Shadow of the Father (19 page)

Valix eyed the puddle they were walking around, and nodded. “That’s us, yeah.”

“But we weren’t…” Sinch searched for the words. “We didn’t hate the toughs. They just did another job.”

“Well,” Valix said, “you weren’t a bunch of lily-livered fox-lovers.”

Sinch blinked. He resisted the urge to say, “No, just me,” and instead said, “So they don’t think you should be stealing from the city?”

Valix shook her head. “The foxes provide for us,” she said in a mocking, sing-songy voice, then dropped back to normal. “They don’t care about Kishin trying to burn down their homes.”

“Maybe they just think it’s possible to live in peace.”

“They’re idiots.” Valix gestured for him to go through the door of Miss Chakray’s boarding-house. He had made it halfway through the common room when Miss Chakray accosted him, a bundle under her arm.

“You,” she said, “must leave.”

Sinch took a step back. “Wha—why?”

The landlady pointed a diminutive finger over his shoulder. “Her! You bring her into this house? I am a good mouse. Me and my tenants, we don’t want trouble.”

Valix stepped up beside him. “You think you will be better off without us?”

Miss Chakray drew herself up to her full height, almost to Sinch’s chest. “If you stay here, my other customers leave. Then what will I do? Will you pay for all the rooms? No, you must go. Here, I have brought down your things. Go, go now. I will not ask you to pay for the room.”

“But my…”

“Come on,” Valix said. “I know a place we can go.”

“Yes, good,” Miss Chakray said. “Thank you for not making trouble.

Sinch was torn. He didn’t want to make a big deal about the money under the floorboards in front of everyone, but he had very little with him. He was going to have to figure out how to more than double the money he had if he were going to buy the crown from Balinni—or, more accurately, buy his freedom. If he could only get back to Yilon, he was sure Yilon could help him, but with Valix attached to his side, that wasn’t going to work. He’d wait until night. She’d have to sleep sometime. So he followed her through the Warren, toward the mountains, deep into the twisting maze of buildings until he was no longer sure he could find his way out on his own. Here in the heart of the Warren, the older buildings loomed closer together, some built so close together that another building had been erected atop them both. Valix walked below these overpasses, unconcerned, but Sinch couldn’t help scurrying under them, especially the second one, which was sagging in the middle and looked as though a stray gust of wind might send it crashing to the ground.

They passed stalls selling bread, but none that smelled of baking. Sinch felt no heat from them, which made him wonder where the loaves came from. The public-houses he could see into were dark and miserable, none with a cheery fire. It was next to one of these that Valix pushed aside a thick sackcloth curtain and ushered Sinch down an uneven flight of stone stairs, calling, “It’s me,” as she descended behind him. Nobody answered, but she told Sinch as she followed him in through the second doorway on the right, “They listen for steps on the stairs. Here’s where I stay when I’m on a job in the Warren.”

Sinch crossed the room and leaned against the opposite wall, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Valix stood in the doorway, and if they’d stretched out their arms, their fingers would be just inches from touching. The whole room smelled of damp, of old cheese and stale bread. Sinch looked around for the food, but the only furniture in the room was a small rusted metal table and a reed chair, both bare. “Do you not sleep when you’re on jobs?”

Valix grinned. She hopped onto the table and scrambled up onto a stone ledge that Sinch had taken for the ceiling. Her head poked down to look at him. “Bed’s up here.” The odor of cheese was stronger now. It took Sinch a moment to see that she was chewing. “Want a piece?”

He shook his head. “So… you do jobs in the Warren?”

She swallowed. “I go where the jobs are.”

“I thought you just robbed the foxes.”

Her head disappeared. A moment later, she jumped down to the table. “So where are you going to get this money?” she asked, stepping to the chair and then to the floor.

“I need to see—someone.”

“How do you know someone in this place, stranger?” Sinch folded his arms. “That’s my business.” Valix plopped down in the chair. “Suppose I don’t care, as long as they have the money. Sooner we get the money, sooner I can get back to work.”

