Authors: Kyell Gold
Father asks me over dinner almost every night how my classes are going, how I like life in the city. I wish he’d just leave me alone. But I like the classes, especially history. There are so many parts of the country I hadn’t learned anything about, I keep pestering Master Ovile with questions and annoying the other students.
But that’s not what I wanted to write about. In services in the Cathedral this morning, I thought I smelled Mother. Her scent’s been in my nose since I arrived, but this was real, really real. I thought maybe she’d come up from Vinton to surprise me, but I looked all over and I couldn’t see her anywhere. There were three or four other red fox families around, but she wasn’t with them. And then I got distracted leaving and stepped in a pile of manure in the street.
I can’t stop thinking about her scent. I found a way to get up on the roof of the palace and nobody else seems to want to come up here, so it’s nice and quiet. I was having trouble talking at dinner, and so I ran up here after. I was hoping it would get better, but it feels like there’s a bear sitting on my chest and I can’t get him off. I think I’ll just curl up here for a little and I’ll go down when I feel better.
5
I got yelled at for taking ink up on the roof. It’s valuable, it needs to stay in my room, it gets dried out when I leave it up there overnight. Like Volyan never did stupid things.
But I found out about my mother’s scent. In History we were talking about parentage and I realized Mother was born here in the city. So I asked Father if I had any other family here, and he told me about Mother’s family, even offered to take me over and introduce me. My grandmother, Katiana, is still alive, and living with my aunt Toyana. I have two other aunts in town, but my mother never talked much about her sisters. I think they’re all older than she is. Toyana was closest in age to her, but she was sent away at an early age and I’m not sure why. I don’t know if Mother knows.
So I made arrangements to go see Katiana next week. In the meantime, I’m leaning, slowly. I haven’t had another night where I missed Mother as much as I did that night on the roof. And I actually had a good conversation with Volyan the other day, talking about some of the other cubs in the palace. Then he brought back some raccoon girl from the pub and I had to listen to them and smell them all night. Ugh. Complained to Father over breakfast and he chided me--me!--because the raccoon hadn’t left yet and I was embarrassing my brother. He sure didn’t look embarrassed, even when Father told him to keep his girls out of the room, whether or not they had papers. Seems like it should be common courtesy, but apparently he’s not expected to know that.
Volyan offered again to take me down to the pub, saying he had his first girl when he was my age. Actually, he said, he had his
fourth
when he was my age. Show-off. I turned him down again, but I don’t know if he believed that I don’t like ale.
6
My grandmother is hard of hearing and can’t walk much anymore. Aunt Toyana made a fuss over me when I arrived, but it felt odd. She’s nothing like Mother, all wide and heavy and with really red fur. She says she takes after my grandfather, who passed some six years ago. I remember mother coming to the funeral, but I wasn’t allowed to then.
Grandmother doesn’t remember very much and had to be told who I was three times, and then she thought I was Volyan. I don’t know what I wanted, but I don’t feel any connection to them, certainly not as much as I do to my father and brother. That annoys me: they’re my mother’s family. But Grandmother could be any old vixen, and Toyana only smells a little bit like Mother. Oh, that’s where the smell in the church came from. They took Grandmother to services that day, and I remember now that they were sitting near me. Her scent is close to Mother’s, anyway, so much that it frightens me a little to think about Mother this old.
And it didn’t help when Aunt Toyana said that it was probably the last time she’d attend services in the Cathedral. The last time. I can hardly imagine that. I asked Aunt Toyana if she’d written to Mother to tell her, and she lifted her muzzle and sniffed, and said Mother wouldn’t be bothered to come up, that she hadn’t even come to see Grandfather before he died.
I told her that Mother came up as soon as she heard, and she sniffed that I was just a cub and I didn’t know everything. And then I was sorta mad so I just left. But I’m writing to mother tonight to tell her that Grandmother is sick. Maybe she’ll come up and visit.
7
No word back from Mother. But I started diplomacy lessons, finally. Master Xoren is an old cougar and nothing I do is good enough for him. Even when I said hello, he criticized the way I was holding my ears, and all the other students, who knew him from before he went on vacation, snickered at me. But I paid attention and I’m doing the best I can in the little exercises we do, where we pretend to be lords of various ranks. I’m enjoying them a lot.
