The Revolution and the Fox Read online

  The Revolution and the Fox

  Book 4 of The Calatians

  Tim Susman

  The Revolution and the Fox

  Copyright © Tim Susman 2021

  Production © Argyll Productions 2021

  Cover and interior artwork © Laura Garabedian 2021

  http://www.FairyTalesWithTails.com

  Print edition published by Argyll Productions

  Dallas, Texas

  www.argyllproductions.com

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No portion of this work may be reproduced in any form, in any medium, without the expressed permission of the author.

  To Laura,

  whose art breathed life into these stories

  Contents

  1. The Exposition

  2. Amsterdam

  3. Dierenpark

  4. Trippenhuis

  5. Unwelcome Meetings

  6. On Demons

  7. Spectacle

  8. Disappearances

  9. Paris

  10. The Competition

  11. Victor's Spell

  12. Revolution

  13. Refugees

  14. Less Than Human

  15. Desperate Measures

  16. Summoning

  17. Betrayal

  18. Kip’s Gambit

  19. On Demons, Again

  20. The Great Feat

  21. Reconstruction

  22. Another Revolution

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Artist

  Also by Tim Susman

  1

  The Exposition

  Kip stomped into Emily’s office in the Lutris School brandishing a small bound pamphlet, his fox’s ears flat back against his head, his tail bristled out despite his efforts to control it. “Have you seen this?” he asked, and threw the pamphlet down on her desk.

  The large raven on the windowsill behind Emily jumped and fluttered her wings at the noise. Emily didn’t react to the pamphlet until she’d finished adding a column of numbers, and then she pushed aside the ledger she was working on and turned the thin booklet to face her. “‘The Softest Fur,’” she read from the cover, which featured a crude drawing of a man with a fox’s head and tail embracing a human woman. “Is this supposed to be you and me?”

  “Yes.” Kip stared down as she flipped to the first page and read. “Abel brought it back from London. It’s—embarrassing.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. ‘His claws traced the milky-white her breast.’ Apart from the hideous grammar, it’s actually not bad.” She set the pamphlet down and slid open one of the drawers of her desk. “Have you seen the one about me and Abigail Adams?”

  Kip’s ears came back up as she handed him another pamphlet, smaller than the one he’d brought. “‘The Comfort of a Beast’? Am I in this too?”

  “I think that’s meant to be ‘breast,’” Emily said. “My former husband gave it to me when he came to one of Abigail’s lectures.”

  “Did he write it?” Kip searched the pamphlet for an author’s name but found none.

  “Honestly, it’s too inventive for Thomas. Besides, whoever wrote it, I don’t think he’s seen a woman’s body. He has a very curious idea of where things are and how they work.” She picked up ‘The Softest Fur’ again. “Does this one have sorcery in it?”

  “Yes,” Kip said. “But they have no idea how that works either.” He gave her pamphlet back to her. “You may keep it if you like.”

  “I shouldn’t let it worry you,” Emily said as she slipped both pamphlets into the drawer and closed it. “Thomas wanted me to be embarrassed and it quite took the wind from his sails when I accepted the thing cheerfully. It’s a sign of respect. Not everyone gets made into the subject of a penny dreadful, you know.”

  “I think it’s another tactic of Victor’s.”

  Emily tapped fingers on her desk. “I would think he would at least know how sorcery works.”

  “I’m serious.” Kip slumped into the chair on the other side of her desk. The warm breeze from the window brought scents of flowers from the peach trees that had given the town its name. Usually he enjoyed the sweet smell as a reminder of the territory owned by Calatians, but today he was more than usually aware of how precarious their school and that territory were. “He won’t give up, ever.”

  “All we know for sure that he’s done is write some columns in the Boston papers that were not very well received.”

  “Enough people talked about them.”

  “I know you think he was behind the protests against the Lutris School and the movement to deny us the Master rituals—”

  “I’m certain of it. The language in the complaints was the same as he used in the columns.”

  “—but you have to admit that he’s hardly the only one who thinks we don’t deserve to start our own school.”

  “When Alice and I went to visit her parents, I paid a visit to Master Jaeger and I asked him, and he said he doesn’t believe anyone at the American school was behind it, and Victor is in London now. Who else would do it anonymously? He knows he has no position of authority.”

  “Even if it is him,” Emily said tiredly, “what are we to do about it? Go to London and have a stern talk with him? Believe me, I would love to drop him in the ocean somewhere and be done with him, but if he’s under London’s protection, that could—”

  “I know, I know.” Kip’s tail lashed. “It would almost be worth an international incident to be rid of him. I just worry about what he’ll do next. It’s been two years since the war ended and he hasn’t stopped.”

  “If his best remaining tactic is a penny dreadful, then I think you can sleep more soundly. About him, anyway.” Emily pulled the ledger back toward her. “Did you come up here just to show me that? I’ve got several more pages of numbers before I can officially tell you whether we’re going to run out of money in three months or four. And that has nothing to do with Victor.”

