Oseille

Prolog (nine years ago)

	On the morning of her twelfth birthday Ciara was startled awake by the sound of her mother shouting.  That meant Connor had come downstairs to see them again, even though it had only been three months since his last visit.  Ears flat, she slid out of bed and crept over to her bedroom door.  She had taken to leaving it open a crack lately so that her mother couldn’t sneak out without her knowing.  The war against Blackpool wasn't going well and she was afraid of the day when her mother wouldn't come back.
	Deirdre was in the middle of the room brushing her fur in front of her full-length mirror.  She was naked, her fur still damp from the bath, which meant she’d been brooding about her scars again.  Deirdre turned thirty today and that was old, for a soldier.  Or so her mother said, though most of the other officers looked much older than that.  It didn't matter to Ciara, who thought her mother was still the most beautiful vixen in the city. But she was reluctant to say so anymore.  Every time she did, Deidre started to cry.
	She pushed her the door open a little further to get a better look.  Bags and boxes were strewn all across the room in a little maze of clutter.  Except for the mirror and one campaign map the walls of her room had been stripped, and the naked stone looked strangely empty.  Deirdre stood in the middle of all of it, pulling tangles out of what was left of her tail.  Connor stood next to her, looking helpless the way he always did when he was losing a fight.  He smelled frightened, and Ciara knew he had been drinking.  He never drank in front of her, but he wasn't as careful about hiding it as he used to be.
	“Why is she only your daughter when you want something from me,” said Deirdre.
	“Oh, for God's sake, Dee, when have I ever said that?” he said.
	“Don't call me that.  You don't have to say anything.  If you actually cared about her you might come see her sometimes.  I know she gets lonely when I'm not here.”
	“You threw me out last time.  I didn't think--”
	“When has that ever stopped you?  Ciara still loves you and she doesn't understand why you aren't around.”
	Deirdre threw the brush down and stomped across the room, picking up her clothes while Connor trailed after her.  He was a tall red fox, with fur that always looked like it needed to be combed.  He was Ciara’s father, but she didn't look much like him.  She was a swift fox, like her mother, with the same tri-colored fur and short, sharp muzzle.  Except that where her mother's fur was a sandy yellow, her fur was a strawberry blonde.  Her eyes were darker, too, a deep purple instead of Deirdre’s pale blue.  Connor had told her, once, that this was supposed to be bad luck.  He and Deirdre had fought for days after that, and they had both assured her it was just a superstition.  But sometimes she wondered if it was true.
	“We don’t have time for this.  Just give her the damn horse and get her out of here.  Sabia will be here soon, and you know the walls aren't going to hold,” said Connor.
	He put a hand on Deirdre’s back, but she shrank away from him and held her shirt up as a shield between them.
	“Not Embarr.  He’s too dangerous,” she said.
	“He's the only chance she has.  I don't have anything else that's fast enough to get her away from the lynxes,” said Connor.
	“She's too small to ride him.  She'll fall off and break her neck before she's out of the gate,” she said.
	“She never has before.  I've had five other people take him out, and none of them could get him to do half the things he'll do for my girl,” said Connor.
	He stepped closer to her and slid his arms around her shoulders.  Ciara couldn't hear what he whispered in her ear, but she saw the stiffness leave her mother's back, and Deirdre leaned her head against his shoulder.  For a moment, they looked like they used to, back when Connor used to come to visit every day.
	“He’d better be fast, Connor.  Sabia’s army will be here by noon, and I want her to be as far away from here as she can get by then,” said Deirdre.
	She grabbed the rest of her clothes off the floor and pushed Connor towards the door.  She let him kiss her like she always did, but she slammed the door behind him.
	When he was gone Ciara came out of her room.  She had to push her door hard to get it open, and that knocked over a small pile of boxes that had been stacked in front of it.  Deirdre didn’t look up.  She already had half her armor on, and she was fiddling with the straps on her leather cuirass.  She had worn it so long and put it on so often that she didn’t need to think about it anymore.  But she always double checked it, or had Ciara do it for her.  Carelessness was the worst sin you could commit, in Deirdre Lohan’s world.
