His Father's Last Word

smoked in it for a year. The desk was the same heavy oak, scarred by a century of elbows and pens. The chairs were the

my notes in my pock

own,"

ll st

golden blond hair had come out of its slicked order at the temple. He had been

want you to read these. You asked me yesterday why my father was in the clearing in t

e across the desk.

t the stationer's for a few pfennigs a sheet. The handwriting was small and neat an

ines: You killed your father.

ur father's blood is on your h

, and that the only wolf in the forest with a reason to do it was the one wh

eral, and it said: The Council is coming. They will ask you what you

n on the desk and put

aid. "You were at t

and went t

ause the rain was heavy and the old burners had left them low. I was there perhaps half an hour

anyone you had

Be

ar

k would not care about charcoal on a night like that, and that I should not mentio

d the way she had told me she had gone up

he kilns," I said. "That is not a thing a stranger

now

it is someone

his back was stiff, and I watched the muscles mov

be anyone. Rolf's nephew. One of the older warriors who thinks I am too young for the seat. Some wolf I have never spoken t

ha

at you were doing at the kilns. I told no one about th

was ver

clearing, and the letter writer knew where you had been. Which means either the letter w

means the letters were written by the same hand that put three holes in my father's chest, and that

r eight days. Every one of them about his father's death. Every one of th

do something fo

N

not heard

lves who were near your father that night and touch them, or find the ones who have died since and hear what they said. You want m

ls

a sickness, and that a wolf who heard the dead had no place beside

to his jaw and

ng. I was young and wrong, and I

to say now that you ne

the t

lways arrived at

te me. I am not asking you to stop hating me. I am asking you to find out who killed my father before the Council de

, and at the chipped mug, an

a price,

me

do not ask me what I heard until I am ready to say it. And you tell the whole pack tonight that the accusatio

ded. "

ng you do not want to hear, you will still hear it. And you wi

d, almost a smile

e you known a

I was f

he leaned back in his father's chair, and

l you everything in the letters. The last one had

n went

t na

k, in the same neat slanted hand, was a single word written

l