  “I know that.” Kip craned his neck to look at the figures. “No, I came to tell you that Alice is expecting, so she won’t be coming with us to the Exposition of Sorcery.”

  “Oh!” Emily brightened. “Congratulations. Are you nervous at all?”

  He shook his head. “I’m anxious to get back to Amsterdam. I know not all the Calatians there like me, but—what?”

  Emily was glaring at him. “I meant, are you nervous about her health, or about becoming a father?”

  “Of course I’m worried about her health,” Kip said. “In New Cambridge we always had a healer nearby for the births. It’s not just as a teacher that a healer is lacking here, so we must find one at the Exposition. If not, we haven’t any hope. Unless you want to reconsider allowing Peter to teach.”

  “We can’t risk the school’s only guardian,” Emily said. “And I’m not sure he would agree to teach anyway.”

  Kip nodded. “As for becoming a father…” He smiled tightly. “I will be the best father I can, but Abel will be there, and my father and mother, and Aran and Arabella, so Alice and I will have plenty of help. Her parents are talking about coming down from New Cambridge, but they would have to sell the farm and buy a new one, and I can bring them back and forth as they like, so they may settle for extended visits. They’ll be here for the christening, at least.”

  “Better you than me. This tedious work gives me a new respect for our disgraced Master Patris. I’d never be able to do it and then tend to an infant as well.”

  “What, Malcolm wouldn’t help?”

  Emily looked up over the rim of her spectacles. “My dear Irishman has many excellent qualities, but progressive ideas about the responsibilities of child care are sadly
not among them.”

  “I suppose nobody’s been reminding you every day about your duty to produce offspring.”

  “No, Mother gave up on me when I ran off to become a sorcerer, which she equates with becoming a man.” Emily tapped the ledger. “And if she could see me now, she would be even more convinced of that. Speaking of…we should discuss how we intend to approach nobles at Amsterdam, now that it’s only a couple days away.”

  Kip nodded. “Can we just tell them we need money to keep the school open?”

  “Abigail says that it’s not wise to confess how much you need money. It puts them off.”

  “How does one approach them, then?”

  “You talk about how you’d like to do more for the students, but sadly, you haven’t got quite enough, and while you don’t need their money, it would certainly help. Even though we only have four masters technically employed by the college, that’s four masters we have to provide room and board and salary for—stop, I know you don’t want to take money, but Alice isn’t working and you have a family to support. So unfortunately we will probably have to offer sorcery in exchange for money.”

  “That doesn’t feel right.” Kip got up and swung his tail back and forth.

  “What, selling sorcery for money? You did as much with Old John.”

  “That was different.” He stopped and stared past Emily, as though they were in New Cambridge and he could see down the hill to the Founders Rest Inn. “I was doing work, little jobs, and John was giving me a place to live. What sorcery could I do that would be worth the amount we need? These moneyed people should be contributing because they want to invest in American sorcerers and help make us great.”

  “They’ve got the New Cambridge school for that.” Emily made a face. “I guarantee you that Master Colonel Jackson, the great hero of the Revolutionary War, has no trouble getting his friends to contribute.”

  “Hasn’t Mr. Adams said more than once that these two colleges are his best hope for keeping the confederation of states from all going their separate ways? That everyone needs our protection?”

  “I suppose one college fills that need as well as two. At any rate, whenever I’m invited to meetings, which isn’t often, I have to speak up to remind them that we exist, and I’m afraid that this government of men has come to think of me as a nag. Mr. Madison advised me to seek money closer to home, but did not offer to provide any of it, naturally.” She scoffed. “Virginians are very quick to propose solutions that do not involve them doing any work.”

  Kip tapped his foot. “I asked Bryce again about money yesterday. He said that until we get a harvest this fall, they won’t have much to spare, but after that the East Georgia government might be able to contribute a little.”

  “That’ll help. But it doesn’t sound hopeful to keep us going even through the winter.”

  The fox shook his head. “And with no promises from our country, even though we helped end the war—”

  “The position that East Georgia was our reward is a not unreasonable one.” Emily smiled.

  “I know, I know.” Kip heaved a sigh and stood, then walked over to Emily’s window and set his paws beside her raven, looking out over the entrance to the school, where large wrought iron gates leaned against the nearly-complete posts, waiting to be hung. Beyond the gates, a short brick path led to the town of Peachtree. Already the memory of the village when he’d first come to visit his parents felt disconnected from the large, sprawling town below him.

  “Hallo, Sleek,” he said to the bird, and she bobbed her head in response. He half-turned back to Emily and said, “The school went up quickly and we’re all established here, and I have to admit that it’s been more peaceful than I’d imagined possible.”

  “Then don’t worry. Come with me to Amsterdam and find some healers to pay with the money I’m going to raise.”

  He lowered his head, looking inward now. “Do you think Victor will be there?”

  “It’s a place only for those who can do sorcery,” Emily said. “Of course he will find a way in. And so what if he is?”

