Weasel Presents (25 page)

“It’s j-just a little th-thing,” Coryn said. He didn’t move to pick it up, focused on the rat’s muzzle. The rat was really looking right at him, seeing him. He’d noticed the boat and complimented it.

“Well, cheers,” the rat said. “Got things to do and the weather’s a touch, well, you know.” He pulled his muzzle back.

“Wait!” Coryn yelled. He scrambled forward and almost smacked his muzzle into the rat’s nose as the rat poked his head back under the stall.

“Hey, look, there weren’t nothing in it when I picked it up,” the rat said.

“No, it’s not th-that,” Coryn said. “I j-just wanted to s-say, thank you.”

“Oh.” This appeared to perplex the rat. He nodded. “Well, that’s nice of you. And now, I really have to--”

“It’s my first time in the city,” Coryn said, all in a rush. He was aware that he was still shivering under the cloak, but for the first time that night, he didn’t feel cold.

“Zat so?” The rat grinned. “Coulda fooled me.” He took a closer look around the stall before letting his eyes come to rest on Coryn again.

Coryn’s ears flattened further. “Sorry.” He sat back. “Just don’t take anything.”

The rat sniffed. “Barley? Nah, not t’my taste. Nothin’ here really worth taking. Cheers.” And he was gone.

Coryn reached out and picked up the boat. He turned it over in his paws. “Some adventure,” he muttered. Without any ceremony, he tossed it at the front of the stall, near the gutter. It landed on its side and slipped into the churning water, tumbling end over end and out of sight.

His eyes were closed, muzzle down against his chest, when he heard a high-pitched voice. “I reckon maybe I was a bit hasty back there.”

Coryn looked up into the sharp brown face, water dripping from the rat’s whiskers. “You can have the barley if you want,” he said. “I won’t stop you. The bread’s pretty good.”

“Oh, not ’bout that.” The rat flicked his whiskers, spraying water. “Seems there might be a thing or two worth havin’ here, after all.”

Coryn looked at the sheaves of barley, stacked under oilskin, at the loaves of bread wrapped in cloth, and then back at the rat. “Please don’t take the oilskins. The barley’ll be ruined.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” A small pink paw reached out to him. “I was speakin’ of the young wolf on his first visit to the city. Seems like a terrible waste t’spend it soaked under a smelly stall.”

Coryn’s eyes widened. “M-me?” The rat nodded. “I can’t, I mean, my father...”

“Left you here to guard the wares while he stays nice an’ warm in a cozy tavern, no doubt. Ale in one paw, attractive barmaid on t’other, what?”

“My father wouldn’t!” But Coryn remembered the smell of the female raccoon in their chambers, and how he’d just assumed the servants had come around to clean. And how his mother had wanted to come along this year and last, and his father had never allowed her to. “He wouldn’t,” he repeated.

“Course he would,” the rat said. “Anybody’d seek out comp’ny in this miserable weather, ay?”

The smell of the rat’s wet fur insinuated itself into Coryn’s nose, through the strong smell of wet garbage and damp barley. He flicked his ears and managed a small smile at the rat’s bright expression. “Aye?”

“That’s the spirit! Come on, this stuff’ll be safe ’nough ’til morning.” He shimmied back out of the stall and called, “Shake your tail, there!”

To stay now would be cowardly, and rude besides. Coryn, climbed slowly out of the stall after the rat, putting one paw squarely in the gutter as he did. Yanking it out of the icy water, he shook it, though the reflexive motion did little to dry it in the steady rain. He looked around the deserted, dripping market and saw that the rat was already three stalls down and walking briskly away.

“Hey!” he called, taking two steps and then stopping. He folded his ears down to keep the insides dry.

The rat stopped and turned. He held aside the collar of his threadbare cloak so he could look at Coryn. “I’m keen to get outta the rain,” he said. “C’mon.”

“You sure...” Coryn looked back at his stall.

The rat grinned and spread his paws. “You see anyone else guardin’ his stall?” he called loudly over the hiss of the rain.

He had, in fact, seen a raccoon down at the other end of the market, but there was nobody in sight now, not all up and down the twenty stalls of this side street, nor on the few stalls he could see on the main street. And some of them, he knew, had more valuable stock than barley. Well, on the off chance that anyone did steal their bread, or grain, he’d just get back early in the morning, before his father showed up, and he’d claim he’d thrown out what got damaged by the rain.

