Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart (55 page)

Lady Melina, however, was not showing any such weakness. Upon entering the audience chamber she had sunk into a deep curtsy such as was used to honor monarchs in Hawk Haven. She did not move until Apheros spoke.

"Rise, visitor."

The language he used was New Kelvinese. He might have spoken Pellish, but that would have been a concession to a foreigner. In any case, Apheros's command of languages was nowhere near as good as Peace's. It would break the carefully constructed illusion of power if the Dragon Speaker trotted out his halting command of the other language.

Lady Melina rose and stood with her head thrown slightly back, studying the Dragon Speaker's face. Perhaps Apheros was somewhat put out by this inspection, for he moved to the business at hand more rapidly than Peace had anticipated.

"The time has come," Apheros began in deep, resonant tones more thrilling than any commanding bellow could be, "to unseal that which you have carried so faithfully to this land. As reward for your determined efforts, it has been decided to grant you, Lady Melina Shield, the great honor of opening each box and revealing what has been hidden within."

Peace concealed a smile. Actually, Apheros and his intimate counselors had been concerned by the fact that—as far as any of their artisans could tell—the boxes were in no way trapped, were each closed with a fairly simple mechanical lock, and were sealed only with a wax impression of Queen Valora's coat of arms.

Fear that there was some more subtle protection upon the boxes rather than a desire to honor Lady Melina was what prompted this generous gesture. Otherwise, the boxes would have already been opened and their contents studied. After all, why let the foreign woman have a chance at them if her knowledge would prove unnecessary?

If Lady Melina was aware of what a dubious honor she had been granted, she gave no sign. Dipping another curtsy, she murmured in New Kelvinese:

"Thank you, Honored Apheros."

Her accent only made her humility the more charming. Apheros gave a haughty nod.

"Herald, summon the Primes."

The Primes were the thaumaturges representing each of the sodalities. Added to their number were the Dragon's Three, the Speaker's own chosen counselors. Apheros would have preferred to limit the witnessing to this latter group, but his precarious hold on the office made it unwise for him to risk alienating his allies.

The Primes wore full face paints, designed not only to display the patterns of their sodalities, but meant to minimize any personal tattooing. In this gathering, they were not themselves, but their sodalities.

Lady Melina watched with interest as the thaumaturges processed in, her brow furrowing with, concentration as she sought to identify each pattern. As this was all the introduction she was to get to this august body, Peace thought she was wise.

He himself would not have kept her so uncertain of her own status, but Apheros had been firm. No honors or privileges would be granted to the foreigner until she had proven herself necessary. Otherwise, should the need arise to dispose of her, awkward questions might be asked by the members of the conclave who, rightly, might fear that their own privileges would no longer protect them.

After the procession had ended and the Primes had seated themselves on the high-backed, gilded chairs set along the curved walls of the tower room, Peace drew back to his own seat. This was to one side toward the back, at an angle from which he could study the gathering without being obvious himself.

He knew that by Hawk Haven's standards his place was a low one and saw one of Lady Melina's slender brows arch in momentary surprise. Doubtless she was reassessing his importance in view of this information.

Angered, Peace contemplated enlightening her as soon as they were alone together—finding some subtle and cutting way of explaining that being the Dragon's Eye was among the highest honors. Then he decided not. Let her learn the truth and grovel when she realized how she had slighted one of the powerful.

After the thaumaturges had settled into the statue-still poses etiquette demanded when display rather than debate was the order of the day, a pair of the Dragon Speaker's staff clerks—one of them Kistlio—carried out a low table and set it in front of Lady Melina. A chair was brought next.

Apheros had not wanted to give Lady Melina even this, but Peace had argued otherwise, saying that if she was not to suspect the ambivalence of her position she must be granted at least some courtesies. Lady Melina, however, ignored the seat. She remained standing, taut as a drawn bow, awaiting the first box.

Kistlio brought forth the largest of the three, a long, broad rectangular box that, despite its relative breadth, was so lacking in depth as to seem nearly flat. He also carried the ring of keys the New Kelvinese smiths had made to replace those the vanished Baron Endbrook had carried away.

