Shadow of the Father (9 page)

The sun was two hours from setting when the carriage rattled into the small collection of wooden buildings, but Maxon closed his book, coughed, and said, “We stop here.”

“There’s still plenty of light,” Yilon said.

“The journey from Frontier to Dewanne takes over half a day, my lord.”

“We don’t have half a day of daylight left,” Sinch said, looking out the window.

Maxon rapped on the ceiling of the carriage. They stopped a few moments later, in front of a public house whose sign bore a picture of a waterfall and the name Lower Falls Inn. When the door opened, the first thing Yilon noted was that the characteristic scent of the town owed more of its character to fox. They had stayed in towns that were predominantly cougar, and predominantly skunk, but neither had been as singularly strong as the smell of fox was here.

The second thing he saw was the mountains. At first, when he turned and saw the jagged range just below the sun, he thought for one wild moment that they’d taken a wrong turn and ended up in Vinton. But the mountains in Vinton were low and worn, with rounded caps and trees almost to the top. The mountains that rose over the rooftops of Frontier scraped the sky, their edges sharp and bare, their tips gleaming white tinged with orange. To his right, one peak rose high above the others, the triangular peak listing to one side as if grasped by a giant and carelessly bent.

“Up there, your lordship.” Maxon had come up behind Yilon and Sinch and unfolded an angular arm to point to the gap between the two nearest peaks. The black fur on his fingers shone in the low sun. “Dewanne lies through that pass in a mountain valley.”

“It’s beautiful,” Sinch said.

“Yes, it is.” Maxon’s voice, though soft, carried in the silent afternoon air, and he did not clear his throat at all.

Yilon saw nobody in Frontier who was not a fox save for Sinch and their driver, the raccoon. The innkeeper was a silver fox, his winter coat just growing in. His two helpers were younger vixens. Every other patron of the inn, from the regulars who worked the port on the nearby river to the merchants just setting out from Dewanne, were foxes. Sinch talked cheerfully enough over dinner, but Yilon saw the flicking of his ears and eyes, and knew that as comfortably as his senses rested among his species, Sinch’s were all a-jangle.

They ate in the sun, Sinch taking only the potatoes from the meal they were served, dumping his spitted goat meat onto Yilon’s plate.

Anxious to reach Dewanne, they retired early and woke before the sun, setting out on the hilly road in near-darkness.

Sunrise caught them before they’d ascended far into the mountains. Light gradually illuminated the path, enough so that Yilon could see the plants and flowers, only a few of them familiar. He knew the ones around Vinton well from countless hikes and walks, so seeing the same terrain with different decorations felt confusing, as if he’d walked into his father’s chambers and found Sinch’s mother there.

To Sinch, it was all new, and after the monotonous days of grassland, forest, and field, he couldn’t restrain his enthusiasm. “Look how red that is!” he’d say, calling Yilon to his side of the carriage. Or, “do you know what kind of bird that is?” Yilon leaned across the mouse’s wiry body, looking at the things he was pointing at, not because he thought he might identify them, but because he wanted to have seen them too.

Maxon could have identified them, no doubt, but he remained silent. He did look up from his book to the foliage outside, and once, Yilon actually caught him smiling.

There was no question about his smile when, after hours of a steep ascent that forced all three of them to sit on the back bench, the carriage began descending again. As it rounded a curve, Maxon lifted a finger to point out the window. “There,” he said, “is Dewanne.”

The bouncing of the carriage made the view difficult to process. Yilon rapped on the ceiling, hopping out of his door as soon as the carriage slowed. Maxon and Sinch followed. The driver looked back. “Something wrong, sirs?”

Yilon shook his head. “Just wanted to get a better view.” He couldn’t have articulated the impulse that urged him to get a look at Dewanne before entering it, only that he knew it was there.

The air had been noticeably colder in the carriage, out here, in the wind, it was frigid, he wrapped his arms around himself and stared down into the valley below them. On all sides, the ground rose up around the town of Dewanne, which spread in a crescent around the southern shore of a large lake. The nearest buildings had been built along the highest water mark, which was now perhaps a hundred feet from the actual shore of the lake. They were looking down from the northeast, perhaps two hours ride from the town.

