by J. C. Hendee
Domin Ginjeriè stood near a casement behind her desk, an old book opened in her hand. She looked up from studying it and, at the sight of Kyne, she smiled.
“What is it this time?” the domin asked.
This was not the first time Kyne had come rushing into the domin’s study in search of a lead on information. So at least this time was not so suspicious.
“I want to find out more about wolves,” she said. “Mostly about how they are with people or anything about any of them ever being… domesticated. I thought there might be something specific in the archives.”
This was more than she wanted to reveal, but she saw no other way to find what she was after.
Domin Ginjeriè grew still in watching her and then slowly pulled the marker out of the back of the old book.
The marker was actually that yew-wood disk with the braid of charcoal hairs she sometimes carried with her. At a second glance, Kyne thought the book’s open pages looked a bit more like notes. Though in ink, not charcoal, they were not the crisp symbols of a finely scribed text.
The domin placed the token-bookmark gently in the book—perhaps an old journal—and closed it. She set the book gently on a shelf, as if it were fragile.
“I think the main library will suffice,” Domin Ginjeriè said.
Kyne was careful to not look disappointed, but as she shuffled over to the desk, she still muttered, “Yes, domin.”
The main library was fine for most things, but she preferred looking for better in the archives. Perhaps the domin didn’t have time to escort her.
“I will look up some listings to shorten your search,” Domin Ginjeriè said. She rounded to her desk to head for the room’s far side, where she pulled out one volume from a matched set.
Every domin had a set of codex volumes with topical listings. There was a set in the main library, but the ones given to domins often had the newest listings.
Kyne lingered near the desk as Domin Ginjeriè paged through that volume.
Without looking up, the domin suddenly asked, “I hope this has nothing to do with what we talked about?”
Kyne swallowed hard, though her answer was not a lie. “No… but similar. I thought to learn more about wolves… and people.”
“Hmm,” the domin uttered.
Kyne quickly looked away at anything else and found herself eying that odd old book the domin had left on the shelf. Closer now, she saw the marker’s strands, bound with that bit of old green ribbon, sticking out of book’s bottom end.
Those charcoal hairs glistened, and it looked to her like any one of them alone would not have been long enough for the braid’s whole length. They were certainly not from a lhoin’na, but perhaps also too short for horsehairs from a mane or tail—unless over the years they had broken off or had to be trimmed.
For as often as the domin carried that token, it seemed an odd choice to leave behind in book. This made Kyne wonder more about what was in that supposed old journal.
“Here we are.”
Kyne turned about as Domin Ginjeriè came toward her, the codex volume still in hand. The domin set that on the desk, picked out a scrap of paper nearby, and began making notes on it with a writing stick. When finished, she handed the paper scrap to Kyne.
“This should be enough,” Domin Ginjeriè declared. “At least for… what should be… a passing interest.”
Kyne looked over what was written on the scrap: geometric shapes followed by a couple of titles in Begaine syllabic symbols. Every text in a guild branch was marked by such shapes, one for each guild order and its emphasis. The order of those symbols told sages the main emphasis and sub-focus for the contents of any text. That was how she was to find where those titles were shelved.
“Thank you,” she said, nodding once under Domin Ginjeriè’s watchful eyes.
Before the domin could question her further, she hurried off to the main library. She still wished she could have gone down to the archives instead.
The main library was mostly empty. Except for her and a few apprentices, most initiates were off in seminars, study sessions, and the like for the morning. She scanned the shelves in walking among the tall casements, knowing where to at least find the general area needed.
When she found the right place, and on the main floor, fortunately the three volumes she sought were on a low shelf. She didn’t need to find someone to get them for her and pulled out all three to plop down at the nearest empty table she could find.
There was plenty concerning what was known or assumed about wolves and their ways in the wild, as well as a few types from different regions. There were also unsettling parts about how to deal with them attacking livestock and how to… get rid of them. The biggest disappointments were the few inked illustrations. Only one showed young wolves next to an assumed female and the rest of the pack nearby in a woodland setting.
The little ones looked like the wolf cub… or rather he looked like them. With only black ink for the drawings, there was no telling if his coloring matched theirs. She had hoped she might be wrong about… the wolf.
She skimmed through every page and paragraph, just the same. Neither was there anything useful about how to interact with a wolf, let alone a very young one that had been captured and abused. Domesticating one had been a silly notion anyway, considering she had no idea how or where she could have even kept the cub.
Clang-clang.
Kyne started upright, uncertain at first how many high-pitched bells she had heard. It was difficult to hear the city’s bells this deep inside the keep, so on the eighths as well as the quarters of the day, appointed apprentices walked the passages ringing out the time.
Clang-clang, Clang-clang…. Clang-clang.
“Oh no!”
Kyne slammed the last book closed; she had been sitting there all morning and lunch was likely already being served in the commonhall. Grim would be waiting for her.
She almost rushed off but stalled to grab the books. Dropping those in the pile on the little table by the library’s main entrance, she ran out and up the central passage toward the keep’s main doors. With no sign of Grim ahead, she rounded the corner toward the commonhall.
