Shadow of the Father (13 page)

“Trade clans?”

“The tradesmen for a particular trade, their journeymen, and their apprentices.”

Yilon shook his head, tracking the conversation back another level. “So this… muscular plaything…”

“Poli.”

“He was accepted by the family.”

Corwin nodded. “As I said, Hada had the sense to take care of his familial duties.”

Yilon felt a question, whether one was there or not. “I know how important that is,” he said, and then, to change the direction of the conversation, “Is there no wood in this town? All the doorways are curtained, except in the palace.”

“Castle,” Corwin corrected. “We don’t have a palace here. As for wood…” He gestured to the mountainsides. “Do you see any? We have enough scrub to make tools and implements, but real wood has to be brought up from the plains. We like our curtains. Doors feel very confining.”

“They feel private,” Yilon said. He was reflecting on how much wood there was in the castle, and what that meant.

“Oh, look.” They’d passed the shrine, approaching the lake shore. The cart made a right turn around a pub called “Wind’s End.” Corwin pointed across Yilon at it. “That’s where Lord Whassel spent a steamy night with a local young fox, when he was in town on a diplomatic visit some forty years ago. That’s how to do it right. Save your perversions for your vacations away. Then nobody in your home hears about it, and nobody where you did it cares.”

“Except for you, apparently.” Yilon grinned.

“Of course I cared.” Corwin put his paw to his chest again, in what Yilon was coming to see as his favorite dramatic gesture. “That’s why he took me back there.”

Startled, Yilon couldn’t help but laugh. “Really?” Corwin assumed an innocent expression. “Amazing. Are all the lords secretly gay?”

“Oh, goodness, no. Sheffin—the late Lord Dewanne—he was straight as an arrow. Straighter, actually. But their gossip is so much less creative. Sheffin never strayed from the path, as far as I know. He thought the world of his wife, would do anything for her.”

Yilon rubbed his muzzle. “She’s leaving once I’m confirmed.”

“Canis bless her, she deserves it. She tended to him these last two years when he was ailing. I wouldn’t have expected it myself, but people never fail to surprise you. Look, over there is the Grain and Wine Exchange. All the numbers for the harvest are tallied there.”

“Where do they keep all the grain and wine?” Yilon craned his neck as they passed the small two-story building, looking at the detailed stone reliefs of wheat and grapes.

“The farmers keep them. We send out inspectors to verify the numbers. Only sheepskin is stored here.”

Yilon grinned. “Any famous historical figures caught in compromising positions there?”

“Only financial ones, sadly.” Corwin pointed to the adjacent building, a small, non-descript home. “But that there is a lovely place for a discreet dinner and a lakeside view. There’s a fireplace and a nice thick bed. Should you ever need it, let me know, I’ll get the key from the owner. He’s a friend of mine. Driver! Stop up ahead here.”

They’d reached an intersection with a small, busy street. The windows on the street held brightly colored bolts of cloth, each doorway emblazoned with a name. Corwin instructed the driver to wait, then followed Yilon down to the flagstones. “Hello, Findley,” he said, waving to an older fox passing them while Yilon was pulling the leather satchel from the cart. As they turned onto the street, a pair of young vixens called out his name, and he lifted his paw to wave cheerily back.

Where the lakeside road had been nearly empty of people, the small shopping street was so crowded that it was easy to see why Corwin had asked the driver to stop outside it. Corwin had no difficulty making his way through the shoppers, who parted for him and regroup after he’d passed. Yilon stayed at his side, benefiting from his wake.

The tailors were bunched at the head of the street, but he could smell baking and roasted meat further down, and in one window just past the doorway where Corwin stopped them, he saw the glitter of gems and baubles. “Is this the main shopping street?” he asked as they walked under the sign that read, “H. Damasky.”

“It is,” Corwin said, “and these are the best locations in it. Hallo, Henri.”

A thin fox with more grey than russet on his muzzle looked up from the cloth he was measuring and nodded, beaming. “Corwin!”

The short, plump vixen in front of the counter turned as well, a smile on her broad muzzle. The tailor’s eyes moved to Yilon, and his tone grew more distant. “This must be the young new Lord, I wager.”

“You’d win. Good morning, Madame Colet. How are the boys?”

