The War and the Fox

by Tim Susman

  Kip looked up at the rigging where Ash sat staring forward into the wind. “True. There is that.”

  The calyxes were sent back last, including Abel. Kip took him aside before they left. “I know that Wilton Blaeda is in charge of the Isle.”

  “But he chose to remain there.”

  “Aye. I don’t know who the displaced Isle folk will look to, but when I come to make changes and find you a settlement, I’ll come to you first, until you tell me someone else has been chosen.”

  Abel nodded. “It may not look the best for me to be in charge simply because I have your favor, but then…” He flicked his ears. “It has been a difficult few days. We will take a little while to settle in.”

  “I’m sorry for everyone who was lost.”

  The other fox nodded. “As am I.” He exhaled. “I know you did your best, Kip. And what you did accomplish is marvelous. I never thought to leave the Isle—figured I’d die there of something or another. Now…” He waved grandly out at the ocean. “Whenever I die, at least I’ve seen the sea. And a few more marvelous things besides.”

  “Hopefully you’ll die much later now.” Despite Abel’s forgiving words, the fox’s manner had a bit of a distance to it, making Kip aware of how much he’d fallen short. They’d expected him to save everyone, had brought a hundred more people all hoping to see a new world, and he’d lost thirty of those: one out of every ten Calatians. He couldn’t blame Abel at all for his disappointment.

  “Yes.” Abel touched his shoulder; Kip’s thoughts must have been visible in his ears and voice. “It is hard, losing friends, even when so many were saved. Truly, I do not blame you.”

  “But some will.”

  “Aye, some will. Always, some will ask you for more than you did, more than you ever could. The only voices you must answer to are here.” He touched Kip’s chest. “And there.” He pointed up to the sky, where clouds ambled across a deepening blue field toward a sinking sun.

  “I am still listening to what they’re saying. But I thank you. And I’ll see you soon, as soon as I can.”

  “I’ll await your visit.” Abel held out a paw, and Kip took it. “Thank you again. We all owe you a debt, whether everyone realizes it or not.”

  He was speaking perhaps of many people, but particularly of Grinda, who remained unconvinced of Kip’s heroics. She had insisted on remaining until last as well, and when Kip brought Abel back to the group, she said loudly, “Foxes conniving together again. Abel, when will you see that he’s no Moses? He’s a sorcerer first and last.”

  “I have seen more of him than you have,” Abel said with a little more sharpness than usual. “Leave off.”

  “He brings us from one servitude to another, from British masters to so-called American. We’ve even had to assist in our own rescue.” She held out her arm; she too had given blood. “We could easily have waited until the ship docked.”

  “And been in more danger.”

  “But we weren’t consulted, were we? If the sorcerers see a shortcut, they aren’t the ones bleeding for it, are they?” The wolf’s muzzle, always set in a snarl, twisted even further.

  “Kip did, and so did Alice,” Abel pointed out.

  This did not affect Grinda’s argument one bit. “They should have done all the bleeding as it was their idea.” And she would hear no more on the matter.

  When the calyxes had been sent back to New Cambridge, Broadwood turned to Kip, Alice, and Malcolm. “Time for the three of us to go now?”

  “I wouldn’t say no to another five minutes of peace.” Malcolm spread his arms. “With the boat empty, I can feel the wind and sun and not bump into someone every time I turn.”

  Kip glanced toward Willoughby, the frigate’s captain, who had been thanked many times for his service and had responded that it was his duty and then added an offhanded comment about “airing out” his ship that was perhaps intended to be funny. At this moment the captain was engaged in discussion with the ship’s navigator, paying them little mind. “I think we can all spend a little time recovering. The sun’s very low anyway, and it will be…” He tried to remember. “Night in Boston? Or afternoon?”

  “Whatever time it is there, it’s pleasant here now.” Malcolm sat on one of the benches that until a few hours ago had been crowded with people.

  “Very much so,” Alice agreed, and sat beside him.

