The War and the Fox

by Tim Susman

  “That doesn’t leave us many options.” The hedgehog looked aggrieved, though Kip knew they had never expected a place in one of the cities.

  “You could start a new settlement in some of the territory to the west, if we get some of it ceded from Britain,” Lawrence suggested. “New Orleans, perhaps.”

  “There’s Peachtree.” Bryce spoke doubtfully. “But we would also want to include Savannah, to have a port.”

  “That’s what they’ve wanted all along,” Jackson said. “The rebuilt college.”

  “Giving you territory that’s been settled for decades has a number of problems,” Adams said. “What if we go farther west? The Connecticut territory has established a shipping port on Lake Erie called Cleveland. You would have access to the St. Lawrence.”

  Kip enjoyed the idea of living in Peachtree, but Richard Branch had said that the summers were terribly hot and muggy, and that he would prefer a more northern climate. So after some more discussion, including at least some mention of the natives already living in that area, they tentatively agreed on the settlement of Cleveland and a territory surrounding it.

  The topic of Calatians being sorcerers came up again then because Jackson insisted on a school that would not have to take them, and Prince George’s was the most likely candidate for that. Lawrence suggested the new Prince Philip’s, but Richard Branch countered by asking why the school might not be located in the new Calatian territory, and there followed a long discussion that ended with them deciding that this issue didn’t need to be resolved at this meeting.

  By this time it was nearly three in the morning. The secretaries drafted an agreement giving the Calatians a land to call their own, and as the Calatians and humans shook hands with paws, Kip hung back with Emily. She passed Peter’s stone back to him and they talked about the meeting in low voices until John Quincy Adams sought them out.

  Kip expected the revolution’s leader to be angry, but the tall man smiled down at him and grasped his paw warmly. “I knew that when I approached you to join our cause that I was on the right path. I had no idea how right. And Miss Carswell…” He shook her hand as well. “You have been an inspiration.”

  “Thank you.” Emily brushed hair out of her face.

  “Mother speaks very highly of you.”

  This brought a flush to Emily’s cheeks. “It’s been my great pleasure to work with her.”

  “I am…” Kip’s tired brain was not producing usable words. “Very honored to have been part of this.”

  “Part of this?” Adams laughed. “Mister Penfold—Master Penfold, I daresay—you have caused this, at least.”

  General Hamilton joined them and also wanted to shake Kip’s paw and Emily’s hand. “I have every confidence that our American troops would have won the day, but I also believe it would have taken many years. With your assistance, I believe we can negotiate a peace within the week.”

  “Within the week?” Emily’s eyebrows shot up.

  Hamilton held up a weathered hand and his lined face creased into a smile. “Have no fear. While negotiations go on, we will provide food for your Calatians. We can’t return the British ones until a peace is declared.”

  “Will they be allowed to live here if they choose?” Kip asked.

  “Of course!” Hamilton’s smile grew wider. “As far as I’m concerned, this country will need every citizen’s contribution, and the more citizens the better. If you do indeed settle Cleveland, that will strengthen our claim to that land.”

  “And the idea of a new school,” Adams added, “is a very interesting one. England, after all, has only the one college of sorcery, and our new country might soon boast three.”

  The idea of starting a new territory and a new school felt dizzying to Kip. But in the midst of it, Peter spoke to him. I would be proud to guard a school of Calatians. And he felt in that moment, as Peter’s words gave the future school reality, that everything he’d done had been worthwhile.

  21

  The Promise

  In the end there were changes, as there always were. From what Kip gleaned, the “Cleveland solution” drew worry from some because it would be on a border with Britain’s Canada, and possibly also with the northern extent of the Louisiana territory, depending on where the peace negotiations drew the border. This, some people felt, would afford the Calatian territory the option to turn and ally with Britain in future conflicts, and they had already shown their independence once. Why not give them Savannah and Peachtree, and keep them surrounded by America? Ports along the Atlantic were numerous, but Cleveland might be the gateway to the western territories and could become an important city. The counterargument was that the Peachtree and Savannah land already had owners who would need to be compensated if their land were given to the Calatians.

