Shadow of the Father (26 page)

“Who shot him?”

“I don’t know. They say the Shadows did, that’s why we were there tonight…” His voice trailed off, realizing he probably shouldn’t be sharing military secrets, but then, it wasn’t really a secret, not now. “But he said “not Shadows” right before he collapsed.”

“How was he shot?” She’d stepped toward him, her eyes intense.

“We were just outside a pub,” he said. “In fact, I was just talking about…”

She brushed his story aside. “What was he shot with?”

“Oh. Crossbow quarrel. You can tell because they’re thicker and heavier than a shortbow arrow, but shorter than a longbow—”

“He’s right.” She rubbed her muzzle, turning away. “But what if the Shadows used a captured crossbow to make it look like it wasn’t them?”

“That’s what Maxon said, too.” Yilon felt he was losing his status in the conversation. “But how do you know Corwin?”

The vixen shot him a scornful look. “He’s my Pack-father,” she said. “Didn’t he ever talk about me?”

“He might have,” Yilon said. “It’s hard to say without knowing your name.”

She sniffed. “I can’t believe you haven’t figured it out. I’m Dinah.”

 
By the time Sinch and Min got to the second floor, a short, thin fox had emerged into the small hallway. He was pushing his arms into a tunic that was the only piece of clothing he wore, but he’d clearly taken in the situation. “In there,” he said, gesturing to the door nearest them. “There’s a mat.”

Sinch opened the door into a tiny, musty room. To the left, a low sleeping-mat sat against the wall. Under the window, a worn leather case and a pile of cotton rags sat on a set of shelves. While Min set Valix down on the mat, the fox walked to the shelves. He handed Sinch two of the cotton rags.

“Get her clothes off. It’s a wound, right? She’s not vomiting blood? I definitely smell blood.” His nose wrinkled.

Sinch shook his head. “She was stabbed. In the back.”

“Good. Take those, press them to the wound to staunch the bleeding. I’ll take a look. Not sure how much else there will be for us to do except make her comfortable.” He sighed. “I’m no chirurgeon,” he said, almost under his breath.

“Will we need one?” Sinch knelt beside Valix, working at her clothes.

The nurse talked over Sinch’s head, to Min. “I’ll know more in a few minutes. There’s one a few blocks from here. I don’t know if we can wake him up.”

“If he is needed, I’ll go,” Min said.

The room was quiet except for the sound of Valix’s clothes tearing as Sinch tried to get them off quickly. Light flared from a candle, and then the nurse knelt beside Sinch and said, “Very well. Let me have a look.” He handed Sinch the candle, lifting the now-red cotton from the wound. “Hold it there. Don’t let the wax drip.”

Sinch held the candle as steadily as he could while the fox examined Valix’s bare back. He pushed the fur aside gently, directing Sinch to bring the candle closer. Valix moaned as the fox probed at the wound.

“Your fingers are clean, right?” Sinch said nervously. The fox looked at him briefly, almost directly over the fox’s head as he peered down into the wound. The nurse probed with his claws, sniffed them, watched the flow of blood for another moment, then replaced the cotton rag and took the candle. “Hold that there,” he instructed, as he stood.

“Will we need the chirurgeon?” Sinch asked, his voice shaking.

“He wouldn’t get here in time.” The fox’s voice was tired.

Sinch’s heart pounded. He curled his tail more tightly around his legs. “So she’s…” His voice broke into a squeak. He pressed on the cotton cloth.

“Maybe.” The fox brought a small pot out that smelled strongly of pennyroyal. “Let me rub this on the wound. Then… if she makes it through the night…”

Sinch didn’t ask him to finish. He lifted the cotton and let the fox’s fingers spread salve on the wound and fur below. He felt like the bleeding had subsided, and when the fox gave him a clean cotton rag to press to it, he thought the red didn’t spread as quickly as it had.

“I’ll bring some water,” the nurse said. “If she wakes, she’ll be thirsty. You’ll be thirsty, too.”

He left Min and Sinch alone in the room. Min began to move toward the door, and Sinch realized he didn’t want to be left alone. More, he ached to tell Yilon what he’d been going through, to have the fox put his arms around him and tell him he’d be okay, that they would be eating together and practicing together and exploring the streets of Dewanne just as they had in Divalia, or even that they would be returning to Divalia together any day now. He wanted to hear about life in the palace, how Yilon had come to know where a nurse lived, and who was the vixen who’d welcomed them in, and how he had come to be at the sewer with the soldiers sent in to kill the Shadows. Most of all, he wanted to lie down in bed and press up against the fox, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing, the warm pulse of his sheath, the strength in his usual embrace.