  When the sky had darkened and they were ready to go, they assembled around Broadwood. Ash flew down to land on Kip’s shoulder, making Broadwood start. “Is…is that yours?”

  “It seems so now.” Kip reached up a finger to Ash’s head, and the raven stroked her beak against it. “She was Cott’s and then their bond was broken. She would have died, but…I was there. Perhaps the destruction of the Road disrupted the natural order of things and allowed us to bond.”

  Alice stared wide-eyed at him, and Malcolm said, “Is that a raven, Kip?”

  “Yes, it is. Her name’s Ash. It’s a good name for a fire sorcerer’s raven…I’m sorry. If I could give her to you, I would.”

  Malcolm laughed. “I know you would. I’d just thought I could no longer be astonished at what you can do.”

  Alice reached a finger up. “May I?”

  Kip nodded. Ash allowed Alice to stroke her back and wings as Kip sent reassurance through their mental link.

  “Well. Well.” Broadwood stared at the raven a moment longer and then his face broke into a smile. “Let us go to Boston, then, Master Penfold.”

  After the peace of the ocean, Boston proved nearly as exhausting as the mission itself. Directly Kip returned he was ordered to clean up, given a new pressed uniform to put on, and brought before General Hamilton, Major-General Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, and several other leaders of the rebellion. These senior officers sat at the front of a stuffy courtroom that had been borrowed for this meeting because it stood in a separate building some distance from the provisional government offices. Master Colonel Jackson stood in the space in the middle of the room, and Kip and Captain Lowell had been placed in the first row of the seats on the opposite side of the room.

  Lowell sat perfectly straight. Kip tried to keep his tail from twitching and his paws from scratching at the various uncomfortable seams of his uniform as Jackson gave a florid account of the resounding success of both prongs of his great plan. What kept Kip steady and silent through most of it was the idea that he would have the chance to talk to John Quincy Adams to discuss the relocation of the refugees from the Isle of Dogs. Adams had nodded courteously to Kip when he entered the room, so the fox had some hope.

  Still, as the afternoon dragged on, even that hope and the sympathetic weariness on the faces of the elder and younger Hamilton couldn’t make Kip feel better about the charade Jackson put on. In the hour that he spoke before the group, the Master Colonel mentioned the Calatians exactly twice, and both times he called them calyxes and talked about what their loss would mean to the British. No mention was made of the thirty lost, nor of the two hundred plus crowded into the tents and basement at the College.

  What was not quite as insulting but was still enough to make Kip’s hackles rise was the way he talked about Kip himself. “I deployed our fire sorcerer to distract the British, hoping to draw out some of their forces. When properly motivated, he can inflict devastating losses on the enemy, and his unique connection to the calyxes would be, I thought, excellent motivation. As it transpired, the British underestimated both his strategic ability and his power, and as a result lost an experimental fireproof ship made of iron and the great Road connecting England and America.”

  “When properly motivated” indeed, as though he were nothing but a complex spell that Jackson had cast. There was some discussion of the strategic benefit of the loss of the Road, but Kip missed all of it, seething over Jackson’s remarks until Lowell nudged him. He looked up to see the Master Colonel staring at him. “Yes, sir?” he said.

  “With your permission, I would like to show the room the destruction of
the Road as it occurred through your eyes.”

  The request was phrased with velvet smoothness below which Kip felt steel; it was a request only for show. “Of course, sir,” he said. He had seen illusory magic before, a branch of the spiritual, but had never been part of it; still, his anger at being used and his reluctance to revisit Cott’s death would have led him to refuse if he’d thought he would be allowed. So he watched as the feather touch returned and he played out the scene again, trying to distance himself from the anguish on Cott’s face and the desperation in his own memory.

  Jackson spun the illusion in the center of the room, a bright shimmering Road cutting between Kip and Lowell’s side and the assembled officers on the other, though he could see John Quincy Adams through the ghostly image of the ironclad balanced on the Road. Patches of the ship’s image showed more definition than others, the places Kip had paid close attention to either then or later. Fire burst close to Kip from Cott’s spell, and everyone flinched. Cott himself showed clearest of all after that, commanding everyone’s attention. “He looks unbalanced,” murmured General Hamilton.

