The Dragon of Despair (27 page)

No one saw them but a gamekeeper who wisely went about his business. Once they were in the more formal gardens, several gardeners shouted greetings, but only Elation, soaring overhead, replied.

The head cook was just rising from her morning cup of tea and plate of biscuits—well earned after preparing breakfast for the hundred or so full-time inhabitants of the castle—and was considering where to start with the midday meal.

Firekeeper trotted through the kitchen door, mud-smeared and tired, grabbed half a loaf of bread off the sideboard, and, Blind Seer at her heels, headed up the servants’ stairs to the next floor.

“Lady Blysse has come back,” the cook said to a rather pale scullery maid who had all but dropped her bucket when the wolf came through the door. “The king’ll be pleased. He’s been asking every morning if anyone’s seen her.”

“Yes, m’m.”

The maid, new to the castle and only acquainted by rumor with its odder denizens, hurried out and poured her bucket onto the compost bin, then leaned against a wall until her hands stopped trembling.

In the kitchen, the cook gave the orders that would start preparation of the next major meal. She herself went into the cool room and pulled out the roast from the night before. There had been some rare pieces near the center, and she suspected that someone would be ringing for a tray. There should even be a bone.

FIREKEEPER WAS LUCKY
. The king was not only willing to see her, he was immediately available, the meeting he was supposed to be in that morning having been canceled on account of several of the counselors having severe colds. The Royal Physician had insisted that the king was not to be exposed to such.

“So,” Tedric said, accepting Firekeeper’s embrace with a pat on her back, “Sapphire and Shad are attending for me. It’s rather delightful in a way. I never much cared for routine business. Now it’s laudatory for me to let someone else deal with it.”

Firekeeper didn’t understand words like “laudatory,” but she had a fair idea of what routine business was and shared the king’s distaste for it. She settled onto the floor, looking up at him.

“Now, Firekeeper,” the king said, leaning back in his chair and raising a tall glass of something that smelled of crushed strawberries to his lips. “What is the emergency?”

The wolf-woman didn’t bother to ask how he knew her business was urgent. The old man was wise, and even a fool would know that she wouldn’t come before him unwashed and weary from the trail without reason.

“It is your people,” she said. “Some have gone west of the Iron Mountains.”

King Tedric nodded.

“I suspected something like that. Go on.”

“My people do not like this,” Firekeeper continued, wondering what signs the old king had used to know that his people were dispersing. “They will hurt your people if they stay. I come to beg…”

If Tedric had been a One, she would have literally done so, pressing her belly to the ground and fawning. She settled for pressing her hands together and looking up pleadingly.

“I come to beg that you make them come back.”

“You do?” he said. “They’re far away. How can I do that?”

“Not too far away,” she said, “for some of your people to go. Derian could show them where.”

“I may have other uses for Derian,” the king said mysteriously. “You are right. I could send some of my troops to order these people back. Tell me what you saw there.”

Firekeeper did so, beginning with the traces along the trail, moving through their first meeting with Ewen Brooks, and how the colonists had given them cautious welcome. From there she went into the composition of the group. Derian would have been surprised how much she had noticed, how much detail absorbed and committed to memory.

Partway into her account, a tray laden with meat and bread and cheeses along with a pitcher of chilled well-water came up from the kitchen. Firekeeper set to, trying to remember to talk as she ate—a thing alien to her wolfish nature. For once, however, she had a driving impulse in her as fierce as her hunger, and Blind Seer got the majority of the cook’s offerings.

King Tedric asked few questions, but those he did ask drew out details Firekeeper would have neglected. She told him about how Ewen Brooks considered himself heir to Barden’s dream, about the hunger in his eyes when he described how close he had come to being part of that earlier expedition. How he had fed those dreams for ten long years.

“And I am to blame,” she ended sourly, “for if I had not lived, if I had not come from west lands, then there be no tinder for his flint. Ewen would dream and dream, but never would he go west.”

“That is possible,” the king agreed, “though not definite. However, it is certain that he would not have found so many eager followers if they had not felt they were relatively safe.”

“But they are not!” she cried. “They are not! The Beasts will not keep their staying. You must make the humans leave or the Beasts will make them—and many may die.”

“Many humans,” King Tedric asked, “or many Beasts?”

“Many both,” Firekeeper replied levelly, “but I think more humans. There are more Beasts and that is their land.”

“Then why are you worried?” the king asked. “Surely, a few Beasts dead is a small price to regain their land.”

“Human counting,” she said, “not mine. If my mother die or my father, then that is too many already. Yet they would die to keep their pups from dying.”

“A willing sacrifice,” the king said. “Yet I sense this possibility of loss is not what troubles you so.”

Firekeeper nodded, wiping her greasy fingers on her trouser leg and sinking back from the well-stripped tray.

“I think if these die, it might not be the end,” she said.

“I could decree that humans not cross the mountains again,” the king said.

“But can you stop the Beasts from crossing?” she asked. “I think not. If the hunting fire rises in the Beasts, I am not thinking they will stop at the few in Bardenville. Some already…”

She was frustrated by her lack of words, but Tedric was patient.

