"I don"t like Edlin-not like that," she said stubbornly. "I will tell him."
"Not wise," Blind Seer warned her. "Even puppies have sharp teeth and no matter how he frolics now, Edlin Norwood is not a puppy."
Firekeeper sighed and then bolted to the stairs nearest to her room, running as if she could outrun these awkward social entanglements. Blind Seer loped behind her, nipping at her heels.
Wendee Jay was not at all what Firekeeper had expected. In her experience, lady"s maids had fallen into two categories. Either they were like Ninette, Elise"s companion, a genteel-appearing woman of fairly young years, or they were older women, bossy and officious, often a.s.suming their importance among servants was equivalent to that of their mistress among her peers. In both cases, more often than not they were unmarried.
Elise had explained that a married woman could not be expected to keep the odd hours a lady"s maid did. If a maid married, she either left service entirely or was rea.s.signed to a post with a more regular schedule.
The first thing that was clear about Wendee Jay was that she was a mother, for the little girl with pale blond hair who clung around her neck when Wendee entered Firekeeper"s room was obviously her daughter.
"I"m sorry I had to bring Merri along, but my. mother and my older girl, who usually watch her for me, are busy helping get the banquet ready for this evening. That"s where I was when Lord Edlin found me."
Firekeeper nodded, studying this woman who wasn"t afraid of wolves-as she clearly wasn"t, having glanced to where Blind Seer lay apparently dozing in front of the fire and then dismissed him.
Wendee was slightly taller than Firekeeper, with dark blond hair, blue eyes, and a voluptuous figure that turned her simple kitchen dress and white ap.r.o.n into something remarkable.
"But here I"m talking like you know me," Wendee went on, showing a touch of shyness, "because we all feel like we know you. I"m Wendee Jay. This is-as I suppose you must have guessed-my daughter Merri."
"And I am..." Firekeeper hesitated, knowing that here she was Lady Blysse, but feeling that someonewho would be dressing her and such should call her by name. "Firekeeper, but also Lady Blysse."
"Whichever name suits the situation," Wendee said with a lack of fuss that Firekeeper immediately appreciated. "Well, Lady Blysse, d.u.c.h.ess Kestrel asked if I"d tend you while you"re here and I will do so, if only as a favor to her. She"s been good to my family. We have a cottage here on the grounds which is nice."
Seeing Wendee switch the child from hip to hip, Firekeeper remembered her manners.
"Please sit. We just keep Merri from Blind Seer. He not eat children, but not likes ears and tail pulled either."
"Who would?" Wendee replied practically. She set her daughter down next to a chair and handed her a doll from a pocket of her ap.r.o.n.
Once the child was settled, Firekeeper-aware that Lady Luella might summon her at any time-explained her need.
"I need someone to help me with formal attire," the wolf-woman explained. "I not do laces myself."
"Who can?" Wendee shrugged. "Laces are impossible. I like comfortable clothes myself, work smocks and such, but there are times a woman wants to look elegant and then it"s laces and slippers and taking four or five times as long to get ready."
Firekeeper heaved a heavy sigh of agreement.
"Today, Earl Kestrel"s wife has come and I need formal attire. Can you help?"
"In a heartbeat," Wendee promised. "First we ring for bathwater. You"ve been running outdoors and even in cold weather that leaves a stink."
Wendee pulled a short rhythm on the bell-rope.
"That will get hot water up here. Next we pick out what dress you should wear."
Wendee began arranging things so efficiently that Firekeeper relaxed enough to ask her new maid some questions about herself. Wendee told her that she"d been an actress before children tied her closer to home, and that-though there was nothing wrong with routine domestic work-she still preferred a job that challenged her.
Without being prompted, Wendee began talking about Lady Luella.
"She"s a fair mistress, though I don"t think she particularly likes her diminished importance in what is, after all, the d.u.c.h.ess"s establishment. She much preferred when she and Earl Kestrel were younger and had their own residence, but several years ago d.u.c.h.ess Kestrel began turning over more and more of the responsibility for running the Norwood Grant to her son. That meant living here, so she could confer more closely with her son.
"Lady Luella has never quite gotten over having to make the choice between living apart from her husband and giving up being mistress of her own estate. It"s strange but, when the earl travels-as he did so much of last year-Lady Luella"s taken to digging her heels in and staying behind. Says the children need to have some stability. I think she"s fighting her reflection."
Firekeeper, who had been dutifully scrubbing the dirt from her feet, wondered if she"d misheard."What?"
"Fighting a nothing that seems like something," Wendee clarified.
Although this didn"t help much, the mention of fighting brought Firekeeper"s main concern to her lips.
"How I make Lady Luella not see me as a fight?" Firekeeper asked bluntly.
