Fess Bones set himself up for life with his winnings from that betting. It was Longsight Scrounger who, when all was ended, spat teeth onto the floor and then collapsed onto the scarred wood, sliding into a puddle of his own blood and spit.
Some sixteen days later, when Fleet Herald, the messenger Waln had sent to Lady Melina, returned to Smuggler's Light, it was Baron Endbrook who stood at the top of the lighthouse overlooking the swamp, and Longsight—recovered from the worst of his beating, though inclined to whistle between broken teeth—who answered the door and then scurried away.
A more loyal lieutenant than Longsight Scrounger Waln could not have asked for, not if he ordered himself one out of his own warehouses. Like Waln himself—who served Queen Valora out of self-interest, tinged with fear—Longsight respected those more powerful than himself. When he had thought Waln physically vulnerable, he had been willing to dismiss title and wealth. Now these became two more chains that bound Longsight like a whining cur at his master's heel.
If Fleet Herald was surprised at this change to the order of things, he said not a word. He merely dipped his bow deeper than he might have and licked his lips nervously.
Looking down at the cringing messenger, Waln felt deep foreboding replace the comfortable self-satisfaction that had been his daily diet since he had defeated Longsight and stomped a few opportunistic types who had thought to take him on when he was—presumably—weakened.
"I expected you days ago," Waln growled at Fleet. "What is your report?"
Fleet made no excuses nor apologies. He knew—as Waln himself did—that he had made excellent time, especially given the winter weather and the nature of his mission.
"The lady sent no reply to your message, sir," he said in as soft a voice as he dared.
"None!" Waln bellowed.
This had been a possibility he had contemplated only in his gloomiest moments. A doting father himself, he had thought the threat to Lady Melina's daughter would bring him some message from the lady. In his brighter moments, Waln had even contemplated a future where the messenger returned with the three artifacts.
Waln considered the possibility that Fleet had stolen the artifacts, but dismissed it at once. Longsight had recommended Fleet precisely because the man was utterly trustworthy in this type of job and had made himself valuable by being so. Fleet would not risk his reputation for cursed artifacts that he—like any sane man—doubtless feared.
Nor did Fleet Herald have a kingdom to support him—as did Queen Valora or Lady Melina—if he turned thief.
"Are you certain there was no message?" Waln asked, giving Fleet every opportunity to say something that would mitigate the circumstances.
"None, Baron." Fleet straightened and met Waln's eyes. "I waited a full day lest she change her mind, but she sent no word to me, nor did she send out any other messenger. From what I gathered, she must have put what you told her from her mind, for she simply went about her duties."
Waln swallowed a groan of despair. He'd been playing at pirate. Now, it seemed, he might need to turn pirate. Certainly, there would be no returning to the Isles—to his family and fortune—without those artifacts…
Not unless he made every effort to regain them. Queen Valora might forgive him then.
Waln had received Fleet in his private chambers, a decadently overfurnished room that took over the entire space once devoted to housing the light. He'd wanted to be alone to savor his triumph and to contemplate his next move.
How could he counter when the Lady Melina refused to play?
Or what if she didn't intend to play his game, but to write the rules for one of her own?
"Go," Waln said to Fleet. "Get some hot food, a good night's sleep. Tomorrow I'm going to want to know everything—no matter how minor—you learned about Lady Melina and her position in New Kelvin."
Fleet gulped nervously as he made yet another slovenly bow and retreated. Waln, turning to watch him go, saw someone on the landing without—someone who had been bold enough to sneak upstairs and listen.
Sunlight caught fire from the gemstone on her brow as Lady Melina's youngest daughter looked in at him. Citrine's big blue eyes were wide and slightly crazed. She waved her maimed hand at him in a parody of greeting.
She was laughing.
If I live to be as old as King Tedric, Elise thought, I will never forget that journey.
A glimmer of wry humor colored her next thought, Though I might wish to do so.
