Lady of the Haven (Empire Princess Book 1) Read online

  She dismissed the matter with a wave of her hand.

  But the aging wolf would not let the matter be. He pushed his snout only inches away from her face and felt the warm breath from her mouth pass over his nose. “Tell me, child,” he said gently, “what is wrong? What is it that troubles your heart?”

  Stacy looked at his piercing dark eyes and felt again that he was reading her innermost thoughts. “I don’t know if I’ll be back,” she said, turning her eyes toward the ground.

  Hector nodded glumly. He had expected as much. “Then you have chosen the Valley over the forest?”

  Stacy laughed a short soundless laugh. “Of course not. You know me better than that. I hate the Valley. If it weren’t for my parents, I’d never return. But I can’t spend my life here in the forest, either, as much as I love you all. I need to find a place among my own, but far away.”

  Hector nuzzled closer and sighed. “You’ll travel across the mountains, won’t you? To Newfoundland?”

  Stacy nodded slowly. Newfoundland. There was magic for her in the name itself. The new frontier of rugged hills and fjords and roaring rivers that led to the sea. There were many from the Valley in Newfoundland, adventurous men and women who had left the comforts of the Valley to seek a new life in the open wilds. It was a hard life but a satisfying one.

  “Is your mind made up?” Hector asked.

  Stacy wiped away the hint of a tear from the corner of her eye. “I can’t find any other answer for myself,” she said truthfully. “I only know I can never be happy the way I am.”

  “Your parents will be sad,” said Hector, trying not to speak of his own feelings toward her inevitable departure.

  “I know. But what else can I do? Perhaps somewhere in the Empire there’ll be a place for me. I know it’s not in the Valley. It has to be Newfoundland.”

  Hector hung his head low. He knew that to try and talk Stacy out of this would only cause her more unhappiness, and that was the last thing he wanted. The Valley confined her; and the forest gave her freedom but not the companionship of her own. It was that she needed most. Hector frowned because it was also the one thing the wolves could never provide.

  “You’ll be giving up much,” he told her. “Your title, position...”

  Stacy shrugged. “I don’t care about such things. I never did. Besides, most of the ladies at court will be glad to be rid of me.” Here she smiled wryly. “I make them uncomfortable. Behind my back they gossip about me and...the wolves.”

  Hector laughed. “Indeed?” he snarled. The world of men could be cruel, he knew, and the idea of them laughing at one such as Stacy made him all the more contemptuous of their ways. Still, not all men behaved in such a fashion. In fact, Nigel had once been the best friend he had ever had. The adventures they had shared so many years before had become legends in the forest. And of all men in the Valley, was it not Nigel who had been the first to forge the friendship between men and wolves? And was it not he and Nigel who had found the way out of the forest and discovered the lands now called Newfoundland? Hector closed his eyes and sighed. That was all so long ago, like the magic of a dream. In many ways it seemed to Hector that his friend had forgotten the wolves. Like other men he was too preoccupied with the building of man’s Empire to pay much attention to his old friends in the forest. But there had been Stacy to take his place. And now even she would leave them — leaving him as lonely as before.

  As he sat, with Stacy running her hands through his fur, he heard the laughter of cubs. He opened one lazy eye to the small gathering under the old willow tree at the side of the stream. In the center of the half-circle of giggling cubs there was a large white-furred wolf sitting up on his hind legs, growling softly. The cubs were staring at him in anxious anticipation as the elderly white wolf spun one of his fabulous yarns. It was a tale of times long past, a fable of ancient wolf lore. And Hector quickly noticed that Stacy was listening, too. Hector smiled wistfully. It seemed like only yesterday that she had sat under the willow tree with Old One and had listened every bit as eagerly as the cubs did now.

  Hector stirred and wagged his tail discontentedly. “Doesn’t Old One ever tire of those fables?” he muttered under his breath.

  Stacy glanced down at him and smiled. “Does any wolf tire of fables?” she retorted.

  “But he keeps the cubs up past their bedtime!” protested Hector with annoyance. “Someday I’m going to put a stop to all this nonsense.”

  The girl pinched him lightly on his forehead. “Why be so angry? He’s been doing this for years, ever since I can remember.”