“Please,” Sinch said as Min reached the door. “Can you… can you hold this? Just for a moment. I need…”

Min stopped, then nodded. “I need to go too, but I can wait. Go ahead.”

He knelt beside Valix and held the cotton rag in place. Sinch stood, giving him a downward perspective on the fox’s ears and muzzle. It was so much like looking at Yilon, in the dim light, and yet the scent was so different, that his head spun. He shook it to regain his composure. “Thank you,” he said, bowing clumsily, and left the room.

At the top of the stairs, he paused. Yilon and the vixen were still talking, below, and it sounded rather spirited. He crept down one stair, then paused, torn between courtesy and need. He took one more step down, and then the vixen’s voice saying, “marriage” stopped him dead.

The silence following it seemed to last for hours. Yilon said, “Of course I want to marry you.”

Sinch retreated up the stairs and leaned against the wall. Their voices faded back into murmurs. His heart pounded against the ribcage. Yilon was getting married. No doubt that vixen was a noble vixen, the marriage arranged for the throne of Dewanne. He wasn’t going to have time for Sinch, not to explore Dewanne, not to return to Divalia, not once he got married.

Don’t be silly, his mind told him. He wouldn’t just abandon you like that. But his heart was talking louder. The stress of the day, from the theft in the morning to the running around the Warren to being captured by Maxon to being captured by the Shadows… he’d only been in Dewanne one day, and already he’d made many more enemies than friends, and deadly enemies to boot. And the only people he could even remotely count as his friends were planning marriages to strange vixens, and dying in the room down the hall.

The air felt suffocatingly warm. He smelled the nurse again, moments before the fox emerged from an open doorway at the other end of the hall. He bore a ceramic in both paws, walking carefully with it, and he stopped when he saw Sinch. “Are you all right?” he said, and held out the pitcher. “Here, drink.”

By reflex, Sinch took it. The nurse tipped the pitcher toward his muzzle, enough for Sinch to lap at the water. It was cool and fresh, and to his surprise, it did actually make him feel better. The nurse was looking at him with concern. “You were with her when she got stabbed?” Sinch nodded. “And you weren’t hurt? You aren’t the one who stabbed her, are you?”

“No!” Sinch jerked back against the wall. Water splashed on the floor.

“Okay, easy, easy.” For the first time, Sinch saw him smile. “Listen, you did great, you know? Got her here all the way from… somewhere, and she’s not gone yet. She’s got a chance, and it’s because of you.”

“Because of Yilon,” Sinch mumbled. “He brought us here.”

The nurse didn’t respond. When Sinch looked up, he met sympathetic eyes. “Why don’t we go back in there with her, and you can tell me what happened. Maybe it’ll help me figure out how to treat her.”

Sinch followed him back into the room, where he took over holding the cloth for Min. The nurse opened the window and then sat crossed-legged the cloth for Min. The nurse opened the window and then sat cross-legged on the floor beside him. “My name’s Colian,” he said.

“I thought it might be, after Yilon was yelling it. I’m Sinch.” His breathing came more easily. The breeze in the room definitely helped. “I came here with Yilon from Divalia. We were best friends there.”

“Ahh.” Colian’s ears flicked. “That explains it. How long have you known each other?”

“Two years.” Sinch rested his other paw on Valix’s shoulder. It reassured him to feel the warmth. “He came to Divalia then. I was a castle crow, and he was new in town. I showed him the city, and he got me into the castle.”

Colian nodded, his eyes soft gleams in the darkness. Sinch went on.

“He’s the heir of Dewanne. I don’t know if you know that. But he is. So we came out here, with the steward who hates me, but I think he just hates all mice. And they wouldn’t let me in the palace, so I went to the Warren. That’s where I met Valix.”

“And where did she get stabbed?”

“In the sewer. By the Shadows.” Sinch groped for a way to get a handle on his story. “Maxon—the steward—chased us there. I was trying to get back to the palace to see Yilon, and he caught us there.” He told Colian about Maxon throwing Valix against the wall, carrying her through Dewanne, and their escape, omitting both the reason Maxon was holding them and the knife he’d thrown at the steward.