  This argument took place against the backdrop of peace negotiations with Britain. When Britain agreed to cede some of the Louisiana territory to the new country, new land became available to landowners in Georgia, and thereby the largest objection to the “Peachtree solution” fell away. So the Calatians were granted a territory initially called East Georgia, a small piece of land between the Savannah and Ogeechee Rivers, bounded to the west by an arbitrary line about halfway from Savannah to Augusta.

  Peace with Britain took nearly a week to settle, and Kip and Emily were present for some of it, though not all. They met the British foreign minister, Lord Castlereagh, an austere man with a sharp nose and a calm, deep voice, at a meeting to determine the fate of Master Albright. The Americans insisted he remain their prisoner for his crimes against the two schools of sorcery. Castlereagh fought surprisingly hard against this, arguing that Albright’s crimes had been committed against what was at the time part of Britain and therefore he should stand trial there. It wasn’t until Kip mentioned the letters Master Patris had found between Albright and the British government that Castlereagh finally relented, asking only that a British representative from King’s College be allowed to interview Albright privately.

  Kip also argued that Farley Broadside should be an American prisoner, but that case was even harder to argue and was abandoned almost immediately. True, he had murdered two Dutch sorcerers and several Calatians—when Kip and Abel were allowed to return to the Isle with British officers, they found the bodies of the sorcerers, their Calatians, and the families they had been transporting when Farley discovered them—but none of those victims were American, and the attacks had been on British soil. The question of Victor’s experiments that Farley had alluded to met with blank stares and polite deferrals from everyone on the British side, so Kip would have to wait and see what Albright said about them when he was questioned.

  He didn’t have the chance to supervise the relocation of all the Calatians back to their homes, but he did visit the Australian site when he could. The American Calatians were allowed to return to New Cambridge and Peachtree first, and then Boston and New York and Savannah, this last proving a more popular destination when news of the Calatian territory spread. With only the Isle of Dogs Calatians left, for the most part, the smell of a couple thousand people all living and relieving themselves in the same small area was better than it could have been, though still very bad.

  Any time Kip walked through the camp, he heard his name cursed, but many more times Calatians of all species came up to him wanting to hold his paw, say a short thank-you, or simply touch his shirt. He remained as polite as he could, trying not to let the negative outweigh the positive.

  When he could, he spent time with Alice and Abel, who had joined a small camp of foxes that included Kip’s parents and the Cartwrights. On the last evening, Kip brought two roasted geese from New York and the dozen or so foxes sat around tearing off pieces and eating them. Kip’s mother Ada sat with Abel’s cubs Arabella and Aran, wiping their muzzles with napkins when the goose fat smeared across their fur; Abel sat between them and Kip, and on Kip’s other side, Alice sat with her parents. Emily and Malcolm and Kip’s father Max completed the ci
rcle. Ash gobbled scraps happily when they were tossed to her, and hopped around the circle to eye the ground when they weren’t.

  “So, Max,” Abel said when the geese had been devoured and Arabella and Aran were chewing on the great leg bones, “I have been wondering how you raised Kip here to be the sort of fox who grows up to create a territory made for Calatians as if by magic. I would very much like to apply those same techniques to my little ones.”

  Max laughed and took Ada’s paw. “I don’t know that I have any great secret to impart to you. Most of it came from inside him.”

  “You got me a spell book,” Kip reminded him, his ears warm.

  “That I did, that I did.” Max leaned back and looked up at the sky. “I suppose you could say that I encouraged you to think of the world as not having limits.”

  “And that led to him envisioning a Calatian territory.” Abel rested a paw on Kip’s knee. “Aran, Arabella, do you hear this? No limits.”

  “First of all,” Kip said, “I’m right here. Please don’t talk about me as though I’m away in—”

  “New York?” Alice asked, her eyes glinting.

  “London?” Emily offered. “New Cambridge?”