For three days they had pushed hard, taking side roads whenever possible, riding during the hours they were least likely to meet anyone. As they had descended along the edge of the Sword of Kelvin Mountains, heading not only south but to lower altitudes, the weather had warmed—not enough to offer comfort, but enough that they were forced to contend with mud and slush in the daylight hours.
Sleigh travel was heavier on the roads at night, so night was when they took cover. Always the sense that they were just one step ahead of the alert preyed on them. More than once, Elise had awakened from nightmares where the New Kelvinese guards were at the door to whatever barn or shack they had sheltered in.
Indeed there had been times when, bent over Cream Delight's neck so that she could gather what heat she could from the mare, Elise had felt certain that the alarm must have gotten ahead of them. Every time Firekeeper or Blind Seer brought word of a cluster of houses, an inn, or a larger than usual traveling party, Elise had been certain that their desperate bid for freedom had ended.
Even Elation's return to them two days into their journey had given Elise only a little reassurance. The Royal Peregrine had reported that the New Kelvinese had searched the vicinity around Dragon's Breath for a half-day before finding the imprisoned guards at the end of the sewer tunnel and thus confirming the means of escape from the city.
The heavy snowfall had made it impossible for the New Kelvinese to send out pigeons or to confirm the direction in which the fugitives had gone. When the snow let up, only a few of the reluctant birds could be convinced to fly. Those that had taken off had met with a quick end.
Elation couldn't be certain she had gotten all the pigeons, for she had wisely waited to stoop upon them when they were out of sight of the Beast Lore covey. Riders had been sent out with orders to leave word of the fugitives along the road. The same weather that had made their own journey a misery had slowed these riders as well.
Elise was not comforted by Derian's conjecture that the riders would not be as desperate as the fugitives. He reassured his companions that the messengers would be inclined to take advantage of a gossip-hungry innkeeper's offer of a glass of something hot or comfortable shelter when night drew on.
Derian spoke reassuringly enough, telling anecdotes from his own experience, but Elise noted that the redhead often glanced back along their trail and that more than once Bold was sent to see if any pursued.
Bold had to serve as their aerial spy. As soon as Elation had rested—and Firekeeper had little patience with the peregrine, saying that she was already fat on rich pigeon flesh—the falcon was sent east to the swamps in hope that she would learn something of Citrine Shield's precise whereabouts.
When today had dawned, clear and bright, the falcon had not returned, but Firekeeper was unworried. The bird could go much faster and more directly than any of them, but she still needed to rest and hunt.
Derian had reminded them when they set out that they were only a half-day's journey from Zodara. Despite the exotic sound, Zodara meant something like "Trader Town," and was the easternmost crossing between Hawk Haven and New Kelvin. They had chosen to come here, rather than returning to Gateway, because from Plum Orchard they were days closer to the area where Citrine had last been seen.
Unhappily, coming into Zodara meant that they could not hope to sneak across unnoticed. They had come into the town quite openly—the New Kelvinese put their guards at the riverside, not their own interior.
Zodara was a much larger trade crossing than the Gateway to Enchantmen
t and at this time of year became quite busy. The White Water slowed—as much as that angry body of water ever slowed—when portions upstream froze. Moreover, heavy cargoes, like the glass for which New Kelvin was renowned, were more likely to reach their destinations if slid over snow rather than jolted over stony roads.
This meant that Zodara was quite busy. With Derian's coaching, Elise secured them stabling near the southeast edge of town. The man who owned the warehouse looked at them without curiosity, dismissing them with the typical New Kelvinese disdain for foreigners. However, Elise doubted that he was so dismissive that if an alarm was raised he wouldn't remember them.
The winter weather meant that no one thought it peculiar that they kept their heads covered, so Elise's New Kelvinese haircut went unremarked when she and Derian ventured out into the town to check out their options for getting across.
Elise wasn't terribly hopeful that they could find someone who would carry them to Plum Orchard—she figured they would need to take their risks on the public ferry—but trade goes two ways.