  “It’s Victor. I know he’s up to something. He won’t stop until—”

  “Kip.”

  The fox turned from the window. Emily had turned sympathetic eyes on him. “We all know who he is and what he is. Need I remind you that Albright is gone?”

  “‘Gone.’ Nobody will say whether he’s dead, in prison, or simply living at the King’s pleasure in hiding somewhere. Perhaps still instructing Victor.”

  “If you keep obsessing over him—either of them—then they’re winning a battle without lifting a finger. Let him go, Kip.” Emily waved at her ledger. “Now, if you don’t mind, I do need to finish this.”

  Kip leaned back against the window. “Did Malcolm decide whether he’s bringing the students to the Exposition? If he’s not going, I don’t mind sharing a room there with you if it would save the school some money. We’ve done it before.”

  She raised an eyebrow and pulled out the drawer from her desk, where the pamphlet he’d brought in still lay. “Have you forgotten this so quickly?”

  “Oh.” His ears flattened, and he shook his head. “You’re right.”

  “Not that I’d let a penny dreadful stop me from saving the school money if it was important,” she said, closing the drawer, “but for one, Malcolm and the students are going, and for another, I rather suspect Alice will want some privacy even from me.”

  “Alice isn’t going.” Kip went on in the face of Emily’s growing smile. “She’s pregnant. She can’t. What?”

  “Oh,” Emily said, “I was just wondering whether I should send Sleek to follow you home so I could watch you try to tell her that.”

  Back at the house he shared with Alice, Abel, and Abel’s cubs, Kip called Alice’s name from the small foyer. “In here,” she replied from the main bedroom upstairs, and a moment later Kip’s raven Ash sailed in from the back of the house to land on his shoulder.

  The house, newly built by Calatians from the town in the past year, followed an open floor plan for the warmer climate and its Calatian residents. The foyer led directly to the wide staircase, and to the left and right, large open doorways led to the dining room and parlor, respectively. Both the great oak table in the dining room and the plush blue chairs of the parlor sat empty as Kip passed them, then walked up the stairs and to the main bedroom.

  When he walked in, he breathed in Alice’s scent and his heart quickened a little, as it often did. She looked lovely in her plain white nightdress, and though each of her paws held a gown, he walked forward quickly to rub his muzzle to hers and rest a paw on her hip. He might have held the kiss longer but for the presence of nine-year-old Arabella sitting next to the bed, who said, “Hallo, Daddy Kip,” as he entered.

  Alice kissed him back with a bright smile and held up the gowns. “Which one do you think is better? I like the blue one because it’s more comfortable, but the yellow one goes better with my fur and also I think it’s more formal. Oh, but the blue one would look better under a purple robe.”

  “I like the blue one,” Arabella announced, swinging her legs and tail. “I like patterns better than flowers.”

  “I do too, but the flowers are more elegant, and there are only a few of them.” Alice weighed them and looked again at Kip.

  He smiled and shook his head. “There’s no point in asking you not to go, is there?”

  “None.”

  “You’re—”

  He gestured at her midsection, but she cut him off before he could say it. “Yes, I am, and what of it? It’ll be months still until that slows me down. After that, yes, there will be a long time where I won’t be able to travel or go anywhere interesting. But that time hasn’t started yet, and I’m not about to allow it to start now.”

  Arabella frowned, looking between them. “What’s going to slow you down?”

  “Remember, you’re going to have a new sister or brother?” Alice asked. They had talked, the three of t
hem, about whether to call Alice’s cub a “step-sibling,” and Kip and Alice had both told Abel that they wanted their cubs to be considered full siblings to Aran and Arabella.

  “Ohhh.” Arabella put a paw over her own stomach. “It makes you slow?”

  Kip walked over to the gowns and touched the yellow one. Ash clicked her beak. “When Aran was little and you carried him around, didn’t you have to go slower? And be careful with him?”

  Arabella looked back to Alice. “Yes, I see.”

  “I’m not carrying around anything like Aran’s weight yet,” Alice said, “and it’s only a few days in Amsterdam. Emily will send me right back if there’s any trouble. Besides,” she added, “there’s more likely to be healers there than here. And if I’m to be a sorcerer, I should be a sorcerer whenever I can and want. And I can, and I do want.”

  “All right, all right.” Kip had little desire to pursue the argument; being in her presence reminded him that he did want her to come along.

  “Speaking of…” Alice paused. “Do you think you might ask one of the sorcerers there about your dream?”

  “I’m done with that.” He pulled the sleeve of the yellow gown up. “I like the pattern on this one better. Where’s Abel? Have you told him we’re going?”

  “Not officially, but I’m sure he’s worked it out.”

  “Daddy’s out in the garden,” Arabella said.

  “Do you want time with him tonight?” Alice asked. “I don’t mind. I’ll be busy packing, and we’ll be together over in Amsterdam.”

  “Thank you,” Kip said, turning to the door. “I know it’s out of turn, but I think so, if that’s all right.”