	“I guess we woke you up, huh?,” said Deirdre.
	“I couldn't sleep anyway.”
	She took hold of a strap on her mother's armor and pulled it tighter than Deirdre could get it herself.  Deirdre grunted a little at the pressure, and propped a foot up on the edge of the bed to lace up her boots.
	“Liar.  I told Connor to keep his voice down.  He never listens to me.”
	It was cold in the main room, and Ciara wished she had on more than just a nightshirt but she wasn't about to go back now.
	“Where are you sending me?” she said.
	Deirdre picked up her sword and tested its edge with her thumb.  Ciara hated the sight of it, and wanted to snatch it out of her mother's hands and throw it out the window.  But she had a feeling it was the only thing that would bring her mother back to her.
	“There’s a town called Oseille four or five days north of here.  If you just follow the Glass River upstream you’ll go right to it.  I bought a house there three months ago,” said Deirdre.
	“I'm not going anywhere.  If you're staying here then so am I.”
	“Don't argue, not today.  I’m going to give you the key, and you’re going to wait there until I get done with everything I have to do.”
	“I'm not going.  I remember when you got back and you told me you were going to quit.  You lied to me.”
	“I can’t quit, Connor put me in command of the whole God-damned army. I thought you understood that.”
	“What kind of people live in this town?”
 	“Mostly rabbits.  They founded it.  But it’s not a bad city, and I think you’ll like it.”  
	Deirdre groped behind her for her whet stone, and Ciara nudged it under her fingers with a foot.  Deirdre perched on top of the nearest box, put her sword across her knees and scraped the stone along the edge.  The sound hurt Ciara's teeth, and she went to pick up the boxes she'd knocked over, to get away from it.
	“I don't understand anything.  I thought you hated fighting,” she said.
	“It's... complicated, and I can't explain it right now, okay?  Just trust me.  After I'm done with what I have to do, I'll come and get you,” said Deirdre.
When she was finished, she sheathed her sword and shrugged her shoulders to settle her armor.  Then she grabbed an empty satchel from the floor, went into Ciara’s room and started stuffing everything she could reach into it.  After a minute, Ciara managed to snatch the satchel away and started filling it herself, a little more neatly.  She didn’t own much except some secondhand clothes, a few books, most of which had been read so much the pages had come unglued from the spines, and a string necklace with an amethyst pendant Connor had given her for another birthday, years ago.  She put the necklace on, for luck, and slipped the pendant into the collar of her shirt.
	“You always said you wanted to get out of this city,” said Deirdre.
	“I thought you’d be coming with me.  I didn't think it would be because I was never going to see you again,” she said.
	Deirdre grabbed her and crushed the air out of her with a hug.
	“That isn't true, and you know it.  I know I've never been much of a mother, but there are some things I'm good at.  I'll be back before you know I'm gone,” she said.
	Their apartments were in the officers barracks on the ground floor, at the very back of the castle.  This part of the building hadn’t been finished, which meant they weren’t as comfortable as even some of the common barracks.  But it did put them close to the stables.  Deirdre hadn’t said so but Ciara had always been under the impression that her mother had never believed they would win the war.
	When Deirdre was satisfied that the corridor outside was empty she pushed the door open and squeezed out into the hall.  At the end of the cooridor there was a small wooden door which hung half open, letting in the muggy summer heat.  They ran towards it and Ciara was surprised to hear her footsteps echo in the unfinished stone cooridor.  There weren't many people who lived in this part of the castle but, even at the worst of times, there had always been a certain amount of noise to fill the place up.  Now the whole south wing of the castle was empty.
	Outside, they ran across the wide, dusty stable yard as if Blackpool’s attack had already started and ducked into the sweltering gloom of the barn.  The stables were huge, capable of holding a hundred horses with room to spare.  Under ordinary circumstances, the stables were in a state of constant, controlled panic.  Horses were moved in and out, while grooms and soldiers moved among them.  This morning the stables were as empty as the castle.  All of the warhorses had been taken out to fight, and the grooms had gone with them.  Only one stall was occupied.  It held a large, black stallion with an unusually long mane, who pushed against the gate of his stall and whinnied when he saw them.
