Shadow of the Father (23 page)

“My lord,” Maxon said, “there has just been an attempt on your life. The castle is most likely the safest place for you.”

“I have to tell Velkan about the attack.” Yilon stared stubbornly at the steward.

Maxon growled. “I can certainly relay the information. My primary concern at this moment is your safety.”

“You weren’t there!”

“And what information do you have from your presence there that I did not see, arriving moments later?”

Yilon opened his mouth to say, “the last thing Corwin said,” but then snapped his muzzle shut, not only because he didn’t want to tell Maxon what Corwin had said, but because he was now wondering something else. “Why
did
you arrive moments later?”

“You had been gone quite a while. Corwin’s presence was requested.”

He sounded believable enough, and now he was looking around the plaza at all the foxes walking by, up at the rooftops. “I’m going with you to the mansion,” Yilon said. “We will send for Min from the castle and he will accompany me as my bodyguard. Will that soothe your fears?”

Maxon stifled a cough. “I suppose it will have to. Get inside the mansion now, then. My lord.”

“But Min…”

“I will fetch Min. You will find Velkan in the great room to the left. Stay away from windows.” Maxon nearly pushed him through the front door.

He stepped into a marble-floored foyer, lined with tapestries and illuminated with the reddish light of sunset through a skylight. The place smelled mostly of the violet and red flowers placed around near the windows. Below it was the ever-present undertone of fox, but the floral scent was strong enough to mask the identities.

To the left, below a fresco of Canis bestowing a blessing on a fox, a large double door stood closed. Yilon was intercepted on his way to them by an elderly fox in green livery, who announced him to Velkan and then informed him that he was welcome.

The long room into which he was shown appeared to be a banquet hall, with windows at regular intervals all down the right hand wall. Facing them, more tapestries hung depicting scenes from the Book of Gaia: Canis creating His companions, Canis leading His pack, Canis blessing the first foxes. Above the long table, two chandeliers that were intricate structures of glass were in the process of being lit by two servants on ladders. Below them, at the far end of the table, Velkan looked up from a large piece of parchment, Lady Dewanne at his side. Yilon barely saw any of them, the image of the bloody quarrel in Corwin’s chest swimming before him.

Lady Dewanne spoke first. “There you are,” she said. “Corwin went to look for you.”

Hearing his name brought Yilon back to reality. “He—he’s been shot.” Yilon walked slowly toward them, tail curled back around his legs. He pushed away the thought that Corwin might even now be dying, or dead. If he didn’t think about it, it wouldn’t be real. Lady Dewanne’s ears shot up. Beside her, Velkan’s did too, his jaw dropping. The servants stopped lighting the chandeliers and looked down. The only sound was the click of Yilon’s claws on the marble floor. Velkan said in a short, clipped voice, “What?”

“We were leaving the public house and he was shot with a crossbow. From a rooftop, I think.” Yilon reached Lady Dewanne’s side, opposite the windows. On the parchment, the city of Dewanne was laid out, with small markers near the Warren and at the spot where the crown had been stolen. Yilon’s ears flushed. To distract his attention, he pointed to the approximate spot on the map where the public house was. “Here.” But he couldn’t keep his eyes from the marker of the spot of the theft, so close to where his finger’s claw rested.

“Is he…?” Lady Dewanne’s eyes were wide, one paw at her muzzle.

Yilon squeezed his eyes shut briefly. Sixteen years without seeing a fox stabbed, and then twice in one day, he thought. “He was alive when I left.” He pointed to his upper chest. “It came through here.”

“From a rooftop?” Velkan said.

Yilon moved his paw around to the spot over his shoulder, between his shoulder blade and spine. “It came in around here.”

“Might not be fatal,” Velkan observed. The governor touched the same spot on his own upper chest. “Where did they take him?”

“A chirurgeon came to tend to him,” Yilon said. “Maxon dragged me away after that.”

“Maxon?” Lady Dewanne said with a start.

“Another public shooting,” Velkan said. “From a rooftop. It might be time again.” His paw lingered over a point on the map. “My lady?”

“I wanted to mention about Maxon,” Yilon said, but at that moment the liveried servant entered the room and announced that the steward had returned.

“Your servant is waiting outside, my lord,” he told Yilon as he strode briskly past the ladders to join them. “And this message arrived for you today.” He handed over a folded parchment.

