"Yes. I don't know how I got there or what they did to me. I don't remember a lot. But I do remember the murders. Many, many murders."
"Oh," said Rokhlenu. Killing in fights was an accepted part of life in the werewolf city, but secret murder was another thing entirely. "Maybe that does make a difference."
The red werewolf bowed his head. "I'm done with all that. Can't I be Khretvarrgliu's apprentice, Hlupnafenglu? Does it matter that I was the Red Shadow?"
"Not to me," said Rokhlenu. "We were in the Vargulleion together, and we fought our way out together. That matters more to me than the crimes of someone I never heard of until just now."
"But this is a Year of Choosing," Wuinlendhono said gently. "It might matter to the citizens of Wuruyaaria."
The red werewolf nodded, not looking at either of them. "If you say, I will go."
Rokhlenu would have liked to turn him down then and there. No; stay; you're one of us now. But it wasn't that easy.
"Let's think about it," he said. "I have a meeting to go to now"-ghosts, that sounded like something a politician would say, but he was a politician these days-"so let's talk it over later on, perhaps tomorrow. If you can stay, we want you to stay: not as the Red Shadow, but as yourself, as Hlupnafenglu."
"Chieftain, my real name is-"
"Your real name is Hlupnafenglu, unless you choose otherwise. Think on it."
The red werewolf looked at him with his golden eyes, turned, and walked away.
"I handled that badly," he said to his spouse, after Hlupnafenglu had gone.
"No," she said. "Not if you weren't lying to him. If you really want to keep him around. Because now he probably won't leave unless we send him away."
"I wasn't lying."
"Then go meet with the Aruukaiaduun band. Them you can lie to. They'll be disappointed if you don't."
"Them I live to disappoint."
The Aruukaiaduun band were awaiting him in the old barracks of the irredeemables. Lekkativengu, claw-fingered no longer and wearing perhaps the first pair of shoes he had ever owned, was entertaining them with polite conversation. The subject at hand was the last rally fought between the Sardhluun-Neyuwuleiuun Alliance and the Goweiteiuun with their outlier partisans.
The Aruukaiaduun gnyrrand was a smooth-faced, brown-eyed, shinytoothed emptiness named Norianduiu; Rokhlenu knew a little bit about him from the old days (as he thought of his life before the Vargulleion), and had not expected much trouble with him. He knew the Aruukaiaduun cantors, as well; they were just inferior versions of Norianduiu.
No, the only person who counted in this embassy was the oldest and ugliest member, a werewolf with no official position in the Aruukaiaduun Pack, the old gray-muzzle Rywudhaariu.
He was nearly a semiwolf. He could assume the night shape, but in the day shape his nose and lower jaw were strangely prominent, almost meeting, and the end of his nose had a strange spongy look, almost like a wolf's nose. His arms were somewhat crooked and leglike, too; he always wore clothes with long sleeves to disguise this.
He was too impaired to run for office; no one liked him enough to vote for him without pressure. But his neck was almost hidden by ropes of honorteeth he had acquired or extorted over the years. He had been running things on Nekkuklendon, with claws into business on every other mesa, for generations. And he controlled the representatives of the Aruukaiaduun to the Innermost Pack of the city, always through some face-without-a-personality like Norianduiu.
It had kept members of the Aruukaiaduun on the Innermost Pack for as long as anyone could remember. Citizens were more than willing to enlist the famous cunning of Rywudhaariu in the service of the city. But no Aruukaiaduun werewolf had ever been First Singer of the Innermost Pack. That was a job for a puppet master, not a puppet.
This was why Rokhlenu had decided to meet the Aruukaiaduun werewolves alone. The risk was that he would look like a gnyrrand with no followers. The message, though, was that there was only one citizen in the Aruukaiaduun embassy worth talking to. He saw the chagrined looks among the Aruukaiaduun cantors as he approached, and decided that the message had been received. They had been hoping at least to meet his notorious mate, the First Wolf of the outliers. Instead, they would be shuffled off to an underling while the grown-ups talked-as usual.
"Lekkativengu, show the gnyrrand and the cantors around town a bit," Rokhlenu said as he approached. "Citizens, I leave you in good hands"-he winked slightly at Lekkativengu, who grinned and proudly flexed his fingers"and perhaps we'll talk later. But I must consult with your leader now."
The gnyrrand and the cantors looked at Rywudhaariu, who nodded, and they glumly rose from their couches and shuffled after Lekkativengu into the searingly hot spring sunlight.
Rokhlenu sat down on a couch opposite and tried to look his old enemy in the eye. It was difficult, as old Rywudhaariu was somewhat wall-eyed and he enjoyed making interlocutors uncomfortable by turning his face toward them and his eyes away.
"That was rather high-handed," said the old werewolf, not as if he disapproved. His voice was reedy, not good for singing or speaking.
"Not so high-handed as when your clowns sent me to the Vargulleion."
"That was the biggest mistake I ever made. But you wouldn't be led, old sport, and I'm not ready to lie down and be barked at yet."
"That's to be seen. If you had my people killed, you may find it an even greater mistake."
"I had nothing to do with that."
"That's to be seen, too. But I'm here to talk with you, not as a citizen with a private grudge, but as the gnyrrand of my new pack and the consort of my First Wolf. We have a common interest against this new political alliance of the Sardhluun and the Neyuwuleiuun."
"That's to be seen, in the words of your own refrain. You need us; that's clear. And the Alliance does not need us; that's clear. But it may be in our interest to stand apart, as neutrals, rather than join in a losing side."
"We're not the losing side. We're the winning side. Don't take my word for it. Look what's happened every time the Alliance has tangled with us."
"I have been looking, and I am impressed. But your victories have been very costly for Wuruyaaria, you know. Those airships of the Neyuwuleiuun brought in a lot of slaves and meat-animals. This is going to be a hungry year, and the next one hungrier yet. We'll miss them. And citizens will blame you."
"Slaves do the work once done by citizens. The fewer slaves in the city, the better."
"The better for citizens of very little bite. The worse for citizens of very large bite."
"That may even out."
"You need it to be better than even, in your favor, and I'm not sure that's the way it is."
"You can help with that."
"Maybe I can. What's in it, for me and mine?"
"I can make you First Singer of the Innermost Pack."
Rywudhaariu almost spoke, then paused. He was genuinely surprised. "Would you?" he said at last. "If you could. They are separate issues, I suppose."
"I might: if you give me evidence that you were not involved in the murder of my kin. I'll waive my personal grievance against you. You need not be elected to the Innermost Pack to be First Singer; the Innermost normally choose the First Singer from among themselves, but not always. If a union of the Aruukaiaduun, the Goweiteiuun, and the outliers win the election, the first act must be the admission of the outliers to the treaty. Then I and the gnyrrand of the Goweiteiuun will support you for First Singer. If you can persuade your own unruly band to support you, your election is certain."
"Certain only in the wake of many uncertainties. Stilclass="underline" what an offer! Well, I must think on this."
"Not for too long, though."
"Naturally not. This is a lively election year. A pity if it is really the last."