"Well, we"ll start by putting you in this gown," Wendee said, the very fact that she didn"t ask for clarification showing that she was aware of Lady Luella"s resentment regarding Blysse"s adoption. "Most of your stuff looks as if it was designed for court-I guess it was-but we don"t want to put you in something that screams "Kestrel." That"ll just remind Lady Luella that she"s annoyed at the earl."
The gown Wendee eventually selected was one of the simpler ones Firekeeper had acquired along the way, a pretty light brown frock trimmed with a darker brown and touched with lace at wrist and throat.
"But you should wear the blue and pink beads," Wendee went on, "no need to deny the Kestrel connection. Then we"ll put your hair up-is it true you trimmed it with a knife?"
Firekeeper nodded.
"Well, we can"t mend that, but we"ll tuck the ragged ends under a nice girlish cap, so you look a bit younger and more helpless. The knife stays, doesn"t it?"
Firekeeper nodded again.
"That"s what Valet warned me. Very well, since it stays, we"ll belt it on nice and plain. No need to have anyone think it"s a negotiable point."
In less time than Firekeeper could have imagined, she was clean, gowned, and groomed. Wendee Jay looked at her in satisfaction, then scooped up Merri, who had fallen asleep on the rug.
"Judging from the light, Lady Luella should be sending for you soon. Wait here and be prompt when someone comes for you. Remember," Wendee paused in the doorway, "she probably wants to like you, but you"ll need to give her a reason why she should do so."
With those cryptic words, Wendee darted out the door. Firekeeper could hear her footsteps, light in spite of the child she carried in her arms, as she pattered away and down the nearest servants" stair.
Wendee proved a prophet. Firekeeper had hardly time to give herself one more inspection in the gla.s.s when a tap at the door brought the expected summons.
"My lady wishes to meet with you in her parlor," the servant said, and departed with the anxious haste Firekeeper had seen so often in those who were less than comfortable around Blind Seer.
"Shall I come with you, dear heart?" the wolf asked, raising his head from his paws.
Firekeeper was about to suggest that he stay behind when she recalled what Wendee Jay had said about her Fang.
"Come," she said, "but with manners as for the One. You may not be what Wendee calls a "negotiable point," but there is no need for us not to show you at your best."Blind Seer rose and shook then. Despite his fondness for sleeping near the fire, his fur was thickening into his winter coat and he looked even larger than normal. Firekeeper felt a momentary nicker of uneasiness.
Had she made the right decision?
Side by side, the pair made their way to Lady Luella"s rooms. When a servant admitted them in response to their knock, Firekeeper saw that the earl"s wife waited for them alone.
Lady Luella Kite wore her long, straight hair loose and combed from a severe center part into two shining chestnut waves. From the strong scent of rosemary in the air, Firekeeper guessed that it had been recently washed and was-beneath the upper layers-still drying. This initial impression-founded as much in olfactory as visual impressions-was confirmed by the long loose robe the lady wore belted at her waist and the soft slippers on her tiny feet.
These feet were the only things precisely tiny about Lady Luella. She was a woman of above average height and the four living children she had borne had sealed her figure; into solid womanly curves.
The gaze she raised from her st.i.tchery at Firekeeper"s entrance was cool but not cold, and her greenish-yellow eyes met the young woman"s with appraisal rather than challenge.
Firekeeper gave her best curtsy and Blind Seer stretched out his forelimbs in a bow. Lady Luella did not rise nor did she offer her hand, but her initial greeting was courteous.
"Take a seat, child, and make yourself comfortable. I apologize for my undress, but these several days on the road left me feeling more akin to a scullion than a hostess."
Firekeeper accepted the indicated seat-a fat puff printed with bright flowers-though she would have been more comfortable on the floor. Blind Seer sat beside her, careful not to get too close and shed even more silver-grey hair on the brown of Firekeeper"s dress.
When Lady Luella studied her in silence, Firekeeper did not lower her gaze from the inspection, but neither did she challenge the older woman, staring her down as she might have the Whiner when that young wolf grew overly arrogant.
At last, Lady Luella spoke.
"You know how to hold your tongue, I"ll give you that, Blysse. Or is it true what the rumors said last summertime-that you cannot speak at all?"
"I can speak," Firekeeper replied, choosing to ignore the insult. "Some, though not too well."
Lady Luella smiled, and Firekeeper thought that she had pa.s.sed some test.
"You speak quite clearly. If your accent is harsh, what else can be expected?"
This was the first time Firekeeper had been told that she possessed an accent and the unfamiliar word puzzled her. Her habit of asking questions took over before she could stop herself.
"Accent?"
"A touch common," Lady Luella explained, "but then your tutors have been common-born, have they not?"
Firekeeper was already beginning to regret her question, but the rabbit was running and she saw no course but to chase it."I not know what "accent" is," she replied.