  “And sometimes I curse the day we ever found him,” snarled Hector, trying to act the role of patriarch. “Did Old One ever join the hunters? No, he didn’t. And did Old One ever take a hand in giving lessons to the cubs? No, he did not. He never even helped the females with the chores. He never even helped in seeking our winter shelter. All he’s ever done is sit back under that blasted willow tree of his, eat a hearty supper and spin outrageous tales.”

  “You’re the one who always said the pack had to be kind to Old One,” recalled Stacy after a moment’s thought. “And you’re the one who took him into our pack.”

  Hector nodded glumly. “I know, I know. But if I had only realized what he would be like...” He shook his head ruefully.

  “You’d still do the very same thing,” laughed Stacy. “You know you would. You found him cold and dying in the snow, with nowhere to go —”

  “He could have gone back to his own land,” snapped Hector before Stacy could finish her thought. “Back to his land of miracles.”

  “Wherever that is,” she replied with a shrug.

  In all the years that Old One had been with the pack, no one, not even Hector, who after all was lord of the pack, had ever been able to find out just what land that was. But wherever it was, it was nowhere in this forest. Indeed he was the only white wolf Stacy had ever seen.

  Hector curled up and once again closed his eyes as Stacy continued to stroke his fur. Old One seemed to be at a very important point in his story, she realized. The cubs’ eyes were wide with astonishment, and one or two of them were actually trembling with the expectation of what was yet to come and how it all would end. Old One cleverly let the tensions mount, as any master storyteller does: he rolled his eyes in his head, glanced at his listeners carefully, looking from face to face, and let his words roll painfully and slowly off his wet tongue. Stacy strained to hear the outcome of the tale, of how Fara had spun her magic and finally slew the demon that had imprisoned her.

  But it was odd, she mused, that like everyone else in the pack, she had known Old One for so long yet really knew nothing about him, not even his true name. He was called Old One only because when they found him, that day so long ago, he was already getting on in years. And now, by far, he was the oldest wolf she knew of all the wolves in the forest.

  The crisis was solved; Fara returned to her stars. The cubs sighed with relief, for it had been touch and go for quite a while. A few begged for yet another story. Old One shook his head and laughed. “Not tonight, young hunters and huntresses, the hour is late and well past your bedtime. But tomorrow,” Old One winked, “ah, yes. I have a special tale. One I have been saving.”

  And at the barks of their mothers the cubs scampered away. Old One smiled as he watched them leave, then looked longingly at the stars, as if listening to them speak. Did his many fables come from the stars? Stacy wondered. She answered herself with a shrug; a child of men would never know.

  Long moments passed; Hector dropped his head from Stacy’s lap and rested it on the soft earth. Then he began to snore. All the camp was asleep, Stacy saw. All but her — and Old One.

  Quietly, without disturbing Hector or any of the others, she got up and walked to the willow tree. Old One turned his head and smiled. “Khalea,” he whispered, surprised and delighted. “They say you leave the forest tomorrow. How kind of you to remember to come and say good-bye to me.” He stared at her wi
th tired eyes, kind eyes, filled with warmth.

  “I’d never forget to say good-bye to you,” answered the girl. She knelt down and kissed his muzzle. Old One returned her affection with broad sweeps of his tongue across her face. Stacy plopped down and hugged him with all her strength, something she had not done since she was a little girl, a cub.

  A sudden gust of wind swept through the trees and sent a scattering of leaves tumbling around them. Old One raised his head and sniffed at the breeze. “The snows will come early this season, I fear,” he said knowingly. “Aleya speaks it on her breath.”

  “Your senses are good, Old One,” replied Stacy.

  The white wolf smiled. “Ahh, but not as good as when I was a hunter. When I was young...” The words trailed off like a wisp of smoke.

  “Don’t stop,” pouted Stacy. “Tell me about when you were young. I’d love to hear.”

  “When I was young,” repeated Old One, “I could sense Aleya blowing from the mountain to the meadow; I could catch the scent of a fine young buck or elk clear across a valley. But that was a long time ago, Khalea. A very long time ago.”

