Wolf Captured (11 page)

Firekeeper made no attempt to flee. She was interested, and Harjeedian was the one who could answer her questions. He, however, started talking before she could voice even one.

“What are you doing in my cabin?” he asked sharply, his tone holding both anger and anxiety.

Firekeeper looked steadily at him.

“I am parole. I go anywhere on sip.”

Harjeedian pushed past her, and his anxiety faded as he saw the three snakes were untouched.

“Didn’t anyone tell you it is rude to go into someone’s private space?”

Firekeeper tilted her head.

“I am parole,” she repeated patiently.

Harjeedian sighed. Derian had appeared from somewhere, and Harjeedian addressed his next remarks to him.

“Explain to her, when you have time, that parole does not include the right to invade other people’s quarters. I do not care to think how the captain would react if she found Lady Blysse in her cabin. Seafaring folk have so little private space that they are quite protective of what they do have.”

Derian glanced at Firekeeper, amusement and exasperation blended on his face.

“You know about this,” he said. “It’s the same as in Hawk Haven or Bright Bay or anywhere else.”

Firekeeper repeated stubbornly.

“I am parole.”

Derian looked at Harjeedian.

“I’ll work on it,” he promised. “It’s a wolf thing. She tends to interpret very literally, especially where rights and privileges are concerned. It isn’t just redefining a term. It’s taking something away—and wolves are very protective of what they think of as belonging to them.”

Harjeedian shook his head.

“I will remember this. You will explain how she thinks to Barnet and the captain—as well as explaining our customs to Lady Blysse.”

“Right,” Derian said.

He was turning away when Firekeeper asked, “Harjeedian, why do you have snakes in cabin? Where is snake four? What kind are they?”

For the first time, Derian seemed to notice the odd arrangement atop the cabinet. Firekeeper had to remind herself that he saw far less well in poor light than she did—and his eyes had been sunblinded from the glare of light against water.

“Snakes?” Derian repeated. “Here?”

Harjeedian grew momentarily defensive; then his usual arrogant amusement returned.

“Snakes here, here, and here,” he said, pointing at the three rocks, “and here.”

With the last he opened the folds of his shirt to show a fourth snake coiling close to the brown skin of his body. This one was less torpid than its kin, warmed by contact with the man. It raised its head and studied them, detached interest in its cold, flat gaze.

“Snakes?” Derian repeated. “Why are you wearing a snake?”

Harjeedian drew in a deep breath.

“Why shouldn’t I? The air is colder than is comfortable for snakes, even with the heat from the brazier. It helps if I let them warm themselves against me. I would take them out on deck, but the chill from the wind would undo whatever good the sunlight would do. Also, I do not wish them to get lost.”

One of Firekeeper’s questions had been answered, but not in a fashion that answered the others.

“Why you bring them? Are they from where you come?”

Harjeedian closed his shirt over the snake.

“I brought them because I wished to do so,” he said. “Does not your culture have societies affiliated with various animals?”

“Derian’s does,” Firekeeper said. “He is Horse.”

Harjeedian gave a half-smile at her reply.

“My culture has something similar,” he said, “although the only ones who choose a specific totem are those in direct service of the deities.”

“Deities?” Firekeeper said. “Snakes are deities?”

She was still having trouble with the concept of deities. Her first explanation had been from Derian, triggered by her discovery of the societies to which every human in Hawk Haven—and later she learned, in Bright Bay as well—be—longed. Young children were dedicated to one of the societies soon after they were born. Each society was named for an animal. Humans regularly called on their society patron in times of stress, but apparently they didn’t expect these patrons to do much of anything. When humans wanted something done, they talked to their ancestors.

Every home had its own ancestor shrine, which celebrated past generations. It also celebrated the deeds of the living. Wedding pouches were hung in family shrines, as were items commemorating other important events. When Derian had been made king’s counselor, his mother had a miniature replica of his counselor’s ring made to keep in the family shrine. As Firekeeper understood it, she would have liked the real ring, but Derian was too often away from home for this to be practical.

Shrine or not, Firekeeper couldn’t see that the ancestors did much for their descendants, but she guessed it made the humans feel better to have someone to ask for help and advice. It also seemed to soothe them to feel that when they died some part of them stayed on.

Ancestors as deities or counselors or whatever made more sense to Firekeeper than some of the other religions about which she had heard. Apparently, in Waterland they thought the stars gave advice. She had no idea what the New Kelvinese worshipped—though it was doubtless related to magic. One of the cultures in Stonehold worshipped their ancestors, but the other had developed some complicated system having to do with the sun and the moon and any number of other things. She had glimpsed an entire tent stocked with the paraphernalia related to this latter religion when spying on the Stonehold army during King Allister’s War.

What puzzled Firekeeper most of all was that the humans didn’t seem to be able to agree on their deities. Certainly, if there were deities then there would be no doubt about them.

Wolves had too much to do just to stay alive and raise their pups to worry about such things. She’d never heard them howl to anyone to stop the rain or save a dying pup. They hunkered down and took what came. They didn’t like it, but they took it. What else was there to do?

Now here she was confronting yet another approach to deities, and this one seemed to have something to do with snakes.

“Direct service of the deities?” she repeated, leaving the question of totems for later.

Harjeedian straightened, leaving no doubt that he was very pleased with himself.

“That’s right,” he said. “I was selected for service, though my family had never before had the honor. My teachers have been pleased with me, and I have been a member of the initiated—our word is ‘disdum’—for many years.”

Firekeeper didn’t understand any of this, so she decided to try totems.

“Totems?” she asked.