	Embarr was the prize of Cearnach’s stable and, as far as Ciara knew, he was the biggest horse on the island.  He was so tall that she had to stand on her toes to touch his neck.  But he was easy enough to mount if she had something to stand on.  In spite of what her mother had said, he was the sweetest horse she'd ever ridden, too.  Once she was on his back, he was content to do anything she wanted, and his gait was so easy that she didn't think there was any way she could fall off.
	She wasn't sure where he’d come from.  Connor had never told her and she knew better than to ask.  All she knew was that he had tried to train Embarr to be a warhorse, but Embarr’s habit of eating tack and trampling anyone who tried to put a saddle on him had made Connor give up on that idea.  At first, he hadn't wanted to give him to her any more than Deirdre did.  It was only his guilt over years of missed birthdays had made him consent.  She had named Embarr herself, after a horse from one of her mother's stories.
	“He’s a monster,” said Deirdre.  
	Ciara unlatched the gate to Embarr’s stall, and she pressed her back against the wall.
	“He's never hurt anyone who wasn't cruel to him,” said Ciara.
	  She unlatched the gate and swung it open.  Embarr lowered his head and bumped her chest fondly with his muzzle while she scratched his ears.
	“What about the groom he injured?  Connor said she was in the hospital for a month.”
	“That wasn't Embarr's fault.  I thought everyone knew better than to walk behind a horse like that,”she said.
	Ciara kept one hand on Embarr’s shoulder, as much to steady herself as to guide him, and led him out slowly so he wouldn’t rush and tear another gate off its hinges.  The stables had been built a hundred years ago, back when there had only been ponies on the island.  The boards around the gate creaked when he pushed his way between them, but nothing broke this time.  When he was out she climbed up onto the gate, grabbed a double handful of his mane, and pulled herself up onto his back.
	“He’s bad luck,” said Deidre.
	“Well, so am I.  Remember?  Maybe that's why we get along so well,” said Ciara.
	Her mother opened her mouth to argue, but they could already hear the war drums of the approaching army.  They had maybe fifteen minutes before the first soldiers arrived, but even with a fast horse like Embarr that wasn't much time to get away.
	Ciara clucked her tongue and Embarr trotted around in a tight circle. He stopped when he was facing the big barn doors on the opposite side of the stable and Ciara touched his flanks with his heels.  He broke into an easy trot, and was nearly outside before Deirdre caught up to them and grabbed his mane.  He laid his ears flat and snorted, but he stopped.
	“You can’t handle a horse like this, Ciara.  He’s too big.  He’ll shake you off, and he won’t even notice you’re gone,” she said.
	Ciara crouched down low across Embarr’s back and barked at him.  Deirdre snatched her hand back, and Embarr bolted out into the stableyard.  He galloped around the yard three times, leapt over an empty water trough when Ciara barked again, and trotted  back to the barn.  Deirdre folded her arms and glared at them with her teeth bared.
	“That’s something Connor would have done,” she said.  
	She grabbed Embarr’s mane and slapped his nose when he stamped at her.  Embarr had bitten a chunk out of the last person who hit him, but Ciara put a hand on his neck and he only laid his ears back.  With Ciara petting and soothing him, Embarr let Deirdre lead them across the stableyard to a small gate that was hidden behind a feed silo.
	“Follow the river.  Just keep going, and don’t stop for anything.  Don’t get yourself killed.  I’ll never forgive myself if you end up dead,” she said.
	Holding on to Embarr’s mane, Ciara leaned down and kissed her mother on the top of her muzzle.
	“Promise you’ll come and get me when you’re done,” she said.  
	Deirdre’s ears drooped a little, and she looked away a moment.
	“If I can.  There’s going to be a lot of work that will need to be done when we’re finished,” she said.
	“I don’t care.  Just promise that when you’re done you won’t let Connor bully you into doing anything else for him,” said Ciara.
	“I promise,” said Deirdre.
