A tug on his ruff woke Cai.
It was Lura, as it ever was. Once a day, she led him down a dark, narrow corridor to a small doorway that led outside. The fresh air was always a relief, as was emptying his bladder in the tall grass. The first day she’d taken him out, he had walked toward what seemed the edge of the land itself and discovered that wasn’t far from the truth. The fortress sat atop a bluff, beyond which lay nothing but sea, iron-gray and wild.
He’d been born in a place like this. It had felt safe, for the most part, and intriguing. Chambers and corridors and storerooms and stables… So many places for a boy to explore, and to hide. When he had four years, his family had left that place and crossed the sea to Britannia. They’d settled in the mountains of Cymru, a place he didn’t have to cradle in his memory because it had roots in his bones.
But there was nothing there for him now but pain. Whereas here he might have food and shelter, as long as these people trusted him. This girl. Her father.
As long as he remained always a wolf, and an obedient one, and Lura kept her promise, he might stay.
It might be enough.
Agravain was away most of every day, returning only at night. He spoke to Lura in a low tone, a manner that conveyed authority, but also care and respect. She responded in kind. No hesitation, voice strong. Cai didn’t understand a word when they spoke the northern tongue, so he studied them.
The man had a compact build, the hard contours of his muscles apparent in the hearth light when he removed his outer layers to slide under the furs on the low bed. Charcoal-dark hair clipped short, dark eyes. No beard—either couldn’t grow one or someone shaved it from his jaw for him.
Father and daughter were very alike in both their assured manner and dark hair. Lura didn’t stay in the chamber with Cai all day. Every time she entered, she brought with her new scents. Some spoke of the sea, some of spices and cooking. Occasionally he detected the scent of grease on her fingers or ale on her boots. A few times he’d caught something that reminded him of his younger sister, Mora, of the hints of her work under old Mother Mabyn, the Myrddin before Philip. Tinctures, herbs. Potions.
Lura smelled thus just now. “Time to go outside.” She slipped the lead around his neck.
Her Cymrish had surprised him the first time he’d heard it, until he remembered it was her grandmother’s native tongue. Lura must spend a lot of time with Morgawse; she spoke it fluently.
That he hadn’t immediately despised the leash had been…disturbing. He wanted to hate it. He should want to snarl and snap. What sort of man would want to be trussed up and led about by another? He’d only ever known of two men who enjoyed binding each other into helplessness, but that was a memory he’d buried long ago. Hardly ever thought of it.
But this leather cord circling his throat… Instead of making him fear for his air, it settled the fur on his neck. Instead of making him want to run, to flee, to fling himself off the high cliff outside and onto the rocks below, it seemed to connect the pads of his feet more surely to the earth.
It soothed him, as insane as that seemed.
Lura led him toward the door, and he found himself looking forward to stepping out into fresh air. His bladder began to feel heavy in anticipation, but then Lura’s father appeared under the lintel of the door. To Cai’s surprise, the man took the leash from his daughter.
They traded a few of their own words, Agravain kneeling so that their eyes were on a level, and though Lura was listening and nodding solemnly, her small hands were restless. She wanted the lead back, Cai guessed, but it was wrapped loosely around her father’s fist. Cai studied the calm, confident grip of Agravain’s hand and inhaled deeply. Sweat, stone, cut leather. Salt—always salt here. But also something he couldn’t put a name to or even describe, except that it made his heart beat more slowly. Whatever it was, he could imagine becoming accustomed to it. Needing it as much as air or water.
Agravain looked at him, and Cai’s heart kicked in his chest. After a few more bloodbeats, Agravain handed the lead to Lura. Something her father said made her look at Cai, and he imagined it’d been a warning not to bind herself too tightly, lest he bolt and hurt her. He’d caused her no such harm, but the thought still made him feel ashamed, and he ducked his head, offering her his neck. She patted his fur and said, “Wolf,” and the sound of his old tongue made him want to bolt indeed. He glanced up at Agravain, whose gaze was pinned to where his daughter’s hand touched Cai’s neck.
If he was going to survive here, he would need to meet this man’s standard foremost. That must begin with shutting out the words from his old life and learning the tongue of these islands. The tongue Agravain would use to command him.
The thought made the fur of his ruff rise again. He shook himself as gently as possible and lowered his gaze. After a moment, Agravain said something else—blunt but not harsh—and when Lura tugged lightly on the lead, Cai decided it had meant come or let’s go. He tried to store the memory of the word-sound in his mind as he followed them out of the chamber.
The corridors Lura led him through were dark and quiet, and for a while he only smelled the stone of the building and the identifying scents of Lura and her father. Then the scents he associated with groups of people—roasted meat, baked bread, and ale—grew stronger and voices louder until they came to a chamber with a wide hearth. The smells of food set Cai’s belly to growling fiercely, but Lura and her father didn’t approach those cooking. Instead, they made straight for a door in the wall opposite. On the other side of the threshold, the air was cooler and smelled of the sea.
Then he was being led down a set of stairs hewn into the rock, their treads damp and chill on the pads of his paws. Light from below grew as they descended, as did the sounds of surf. The stairs leveled off in a short cavern. Lura led him through it, turning left at its mouth and onto a small, protected beach. There, she let go of the lead.
Cai watched it fall to the pebbled sand. When he looked back up, she was grinning at him.