Yilon saw the seal of the steward of Divalia. He stepped back from the table and broke it, unfolding the parchment. Velkan told Maxon briefly what they had been discussing, while Yilon read the words.

 
Yilon,

 
According to palace records, the only person to arrive from Dewanne in the past two weeks was the steward Maxon, with his driver. No merchant wagons were registered at the gates. It is possible that a single rider might have entered the city and given a false destination, or been hidden in another wagon, but that is beyond the limits of my information. I can safely say that no legitimate traveler arrived from Dewanne with the exception of those noted above.

 
Your obedient servant,

Jinna

“News of your family?” Maxon said.

Yilon re-folded the parchment and tucked it in with his coins. “The answer to a question.” He stepped back to the table.

Lady Dewanne looked across at Maxon, started to ask him something, but then turned to Yilon and said, “Velkan’s opinion is that the Shadows are taking advantage of the period of transition. This second attack would see to bear out his theory.” He could hear the proper noun in the way she said “Shadows,” and her voice was colder, more distant. As she finished, her eyes dropped to the map.

Velkan nodded. “They’ve been mostly quiet during my term as governor. I know in the past there was a need for corrective measures against them from time to time.” He rubbed his whiskers. “It almost feels that they have a grudge against Corwin.”

Lady Dewanne was still staring down at the map. Her voice was soft. “But of all of us, he was the one to argue most strongly against the use of violence. And why begin acting out today of all days?”

“Because the new lord has arrived,” Velkan said. “They want to show him their power. That’s why we need to respond quickly and decisively.”

“I don’t like it,” Lady Dewanne said. “Corwin would not want…”

Her voice trailed off.

“There is no other explanation,” Maxon said, tightly. “If they are attempting to flex their muscles, we need to put a stop to it.”

Yilon had to force himself to ask the question, hating his ignorance in this grave discussion. “Er… what are the Shadows?”

All three of them turned to him, then looked around at each other.

Velkan said, “My lady, perhaps…”

Lady Dewanne nodded. “The Shadows are a group of… we assume they are mice, but those are only the ones we’ve caught. They live in the sewers under the city. It’s usually too much trouble to go flush them out except on extraordinary occasions. Besides, they always come back soon after.”

“The sewers?”

“Yes, we have sewers here,” Maxon said. “Just like in Divalia.”

“Except that you have people living in them,” Yilon said.

“You think Divalia does not?”

“Please,” Velkan said. “My lady, may I go begin preparations?”

Yilon looked away from Maxon’s smug expression. “Corwin said something about shadows to me.”

All three of them turned to him. “When?” Maxon said.

“After he got shot.” Yilon closed his eyes. “He said, ‘Not Shadows.’”

The room fell silent. The servants, finished with their lighting, remained at the top of their ladders. “Are you certain?” Velkan asked.

“How could he have known?” Maxon said.

Lady Dewanne spread her paws. “Perhaps he saw his attacker.”

“He was shot in the back,” Maxon reminded her.

“But he was facing the public house,” Yilon recalled. “He could have seen the reflection in the glass, perhaps.”

“He’d just been shot in the chest,” Velkan said. “I doubt he was exercising all his powers of perception.”

“I knew he would not want this,” Lady Dewanne mused, looking again at the map. “Where did you say they took him?”

“Incic took charge of him,” Maxon said. “But Corwin was not conscious when they moved him. It is unlikely that he has regained consciousness by now. If…”

He let the unspoken alternative hang in the air. The servants descended from the ladders, heads bowed, and left the room at Velkan’s dismissal. “Well,” the governor said, “if we delay, we lose our chance to act. If it is the Shadows, as we all assume it is, then they may become impossible to control.”

“What do they do?” Yilon asked.

“If we don’t act now,” Velkan said grimly, “whatever they want. And besides, we do not know for how much longer the guard will remain true.” That brought Lady Dewanne’s slender muzzle up. Her eyes hardened. “Yes,” she said. “Velkan, assemble the guard. Do it quietly. You know the procedures.” To Yilon, she explained, “They have spies all over the city. We never know when they’re watching.”

His fur prickled. “Would they be on rooftops?”

“Almost certainly,” Maxon said.

“I think… I think one was watching me.”

