Through Wolf's Eyes (35 page)

Holly Gardener had been watching this byplay with
steady, earth-rooted calm, her hands still busy sorting fresh-picked
squash into that which would be sent to the castle kitchens and that
which would go to the canning sheds.

Firekeeper began again, "Lady Elise Archer, Sir Jared
Surcliffe—may I have the pleasure of presenting my friend Goody Holly
Gardener. Holly, these are my friends."

Rising to her feet with the aid of a gnarled piece of
thorn wood polished bright with beeswax and long use, Holly curtsied as
deeply as her arthritic knees would permit.

"I am honored," she said in her creaky voice, "to
have the heir to House Archer and a knight of the White Eagle grace my
garden. Will you take a bench in the shade along the wall and allow me
to send for something cool to drink?"

Firekeeper shook her head in admiration. She had
completely forgotten her duties, but Holly had rescued her with the
grace and dignity most of the nobles reserved for their most formal
interactions.

It never occurred to her that for Holly Gardener this
meeting might be one of those formal occasions. Firekeeper's own awe of
the gardener's skill was so great that she placed Holly's worth far
above that of the relatively useless members of the court such as Lord
Rolfston or his father, Grand Duke Gadman.

Elise answered, "I thank you for your offer of a
drink, Grandmother, but I see the well just across the way. Let me get
the water and you remain where you are."

Jared grinned. "Not to be outdone, let me lend a hand so
that we won't put you too behind in your tasks."

When Holly began to protest, made honestly anxious by
the thought of a knight of the realm picking vegetables, he stilled her
with a hand on her shoulder.

"Goody, I may have this fancy title, but I am nothing
more than a younger son of landholders of a small, rocky estate on
Norwood lands. By helping you, I may help myself someday. Please, don't
protest further."

Firekeeper held her breath, but there was no need to
intervene. Holly settled back onto the low, three-legged stool she used
to spare her knees.

"Thank you, son," she said, her smile showing only a few missing teeth. "Tell me about your lands."

"My parents' land as of yet," Jared began, "and then my brother's. I am the third born."

Firekeeper knelt in the dirt and started pulling
carrots again, pleased as always to learn something more about how
"real" humans—as opposed to those who resided here in the castle—lived.
Elise came over with a maple bucket half full of cool well water and
silently offered Firekeeper the dipper. She was somewhat clumsy in her
task, but Firekeeper recognized that clumsiness as something she saw
far too often in herself—unfamiliarity rather than ineptitude.

Jared continued talking while thinning carrots from the row alongside Firekeeper's:

"Let's see, the land was in our family before Queen
Zorana established Hawk Haven. Back then it was just a frontier
farm—and not one that was doing very well, either. My ancestors had
ambition but not much luck in the land they held. At first they eked
out their living selling furs and burning charcoal, but that can't go
on forever. The animals either die or get smart enough to leave and you
run out of hardwood.

"So they had to take to serious farming, a thing that
apparently didn't delight my great-great-whatever-grandfather a whole
lot. When the fellow who would become the first Duke of Norwood called
for volunteers to support Zorana Shield against that skunk, Gustin
Sailor, Grandpappy went happily. He did well, too, gaining both booty
and honor. When Queen Zorana created the Norwood grant, my family
was given the Surcliffe holding in perpetuity."

Firekeeper hadn't followed all of this, but enough so that she had a question: "If they not hunt or grow, how did they eat?"

Doc rose, stretching the kinks out of his calf
muscles. "Well, some of them became vassals to the Kestrel family—
earning Kestrel credit, some of which was sent home. There's always
been at least one member of the family stubborn enough to want to stay
and make something of the land. Most recently, my own grandmother
decided to set in grapevines. My father has continued their cultivation
and we're just getting to the point where we're proud enough of our
wine to sell it outside of the Kestrel grant."

Elise, sitting on a bench in the shade, the bucket between her feet, asked, "And you, Sir Jared?"

"Call me Doc, if you don't mind," he said. "The other is so formal."

"Doc, then," she said, "if you don't mind calling me Elise."

