“Death.” He smiled at her beneath the cart. “I do not fear death, but I do fear my destiny.”
She instantly pulled him down lower so that his head was nearly pinned beneath the wheel of the cart and gasped, “Stop it! Stop it, do you hear me?” She pushed down hard on him, out of control, in desperation causing his old body a great deal of pain. He whimpered and groaned under her weight and strength. After a moment she realized what she was doing and began to ease her paws off him.
“I'm sorry Audley. Forgive me but you must keep these things to yourself.”
“It's okay, young daughter of Finan. My play is not what it used to be, I'm afraid,” he replied, forgetting already what had transpired only moments before. “I was the king of the ring, you know, for a brief period of time.”
She smiled, “Yes, I have heard. When my father was young he said he used to watch you fight.”
“I could have held my own against you today.”
“I believe you could have. Your stall looks well today,” she said as she scattered the trinkets across the quilt. “I really must go now. Here, take this for later.”
With her muzzle she plunged into the satchel harnessed to her side and pulled out a small wedge of bread and placed it on the stones beside him.
“Thank you, my dear. You know my wares aren't what they used to be, but I do still have something of value. Here.”
With his rear paw he pushed at a sinuous string hanging around his neck, a string which had merged with his fur and appeared to have been undisturbed for several decades, until it was over his head and flopped forward. Grabbing it in his teeth he yanked at it, revealing a heavy looking broken key from beneath his soiled robe. The bow, which held the string in place, was shaped in the half head of a fox.
“This is silver, you know. Very tarnished, but it is the last of my treasure from the old days. I always wear it. I always have it with me.
“Well, it is very nice but what does it open, Audley? It's broken. It's split in half. Don't you see? Now I really must be off” She said as she began to trot away.
Calling after her he said, “I don't know, but I still hope to be shown the way!”
“I'm sure you will, old one. Now, I'll see you later. Take care.”
Well, I hope I will, she thought.
As she rushed along she began to feel ashamed of her instinctual reaction to Audley. This is what the council has given us. Fear. Such a fear that we react without thinking. As a historian and chronicler she knew these phrases from the fables of Able but few others would and surely not the random poor emerging from the tunnels in the early hours of the morning. Still, all of what the Hantsa called the liberal arts had effectively been banned and only a licensed few were allowed to learn to read and write. Any unusual talk of philosophy or theology might be noticed and reported if for no other reason than it wasn't understood.
She looked behind and gave the side of her bag a quick tug for a better fit on her back. The gate and check point which led into the grand rotunda was around the next bend. She wasn't late as of yet but more and more foxes began to appear heading in the same direction and a delay due to a long queue she couldn't afford. Just as she turned her head back and began to pick up the pace, a great furry wall smacked into her snout and brought her to an immediate and painful stop.
“Saw you talking to the old mange back there. Best if you just ignore him. He hasn't resurrected some lost book for you, has he? You've got enough problems of your own, to be taking on some of his, Ursula.”
“Young cub,” she stammered, getting increasingly agitated, “Daegal, I realize you are getting yourself involved with the Inari gang but that doesn't mean you have license to intrude upon other foxes, business and especially not mine. So, move that great bulk of yours aside.”
At nearly six jaws to shoulder, Daegal was by far the largest fox Ursula, or anyone else for that matter, had ever seen. Naturally he was spotted early by the Inari with the view of putting that magnitude of muscle to work. He had a deep voice for a young cub still in his teens.
“Calm down, little mama. We are all getting a little concerned for you, understand? Rumours abound and all we know is that there is to be a great trial this morning. Where would we be without you? Without you and all your stories to tell to the little ones while the rest of us are working for a living.”
“Working! Is that what you call getting the weakest of us hooked on your drugs and intimidating the rest of us with your threats of violence? I'll take my stories any day.”
Daegal looked taken aback for a moment and his great bulk melted under the older vixen's sharp gaze. It was a softness unique to Daegal which Ursula immediately recognized, causing her to crack a smile.
