Shadow of the Father (27 page)

Colian’s eyes flicked up, so he knew the nurse had seen him, and he’d assumed Sinch would have smelled him, but the mouse’s start when he spoke told otherwise. Sinch started to get up, then remembered he was holding a cloth to the other mouse’s wound and sat back down. For some reason, he was reluctant to meet Yilon’s eyes.

Yilon stepped into the room. “What’s her name?”

“Valix,” Sinch said, and then he twitched, as if he’d done something wrong. “I met her in the Warren.”

Yilon wondered if she’d been one of the mice at the cart that morning, but he’d not gotten a good enough scent then to remember it now. He yawned. “Dinah wants to go see Corwin,” he said. “I thought I would accompany her.”

“Aren’t you tired?” Sinch asked.

Yilon shook his head. “I napped before going down to the sewer. Velkan thought we might be up all night with the operation, and it was important that we be alert. But if you need to rest, wait here, and I’ll come back for you.”

“You don’t have to,” Sinch mumbled.

“Do you have a place in the Warren? Somewhere I could meet you?”

Colian perked his ears at that. “Oh, sir,” he said, “I would strongly advise against your planning any kind of expedition into the Warren. The sewers are one thing, technically they are owned by the city, you know, but the Warren is another matter altogether. For a fox to enter the Warren is a declaration either of war or suicide.” To Yilon’s surprise, Sinch nodded. “I’ll wait here,” he said, sounding very tired.

“Oh. I thought you might come along.”

The mouse shook his head slowly. “I’ll be here,” he said. “You go ahead.”

Yilon shifted from one hind paw to the other. “Can I… can I talk to you, then? Before we leave?”

Sinch raised his head, facing Colian, who nodded and reached out to take the cloth. “The top floor room is empty,” the fox said.

“Thank you.” Yilon raised a paw as Sinch rose slowly to his feet. He led the way up the stairs to the bedroom where he’d lain not twelve hours before. It was dark, but he could see just enough to find the window. When he opened it, moonlight flooded into the room. He breathed in the fresh night air and then turned to Sinch, who was still wringing his paws in the doorway.

“Are you all right?” Yilon said. Sinch nodded, but didn’t look at him. Yilon crossed the room and put his paws on Sinch’s shoulders. “Are you really?”

Sinch pressed against him, trembling, head pressed into his shoulder. “I miss you,” he sniffled. “I hate it here.”

Yilon wrapped him in a hug and pulled him gently back into the room. He wanted to say, “It’ll get better.” He wanted to say, “I’ll take care of you.” He wanted to say, “Let’s go home.” Instead, he said, “It’s been hard for me too. We just need a little time.”

“Can you sneak me into the castle? Just to spend the nights. I’ll walk around during the day. I just can’t… I can’t stay there at night.”

Yilon stroked Sinch’s ears. “I’ll… I’ll do what I can,” he said. “I’ll tell you one thing: I’m going to get rid of Maxon as soon as I can. How he treated you… I should have listened to my instincts back at the inn. He’s no good.”

“He’s just like all the other foxes,” Sinch said, dully. “Except you.”

“I’ll change things.” Yilon wished he felt as much confidence as he was trying to project. “I just need time.”

“Yesterday, you wanted to leave,” Sinch said. “Now you want to stay and change things again. And you’re going to—” He stopped and pulled away from Yilon, crossing his arms and leaning against the bed.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Sinch said, but even as Yilon opened his muzzle to tell him that he knew that was a lie, the mouse sighed. “You’re going to marry that vixen.”

“Dinah? No, we’re… we’re supposed to get married, but I don’t think she’s very interested either.”

“But you’re going to because you have to,” Sinch said. “And you know you have to.”

Yilon couldn’t think of anything to respond with. He looked out the window at the ghostly landscape of rooftops. The city seemed unreal to him, as if this were Sinch’s old room upstairs from his mother’s house and the window just a painting he’d hung there. If not for the smell wafting in from the city, he might almost be able to convince himself of that.

“It’s all right,” Sinch said quietly. “You do have to. I didn’t mean what I said. I’ll stay here with you.”

“I wanted to go back home,” Yilon whispered, conscious of the people downstairs. “I thought the plan would work. But they… things are bad here, and they need someone. There’s all kinds of crimes going on—robberies, murders—if I don’t step in, it could get a lot worse.”