Father hasn’t said much to me apart from asking how classes are going.
He
keeps trying to talk to me, but every time I look at him I just think Mother should be sitting there, and even with Master Xoren’s classes I can’t think of anything to say. Volyan asked me about it the other night, about why I can’t seem to talk to
him
. He said it bothers him. I mean
him
, not Volyan, though I guess it bothers Volyan too. I couldn’t really tell him what was wrong. He said Father was happy and Mother was happy and what was wrong with that, and I said, how do you know Mother’s happy? He said she writes to Father all the time, and she could live in the city if she wanted, but she chose to stay in Vinton. I almost told him about the way she talked about Divalia, and how sad she was when she was telling me I was going here. But I didn’t want to share that. It was between her and me.
There was one time Father asked me how Grandmother was, and I said, “She’s dying.” After that he didn’t ask me anything else for a while. I heard him making plans to go see her, but I only overheard that. He hasn’t asked me to go with him yet.
8
It’s been a busy week, and then I had to make up a lot of lessons, plus Master Cobalt wants me to start learning shortsword with dagger. I think that’s because I hate the long sword so much, and also because I hit him in the leg with it two weeks ago. But that was yesterday, and the last time I wrote in this journal was almost three weeks ago.
Mother replied to my letter and said she was going to come up to see Grandmother. I didn’t want to say anything to Father, but of course I didn’t think that she’d have written to him, too. He got his letter the same day and everyone was very excited that we were going to see Mother, which makes me wonder why she doesn’t visit here more often, if everyone was so excited. Perhaps he was only putting it on for my benefit, but when she did finally arrive, they seemed to get along well enough.
Not that I saw her for very long. She didn’t seem to want to spend much time with me. I tried to go see Grandmother with her, but she said something about Aunt Toyana and not wanting me to get in the middle of things, and even though I promised to behave, I was left behind. And then Grandmother died that night, so there was the funeral to prepare for.
I felt like I was just in the way. I only got to talk to Mother once the whole visit, and that was the night before she left. She got here and went right over to Grandmother’s, and then she came back the next day while I was at lessons and had lunch with Father and
him
, and then they got the news about Grandmother dying.
I saw her for a bit after that, but she was crying and so I just tried to be with her and make her feel better. And for several days she was helping with the funeral arrangements, and when she wasn’t crying about Grandmother, she was crying about Aunt Toyana, who I really don’t like much anymore.
Then she had to go back after the funeral. It’s a long trip to Vinton, and she wanted to be home. I told her I wanted to go home, too, but she said I have to stay here. She said it’s important, that I’m going to be a lord, and I have to learn how. I said if it’s so important why did I stay in Vinton ’til I was fourteen, and she said, because I didn’t want to let you go. Then I sulked, but I really wanted to cry, and I think she wanted to cry, because she said my place was with my father now. Then she kissed me and left.
But I didn’t cry, not even when she was gone. Because now I know why I didn’t come here earlier. I heard it in her voice when she told me to stay with my father. It was because she loved him, once, and he didn’t love her back.
9
I sound like such a baby in my last entry. Not about mother, I mean, about wanting to go home. I still do, but there’s so much to learn here that it’s really better for me to be here. And I don’t just mean in my classes, although I’m doing better in those. I convinced Master Cobalt to let me keep working with the short bow if I also learned short sword, and Master Ovile was impressed with my recollection of the Lapine Uprising.
Mother’s visit was hard for me, but it was good to see her again, and it taught me something. I’ve decided to just be polite with my family, even
him
, and maybe then they’ll leave me alone. But I’ll resolve that if I do have to be a Lord, I’m going to fulfill those duties as best I can, and I’m not just going to take a lover and kick out my Lady just because it’s convenient for me. A Lord has to have cubs, and so a Lord has to have a Lady, unless you’re the Barclaws and you have cubs and then the Lady dies. Then you can marry whoever you want.
