Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart (41 page)

"Go to Norwood then, Elise, with my blessings. I'll make your father understand that this is best."

Elise ran her fingers across the piles of invitations.

"But what about these? What about the other possibilities? There's an invitation here from Duchess Seal of Bright Bay and another from Lord Polr that might as well be from Duke Gyrfalcon."

Aurella shook her head slowly. "Those don't matter if your mind is made up not to contract a marriage. Indeed, it might be dangerous for you to go to them under what might be construed as false pretenses. Not every good match will be made this winter—though many will be. If you're thinking of the barony, we must not sell it cheap."

"I'm thinking," Elise admitted honestly, "about me."

"And someday you will be the barony," Aurella replied, "so it is much the same. Duchess Kestrel's invitation has an advantage over the others in that it asks you to come as a companion for her adopted granddaughter as much as for any other reason. You won't be misrepresenting either yourself or our house."

Elise nodded, thought fleetingly of enchanted artifacts, of New Kelvin, of the excitement to come.

"I suppose not," she said. "I do wish to keep Firekeeper—I mean Lady Blysse—company. She may run wild."

Actually
, she thought,
I'll be more surprised if she doesn't
.

"Very good, then. Write out your reply and we'll have a runner bring it to the Kestrel Manse the moment the ink is blotted. Duchess Kestrel will want to send news ahead so that your suite can be readied."

Elise found a sheet of heavy paper embossed with the Archer coat of arms and bordered with a light tracery of scarlet and gold.

As she began to write her acceptance, she heard her mother speaking on, her tones those of one thinking aloud.

"You will take Ninette, of course, and your winter mantle will need mending. I noticed that the hem had been trodden upon. And you'll need to write Sapphire as soon as that letter is completed. It may be difficult…"

Elise wrote the necessary missives, hearing only half of what Lady Aurella said, for her own excited heart beat a drum in her ears.

B
aron Endbrook made good time to Port Haven and better to the large post-house where he had arranged to meet Lady Melina and her daughter. Despite stopping along the road to stash Lady Melina's gemstone necklace where he alone could find it again, he arrived just as the setting sun was stroking the skies with orange and red.

Good travel weather for the morrow
, he thought idly.

As he swung from his saddle, it seemed to Waln that the saddlebags containing the satchel with the three magical artifacts bulged unnaturally large, though to outside appearances—and indeed even to casual inspection—it was no more extraordinary than its mate. Still, he stood between it and the windows of the inn as he stretched Out the kinks from his back and legs. He was more sailor than rider, but these last few weeks had prepared him well for the long ride to come.

Baron Endbrook's paranoia regarding the treasures was not helped when a large crow swooped down and began tugging at the straps as if trying to untie the bag. Doubtless it was merely the polished buckle catching the late-afternoon sunlight that had attracted the dumb beast, but nevertheless he felt a chill.

The horse that Waln had ridden was a hired mount and the baron turned it over to the stablehand without a second glance. The precious saddlebags, however, he carried himself, biting back a sharp rebuke when a porter moved to perform the routine courtesy of unstrapping it for him.

If the porter noticed Waln's anxiety, he surely dismissed it as a usual caution. There must be many travelers who worried about strangers handling their baggage.

As Waln was slinging the heavy bags over his arm, he heard a throat being cleared off to one side. He glanced that way and saw Orin—better known as Fox—Driver leaning against a shed.

"Hello, Driver," Waln said with affected heartiness but genuine relief. "Good to see you reached here safely."

"Roads are firm and dry," Fox Driver replied, coming a few steps closer, "and the horses in good fettle."

"And our cargo?"

"Riding light," Fox reported laconically. "I'm cozy as can be in a room over the wagon sheds so's I can keep an eye on it."

"Good."

The cargo itself wasn't worth much—not when compared with what Waln carried in his saddlebags—but the baron had decided that it must be of good enough quality to justify a trip north. Therefore he'd done some shopping and, before leaving Eagle's Nest, Fox Driver had picked up several crates of mixed trade goods. Nothing in the load was too heavy—Waln hadn't wanted to slow them overmuch nor tire the horses—but the cargo was costly enough that if Driver hadn't taken precautions with it, some might have wondered.