“Does it have to be you?”

“Maybe I can leave it to Dinah, I don’t know, but it’s not going to be easy.”

Sinch matched his whisper. “So you need the crown back.”

Yilon nodded. “It’s caused too many problems. That whole raid on the sewer—” He grimaced.

A commotion from the second floor interrupted them. Colian and Min appeared to be arguing. As Yilon stopped to listen, ears turning back toward the door, the argument died down. A moment later they heard the click of claws on the stairs. He and Sinch faced the door, as Min appeared in the doorway. He held something in one paw, which gleamed as he stepped into the room and brought it from his shadow up into the moonlight. “Do either of you recognize this?”

Sinch gasped a moment before Yilon did. Min was holding his knife.

“Where did you get that?” Yilon said. “It was thrown into the second floor window.” Min held it by the handle, loosely, as though it were filthy. And perhaps it was; Yilon could smell grime from a few feet away. “What is it?”

“It’s a message,” Sinch said hoarsely. He reached out for it. “They’re through with me.”

“It looks like a threat.” Min handed the knife to him gingerly.

“Maybe.” Sinch cleaned it on his trousers as best he could and then stuck it back into his belt.

Yilon shook his head. “You mean they found the knife where Maxon threw it away… and followed you here and saw you through the window and threw the knife in after you?” He spun toward the open window, and in a moment had crossed the room and closed it, plunging the room into darkness. “They’re out there watching us, aren’t they?”

“If they had wanted to kill one of us, they would have,” Min said. “Assuming we are talking about the Shadows. If they want revenge for tonight, it is not with myself or Colian.” He paused. “But they will want revenge. They exact their own justice. So do we, when there is no lord to mediate our fights.”

“They wanted me to join them,” Sinch said in a whisper. He turned the knife over in his paws.

The revelation shocked Yilon before he saw Min’s horrified expression. “They what?”

Sinch snapped his head up, looking at both the foxes, and shrank back. “I didn’t!” he said. “I didn’t ask… Valix took me there. They saw me throw this and told me I should join them, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t.” He held Yilon’s gaze. “I just couldn’t.”

“We shouldn’t stay here.” Min was also staring at Yilon, eyes gleaming in the dim room. “If the Shadows are watching, we’re in danger.”

“You’re not in danger,” Sinch said. “They don’t want you. They want her. Or me.”

Yilon put a paw to his eyes, trying to think more clearly. “How could they want you? You’ve only been here a day.”

“They tried to kill her for… for something, I don’t know what. I was protecting her.”

You just met her, Yilon wanted to say, but looking back on his own day, it seemed like weeks ago that he and Sinch were lying in his bed in the castle, let alone in the inns on the way to Dewanne. “You should come with me and Dinah. You could be in danger here.”

Sinch shook his head. “I’d just make more trouble for you. I’m safe here.”

“You’re not safe,” Yilon protested, and then, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, saw Min signaling discreetly to him. He looked at the closed window, then at the door, the real wooden door. “All right. Stay here, but don’t go near open windows. I’ll make sure Colian doesn’t let anyone in.” He took two steps towards the mouse, but the scent of blood stopped him. It was not fresh; it took him a moment to realize that it must be coming from the knife. He also heard Min’s breathing, and became uncomfortably aware of the fox watching him. So he put one paw on Sinch’s shoulder. “I’ll be back. I promise. Just wait here.”

“Okay.” Sinch’s voice sounded very small, very resigned. Yilon had to stop himself from hugging the mouse again, in front of Min. There’ll be time for that when I get back, he told himself. Part of him wanted to stay with Sinch, but part of him also needed to check on Corwin. Besides that, his dream of returning to Divalia, so easily faded by the events of the day, had gained strength after meeting Sinch and the clearly competent Dinah. If he spent more time with her, perhaps he could convince her to assume the lordship, leaving him free to go.

For that, he would need the crown, and for the crown, he would need Sinch. But Sinch wasn’t in any shape to go get it right now, and it didn’t look like he would leave the other mouse even if he were. He might, if Yilon asked. But that was precisely why Yilon did not want to ask. They were in a new, strange place, and the new bonds they made here would be important to their well-being, if they weren’t able to return. So he just patted Sinch’s shoulder and repeated, “I’ll be back.”

