The War and the Fox

by Tim Susman

  As Alice pulled him through the crowd, he thought more about the war and his possible role in it, waving absently at the townspeople he’d grown up with. The Lapellis greeted him with smiles; Bryce Morgan, the hedgehog who spoke for the Calatians at town meetings, nodded politely; the Brocks met his eyes and turned away without another reaction.

  But Bryce Morgan’s son Tom and his wife Hope, who’d come down from Boston, intercepted Kip. Hope, brash and cheerful took his arm. “Master Penfold, we were hoping to find you here!”

  “Oh,” Kip said, “I’m not—”

  Hope thrust a nine-year-old hedgehog at him. Kip cast Alice a helpless look; she returned an amused smile. “This is Charles. Charles, say hello to Master Penfold.”

  Charles’s eyes showed white all around the dark centers as he stared up at Kip. “Hello Master Penfold,” he whispered, so softly that any ears but a fox’s might miss it.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Charles.” Kip smiled, then looked up and motioned for Alice to go on. She shook her head.

  “Hope.” Tom pulled Charles back. “Master Penfold is busy.”

  “I’m not a—”

  “Nonsense.” Hope smiled. “It’s the Feast Day. Good Master Penfold, Charles here has shown some extraordinary abilities and I wondered if you might take a moment to question him and see whether sorcery might be a path for him.”

  “Can we—” Kip smiled again down at the young hedgehog. “Bring him to the Founders Rest tomorrow evening?”

  “I told you,” Tom said. “He won’t do sorcery out here in public.”

  “It’s not about that.” Kip looked up. The Cartwrights were no longer in sight. “It’s only that it might take some time, and peace and quiet is better.”

  “Can’t you simply lay your paws on him and feel whether he has the touch?” Hope asked.

  Kip shook his head quickly. Alice had turned, now scanning the crowd again. “I need to talk to him, ask him to do some exercises, and even then I might not be able to tell. It wasn’t until I was twelve that I was sure.”

  “I’ll just tell you what he’s done.” Hope gathered herself. “He’s found water. We took him out to scout a parcel of land and he said he was thirsty and wandered off and found a spring. And later he found a disused well.”

  “All right,” Kip said. “That might or might not indicate—please do bring him to the inn, though. I am sorry, but I have to go.” Alice had her paw up, gesturing him forward. “Charles, I look forward to seeing you.”

  He patted the young hedgehog’s shoulder and moved quickly around him. As he left, Tom said, “I told you not to bother him,” and Hope replied with some smugness, “He agreed to see Charles, didn’t he?” and then their conversation fell away into the general murmur of the crowd.

  “I suspect people ask you if their cubs are magic all the time now,” Alice said. “Human children too, perhaps? Now you live in the town.”

  Kip shook his head. “They were the first. I don’t think many people realize I live here. I keep to the inn, where it’s mostly travelers that see me, and when we’re having your lessons we’re in John’s back room or that old barn.”

  “More of the town appreciates you now,” Alice told him. “Even my father thinks you’re doing good work.”

  “It helps to have you whisper in his ear.” Kip smiled and scanned the crowd ahead. “Where did they go? The speeches are about to start.”

  “They’re over—” Alice pointed and then stopped. “He saw us and turned and walked in the other direction. That’s Father. He doesn’t want to have an argument he thinks he might lose.”

  “Of course he would expect this.” Kip sighed. “I thought that here he wouldn’t be able to avoid me as readily.”

  “I thought that with Josiah here he would be more likely to listen.” Alice kept forging ahead, pulling Kip with her. “He has often said that he wanted to take the measure of him before finalizing the betrothal. Now he’s here. What better time to talk to the two of you side by side? There. They’re at the edge near the ale. Maybe they were just going for a drink.”

  Bryce Morgan climbed up onto the small dais at the front of the tent and raised his paws. “Welcome, my friends,” he said.

  Alice’s father and suitor had stopped just ten feet from them, but now the whole crowd turned to the dais to give Mr. Morgan their attention, and Kip and Alice had to stop as well as the murmur of conversation died down. Alice balled her paws into fists in frustration.