Harjeedian partially closed his eyes, looking very snaky himself for a moment.

“I suppose it does no harm to explain a little, though my teachers have reserved the right to tutor you themselves. All the deities are receptive to the prayers of all worshippers, but there are some worshippers who understand the will of the deities more clearly than do others. These become members of the elect. We have two orders within the disdum. The aridisdum, to whom I belong, concentrate mostly on interpreting the omens and offering guidance based on these. The kidisdum are special servants of the deities, keepers of the sacred beasts.”

Firekeeper nodded encouragement, though she still wasn’t at all certain what Harjeedian was talking about.

“Among the disdum,” Harjeedian went on, “there are divisions according to who seems to understand the ways and will of certain deities more clearly. These are then initiated into the lore of those particular deities and take the deities’ totems for their own.”

“And your deity is snake?” Firekeeper asked, hoping she understood correctly.

“No. My totem is the snake. I serve all the deities,” Harjeedian said.

“And so you take snakes with you when you travel?” Firekeeper persisted. “Why? If you like snakes, why take them where it is not good for them?”

Harjeedian glowered at her, obviously offended. Then his expression became merely nasty. He looked over at Blind Seer, who lay on the floor next to her, close enough that his fur brushed her leg.

“You might ask yourself the same question,” he said.

Then he asked them to leave his cabin and closed the door, effectively ending the conversation.

V

FIREKEEPER GREW ALTERNATELY ANGRY and moody following her discussion with Harjeedian regarding snakes and deities. Derian decided that a distraction was in order. He couldn’t get anyone to tell him how long the voyage was likely to take. He wondered if even the captain knew, since the voyage to Hawk Haven was apparently the first time a ship from Liglim had sailed so far north—at least in post-Plague history.

He had already lost count of the days, having failed to start a record early enough, and by the time the idea occurred to him, it hardly seemed to matter. What did matter was that Firekeeper was in a snit, and Firekeeper in a bad mood was dangerous not only to herself but to others.

Barnet had been tutoring Derian on the basic elements of Liglimosh, starting with nouns, promising to move on to verbs, and warning Derian that the linguistic structure was not as simple as Pellish.

“In Pellish,” Barnet said, “a noun usually has two forms: singular and plural. In formal Liglimosh, a noun has six forms, according to how it is being used. To make matters worse, as I hinted earlier, sometimes the only difference between forms is in the stress given to a particular syllable. I’m going to start by teaching you the informal form—nominative singular and plural—and leave it at that. To those with an educated ear, you’ll sound like Lady Blysse speaking Pellish, but it’s faster than making you memorize six different forms for each word. You’d use them wrong anyhow.”

Barnet gave one of his engaging grins when Derian stiffened.

“I did.”

Derian found himself grinning in return. If he was honest with himself, he was rather glad he didn’t need to learn all those forms just to make himself understood.

It was Barnet’s easy charm that made Derian decide that Firekeeper needed to start her own language lessons. He’d let her sulk on her own—or rather with Blind Seer, since the wolf never left her—and that hadn’t worked. Time to pull her out of herself.

He suspected he knew exactly what had her so upset. Harjeedian’s parting comment had hit a nerve. In the two years since Blind Seer had crossed the Iron Mountains with Firekeeper, the wolf had come close to death twice. People feared him. Feared what he might do to their children, pets, and homes.

Firekeeper clearly loved the wolf. There was no doubt Blind Seer was the one person she completely trusted. Yet, by keeping him near her, she was endangering his life on a daily basis. Threats to him could control her, which also had to make her wonder about the wisdom of keeping him near.

However, Derian could do nothing about this. Moreover, he suspected that any attempt to discuss the matter with Firekeeper would simply upset her further, since there was no way that—even had she wanted to—she could send Blind Seer into safety. Therefore, a distraction, and an intensive one at that, seemed to be in order.

Derian didn’t bother to explain any of this to Barnet. The minstrel hadn’t been present for the entire encounter between Harjeedian and Firekeeper, but he had drifted into the group at some point during it, and had heard what Harjeedian had said. If he made the connection between that comment and Firekeeper’s current mood, fine. If he didn’t, well, he could think whatever he wanted. Maybe Barnet thought she was having female troubles or something.

That brought Derian up short. Did Firekeeper have cycles? If she did, he hadn’t observed the evidence. Wendee and Elise had both been discreet during their various journeys, but Derian had both mother and sister and was pretty good at guessing what certain signs meant. He hadn’t seen the like with Firekeeper.

Another mystery, and though Harjeedian might be as knowledgeable as Doc about medical matters, it wasn’t something about which Derian was going to question him. Nor was he going to ask Firekeeper. Even civilized women didn’t welcome such queries when offered as an explanation of their moods. He’d learned that the hard way. It was quite possible that the wolf-woman would be angered further at the suggestion that she had a purely human weakness.

So Derian stored that new question away, and went off to bring Barnet and Firekeeper together.

He expected Firekeeper to fight the notion of learning Liglimosh, since it was something that Harjeedian wanted and the snake carrier was currently out of her favor—the little favor he’d been able to obtain by treating her seasickness. However, Firekeeper proved eager to learn the new language, fastening on nouns and committing them to memory with an eagerness that reminded Derian of her early efforts to learn Pellish.

She demanded other parts of speech as well, saying that nouns were little use when you couldn’t say what you wanted to do with them.

“Like ‘cut throat’?” Barnet suggested after a lesson on various parts of the body. “I can see your point. While I’m at it, I’d better include the words for asking ‘what is.’ As far as I can tell, it’s your favorite phrase.”