with the left hand road leading to the refugee camp and the right hand continuing on to the next village. They took the left branch and walked along the shady path until they reached the camp.
The sanctuary proved to be mostly a cluster of woven cone-shaped sheelings that required dropping to your knees before crawling inside. Smoke rose from ventilation holes in the roofs. A long house built of stone stood at the center with a chimney in the middle of its roof. Several smaller buildings of wood stood half finished. A short distance away three more stone houses were being raised as permanent shelters, as well as others that were still being constructed by the refugees with hired-help and volunteers from among the lycans. Most of the workers were teenagers, yet they moved to their tasks capably and without hesitation. All lycans were reared to a trade as soon as they could walk, and at fourteen they took on an adult's work as they were then considered
to be of legal age. All of the land had once belonged to Beth Ryan, a lycan who had donated and supervised most of it until her death early in the summer, and was now run by Clodagh Demarist under the auspices of the Willodarian Shrine.
Several young myn paused in their work to regard them. Caimbeul's glance went to the spellcords on a female's wrists. "How many sa'necari did you say are here?"
"Five. All women with children. I'm told they allowed themselves to be corded in order to have sanctuary here for the children. Two of them have lycan children."
"Interesting. Lots of cubs here," Caimbeul observed.
"Well, yes, but then that's the reason they're all here. Women with children can't run as far and as fast as males, so they needed a place to go to ground as close to their home territories as they could. Although the one from farthest away is Diantha. She tried for the Sharani border, because she was close on it. But the Battle of Phligethyn forced her to turn back. Two of her three children perished before she reached here."
Pandeena pointed to a slender dark mon, who stared dully across the yard. "Only her twelve year old daughter survived. They had both been beaten and raped during their flight here. I'm told the daughter was given tansy shortly after arriving to abort what those assholes shoved inside her."
Caimbeul stared at his hands for a time. "There's no way to keep our people out of the war."
"It isn't a question of keeping our people out of it. The assholes have brought it to us," Pandeena growled. "You were further from it when you were at Running Horse in Silverpaw. Red Wolf is on the leading edge of it. This time, don't let me down."
Caimbeul lifted her eyes to hers. "I won't, Pandeena. I swear it."
"Come on and I'll introduce you to Clodagh." A note of impatience entered Pandeena's voice. "She runs the camp under my supervision."
Pandeena walked up to the central and largest longhouse, where she knocked on the door. An attractive bitch, pretty in a round-faced way, answered.
"Welcome back, Pandeena," Clodagh said in a pleasant voice. She looked Caimbeul up and down speculatively. "Is this our new lawgiver?"
Janrae Frank - [Lycan Blood 02] - Fireborn Law Page 9