"You're warm enough?" Waln asked, stamping his feet, which were chilling as the cold seeped up through the thin soles of his riding boots.

"Warm enough and I've arranged for mulled wine to ease the frost in my bones."

Waln cursed inwardly, but said nothing. Fox Driver seemed sober enough to not have forgotten discretion.

"Then I'll let you go back where it's warm," Waln said. "Is my 'sister' here?"

He and Lady Melina had decided that traveling as brother and sister suited them better than posing as husband and wife. It permitted them both a degree of distance that would have attracted attention between spouses, and their story that they hadn't seen much of each other these last few years allowed for any discrepancies in what they might say.

"She's here and inside with your niece," Fox replied with a sardonic grin.

Waln hadn't told Fox who Lady Melina was, but it was possible the man might have guessed. Even if he had not, the secrecy to which Waln had sworn Driver regarding what elements of his plans he had been forced to tell the man would have made Driver certain something illicit was going on.

Hopefully, he just thinks I'm running off with someone else's wife
, Warn thought.

Then he bid Driver a good rest, reminding him that they would depart early the next morning.

Lady Melina waited for Baron Endbrook within the hostelry. She had claimed a table in a corner and sat knitting in the light that came through the leaded panes.

As they had agreed in one of their planning sessions—these few enough and filled with tremendous anxiety for Waln—Lady Melina was dressed after the fashion of a woman with some means but with no particular claim to wealth or title. In her long wool traveling dress, thick shawl, and close-fitting cap, Lady Melina Shield was transformed into the very picture of a prosperous farm owner.

And what else is she, after all
? Baron Endbrook thought, bowing the slight amount that would be courteous from brother to sister, trying to quell the uneasiness he often felt in this formidable woman's presence.
So her mother was a duchess and her brother is a duke, but what is she herself
?

His internal remonstrances failed to buck him up satisfactorily, for Lady Melina's very purpose for being here was an unceasing reminder that the woman was more than she seemed.

Citrine sat beside her mother, hands in fingerless gloves clasped around a mug of some steaming beverage. As Waln took his seat, he caught a whiff of good cider and ordered a mug for himself.

"Just the thing to take off the chill," he said, when greetings were completed.

Citrine smiled shyly at him. Like her mother she wore a traveling dress lapped jacket-style, side to side, to better hold her heat. Her honey-gold hair was covered completely by a ruffled cap of a type not uncommon in the country, though somewhat out of fashion in the towns.

The cap suited Citrine, though, emphasizing the pert roundness of her face while incidentally concealing the citrine-embellished band that Waln did not doubt still encircled her brow.

That band could well be a giveaway as to who she is
, Waln thought.
I wonder if Lady Melina would agree to remove it lest gossip start about just who is the "guest" the smugglers are keeping
.

He decided not to make the request. Descriptions of the sorceress's fury when her eldest daughter ceased to wear her sapphire band were legion—for the ballad singers in the taverns and inns he had stayed in along the road were taking advantage of the royal wedding to regale their audiences with stories of the warrior princess and her noble spouse.

Baron Endbrook wondered if some policy maker in King Tedric's court had put out the word that the singers should make clear that the princess was no longer under her mother's control. That was possible, but it was equally probable that the minstrels simply knew a good story when they heard it.

Fear of the magical arts and of those who used them to control their vassals were a long-standing tradition—and was why Waln himself was being so careful to hide from any but his accomplice the real reason for his journey.

Dragging the saddlebags under the table where he could prison them between his knees, Waln accepted the mug of cider a pigeon-chested serving woman brought to him.

"Your sister," the woman added, "ordered soup and joint, bread and cheese, and a savory to follow. Do you wish to add anything?"

"What's the soup?" he asked.

"Bean and bacon," she said, "and thick enough for a meal itself."

"Sounds wonderful," Waln said. He didn't bother to ask about his room, knowing that Melina, in her role as his sister, would have arranged for it. "Just a mug of ale with the meal then."