“When?” Velkan looked down at the map. “And where?”

Yilon stared at the map, trying to retrace his steps. Maxon tapped the table. “It doesn’t make much difference where,” he said. “There’s only four places to enter the sewers, and we have to enter all four at the same time. And for that to happen, we need to assemble the guard now, especially if we’re to do it in secret.”

Velkan nodded. “Can you assemble the captains of the guard?”

“Of course.” Maxon turned to leave, then met Yilon’s eyes. Yilon saw again the steward slinking through the back streets of Dewanne, cutting through crowds, entering the Strad house from which Kites had come. He had to tell Lady Dewanne about Strad and about Kites, but that would mean leaving Maxon free to do whatever he wanted.

“I’m going with you,” he said.

To his surprise, Maxon smiled. “That is an excellent idea,” he said. “It will give you a chance to get acquainted with the guard, and for them to get to know you.”

“All right,” Yilon said. Velkan was already looking at his map again. Lady Dewanne was rubbing her muzzle, also staring at the parchment, though it didn’t look like she was seeing it.

“We’ll return here in one hour if we need to change plans,” Maxon said.

“And in the meantime,” Yilon said on the way out, “you can tell me more about the Shadows.”

 
Their unseen captors had climbed down the walls, and now pushed Sinch and Valix forward. “We’re just here hiding,” Sinch said.

“From a fox,” Valid added. “Sinch threw a knife at him.”

Her captor laughed, sharply. “That is the only reason you are not already dead.”

“You saw us?” Sinch tried to twist around to look at the person behind him, but he got a smack on the ear and shove forward.

“Of course they saw us,” Valix hissed. “Let me do the talking.”

The passage was dark and cold but not so dark that Sinch couldn’t see the wide ridges in the floor, dimly grey against the darker space between them. The one time his foot slipped into that darker area, it landed in cold, slimy water. He was careful not to lose his footing again.

The mice behind them—they sounded like mice, and their paws were as small as mice’s—pushed them around corners, until Sinch had lost all sense of direction. Several times, they passed below a grate through which Sinch saw the moon or stars, but they had moved on before he had time for more than a quick glance. Further confusing him were the smells of filth and waste, though they weren’t as bad as he’d smelled in Divalia’s underground.

And yet, for a city so much smaller, the sewers were wide enough for two mice to walk abreast. Dark alcoves in the walls made Sinch’s whiskers twitch, until he became convinced that in every one, a pair of eyes watched them pass. By the time they’d arrived in a wider passage and were pushed roughly back against the walls of the sewer, Sinch would not have been surprised to see a whole parade of mice trailing behind them, watching.

Only their two captors stepped around to face them. Behind them, a small light shone, enough to throw them into silhouette and the rest of the tunnel into darkness. Sinch only gradually became aware of three other mice standing at the edge of the light, from further down the tunnel. They presented an eerie sight, in the darkness of the sewer. All five had fur of solid black, so deep and impenetrable that the only thing Sinch could see of them at first was the gleam of their eyes. He couldn’t tell whether they were even wearing clothing until one stepped closer to him, inspecting him up and down, and then Sinch could see the collar of a tight black shirt around the mouse’s neck. “Frost. Go and get Whisper,” the mouse who’d been holding Sinch said.

The one who’d stepped close to them turned, his ears up. “You need more than intruders to bother Whisper,” he said. His breath stank of something familiar, but in the miasma of other odors, Sinch couldn’t quite place it.

“If these were just intruders, I would be telling you about their quick deaths instead of holding them against the wall,” the first mouse growled. “Go.”

“Dagger, you go. I’m eating.” One of the other two newcomers hurried back into the wide passage. As the mouse with the breath—Frost?—stepped back, Sinch saw what he was holding in the paw he’d kept behind his back: it was a small bone with clumps of meat clinging to it. The mouse grinned at him and then, very deliberately, tore off a chunk of meat with his teeth and chewed in noisily.

Sinch’s stomach lurched. He hadn’t been able to place the smell of meat because it was a mouse’s breath, but the evidence of his eyes was impossible to ignore. And now he recognized it as the faint smell he’d caught that morning in the passage beneath the guards along the trench. He brought a paw to his muzzle, deliberately willing himself not to retch. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Valix’s wide eyes and similar struggle.