  Across from Kip, the general should be looking at the back of Cott’s head. Kip puzzled over this for a moment and concluded that the spell Jackson was using allowed everyone to see the same image no matter where they sat in the room; it only appeared to be projected in front of them. So everyone could see Cott overwhelmed at being the only sorcerer left in a battle, directing his power at the only inanimate object he could find, and struggling with the result. Simply touching that power had nearly knocked Kip out for a moment, a flicker in the memory that nobody remarked on. And yet Cott had endured it. This time, Kip saw not only desperation, but a certain kind of bravery in the man as well.

  When the Road erupted in a bright flash and then vanished, Lowell jumped back hard enough that his chair scraped back against the floor. He was not the only one. “Bloody hell,” John Quincy Adams said, the clearest amid a cloud of other oaths. He gave Kip a sympathetic look through the slowly sinking ironclad.

  The image vanished. Everyone in the room stared at Kip except for Jackson, who allowed the moment to sink in before speaking again. “Some of the sailors believe the destruction of the Road to be Penfold’s work, and I have encouraged that belief. If the British think we have a sorcerer on our side capable of such power, they may be more inclined to come to an agreement, especially as they no longer have a fire sorcerer.”

  “Or it may make them more intent on neutralizing him.” General Hamilton spoke as if Kip weren’t in the room. “Is he well protected?”

  “He is warded at all times, as all our sorcerers are, as we are here today,” Jackson said, and proceeded to talk about the rescued New Cambridge sorcerers and how they would bolster the American military effort. There was no mention of their former home and its current residents.

  All the while, Captain Lowell watched Kip, and when the room’s attention had shifted back to Jackson, the man reached a hand over and rested it on Kip’s shoulder. Kip met his eyes and gave a short nod with a smile.

  Jackson concluded his talk with no recommendations to the disposition of the refugee Calatians. Adams and the elder Hamilton did not ask about them, merely said, “Thank you,” and stood.

  Kip and Lowell stood respectfully as well. “Sir,” Kip said, trying to attract Jackson’s attention, but the tall man didn’t turn. So the fox tried to catch Adams’s eye, but he was deep in conversation with General Hamilton. They left the room among the others, Jackson close behind them.

  Finally free to express himself, Kip let his tail loose to lash back and forth. Lowell mistook the cause of his agitation and put a hand on his shoulder again. “How many times have you had to relive that memory?”

  “Only twice now since it happened.”

  “I pray there will be no more.”

  Kip tapped his head. “It lives up here, and I’ve no doubt I’ll see it many more times.”

  “Not in front of an audience, though.” Lowell rubbed his cheek. “I only saw the Road once, in New York. I thought it was the most marvelous thing.”

  “It was.” Kip sent his mind back to the first steps he’d taken on it. “Walking through the ocean was…that is the correct word. It was marvelous. I didn’t have the time to appreciate it when we did it, but it was incredible. It was magic that everyone could see and touch and use.”

  Lowell nodded. “I never got to walk on it. And now I never shall.”

  “There must have been a number of people drowned when it vanished,” Kip said. “I haven’t heard anyone talk about them.”

  The captain frowned. “Major General Hamilton did mention them along with the British troops that may have been lost. Travelers along the Road have to sign a book when they go across, but many people use false names and sometimes they don’t list children or animals. It depends on who’s in charge of the book at the time.”

  More people to weigh on his conscience. Kip curled his tail around his leg. “I should visit New Cambridge to see how the Calatians are doing, if I’m allowed. Do you know how the relocation plans are coming for them?”

  “I’m not part of those decisions. But I have been told that you’re to go back to the Trade House immediately following this meeting. I’m sorry. Perhaps once Master Colonel Jackson is back you can ask permission to go to New Cambridge again.”

