Shadow of the Father (31 page)

Valix was shaking her head. Yilon said, “That’s not what I mean.”

“Oh, I thought you were in favor of mice,” she said. “It doesn’t matter, really. It’d be easier with someone like Colian, whatever you like.”

“While the young lord is attractive,” Colian said, smiling, “I fear he does not feel the same for me.”

“I said someone like you,” Dinah said. “It doesn’t have to be you.”

“I see.” Colian’s smile didn’t fade. “My pardon. I thought I detected another attempt on your part to remedy the cold loneliness of my existence.”

“I need to have a legitimate heir,” Yilon said again. The room, with the shutters closed, felt stuffy to him. He paced back and forth. “If I don’t marry you, I’ll have to marry someone else.”

“Lady Dewanne never had an heir,” Dinah said.

“And look at what that’s done to the city!”

Dinah stared back at him. “They brought you here. You can just bring someone else in. Do it sooner.”

“I don’t want to be here!” Yilon cried. “I don’t want to drag some other poor cub out of his home to this city just because I don’t
want
to have a wife and family.”

“Lord Dewanne did.” Dinah shrugged. “Lords do all sorts of things.”

“They didn’t have a choice,” Yilon said. “Lady Dewanne couldn’t have cubs.”

Colian said, “Who told you that?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Dinah said. “She had two cubs that died.”

“I heard one,” Valix said.

“She said she wasn’t favored by Canis,” Yilon said.

“If she couldn’t have cubs, he would have taken another wife.”

“Not right away,” Yilon said.

“You can’t wait forever. ’Steeth, it’s been drilled into my head: have a heir within three years, have an heir within three years. Colian, what did she tell you?” Dinah asked.

“Now, would you have me tell her about the conditions I’ve treated you for?” Colian said with a smile.

“
I
don’t care.” Dinah’s fangs showed over her lower lip.

“Look,” Yilon said, “I have to get the crown back first. Then we can worry about all the rest.”

“That’s all very well,” Dinah said. “Who knows where the crown is now?”

The stuffy room became very quiet. Sinch and Valix looked at the floor. “Let me worry about that,” Yilon said.

Dinah folded her arms. Yilon found that he wanted badly to tell her, to enlist her as a partner in the retrieval of the crown. Was there anything she could offer? He searched for any excuse to tell her, and while he was thinking, she gave him the perfect opening. “You’re going by yourself? Out there into the city where the Shadows are trying to kill you?”

“Not just them,” he said.

Dinah tilted her muzzle. “Right. Maxon’s mysterious ‘assassins.’ You don’t think that was all a story designed to keep us out of the way?”

“No. He stopped us before we told him where the mice were.”

“
You
told him?” Valix said. “Well, thank you. I thought the Shadows were the only ones who’d stabbed me in the back tonight.”

“Not on purpose,” Yilon snapped.

“Regardless,” Dinah said, “you’ll need some protection and a guide. You’re new in town and there are assassins after you. And Min isn’t back yet.”

“Where did he go?” Yilon asked it rhetorically, but Colian inclined his head, lifting his shoulders in a small shrug.

“He said something about using ‘the other one,’” Sinch said. “Maxon did. When he was up in that room.” Valix and the foxes all turned to stare at him. “I was outside,” he said.

“Who’s the other one? And why would he take Min with him?”

Yilon looked around the room.

Sinch whispered something to Valix that Yilon didn’t catch. The other mouse shook her head. “The only fox he ever talked to was named Dewry,” she said.

“Who?”

“My… boss,” she said. “He mentioned a fox named Dewry, but he knew him before I was born, I think. He said there weren’t any good foxes around since Dewry left.”

Dinah frowned. “That name sounds familiar.”

“Regardless,” Yilon said, “I can’t figure why Min would go along with him and not wait for me.”

“Maybe he didn’t go along,” Sinch said.

“Then where did he—” Yilon stopped, his head lifting. “I told him I didn’t trust Maxon.”

“You think he would have followed him?” Dinah tapped her fingers on her arm.

“I’ve only known him a couple days.” Yilon flicked his ears. “But yes, it’s possible. Wouldn’t we have met them on our way in?”

“Not if they went the other way, down to the east side,” Dinah said.

“Where that Strad building is,” Yilon said.

They were all silent for a moment. “He’s a trained soldier,” Yilon said. “He can take care of himself.”