  “Relax,” Kip murmured. “We’ve a whole day. He knows we want to talk to him.”

  “Today,” the hedgehog continued, “we come together to celebrate the miracle of our creation, a Great Feat of the Sorcerer Calatus who brought us forth into this world, a gift we can never repay. To his memory we dedicate this day and our lives.”

  “To his memory,” Kip, Alice, and the rest of the crowd murmured in response.

  “This year, the rabbits and squirrels and mice have prepared speeches in the honor of Calatus and our community. After that, we’ll have a short prayer and then a feast in the church, since the weather is once again not so nice to be outside in, especially for those of us still in our winter coats.” He pulled at the lapel of his coat and paused for the crowd to acknowledge his joke, which they did with a polite chuckle.

  After that, Margaret Branch came up with a speech about all the Great Feats known in the world, and then one of the young Coopers talked about how they all knew Calatians in Boston and New York and Peachtree (making Kip think of his parents), and then Johnny Lapelli. Johnny’s speech, as he’d told them, emphasized how much the Calatians loved the woods of Massachusetts and the port of New York. His family had taken a trip there to see relatives the year before and had gone to see the Great Road that ran across the ocean from New York to Bristol. They hadn’t been able to stand on it, but Johnny described its path cutting through the shining waves, “with us on this side and England on the other, connected but separate.” That speech got the loudest cheer of any of the three.

  Looking around, Kip felt the enthusiasm of the town around him. If it does come to war—when it comes to war—he thought, there won’t be many questions about the loyalty of the Calatians, at least. And he would represent them in the American forces, bringing fire magic to the army to match Master Cott’s, should Britain bring him to a battle. John Quincy Adams would not be able to ignore the contributions of the Calatians then; he would have to honor his promise to grant them more rights in the new country. If the war was successful, Kip reminded himself. If not—well, he would likely not be alive to worry, in that case.

  Bryce Morgan continued the applause as he returned to the dais. “Wasn’t that wonderful? The future of our community is in these young people, and from those speeches I can tell it’s bright. Brighter than the sky today, ha ha!” More polite chuckling, which Kip did not join this time. “The brightness of your faces more than makes up for it, though! Now, before we adjourn to the church, I just want to say a few words.”

  The crowd murmured briefly; this was not usual. Mr. Morgan drew himself up into every inch of his five feet and surveyed the crowd. “Nearly two years ago,” he said, “our town was viciously attacked and our lives threatened.” He pointed up the hill. “Over a hundred lives were lost at the College. For a year, we lived in fear without knowing who to blame. Now we know, and we live under a different kind of fear. What has not changed is that we live through this together. This day reminds us that all of us Calatians were created together in a single moment, and though our lives have taken us around the world and along many different paths, we must never forget that. We must always stand together.”

  The irony of this speech coming from someone who had strenuously opposed his entry into the College was not lost on Kip, but he applauded with the rest of the crowd. Mr. Morgan was as entitled to change his opinion as anyone else, or else conveniently forget it when needed for a public speaking moment.

  The crowd began to disperse in clumps of twos and
threes down the slick stones of Half-Moon Circle toward the church. Alice led Kip around the outside of the crowd. “There,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Tch.” She turned to him. “You’re thinking about the war again.”

  “I’m thinking about Bryce Morgan’s speech,” he said, now spotting her father and the other fox a few paces ahead of Alice’s mother and Corinne Lapelli. “And perhaps a little about the war.”

  “Don’t mention the war to Father.” She stopped at her mother’s side and gestured for Kip to go on ahead.

  “I won’t.” He hurried up alongside the older fox, who turned to him. “Mr. Cartwright,” Kip said.