  Anger rose again in Kip, but Captain Lowell’s only fault was following his orders and it wasn’t fair to take it out on him. It had to find some outlet, so he gave voice to another complaint. “He took all the credit for your work and only mentioned you once .”

  “As I expected.”

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  Lowell glanced around the empty courtroom. “It’s better than any alternative I could imagine.”

  Kip looked at the door through which all the officers had left as a question occurred to him and, immediately following, its possible answer. “Did he select you to lead the Gibraltar mission because he knew you wouldn’t take credit for it?”

  Lowell’s humorless smile did not change. “Master Colonel Jackson chose me because he values my skill and my loyalty.”

  “I see.” The fox felt he’d misspoken, though he still believed that he’d hit on at least part of the reason. “I can’t fault that logic. I don’t know a more capable officer in the army.”

  The smile broke, and Lowell gave a quick nod. “Let me give you a small piece of advice, from one…non-white person to another. Fight for what they’re willing to give you, but don’t push for too much. They can as easily kick you to the mud as draw breath, and given the least excuse, they will.”

  “Believe me, I know.” Kip exhaled. “But how are you to find out what they’re willing to give you unless you fight?”

  “I have spent more than a decade struggling with that question. Should you find an answer, I hope you will share it with me.”

  Kip’s paws twitched; he wanted to call up fire and burn something, anything. But after watching Cott again, the thought of fighting in another battle, of using fire on people, sickened him. He knew that yes, Hadlock and the soldier at Bunker’s Hill and the four sorcerers at New Cambridge would have taken lives had he not stopped them, but there had to be another way. He breathed in deeply. “Have you any family in the area? Friends?”

  “A small number of each. Enough to keep me sane.” The smile returned, wry this time.

  And as if the word “friends” had summoned it, a small paper fluttered to the ground in front of Kip.

  15

  Holland

  Captain Lowell offered to leave, but Kip, wanting to cement their growing friendship, told him to remain. When Emily appeared, disheveled and slightly out of breath, he anticipated her objection. “Captain Lowell is a friend and I trust him to hear anything you have to tell us.”

  She remained suspicious but extended her hand. “Kip’s nature is trusting, perhaps, but if you’ve done enough to be a friend to him then you’re a friend to m
e as well.”

  He shook her hand warmly. “Penfold has proven a better friend to me than I to him thus far, but I hold out hope that I may one day return the favor.”

  “All right, then.” Emily brushed her hair from her face and looked around. “Why are you here, and where are the others? And why are you so formally dressed?”

  So Kip started to explain that they had been in a hearing about a mission and that he probably couldn’t talk much about it, at which point Emily interrupted him. “Is this about you destroying the Road?”

  The fox sat down in one of the chairs. “You’ve heard about that already.”

  “One of the Dutch sorcerers has a friend in King’s College or something, at any rate, yes, they were all sending ravens or translocating to Bristol to see that it was indeed gone. I told them I didn’t believe you would do that, but then I thought about it and I suppose if you had to, you would. But I don’t see how you could, is the thing. So did you?”

  Kip shook his head. “They want the British to think I did, to scare them. But I didn’t. It was Cott who did it.” He didn’t think he would ever forget Cott’s face. “It killed him.”

  “Well.” Emily sat down, and Captain Lowell followed suit. “Perhaps you’d better tell me your story first, and then we’ll fetch Malcolm and Alice.”

  So Kip, with an eye on Captain Lowell, told Emily most of the battle with Cott. Toward the end he called Ash to the window and opened it to let the raven in. The bird alit on his shoulder and rubbed its beak against his finger. “And this was his raven. She’s mine now, it seems.”

  Emily half-stood. “You got a raven? How?”

  “I don’t know. The only thing I can think is that Cott died just after the Road disrupted all the magic in the area. Maybe their bond was disrupted before he died and then she had nobody to resume the bond with?”

  “How do ravens bond?” Captain Lowell asked.

  Emily spread her arms. “We don’t know. We’ve learned so much about sorcery and there’s so much yet to learn.”