I’m better now, but right after Mother left, I did something sort of stupid. I went with Volyan to an alehouse finally, and drank ale with him even though I didn’t really like it much. He was trying to get me to talk to some of the girls he likes, but they were all boring and only wanted to talk about clothes and stuff. So I started talking to this older coyote who owns a public house and was here to keep an eye on the competition, he said. He talked about the businesses in the area and bought me mead, which I liked a lot more, and I kind of remember walking upstairs with him when Volyan wasn’t looking.
I definitely remember what we did upstairs. Well, most of it. I remember him touching me, and me finishing all over his paw. And I remember him insisting I could have him in my mouth, and not really wanting to but then doing it anyway and it wasn’t bad. I mean, I liked it. But maybe that was just the mead.
I don’t remember after. I woke up and it was morning and my head felt like Master Cobalt had been hitting it with a shortsword all day. I got home and everyone was angry. Well, relieved at first and then angry, and they wanted to know where I’d been, and they kept shouting even after I told them to shut up. I sure wasn’t going to tell them about the coyote. I didn’t even know his name. And anyway, it’s not like anything really happened.
10
Volyan keeps asking me which one of the girls I went off with that night at the pub, and I keep telling him I don’t remember. So he tries to get me to go with him again. It’s annoying, really, but at least I don’t think he guesses.
The only really annoying part of the whole episode is that I keep getting these urges to go look for the coyote again. Well, not him specifically, but just something like that. And at the same time, I’m afraid he’ll come looking for me. I saw a coyote after weapons training today and I missed the target completely because I was worried it was him. What would I say? If he came here and talked about what happened, in front of everyone. If he wanted to see me again and I had to tell him to go away?
But of course, you need papers to get into the castle and he wouldn’t have any. So I think I’m safe as long as I stay inside. Which is boring enough as it is. Although something exciting did happen yesterday.
I was out in the gardens when I heard a scuffling, near the wall. So I hid behind a tree and watched, and this mouse, about my age, came clambering over the wall. He stopped at the top and sniffed, and then jumped for the tree and missed completely, doing a lovely spread-eagle on the ground. I couldn’t conceal my snickers, and as soon as he heard me he jumped up and tried to run, but he wasn’t sure which way to go. So I told him which way the exit was. He was all set to go there ’til I told him they’d check his papers on the way out unless he was with someone. It took him a little while to work up the nerve to ask me to escort him out. I insisted he tell me what he was after, first.
He said he just wanted to visit to get a look at his father. Hah. I told him I’d take him to the kitchens to get something to eat if he wanted, before he left. He’s the only interesting person who hasn’t immediately judged me for what he wants me to be. His name is Sinch. He said he’ll come back tomorrow.
11
Sinch actually came back. I wasn’t sure if he would or not. But I was waiting in the garden and there he was, at the same place in the wall as before. This time he told the truth, said he wanted to come back for more food.
I’ve met thieves before, of course. We had one in Vinton. But he was twenty years older than I was, not two months younger. Sinch lives with his mother and two sisters somewhere; that’s all I was able to get from him about his private life. But he knows a lot about the city, so I asked him about some of the neighborhoods and the merchants, and we talked for a long time.
Somehow the conversation got onto doing what people expect you to do. I think it was because he was jealous that I’m a noble’s son, and I said I’d trade places with him in a minute. Only I can’t, because he’s a mouse. It’s not like that old story with Prince Reingar and the peasant wolf cub, where they switch places. Sinch hadn’t heard that, so I told him the story while we ate a couple soft rolls.
He calmed down after we ate, and asked me about myself. I guess he figured out I’m new around here, because he’d snuck around the palace quite a bit. So I told him I’m Lord Vinton’s son, and that I was sent here to finish my education. He had lots of questions about my education, and I had some about his, such as it was. He said he couldn’t talk about a lot of it, but I figured out some of the stuff he wouldn’t tell me. I don’t think he steals big stuff, or wants to; he’s very mousy and hesitant when he talks about it. But he knows the sewers, and I think I gave away my surprise when he talked about them. We didn’t have extensive sewers in Vinton--really, just a couple cesspools. Nothing you’d want to wade into.