  “How old are you?” asked Stacy, the words blurting out before she could stop them. Among wolves, such a question was considered rude, and she was sorry for her outburst.

  But if Old One felt slighted or hurt, he did not show it. He gazed again to the stars and wagged his tail from one side to the other. “How old am I?” he asked with a shrug. “How shall I measure the time? How old is the great oak at the top of that hill?” he wondered rhetorically. “How old are these pebbles that rest in the stream? How old is this fine willow that lends us its shade? Truly, Khalea, I cannot count the years.”

  Stacy stretched out upon the grass and rested her head in her hands. “But there are many ways to measure time, she said. “You can count the summers, or the new moons, like tonight.”

  Old One nodded somberly. “What you have said I know to be true. Back in my own land we count the time by the long nights of winter and by the snows that begin with the first frost. Summers are far too short.”

  Stacy shivered involuntarily. She could never be happy in a land where summer was a mere brief encounter. “It sounds like a very cold place,” she told him.

  Old One shook his head. “Oh, no, Khalea! It is a beautiful land. A rich land of snow-capped peaks that rise right to the heavens. A place where a wolf can feel Fara’s presence everywhere. My own pack dwelled in such a place, high above all. And sometimes you can feel as though Fara herself were standing at your side as you peer down at the world below.”

  “But to have no sun! No summer!”

  Old One stared at her incredulously. “No sun? No summer? Not so, Khalea! The lands come alive during the warm months. Lush and fertile, the meadows and valleys overflow with wild flowers, even more beautiful than this lovely forest.”

  Stacy saw the wolf’s eyes light up with pride as he spoke, but in a way that told her that this was no mere fable. These were true memories. Fond memories, told with love. “Have you never wished to go home?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her knees.

  Old One sighed a deep sigh. “How can one ever hope to cross the sea?” he said.

  Stacy grimaced. He was speaking in riddles.

  And Old One saw the frown at the corners of her mouth. “Such a journey cannot be made twice,” he continued after a time. “Now I must be content to live with but memories.”

  For a moment Stacy was startled; was the wolf being serious? Was he saying he had crossed the sea? Literally? Then she leaned back and smiled. She should know better. This was another tale after all, another yarn to while away the long, early autumn night.

  Old One lowered his head and sighed. “I see that you do not believe. But who can blame you? Whenever I have recounted the adventure, I am laughed at. So I speak of it no more. Tm sorry that I began to tell you.”

  Stacy glanced up. The pained look in his eyes told her that he had been telling the truth and that this was not one of his fables. She gazed deeply into his eyes. “Forgive me for laughing, Old One. But no one can cross the sea. It’s just not possible.”

  The wolf kept a sharp steady look. Dryly he said, “I did.”

  “But...but how?” sputtered Stacy. “Even the bravest Newfoundland mariners haven’t yet crossed the sea in their ships. How could a wolf?”

  Old One sat in stony silence. Stacy leaned back and bit her lip. She was sorry again for the outburst. “Please tell me how you came to our land, Old One,” she said softly, eyes downcast. “I’ll not make fun of you. I swear it.”

  The wolf drew a long breath and let it out slowly. It had been such a long time, and so much had happened since then. But he wanted Stacy to know; he had found someone who might believe him. And if she did, then that alone would make it all worthwhile.

  And so he began. “I was quite young at the time, in fact not much more than a cub. But already I was considered one of the finest young hunters in the pack. Many were the times that I had led the other young hunters down the mountain to seek the wild game of the meadows. Often my father, who was lord of the pack, would look at me with amazement when he saw the fine game my companions and I had dragged home. ‘My son is blessed by Fara,’ he would tell the elders proudly. And truly it was so, for no other hunter, no matter what his experience, was able to have the success that came so easily to me. And I was a proud tracker; indeed, I often scorned the caution and wisdom that many of the wizened hunters tried to instill in me. And that was my undoing.”

  Here Old One paused and gazed back at the stars through watery eyes.