“Isn’t this ‘work’?”

She grinned at him. “Not particularly fun work. No challenge.”

He didn’t have a response to that, and she didn’t have much else to say. In the quiet, he thought about the toughs he’d known in the past, and that led him to another, more dangerous idea about how to escape.

“In Divalia,” Sinch said, “My—the toughs were afraid of the assassins. Do you have assassins here?”

Valix tilted her head. “Who were the toughs in Divalia? Your… what?”

Sinch’s paw dropped to his waist, brushing the knife. “My circle.”

“Circle of…?”

He didn’t know why he felt reluctant to admit it to her. “Thieves.”

“Oh ho.” She leaned forward. “Kicked out? Stole something from one of the elders?”

He shook his head. “Just came out here for the adventure.” She laughed. “Fine. Don’t tell me.”

“So is there someone here Balinni’s afraid of?” Her expression unfocused for a moment. “Shadows,” she said pensively.

Sinch waited, but she didn’t say anything more. He searched for another topic, since that one had led to a dead end. “What do you do for fun here in the Warren?”

Valix focused her attention on him. “We go collect money to pay off our debts.”

“Other than that.”

She looked up to the bed. “You’re here by yourself, right? No attachments?”

Sinch lifted his paw. “Uh,” he said, “well…”

She laughed. “Don’t worry, I don’t sleep with people I’m supposed to be watching. Besides which, I’m married.” She held up the paw with the silver wristband.

“Oh.” Sinch leaned back on his elbows, wondering how he would ever manage to get away from her.

 
Yilon found his eyes drifting shut, even with the bright afternoon light illuminating the plain white walls. The scents in the room were old, and the foxes who’d left them had been old, too. A grandparents bedroom, somewhere the aging foxes could lie and watch the city outside through the several windows. The bed was the only furniture, though, and the sheets had been cleaned.

He lifted his tunic, feeling his wounds with a paw. He’d never been in a fight that was more than a scuffle, never faced a knife in anything that wasn’t a practice. He could still feel the cold metal of the blade against his fur, even with his paw right on top of the wound to tell him there was nothing there.

There had been, though. Kites and his knife had been all too real, the threat genuine. He would’ve killed Yilon in the alley, had been intending to. Yilon wasn’t even sure Kites cared about his information as much as he was enjoying toying with him. If these were the sort of people Maxon associated with, then there would definitely be some changes in the castle once he was Confirmed.

The thought of the missing crown temporarily diverted his mind from his near-death. He would have to go back and find Velkan, tell him what he’d observed. He hoped Corwin would be there, too. Of all the court of Dewanne, it was the former governor he felt the most confidence in. He would have to tell them about Maxon’s journey, and about the attack.

His fingers brushed the deeper wound again. He moved them to the other one, which was less painful. He would have to tell them about his rescue as well, the mysterious vixen. He saw again the knife stuck in Kites’s throat, the spreading pool of red, the frozen tableau of the three of them in the alley with Kites’s body the only thing moving. he shuddered. If anything could have been designed to make him want to leave Dewanne even more, it could hardly have succeeded better than that afternoon’s events had.

The scent of another fox came to him, young and male, but he didn’t hear anyone on the stairs. In fact, the first thing he heard was a voice saying, “Cold?”

The voice was as light as the owner’s tread must be, to have gotten into the room so silently. Yilon opened his eyes to the cheerful smile of a short, slim fox in a plain white tunic. “No, I’m fine,” he said.

“You were shivering. I’m Colian. I understand you were in a bit of a tussle.” He set down the bowl he was carrying and the small black packet and came to the side of the bed. “You’re still breathing, so it can’t be to bad. Let’s just have a look.”

“It didn’t go in far,” Yilon said, wanting for some reason to reassure Colian.

“Far enough.” Colian lifted Yilon’s paw gently, rolling his tunic back to expose his stomach. “If it gets past the fur, it’s too far, I say. And he did get you twice.”

“Is it bad?” Yilon craned his neck up, but couldn’t see past his rolled-up tunic.