	When Deirdre opened the gate Embarr whinnied and leapt out onto the open road.  He laid his ears back and ran, and she let him.  She could hear drums behind her, over the thumping of his hooves.

	Embarr ran for days.  It wasn’t hard to find the river and once they started upstream she paid no attention to anything around her.  She wasn’t hungry so she didn’t eat. The only times they stopped were so Embarr could rest and so they could both drink from the river.  Embarr grazed on whatever grass grew by the banks of the river and he seemed content with that.  She dozed occasionally but she never remembered falling asleep, just waking up a few more miles down the road.  On the third day, she embarrassed herself by crying into Embarr's mane for half an hour.  Her mother had always tended to discourage tears because they didn't fix anything, but Connor had always let her cry as much as she liked.  Ciara had always had more in common with her father than with Deirdre.
	On the morning of the fifth day, only little way away from Oseille, she collapsed.  Embarr stopped on a narrow part of the road where it passed through a thick cluster of trees, and she rolled off his back into the tall grass.  The shock of hitting the ground woke her up a little and she lay on her back for a few minutes while the feeling returned to her legs.  All her missed meals caught up to her then, and she had to clutch her stomach with both hands until the hunger pains faded to a dull ache.  The forest was pleasant enough.  It was pleasantly cool in the shade, and there were songbirds overhead.  She’d spent all of her life in the city and had only rarely been outside the walls, but now she felt a slight twinge that told her this was the sort of place a fox should live.  Whatever Oseille was like, it wouldn’t be too bad if she could come out to the forest.
	When she felt capable of moving again she sat up and rummaged in her pack for a half a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine which she had grabbed from her mother's pantry.  The bread was stale, but the wine was an expensive vintage that had come from Connor’s personal stock.  It made her drowsy, but it helped to dull the pain in her legs enough for her to get back on her feet.  She held on to  Embarr’s mane to steady herself and he nibbled at the hem of her shirt in vague sympathy.
	She turned back to the road behind them in hopes of finding something to help her climb onto his back, and sagged against him instead.  In the distance, a thick streamer of smoke rose from where Cearnach should have been.
	“They burned it.  Foxes never know when to back down,” said someone from behind her.
	When she turned around, the rabbit behind her cringed a little but held her ground.
	“You ran away, didn't you?  I don't blame you.  I saw the size of the army that marched through here,” she said.
	The rabbit was a doe who looked a little younger that Ciara was.  She wore a brown silk blouse that looked like it was expensive, and long pants with sharply pressed creases.  Her brown fur was clean and neatly brushed, and she smelled pleasantly of soap and cinnamon.
	“I didn't run, I was sent away.  They passed through here?  I thought Oseille was supposed to be neutral,” said Ciara.
	“We are, but we can’t stop anyone from using the road.  Nobody wants to stop soldiers, anyway.  They have money,” said the rabbit.  But her mouth twisted when she said it, like she'd bitten something sour.
	The effort of staying on her feet made Ciara's knees feel like they were filled with broken glass.  She tightened her hold on Embarr’s mane and tried to use it to pull herself up, but he shied away from the pain which made her lose her grip.  The rabbit caught her when she fell, and she looped one of Ciara’s arms around her neck to help keep her up.
	“The city isn’t too far away.  Let’s get you off the road before you fall down again,” said the rabbit.  
	She grabbed Ciara around the waist and lifted her up enough for her to put her arms over Embarr’s shoulders and pull herself up.
	“I’m Niamh.  I don’t normally accost strangers on the road, you know.  But you've chosen a bad place to lie down,”said the rabbit.
	Niamh walked beside them, keeping one hand on Embarr's shoulder like she was afraid she would lose them otherwise.  They went at such a slow pace that it was nearly an hour before they reached the town.  By then Ciara felt well enough to sit up again, and Embarr's ears had perked back up.
	“I'm supposed to have a house here.  But Mom didn't tell me which one it was,” said Ciara.
	“Oh, so you're the girl Grandmother has been expecting.  The house used to belong to us before we moved to the farm.  I never expected it to go to a fox, though,” said Niamh.