  Thomas Cartwright wore an oilskin coat over a cotton tunic with blue thread trim at the collars and cuffs, and black cotton trousers. Kip’s father had a similar suit for Sundays, and Kip had once thought it the finest in clothing. Now he looked at the fox next to Thomas, whose grey suit jacket and white linen shirt darkened in the rain, whose grey pants matched his jacket and whose collar bore an ivory pin in the likeness of a fox head. This was the sort of dress he’d mostly seen on the gentlemen who came to the College to discuss the prospects of war with the headmaster and the other sorcerers. Few people in New Cambridge dressed this way, Calatian or human. In fact, Kip had rarely seen a Calatian in such fancy clothes anywhere. Most of New Cambridge’s Calatians farmed or sold goods, and the only other large settlement he’d visited, the Isle of Dogs, consisted of poor laborers.

  Both Thomas and the other fox, presumably Josiah, turned to Kip without breaking their stride. “Penfold,” Thomas said.

  “Happy Feast Day.”

  “Happy Feast Day.” The older fox looked ahead to the church. “Might we postpone this conversation until after the services?”

  Kip looked back at Alice, her fur collecting rain as his own was, and then ahead at the church only a minute or two away at their current pace. “Certainly I would prefer to talk indoors,” he said. “There should be a short time before the services start, and that might be sufficient.”

  The other fox craned his neck around Thomas. “Oh, this is Penfold, is it? I say, my good chap, don’t you have a spell to keep dry?”

  “Several,” Kip said, “but we don’t use sorcery frivolously. Mr. Cartwright, this will only take a moment of your time.”

  “Penfold,” Thomas said, “I will listen to your argument. After the service. There will be ample time, and there is no rush in this matter.” He caught Kip’s look and tilted his muzzle. “Rest assured I shall not make a decision during the prayer.”

  So Kip nodded and hung back until Alice caught up with him. They let Mrs. Cartwright go on ahead and waited in the drizzle for Emily and Malcolm, bringing up the last of the crowd. “Did you talk to him?” Emily asked.

  “No. After the service.”

  “All right.” Emily wrapped a wet arm around him. “Good luck. Malcolm and I are going to wait in the Founders Rest until your service is over.”

  “You can attend,” he said, amused. “Pastor Gregory is human.”

  “It’s for you, not us.” Malcolm wiped a hand through his wet hair. “We’ll dry off and come by later for the food.”

  The church smelled strongly of wet fur from a couple hundred Calatians. Kip had grumbled about rainy days as a cub because the smells were so strong, but now he appreciated how close it made him feel to everyone, as though they were all in arm’s reach rather than seated throughout the church.

  Pastor Gregory led them in a short prayer in which he reminded them that the sorcerer Calatus had not created a divine spark in them but had merely moved what was created by God. Unlike the speeches of the Calatians, this prayer had not changed in all the years Kip could remember.

  Nor had the response of the crowd: reverent attention from the adults while the cubs shifted and muttered, restless for the feast to begin even though many of them were still chewing on their morning breads. At the back of the church, far from the side doors, Kip couldn’t smell the food that was laid out, but he remembered drier Feast days when he’d sat with his mother and father near the front, the smells of fowl and fruit and cheese filling his nose. He’d kicked the pews in front of him to distract from the droning words of the Church’s Feast Day prayer.

  He turned his nose toward the side, pursuing the memory, and in that moment the faintest tingle stung the inside of it. His ears shot forward and he whipped his head around to scan the crowd. Nothing untoward around him, not anywhere he could sense. Alice, who could smell demons but not with Kip’s sensitivity, turned to him with worried eyes.

  At the front, Pastor Gregory had begun the call and response that signaled the last part of the prayer. “May God’s spirit move you.”

  “May God’s spirit move you,” Kip replied, and moved past Alice to the end of the row.

  “May the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit guide our actions toward mercy and compassion.”

  “Do you need me to come with you?” Alice hissed, following.

  The congregation chanted, “The path is hard but God is at our side.”

  Kip shook his head and then reconsidered. If there was danger, Alice would be safer with him than alone. As an unofficial sorcerer, she stood the risk of being captured not only by enemies, but also by allies. “Yes,” he said in a low voice.

  They hurried to the church’s doors. Kip lost the scent there, but that was fine; he pushed the doors open and slid outside, flattening himself against the carved wood in the meager shelter of the doorway. Alice huddled beside him. “What’s going on?”

