Weasel Presents (30 page)

“Indeed.” Coryn’s father stroked his chin, his eyes narrowed. “No, the cub has been gone all night. I have no idea where he has been. Let us go and see if he has been stealing.”

Both guards looked taken aback. Coryn’s ears flattened. “Father,” he said.

“Well?” his father asked. “Were you stealing? “ When Coryn didn’t respond, he went on. “I come back in the morning, the awning’s collapsed, the barley is soaked. I thought you’d just run to get help, maybe you’d fallen asleep. But now I don’t know what to think.”

“Sir,” the porcupine ventured, “it’s not likely to be him. We didn’t realize he was the son of a tradesman at the market.”

“Why not?” Coryn’s father’s gaze rested on him even when the guards were speaking. “Didn’t he tell you?”

“Just said he was new in town,” the bear said. He was eyeing Coryn now with an expression that indicated he didn’t share the porcupine’s faith.

“All right, then,” Coryn’s father said. “Let’s go. I’m as anxious as you are to see what he’s been up to, since he doesn’t seem inclined to tell any of us.”

Coryn opened his muzzle to plead again, but his father’s expression was stony, and he closed his mouth without a word. His father walked forward, with the bear, while the porcupine remained back with Coryn.

In this manner, they arrived at the small guard station. Out front, a wolf and a stag in red uniforms interrupted their conversation to greet the bear and porcupine. Coryn kept his head down, only half-listening to them. Beside him, his father was silent, but he was certainly thinking about his ruined stock, and what disgrace Coryn had brought on him. Would he let Coryn go to jail if he were found guilty? Most likely. What would he tell the guards if they recognized his scent? His mind started to turn, slowly, still weighted down by fatigue. He’d thought of a story to tell; not a good one, but, he thought, a workable one, when his ears perked slightly when he caught the guards beginning to talk about the burglary.

“...why’s this all over town so early?” the porcupine was asking.

“Reward,” the wolf said. “Two gold if the thief is caught, another two if the stuff’s recovered.”

The bear and porcupine looked back at Coryn. “They didn’t tell us that,” the bear said.

“Glad we didn’t check in with Feric. He’d have brought him all by himself. Cheated us out of our share.”

“We’ll stand you two a drink in the pub tonight, if it’s him,” the bear said.

“Right.” That brought a smile to the stag. “Go see if he’s done with old Halinnen yet.”

He’d spoken to the wolf, who nodded and jogged up the stairs and into the small square building. Coryn looked from the uniformed wolf to his father, who was looking fixedly at the row house opposite the guard station.

“Father,” Coryn started. “I didn’t mean...”

“Twenty-eight silver, if we sold the whole lot,” his father said. “Gone now. And what have we to show?”

Coryn remembered, then, the two gold pieces. He checked to see that the guards weren’t looking at him, and then hissed, “I have something to show. Quick, open your pocket.”

His father stared at him. “What?”

“Shh.” Coryn looked at the guards. “Please.”

His father looked dubious, but reached down to the pocket of his cloak. Coryn reached into his at the same time, fingers scrabbling around in the lining for the two gold pieces. He knew they were in this pocket. Or had they been in the other one? With a sinking feeling, he realized that he couldn’t feel their weight in his cloak anywhere. It had been wet, heavier, and he hadn’t noticed, but they must have fallen out when he picked up the cloak and tried to climb out the window. He might not have heard the thump of them on the carpet.

But he’d have seen them, wouldn’t he? He gave up looking and met his father’s gaze, his ears flat. “Sorry,” he whispered.

His father frowned, but didn’t have time to say anything. The wolf had come out and was beckoning the bear and porcupine in. The porcupine said, “C’mon,” and Coryn followed them inside. His father watched him go, making no move to follow.

The guard station was two rooms, each one half the floor space of the house. A small stair led up to a second story, but Coryn didn’t spare the time to look at it. He was looking at the large desk where a uniformed wolf, more slender than the one who’d led them in, stood attentively at the side of a small weasel, both looking across at a large bear in a rumpled velvet doublet. His fur was as mussed as if he’d just rolled out of bed, and his small eyes were further narrowed, staring at Coryn.