“Worse than once.” Colian turned his head briefly, green eye winking. “Don’t worry, sir. In a moment you will be feeling just fine. Lie back and trust me.”

Yilon found that easy to do. He stared at the ceiling while Colian hummed to himself, taking some items from his bag. Yilon felt the cool dab of a wet cloth around the first wound, then the second, and then a tugging at his bloodstained fur. “Now, I’m going to shave just a bit of the fur around the wounds. Don’t worry, it grows back quickly. I don’t see any scars, so I’m going to guess you haven’t had anything like this happen before?”

“No.” Yilon shook his head. “First knife fight.”

“Any knife fight you walk away from is a good one.” Yilon felt the cool metal of the blade against his skin again, and couldn’t help flinching. Colian stopped immediately. “Everything all right?”

“Yes. Sorry. Go ahead.” He steeled himself. The next time the blade touched him, he was ready for it.

“That’s good. Almost done here. Now the other one. This’ll be quick. And… there.” He smiled down. “Now, I don’t think these are quite big enough to warrant wrapping a big ugly bandage around your midsection. Believe me, that’d be almost more trouble than it would prevent. But on the other paw, we can’t just leave these wounds open.” While he talked, he bent back to his bag and dabbed another cloth in the bowl.

“I’m just going to clean them out here, though I suspect they’re not too bad. Your tunic looks quite clean. Well, the parts that aren’t blood. You’ll have to get a new one.” Yilon felt the cool wetness directly on his skin, making him shiver. That wasn’t the only reaction the intimate touch was stirring in him. He thanked Canis that the wounds weren’t lower. “But if you’re brave, I can sew up the wounds. It’ll only take one or two stitches on each one, and it won’t hurt much more than it already does. What do you say? Trust my needlework?”

He rested a paw on Yilon’s lower abdomen, green eyes sparkling in the light. Yilon smiled. “Go ahead,” he said. “I can take it.”

“I suspected you might.” Colian brought his other paw up to show the needle and thread he was already holding. “Just relax, and I’ll talk you through it. I’m no chirurgeon, but I’ve worked with one and I’ve sewn before. I’ve even tended to Lady Dewanne. Not with needle and thread, of course. But I could have.” He lowered his head and blew softly on the nearer wound, stirring Yilon’s sheath again.

The arousal lasted only until Colian pinched the wound, bringing the edges together. The sharp pain made Yilon grit his teeth, but it wasn’t as bad as he’d felt earlier. A pinprick, then another, and the strange sensation of thread sliding through his skin. “Easy,” Colian murmured. “This is nothing, right? You’ve had a great big knife stuck in you, what’s a tiny little needle?” Another set of pricks, another slide of thread, and tightening as Colian pulled the wound gently shut. The fox lowered his muzzle and bit off the end of the thread, his breath warm on Yilon’s stomach.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“No, Yilon breathed. “You’re good.”

Colian inclined his head. “My very great thanks, noble sir. Good enough to allow me one more?”

“Please.” Yilon could feel the difference between the two wounds already, the open one raw at the edges, the sewn one merely aching. And somehow, the presence of the young male so near his sheath was still having an effect on him. Wonderful, he thought. He tried to will the response away, but thinking about it only made it worse.

“Do you think you can turn around for me? I can lean over you, but I’d prefer not to.” Colian held up the needle and thread.

Yilon nodded. He sat up in bed, swung his legs off, and lay back down with his head where his feet had been. As he did, he was aware of his erection pressing up against his trousers, and he only hoped Colian wasn’t looking. His ears flushed.

“There we go. This’ll be over before you know it.” Once again, the fox blew on Yilon’s fur, this one closer to his hips. His tail twitched.

The sewing was even quicker on this side, or perhaps it just seemed so. And perhaps it only seemed that Colian’s nose lingered when he meant to bite off the thread. But when the fox straightened and said, “All done. Let’s just clean it off one more time,” his paw rested below Yilon’s navel, just above the waist of his trousers while he picked up his damp cloth.