Within a few hours, Derian had recognized a trader with whom his father did some business. Promises of payment and hints of intrigue had fired both this woman's greed and her sense of adventure. By late that afternoon they were all loaded aboard a series of flat-bottomed boats—even Blind Seer, though the wolf had to submit to being caged.
Evening saw them unloaded on the friendly shores of Hawk Haven.
Plum Orchard was a simple town—though at this time of year, swollen as the population was with merchants and their goods, it really qualified as a city. The cobblestone houses and shops looked so reassuringly normal after nearly a moonspan of New Kelvinese architecture that Elise nearly burst into tears.
They took rooms at a coaching house owned by cousins of Derian's mother. In light of the family connection, the owners found room for the rather large group and their animals despite the influx of merchants in Plum Orchard.
A large payment taken out of the New Kelvinese coin earned by Doc's efforts in Dragon's Breath—and easily exchanged here so close to the border—rewarded Derian's relatives for making the travelers welcome and encouraged them to keep from gossiping about their rather remarkable guests.
Elise was fascinated when she realized that to their hosts the most remarkable of these guests was not Derian, though they honored (and slightly envied) him for his counselor's ring, nor was it either herself or Edlin, though they both claimed titles and the promise of sizable inheritance, nor—and this was remarkable in itself—was it Firekeeper and her wolf.
The one whose presence awakened wonder and awe in these sophisticated innkeepers was Grateful Peace. They knew far more of New Kelvinese custom than was usual in Hawk Haven and recognized him for a man of quality and education—a man who, after the custom of New Kelvin, had risen to power more on his own merits than on his ancestry.
But Derian's cousins had been paid for silence and Elise felt sure that they would keep that silence.
For the first time since leaving Hasamemorri's house five days before, Elise had a really hot bath. She scrubbed the last traces of scarlet paint from her skin before tumbling between clean linen sheets. Her last thought before falling asleep was that she would have felt perfectly normal once more had it not been for her hair—or rather her lack of hair.
Early the next morning, Wendee Jay, frowning at her own reflection in the mirror, raised the same subject.
"I don't think I can go home until this has grown out. My little Merri will scream."
Had it not been for a certain defiant humor in the other woman's tone, Elise would have thought her completely serious.
"My parents," Elise replied, "are going to have quite a bit to say about my new style, too. I wonder if bonnets might come back into style?"
They laughed unsteadily. Small hats were definitely "in," but these were mostly ornaments, meant to draw attention to the head. The heavy, all-concealing bonnet belonged to the realm of marketwomen and older ladies, though it was considered permissible for travel.
Firekeeper thumped a couple of times on the door panel and came in. She, too, was scrubbed clean and freshly clothed. Her face, however, seemed to glow with something more than just scrubbing.
"Doc say," she announced, actually pirouetting in place, "that Blind Seer's eye will live!"
Elise felt an answering glow light her own face and Wendee clapped her hands together. Despite his injuries, the great grey wolf had insisted on acting as forward watch for their group. Whereas on the journey out Elise suspected he had often slept for several hours a day, trusting his greater speed to permit him to catch up, this time Blind Seer had been nearby every hour they were on the move.
Only the heaviness of his sleep each night and the quantities of food he required gave hint to the tremendous toll his exertions took on him.
"He will have scar through lid and around eye," Firekeeper continued, "that will always show, but both will work."
The wolf-woman looked truly happy for the first time since she had failed to catch Lady Melina. Elise hoped that Firekeeper was on the way to forgiving herself.
"Blind Seer laugh at me," the wolf-woman continued, her tone sour but her eyes still dancing, "and say, why I keep this silly hair. He say cut it off and have done. Hair will grow back."
She held out a razor. "Would one of you cut it off?"
As Elise accepted the razor, it occurred to her for the first time that Firekeeper was as vain as any woman. Her disinterest in fashion, her open disdain for what she considered the more ridiculous aspects of clothing, her own idiosyncratic manner of dress, all these had blinded Elise to the truth.
