Shadow of the Father (8 page)

The guard waved a paw toward the door, where Maxon had just come back in. “I will fetch the young master,” he said. “Your lordship should board the carriage.”

“This is ridiculous,” Yilon said. “I’m not getting on without Sinch. Why don’t you want me to go upstairs?”

“Your lordship is welcome to,” Maxon said smoothly, glancing around at the other patrons, where were taking notice of them. “But the carriage is ready. Take his lordship out to the carriage,” he said to the guard, “and I will fetch his lordship’s companion.”

“I’m happy to go up,” Yilon said.

Maxon started for the stairs. “There really is no need, your lordship,” he said.

“He’s my friend.” Yilon paced the steward, trying to get to the stairs ahead of him, but Maxon was faster.

“My lord,” he said, holding out a paw to stop Yilon, “you must understand that this was for your benefit.”

Yilon stopped cold. “What was for my benefit?”

“His lordship may have underestimated the friendship of his companion. Or his love of the great city of Divalia.”

“What are you talking about?” The hackles on the back of Yilon’s neck prickled. He pushed up the stairs, past the steward, who hurried to keep up with him.

“Or there might have been some other reason,” Maxon said. “Who can know the mind of… any of us?”

Yilon barely heard him. He nearly ran down the hall, stopping dead in front of the open door of the room Sinch had been in.

It was completely empty. Yilon sagged against the door frame, staring in and lifting his nose to smell the air. Sinch’s scent was strong, recent. He hadn’t been gone long. But how could he be gone at all? Hadn’t they walked through the previous night and said they would have to stick together? At least, Yilon had said that. Had Sinch agreed? He must have, he always would.

Maxon put a paw on his shoulder. “The life of a lord is often difficult,” he said, steering Yilon away from the open doorway. “Many people will present a false face in order to win his lordship’s favor. Discerning them is a skill that can take a lifetime to acquire. I had hoped to spare his lordship the hurt of being abandoned.”

Of course he had. Maxon, who had been so friendly and caring since Yilon had met him. The young fox stopped in the hallway and folded his arms. The steward took two more steps and then turned. “How did you know he’d gone?” Yilon asked.

Maxon looked around him at the doorway. He paused and cleared his throat, and Yilon realized suddenly that that was the first time he’d done that since coming back in from the carriage. “The, ah, room was empty, your lordship.”

Yilon looked steadily at the other fox. “So did you tell him that I told him to leave?”

The steward stiffened. “My lord, I assure you I had no contact with—”

Yilon had been watching his eyes, and had noticed his quick glance at the closed door across the hall from Sinch’s open door, the one where the two of them had spent the night. He didn’t wait for them steward to finish; with a quick motion, he reached for the latch and pushed the door open.

The room was empty of their bags, but a small, plain, familiar satchel sat against the foot of the bed Yilon had slept in. Sprawled out on the bed, just lifting his head at the opening of the door, Sinch blinked at his friend.

“Is the carriage fixed already?” he mumbled.

Maxon coughed, in the ensuing silence. “Your lordship—”

Yilon brushed past him and strode down the stairs. “Barkeep!” he called, walking over to the large stag. “How much would it cost to hire a carriage for Divalia?”

“Three Royals,” the stag said, “but there isn’t one for—”

“Your lordship.” Maxon came up behind him. “I had already left enough to hire a carriage for the mouse.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Yilon said to the stag. “We’ll wait as long as it takes. I can draw on the Treasury if need be. We’ll be staying until the carriage arrives.”

Maxon cleared his throat. “It is imperative that we reach Dewanne as soon as possible. The passes—”

“We will only need one room,” Yilon said. “The steward and the guard will be continuing on to Dewanne.”

The stag looked back and forth between him and Maxon. “Er…”

“Please excuse us,” Maxon said. “We need to discuss this.”

“There’s nothing to discuss.” Yilon faced the older fox, finally. “You and the guard can go back to Dewanne. You can find someone else to run your benighted city. Sinch and I are going back to Divalia.”

Maxon put a paw on Yilon’s arm. Yilon jerked his arm free, but allowed himself to be led to a vacant table. Maxon started to sit down, but Yilon folded his arms and remained standing. Maxon straightened. “You cannot leave the lordship.”