On the stairs, Min said softly, “I don’t know whether you noticed, but he was almost falling asleep on his feet. Best to let him get rest. If he keeps the windows closed… if the Shadows have delivered their message and have no further interest in him… then he should be safe for your return.”

Yilon nodded, wondering why he hadn’t noticed Sinch’s fatigue. “Will you stay here, too? I don’t think we’ll be gone long—and hour perhaps.”

“If you wish me to stay, I will stay.”

They’d reached the second floor. Yilon nodded. “Please do.”

Min turned to face him on the second floor landing. “Be careful, sir,” he said. “Dewanne at night is not always the safest of places.”

Yilon nodded toward the ground floor. “I’ll be with Dinah,” he said. “She’s got a sling.”

“Indeed. That’s why I am not arguing to accompany you.” Despite Min’s smile, his ears were low and his eyes half-lidded. Yilon realized there was probably another reason Min wasn’t arguing to come along.

“Get some rest,” he said. “I’ll come find you when I get back.”

Dinah was waiting by the door, dressed in the same clothes he’d first seen her in: the brown jerkin and trews. At least, they appeared to be the same, but there was no trace of blood on them that he could smell when he got closer. If she was wearing the necklace, it was hidden inside the jerkin. She watched him descend. “Not bringing your shortbow?”

He reached the bottom of the stairs and lifted an eyebrow. “Am I going to need it?”

She shrugged. “You never know. There might be some bad people a hundred feet away.”

“I’ll take that chance.” He gestured her to the door. “After you.”

He let her lead, although he was pretty sure he could find his way at least back to the plaza. From there, Maxon had told him the way to the chirurgeon’s business; Corwin would be there until he could be moved, and then—if that happened—he would be taken home. But they didn’t know when that would be. Yilon wasn’t sure the chirurgeon would be awake at this hour, but Dinah said they would have a nurse tending to him night and day.

“Which reminds me,” Yilon said, frowning, “why do you have Colian with you? Does he tend to you?”

“He’s been with me since I was eight,” she replied. “I broke my arm twice, and my parents decided that if I were going to have a personal servant, it might as well be a trained nurse.”

It was odd, Yilon thought, that her parents would provide a male nurse for a female cub, but perhaps he’d been the only one available.

Dewanne was not a large city; unlike Divalia, he supposed there might not be enough nurses for every position, let alone one suited to be a personal escort for a headstrong cub. “He’s a good nurse.”

“Of course he is,” she scoffed. “My parents wouldn’t get just any nurse. Corwin recommended him. He’s good with wormwood.” She drew out the last word sarcastically.

“Is that something young vixens need?” Yilon said, the word reminding him of Madame Colet’s whispered request to Corwin in the tailor’s shop.

Dinah snorted. “Most of them, around here.” She turned around the edge of town toward the back of the castle.

“I thought the plaza was that way,” he said, pointing back toward Market Street.

“If you want to walk along the more trafficked streets, it is.” She didn’t wait to see whether he was following her. After a moment, he did.

They were certainly conspicuous, nearly alone on the moonlit street. Yilon read the signs on the storefronts they passed: Royal Apothecary, Fur Trim and Restoration, Metallurge. The stores boasted more glass on the fronts, and few that did not have wooden doors sported elaborately patterned curtains. Leaning closer to examine the repeating fox pattern one he particularly liked, he noticed metal bars behind it.

“Why don’t more people have metal doors?” he asked Dinah as she hurried around the corner, checking for other pedestrians before proceeding.

She shook her head. “A metal door? What purpose would that serve?”

“If wood is scarce…”

“Metal doesn’t make good doors, I guess. I don’t know. I never really thought about it. That’s my family’s house.”

She waved a paw casually up to the left, where a three-story mansion loomed over the street they were walking down. It was wider than the two stores and one house it stood behind, with small towers on either side and three cupolas in the middle. On the center one, Yilon could see a silver emblem shining under the moon, though he couldn’t quite make out the design beyond a large stylized ‘F’. “You grew up there?”

“No. I
grew up
there.” She gestured higher, to the mountains behind the house. “In there, I’m still a cub.”

“I know the feeling,” Yilon said. “They didn’t think you’d be fit to rule.”

Dinah shot him a narrow, calculating look. “Is that what they said about you?”

His ears folded back, feeling warm. “No. But I didn’t run away when I had to do something I didn’t want to.”