  “Demon,” Kip said tersely. Magic came easily to his paws and lit them with a violet glow. He spoke the summoning and when Nikolon appeared before him as a nude female fox-Calatian, he bound her. “Make no move save on my order; take no action save on my order, but you may converse with me,” he said. “Hello, Nik.”

  Nikolon inclined her head. “Greetings, Master.”

  “There was another demon around,” Kip said quickly. “Please become invisible and survey the area within a hundred yards of this church and report back to me whatever you can discover about any demon you find.”

  “Yes, master.” Nikolon bowed and vanished.

  Alice brought her paws to her ears and smoothed them back. “Do you say that phrase every time?”

  Kip nodded. “If you don’t bind them properly, demons may cause mischief, or do harm. Nik is only a first level demon, so could not cause permanent harm, but her curse would nonetheless be difficult to reverse.”

  “Malcolm’s eyes,” Alice said.

  “Aye.” Kip took a breath.

  After a moment, Alice peered around the lawn in front of the church, empty of people. “You smelled a demon?”

  “Aye. It might have been Malcolm’s demon, but…”

  Alice folded her arms and leaned back against the church door. “How long will it take Nik?”

  “Shouldn’t be long,” Kip replied, and even as he said that the female fox materialized before him.

  “I found no other demon in the area you described, master,” she said.

  “Thank you.” Kip hesitated. “Stay invisible and near me and tell me as soon as you detect any other magic or demon nearby.”

  Nikolon looked at Alice and then vanished. Alice brought her ears forward. “Why don’t you have her around you all the time?”

  Kip motioned her to the door. “It takes energy to keep them bound. Not so much for Nik, but…it is a drain. And when she’s around, I can’t distinguish between her and other demons. But mostly it’s because after several hours—maybe days, I’m still not sure—the binding becomes painful to her. Nothing I have to do is so important I need to cause her pain.”

  They re-entered the church, where the prayer had already ended, and joined the Calatians filing toward the side room where the food awaited. “Nikolon,” Kip said to the tingle in his nose, “please go tell Emily that the service is over and then return immediately to the task of watching for magic and de
mons around me.”

  Yes, master. The tingle vanished from his nose, but returned before he and Alice reached the doorway. They each collected one of the small wooden plates and went around to take food from the tables: winter apples stored for the feast, roast chicken and other fowl, greens and candied fruits, slices of cheese and bread. Cubs running around Kip’s legs had piled their plates full of candied fruits and maple candies (these were no longer in evidence on any tables; apparently the cubs had swarmed them like locusts) and very little of anything else. As one mouse pup ran by him, her father grabbed her and marched her to put back some of the sugar and fruit.

  Kip and Alice exchanged smiles. “Not so long ago,” Alice said as they both took sensible meals of meat, bread and cheese.

  “I wonder how they do the Feast on the Isle of Dogs.” Kip lifted a piece of chicken to his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “They don’t have the bounty that we do.”

  “I’m certain Abel would allow you to visit there one day. He makes such excuses to see you.”

  “He invited me this year, but…”

  She brushed his tail with hers. “If you want to go next year, I’d go with you.”

  Kip’s answer was forestalled by the appearance of Emily and Malcolm at the door, Emily’s hand on Malcolm’s arm. He took his plate and hurried over to them.

  “You haven’t summoned a demon, have you?” He took Malcolm’s hand and placed his plate in it.

  “What’s this?” Malcolm felt delicately around the plate. “Ah, lovely, Kip, thank you. No, I’ve not. We’ve been talking through a difficult bit of a warding spell.”

  “Can you cast one now?” Kip asked. “Just an inattention spell around the church.”

  “Of course.” Malcolm gathered magic and cast the spell so quickly that his hands only glowed orange for a few brief seconds.

  Emily shot Kip a puzzled look. “Trouble?”

  “There was a demon here. I summoned one of my own and she’s keeping an eye out for any demons or magic use.”

  “We’re safe now,” Malcolm said. “Nobody outside the church will think to look here.”