Disclaimer: Most characters herein are, naturally, not my own.
A Throne of One's Own
4. Wolves at the Door
Dipping her ladle into the bubbling stewpot, Susi gingerly dabbed a finger at in the spoon's content and sucked her paw clean. Smacking her lips, she wiggled her hips in celebration. It tasted good.
"Is it ready yet, Susi?"
The thrall looked to her left. A wolf younger than her was straining to see over the wicker fence that enclosed the yard of her mistress Amaranth's roundhouse.
"Not yet, Choni. Go play some more."
"Okay, Susi!"
Disappearing from the cub's eyeline, Choni skipped on over to where a group of his fellow pups — the offspring of thralls too young to be put to work themselves — were frolicking on the dusty path.
Susi hummed happily to herself as she went on stirring the stew. Across the yard, she could see more beady sets of eyes peering over the fence, watching Lita and Laica as they paraded about in their new blue tunics.
The woolen garments had once belonged to her mistress, not that she was old enough to remember seeing the hedgehog wear them. They'd languished at the bottom of a chest until Amaranth overheard the she-wolves complaining about their scratchy sackcloth tunics while fawning over Susi's hand-me-down.
"Susi!"
The wolf cub went suddenly rigid. She stiffly craned her neck to see over the fence. The gaggle of gawking pups scattered as a gray she-wolf came bounding down the path.
"Mama?" breathed Susi, covering her mouth with both paws as the she-wolf nimbly hurdled the fence.
Tearing across the yard, Lupe slowed as she neared the makeshift outdoor kitchen. Rounding the tripod the stewpot was suspended from, she lifted the rigid cub clean off her feet.
"Mama!" squealed Susi, wrapping all four limbs at once around her mother.
Back on the path, Shadow faltered midstride as Lobo suddenly turned and dropped to one knee in front of him.
"How do I begin to thank you, my lord?"
Regarding the genuflecting brown wolf impassively, Shadow fought back a sigh.
"By not wasting your time down there, for one," he said wearily, "Get up, Lobo."
Lobo stumbled awkwardly, as if caught between trying to stand up and bow lower. Shadow offered the thrall his hand, then manually turned him around, and with a gentle push, sent him on his way.
Most of Dalriada's enslaved wolves lived apart from their mates, but none saw as little of each other as Lupe and Lobo. They'd both served Queen Rouge personally once upon a time, back when Shadow and Amaranth were still newcomers to the hillfort. Then little Susi happened, and Lobo barely escaped the queen's mead hall with his life.
Lupe had been the Moon Wolf of Dalriada, a shaman charged with performing certain rites at the periodic lunar banquets, supposedly to ensure the moon's renewal for another cycle. In old King Höcke's time, she'd lived a comfortable if cloistered existence, performing divinations and blessing newborns among other duties. That lifestyle ended with King Aero and Queen Rouge's arrival.
The bats had retained Lupe as Moon Wolf at first, if only to keep their new subjects sweet. Alas, once she was found to be pregnant — for reasons beyond Shadow's comprehension, Moon Wolves were expected to remain 'pure' all their lives — Rouge had had no qualms about axing the whole tradition.
Only Amaranth had stopped the queen axing Lobo, too. Looking back on it, that intervention may have been the first fissure in the widening chasm between his wife and sovereign that Shadow had been finding harder and harder to bridge.
Slowly picking a path to the gate through the gaggle of gawking pups, Shadow stepped into the yard. He started towards Amaranth, only to find her with her arms around two adolescent she-wolves, both crying their eyes out as they watched the family reunion. Leaving her to it, he headed for the roundhouse.
Ducking under the conical thatched roof, he found Silver lying face-down on a cloak beside the dwelling's shallow central firepit. His son was fast asleep, and bare as the day he was born.
"Found our little charioteer?" asked Amaranth, ducking inside behind him.
Shadow looked over his shoulder at her. "Where'd his tunic go?"
"That would be…that cistern near the forge."
"The forge?" said the black hedgehog, "He walked all the way from the forge like…that?"
His wife tilted her head. "Well, yes he did. Why?"
"Those wolves out there—"
"Probably wouldn't think twice about running around without their tunics on," Amaranth cut in, "Don't go all Erinian on me. He's only lived here his entire life."
"He won't live here forever," said Shadow levelly.
"Then let him enjoy it while it lasts," countered Amaranth.