“You’ve had quite a day,” Colian said. His quiet assurance reminded Sinch of Yilon. “I’ve lived here my whole life and I don’t think I know anyone who’s been chased from the castle into the sewer and had a friend stabbed on their first day. Trust me, Dewanne has much more to offer that is quite enjoyable, as opposed to the experiences you have unfortunately had. The Shadows normally don’t trouble us, I can assure you, not unless you’ve done something to upset them, which it’s rather difficult to do unless you’re trying, and most of us are rather more well-brought-up than to try.”

Sinch felt the knot in his chest loosen further. He managed at least an attempt at a smile. Colian’s return smile reminded him of Yilon’s. “It’s been a weird day,” he admitted.

“Sounds like it,” Yilon said behind him.

 
Yilon gaped at the vixen. “
You’re
Dinah? But you’re supposed to have been kidnapped! You went missing…”

“And here I am.” She gestured to the open space above them. “Everyone thinks I’m either in some hideous part of town or run away to the countryside, I’m sure, unless they believed that ridiculous ransom note. At least, nobody has thought to look here. Sometimes I’m not even sure my family remembers we own this building.”

Yilon pressed his fingers to his forehead. “You’re not at all like I pictured you.”

“You weren’t picturing me in my nightshirt?”

“No,” he said. “More like… in a nice parlor, with all your relatives standing around making me uncomfortable.” If he blocked out the nightshirt, and just focused on her muzzle, he could construct that picture still. She had a confident, easy bearing, and now that he knew to look for it, even in the dim light, he could see the care that had been taken with her grooming. Nevertheless, she couldn’t have been more different from the noble vixens he’d known in Divalia.

“That’s what I ran away from,” she said. “Mostly. But also… you.”

“Me? I only just got here.” He shifted his weight back and forth. “And if you were running away, why were you following me?”

She made an exasperated “tchah,” and rolled her eyes. “I’ve been promised to the new lord ever since I was twelve. I wasn’t running away from you, I was running away from him. Who turned out to be you.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you were in the alley.”

“I was curious,” she snapped. “I don’t like running. Only I didn’t really have much choice, you see? If I were here to greet you, you’d know who I was, and then there’d be all this planning and promising and ladies-in-waiting and dresses more complicated than a Delford puzzle-box…” She sighed. “And now you know me, you’ll be telling everyone where I am. It’ll start anyway, all these preparations leading up to marriage. If you want.”

She was looking at him with an uncertain look, afraid of rejection, no doubt. Yilon said, stiffly, “Of course I want to marry you.”

“You don’t seem very excited about it, is all,” she said. “You haven’t been ogling me in my nightshirt.”

“I wondered why you weren’t going to change.”

“It’s because you weren’t ogling me.” She straightened the nightshirt, pulling it over certain curves deliberately. Yilon tried his best to look interested. “But I should change. I want to go see Corwin.”

“I’ll go with you,” Yilon said. “But I need to check on my friend.”

“Yes, who was the injured mouse?”

He looked up toward the second floor. “I don’t know. But she’s important to my friend.”

“Your friend… the fox? Or the other mouse.”

“The other mouse.” He told her about Sinch, quietly and succinctly, about their arrival from Divalia and his being barred from the castle. Her expression changed from interest to respect as he concluded his story with Sinch’s arrival at the sewer building.

“Friends with a mouse,” she said, and then walked past him, tail swaying. “That should get people upset at you.”

“It has already.” Yilon saw Maxon’s furious expression again. “But I don’t care. Anyway, it won’t matter too much longer anyway.”

She shot a curious look over her shoulder, but only said, “I’ll be changed in a short time. It’s so much easier without maidservants.”

He watched her walk through the door at the back of the lobby, and then started up the stairs himself. As he turned into the hallway, he heard Sinch’s voice talking about what had happened to him that day. He leaned quietly against the door to listen. As Sinch talked, Yilon’s heart ached for him, and he felt a cold anger at Maxon. After the steward had convinced him that he was acting in the country’s best interests, to hear about his brutal behavior toward the mice was like a cold slap in the face. At the same time, he couldn’t escape the ultimate blame for Sinch’s predicament. He was the one who’d convinced the mouse to come to Dewanne. He was responsible for him.