"Accent..." Lady Luella looked thoughtful for a second. Then she said, "Accent is the way you say a word, the way you shape the sounds."
Firekeeper tilted her head to one side, reluctant to ask for clarification, but completely confused. Lady Luella continued, the cadence of her reply falling into the pedagogical rhythms with which Firekeeper was already familiar.
"A gentle-born person," she said, "will most often say words carefully, p.r.o.nouncing all the sounds distinctly. A less gently born person will often run them together-lazy or perhaps hurriedly.
"T"morrow," Lady Luella said by means of ill.u.s.tration, "instead of "tomorrow." "
Firekeeper could hear the difference and nodded.
"And one way of saying is better?" she asked.
"Some people," Lady Luella said with smile, "think so. My mother and father were very strict on this point."
"And so you are?" Firekeeper asked.
"I try," Lady Luella looked fleetingly sad, "but since we have come to spend so much time at Norwood, I think that my children are becoming lazy. You lived at court, did you not?"
"Some," Firekeeper said, knowing from Elise"s stories about her childhood that humans envied this as a wolf might another wolf tearing the liver from a fresh kill.
"Did you like it?"
"Sometimes," Firekeeper said honestly. "Others, no. It was very close and full of stone."
Lady Luella frowned slightly, but there was no anger in her expression, only the mild puzzlement that Firekeeper was accustomed to see on others" faces when the wolf-woman thought she was being perfectly clear.
"I like Norwood," Firekeeper explained. "There are more trees and fewer people."
"So you like trees better than people?"
There was challenge in the older woman"s tone and a mildly malicious glee as if she had trapped Firekeeper into some misstep.
"No." Firekeeper shook her head vigorously, a trace frustrated. "I like people much-some people. I don"t know all people. But sometimes too many people is..." She gestured wildly. "Too many."
She felt trapped by the cool eyes of Earl Kestrel"s wife, a sense that somehow, despite her best efforts, she was going to offend this woman and cause trouble for herself. Desperate to avert the disaster she felt approaching, Firekeeper blurted: "Lady Luella, I no take the meat from your cubs!"
Lady Luella looked completely astonished."Meat?"
"I no want anything that is your children"s," Firekeeper said more slowly. "Earl Kestrel came west for a reason. He no wanted me; he wanted Prince Barden"s Blysse. I know this."
Lady Luella leaned forward.
"Are you Prince Barden"s Blysse?"
Firekeeper shrugged. "I don"t know. King Tedric didn"t say I am, so even if I am, I"m not."
Lady Luella laughed, a dry, throaty sound.
"You"re more intelligent than I"d have believed. Tell me about your childhood with the wolves."
So Firekeeper did so, continuing when Lady Luella"s maid-made rather nervous when she realized Blind Seer was present-arrived to style the lady"s drying hair. It was the longest narration the wolf-woman had ever attempted to sustain without a.s.sistance and she was quite relieved when Lady Luella raised a finger in an imperious gesture for silence.
"Blysse, the dinner hour is approaching and, although your attire is quite appropriate, perhaps you should return to your room and ring for your maid."
Lady Luella"s aristocratic lips twitched in what might have been an amused smile. "Tell her to remove the worst of the wolf hair from your gown."
Firekeeper rose from the flowered puff with a touch more alacrity than might have been perfectly polite, but she remembered her curtsy, and Blind Seer-showing his fangs in an amused grin at the maid"s anxious start when he rose to his full height-gave a polite bow.
As they hurried back to Firekeeper"s room, the wolf-woman couldn"t help but think that as cold as was the winter wind, she rather preferred it to the frost that had never quite left the lady"s smile.
Fox Driver was as good as his word. The horses were calmed by midday, hitched, and ready to go.
For his part, Baron Endbrook employed himself inquiring after road conditions and confirming that the map he had purchased in Hawk Haven was accurate enough for his purposes.
Lady Melina was actively helpful-even eager-in these preparations for travel. She hovered near, effacing herself lest in this border town she might chance on some acquaintance from Hawk Haven.
However, whenever Waln"s ability to splice his dozen or so New Kelvinese words to gestures and carefully enunciated phrases in Pellish-the language of Gildcrest and thus that of Hawk Haven and Bright Bay-failed to communicate their desire, she stepped forward and acted as translator.
Often the subject of their inquiry-be it shopkeeper, hostler, or local official-was so pleased and astonished to be addressed in the language of the country that he-or she or it, Waln privately admitted that he still had trouble telling the gender of many of the heavily robed figures-would reveal a reasonable fluency in Pellish.
In this way, they learned that the roads should be clear for this day"s journey, but that they should be prepared to convert the wagon to sleigh runners before continuing on the next day.