"Not at all. I'd be pleased," he replied. "To answer
your question, Elise, right now I'm one of those who's earning money to
send home. Earl Kestrel has been a good patron. We're nearly twenty
years apart in age and not nearly as closely related as he sometimes
represents. My parents are both in good health and hopefully will not
become ancestors for a long while yet—they're of Norvin's generation.
So I've learned medicine and am trying to see something of the country.

"Meanwhile, I send home a portion of my earnings or—
even better—hunt out interesting vine cultivars and vintnering
techniques and send them along. My brother and sister have stayed
closer to home. My sister is an attendant upon Duchess Norwood and my
brother apprenticed to a master wine maker for ten years. He's home
again now and all afire to put his new knowledge to work."

The talk continued in this vein for a while, Holly
Gardener contributing a shrewd thought or two from her vast wealth of
garden lore. Firekeeper listened, pulling carrots until they were all
thinned, then hauling water to the rows.

After a while, a distant bell announced that the time for the evening meal was drawing near. Elise sighed.

"Duty calls. I have promised my mother that I would go with her and the queen to a banquet at Duke Wellward's city house."

She glanced over at Firekeeper, her blue eyes
twinkling, and asked, "Tell me, Lady Blysse, what is Duke Wellward's
relation to me?"

Firekeeper growled, very low, very quiet. This new
addition to her education, the learning of who were the rulers of the
Great Houses and how they related to the players for the throne, made
her head ache. Once again, she thought that wolves solved such
questions so much more simply. Elise, however, was merciless in her
persistence.

"Well, Firekeeper?"

"Duke Wellward is your mother's father," Firekeeper
began, "your grandfather. Your other grandfather is Purcel Archer, the
hero who died in the Battle of Salt Water in the Year 85. Your
grandmother is Grand Duchess Rosene.

"Holly," Firekeeper added inconsequentially, knowing
from Elise's approving smile that she had got the complicated scheme of
relationships right, "has been telling me stories about Purcel Archer.
I think I would have liked him."

Jared Surcliffe grinned. "Given how you have taken to
the bow from the first time Race showed you how to use one, I suspect
that you would have indeed."

He got to his feet.

"Lady Elise, may I escort you back to the castle?"

She nodded and Firekeeper thought that she saw the faintest hint of a blush touch her cheeks.

"Thank you, Sir Jared."

"Doc," he reminded, and she smiled. Doc glanced over at Firekeeper. "Are you coming back with us?"

"I help Holly Gardener carry the baskets in first,"
Fire-keeper replied. "Then I hurry to the castle in time for dinner.
Will Derian be back?"

"Not yet. He has permission to remain out until after dinner."

Bending to pick up one of the baskets of carrots, Firekeeper
watched them leave. Behind her, she heard Holly say softly:

"I like that Elise. Maybe she
would
make a good queen after she has some years on her. She's not too proud to carry water to quench a servant's thirst."

"And Doc?"

"I like him, too," Holly assured her. Then she added
softly, so softly that Firekeeper didn't think she was meant to hear,
"He'd be a far better king than that Jet Shield."

T
HE HOT SUMMER WEATHER
prompted Derian's parents to suggest a picnic along the banks of the
Flin River, upstream of the city. The entire family rode there in a
wagon Derian remembered as being creaky when he was Brock's age, pulled
by an old draft horse to whom Colby and Vernita had given an honorable
retirement three years before. Once arrived, they staked out a section
for themselves and spent the day following quiet pursuits: tossing
horseshoes, rolling hoops, singing rounds and collapsing into
uncontrollable laughter when someone became tangled in the words and
tune.

Derian drifted into the easy relaxation that came
when someone else was in charge and quite capable of doing whatever
needed to be done. Quite willingly, he would have stayed along the
riverbank into the long twilit evening hours, but Brock rather
self-importantly announced that tonight was a meeting of the Bear
Society and he must attend. In any case, the gnats were rising, making
the grassy verge less appealing.