“This is important,” she said, “and to be kept secret.”

“I shall,” the king promised.

Firekeeper asked for no more solemn promise. How could she enforce it if the king chose to break his word? She wouldn’t kill him. In any case, killing him would only worsen the situation.

“Some Beasts,” she said, “hate being only west. They want back east, too.”

Tedric cocked an eyebrow.

“Back?”

“Back.”

It took her a long time and much retracing of her thoughts, but Firekeeper found the words to explain the complicated history and politics that made many of the Beasts feel that the time had come to drive humans from the land.

Several times she thought she would have been wiser to wait for Derian to arrive, to have schooled her steps to his so that his tongue and greater powers of speech would have been hers to use. Yet she felt this was her petition—her plea that the humans give the Beasts no incentive to follow the way of their more fanatical fellows.

Tedric listened, speaking only to ask for clarification. When Firekeeper finished, he frowned.

“This is a serious matter,” he said, “and not one to be settled lightly. Go. Get some sleep, have a wash. I will have the staff warned of your return.”

“Some see me already,” Firekeeper said, almost apologetically.

“Even so,” the king replied. “There are those who are reassured to know the wolf is a guest.”

Firekeeper rose a trace unsteadily.

“And you will do as I say?” she asked.

“I will think on it,” the king replied.

And from the firmness of his tone, Firekeeper knew she had no choice but to wait.

WHEN HE ARRIVED
home that evening, Derian learned why his father hadn’t been more upset over the mules. Derian had barely finished greeting his mother and sister when Vernita handed him a folded sheet of heavy writing paper. It was addressed to The Family of Counselor Derian and bore the royal seal.

“The king has sent a message,” Vernita reported, trying hard to sound businesslike rather than impressed and almost succeeding, “requesting that you notify the castle upon your return so that a meeting with you can be arranged.”

Derian blinked, then nodded. He wondered if there had been further developments in the Melina situation. He knew that if there had been, the letter wouldn’t say. Perhaps he was worrying too much. For all he knew, the king might want the common opinion on possible names for Sapphire’s impending baby.

Vernita was continuing, the rapidity of her speech an indication that she was slightly nervous.

“When we got your letter saying where you were and asking to have someone meet you, I sent a message to the castle saying when we expected you. This came today.”

She held out another letter, this one addressed to Counselor Derian and still sealed.

Derian accepted it and paused before opening it to give Vernita a hug, noting as he did so a few strands of grey among the vibrant red of her hair. It made him feel oddly old.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said. “When I’m dreadfully important, I’ll steal you from Prancing Steed Stables and keep you to do all my paperwork and handle my social obligations.”

Vernita laughed.

“And who would keep your father in line?”

“Let Dami,” Derian suggested, breaking the red wax seal with its imprint of an eagle inside an eight-pointed star. “She’s smart enough, when she isn’t being useless.”

Damita stuck her tongue out at him, but she was too interested in what the royal missive might contain to sass him as she might have at another time.

After the usual formalities and greetings, the letter was brief:

Firekeeper has returned and we know something of your journey west. We had wished in any case to consult you on other matters. Could you call on the afternoon following the date of your arrival to discuss these and other matters?

It was signed by the king himself, though the rest of it was written in another hand, probably that of Farand Briarcott, the king’s confidential secretary.

Derian showed the letter to Vernita—Dami dancing up to look when he didn’t tell her not to—and asked:

“Should I send an acceptance, or would that be ridiculous? I mean, does anyone turn down an invitation from the king?”

Vernita glanced up from the letter, a hundred questions about everything it didn’t say in her eyes.

“It never hurts to be polite,” she replied, “even with a king. I don’t know how nobles handle such things. Answer according to the manners of your class and while some self-important person might fault you for ignorance, no one will fault you for rudeness.”

Derian smiled his thanks.

“Can I borrow your desk and writing materials? I’d better answer right away if they want me by tomorrow afternoon.”

Vernita waved in the direction of her office.

“Help yourself, but don’t smear dirt all over the contracts. Damita, put on shoes and a nice frock. You can run your brother’s letter up to the castle. Get Brock to walk with you.”

Damita, comfortable in open sandals and a loose smock, looked as if she might protest, thought better of it, and ran upstairs. By the time Derian had finished sanding the wet ink, she was down again. She’d even taken the time to twist her brilliant red-gold hair up and fasten it with the doe clasp that had been her mother’s gift on her last birthday.

Derian gave his sister a courtly bow, aware of his own road dirt, but relieved to have this responsibility dealt with.

“You look lovelier than ever, Dami,” he said. “I am delighted to have you as my courier. The guards at the gate won’t be able to say they forgot your coming and so fail in their duties.”

Damita turned bright red, snatched the sealed letter from his hand, and scurried out without another word.

Derian looked after her with fondness.

“She’s really getting pretty,” he said to his mother. “Is she still in love with Uncle Jeweler’s apprentice?”

“I’m not sure,” Vernita said. “She’s not at an age to confide in her mother. Maybe you could learn something before you vanish once more.”

Derian stared at her.

“Do you know something about my plans that I don’t?”