David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

“Tell me, what is your name?” Gaborn asked.

“Kaylin,” the boy answered, dropping to one knee.

“These are fine dogs. You are their keeper, I take it?”

“I been helping.” The boy’s language was uncouth, but his sharp eyes marked his intelligence.

“You like these puppies?” Gaborn asked. The boy sniffed and blinked back a tear. He nodded.

“Why are you so sad?”

“I been watchin’ ’em since they was born. I don’t want nothin’ to happen to ’em, Yer Highness.”

Gaborn met Groverman’s eyes. The Duke smiled and nodded toward the boy.

“Then, Kaylin,” Gaborn asked, “would you be willing to stay in the castle, and help care for them for me?”

The boy’s mouth dropped in astonishment. As Myrrima had guessed, Groverman had not forewarned the child of the possibility.

Gaborn merely smiled pleasantly at the Duke. “How many of these pups can you provide me with?”

The Duke smiled. “I’ve been letting them breed at will now for four years. I smelled trouble brewing. Would a thousand suit Your Highness?”

Gaborn grinned. It was a princely wedding gift, in spite of the fact that Iome looked as if she were about to fly into a rage and tear out the Duke’s hair.

“You think we could have that many by spring?” Gaborn asked. “It seems a large number.”

“Far sooner than that,” Groverman said. “Seven hundred pups are waiting outside in wagons. The others will be ready within a few weeks.”

Autumn was not normally the best time of year to get pups, Myrrima knew. More births occurred in early spring and summer. These seven hundred had to have been born within the last sixteen weeks or so.

“My thanks,” Gaborn said. He put his pup on the floor and returned to the breakfast table as Groverman left with. Kaylin in tow.

The King’s pup came and worried at Myrrima’s shoe for a moment, trying to drag her foot from her leg, until she gave it a sausage from her plate.

Iome seemed so upset by the presence of the pups that Myrrima offered to put them out with the others. When Iome agreed, Myrrima grabbed the pups and a plate of sausages. She went outside the keep, and found Kaylin on the green, looking somewhat forlornly at a wagon of pups.

Gaborn’s new counselor, Jureem, who had served Raj Ahten until only recently, was standing next to the boy with his back turned to Myrrima, giving instructions to Kaylin. To be heard over the yapping of the creatures, Jureem spoke loudly.

“You will of course be tireless in your service,” Jureem said. “The dogs will depend on you for food and water and shelter and bathing. You must keep them strong.”

The boy Kaylin nodded vigorously. Myrrima stopped behind Jureem. She had seen Jureem instructing the household staff over the past few days, badgering a chambermaid here, a horse groom there. Now, she was curious to hear what this former slave from a far country had to say.

“A good servant gives his all to his lord,” Jureem intoned with mock exaggeration in a thick Taifan accent. “He never lets himself tire, never shirks his duty. He must never become weary of performing his tasks well. He serves his lord in every thought and every deed, administering to his lord’s needs before they are ever voiced. He gives up his own life—his dreams and pleasures—to serve his lord. Can you do that?”

“But,” the boy said, “I just want to take care of the pups.”

“When you serve them, you are serving your lord. That is the task he has chosen for you. But if he should choose a different task for you, then you must be prepared to fulfill his every command. Do you understand?”

“You mean he might take me away from the pups?” the boy whined.

“Someday, yes. If you do this job well, he will expand your duties. In addition to the kennels, he might place you in charge of his stables or ask you to train dogs for war. You might even be called upon to become a guard and bear arms for even the Dedicate dogs of the kennels might be a target for Raj Ahten’s assassins.

“Watch the King. He works for his people tirelessly. Learn from his devotion. We all live in service to one another. A man is nothing without his lord. A lord is nothing without his servants.” Jureem walked away, hurrying to fulfill some other obligation.

The boy seemed to consider the counselor’s words, then looked up at Myrrima and caught his breath. He smiled at her in that hopeful way that men did ever since she’d been endowed with glamour.

She put both pups down by her feet, and stroked them as they wolfed their sausages. Until that moment, even Myrrima had not known what she would do.

But she knew that she must prepare, and Jureem’s words convinced her that she had to begin doing so tirelessly, to anticipate the threat before it arrived.

“The pups like you,” Kaylin mused.

“You know the pups well?” Myrrima asked. “Do you know which dogs were born of which bitches?”

Kaylin nodded soberly. Of course he did. That was the only reason that Groverman had sent the boy to serve young King Orden.

“I’ll want four of them,” Myrrima said softly, lest someone overhear. She was terribly conscious of the fact that she planned to take these pups from her own king without asking. But Kaylin would never know that she was stealing. Hadn’t he just seen her dining with the King and Queen? The boy would assume that she was some lady who had a right to the pups. Myrrima hoped that if she worked hard, perhaps she could truly earn that right. “Two for stamina, one for scent, and one for metabolism. Can you pick out the best ones for me?”

Kaylin nodded vigorously.

After breakfast, Iome and Gaborn retired to their bedchamber for a moment, and closed the doors behind them, leaving their Days out in the alcove.

Iome could not feel perfectly at ease in this room. The huge bed, with its images of fools and lords carved into its posterns and the pineapples at its top, had been her mother and father’s bed a week ago. Her mother’s perfumes and cosmetics were in their case beside the oriel, where the morning light was best. Her father’s clothes were still in the wardrobes; Gaborn had brought few of his own clothes from Mystarria, but her father’s garments fit Gaborn well enough.

But more than the objects in this room, the scent of it reminded Iome of her parents. She could smell her mother’s hair on her pillow, her body oils, her perfume.

Should I tell him? she wondered. Iome was carrying Gaborn’s child, she felt certain. They’d been married for only four days, and Iome felt no nausea. She would not know for a few days yet whether she had even missed her time of month. But she did feel a strangeness to her body, and Myrrima had seen it today. She’d said that Iome was “glowing.”

But was that proof enough? Iome doubted it. She dared not speak of her hopes to Gaborn.

Iome sat on the edge of the bed, wondering if Gaborn would want her, but he merely went to the oriel and stared south for a long time, deep in thought.

“Have you decided what to do yet?” she asked. Before the wedding, he’d been in constant turmoil, wondering how he could best fight Raj Ahten, wondering where Raj Ahten would strike next. As Earth King, he was the protector of mankind, and now Gaborn shuddered at the very thought of taking a human life, even the life of an enemy. This morning’s news of Raj Ahten’s attacks had left him deeply worried.

She’d encouraged him to go on the hunt, hoping that by having a few days away; slipping into some sort of routine, he might be able to clear his mind, while at the same time it would ease concerns among his people.

“Will you take endowments? Thousands have offered themselves as your Dedicates.”

Gaborn bowed his head in thought. “I can’t,” he said. “Of that I am becoming more and more certain.”