“At least tell me they are treating my giant pup well.”
“I'm fine.” Daegal mumbled, looking around him with teenage insecurity to make sure none of his Inari companions were lingering within earshot.
“You've gotten yourself involved with an evil bunch but I want you to know that my door is always open for you, Daegal.”
“Watch it Ursula, although you haven't yet taken on our services, it doesn't make you immune from our, shall I say, persuasions.” A small old vixen appeared from behind Daegal.
“Inari Master!” Daegal gulped, made speechless at the sudden appearance of his boss.
Two more foxes filtered through the crowd beside the group. Longer than average black claws gripping the ground with the unmistakable black line of ownership along the greyish fur ridge of their backs, they were Shadow Foxes. More and more of them were appearing every year. A fact which the council ignored. Not born fully into the light or the dark they were quicker and stronger than those born in the light but they were easy to control. Although they had intelligence they lacked the one thing which might allow them to organize; the ability to speak. For the Inari and the Council, they were perfect soldiers or perfect thugs and the perfect slaves to be sold and traded at the will of their masters.
“Keep your Shadow Foxes away from me, Odella!” Ursula screamed. “As well as anyone else from your little club!”
Leaping into the air she bounded off the Inari master's back weaving away from them without looking back.
“We'll be seeing you very soon, and afterwards, when you need us, you know where to find us! You are welcome, Ursula, and so are those pups growing in that belly of yours!” She heard Odella call after her, followed by the growl of assent from the shadow born. Ursula glanced back and caught Daegal silently staring at her from the centre of the group.
She shook her head at the waste. “He had so much potential, that one, such a good mind.”
It was true, the young Daegal had excelled and been one of Ursula's last and brightest students before her classes were shut down. For all of his bulk and brawn, he had a truly analytical mind and had shown a sincere gentleness to all that were smaller than him. Which, of course, ended up being everyone. For the youth of the Burrow, however, there were few options and little hope for the future. In a world ruled by hunger and fear there was little need for her knowledge. This was another fact that justified her intentions. Odella was right. Just as Daegal wandered from her class by the allure of the Inari, her own children would probably do the same, be it as Shadow Foxes or a fox of the Light. She rode the wave of their laughter and continued on her way a little more convinced.
The tunnel narrowed slightly near the gates to the palace and the growing crowd, moving beside her, had less and less room. Eventually she had to push her way rudely through, earning her a few shouts and and a few attempted nips at her neck. Managing to reach the checkpoint only a few tails from the front she again reached into her satchel and this time pulled out a long cylindrical object pointed on both ends. Holding it between her jaws, she gave a series of quick yelps in order to get the guard's attention. This had the intended effect. Seeing the council summons, the guard screeched at the crowd causing them immediately to move aside and make way. Ursula moved forward. Th
e crowd, now realizing who she was, hissed and spat, one even gripped a paving stone in his jaw and hurled it at her. She felt the twinge as it passed through her sensitive whiskers.
The guardsman barked an order at a massive Shadow Fox glaring at the crowd. The half-animal leapt at the offending individual and tossed him towards the wall by the neck. She missed what happened to the fox after that, as she was turned and assigned an escort detail to take her to the palace, but she was sure it didn't end well for him.
With the noise of the crowd bellowing behind her, she followed the palace guards across the massive central rotunda, the dome of which had the patchy remains of a brilliant mosaic along its curve. Countless foxes, in a dazzling array of regal apparel, formed a ring around a single central motif of a fox wearing a crown who should have been silently watching all who passed below. All of the faces on the foxes had been chiselled away, however, and bits of mosaic tile were scattered across the rotunda floor.
They passed the centre of the rotunda, with its cracked and drained fountain, which, although it hadn't flowed within living memory, was still imposing with its giant but graceful vixen looking up to the empty face in the mosaic above.