“Bet you can’t catch me!”
She took off at a run, plaits flying, and Cai bolted after her.
Agravain sat on the rocks up the beach and watched Lura at her play. It consisted of equal measures splashing in the surf and ordering her wolf about. The beast seemed content to go along, bringing its front paws down in a way that ensured Agravain would be toweling both of them dry later. Lura laughed, even as she issued her mandates with pointed finger, and the wolf ran up and down the shore, fetching sticks and grinning in its toothy way. Beyond them, a couple of hawks swooped and dived above the gray waves. A mated pair, maybe, and he wondered if they were descended from those his people had once kept in the rookery above the fortress.
After half an hour, the wolf finally tired and, ignoring Lura’s calls, padded across the pebbles to where he watched. It sat down next to him with a huff.
“Wolf!”
“He’s weary, lass. Let him rest.”
She shrugged and began picking through shells the tide had left behind. The wolf watched her intently, as much as any guard hound might.
“Thank you,” Agravain said. He felt a bit foolish when the wolf didn’t react, but then curiosity pricked at him. Lura nearly always spoke Cymrish to it. In that tongue, he said again, “Thank you.”
The wolf looked up at him. Its eyes were the deep brown of a well-aged ship. Serious, waiting.
“Thank you for watching over her when I can’t. For being a companion to her. I worry she’s lonely.”
The wolf turned to watch Lura for a moment before looking back at Agravain. It dipped its chin, but he couldn’t tell if it was the normal sort of acquiescence one saw between dogs and men, or if the beast had understood him.
He snorted to himself. Of course it hadn’t understood him, Cymrish or no. Maybe his daughter wasn’t the lonely one on this beach.
The wolf flinching under his hand was his first hint he’d touched it. When he looked down, he found his fingers half dug into the thick fur of its ruff. The outer fur stood in damp spikes, but the undercoat was warm and dry. He dug his fingers more deeply and scratched its hide. The wolf leaned hard against his knee. It shouldn’t have felt like a victory, but it did.
It shouldn’t have felt as if he too had a trusted companion—after all, he’d given the animal nothing but the barest care—
But it did.
He pressed the wolf against his leg briefly, then continued his scratching. “My father died in that water there. I had no love for him, or even respect. Only fear. My daughter won’t fear me like that, I’m determined.” Lura was now sorting shells by some characteristic he couldn’t discern from where he sat. “It’s a strange thing, wolf. Difficult to describe, even harder to justify. I scarcely knew her mother. Married her to satisfy my own mother’s expectations. Produce an heir, and so forth. When word came from the birthing chamber that I had a daughter…” He growled to himself. “I’m ashamed to admit my gut response was disappointment. But then I held her.”
The wolf looked up at him. He escaped its penetrating gaze to watch his daughter.
She’d been squalling to wake the entire stronghold. When he was let into the chamber, he’d walked a gauntlet of watchful eyes. It had been palpable, the sense that he didn’t belong there, that he was invading a domain he had no right to occupy, father or not. When he reached the bed, he’d set a palm to Gret’s brow, then turned to his mother. She was the only one smiling at him.
Beaming, actually. She settled a squirming wee bundle in the stiff crook of his arm, then pulled the wrappings away from the babe’s face.
He had a moment to wonder at the tiny ridges on the roof of the pink mouth. Then the babe caught sight of him and hiccupped into sudden silence. She studied him with eyes as darkly blue as the summer sea, before bestowing some unfathomable blessing upon him with a sweep of her damp lashes, and he would have killed for her.
He didn’t recall leaving the chamber. Only found himself sometime later in the hall, being toasted.
He did recall slipping back into the room long past the time the fortress was sleeping again, to get another glimpse of this wonder he’d been a careless party in creating. She was tucked against Gret’s bare breast, her hair a dark cloud in the lamplight. So fine he couldn’t feel it between his fingertips. Intent on getting some sense of her, he’d smoothed a knuckle across her cheek. At the touch, she’d reached up and wrapped her fingers around his until she held him fast.
“She’s my life.” He looked down to find the wolf watching him. “Guard her with yours.”
A shout sounded down the beach, and the wolf sprang away from him. It raced to Lura in a blur of gray fur and surprising power, and planted itself between her and the new arrivals.
But the call had been a friendly one, and Lura said something that calmed her beast. Agravain waved to his younger brothers. By the time he reached them, the wolf was only watching intently as Lura showed off her array of shells to Gahers.
Agravain nodded to Gareth. “Did you come through the sea cave?”
“Aye,” said Gareth, as Gahers said, “No.”
Gareth rolled his eyes and glared at Gahers.
Agravain chuckled. “Been on a hunting trip of your own?” They kept a small skiff in another passage a bit farther down from the cave. He suspected they used the boat to visit women on another of the islands. They must not be bothered by the execution chamber they had to walk through to access their boat storage.
“An errand for Mother,” Gareth said. “Tribute reminders to a couple of the outer lords. Nothing so interesting as a new pet wolf.” The looks that he and Gahers gave him then might as well have been elbows to his ribs.
“Lura, take your wolf back to our chambers. Keep a good hold of him in the kitchen, aye? And you two,” he said to his grinning brothers. “Come. I’ll show you what we brought back from the hunt you missed.”