The guard came in, looking around. When he spotted them, he took up a position behind Maxon. Yilon ignored him. “I don’t want to travel with you any more. I don’t feel safe.”

Maxon’s eyes flicked back to the guard. “The lordship is a responsibility as well as a privilege,” he said. “You have been chosen to lead the province. You cannot simply abandon it on a whim.”

“This is not a whim!” Yilon shouted. He got a moment of satisfaction from seeing the steward and guard’s ears pin back. Heads around the tavern turned. The serving rabbit stopped dead with a tray of bread and water to stare at them.

“Control yourself,” Maxon said tightly.

“I am in perfect control,” Yilon said. “I am not the only one who lied in order to attempt to leave behind one of my companions.”

“That is not—”

The guard touched Maxon’s arm. “We should be on our way, sir.”

Maxon snapped without turning, “I will tell you when we are ready to leave.”

The other returned his stare for a moment, then looked down. “Yes, sir,” he said. He turned to leave, but Yilon heard him say, quite clearly, “doesn’t deserve it anyway.”

The remark nettled Yilon even further, so he glared at Maxon as the thin fox said, “I will not leave here without you. I apologize if my actions appeared malicious, but I can assure you—”

“Fine,” Yilon said. “You won’t leave here without me. I won’t leave here without Sinch.”

Maxon took a breath. “If that is how his lordship feels—”

“It is.”

They stared at each other. For the first time, Yilon felt that his authority was being tested. He held the steward’s eyes, trying to force his resolve onto the other. Sinch appeared at the top of the stairs, a flicker of grey in his peripheral vision, but he didn’t react. Maxon stared back, brown eyes unblinking.

Sinch crossed the floor to them, but didn’t get closer than the next table. He looked curiously up at Yilon, but Yilon didn’t shift his gaze. “Is… everything okay?” Sinch said timidly.

“It’s fine,” Yilon said.

Maxon coughed. The movement broke his concentration. He looked down, back at Sinch. His ears folded back, but he brought them up quickly. “Everything is fine,” he said. “We are just preparing to leave. If your lordship… and his companion… are ready.”

Yilon allowed himself a small smile.

He ignored Maxon for the entire carriage ride that day. When they stopped at an inn, he took the room with Sinch without even asking. The steward, for his part, had withdrawn into himself and his book during the day, even muting his cough. It wasn’t until the following day over lunch, when Sinch had gone to use the necessary, that Maxon cleared his throat and followed it with words.

“If his lordship will permit—”

“I will not,” Yilon said.

“—I would like to explain my actions.”

Yilon tore another bite out of the meat pastry they’d bought. It was stale and somewhat fatty, so he chewed as loudly as he could. “If it were up to me, I would have left
you
back at the Quiet Muskrat.”

“I understand his lordship’s feelings, but—”

“You are supposed to be following my orders. you’re supposed to be loyal to me.” Yilon pointed a finger at him.

“I
am
loyal. To the Lord Dewanne and the court of Dewanne,” Maxon snapped.

“Which is me!”

“Not yet.”

They glared at each other. Maxon dipped his muzzle first. “My lord,” he said, “we have several more days of traveling remaining, and although it would be within your right to dismiss me once you are confirmed as Lord, I believe your lordship would be remiss in doing so without hearing my motivations for my actions.”

Yilon ripped into the meat pastry. He chewed and swallowed a full bite before saying, “All right. Speak.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Maxon cleared his throat. “It has become clear that his lordship, while of quick wit and great education, does not possess a full understanding of the land whose lordship he is about to inherit. There are certain factors which would make it easier for his lordship to assume the transition to power, and others which would make it more difficult. My actions, I promise you, were only intended to ease that transition and provide his lordship with the smoothest possible path to…”

He turned his head, his words trailing off. Following his gaze, Yilon saw Sinch strolling back. “What,” he said, “you can’t say it in front of him?”

“Please, allow me to conclude at a later time, your lordship.”

Sinch looked from one to the other of them, rubbing his paws together as he sat down. “You were talking?”

“Briefly,” Yilon said, finishing his meat pastry. He leaned back in his chair. “After all, we’ll all have to travel together for another two weeks. Isn’t that right, Maxon?”

