Pendant of Fortune (20 page)

Whatever the truth was, Volle had to face the possibility that he would be without Streak for a long time, possibly forever. Even if the wolf were not guilty, he might be convicted if no other suspect were found. Dereath would certainly do his best to see that happen. And what would Volle do then? Could he ever open his heart again?

Maybe he wasn’t meant to have love. Twice he’d fallen, and twice been ripped from the one he’d fallen for. That was not a good omen. After the first time, he’d decided that his duty to his country and people was more important than his heart. Now, it felt as though the gods were reinforcing that lesson. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and the powers that lay beyond it. “Fox,” he whispered, “I’m sorry. If I wasn’t meant…” But he couldn’t finish. He didn’t feel sorry, he felt miserable and alone and the emptiness of the bed seemed to stretch on forever. His breathing quickened and he felt an itching around his eyes. Reaching up, he found that his fur was wet with tears.

He clenched his paws into fists on either side of his head, staring as if he could see the gods in their celestial homes, and cried, “
What do you want from me!?
”

The desperate passion abandoned him as quickly as it had come, leaving him crying quietly on the bed. He held a pillow to his muzzle and rubbed his eyes with the rough fabric. There was nothing he could do except lie here and mourn. He wanted desperately to see Streak, to ask the wolf what had happened, and to hold him again, but that would have to wait on Nero’s ability to extract permission from Dereath. His hearing was not for several days. The only thing he could do was dream about masterminding a daring escape for Streak, followed by a cross-country flight back to their farm.

It was only fantasy, but it was a comforting fantasy nonetheless, and variations on it helped him relax still further. With Streak’s shirt still clutched in one paw, he drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Chapter 6

He was dreaming that Streak had picked a flower from the castle garden, but the flower was actually somehow the heart of a court noble, and while it lay bleeding in the wolf’s paw, the noble died. They were coming to get him, and the wolf was looking at Volle with wide, frightened eyes, and he kept saying,
I didn’t know, I didn’t mean to
. Volle could see the noble, even though the body was inside and he was out in the garden; it was an indistinct form with grayish-brown fur and a medium length tail, and he thought, if only I could see who it was, I could tell Streak that it would be okay. He asked someone to turn the body over, but they said,
We can’t move it until the hearing. It’s a witness
.

Daylight intruded on his dream. He clutched at the fragments of it, trying to grasp Streak’s paw as he came awake, but his paw slipped on the blood and the wolf fell away from him.

Helfer was sitting on the bed beside him, a paw on his shoulder. “You slept in your clothes.”

Volle shook his head and flicked his ears back and forth, trying to wake up. He’d slept on one of his arms, and it was now sore and buzzing as he moved it about. “Yeah. Um.” His muzzle felt thick and unwieldy. “Morning, Hef.”

“
Hi.” The weasel’s ears were forward, his muzzle creased in concern. “How're you feeling?”

“
I’m okay. I dreamed…” He stopped and rubbed his eyes again. The dream, or sleep, had muted his anguish from the night before. Streak would be all right, and there was nothing he could do about it yet. Not until after services. “Doesn’t matter. Are we going for that run?”

“
I wasn’t planning on it. We don’t have much time before services. Do you want to?”

Volle yawned and stretched. “Might do me some good. Where are the services being held?”

“
The church in Ikling. We had to do some renovations to it—bring in an Ursa statue, split up the sections, and so forth. Usually we do two services: one for Weasel, and one for everyone else.”

“
Have to find Cantors from somewhere?”

“
Of course not. We have all six here. The other five just aren’t usually that busy. They take turns doing the non-Weasel service and then they administer individually as needed. But today they’ll all be doing a service. Hallis is very excited about it. He’s the Canis Cantor—a fox, even. You’ll like him.”

Volle smiled. “Okay.” He stood up and stretched again, reaching up and standing on tiptoe. Even with his arms fully outstretched, he was a foot shy of the ceiling. “So let’s go run.”

“
I’ll change and meet you back here in five minutes.” Helfer got up and trotted out to the main room.

He was as good as his word. Volle had barely gotten into the short pants he’d brought, which were more like a skirt, very open and loose, when Helfer slipped back through the door, wearing a similar pair. He ran in place while Volle closed up the wardrobe and stretched his legs.

“
We don’t have a lot of time,” Helfer said as they walked out through the guest entrance. The wind was chilly, but it felt good on Volle’s bare fur. He was reminded of his afternoon with Streak yesterday, and fought the urge to get in a buggy and go up to the castle. It wouldn’t do any good.

“
So just once around the mansion?” Volle looked around at the sprawling structure.

“
Once around the field.” Helfer pointed across the road from the gate, where the grass in a large meadow reflected droplets of sunlight back at them. “We’ll have enough time to get around, clean up, and meet the nobles down at the church.”

“
Sounds good.” Volle followed him across the dirt road, watching the faint imprints of their paws in the damp ground. “Do you usually run here?”

“
I used to. I don’t run a lot when I’m visiting here. We could run around the mansion, but there are a couple parts where the rocks are sharp and you have to pick your way across. Don’t have time for that now.” He launched into a quick jog without any more preamble, setting off across the grass, and Volle joined him.

The wet grass chilled his paws at first, but he got used to it quickly. The sun hadn’t quite had time to warm it, but it did warm his fur, especially the legs and arms where his black fur heated up more quickly than his body’s orange or his chest and stomach’s white. The breeze and the movement of air as he ran countered that nicely, as his arms and legs moved more than any other part of him. He let his tail stream out behind him, enjoying the flow of air through it, and emptied his mind, focusing on the physical sensations of running.