The Palace of Collaring sat large and threatening on the opposite side of the rotunda from the entrance. At some point in the past the colonnade of pillars in the front had been hit by something very large, for they were out of position and leaning. Whenever her duties, as the state historian, required a visit to the palace she was always a little frightened that the entire structure might come crashing down upon her. The Palace of Collaring was larger but looked similar to the Hantsa palace built originally for the Duke of Buckingham and it stretched to either side of her with its hundreds of windows looking out to the fountain and foxes below. Again, as always, she wondered how such a thing had ever come to be. Somehow paws made for digging in the earth had built a structure of incredible detail and beauty out of stone, wood and plaster. The building in front of her, however, was a mere shadow of what it once was since the ability to maintain such a place had been lost along with the ability to build it.
She slowed to look up as they passed under the arches and into the foyer of the building, prompting one of the guards to gruffly shout, “Keep up and look to your paws!”
“You will be held in an anteroom off the central chambers until you are called for,” the guard continued once she had caught up. “There will be guards posted at the exit and should you need anything they will attend to you. “
“I shouldn't be needing anything from anyone here,” she responded.
The silent soldier glanced back and gave what she thought was a considered and sympathetic stare. He looked familiar.
“Be that as it may, should you be kept through the afternoon a meal of some sort will be brought to you. I suggest you eat it. The trial will not be easy and you will need whatever strength you have.”
“Fine,” she said, thinking to herself that strength of body was not what she needed but resolution of heart, the power of which did not come from food but from an entirely different place all together.
They trotted on in silence past crumbling marbles and statuary, past a blank wall silhouetting where a large painting once hung, past severed staircases ascending to nowhere as the floor they were meant to reach had collapsed long ago. They passed bureaucrats hastily moving about the palace at the service of the council and the occasional inebriated fox and vixen lying together in a corner or under a stair. Shadow Foxes guarding the occasional heavy bolted door leered as they trotted. The opulence of a once great building had been drained away, bleeding into and feeding the decadent government it was now housing.
A blue haze hung throughout the crumbling space created by the multitude of spirit leaf pipes being smoked and the florescent bulbs haphazardly hanging from the mutilated gas tubing which at one stage provided lighting for the entire building. Their route took them down a variety of corridors and passed several additional checkpoints, some of which had roots protruding from above with the severed heads of dissident foxes tangled amongst them. Many of these gruesome decapitations twitched from the writhing life of newborn maggots infested within them, while others were nothing more than desiccated skulls, the mottled flesh dried and grinning across the brown bone. They hung with the purpose of intimidating any who entered the inner palace. The checkpoints were always guarded by a soldier with several Shadow Foxes in support. Ursula shook her head at the number of them within the building, appalled by the fact that the government denied their numbers were increasing.
Stopping abruptly, an iron banded oak door was thrown open revealing a plain room with dry-rot eaten floorboards and a stout wooden bench. She felt teeth lightly taking her by the back of the neck as she was briskly thrown into the room.
The soldier immediately turned and, as he walked off, barked, “Acey, see that she doesn't leave the room and keep the door bolted until she's called for. If food comes, pass it through the judas hole at the bottom of the door. I'll be on the roof so don't bother me unless she's died, or worse, escapes.”
A diminutive young fox, Acey, standing on his hind legs and pushing the door closed with his front whispered, “I'm very sorry,” before slamming the door behind her.
A single bare bulb, dangling from a hole where a chandelier once hung, flickered and gave just enough light for Ursula to make out the remnants of a complex series of frescos on the four walls of the room. Faded, chipped and scrubbed away in places, she could still make out the cycle of Able. From his mythical birth, to the awakening of the foxes in London, to the naming of the foundations of the Burrow, she was surprised how much was still visible. This waiting room must have been for guests visiting the royal family, she thought.
“I hope its furnishings were more comfortable then,” she whispered to the empty room.