The serving woman nodded. "This year's brewing won at the local harvest-fest. You'll be pleased."

She swept off with such self-importance that Waln promoted her from servant to owner. Citrine was staring at him with such wide eyes that he felt uncomfortable and turned his attention to her placidly knitting mother.

"Gloves?" he asked.

"That's right," Lady Melina replied with a brief smile. "I expect to be grateful for extra pairs before this winter is ended."

"True enough," he said.

"Uncle?" Citrine interrupted with a sudden burst of familiarity. "Let me come with you!"

Waln shook his head, but he felt an unexpected lump in his throat. Citrine wasn't far apart in age from his own girls and denying her reminded him of their tears when his last homecoming had been cut short almost before it had begun.

"I'm sorry, sweet," he said, "but this isn't traveling weather for a little thing like you. You'll like where you're staying."

Citrine pouted slightly, but she didn't complain further. The rapid glance she cast in her mother's direction held enough apprehension that Waln realized that this had been the last feint in an ongoing battle and that Citrine had risked punishment to defy her mother's wishes.

Their conversation over dinner was casual, mostly about the various journeys to this point. After dinner, they retired early in anticipation of the morning's departure.

Shortly after dawn, fortified by an astonishingly substantial oat porridge, they took to the road. Waln was pleased with the quality of the horses he had purchased, and the wagon moved as smoothly as could be hoped.

Lady Melina had decided against bringing any servants for either herself or her daughter, so Fox Driver was their only attendant. He drove with the reins lightly in his hands, half-dozing once the horses worked off their early energy. Citrine sat in a padded nest among the crates, well protected from the cold, and played some game with her dolls.

After leaving the post-house, they traveled north for a ways, then bore east. This route forced them to retrace some distance and to leave the best roads, but was necessary in order to go toward the swamps rather than into Port Haven.

The post-house that had served as their rendezvous point the evening before had been chosen since it was about a day from their eventual destination. No mishaps delayed them, and by late afternoon Waln imagined that a certain dampness in the air proclaimed their proximity to the swamps. By evening they had come to a house Waln had visited but the day before.

It stood back from the road atop a hill that the tired horses labored to climb. Nor was it the most inviting of destinations. Although built after the fashion of many a farmhouse—peaked roof, wooden siding, and square windows—it looked ominous in the twilight.

The paint was peeling, and dried leaves swirled in gusts of wind beneath bare poplars. Summer's flowers stood stark and twisted where the frost had killed them, and the hedges bordering the reaped fields were untrimmed; the shoots of summer growth rattled in the wind. Shutters were sealed so tightly over the windows that not one glimmer of light shone out. Only the sluggish smoke from the chimney testified that anyone was in residence—the word "home" could never be applied to such a dwelling.

As Waln's party slowed, a pack of brown-and-white hounds loped toward them, seemingly out of nowhere baying a fierce mixture of defiance and warning. Coming as it seemed from out of the gathering dusk, the hounds seemed supernatural rather than the rather ordinary dogs they were.

Citrine squealed in shock and fear. Normally laconic Fox Driver hastily drew his feet back onto the running board. Even the horses, tired as they were from a long day's haul, stamped their hooves.

Lady Melina remained as calm as could be, circling her giddy mare away from the hounds with a firm hand on the rein.

Waln, having the advantage of the rest, and knowing that they were watched from within, forced his own mount to the door of the house. Leaning from the saddle, he rapped on it with the base of his riding crop.

"Rain riders," he called, speaking the prearranged phrase loudly, "seeking shelter for the night."

"Tonight is wet," replied a muffled voice from within.

The words were incongruous, for though the gathering night was cold, the sky was clear as could be. Waln heard a bolt being shot back, though the door did not yet open.

"Wet indeed," Waln agreed, offering the countersign, "though I can see the stars."

The door opened promptly then and several hooded figures hurried out. Two took charge of the wagon and of Driver, another of Citrine. A fourth helped Lady Melina from her saddle, then stood by while Baron Endbrook removed his saddlebags.