Читать онлайн "Wolf Who Rules" - Spencer Wen - RuLit

Выбрать главу

Afraid that she'd fry any of her computer equipment, she had stuck to low-tech project management. Settling on the loading dock's edge, she wrote ' domi ' on her pad of paper and then slowly circled it again and again as her thoughts spun around the question.

Without question, she was Windwolf's domi - the queen herself had confirmed that. Tinker had assumed that domi meant wife; for a long time she simply translated it as wife. Later, she had sensed that it didn't mean quite the same thing. And Windwolf never used the English word 'wife' or for that matter, 'married.' He'd given her some beans, a brazier and a dau mark. She rubbed at her dau between her eyebrows, feeling the slight difference in skin texture under the blue glyph. What the hell kind of wedding ceremony was that? And nothing else? Hell, when Nathan's cousin Benny had been married by the justice of the peace, they still had a wedding reception afterwards. Surely the elves did something to celebrate a marriage - so why hadn't there been something?

If domi didn't mean wife, what did it mean? She had talked to Maynard two months ago about it, she'd gotten the impression it meant she was married, but now she couldn't recall the exact words that Maynard had used. What she remembered distinctly, was how Maynard had been carefully trying to keep his balance on the fence between the humans and the elves. Had she heard only what she wanted to hear? Certainly it would make a neater package for Maynard if Windwolf married Tinker instead of just carried her off to be a live-in prostitute.

Whispering in the bottom of her soul was a small voice that called her a glorified whore. She couldn't ignore the fact that the only thing she did with Windwolf was have sex. Great sex. Wives did more than that - didn't they? Nathan's mother and sisters went grocery shopping, cooked for their husbands and cleaned up the dirty dishes but Lemonseed handled all that for Windwolf. Wives washed clothes - Nathan's sisters actually had long discussions on the best ways to get out stains. Dandelion, however, headed the laundry crew.

Without thinking about it, she started a decision tree, branching out 'wife' and 'whore.' What difference did it make to her? She never worried about being a "good girl" but at the same time, she had always been contemptuous of women who were either too dumb or too lazy to do real work, using their bodies instead of their brain to make a living. Could she live with all of Pittsburgh knowing that she was a glorified whore?

"Yes, all the enclaves of Pittsburgh owe fidelity to Wolf Who Rules. He chose people he thought could function as heads and supported the building of their households. It is a huge undertaking to convince people to leave their old households and shift to a new one. To leave the Easternlands - to come this wilderness - to settle beside the uneasy strangeness of Pittsburgh -" Stormsong shook her head and switched to English. "You have no fucking idea how much trust these people have in Wolf."

"I think that he sees greatness in you and he loves you for it. And they trust him."

Stormsong tilted her head side to side, squinting as she considered the two cultures. "The closest English word is 'married' but it's too - small - and common."

A hoverbike turned into the alley with a sudden roar. Stormsong sprang to her feet, her hand going to her sword. Pony checked the female sekasha with a murmur of " Nagarou " identifying Tinker's cousin Oilcan as the sister's son of Tinker's father.

Oilcan swooped around the extra barrels and dropped down to land in front of the loading dock where Tinker sat.

"Hey yourself!" Tinker tugged down her skirt, just in case she was flashing panty. Gods, she hated dresses. "Thanks for coming."

"Glad to help." He leaned against the chest high dock. Wood sprites was what Tooloo had called them as kids - small, nut brown from head to bare toes, and fey in the way people used to think elves would look. Beneath his easy smile and summer stain of walnut, though, he seemed drawn.

"Bleah." She poked him again to cover the guilty feeling of making him so worried about her. "It's like - what-nearly noon? And there's not a monster in sight."

"I'm glad you called." He pulled out a folded newspaper. "Otherwise I might have been worried. Did you see this?"

"This" was a full front-page story screaming "Princess Mauled." She hadn't seen a photographer yesterday when Windwolf carried her through the coach yard but apparently one had seen her. She flopped back onto the cement. "Oh, son of a turd."

Oilcan nudged against her foot, as if seeking the closeness they had just moments before. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have shown it to you."

"You didn't take the picture." Lying down felt too good, like she could easily drift to sleep. She sat back up and held out her hand for the paper. "Let me see how bad it really is."

She looked small, helpless and battered in Windwolf's arms, covered with an alarming amount of blood. The picture caption was "Viceroy Windwolf carries Vicereine Tinker to safety after she and her bodyguards were attacked by a large wild animal."

"All of it. Vicereine. Princess. Wife. Married. It seems unreal for some reason."

She scanned the story. It was odd that while it was she and the five elf warriors in the valley, all the information came from human sources. It listed her age and previous address, but only gave Stormsong's English name, not her full elfin one of Linapavuata-watarou-bo-taeli which meant Singing Storm Wind. And the sekasha were labeled "royal bodyguards." Was it because the reporter didn't speak Elvish, or was it because the elves didn't like to talk about themselves? She learned nothing except the news had a very human slant. It was odd that she hadn't noticed before.

She made a rude noise and nudged him again in the ribs with her toe. "No. Not really. It doesn't help that Tooloo is spreading rumors that I'm not."