Ciara—Mushroom Soup

	It was nearly dark by the time Ciara got back to the city gates.  She’d gotten lost in the twisting streets and wandered blindly for an hour before finding her way again.  The main roads snarled around themselves as much as they little paths did, and in every part of the city the buildings had been built close together to give the illusion of cover that cats liked so much.
	The gates were shut, just as Sabia had said, and the guard on them was double what it had been earlier.  Six lynxes were stationed around the entrance, each armed with a sword and a lantern.  They wore armor that looked like fish scales made out of metal and two of them had bows as tall as they were.
	She didn't think they would shoot her, even if she walked right into the middle of them. Three of them were busy passing a cigarette back and forth, and a one of the others was busy writing in his journal.  She ducked into the shadow of a nearby tavern and watched them until she was certain they hadn't seen her.
	The wall of the building was still warm from the sun, which came as a relief after the dampness of the castle, and she pressed her back against the bricks to soak up the heat.  The smell of cooking coming from under the door reminded her that it had been a long time since she had eaten.  She felt a little safer now, with half a city between her and Sabia, and she was sure nothing could happen in the time it took to eat a sandwich.  If she ate fast, nobody wold notice a little vixen like her.
	The bar was no more than a single large room with a spintery wooden floor covered with straw.  There was a drinks counter made of a few planks of wood that had been nailed together and behind that was a bank of crude shelves.  On these shelves were bottles of more kinds of alcohol than anyone in Oseille would have ever been able to afford.  The room was filled with lynxes, all of whom were seated around low, uneven tables.  The room went quiet when the door shut and everyone turned to look at her.  She wondered how many of them could see the red in her fur and it scared her to think that none of them might look any further than that.  With Niamh and Embarr behind her it wouldn’t have mattered so much.  It was easy to put up a brave front when she had someone behind her.  Now, she felt small and alone, and it was only her hunger that kept her from bolting back outside.
	After a moment, though, the cats turned away and got on with their drinking.  There were one or two sniggers but nobody gave her a second look.  With the door shut, the bar was uncomfortably hot.  There was a squat iron stove at the back of the room with a few pots of something set on top of it.  An old grey fox stood next to it, prodding the fire with a poker.  He was dressed in a blue and silver uniform similar to the one that Alana had worn in Oseille, though his had more braid on the sleeves.
	Her stomach complained again and she abandoned the safety of the doorway for the bar.  As she approached, the old fox leaned on the splitery counter and bared his teeth at her.
	“Look what slipped its leash,” he said.
	“That's a nice way to greet a customer,” said Ciara.
	“It's better than you deserve.  The Lady shouldn't even let things like you inside the gates,” he said.
	“I’m no worse than you are,” she said.
	“You think so?  What kind of fox wants to live with rabbits?  Even a half-breed bitch like you should know better than that,” he said.
	“I know better than to judge people by what species they are.  And I know better than to pick a fight with someone I don’t know anything about.”
	He lashed out with a hand and grabbed her wrist.  He dug his claws into her flesh when she tried to squirm free and pulled her halfway across the counter.
	“I know you.  I saw you at the gate with our new General.  You’ve come on your knees to beg for peace because you’re weak.  Living with rabbits has made you frightened of everything, just like they are,” he said.
	“I am frightened because I have good reason to be, but I came anyway.  I didn’t hide away in a bar to drink myself to death,” she said.
	He dug his claws in harder and she sank her teeth into the side of his hand.  He yelped and let go of her.  She shoved him away, knocking him back into the shelves behind him, and she retreated to the door.
	“I know what I am and I’m not ashamed of it.  I'd rather be a rabbit than live like you,” she said.
	He pulled himself up to his knees and took a knife from underneath the bar.  He was panting and shaking so much that the point of his knife weaved back and forth in front of him.  But he wasn’t really hurt and now he had his breath back.  Ciara pulled the door open, and ran.  She forgot about the guards around the gate, and about how easy it was to get lost in the city.  Neither of these seemed as important, now, as getting out of the bar in one piece.
	She was reminded of all of this when she ran into Alana, who was coming out of a side street.  Alana's feet slipped on the damp street and Ciara winced when the little cat hit the ground.  She hesitated, torn between helping Alana and getting away, until the cat grabbed her wrist in both hands.
	“Stay put.  It took long enough to find you this time,” said Alana
	The door of the bar burst open and the old fox stomped across the square, holding his knife in front of him.  He’d picked up a bottle of whiskey, too, and Ciara could smell the alcohol from where she was standing.  The fox pulled up short when Alana snarled at him, but he spat on the ground at her feet.
	“That vixen is a spy, and worse.  You heard her spreading her lies out there on the street,” he said.
	“I did no such thing,” said Ciara.