Part of what he’d enjoyed most about running at the palace was talking to Helfer, but he didn’t feel like saying anything and the weasel didn’t seem eager to break his silence. So they ran the perimeter of the meadow accompanied only by the chirps of birds and the soft, regular rhythm of their feet. Once or twice, Volle thought it would be nice to have Streak with him. Otherwise, he tried to clear his mind.

All too soon, they arrived back at the gate. Both were panting, but Volle nodded when Helfer said, “Could’ve done two more times around. But we’re out of time.” He squinted at the sun, then at the large clock inside the guest entrance. “Fifteen minutes?”

“
All right.” Volle nodded. “See you back here then.”

Back in his bathroom, Volle dropped some scented powder in his brush, a trick he remembered from his Academy days when he woke up late after a long night and didn’t have time for a full bath. He spent the most time on his tail, because most everywhere else would be covered by clothes, and tried not to miss Streak, who always enjoyed brushing his tail for him. He remembered to rub some powder just at the base of his tail, and then hurried to pull on clothes. He was just fastening his shirt when Helfer returned.

“
The buggy’s waiting,” he said, gesturing with a grin. Volle grabbed a velvet vest from the wardrobe and followed Helfer outside.

“
I’m impressed. I thought it’d take you fifteen minutes just to get that tail of yours in order.”

“
Jealous?” Volle slid one arm through the vest and tried to get the other in place as he jogged after Helfer.

“
Hey, it’s not the size, it’s how you use it.” Helfer grinned at him.

The familiar repartee came as naturally as if he’d never left the palace. “Believe me, I know how to use it.” He couldn’t find the other armhole of the vest, so he let it hang off his shoulder as they left the palace and ran to the waiting buggy.

“
Where’s Laya?” Helfer asked the footservant as they climbed in.

“
She went on ahead, my Lord.”

Helfer nodded and sat down in the buggy. When the door closed, he looked across at Volle. “Good. Whenever I visit now, she’s always hanging on me, and she gets terribly upset if I don’t act like I want to be around her.”

“
Don’t you?”

“
No. I don’t especially like her.”

“
She’s the mother of your son.” Volle tried to contain his mild shock, looking away as he got his arm through the stubborn vest and settled it properly.

“
Yes, one of them, and she never lets anyone forget it. Keeps trying to set herself apart from the others…anyway.” He waved a paw. “You know what I’m talking about. You have your own wife.”

“
Ilyana’s not that bad, really.” He let his tail fall to the seat and crossed one leg over his knee, rubbing the fur on his foot. “I’m just not attracted to her.”

“
Of course not. But I figured if you liked her, you’d have brought her to the palace. You never really talked much about her.”

Volle shrugged.
I didn’t want her around to know about my spying
. “We got married so she could have my son, and she did that, and then she left. She was happy in Vinton. She’s only here now because of my hearing.”

Helfer stared at him. “She’s here?”

“
Yeah. Oh, didn’t I tell you?” The weasel shook his head. “She was up at Tish and Tika’s place yesterday morning when I got there. Yesterday? Yes, that’s right. Seems longer.”

“
I know what you mean. So how’d it go?”

Volle shrugged. “She was mad about my being arrested because it put her and Volyan in danger.”

Helfer snorted. “Typical. Didn’t care about how it affected you, did she?”

“
I…don’t know.”

“
Did she bring…what was his name? Volion?”

“
Volyan. Yes. They’ll probably be at services, in fact.”

“
Please do introduce me.”

Volle smiled, easily able to tell that Helfer was just being polite. “I will.”

The buggy clattered down the road, and very soon they were passing white stucco buildings, isolated at first, then closer together. The six spires of the church were smaller than Volle had expected, but he was still able to see them from a good distance away. They surrounded a large red-tiled dome, a construction Volle hadn’t seen before. Of course, he was only familiar with Caril and Divalia, cities of stone built to withstand chilly winters and warm summers. The warm climate of Vellenland had engendered an entirely different style of architecture.

As they approached, the air in the carriage became noticeably warmer. They passed the Cup and Barrel, and soon ran up against the back of another carriage, slowing to a crawl. Helfer grinned at Volle. “Guess we’re not that late after all.” They opened a door and poked their heads out, Volle peering over the shorter weasel, and saw four carriages waiting to enter the large plaza in front of the church.

Helfer ducked back inside immediately, but Volle stayed outside, raising his nose to the wind and drinking in the scents. Overwhelmingly mustelid, as he’d come to expect, but the warmth of the lowlands held more scents in the air than the cooler mountain air. The town was rich with the smells of produce, dust, cloth, oil, horses, and smoke. He smelled ale and cooked meat from a pub around the corner, but couldn’t identify which meat or which type of ale.

The carriages ahead of them moved, so he pulled his head in before their buggy lurched forward. The door swung closed with a slam as he sat back on his seat.

Helfer grinned at him. “Sometimes I wish I had your nose, and sometimes I’m glad I don’t. The streets here smell bad enough to me.”

“
Bad?”

“
You know, all the horses and the garbage.”

Volle grinned. “I can smell a lot more than that. I’m guessing that they closed the church off to most of the people, because there’s someone doing laundry nearby, and the pub is serving lunch around the corner.”

“
There are usually two services anyway,” Helfer said. “But yes, this service is just for the nobles.”

The carriage pulled up again, stopped, and a wolf in the uniform of the royal guard opened the door. “Good morn, my Lords,” he said. “Papers, please?”