The vixen smiled. “Lovely, thank you. How are your grapes?”

“This will be a year like no other.” Corwin put his fingers to his muzzle and kissed them. “The dry summer has made them small and potent. Much like yourself.”

She laughed. “Be sure to favor us with a bottle, when it’s ready.”

Corwin bowed. “You’ll be at the front of the line. Madame, Henri, may I present Yilon.” Yilon bowed. “He’s to be our new lord in a few days, and a finer young fox I’ve not had the pleasure of knowing.”

The tailor’s smile warmed. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Madame Colet curtsied. “And how well
do
you know him, hm, Corwin?”

Corwin laughed. “We’ve only just met. But I might help him try on some clothes.” He winked at her.

“I just have to finish with Henri, and then he’s all yours.” She turned back to the tailor. “So: the blue, in addition to those.”

“I’ll have it measured in just a moment,” Henri said. “These fingers don’t work as fast as they used to.”

Corwin waggled his own. “Neither do these, old friend,” he said. To Yilon, he motioned toward the back of the store with his head. They walked over toward the window.

Yilon inhaled the scent of fabric, a mingled smell of flax plants and of animal wool. Behind the counter, piles of cloth rolls formed a colorful mountain range, and on either side of the walls of the store, shirts and trousers hung with small sheepskin labels. He read the closest one: it said, “Divalia style, Barris 24. In these or other colors.” The small, neat lettering left no doubt in his mind that Henri had printed each label himself.

“From the twenty-fourth year of King Barris’s reign,” Corwin said. “Not the best time for fashion, honestly. It caught on here because of the sleeves, you see how they flare up like that? The people here like that look.” He snorted. “What you want is something more like that one, near the front with the slender shoulders. See it, the one in blue and white? But we’ll need to get it in green, of course.”

Yilon let his finger brush a section of cloth in the window, keeping an eye on the crowd outside. He saw no mice among the passers-by, and wondered if that would hamper his plan. But no, Sinch was smart and reliable. He would have to depend on him. “There must be a lot of people who would want to be Lord,” he said, as though he’d been musing over the weight of his title.

“Many would want to, but few are qualified, and even fewer acceptable.” Corwin glanced at the leather bag whose strap Yilon kept wrapped around his paw. “There are five noble families in Dewanne, six if you count Vitchen Durenin, who changed his name to Kolled and moved out another street over from the castle, but until he’s married with issue, nobody really does. But you shouldn’t worry about that. Listen.” He moved closer to Yilon and lowered his voice. “I am, if I may say so, an excellent judge of character. I have been very impressed by you, and I think you are just what this city needs.”

“How can you know that?” Yilon was half-amused, half-startled.

Corwin smiled and touched a finger to his own nose. “Well. You prefer males, for one. That elevates you right away. But second, you stand very much apart from this land. Sheffin was an admirable Lord once he moved to Divalia. When he lived here, he was constantly besieged by requests from his family for favors. Living afar, he was able to know everybody and treat everyone fairly. Third, you have experience of the world beyond, and it is past time that Dewanne broke out of its provincial cradle. We sit in a strategic position between Delford and Tephos, a position that could bring a great deal of power and influence to the city and the Lord who knows how to cultivate it.” He nodded toward Yilon. “I think you could.”

Yilon glanced toward the front of the shop, where Madame Colet was finishing her transaction. Neither she nor Henri appeared to have heard them. He tried to imitate Corwin’s low whisper. “I’ll have to get married, right?”

“Oh, yes. In fact, I know there is a bride picked out for you.”

Madame Colet bustled past them with a cheery, “You must come to dinner next week, Corwin, and bring the young Lord with you.” While Corwin was nodding, she stepped up closer to him and whispered in his ear, clearly not intending Yilon to hear. He caught two phrases thanks to the reflected sound from the glass of the front window: “for my daughter,” and something that sounded like “wormwood.”

“Of course,” Corwin said, as softly, but the angle of his muzzle made his words more audible. “I have a preparation ready.”

“What would we do without you?” she said cheerily, and then she was out the door without waiting to hear the end of Corwin’s quick response.

“Lovely, lovely,” Henri murmured when Corwin brought Yilon up to the counter.