	“You keep your mouth shut,” said the fox “Captain, this girl--”
	“She's my guest,” said Alana.
	“Guest indeed.  You just want the money for catching her for yourself,” he said.
	He bared his fangs, and came out of the door with his dagger raised, but he’d lost some of his swagger.  Alana tightened her grip and stood her ground.
	“Nobody’s going to get any money.  She’s been placed under the Queen’s Protection, until I can figure out what to do with her,” said Alana.
	“Oh, I'll bet she has.  I'm sure Our Dear Lady would be thrilled to hear of it,” said the grey fox.
	Alana threw a scattering of silver coins at the old fox's feet.  He jumped back, startled and dropped his knife to save his liquor.
	“That’s the best you're going to get, and you don’t deserve that.  Now crawl back into your bottle and leave us alone,” said Alana.
	The grey fox fell to his knees and scrabbled on the ground for the coins.  Alana wheeled Ciara around and shoved her into the alley on the other side of the street.  They followed it for a while, until Ciara was sure that they were safely away from the bar.
	“I told you not to run off,” said Alana.
	“I don’t like being locked up.  That’s what Sabia had in mind, wasn't it?” said Ciara.
	“I don’t think she wants to hurt you.  She just wants to keep your mother in line,” said Alana.
	“As long as she's getting paid, Mom will do anything anybody wants,” said Ciara.
	“I don't know.  I have a feeling that if she thought you were in any real danger, she'd walk through Hell itself for you.”
	“But she left, anyway.”
	Ciara looked down the alley ahead of them.  If she started running it would be easy enough to lose Alana again.  Even if she didn’t know her way around she was fast enough to keep from getting caught and small enough to hide in places most lynxes couldn’t fit.
	“Your mother is leading the first wave of reinforcements to Oseille, to try to break the stalemate there.  Neither side is going to give up until they win, or they destroy the place.  Nobody cares about anyone who lives there, except you,” said Alana, and she spat on the ground.
	“You care, too.  Don’t you?” she said.
	“We should know better.  Everything we're fighting about was supposed to have been settled by the last war,” said Alana.
	 The little cat went down the alley, without looking back.  Ciara followed her.
	“I didn’t think that you even liked rabbits,” said Ciara.
	Alana snorted, and ducked down a third alley that Ciara would have missed even in daylight.
	“I would have thought you'd understand all about someone being different,” said the girl.
	They finally stopped in front of a squat, square building with small, barred windows and a wooden door that had been reinforced with bands of steel.  Like the rest of the city it looked run down, and one of the windows was cracked and covered up on the inside with a piece of wood.  Alana took a key out of her pocket and, with some effort because of how badly the lock was rusted, opened the door.
	“I thought you lived in the castle, with your mother,” said Ciara.
	“She'd like me to.  It would be easier for her to keep any eye on me there.  I told her that the only way I'd stay in the army is if I got a place of my own,” said Alana.
	“Why do you stay?” said Ciara.
	“What else can I do?  Your mother is right about one thing.  Once you've spent so long as a soldier, you can't do anything else,” said Alana.
	She gave the door a push and it swung further open, until it banged into something on the other side.  Ciara took a step back, and sniffed the air.  She didn’t smell anything inside the house except dust, but that didn’t do much to reassure her.
	“Last time I followed you through a door, I was sorry,” she said.
	“That wasn’t my fault.  Look, your mother wants me to keep you safe, and that’s all I’m trying to do.  I asked you to stay in the castle, because that’s the safest place in the city.  This is the only other place I know to take you and you need to trust me,” said Alana.
	Ciara sniffed again and didn’t smell anything different.  She took another little step back, but everything else frightened her more than Alana did.
	“Are you telling the truth?” she said.
	Alana gave her a non-commital wave of the hand.
	“Close enough.  You have to sleep somewhere, don’t you?  If you’re really worried about it, I’ll give you the spare key.”
	The cat ducked through the door and there was a sound of furniture being moved.  Ciara went in after her, for fear of who might be lurking in the darkness.
	The ceiling of the little house was low enough that Ciara could read up and touch it with her palm without stretching.  Alana had to stoop to fit and even then the tufts of fur on the tips of her ears brushed the ceiling.  The floor was littered with cardboard boxes and the light that came in through the one unbroken window was so dim that she only saw the ones that were in her way when she banged her shins on them.
	Alana moved easily through the mess and busied herself at the back of the room for a minute.  When she was finished there she hung a large glass lantern on a hook that had been screwed into a beam of wood in the middle of the room.  She lit it with a long wooden match and toyed with the wick until they could see the room.  The one lantern didn’t shed as much light as Ciara would have liked but it made the shadows in the room a little friendlier.  It also let her see that, besides the table, the only furniture in the room was a narrow cot by one wall, and a small camp stove that had been set up on the floor under the lantern.  Thick cushions had been set up in a circle around the stove to make the place more comfortable.