The worst part was his scent. Coryn could smell female skunk on him, and he was sure the wolf guards could too. It was so strong that probably the weasel could. But the main scent, the bear’s scent, was awfully familiar, recalling dark rooms and the weight of silver to him. His heart sank. He could only hope the bear’s sense of smell was worse than his.

“We came across this one sleeping in the Cathedral,” the bear said, but before he could finish, the noble had risen to his feet. He jabbed his nose down at Coryn’s chest and snuffled him, so close that had Coryn but opened his mouth, he could have bitten one of the jeweled earrings the bear wore. The smell of female skunk was overpowering enough to make him wrinkle his nose.

The bear’s beady eyes fixed his, then the noble stood to his full height, with a look of disgust.

“It’s him,” he said. “He’s been fornicating, but it’s him.”

The two wolf guards exchanged looks. Coryn suspected that they could smell where the bear had just come from as well. The weasel got up from his chair, rubbed his eyes, and yawned. “You’re sure?” he said.

“Positive.” The bear folded his arms and glared at Coryn. “Go ahead, deny it.”

“Can you read?” the weasel asked, more gently. When Coryn nodded, he picked up the parchment and showed the young wolf the list of items written on it. “Do these look familiar?”

Candelabras. Forks. Knives. Serving platter. Coryn shook his head.

The weasel shrugged. “Were you in this noble’s house last night?”

“
Why
were you in my house?” The bear leaned forward, staring down at Coryn.

Coryn had concocted his story, but now it came time to tell it, he found the words difficult. “I--the window was open. I climbed in to see. I never saw any of that stuff. I never took anything!”

“Of course not,” the bear said. “You
happened
to find the window open after a mysterious
odorless
thief somehow broke in and stole all my silver.”

The weasel held up a paw. “Let’s hold on, now. Was a rainy night, and if the thief was a rabbit or mouse, something with a weak scent, and he washed before, then this cub’s scent might’ve overwhelmed it.”

“I have an excellent nose.” The bear folded his arms, and once again the wolves exchanged glances.

“Course you do, your lordship.” The weasel nodded. “But without we got a confession, or he shows up with some of the stolen goods...”

“He’s admitted to being in my house,” the bear said. “That makes him guilty. If he didn’t steal it, he knows who did.”

“Your lordship, please consider--”

The bear interrupted the weasel. “I pay for your services, and I say he is the guilty one. Well?” he demanded of Coryn. “Where is my silver?”

“I don’t know!” Coryn’s heart beat faster. For a moment, he thought he might say he’d seen the Vergies on the river, but he couldn’t come up with a way to make the story plausible. This was a test of his faith, of his courage and resolve. He met the bear’s eyes and held fast.

“Very well.” The bear turned away. “You may go to debtor’s prison to work for the King, or you may enter my service. I have a small farm holding where you can pay off your debt. Ten years should do it.”

“No.” Coryn’s father spoke from the doorway.

The bear turned to face him, as did the guards. He leaned against the door frame and did not make any more move to enter. “What is the value of your silver? Ten years work, so...forty gold, am I correct, sir?”

“Hrmm.” The bear lifted a massive paw to rub his muzzle. His eyes gleamed. “I had been thinking fifty, rather.”

“I can offer you ten, in coin, by the end of the year.”

Coryn’s ears stood straight up. Ten? They didn’t have that kind of money. He turned to look back at his father, but the older wolf was only looking up at the noble, who frowned. “A quarter the value,” he said.

“But in coin, within three months, sir.” His father dipped his muzzle, a gesture Coryn had rarely seen him make. “Better to replace your silver quickly.”

“Ten,” the bear said, “and five each year thereafter for eight years.”

Coryn’s father shook his head. “We have but a poor farm. Two a year, for three years.”

“Four a year for five.”

Coryn watched the indifferent flick of his father’s ears. “Three a year.”

The bear folded his massive arms. “You are not in a strong position to bargain.”

The older wolf spread his paws. “We have what we have. I cannot promise more. I am but a simple farmer. Without my son to work the fields, I will not even have that much.”

“Hrmm,” the bear said again, shifting from one paw to the other. Coryn wrung his paws, looking back at the bear and the squinting of his tiny eyes.

“It sounds quite reasonable,” the weasel said. “And there is no proof of guilt.”