The hedgehogs silently traded stares until a loud snore punctured the silence. Shooting a glance at the sleeping Silver, Shadow grumbled and stalked off, disappearing behind the curtain that partitioned the couple's sleeping quarters from the rest of the roundhouse.
Alone, he attacked the buckles holding his iron breastplate in place. Lifting the embossed metal off his torso, he walked to the back of the bedchamber and placed it on a stand bearing the rest of his armor, a second stand bore Amaranth's burnished battlewear. The wall behind them was covered in the couple's private armory.
Shadow unbuckled his plaited-leather sword-belt and hung the sheathed weapon on a hook beside the longest of his wife's war-hammers. She had three of varying sizes, in addition to assorted maces and other bludgeoning implements. Strangely for a highborn Erinian, she'd never taken to swords.
He, by contrast, had never quite gotten to grips with anything else. He threw a mean javelin, though.
Silver had yet to say which weapon he wanted to get his hands on when the time inevitably came. When it did, Amaranth would be the one training him to use it. That was one Erinian custom Shadow wasn't letting her get out of. He'd done his part, trying to teach Silver how chariot horses could move at other speeds besides full gallop.
Still feeling the effects of that boneshaking ride home, Shadow took some time to stretch before lifting his dusty tunic up over his head.
"Is this about what those fire-dancers said?" asked Amaranth, suddenly wrapping her arms around his waist, "Silver told me about that."
He sighed, placing his hands on hers. "I wish it was."
"Then what is it?" she said, pressing the side of her face between his shoulder blades, "You've never seemed to mind him splashing about with Susi."
Shadow sighed, longer and louder.
"The queen had things to impart," he said.
Amaranth held him tighter, nuzzling his back. "Such as?"
"I leave at dawn."
"Arkadia?"
"Yes."
"Well…had to happen sometime, didn't it?" said Amaranth, "How long's it even been since that coup?"
"Long enough, apparently."
"So, who else is she sending?"
"Knuxahuatl."
"That stands to reason. No sense in—"
"Knuxahuatl…and Blaze."
The roseate arms around his waist instantly withdrew.
"She's sending the Hellcat?!" spat Amaranth, stepping back, "Does she want you three fighting this war by yourselves?"
Shadow took his time turning around, hoping it wouldn't inflame his wife's temper.
"What war?" he asked levelly.
"The war that Iblisian fanatic going to start when sets Laputa on fire!"
"And why would she do that?"
"How should I know?" said Amaranth, throwing up her hands, "You'll have to make camp at least once between here and there. She'll have a whole night for the campfire to tell her something."
"Would you stop and listen to yourself—"
"No, you listen to yourself!" his wife snapped, "You say 'what war' as if these things ever end any other was. This isn't an embassy, it's reconnaissance. It's all they ever are. So what Rouge think she's doing sending a cat who couldn't tell an echidna from a hedgehog when she—"
"Amie!" growled Shadow.
A brief hush fell over the bedchamber.
"Amie?" said Amaranth quietly, "When was the last time you called me that?"
Shadow pulled her closer, pressing her face against his abundant chest fur.
"Too long ago," he said softly, "Blaze isn't the madwoman you think she is."
"Isn't she?" mumbled Amaranth, "Those families in Zama probably didn't think so either before she burned them alive."
Shadow breathed his heaviest sigh yet.
"They were rebels, Amie," he said, cupping her face in his hands, "We've done some pretty terrible things ourselves in—"
"We never did that, though," Amaranth cut in, clasping a handful of white chest fur, "How long until Nephthys or Guntiver next decide to renege on a treaty? What's to say Rouge won't go and ask 'what would Iblis do?', hmm?"
Shadow blinked impassively.
"There's more chance of Blaze realizing the queen will never invade Agnia for her."
"Never? Even with all those Arkadian emeralds—"
"When have you ever known Rouge to give away treasure, Amie?" said Shadow, pressing his forehead to hers, "And even if she ever does, we'll be long gone."
"We better be," whispered Amaranth.
The hedgehogs kissed, staying lip-locked as they pressed up against each other, running their fingers through the other's head-quills.
"Ma?"
"His timing's as bad as yours," breathed Amaranth as their mouths parted. She turned around while the tunicless Shadow ducked out of view, "Silver? You're awake?"
