Fey 02 - Changeling (21 page)

"Thank you, Sir," Titus said.
 
"We shall take over from here."

"Any troubles on the ride back?" Simon asked, and Titus bit back a retort.
 
Elder Eirman had stressed that the Danites not ask about the trip.

"None."
 
Monte sounded tired.
 
"The news hadn't spread yet.
 
We met a crier on the road yesterday.
 
He was the first."

"We have no way to express our sorrow," Simon said.

Gregor put a hand on his arm.
 
"Forgive him, sir.
 
He took the death even harder than the rest of us."

Monte's smile was wan.
 
"I'm sure," he said, sounding completely unconvinced.
 

Titus clapped his hands for the Auds.
 
They swarmed the horse, untying the ropes and tugging at the coffin.
 
He approached it too.
 
The horses around them snorted and stirred.
 
They didn't like being so close to the dead.

The coffin was hastily built from inferior wood.
 
A slight odor of decay rose from it.
 
Titus shuddered.
 
This was as close as he would get to King Alexander.
 
The man was the same age as Titus's father, old, but too young to die.
 
The criers hadn't explained the cause of death, but the rumor in the Tabernacle was that the King was assassinated by an Islander in the Marsh.
 

One of the Auds braced the coffin while the rest gripped its sides. As the ropes fell free, the horse backed away, nearly tripping one of the Auds.
 
They grunted as the full weight landed in their arms.
 
Then, in unison, they lifted the coffin to shoulder height.
 
While they took a moment to brace it, Titus searched for Simon.

He had removed the pouch from his pocket, and was preparing himself for the solemn journey through Jahn.
 
Gregor was standing beside Monte, as if providing silent comfort.
 
Titus cleared his own throat.
 
He had been in many processions, but never one as important as this.
 
As a young Aud, he had braced coffins on his shoulders, and as a Danite, he had presided over many limestone funerals — so called because the deceased were so poor, they were unable to have a coffin.
 
They would be wrapped in shrouds, placed in pits, and covered with limestone until the pit was full.
 
Only then would it be covered with protective earth.

Titus hated those funerals.
 
The smell was always ripe, and the Blessing was often lost in the wails of the family.

He wondered if anyone would wail for Alexander.
 
Somehow, he doubted it.

The Auds were looking at him expectantly.
 
Gregor had moved to his place behind the coffin.
 
Simon was beside it, his pouch ready.
 
They were all waiting for Titus.

He took his place in front of the coffin.
 
With another nod to Monte, Titus began the ceremonial walk to the Tabernacle, moving slowly enough for the Auds to keep pace with him.

As they took their first few steps, the breeze carried the sharp scent of the burial herbs Simon was tossing on the coffin.
 
The scent always overpowered the scent of death.
 

Gregor chanted just loud enough that any bypassers would hear the story of Alexander's life, and the hope for Alexander's future in the Arms of God.

And Titus, who would say the Blessing when the body was placed in the Sanctuary, prayed that God would forgive him for listening to the scholar blasphemer, the newest Rocaan, Matthias.

ELEVEN

She ran through the streets, her paws coated in springtime mud.
 
Solanda would have loved to stop on nearby steps to clean herself, but she didn't dare.
 
Not in the city.
 
The lovely Islander King had made that impossible years before.
 
Cats were suspect.
 
Orange tabbies even more so.
 
They were to be slaughtered on sight.
 

Part of that was her fault.
 
She had two forms:
 
feline and Fey.
 
During Fey's first year in Jahn, she had spied in her cat form, and had been seen.
 
She had even transformed in front of one Islander, an elderly woman whose child Solanda stole.
  
When the news of an evil Fey cat spread through the Isle, the King had ordered all cats killed.
 
If it weren't for the Islanders' love for the animals, Solanda wouldn't be alive to spy for the bastard.

Rugar.

He should have known better than to send his only Shape-shifter into the city to see if anything were different.
 
But he had
faith
in Solanda; he
knew
she would survive.
 
Hadn't she always in the past?

And just like before, she couldn't say no to him.

She had never been able to say no to him.

That was why she was on the Isle in the first place.
 
Rugar, the handsome young Visionary who had saved her life when she was eighteen, and who asked for no repayment.
 
Until he wanted to conquer an island all by himself.

She was following the river, snacking on fish, and drinking water from puddles.
 
She could no longer rely on the Islanders to feed her when she was in cat form, and when she was in Fey form she was afraid they would attack her with poison.
 
That threat kept her in Shadowlands more than she would have liked.
 
Burden had asked her to become part of the Settlement in Jahn, but fear had kept her away.
 
She had had too many nasty encounters with Islanders to live among them.
 
She wasn't sure how Jewel managed.

Her whiskers smelled of fish.
 
She found a dry spot beside the river to stop and clean them off.
 