His paws splashed through the puddles in the cracked paving stones, catching him up to the rat, who was setting a brisk pace again. “There’s a guard,” Coryn said, as they approached a stall where a fox kept a wary eye on them amidst a small cloud of hanging bronze lanterns. A few of them were lit, casting eerie light and crooked shadows over the fox and the nearby street.

“Got valuable stock,” the rat said. “Trust me, no thief’ll come down here in this weather.”

He said it loudly enough that the fox’s ears flicked toward them. Coryn saw his snort and his intent gaze as the two of them passed. “You sure?”

“I know most of ’em. Hate the rain, they do.”

Coryn looked at the rat’s little pink paws, not jammed into the pockets of his cloak like Coryn’s were, but spraying droplets of water from the tapping fingertips in front of him, as active as the rat’s eyes darting from side to side. “But you’re out in this weather,” the wolf said.

“Ah, well, I’m a special case, ay? There’s things in the rain that’s overlooked by most.” His whip-thin tail smacked Coryn in the back of the leg.

They’d reached the end of the market, the last two stalls with their brown oilcloths dripping over wooden tables empty of their wares. Beyond them, a pair of pubs shone through the weather, windows bright with lanterns and roaring fires. Coryn gave them more than a glance, suddenly aware of the chill in the rain and the emptiness in his stomach. Then he realized that his father might be in either of the pubs, looking out the window, and he hurried ahead to catch up with the rat.

“Where are we going?” he said.

The rat didn’t pause, leading Coryn around a corner and past another tempting pub, so close that Coryn could hear the laughter and talk from inside when a stag, hurrying through the rain toward them, pushed the door open and ducked inside. But the rat kept going past the pub, saying, “Well, tell me, a young wolf, first visit to th’city, what would he like to see?”

“The Great Cathedral?” Coryn said.

“Sure, we can go by there.” The rat ducked into an alley and pulled Coryn with him. “Quicker this way. But how about the house of a noble? Wanna see how the upper crust live?”

“Oh, yes!” Coryn squinted. “Wait...you’re a noble?”

“Well,” the rat said, “let’s just say I’m owed a debt by a noble an’ I chose tonight to collect.”

“But...” Coryn stopped, then hurried forward again, tugging at the patched tunic clinging to his fur. “I’m not dressed...I’m soaking...”

“Oh, not t’worry,” the rat said, humming as he slowed his pace toward the end of the alley. “He won’t be there. Would make things a bit awkward.”

Won’t be there? Coryn had just figured out what the rat meant when they emerged into a large open street, the rat striding boldly out while Coryn hung back, staring to his left. Over the tops of the buildings, beyond the end of the street, the large dome of the Great Cathedral rose against the sky.

He’d never seen a building so tall. It seemed to reach to the clouds with a seven-fingered paw, six dark spires that were merely breathtaking circling the central spire, which disappeared into the rainclouds. Above it, through the lower layer of clouds, even in the night and rain, a gleam of gold shone through. He thought at first that it was Gaia herself, looking down on the Cathedral, but it didn’t move, and after a moment, he realized that it was the tip of the central spire.

A paw tugged at his sleeve. “Hey.” He turned to see the rat there, following his gaze. “It’s a wonder, innit?”

“I’ve never seen...” He groped for words.

“Ay, I know. But it’ll be there still in an hour, an’ we’ll be enjoyin’ the view with full bellies an’ a warm fire. C’mon.”

The rat tugged again at his sleeve. Coryn took one last look at the marvel of the Cathedral, and turned to follow the rat’s brown cloak through the light crowd of people hurrying to get home through the rain. They walked quickly down past two more side streets, and then the rat ducked into the space between two houses. Coryn hesitated, looking around at the crowd to see if anyone was watching him. A beaver, walking more slowly than the rest, gave him a curious look, so he pretended to be waiting for someone until she’d passed. Then he strolled into the alley.

“What kept ya?” the rat hissed, though he wasn’t looking at Coryn. He was near the back corner of the building, looking up at a window about two feet over his head.

“Wanted to make sure nobody was looking,” Coryn said. He craned his neck to see what the rat was looking at, but the window was dark.

“Look,” the rat said, “you want to get caught, best thing to do is stand around thinkin’. Do it fast, do it right, no chance of anyone seein’ ya.”