Her ten-year-old son stood in the bedchamber's doorway, holding the curtain with one hand, and rubbing an eye with the other.
"Uh-huh," he uttered dozily, "Lobo says food's ready, ma."
"We'd better find you something to wear, then," said Amaranth.
"Huh?"
Silver looked down at himself.
"Oh…"
Once father and son were both dressed, the hedgehogs exited the roundhouse together. Outside, the yard teemed with wolf pups. Lita was trying valiantly to organize the younglings into some sort of a line whilst Laica doled out bowls of stew. Silver immediately went to help with crowd control. His parents gamely joined the back of the disorderly queue.
Such lupine incursions were a more or less daily dinnertime occurrence when Shadow and Amaranth weren't off fighting. The queen's laws obliged any Dalriadan who kept thralls to feed them properly, but the rules were hazier regarding those too young to work.
Typically, pups were taken in young by whichever household they'd grow up to serve — that was how Lita and Laica had entered the blacksmith Rufio's service — but the hillfort's supply of enslaved young wolves had almost always outstripped demand.
These surplus thralls simply had to hope their parents' masters weren't misers, or rather, they had until a four-year-old Silver had befriended some hungry cubs. His family hadn't eaten dinner by themselves in six years now, not that they hadn't always dined with Lobo and Susi anyway.
Watching Silver patiently steer a would-be queue jumper back into line, Shadow looked across the yard to where Lupe and Lobo were sat with Susi nestled between them. He would never presume to compare his oath of fealty to Rouge with Lobo's enslavement to him, but they had more in common than he ever dare to tell the thrall.
They'd both almost died for love once, and only one hedgehog's guts had saved them.
"I love you, Amie," whispered Shadow, squeezing his wife's hand.
Ж
"Th-thank you," said Knuxahuatl as the she-wolf poured the last of the hot water out her pail.
The thrall smiled meekly at the echidna wallowing in the round wooden tub. Knuxahuatl smiled back.
"Serigala?"
The she-wolf's head shot up.
"M-mistress," she said, swiftly lowering her eyes.
Knuxahuatl looked over his shoulder. Queen Rouge was standing in the doorway of her own private chamber, goblet in hand, a half-smile on her face.
"That will be all, I think," said the bat.
Serigala scurried for the door, ducking under her mistress's outstretched wings.
"My queen," said Knuxahuatl, nodding to Rouge as she languidly approached the tub.
"Will you insist on thanking every thrall for performing the most basic tasks?" she asked, perching on the lip of the tub beside him.
"Shouldn't I, my queen?"
"Some of my warriors do," said Rouge, "But if they get used to that sort of gratitude for simply doing what's expected of them, how will they know when they've done something exceptional?"
"A…fair question, my queen," said the echidna uncertainly.
"Now you're sounding like a thrall," said the bat, idly stroking one of the echidna's plaited quills with the back of her hand.
"How should I sound?"
"Like you're not one wrong word away from having Hunni haul you out of the room," sighed Rouge, sipping from her goblet, "I punish Lupe for needlessly ruining one of my best dresses and suddenly everyone acts like I'm Mephiles."
The echidna frowned. Mephiles?
"Sorry, my queen, I don't—"
"There you go again," said the queen, drumming her fingers on his scalp.
Knuxahuatl held his tongue, unsure if there was anything he could say that wouldn't fail thrall test. Maybe it was just his voice. In spite of certain recent developments, he still didn't feel completely comfortable in queen's throne room, never mind her private chamber beyond it.
The tub's waters rippled, coaxing him out of his reverie. He turned to see Rouge climbing into the tub beside him.
"Here's one suggestion: what say we dispense with that 'my queen' nonsense when we're alone like this?"
"But m-my—"
A finger over his lips silenced him as the bat folded her wings and sidled closer.
"Just Rouge," she said softly, slowly removing her finger.
"R-Rouge it is," he said haltingly.
"Better," she said, gently caressing the plait nearest his face.
The tub's waters rippled as she sidled so close, their hips met beneath the surface. Knuxahuatl tensed in body and mind as a warm palm pressed against his cheek, forcing him to meet her eye-to-eye.
"I hope you're not this tongue-tied with all royalty."
Stung, the echidna opened his mouth to protest. Rouge's lips pounced. The ensuing kiss continued as she shimmied up onto his lap.
"Otherwise, it's going to be deeply inconvenient when you're King of Arkadia."