At dawn, she had stolen two fresh trout from a fisherman's boat and had hidden with them under the dock before he could see her.
 
Fishermen had started carrying poison with them.
 
The poison had no affect on real cats, but it would melt her.
 
She had seen a number of her cousins, rail-thin, starving, pitiful, thanks to the Islander King's five-year-old decree.
 
Too many times she found dead cats beside the road, their fur in clumps, their ribs poking through their skin.
 

Perhaps when she was free of Rugar's control, she would ask Jewel to change the decree.
 
Jewel might actually be ruler of the Isle by fall.
 
But Jewel might be able to make the change now.
 
The bad King was dead, and, knowing Rugar, young Nicholas would soon follow him.
 
Then, if Jewel wasn't able to control the Islanders, Rugar would bring out his prize:
 
Jewel's real son, Gift.

Gift.
 
Solanda paused in her washing to contemplate him.
 
Magic crackled from him.
 
When the Wisps had brought him to Shadowlands, she had half expected him to Shape-shift before them all.
 
But he was of the Black King's line, which meant he had Vision.
 
When that Vision came, it would be powerful.
 
She could feel it already.

Tiny pieces of fish had stuck to her whiskers and she got a second meal by cleaning them off.
 
The sun had risen midway through the sky, but carried no real heat.
 
A breeze blew off the river, adding a chill to the air.
 
The river smelled of mud, fish, and its own particular combination of fetid growths.
 
Much as she disliked getting wet, she loved the river, for it had provided many a meal for her since the decree.

Except for a mangy cat foraging through old bones near one of the warehouses, she was alone on this stretch of bank.
 
She had already had her encounter with the mangy one.
 
He was more concerned with his stomach than with her presence on his territory.
 
She had left part of the second fish for him, and he had eaten it so fast that he had vomited it back up again.

The dead King had been particularly harsh in his decree.
 
He could have limited it to orange cats, but he made it for all cats.
 
He had had no idea the kind of suffering he had caused.

She resumed her bath, using the side of her right paw to clean her eyes and smooth the fur over her face.
 
City cats often followed her, wondering where she got the meals that kept her coat shiny and her body sleek.
 
Sometimes she had had to Shift to her Fey form just to scare them off.

She hated being in Jahn more than she hated the Shadowlands.
 
And so far, she had seen nothing of interest to Rugar.

He had come back to Shadowlands filthy, his eyes glinting like a wild man's.
 
He had found her late that afternoon, cat-napping beside a fire in the Domicile, and demanded she Shift to Fey form before he talk to her.
 
She had and he hadn't even noted her nakedness — something that always fascinated him before.

I'm sending you to Jahn, Solanda.
 
I want their reaction.
 
I want to know the mood of the city.

She had told him she wouldn't go, that the city was dangerous for her, and he hadn't even listened.
 
He had told her to protect herself and to return as quickly as she could.
 
Then he had sent her out without even telling her what the Islanders should have been reacting too.

It wasn't until she got to the center of Jahn when she heard the young boy give his formal speech about the King's death that she knew.
 

Rugar had murdered the King of the Islanders, and he wanted to know how the city was reacting.

He probably wanted to know how Jewel was reacting.
 
But Solanda knew better than to approach the palace in either form.
 
The last time she had gone to the kitchen door — her haven during and after the Battles for Jahn — and had barely escaped the poison with her life.
 
She had only gone once in her Fey form, and she had never been subject to such insults in her life.
 

Fey were supposed to be stronger than threats.
 
Fey were supposed to crush the peoples who dared taunt them.
 

For the first time in her life, Solanda understood how a mouse felt when it spent its afternoon in a cat's care.
 
She kept waiting for the teeth in her neck, the sudden sharp shake that would end her life forever.

She hated the feeling.
 
More than that, she hated subjecting herself to it.
 
By asking her to come to Jahn, Rugar was placing her in the enemy's territory.
 
The fact that she had not been spotted had more to do with luck than anything else.
 
And someday her luck would end.

The river water lapped gently against the bank, slowly eroding her dry spot.
 
Another cat was sauntering toward the mangy cat.
 
Soon she would either get another following or find herself challenged to a fight.
 
With a sigh, she got up and, using small shrubs as cover, ran for the road above the bank.
 

The other cats didn't follow her.

The city spread out before her, dingier than it had been before the First Battle for Jahn.
 
The houses were no longer freshly painted, and some of the wooden ones had lost a board or two.
 
The stone buildings looked the same, except that their front walks were no longer swept.
 
Many of the stores and warehouses along the riverbank had closed.

Blue Isle no longer traded with countries on Galinas or Leut.
 
Ships no longer came into the port.
 
One of the busiest ports in the world now only catered to river boats and small fishing vessels.
 
The Isle wasn't poor, but it no longer had the gleam of the very wealthy.