  Kip mock-growled at all of them. “It’s been very tiring. I’m glad it’s almost over.”

  “Aye,” Malcolm said. “What a burden, being tasked with the creation of something new.”

  “You could help a little. After all, you’re all coming to Prince Philip’s with me.”

  “Only once you’ve thought of a new name,” Malcolm said lazily.

  “As it happens…” Kip cleared his throat. “Um.”

  Emily leaned forward with interest. “You’ve thought of one?”

  “I don’t know if they’ll let me name it, but…” He stared down at his paws. The idea seemed so right in his head and yet it would not come off his tongue.

  “Ha.” Max smiled. “They’ll let you do whatever you like to it. Build an immense castle, put a statue of yourself out front. What do you want to call it?”

  “The, ah.” He rubbed his eyes. “The Lutris School of Sorcery.”

  The circle grew quiet. Alice set her paw on Kip’s, but it was Malcolm who spoke first. “That’s the best name I’ve yet heard proposed, and if anyone gainsays it, they’ll have to go through me to get to you.”

  “No fighting,” Emily told him, but her tone was soft. “It’s lovely, Kip.”

  “Aye,” Abel said. “You know Ella Lutris wants to come to Peachtree? I believe she would love it as well.”

  “Thank you,” Kip said. “I haven’t told anyone because—”

  Alice squeezed his paw. “It’s perfect.” To her parents, who looked slightly puzzled, she said, “Coppy was his friend, who Windsor killed. He worked at the perfume shop.”

  “All of our friend,” Malcolm said as the Cartwrights nodded.

  “We all lost people in the war.” Kip nodded to Abel. “The ones Farley killed, and the ones lost by the Road. Even Saul and the others lost in the initial attacks. What right do I have to elevate one?”

  “You’ve earned it,” Thomas Cartwright said.

  “Aye, so.” Malcolm leaned forward. “You said, ‘first of all,’ and usually when one says that, there’s a second thing, and you’ve not gotten to that yet, but I’m curious about it, because we haven’t had much of a chance to hear from you since this whole thing started. So what was the second thing?”

  “Oh, the second thing.” Kip held out his paw. “About the Calatian territory. Two years ago—it seems like much longer—Master Odden told me if I wanted to be his apprentice, I had to learn to hold fire in my paw. Simple, right? But I could never do it. I summoned phosphorus elementals and that was good enough for him. Master Cott wouldn’t tell me how to do it either, and I didn’t understand why, but then, when—at the Road—he did—well, I figured it out.” Violet flickered up his arms and fire blossomed naturally, small and contained, sitting in his paw.

  “You burned your paw over and over,” Emily said. She tilted her head. “What’s the secret? Or are you not allowed to tell us?”

  Kip smiled. “Now I can simply tell the fire not to burn me.” He moved his other paw through it. “But that’s beyond what I could have learned as a student. No, the secret is…” He remembered Cott’s spell, the fire surrounding him but not touching him. “The secret is that you create the fire, but it’s not part of you. Holding it in your paw doesn’t mean you have to touch it. Fire doesn’t have to be attached to something.” He dropped his paw and the fire remained hovering in the air.

  Alice lay her ears back. “That’s not a secret. That’s a trick!”

  “Of sorts. But it’s important. That a creation can be let go to exist by itself? It’s a hard thing to learn.”

  “Any parent knows that,” Max murmured.

  “Of a certain age.” Abel glanced fondly at his cubs.

  “And I was thinking about—about when that happened with Cott, and—well, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And then Master Colonel Jackson…” He nodded as Emily made a face. “They were cramming all the Calatians into the Tower, the College, and I just thought, why can’t we float free? Why do we have to be attached to anything?”

  “And here we are,” Abel said. “Proud residents of East Georgia.”

  Kip dismissed the fire and turned, ears perking. “You’re going to come to America?”

  “If you’ll have me.” Abel gestured. “And the cubs. We’ll have some business on the Isle to take care of, but—”

  Alice leaned across Kip, her ears just as perked, smiling. “We’d love to have you.”