When they returned to the house, Damita made excuses
to go out. She did indeed have a "sweet'a"—or at least imagined that
she did, a youth of sixteen who was apprenticed to their jeweler uncle.
Next to this beau, the entertainment offered by an older brother—even
one who had been living in the king's own castle—had limited appeal.
Knowing this, Colby and Vernita gave in with good humor when Damita
asked
to go out to the nearby market square, where she would doubtless
cluster with a group of girls her own age and giggle at the boys.

Derian's own onetime romance with the baker's
daughter had not survived his long absence and his relocation to the
castle—especially as he was there in the role of guardian to another
girl. His opportunities to cultivate new romances had been limited.

Unlike Ox and Race, who were clearly classed as
servants, his role was more that of an attendant, a subtle distinction
that ruled out the riotous entertainments the other men could pursue.
However, though Derian was slightly more than a servant, he was
definitely less than a noble and thus pretty girls like Elise Archer
remained out of his reach.

Sometimes this bothered Derian. He found himself
brooding that he would become like Valet, a man who apparently had no
interests beyond tending his master. But tonight such worries were far
away. Derian was content to remain at home and enjoy these last few
hours of peace before he must return to his duties.

Once Brock and Damita had departed, the remaining
three moved out into the garden. Most of the peaches had been picked
and enjoyed, but the narrow leaves of the tree created a pleasant,
natural arbor. Derian helped Colby move a few slat-backed chairs and a
small, round-topped table into place. Vernita brought drinks from the
cool room.

"So, who's the favorite candidate with the guilds these days?" Derian asked with slightly forced jocularity.

The longer he had known Firekeeper, the more he had
come to entertain the contradictory feeling that she would be both the
best and worst choice for the new monarch. He hadn't been particularly
easy with himself when he had learned from his parents a week or so
before that the foundling remained high on the list of the people's
choices.

"Well," Colby drawled, sipping his chilled tea with
an appreciative nod to Vernita, "your wolf-woman is still the
romantics' favorite, but those of soberer mind are torn. Some like the
idea of Lord Rolfston Redbriar as he is a steady man with a good
reputation among his own people. It doesn't hurt
that
he has a large family, so we won't see a repetition of this uncertainty
when he passes on. Others say, and loudly too, that Lord Rolfston is
too tightly under the thumb of that sorceress wife of his."

"Derian," Vernita asked, "you've been living in the castle for almost a moon-span now . . ."

"Barely twenty days!" Derian protested.

"Still, long enough to have seen Lady Melina frequently. Do you think she is indeed a sorceress?"

Derian considered this carefully, knowing that his
parents were asking his advice and that they would be certain to repeat
whatever he said to their friends and trusted associates.

"I have seen no absolute evidence," he said, "but I
think that whether or not she is, Lady Melina likes for people to think
that she is gifted far beyond those small talents that sometimes crop
up here and there. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," Vernita replied. "She values the
awe—even the fear with which she is regarded. I wonder if she realizes
that she is hurting her own cause?"

"I doubt it," Derian said. "I don't think she's the
kind to ever think even for a minute that she is anything but an asset.
Now that her son Jet is engaged to Lady Elise, Lady Melina has not one
but two roads to the throne. My feeling is that she's quite smug about
it."

"And the young woman Sapphire," Colby asked. "How is she taking having competition within her own family?"

"She isn't thrilled," Derian admitted. "For a day or
two she sulked in her room like a child. Then she must have realized—or
someone must have told her—that such behavior was not fitting in one
who hoped to someday be monarch. She has been much in public since—even
invited Firekeeper out for some real hawking and was fairly charming to
her, though Firekeeper's Elation did far better than Sapphire's
gyrfalcon—but Sapphire's still cool to Elise."

"And Lady Elise," Vernita asked, a slight twinkle
lighting her eyes that her own son should be on such familiar terms
with the heir to a barony so as to speak of her by her first name, "how
does she view the situation?"

"I think she regrets the estrangement from her cousin but
is
resigned to it. Sapphire Shield is a—to speak mildly— strong
personality. I'm certain they've clashed before. But you haven't
finished telling me about how the common folk view the field. So far my
Firekeeper and Lord Rolfston remain strong contenders . . ."