Grim was hurrying toward her, though he glanced twice over his shoulder before they reached each other.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
“I was… oh, come with me,” and she grabbed his arm to head back toward the commonhall. “We must find something more than breakfast biscuits.”
Grim pulled back.
When Kyne turned, he looked up and down the passage as if fearful of spotting anyone. Without thinking, she did the same and saw few people in the passages.
“What is wrong with you?” she asked.
“I did it… already,” he whispered.
Grim hesitantly spread the top of his robe without untying its belt. Tucked into his pants were six slats of dried jerky.
Kyne looked up, and by Grim’s wide eyes, she thought he might faint right there. Pilfering the panty was Marten’s habit, not Grim’s. She quickly pulled his robe closed and dragged him toward the main doors.
Between all of her lies and now poor Grim having to steal, Marten was a bad influence on both of them. When they rushed out the main doors, they pulled up short in a few steps into the courtyard.
Kyne stared, even as she heard Grim’s shallow breaths become rapid.
“Calm down,” she whispered. “This cannot be about us.”
Across the courtyard before gatehouse tunnel—and right in their way—stood stood Domin High-Tower barking bitterly at a tall man in a red tabard over a mail shirt. On the man’s thick belt hung a longsword in a sheath with a brass plate.
Kyne was too far off to make out the plate’s engravings, but she didn’t need to; that tabard clearly marked him as one of the Shyldfälches. They were a military division, though they served exclusively as the city guard of Calm Seatt. With so few other sages about—mostly initiates on their way to lunch—it was not h
ard to hear the guardsman raise his voice over the domin’s.
“Pardon, Domin. I realize this is unusual, but the captain insists. I’m to follow any lead concerning this crime… however unlikely.”
Kyne started panting like Grim. When she looked at him, he had lashed both arms across his stomach, as if the jerky might leap out of his pants into plain sight.
“And I do not see how this pertains to the guild,” Domin High-Tower snapped. “Your captain has a penchant for thinking any mischief in this city involves us!”
Kyne clutched Grim’s shuddering arm and tugged him into a stumble. She walked casually toward the gatehouse tunnel—and the guardsman and the domin. Halfway across the courtyard, she had to stop herself from staring at the supposedly young man in the red tabard.
“And yet, I must investigate,” that one answered back to the domin’s continuous badgering.
Young as he was, perhaps handsome in a stern way, Kyne fixed for an instant on the guardsman’s strangely steel-gray hair. Too many odd little things had been catching her eye lately. By the plate on his sword’s sheath, he was not just any guardsman.
“I do not care, Corporal Lúcan,” the domin grumbled. “That children were seen nearby does not mean they are to be found here.”
Kyne almost stumbled when she found herself suddenly looking straight in the corporal’s eyes. Not that the corporal had turned his head, just those eyes, in studying her. She quickly looked away, pulling a panting Grim even faster toward the tunnel.
“Not only children,” the guardsman said. “Shortly before, a tan-robed youth, more like a child for size, was seen nearby. That would be one of your initiates.”
Kyne began shaking as much as Grim, and they both scurried into the gatehouse tunnel.
“I am not accusing anyone,” the corporal continued, “but the lock on the cage was broken off, somehow. The missing dog is claimed to be in training for and delivery a Northlander chieftain. This theft and a guild initiate seen nearby means I have to inquire… here.”
Kyne sped into a run, dragging Grim.
They raced past the two apprentices on duty at the tunnel’s outer end, and she whipped open the bailey gate. Neither of them stopped until they were halfway down the bailey wall and just short of Leaful Street. She was panting as hard as Grim when they both collapsed against the wall’s outside.
“What do we do?” Grim blurted. “They know—somebody saw us!”
“Shush!” Kyne warned. “They know no such thing.”
But she was as frightened as he looked. Her head was buzzing with too many concerns.
From what she had overheard two nights ago, the wolf-catcher’s ship was due in port today. Since then, he and maybe the driver had reported a theft of livestock to the Shyldfälches. Now that she knew it was just a wolf, she really was a thief, no matter that wolf-catcher had lied in calling it a “dog.”
“We have to get rid of it… him,” Grim rushed on. “We can sneak it out toward the southern city gate and maybe if the guards see it—”
“And what?” she interrupted, rambling on in fright. “How would we even do that, if he lets us… if that was not so cruel? And who mans the city gates? Shyldfälches, that is who!”
Grim fell silent, nervously looking about, as did Kyne.
If they were—if she was—caught, there would be no arguing that a young wolf was sacred or a person or anything. Even if she dared, no one would believe her, and it would be another lie.
Kyne looked up and down the front run of Old Bailey Road around the keep. People went their various ways, though not many, but maybe a few she saw—or even ones she didn’t see—had glanced at a pair of initiates lingering by the guild’s outer wall. She was suddenly conscious of how she was dressed.
Neither she nor Grim had left their robes behind, as it was the middle of the day. Someone had seen an initiate on the night before the wolf cub had been stolen. Maybe that someone had seen an initiate right next to that wagon behind one warehouse.
“Hurry!” Kyne whispered, grabbing Grim’s arm before he could argue.