“You don’t know those people,” Dinah said. “Is he expecting to run into someone like Kites?”

“Are there more?” Yilon saw the answer in Dinah’s flattened ears. “If he’s in danger, we have to go help him. But we don’t have time for that and the other errand,” he said. “It’s almost light. There will be people around.”

“At least the Shadows won’t be as active,” Valix said.

“Aren’t they always around?” Dinah said. “That’s what I was told.”

Valix shrugged. “That’s what they like people to believe. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t. They like to know what’s going on, and most times things go on during the day.” She yawned.

Yilon rubbed his fingers along his tunic. “Sinch, can you go by yourself?”

Sinch nodded. “It’s probably faster and safer.”

Valix snorted. “You’d be safer with me.”

“You are not going anywhere for at least two days,” Colian said. “Maybe more.”

“I can’t stay here,” Valix said. “I need to be back to… the Warren by morning.”

Colian shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“Once I get back, I’ll go for you,” Sinch said.

Valix snorted again. “I’m sure that will help. What are you going to tell him? That I’m stabbed and lying in a building somewhere in the Heights, but he shouldn’t worry, I’ll be back in a week?”

Sinch’s ears fell. “No.”

“Look,” Yilon said, “we’ll worry about that in the morning. Right now we need to find Min and the crown.”

“It is morning,” Valix pointed out, but Yilon was already moving toward the door, Dinah behind him.

“I’m coming with you,” she told him when he turned around, before he had a chance to say anything. “I know how to get there, and besides, without me, you’re liable to fall in a hole, or on someone’s dagger.”

He thought about it for a moment and then nodded, once. “All right. Let’s get going, then. Colian, if Min comes back, have him wait here. We’ll come back here before we do anything else.”

“Be careful,” Colian said. “I’ll be here.”

“Sinch,” Yilon said. The mouse sat up, meeting his eyes, though his ears stayed down. “I’ll meet you back here.” Sinch nodded, but didn’t say anything. Yilon raised his paw and followed Dinah down the stairs. They turned right on the street outside. A fox was passing, but not one either of them recognized. “I think it’s down this way,” Yilon said. “By here is faster,” Dinah said, and started walking. Yilon hurried after her. “Do you know who lives in the Strad house?”

“Yes,” she said, in such a grim tone that for the moment, Yilon held his questions and just walked beside her in the slowly lightening street.

 
Sinch watched Yilon leave, his thoughts chaotic and restless. He didn’t even realize he was still staring at the door until Valix said, “You sure have the worst luck.”

“Me?” He saw, unexpectedly, sympathy behind her wry grin.

“Not so good to have it so bad for a fox. Not around here. Isn’t that so, sawbones?”

“I’m not a chirurgeon,” Colian said. “Nor am I a judge. It would be rather easier for you to make an arrangement were you a fox, but Dinah, if she does eventually agree to marry, will be quite willing to come to an agreement, I’m sure. Even if she may find the situation slightly…”

“Disgusting,” Valix said.

“Unusual.” Colian grinned. “We are not all Kishins, Miss Lightfingers.”

“
I
think it’s disgusting,” Valix muttered.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sinch said. “He’s not going to want to come to an arrangement. He’s… you heard him, with his duty and honor. He’s a noble fox, a really… a wonderful person.”

“All right,” Valix said. “Well, if I can’t go anywhere, then you’d better get going. I’ll think of something you can say to Ba—er, my boss.”

Sinch nodded. “And keep to the back alleys,” she continued. “It’s getting busier out there.”

“Thanks.” He got up and bowed to Colian. “Thank you, too, for your assistance.”

Colian raised a paw. “Don’t come back needing more.”

Sinch plodded down the stairs. Though he could see the rosy touch of dawn in the sky, he couldn’t make himself move much faster. After all, he reasoned, he had to be careful, not only of the Shadows, but also of the foxes on the street, who would no doubt be somewhat disturbed to see a mouse walking boldly through their streets in the morning. But even as he crept along the sides of buildings, from alcove to doorway, he didn’t give his surroundings more than a cursory look.

There were a few foxes on the street, but he managed to avoid them easily enough, even though these streets were clean and clear of debris. It helped that they were servants hurrying on errands, not paying much attention to their surroundings either. The only foxes on the flagstone streets who weren’t servants were a well-dressed couple, talking softly to each other, too absorbed to take any notices of him.