“Wow,” Sinch breathed. He pointed beyond the lake. “Is Delford over there?”

“Other side of the mountain.” Yilon tried to match the layout of the town to what he knew of Vinton and Divalia, to figure out which building was which. The multi-room mansion on the small hill at the far end of the town from the lake must be the palace, with the wide square in front of it ready for the daily market. He couldn’t see any buildings with Gaia’s six-in-one symbol atop them, but there was a round building atop a lower hill, near the plaza, that looked church-like. Between the plaza and the lake, densely packed buildings and winding streets formed what he thought was similar to Divalia’s Old Town, while the houses that spread to either side along the lake shore were larger, probably newer.

On the west side of the town, directly opposite the lake from their position, a large cluster of small buildings sat on the western edge of the town, darker and more closely packed than the rest of the city. Beyond them, Yilon saw several large artificial scrapes in the ground, at the feet of the mountains. He nudged Maxon, pointing down. “What’s that cluster on the west side?”

“That, your lordship, is the Warren,” the steward said, and coughed. “Your lordship would do well to keep clear of it.”

“Why?” Yilon wanted to know.

Maxon turned back toward the carriage with a small cough. “We will try to arrange a tour of the city for his lordship once we have arrived.” He stepped up and pulled himself inside again.

Sinch rubbed his paws together. “Chilly up here.” He panted. “But I’m glad we stopped.”

Yilon nodded, feeling short of breath himself. “Let’s get back inside.”

The three of them had to crowd together again on the way down, this time on the front bench. Yilon felt his stomach lurch anyway, with more than just the uneven road. The closer they drew to Dewanne, the closer he came to having to think about being a lord, and the father he drifted from Vinton. The stopover on the way back was a mistake, he decided, staring out the window without seeing the low scrub bouncing by. All it would do would be to rub in his nose that it was Volyan’s now, no longer his. He wondered whether his mother would want to come visit in Dewanne. And that made him think of Lady Dewanne.

He’d never met her, but his mother had talked about her several times, as the only other noble vixen she’d met. She described her as good-natured, but aloof, a vixen very much at home in her role as a lady.

But she’d also spoken of her with pity, though at the time Yilon hadn’t understood why, and his mother hadn’t elaborated. Now, in light of what his father had told him, he wondered. What would it be like to be married to someone who would rather scheme to have a cub with some other vixen than to have one with his own wife? And how would she feel when that cub, now grown, arrived to claim the title to the land she’d held all her life?

Maxon, next to him, sat straight up, paws on his knees. What was what Maxon had meant when he’d said his loyalty was to the court of Dewanne? Had he been instructed by Lady Dewanne to isolate Yilon from his friends? There was no good reason Yilon could come up with for that, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

The humid, fresh air of the lake shore crept in through the doors of the carriage as they descended. If the air had been thin at the top of the mountain, it felt much thicker here. It reminded him of Divalia more than Vinton, despite the mountains all around. The only water in Vinton was a small river, barely worthy of the name, that snaked through the town and down to the plains below. The Lurine in Divalia, wide and powerful, had fascinated him when he’d first arrived in the city.

They entered the outskirts of the city, where smaller fields broke up the scrubby vegetation. Farmhouses appeared here and there, more square and squat than the farms they’d seen on the plains. Beyond the farms, trails led up the sides of the mountains, ending in small dark holes. Yilon saw small figures working in the fields, and foxes in carts, pulling off the road to let them pass.

After that, he saw more buildings and fewer fields, until there were no fields at all. Yilon was more reminded of Vinton than Divalia, watching the houses and storefronts pass by his window; they were smaller than in the capital. Still, there was something strange about them, something he couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t just that they were plastered white over grey stone, because many of the buildings in Vinton were too. It might have been the green limestone trim, but that was simply a little different. The names he could see reminded him of home, things like Joni’s Grocer and Lakeside Smithy, and the Silver Minnow, a pub whose sign made him thirsty.

“What do they drink here?” he asked.

“Wine,” Maxon replied. “Vineyards on the slopes.” His thin fingers gestured beyond the buildings, to rows of green vines in the distance.