· · · · ·
Kyne and Grim never looked back as they raced for the Hoof House. Not even when she panicked more, realizing that a couple of initiate sages running through the streets would attract even more attention. She was desperate to get to Marten and the wolf and… then what? They had to do something, now that the city guard was looking for a stolen “dog.”
Both of them were out of breath when they reached Master Boulg’s place, coming upon it from the front side and his home.
Kyne waited and watched until any passersby were far off, and then they snuck around the back to the woodpile and the lean-to shed. They were still panting when they climbed up and through the hatch into the loft.
“Hey, is that you?” Marten called sharply from below.
Kyne was too exhausted to answer who else. By the time she and Grim climbed down the ladder, the first oddity she spotted was the cage’s tarp. It was now in a rumpled pile within the first stall on the stable’s left side. Strangely, part of it looked wet, but there was no chance to look for the little wolf.
Marten lunged from his crouch against stable doors and came straight at her.
“You… you and that… that little gnasher!” he sputtered out.
Kyne was so startled she didn’t even scold him about that name. “What are you talking about?”
“All of your majay-nonsense, that’s what! You got us into this mess because you think you know something you don’t. And you stuck me with that animal all night.”
Marten was in such a state that she back-stepped. When he came at her again, Grim stepped in and braced his hands against Marten’s chest. Aside from furious, Marten looked almost as tired as Kyne felt, but she peered again into the nearest stall.
“What now?” she sighed out. “And why is the tarp in there… and wet?”
“The little whelp peed on it!” Marten shouted at her.
Kyne’s thoughts blanked for an instant.
Why would the cub do that? She had never considered that need before now, but certainly he could—should—have relieved himself in some corner.
“What did you do?” she snapped at Marten.
“Nothing… just trying to get some sleep.”
“So what does it matter if he—”
Marten lunged against Grim’s hands. “I was sleeping… under the tarp… when he did it!”
Kyne flinched as Grim sucked a breath, and then…
“Yuck!” Grim uttered.
He jerked away his hands, slapping them down the front of his robe. At the loss of support in leaning, Marten’s eyes popped wide as he flailed. Kyne quickly hopped aside, and Marten hit the dirt floor, face first. Just the same, she rushed at him.
“What did you do, and where is he?” she demanded. She looked around again and something other than the wolf cub was missing. “Where is his water… and the tin plate?”
Marten pushed up to his hands and knees. “I took it away.”
“What? Why?”
“Every time I put water in it, the little monster snarled at me. And every time I closed my eyes… that pest went and slung the plate across the stable.”
Marten rose up, dusting himself off. Grim was still wiping his hands on his robe in a disgusted fidget.
“So I took away the plate,” Marten said, right into Kyne’s face, “to get some sleep!”
Kyne bit down against another retort.
It was very clear whom the wolf cub disliked the most, aside from the wolf-catcher. Instead of asking again where he was, she wandered off down the stable.
As expected, she spotted him—and he her—where he lay in the last stall on the left. He was barely visible by what daylight seeped between the stable’s old boards. He remained silent, though she also kept her distance.
With what had happened in the guild courtyard, this mess was more than she had anticipated. About to turn back and demand where Marten had put t
he tin plate, she found Grim right behind her with a sour look on his chubby-cheeked face.
He had the plate and ale bottle in his hands.
When Kyne took those, Grim quickly dug out four jerky slats from inside his robe and pants. All the while, he nervously eyed the wolf cub, which didn’t growl at him. After Kyne had seen to the cub’s needs, again having to show him the jerky was safe, she turned back toward the stable’s front.
Along the way, Grim nervously gnawed on a jerky slat and offered her the last one. She shook her head, and they found Marten sitting in a sour sulk against stable doors with his knees pulled up.
“Are we done yet?” he muttered under his breath. “We sneak him out to a city gate at dusk, before any of us are missed for another night… and that’s that.”
Kyne sank down in the middle of the front bay. When she told Marten what she and Grim had overheard from the corporal, Marten groaned and dropped his forehead on his knees. He said nothing more about releasing the wolf cub near a city gate.
Grim looked to Kyne, obviously lost, for he didn’t yet understand what Marten—and Kyne—did.
Stolen livestock had been reported to the city guard. Something as big as even a young “dog,” likely with a description and mention of children or even initiates, would be easy to spot. A watch warning must have been given to all guards at the city’s gates and the port, and perhaps civilian constabularies in this very district.
Without help—unlikely to impossible—they were never sneaking a little wolf out of the city now.
Kyne looked back down the stable and then straightened up where she sat.
The wolf cub stood in plain sight beside the stored wagon. He stared toward stable’s left wall and stalls as his ears pricked up. Then his head began turning slowly, as if again he watched something right through that wall.
Kyne soon heard the footfalls, more than one pair, scuffing along outside of the stable.
“Sorry ‘bout the bother, but… well, just checkin’, that’s all. Gotta find it ‘fore the ship leaves.”
That muffled voice was familiar, but as Kyne turned slowly like the wolf cub in following those footfalls…
Marten was up and coming at her.