Now, as she set about shaving the rest of Firekeeper's tatty hair to an even length, leaving just the bare fuzz of five days' growth against her scalp, Elise realized that Firekeeper would like nothing more than a thick mane of hair.
"How about you?" Firekeeper asked as she viewed the end result of Elise's barbering in the mirror. "Will you go short in front, long in back?"
Elise considered.
"I think so, Firekeeper. I don't have your courage. A tight braid wrapped close and the contrast won't be so obvious. Wendee?"
"I'll follow your lead, my lady." Wendee laughed a trace nervously. " 'Tis bad enough being bald in front without being bald all over."
Firekeeper ran her fingers over the stubble on her scalp, then shrugged.
"I not even had enough to make braid. Maybe someday."
She sounded distinctly wistful.
That trace of femininity vanished, however, when a shrill scream sounded from outside the window.
"Elation!" Firekeeper shouted and ran down the stairs.
They could hear her thudding over two at a time in her haste to get the peregrine's report.
Wendee sighed. "Don't think me coldhearted, Lady Elise, but I was so hoping for a day to let my behind rest from the saddle."
Elise nodded. "You're a kind woman to say so. Citrine is my own cousin and I'd been hating myself for wanting nothing more than to rest. Still, it seems that Elation is going to keep us honest to our better selves."
As she slipped on her outer clothes and hurried outside to hear what the falcon had to report, Elise felt a thin finger of worry touch her heart. They'd been counting on Elation to find Citrine.
What if the falcon had failed?
Firekeeper's bare feet slapped on the wooden treads of the staircase as she raced to meet Elation. Outside, the ground was cold and hard, but she was too excited to miss her boots.
Elation was perched on a narrow fence rail, busily shredding a plump rat that had abandoned its comfortable housing under the floor of one of the hay barns upon finding that barn unaccountably inhabited by a wolf.
Raising her head from her still warm repast, Elation fixed Firekeeper with one of her gold-rimmed eyes.
"I have found Citrine," she cried triumphantly. "As Doc guessed, she is to be found in a stone tower in the swamps to the east. She is pale and fra
gile, but still lives. I saw another thing there as well."
"I am certain you saw many things, mighty conqueror of the clouds," Firekeeper said, lavish with her praise.
Not only did the falcon deserve it, but flattery eased her along like oil on a hinge.
Elation, finished now with the rat, preened, wiping away the worst of the gore.
"I saw a man arriving," Elation said, "a man I had seen in Dragon's Breath some days after our own arrival. He had made himself noticeable to me then, for my eyes are sharp and I miss nothing. I had seen that he had hair beneath the knit cap—hair where a New Kelvinese permitted access into Thendulla Lypella would have had none."
Firekeeper gasped her admiration aloud, encouraging the peregrine to continue.
"He also did not walk like a New Kelvinese. They all mince because of those robes and tight shoes they wear," the falcon continued, exaggerating somewhat. "He walked like a man of Hawk Haven… or perhaps from Bright Bay. In any case, like a man from a place where trousers and boots are worn, not robes and curly-toed slippers."
"Peace doesn't wear curly-toed slippers," Firekeeper protested, temporarily distracted.
"He does in court and among his fellows," Elation retorted placidly. "I saw him."
Firekeeper shook the distraction away.
"So there is contact between New Kelvin and Baron Endbrook," she mused aloud.
"Rather between Endbrook and New Kelvin," Elation corrected, "for I saw that this man was treated as one of the flock at the lighthouse. Nor is Baron Endbrook happy at the news the man carried to him."
"When did you see this?" Firekeeper asked.
"The sun was high then," Elation replied. "When I had seen all I could see, I flew here directly. I rested some when darkness came, then flew much of the next day. Last night, I rested again. When I arrived, I located your lodgings by the mules in the pasture."
"Less than two full days," Firekeeper said. "I am impressed. Even for a falcon of your power and tenacity, that was a flight of which to sing."
Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart Page 64