“I like wine,” Sinch piped up from the other side of the carriage.

Maxon did not say anything as the carriage slowed. Yilon saw two red foxes in grey uniforms with green trim at the shoulders and cuffs approach the carriage. They talked briefly with the driver, and then the door to the carriage opened and one of them stepped up to look inside.

The crest of Dewanne, embroidered in green, adorned his left breast. He looked back and forth between Yilon and Maxon, but when he saw Sinch, his paw dropped to the pommel of the short weapon at his side. “Sir,” he said to Maxon, without taking his eye from Sinch, “is everything all right?”

Maxon looked at Yilon as if to say,
see?
, but nodded his head. “Yes, Turon. This is Yilon, who is to be the heir of Dewanne.”

Turon spared Yilon a brief glance, enough for Yilon to see the fear and suspicion in his widened eyes. He lowered his voice to almost a whisper pitch. “If you are being threatened,” he murmured, “flick your ears back.”

Maxon kept them deliberately forward, as Sinch strained forward to hear. “Everything is fine, Turon,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Yes, sir.” The guard glanced at Yilon and said, “Welcome to Dewanne,” then dismounted and closed the carriage door.

Yilon met Sinch’s eyes. The mouse’s ears were back as he settled into the seat, his tail curled around in his lap. I can protect you, Yilon wanted to assure him, but he remembered the guard’s expression and couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

Several blocks of silence later, the carriage slowed again. Two more guards outside stopped the driver, and while they were there, Yilon saw another one amidst a thin crowd of foxes down the street he was facing. This time, the guard did not come in, and the carriage went on its way. “We are almost to the castle,” Maxon said.

“What’s that?” Yilon watched a large three-story building with an elaborate arched entryway roll by.

“The Silver Building.” Maxon coughed.

“What about that one?” Sinch called from the other side of the carriage. Yilon twisted around to see what Sinch was pointing to, but caught only the corner of the building before they passed it.

Maxon settled back on the bench. “I will be sure to arrange a tour of Dewanne for his lordship. I believe Corwin will be available.”

“Who’s Corwin?” Sinch asked.

Maxon yawned and cleared his throat as if about to answer, but said nothing. Yilon was about to echo the question when the carriage bounced into the wide square they’d seen from the pass. The mansion rose ahead of them, more like a castle than a house, with tall turreted walls and a wide, squat tower on either end. Only the structure between the towers looked like a house, plastered with the same white coating as the other buildings, with glass windows and sloped roofs.

The carriage pulled up in front. Two foxes in the now-familiar livery trotted out from the front gate to help Yilon down, and Maxon behind him. “Welcome home, sir,” one of them said to the steward.

“Thank you, Caffin.” Maxon grasped the first servant’s paw as he stepped down. “Hello, Min.”

The second servant bowed. “A pleasure to have you back, sir.”

Yilon reached back to help Sinch down, but Maxon pushed Yilon forward. “May I introduce Yilon.”

Both servants came to attention immediately, ears perking up, tails arched. They bowed together, straightening quickly. One of them—Caffin—seemed to be struggling not to smile. Yilon, at a loss for how to respond, said, “You can relax?” Why hadn’t his diplomacy classes taught him simple things like this?

“Tails down,” Maxon said, and both servants relaxed into wagging tails and broad smiles. The driver had dismounted and begun pulling the luggage down from the carriage. Caffin and Min hurried to help him. “Into the Broad Room, I think,” Maxon directed them as they carried the trunks down. “And mine into my chambers.” He picked up the leather satchel and held it in his arms.

“The Broad Room,” Yilon murmured to Sinch, falling behind the others. “Sounds… big.”

Maxon turned to face the two of them. He coughed into his paw. “I regret to inform his lordship that mice are not allowed into the castle.”

 
Yilon and Sinch stopped. “What?” Yilon said. Sinch shrank back, lowering his bag to the ground.

The steward looked down his muzzle at them. “It is by decree of the Lord Dewanne.”

“I’m the lord,” Yilon said.

Sinch put a paw on his arm. “It’s okay,” he said.

Maxon cleared his throat. “Not yet.”

“Well, I’ll change it when I am.” Yilon glared up defiantly.