The bear turned on him. “You with your ‘proof of guilt.’ He admitted he was in my house!” He turned back to Coryn’s father. “I will accept your payment. Ten gold within three months. The detective here can provide you with my address.” He strode to the door, ignored Coryn’s father’s extended paw, and said, his muzzle close to the wolf’s ear, “Or you could just give it to your son to deliver. He knows where I live.”

The guard station was silent in his wake. The weasel sighed and sat back at the desk, picked up a quill, and began to write. The porcupine untied the rope from Coryn’s paws. “S’pose you’re free to go,” he said.

Only then did Coryn’s father step into the station. He dug into his pouch and handed a silver piece each to the bear and the porcupine. “My thanks for your courtesy in looking after my son, and for your hard work keeping the market safe.”

Neither guard looked at Coryn. “Sorry for your trouble,” the porcupine said, pocketing the coin. “Come on, we got to get back to our rounds.” He tapped the bear’s arm.

“Aye.” The bear guard spent a moment longer looking at his silver, then slipped it into his pouch. He followed the porcupine out the door.

“You didn’t have to give them money,” Coryn said, stepping up to his father’s side. “I didn’t admit--I didn’t do it.”

“The
guards
work hard,” his father said, glancing at the wolf guard before turning his attention to the weasel. “What was his name, and where does he live?”

“Marik Halinnen.” The weasel looked up and recited an address. “Do you need that written?”

Coryn’s father recited it back. “No,” he said. “As he said, I can always send the cub.”

Coryn’s ears flattened. He’d proven himself true, and yet not only did his father not even meet his eye, he didn’t say a word to him as he left the office, cutting off the weasel’s apology. Coryn hurried after him, but his father seemed not to care whether or not he was following. They forged through the crowd, now full as the sun reached halfway into the sky, until they’d returned to the booth, and his father remained silent the whole way, which was worse than shouting. If he’d shouted, Coryn was getting ready to shout back, about how unfair it was that he’d been left to sit under a rainy stall all night, about how he never got to do anything. But he couldn’t break down the barrier of his father’s silence.

His father made all the sales that day, without another word to Coryn, and when they tore down the stall that night, he said barely more. Coryn was tasked with throwing the spoiled barley and bread to the garbage piles on the outskirts of the city. The reek of it got in his nose all the way there and remained even after he’d thrown it past the scavengers who picked through the leavings.

On the way back, he paused at one of the cross-streets and looked down it. It nagged familiarly at him, and after a moment’s staring through the people and trying to envision them gone, he realized that it was the street he and the rat had stopped at, for the rat to leave his gold. He could go back to the house, find the rat, or find someone who knew where he was.

Yes. Yes, if he pleaded his case, that they needed some of the rat’s gold to pay the noble off, surely the rat would give him a couple more gold. And maybe he’d seen the two gold he’d given Coryn the previous night. Of course, Coryn entertained the possibility that the rat had just taken them, but he was sure that in that case, it had just been to keep them safe. And it had been well that he’d taken them, otherwise they might have been difficult to explain to the guards.

Though the rat couldn’t have known he’d be caught...and if he had, if he had, then why had he not taken Coryn with him? Coryn knew he was sometimes difficult to wake, but surely the rat could have managed.

No. He couldn’t doubt. He set off down the street, looking to his right for a familiar doorway. At first, he thought it looked too different in the fading evening light, that he would never find it. But then he saw the stonework, put his paw on the door and felt it give, and smelled his own scent, faintly, in the entrance where he’d waited. And there were the stairs, and the rat’s scent on them. The top was shadowed, but Coryn climbed them anyway, nose lifted to test the air.

He did not catch the rat’s scent, but smelled the sharp musk of a fox, and, as he reached closer to the top, the fresh scent of a different rat. At least it was a rat, and that might mean he knew the other.

Coryn didn’t see anyone as he came up the landing, but when he turned, he found himself staring down the quarrel of a crossbow. “Evening,” said the light voice of the vixen holding it, staring straight at him. “You’ve about thirty seconds to either explain yourself or be out the front door.”

“I’m...I’m looking for Two-Claws,” Coryn said, steeling himself. “I was here with him last night and I’ve lost him.”

The vixen lowered the crossbow. She was dressed in a torn tunic, with silver studs all through her tall black ears. Her wary expression gave way to a grin, then a laugh. “Looking for Two-Claws, eh? You’re not the first, nor will be the last. Eh?”