  “Arabella,” Abel called. “Aran.” The cubs looked up. “Would you like to come to America? And stay with the Penfolds, all of them?”

  They looked up at Ada. “Yes,” they chorused, and went back to licking goose bones.

  “That’s settled, then.” Abel smiled.

  Thomas Cartwright cleared his throat. “‘The Penfolds,’ is it now?”

  Alice’s ears went back. “I’m going to marry Kip, Father. He’s asked me.”

  “Yes, I’d gathered that.” Thomas put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Laurel and I have discussed it and we will not object. Not because our minds have changed at all, but because we have finally recognized the futility of telling our daughter what she may or may not do.”

  “Kip’s a hero!” Alice protested.

  “Yes,” her mother said, “and heroes do not always make good husbands.”

  “She’s not wrong.” Kip curled his tail around Alice.

  “Hush.” Alice elbowed his side. “Maybe heroes don’t make good husbands for some wives, but you’re perfect for this one. Besides, you have to teach me enough sorcery that I can teach the next class of Calatian cubs. I’m tired of being the only female Calatian sorcerer.” She looked toward Arabella, but the young vixen didn’t look back, still occupied with a goose bone.

  Kip smiled and addressed the Cartwrights. “She’s something of a hero herself, you know. She saved us at Savannah, she helped me get onto the Isle, and we couldn’t have made that first rescue without her. She’s as capable as any sorcerer I’ve worked with.”

  Laurel looked uneasy, but said, “In that case, when you are both off being heroes, you can leave your cubs with their grandparents.”

  “Are you coming to Peachtree, then?” Kip asked.

  Laurel said, “Yes,” at the same moment as Thomas said, “We haven’t really discussed it,” and then they both laughed.

  “It’ll be a place for foxes,” Kip said, leaning back himself. “And all Calatians.” He had always thought of the Calatians who’d come after him as nameless, generic people, and often when he said he wanted to make the world better for the next Calatians, he had been mostly thinking that he wanted to make it better for himself right now, this very minute. But Laurel saying that he and Alice would have cubs, like Bryce saying that the Calatians could have their own territory and Peter saying he would guard
a Calatian school, had spoken that vision into existence. Now he felt a great warmth in him, imagining having cubs of his own in a world in which they would grow up believing that they could be anything, next to a sorcerer’s college whose gates would stand wide open.

  Epilogue

  Captain Lowell knew the men guarding the Tower, and so he got Kip through the gates and into the college area. “The masters are deciding the headmaster position over in Boston,” he said, “but they were moved in yesterday.”

  “I can’t believe Patris won’t be headmaster anymore,” Kip said. “Do you know who will be?”

  Lowell hesitated. “I heard Master Colonel Jackson say that he was hoping to retire from the military. I don’t know whether they would accept him, but…he has rarely failed to get anything he wants.”

  Kip shuddered, disturbing Ash, who croaked and re-settled herself on his shoulder. Jackson running the college? And he’d thought Patris was bad. But maybe it wouldn’t come to pass. And all the more reason for his mission this evening.

  As they walked along the stone path, amid the torn-up grass and the smells that thankfully had been muted by a recent rain, Kip said, “We’re going to ban slavery in East Georgia.”

  Lowell gave a faint smile. “You haven’t come up with a better name for your territory?”

  “That’s not so high up on the list,” Kip said. “But I thought you’d like to know. And I think they’ll all approve my suggestion that you come work with our army.”

  “I thank you for that,” Lowell said. “I will have to decide whether I would rather be limited in my advancement because I’m not white, or because I’m not a Calatian.”

  “You wouldn’t—” Kip stopped, tail swishing.

  “Being human in a Calatian-run territory would be challenging,” Lowell said. “And I haven’t a particular skill like sorcery, like your friends who are needed at your school.”

  “You do, though. You’re an excellent soldier. Most of our people with military training haven’t risen to your level. And we don’t want to bring in someone like Jackson—”