	“You know who I am?”
	“Oh yes.  We don't see a lot of foxes here, and certainly not ones who want to move in.  Grandmother would have killed me if she'd known I was listening in, when your mother came to visit.  She described you very well,” said Niamh.
	Oseille was barely a third of the size of Cearnach and the wall surrounding it was low and thin.  All of the houses were low to the ground with rounded roofs that curved down to the ground on three sides.  They had small windows and narrow doors, and they had been painted in bland colors that blended into the earth.  There were a few more conventional buildings but their edges were rounded, and only a red brick tavern just inside the gate had more that one story.  Across from the tavern was a wide patch of bare ground which had the desolate look land gets when it has been walked on daily by hundreds of people.
	“The Summer Market just ended last week, but it won’t be too long until the next one, in the autumn.  Things will get a little more interesting then,” said Niamh.  
	Ciara’s ears drooped, but she tried not to sound too disappointed.  She’d known that nowhere else would be as interesting as Cearnach had been, even if Oseille was prettier.
	“What do people do here?” said Ciara.
	“We make money.  Oseille is the richest city on the island, that’s why we keep ourselves neutral,” said Niamh “Money rules this city.”
	The city was far less crowded than Cearnach had been, but it was much busier.  Rabbits were everywhere and all of them had something to do.  The work was evenly divided among bucks and does, and all of the rabbits Ciara saw on the street were carrying heavy boxes or bundles of cloth between warehouses, or walking in tight groups talking urgently among themselves.  A few glanced over their shoulders at her, but only the youngest kittens stopped to stare.  Ciara drooped her ears in embarrassment, and Niamh gave her a sympathetic smile.
	“Like I told you, we don't get a lot of foxes here.  Especially young ones.  Everyone's welcome, but they're usually too busy to make friends.”
	“What do you do?” said Ciara.
	“Nothing,” said Niamh, and she kicked at a stone “Grandmother has horses, and I help her take care of them some, but she won’t let me do much.  I used to look after our old house, too, until you bought it.  It’s just up ahead.”
	Niamh grabbed a length of Embarr’s mane and quickened her pace, leading them smoothly through the crowds.  Oseille’s main street was a broad, rutted dirt path that ran straight through the middle of the city.  Ciara’s new house was at the end of the road.  It looked like every other house in the city, but it was wider and it had been painted dark red.  It had a small overgrown paddock behind it, with a small shed that looked like a forge set off to one side.
	“I don’t know what you paid Saoirse for it, but it was probably too much.  I cleaned it up a little for you, but it still needs a lot of work,” said Niamh.
	Ciara slipped down off of Embarr’s back, and Niamh was beside her again, holding her up, though it was hardly necessary now.  Embarr abandoned her and trotted out into the knee-high grass, and she wanted very much to join him.
	“It has a yard,” she said “It'll be fine.”
	The ground level was one large room, which neatly combined the kitchen and the living room.  The floor was covered with a thick blue-green carpet.  It was comfortably cool, and the whole place smelled of wood polish and unaired rooms.  A set of stairs in the middle of the room went under the ground, to the rest of the house.  Niamh took her hand, stripped the pack from her back and pushed her towards the stairs.  They climbed down to a narrow hallway with three doors on the west wall, and four on the east side.  Niamh led her to the end of the hall, and pushed that door open.
	“This is the master bedroom.  I’m afraid that there aren’t any sheets, but I might be able to find you a blanket or something.  The bed is more comfortable than it looks,” she said.
	“That doesn't matter.  It's more than I had back home,” said Ciara.  
	The room was almost as big as the whole apartment she’d shared with her mother.  The bed looked like it could easily hold three people, and the mattress was new.  Not even Connor had been able to afford new mattresses for the last five years.  When she sat down she sank an inch.
	“You’ve come a long way, you must be exhausted.  I’ll let you get some sleep, and I’ll come back by tomorrow, to see if you need anything.  Okay?” said Niamh.  
	Ciara nodded, and she was asleep as soon as she lay down.