“Indeed, your lordship,” the steward said, muffling a cough into his paw. Sinch ate the rest of his lunch without comment, but when Maxon left to use the necessary, the mouse whispered, “Are you sure we can trust him?”

“No,” Yilon said. “But at least we know we can’t.”

On the evening of the eighth day, they stayed in a town called Havial, and in the morning they turned south. The ride became considerably bumpier, so that Yilon and Sinch were constantly shifting to avoid getting bruises on their rears from the bouncing. Maxon remained still, reading through his book, apparently immune to the attempts of the carriage to throw him around. Yilon wasn’t sure that Maxon even noticed the conditions, until near midday, when he rapped on the ceiling to signal the driver to stop. He looked across at Yilon and said, “From Havial, the road is less traveled, and therefore less even. It will be this bad for the rest of the way. And no churches for services, even at Frontier.”

“Whose land is this?” Yilon asked.

“Barclaw, your lordship,” Maxon said, and lowered his head to his book.

They hadn’t talked since the previous day’s lunch, but Yilon wasn’t terribly anxious to hear Maxon’s explanation. People had all kinds of ways of justifying their actions. Anyway, they weren’t alone very often; when Sinch left them, the driver or guard always seemed to be around. At night, Yilon stayed in Sinch’s room, the two of them talking about the day’s events with a freedom Maxon’s presence made impossible.

“Do you think you’ll have a servant when you get there?” Sinch asked.

Yilon lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. The room they’d taken was the smallest in the inn, over Maxon’s protests, because it was the only one left with two beds. Clearly it was intended for servants. Yilon didn’t care, but it had spurred Sinch to ask his question. “I suppose,” Yilon said.

“I guess you can order them to do things like make your favorite food.” Sinch sighed.

“You’re pickier than I am,” Yilon said.

“That’s ’cause you eat meat.” The mouse made a gagging noise. “It makes your breath stink.”

Yilon grinned. “Makes me stronger.” That’s what his mother’d told him. Sinch remained quiet, but mind obviously moving on. Yilon would have known that even if he hadn’t changed the subject. “What do you think it’s like?”

“Kind of chewy, but juicy,” Yilon said, deliberately misinterpreting.

“Not that.” Sinch threw a wadded-up cloth across the room at him. “Being a lord.”

“Not that much different from not.” Yilon laced his paws behind his head. “My father mostly spends his days talking to people.”

“But when he talks to people, things happen.” Sinch rolled over on his bed. “And people look up to him and respect him.”

“Not everyone.”

“You know what I mean.” Sinch sighed again. “When he walks around the palace, everyone knows he’s important. Imagine when he walks around in his home land. How you’ll walk around Dewanne. There won’t be anyone more important than you within miles. It’ll be your city.”

“I don’t know about that.” Yilon scraped his claws against each other. The rafters of the ceiling were very close to his head. Even in the dim light of the evening, he could see spiderwebs.

“Aren’t you looking forward to it?”

He swung his tail over the edge of the bed and swished it back and forth. “Not especially.”

Sinch rolled out of bed and padded to his side, sitting on the floor next to him. “Rather be going home?”

“I was important there, too.” Yilon rubbed his eyes. “This was exciting at first, but this business with Maxon is… it’s tiring. I don’t want to have to think about that.”

“You’re good at it, though.” Sinch’s small, brown nose and whiskers bobbed a foot or so from Yilon’s. “Look how you made him respect you.”

“I don’t think I’m so good at it. I almost left you behind.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Next time…”

Sinch put a paw on his shoulder. “There won’t be a next time. ‘cause we’re watching out now.”

“Back in Divalia, even, we didn’t have to watch out. Volyan won’t have to watch out.”

The mouse’s fingers felt good in his fur, squeezing. “It’s not so bad. There’s two of us. And like I said, you’re good at it.”

If only Maxon had gone on without them both, Yilon thought some nights, they could have made their way stealthily to Vinton and left all this behind. But no matter what the obligations of his duty would require in the future, Yilon knew he felt a lot better about things with Sinch by his side. So he remained vigilant whenever Maxon suggested a plan, looking for the twist that would let the steward get rid of the mouse. Whether through his vigilance, or because Maxon felt it was not prudent to try again, they did not run into any more problems until they arrived in Frontier, late on the second Gaiaday of their journey.