Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [12]
He waits with dark eyes hooded. I stretch out my other hand, hold his face between them.
Words I know are not needed for this form of communication. I make him as mute as I am, cover his mouth with mine. When next he speaks, there are no words at all, but I know perfectly what he desires. With only a small sorrow, I give in to him.
Indeed, he is glorious in his madness.
Four
THE NEXT DAY, AS ABALONE BEGINS MY LESSONS, I CAN hardly keep from touching the ivory wolf’s head that dangles from a silver loop in my left ear.
The ceremony promoting me from Cub to Wolf had been simple yet moving. Head Wolf and Abalone shared the cry “Look well, O Wolves.” The Pack members questioned Head Wolf and were satisfied as to my fitness. Even Edelweiss was more friendly after the inspection was passed and the token presented.
Yet, I realize that I still must prove myself more than a hanger-on. Thus, I bend my head over the model control panel that Abalone has cobbled together for me. The letters and numbers mean nothing to me and have a disconcerting tendency to squirm and move upon the surface.
Abalone deals with her frustration with my inability by focusing the lesson on developing manual skills. What I will do with them comes after.
My determined concentration is shattered as if it is a smoke ring when a thin voice pierces the Jungle with the Stranger’s Hunting Call: “Give me leave to hunt here because I am hungry.”
I have dropped my practice panel into a holding bag and am sliding to the floor even as Head Wolf’s deep voice answers, “Hunt then for food, but not for pleasure.”
Thumping to the floor, I race across and embrace the little, bent woman who has entered the Jungle and stands before Head Wolf unintimidated by the Four who hover over her.
She embraces me in turn, “Easy, Sarah, love, in all things moderation. You will strangle me.”
“Professor Isabella! Professor Isabella!” I repeat over and over.
“Dear child,” she says. “Certainly I have taught you to speak better than that. But I won’t leap you through Othello and Chaucer quite yet; this charming gentleman with lupine pretensions wants to speak with me.”
Head Wolf has watched me greeting Professor Isabella, amusement replacing his initial anger at her invasion. Abalone has joined us, those few members of the Pack who are not out hunting circling round.
Professor Isabella pats me and I sink down to sit at her feet. From this familiar post I study my old teacher. I had believed her unchanged from when I had known her in the Home, but now I see differences.
She still has snow-white hair and delicate, tissue paper skin faintly threaded with blue veins. But her frame is more bent and her hands are swollen, the knuckles shiny with arthritis. My initial joy had numbed me to the fact that she smells strongly, as if she has not bathed in weeks.
The Law of the Jungle insists, “Wash daily from nose tip to tail tip.” I wonder why Professor Isabella is not taking better care of herself.
“Professor Isabella.” Head Wolf cocks an eyebrow. “May I call you that?”
She twinkles. “Professor Isabella Lacey, once of Columbia. I quit during the budget crisis of the nineties. Met Sarah in the Home where I was ‘resting.’”
Head Wolf nods. “You don’t look like a professor.”
“She’s a Tabaqui,” chirps one of the new cubs, a little boy called Peep. “I seen her by the train station.”
Professor Isabella smiles, but I see a flush underneath her weather-worn skin. The truth hits me suddenly.
Head Wolf is speaking. “I recognize the lady, Peep. I simply did not know her distinguished credentials. I recognize you, Professor Lacey. But why have you found hunting in our Jungle necessary?”
“Eloquent.” Professor Isabella shakes her head wonderingly. “I would have enjoyed you as a speaker in some of the meetings I have been bored through. I am here because you have one of my students, my last student.”
“Sarah.” Head Wolf nods. “Lovely Sarah. If you wish to speak with her, you are welcome, but after