He turned after they’d passed and watched them. Maybe I should go back to Divalia, he thought. It would make the most sense. The Shadows were after him, the steward hated him, and even on the off chance that Balinni would believe that he had not murdered Valix, there was little hope of protection there. Even if Yilon were to become Lord Dewanne, he wouldn’t have enough pull to counter all of that trouble. Things would just keep going wrong.

The sky was definitely growing lighter. In Divalia, he’d learned to be inconspicuous by keeping his head down and walking determinedly, but not too quickly or too slowly. The problem here was that a mouse on the streets in this part of the city would stand out no matter how quickly he was traveling. At least, that’s what he thought until he turned into one of the side alleys and saw what was unmistakably a mouse scurrying away from him, a large sack slung over his shoulder.

Curious, he followed. As the mouse reached another set of houses, he or she stopped to rummage through the small bins left outside the back gate of each one. From each, the mouse drew a piece of cloth: an old tunic, a piece of curtain, a scarf. The cloth was added to the sac, and the mouse scurried on to the next house. At that bin, he saw Sinch (it was definitely a he, Sinch was close enough to smell) and snarled. “I got this street,” he said. “Clear off.”

Sinch put up his paws. “I’m not after clothes.”

“Oh.” The mouse relaxed. “Chikka’s already been through. No metal left. Scroungin’ for food?”

Sinch shook his head. “I’m… on an errand.”

That put the mouse on his guard again. “Well, don’t hang around me. I don’t need trouble. I make an honest living.” He shut the bin, obviously finding nothing in it, and moved on.

Did they all just assume any errand was a dishonest one? “I’m new in town,” Sinch said. “Do… are there a lot of mice around this area in the morning?”

“New?” The mouse stared at him. “Why in darkness would you come here?”

Sinch sighed. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Good luck.”

“Go back where you came from!” the mouse called after him.

Now that he was looking, he saw mice everywhere in the alleys, picking through bins, rolling wheelbarrows, pushing wheelbarrows, pushing large barrels that stank of waste on large carts. Once he saw one slip out of a back yard, look around furtively, and scamper away.

There’d been no mice around in the daytime, so if he were to pose as one of the scavengers, he’d have only a little time to do it. Even knowing that, he couldn’t make himself go too quickly, his conflicting feelings like molasses around his feet. If Yilon were with him, it would be easier, he thought. A fox could provide an excuse for a mouse, even if they had to play at him being a captive, or being chased through the street. No: if he were being chased, someone might help, like that fox there, dressed in a plain tunic but obviously on his way to the bakery at the corner.

Sinch’s stomach growled at the aroma of fresh bread coming from the back of the small store. He considered for a moment stopping to snatch a loaf, more to save the time it would require to explain his presence than because he didn’t want to pay. But he turned away and down another small alley, patting his stomach. When he got back with the crown, there would be breakfast.

None of the streets here were familiar, but he had drawn a rough map of the city in his head, and he knew he was getting closer. At the fist turn onto a street he recognized, he saw something out of the corner of his eye, and his whiskers tingled again. He spun around, but saw nobody on the rooftops, no movement in the crevices of the buildings behind him. The openness of these streets, even the alleys, worked to his benefit now; it would be harder for someone to follow him unnoticed. After a long look, he returned to his mission.

It took him only a few more minutes to find his hiding place, and his whiskers didn’t tingle again the whole time. The door he’d used before—that morning? Had it really been less than a day ago?—was still ajar. He let himself in and crept down to the basement.

The whole structure smelt of mildew and decay. The rotting bags in the dark basement, more than he’d remembered there being, overwhelmed him with their pungent odor. With little light coming through the grimy windows, he would have to rely on the smell of the newer leather to find the satchel holding the crown. He remembered approximately where he’d hidden it and sniffed around. Maddeningly, he smell had diffused over the course of the day, probably carried by the damp decay, and so he had to stick his paw into and around a number of the slimy, moldering sacks.

His heart beat faster. It had been on this side of the room, in this corner, he was sure of it. Had he come down a different way and become disoriented? He could dimly see the outline of another staircase. Maybe he’d used that one, which would put the bag… over on this side. He hurried to that corner, but the smell of leather was nonexistent there, and the other stairs, when he got closer, proved to be simply a pile of crumbling bricks stacked in a tiered arrangement.