“None of that Barris trash,” Corwin said. “Give us last year’s.”

The old tailor smiled, bringing his measuring tape around to Yilon, scribbling numbers on sheepskin. “Always the eye, you have. Yes, the Barris period, well, the king being a bear and all, the clothes are looser, flaring, designed to hide by billowing outward. With our king Pontion on the throne, the slimmer look is coming back into fashion, and hopefully will remain so through the Musteline King.” He gave a dry chuckle. “By which time I will be long past caring about fashion.”

“You think they don’t need to look their best in the next world?”

Corwin leaned on the counter, watching the measuring.

“There’s no vanity in His Pack,” Henri said. “Canis will dictate the fashion, and I can simply enjoy it. Oh, you’ll look splendid in these.” His paws circled Yilon’s hips and then measured his legs, with a gentle touch that sparked the thought that he and Corwin had been more than just friends at one time. To distract himself from the light touches in his sensitive areas, Yilon looked fixedly out the window, watching the crowd move past the small shop.

He hoped for a glimpse of Sinch outside, but every person that passed, young and old, short and tall, fat and thin, was a fox. Even in Vinton, he’d never seen so many. Some had light orange fur that was almost beige, while others sported a deep sunset red, and still others carried streaks of brown and gold, like fall leaves. He saw one silver fox, still in his black, summer coat, and one whose head fur was dark enough that he might be a cross fox. Two guards in their grey-and-green uniforms strode by them, both acknowledging Corwin with a smile. But there were no mice, not a single one.

While Henri finished the measurements, Corwin laid four shirts on the counter along with two trousers. “Two each of the shirts,” he said, “and three each of the pants. You like?”

The shirts all looked the same to Yilon, but he didn’t want to get into a discussion about the differences between them. They did look nicer than anything he’d owned apart from his one set of formal dress clothes, unworn since his arrival in Divalia two years before, so he nodded. “They look wonderful.”

Corwin patted his shoulder. “I told you you have good taste. Now, one set in green primary, grey secondary, of course. What other colors do you like?”

They stepped aside to show Yilon the dizzying pile of colors behind the counter. “Um,” he said. “Yellow?”

Henri and Corwin exchanged a look. “We’ll pick you out something nice,” Corwin said.

Yilon, still tense over Sinch and wanting to give him additional time, asked what was wrong with yellow, and was treated to a discussion of the history of the color yellow, including a thorough examination of the different shades available. They settled on a nice color that Henri called “golden ocher,” with a darker brown as the secondary that Corwin said was perfect to set off Yilon’s lighter red fur. They shook paws and sniffed muzzles as they left, Henri promising the clothes would be ready within the week, with one outfit done for the Confirmation.

“Goodness!” Corwin said as they left. He looked up at the sun. “We don’t have much time for me to show you the rest of the town. I suppose we should hurry along. I do need to show you where the other noble families live, and the mining exchange, at least. Oh! That shop, just down there…” He pointed to a small window with jewels glittering in it. “That’s were… no, never mind, no time to tell the story.”

For as pudgy as he was, he moved with speed when he needed to. Yilon found it much more difficult to follow him through the street on the way back to the cart. At the intersection where the cart was waiting, beneath a street sign marking it the corner of Market Street and Lake Side Road, Yilon glimpsed a trio of mice in ragged, dirty cloaks. He didn’t recognize any of them, but their presence where there had been only foxes half an hour before made him sure that Sinch was involved.

Indeed, once they had pulled themselves into the cart, the mice followed them. The foxes on the street gave them a wider berth than they’d given Corwin, with additional dirty looks. The governor spotted the mice and looked down the street for guards. Yilon, following him, saw no uniforms. When Corwin had sat, his ears folded down. “Driver,” he said, even though Yilon wasn’t all the way in the cart yet, “go on.”

But the driver didn’t move. The mice were at Corwin’s side of the cart now, leaning over it. They smelled wretched. “Help us, old friend,” one of them said. “Just a copper for the three of us. Please, please.”

“Help us, young prince,” another said across Corwin to Yilon. “My brothers and I have not eaten in days.”

Corwin’s ears flattered further. “Driver!” he called. “Why aren’t we moving?”

The driver turned around and gestured to the mounts, “Can’t, sir,” he said.