A flicker of anxiety touched Grateful Peace as he thought of the absent baron. None of the search parties had located Endbrook, nor had the New Kelvinese spies heard anything about him. Doubtless, as the guard insisted, Baron Waln Endbrook was buried in some snowdrift or had drowned trying to cross the White Water River.

Dismissing thoughts of the baron, Peace returned his attention to the center of the room.

Lady Melina was fitting the first key into the lock. She had to struggle to turn the lock—not surprisingly, given the weather through which the boxes had been carried. Still, Peace found he was holding his breath.

All around the chamber not a person moved. A Songweaver shut her eyes as if in anticipation of an explosion. Then, with a solid metallic click, the lock snapped open.

"I think it was a bit rusted," Lady Melina said apologetically.

At her words, Grateful Peace noted a general release of tension among the brightly garbed ranks, but his gaze was drawn inexorably to where Lady Melina was now raising the lid of the box. Whatever lay within was swaddled in fabric, so she lifted out the entire bundle and slowly unwrapped the contents.

Like used bandages, the cloth coiled in a heap at her feet. At last there was a glint of silver, a hint of color. When the last piece of cloth slid to the floor, Lady Melina held her discovery out so that all gathered could see it clearly.

It was a silver mirror, set into a long-handled ivory frame. The ivory was intricately worked with patterns of twining vines, open blossoms, and impish faces. In places the surface had been stained with pigment and set with tiny gemstones, the color just enough to bring out the details without obscuring the perfection of the carving itself.

In his deepest heart, Peace knew this mirror to be a fit vessel for sorcery.

The next box brought before Lady Melina was also fairly flat, but much smaller, hardly long enough to span her hand from the heel of the palm to the tips of her fingers. The lock worked after a slight struggle and this time several of the thaumaturges forgot dignity—and prudent fear—enough to lean forward to watch as it was opened.

There was not so much padding in this box, just a layer on the top that Lady Melina lifted out and set to one side. For a long moment she stared in puzzlement at what was revealed. Then she remembered her manners and lifted the artifact out, holding it up for general examination.

It was a comb—not an ornamental comb used to adorn an elaborate coiffure, but a simple comb such as anyone might use to tidy up. It was crafted from a smooth, highly polished wood in rich shades of reddish brown. The comb was quite attractive in its simple way, but no one could deny its essentially utilitarian nature.

Had Lady Melina herself not been so evidently puzzled—and equally evidently trying to conceal that puzzlement—Grateful Peace might have wondered if she had made a substitution at some point during her journey. However, had she done such a thing, surely she would have picked something else with which to fool them—a slim wand or an elegant dagger—certainly not a comb.

The final box was square, and about the size of Lady Melina's palm. This time the lock clicked open smoothly. Peace wondered in passing if the practical Kistlio had dabbed in a bit of oil after seeing the struggles with the previous two locks.

From the moment Lady Melina opened the lid, those directly alongside her could glimpse a gleam from the contents, for what the box held had not been swathed or padded. There was no need; the interior of the box had been shaped to hold, the lid's interior quilted with satin.

Still, the artifact within was so small that it was not until Lady Melina took it upon herself to parade around the room, holding up the box so that each Prime might see the contents, that Peace got a clear look.

A ring rested within, a ring cast from pure gold and set with a bluish white moonstone that seemed to glow with a pale light of its own. The curved surface of the moonstone had been carved in the likeness of an enigmatically smiling face, its eyes half-hooded, though whether in laughter or in mockery Grateful Peace could not feel certain.

Upon closer inspection, Peace realized that the setting that held this unsettling gem was no simple band. The prongs that clasped the moonstone in place were the fangs of a snarling beast that held the moonstone in its jaws.

The creature so represented might have been a bear or perhaps a wolf, though its mouth was stretched so wide that any likeness to an actual animal was more fancy than otherwise. The beast's eyes were represented by perfect rubies, so tiny that it seemed beyond possibility that any human hand might have faceted them, but faceted they were so that they caught the light and gave it back sparkling as with rabid fury.