“You’re standing around,” Coryn pointed out, stung.

“Waitin’ for you.” The rat nodded up at the window. “Them bears like it cold. Leave the window open to get a bit of air.” He set his back to the wall and grinned at Coryn, holding out both paws linked together, forming a kind of stirrup. “Come on, then. Up ya go.”

“Me?” Coryn said. “But I don’t know...”

“Quite simple,” the rat said. “Just get up there, open the window, push yer way in. It’s a sitting room, or I miss my guess. You’ll be lookin’ for the dining room, a cabinet all fancy-like. Anythin’ silver you see in there, just help y’self and drop it out the window to me.”

“Me?” Coryn said again. “But why don’t you...I mean, you’re the one...” Following the rat had been exciting, a lark, but faced with the prospect of actually being a thief, his heart quailed. What if he were arrested? What would his father say? Abandoning the stall was one thing, but this was completely different.

“Look, i’s perfectly safe.” The rat nodded up. “I happen t’know the whole family’s gone for th’week. Hates the crowds on market days. Most dangerous part is standin’ here in th’rain. You rather do that, I’ll happily go in where it’s dry and out of sight of the guards.”

Coryn’s tail curled down. As much as he was worried about breaking into a home, the thought of standing out here alone in the rain was worse. He glanced nervously at the mouth of the alley, where he could still see people passing. “Do we have to...”

“I thought you wanted an adventure,” the rat said sternly. “If I was wrong, I’ll just scamper up an’ take care o’ this meself, and you can swim on home. Make y’self another reed boat.”

“No,” Coryn said hurriedly. “I’ll go.” Before he could second-guess himself, he lifted his foot into the rat’s linked paws and stepped up to the window. Up at its level, he could see that there was a little gap at the bottom where the window’d been left open, invisible from the street because of the broad stone sill. He rested his knee on the sill and worked his paws under the frame to pull it up.

It slid up with surprising ease. He swung one leg inside, then the other, his wet tail splashing against his leg. Water ran off it in streams, and before he could stop himself, Coryn shook just as if he were coming in from the rain into his barn at home. Guiltily, he looked around at the room he’d just sprayed with water.

In the dim light from the window, he could see an elegant writing desk, half again as large as his father’s and probably worth their entire farm all by itself. It was set against the window in the wall to his left, which was firmly closed, no doubt to protect the papers on it. The oil lamp on the desk had silver filigree around the glass bowl, so pretty that Coryn took a step toward it, wanting to run his fingers along the silver patterns.

Motion caught his eye, and he froze. Something across the room from him had moved. He flared his nostrils, perked his ears, but the overwhelming scent of bear still smelled old, and no sound reached him except for a slow drip of water from his tail. Slowly, he turned to look at the wall, freezing again when he saw movement once more.

But now he could see it more clearly. It was a polished mirror in an ornate silver frame, from which his wide-eyed face stared cautiously back, as if unsure who he was. He relaxed, and lifted his nose again to smell the room, making sure there was no fresh scent.

He avoided the fine wooden chairs, his paws tracking water across the soft carpet in the middle of the room. Two doors in the opposite corner from the open window led out; one led to a hallway, where he saw stairs leading up, portraits of bears on the wall, and more carpet. Stepping through the other, he found himself in a large room decorated around the wide, polished table in the center. A cabinet to the right bore three candlesticks, neatly pressed back against the wall and unlit. Coryn skirted the chairs to reach the cabinet, and then saw a second cabinet, larger, nearer the door he’d come in by. He’d been looking across the room and had missed it at first.

Both cabinets came up only to his stomach, and both were identical polished dark wood, the doors carved with elaborate reliefs. Coryn hesitated, then kept on toward the one bearing the candlesticks. He reached out and then stopped, his paw inches from the nearest one. He fancied himself an apprentice thief of sorts, had taken many a fruit from old Baggarly’s orchard each fall and sometimes eggs from Winnit’s or Delvar’s henhouses. But this was something different. He didn’t know these nobles, and the candlesticks were much more than eggs or fruit.

Still, the house was so wealthy. They could easily afford to replace one candlestick, at least. He grasped it in his paw and lifted.

It was not as heavy as he would have thought. The silver felt smoother than any metal he’d touched, smoother even than his mother’s cherished silver locket. He just stood there for a moment, sliding his paws over it, and then he held it to his chest and hurried back to the window.