Pushing her front paws forward and arching her back, she groaned as she stretched and felt an encouraging kick from her pups. Pulling her satchel over her head to use it as a pillow she lay on her side on the floor in the hopes that closing her eyes would refresh her focus. From some hidden corner, a slow and methodical drip of water slowly lulled her to sleep. She felt the soreness in her paws ebb away, her breath even out, and the bliss of oblivion consume her.
A loud bang and scraping sound woke her to the still flickering light above. For a moment she forgot where she was, or even who she was, then she saw the frescoes and the door and the small bowl of food which had just been shoved in the room.
Easing herself off the ground, she felt her age and her pregnancy in her over-used joints and neck and stumbled over to the green mush. Giving the pile a sniff, she immediately recoiled in disgust. “This must be some kind of joke, “ she thought. “This isn't even an attempt at something edible. It looks like muck from a sewer mixed with lichen paste scraped from a wall.” On the verge of vomiting, she passed it back towards the judas hole and crossed to the far corner of the room finding the furthest possible point away from the stench. There she crouched and began a series of breathing and meditation exercises taught to her by her mother. Her tail brushing her back, her front paws touching slightly on the dusty ground and her head slightly bowed she attempted to clear away her waking life and tap into the instinctual fox beneath.
Gradually, time suspended itself. The walls, which moments before, seemed to close in on her, drifted away and the space became infinite. For a period of time she became nothing. Her pups, still beating, seemed at a distance and contained separately. Her focus became soft, encompassing every aspect of the room: the squeak of a mouse, the slither of a grub worm, even the sound of the ageing fresco were exposed to her. The fresco. As her mind expanded, so did the images on the wall. A young fox lying in grass forming a perfect circle snout to tail awakes and a group of wild pups surround him. They dance snout to snout, each awaking in turn to the Light, transforming into the prophets who celebrate the foundation of London. Just as a crown is placed upon the young fox's head it turns. Its b
lue eyes fixed on Ursula's, they shine brighter and brighter until they are as the sun and as his jaw opens it speaks...
Ursula bolted to all fours as she broke free of her meditation with the lingering sound of a name sighing in her mind, “Roe”, then she jumped at the loud banging at the door.
“All right, Mrs. Ursula, get yourself ready. The council has called and your time has come.”
The door creaked open and Acey bounded towards her satchel, picking it up, and began helping her pass it over her head. She allowed him to assist without complaint, the dream still holding sway over her waking movements.
“Roe...you died five years ago...yet you still live in my dreams.”
“Excuse me?” Acey asked, looking at Ursula with a concerned expression.
“She can manage that herself, pup,” interrupted the guard from the entrance. “Now come back here and help me hold the door open. It weighs a ton.”
Giving the satchel one last tug to help it into place on her back, Acey quickly leapt back, “Sorry, Garr, sorry, but she does have pups you know.”
“Oh you softy, Acey. You'll never be invited to the roof for the games unless you thicken that hide a bit more, pup. She is going in front of the council, so whatever she's done, this is going to be the end for her and her pups. The council don't care that she's pregnant and so neither should you.”
Trying to ignore his comments, she walked through the door and past the one called Garr, who lunged with his jaw taking her by the scruff of the neck and again tossed her down the hall.
“Now that's how you deal with the accused, pregnant or no.”
She stumbled and as Acey helped her up one last time, Garr gave a great laugh and said, “Come on, it's down this way,” walking in the opposite direction.
Plaster, having fallen off the most of the walls, revealing the red bricks and mortar beneath, was piled along the floor in great musty heaps. They stepped over one such pile as they turned a corner and were greeted by a towering log partition with a small door at its base. Fanning out in great concentric circles, above the door, were ray upon ray of desiccated skulls. Jaws open wide in a frozen shout, they were mounted in profile by heavy rusted nails hammered through the eye sockets. Hanging above the door was a crooked sign with the phrase, 'Justice done and doing', scrawled messily in white chalk. She could hear a great murmur coming from behind the door.
The Progeny of Able (The Burrow of London Series Book 1) Page 3