Unlike the comb, the ring seemed—as with the silver mirror—a worthy vessel for enchantment. The enigmatic expression of the moonstone countenance remained with Peace even after Lady Melina had passed on around the room. He contrasted it with the snarling beast that held it.

What power was concealed behind that smile? Might it glow with light? Might the stone hold the secret of slowing the moon in her nightly voyage? Might the carved face speak in riddles that held enchantments within their convoluted prose?

Grateful Peace saw a trace of his own wonder and excitement on the face of Kalvinia, representative for the Sericulturalists, and schooled himself to impassivity. Lady Melina already knew more than enough about his own hopes. No need to add to her store of knowledge. He still wondered that he had spoken so freely to her.

The Dragon Speaker stared longest and hardest at the ring, then he gestured Lady Melina back to her place. Obediently, she returned, this time taking her seat. She did not lay as much as a single finger on the three artifacts, but arrayed them in their boxes on the table in front of her so that all might glimpse them. Then she spoke unbidden for the first time:

"Now we see what we have, honored thaumaturges. Where do we go from here?"

The foreign woman's expression as she looked around the room was as enigmatic as that of the moonstone ring—except in her case there was no doubt that her smile held just the slightest trace of mockery.

I
mmediately after Firekeeper had related Elation's report regarding Lady Melina's movements, the company had left Gateway, riding along the northeast road toward Dragon's Breath until nightfall and resuming the journey again almost before dawn had lit the sky.

It was on that second day that Elise realized with pleasure that her body had hardened to the long days in the saddle, that the journeys between Silver Whale Cove and Eagle's Nest, between Eagle's Nest and the North Woods, had been nothing but training for this moment.

With that knowledge came a certain odd freedom. Until it wasn't needed, Elise hadn't realized how much of her attention was centered on guiding Cream Delight—though most of the time the mare was content to follow the other horses' lead—on shifting to avoid aching muscles or to avoid other little discomforts.

Now that her mind was released from these distractions Elise began to work through just what they must do when they arrived in Dragon's Breath.

"When we get there," she said, her words breaking a lazy silence, "what are we going to do? I've been told that Dragon's Breath is a big city. We can't go door to door asking after Lady Melina. For that matter, her presence there may be a secret."

"Should it be?" Derian asked. "After all, Hawk Haven and New Kelvin are allied—even the events that led up to King Allister's War didn't break that alliance."

"Strained it," Elise agreed, "but didn't break it. Unhappily, given the secrecy of Lady Melina's departure, I don't imagine that she'll be making her presence widely known."

"I agree with Lady Elise," Sir Jared said. "Lady Melina could have traveled as a tourist, perhaps seeking distraction from her grief over the deaths of husband and brother. Instead she traveled in secret. We have our suspicions why, of course."

"We
know
," Firekeeper growled.

Unlike the rest of them, the wolf-woman traveled mostly on foot, saying that jolting about on horseback was more wearying than running. When she did need a rest, she clambered up on top of one of the mules and perched on its back, a cloak about her shoulders, looking rather like a gargoyle on a castle wall. She had trotted up near Elise when that young lady had begun speaking, so now Elise grinned down at her.

"
We
know," Elise agreed, "and Lady Melina is going to want no one else to have a chance to guess. Meddling with magic is still frowned upon in Hawk Haven and Bright Bay. Her brother the duke, if no one else, might get very stern with her if she did further damage to House Gyrfalcon's reputation."

Derian was currently riding point, Roanne prancing as if she fancied she was leading a parade. He craned around in his saddle, his lean body flowing with the horse's gait and reminding Elise how much more she had to learn about riding.

"We've been over this before," Derian said. "Elise's original question has been troubling me for a while—ever since I saw Gateway and realized how very different the New Kelvinese are from us. How are we going to find Lady Melina without her knowing we're looking for her?"