	“You might have been happier in a room in the castle.  You would have a had a real bed,” said Alana.
	“I doubt it.  I hate the cold.  I grew up in Cearnach Castle and it was always freezing there, even in the summer,” said Ciara.
	“You could have had a fire.  You just would have had to have kept it secret from Mom,” said Alana.
	The cat went back to the other side of the room and dragged a box out from under the table.  She pried the lid off of it, and dragged it to the middle of the room.
	“I don’t understand this place.  You have more money here than any other city on the island and you spend it all on your army, while even your Queen sleeps in a room like a monk's cell.  We do better than that back home,” said Ciara.
	“So I’ve told her,” said Alana.
	Ciara sat down on one of the cushions, and wrapped her tail around herself to keep warm while Alana lit the stove.  When it was burning to the girl's satisfaction, Alana emptied a can of broth into a saucepan and sliced mushrooms into it with her claws.
	“Deirdre told me you went all the way to Cearnach to try to talk Connor into trying to make peace.  That was brave, but you should have known better,” said the cat.
	“He wouldn't hurt me.  He's not as bad as you think he is,” said Ciara,
	“Of course not.  But he won't change his mind, either.  He and Mom hate each other too much,” said Alana.
	The smell coming from the pan made Ciara’s stomach growl again and she blushed, afraid that Alana would hear.
	“It wouldn’t hurt to try again,” she said.
	“It could.  Last time, Mom threatened to disown me.  I don’t like what’s happening any more than you do, but she’s all the family I’ve got and she needs me,” said Alana.
	They ate without looking at each other.  The mushrooms were old, and the soup was rather bland, but Ciara could have drunk the whole pot.
	“You don't need her, though, do you?” said Ciara.
	“What kind of thing is that to say?”
	“It's the truth.  Get Deirdre to help and you could stop this before it goes too far, and Sabia won't dare say a word.”
	“She wouldn't have to.  She'd shoot me for treason.”
	“Or maybe she's just waiting for you to stand up to her for the first time in your life,” said Ciara.
	Alana's ears went flat and Ciara saw the dampness around the girl's eyes before she turned her head away.
	“You don't have any idea how lucky you are.  I've never met anyone whose parents were as useless at the job as yours.  But they love you, and what you are doesn't make a difference to them,” said Alana.
	“Why would it?  This isn't the dark ages.  Whatever some people might think, nobody drowns hybrids at birth anymore,” said Ciara.
	“No.  Some might say we're lucky there.  How long have you known?” said Alana.
	“I knew what you were when I saw you in the Red Wolf,” said Ciara.
	“I see.  Welll, I might have been better off if I had been drowned,” said Alana.
	The little lynx shrugged off her jacket and pulled the bottom of her shirt up.  It was difficult to see in the poor light, but the reddish-grey fur on her arms and stomach was broken by several dark spots like ink.  When Alana rolled up her pants legs, there were more spots on her legs, up to her knees.
	“Mom told me about my father once when I was twelve and she was very drunk.  She said he was a margay, one of those strange little cats from the far south.  He was a priest, a holy pilgrim on his way to find God,” said Alana.
	“Not someone I would have expected Sabia to be interested in,” said Ciara.
	“No.  I guess we all fall in love with the wrong person once in our lives,” said Alana.
	“Then when he left her to look for his god again, your mother blamed you,” said Ciara.
	“She doesn't believe in any god.  Neither do I.  But she doesn't believe in anything else, either.  I'm sure my father could see that.”
	Alana put her coat back on, and scooted closer to the stove.
	“Mom cut my tail off when I was eight.  It wasn't very long, but you could tell what I was.  She used a kitchen knife, then poured a glass of whiskey over the end so it wouldn't get infected and told me to stop crying,” said Alana.
	After supper was over, Alana cleared away the dishes and banked the stove to a comfortable glow.  Ciara squirmed on her cushion in an attempt to find a more comfortable position and leaned back against the wall.  It had been a long day and now she was warm and fed, all she wanted was to go to sleep.
	Alana tossed a key into her lap.  
	“Stay here, and get some rest.  I know you hate this place and I don’t blame you.  But I have things to do, and I might not be able to help you next time,” said Alana.
	“I’ll stay,” said Ciara.
	“Smart vixen.  Otherwise, I’d have locked the door from the outside,” said Alana.
	After she was gone Ciara blew the lantern out and lay down on the cot, which creaked and shuddered under her.  The canvas was slightly bloodstained and it sagged under her weight, but it was comfortable.  She turned over once, to wrap the blankets around her, and fell asleep.