  “The next winter, times were hard. The cubs and the old whimpered in the caves for lack of even an old bone to chew. Our hunters made constant forays down into the meadow, but each time without success. The land was bare, Khalea, bare like I pray no wolf shall ever know again. The hunters came home and wept at the sight of their starving families. My father, great lord that he was, despaired. And despite the pleas of my sobbing mother, he set out alone one night to go down the mountain and see what he could find. One moon passed, Khalea. Then another. And still another. But my father did not return. I decided that I, too, must go down the mountain — and if not find food for the pack, at least seek out my lost father.

  “Aleya grew colder and colder that winter morning. The sage warned me not to stir from the cave. ‘There are terrible snows about,’ he told me, ‘And the touch of death breathes on Aleya’s lips.’ But as I have said, I was a proud hunter. And nothing, not even Fara herself, could stop me in my determination. ‘I will go nevertheless,’ I told the sage. And as he bowled his head sadly, I left our lair. Little was I to know that I was leaving forever.

  “The path down the slope was perilous, but using my wiles and cunning, I managed to reach the plateau before dark. I paused beside the smooth rocks of the ledge and searched the white meadow below. But there was no sign of any other — not even of my father. All through the night I searched, traveling over hills I had never seen before. By the next morning I was exhausted. Beside a mound of snow there stood a huge pine, and under that pine I nestled, burrowing a small hole in the snow like a rabbit. And there I fell asleep.

  “I woke to hear a cry. ‘Father!’ I screamed, ‘Is it you?’ But no. It was Aleya blowing more fiercely than I had ever known. And with her rage came swirling snow. Frightened like an unweaned cub, I wept and bemoaned my fate, for surely this day I would die.

  “The storm ended. Starving and lost, I wandered aimlessly, seeking I know not what. Was I delirious? Perhaps. I cannot say. But delirious or not, I was still too stubborn to give up. Soon I was in the lowlands of my home, a place of barren rock and shrubs. How I managed to have walked all that way I’ll never know. But walk it I did. The sun warmed my fur and melted the snow at my feet. I was alive. Hungry and bedraggled, to be sure, but alive. Now if only I could find food. And no sooner had I thought the thought than Fara herself delivered a tasty meal. From some ugly hole in the ground a jackr
abbit raised his head, sniffed with his nose and bounded into the open. Like a panther I leaped. The rabbit had not even time to run. Believe me, Khalea, to this day I remember that meal more than any other in my life. That lowly rabbit saved my life.

  “After some searching for the way home, I became sleepy again. And as darkness was close and the chance of finding another rabbit for supper remote, I once again went to sleep in the snow. Only this time far more contentedly than the last, as you can well imagine. And it was a sweet dream I had that night. I dreamed that Fara was cradling me in her arms and rocking me back and forth. And it was a wonderful feeling, but then I woke, and the feeling became quite something else. I looked about in total fear. Indeed, I was rocking — on a sheet of ice! And what a strange sight I saw. The land was rolling by me. Had some demon taken the land and moved it? I was horrified; what would become of me now? But soon I calmed, and the truth became apparent. My sheet of ice was upon the frozen river, and now the sun had broken the ice and I was drifting upon it. I could not leap to shore, for shore was too far away. Nor could I possibly hope to swim to safety, for the water was too cold to survive. Helplessly I gripped the ice with my paws, praying that soon it would hit against a bank.

  “But Fara had turned from me that day. I could see my mountain home recede into the distance until it was no more than a speck on the horizon. And with night I grew cold again, and again I became frightened. Where would this disastrous adventure lead me next? I shuddered at the thought. Soon my sheet of ice began to pick up speed. I was up on a strong current of the river. The ice pitched this way and that, making me sick to my stomach. My head began to spin; my eyes became blurred. I covered my head with my paws and whimpered. If only I had listened to the sage, I would still be at home.

  “And it was only then, in my darkest moment, that Fara smiled down upon me. A school of tiny fish swam directly alongside my sheet of ice. I plunged my face into the frigid water and found myself rewarded with a fine young salmon. The fish squirmed and wriggled, and I felt compassion for this water dweller. But it was either his life or my own, and so there was little choice. With a gulp I swallowed it whole. Then eagerly I ran to the edge of the ice to see if I could find another. Again it was easy. I ate that one, too, then sought out a third. And the last one I saved, knowing that tomorrow I would again be hungry.