In the City of Cats

Part 13

	The city of Blackpool was a funeral pyre now, too.  With both Deirdre and Nessa away, the lynxes had mounted a desperate revolt against their old enemies.  Queen Fithir and what was left of her officers had done their best to keep control of the rest of the Cearnach fighters, but there were too many old grievances. After the initial surprise of Blackpool's assault, Cearnach had launched a counter attack that had crushed the last of the defenders and demolished most of what was left of the city.
	“That's pretty much the whole story.  Crovan knew it would happen when he kidnapped Ciara.  He had to,” Fithir said.
	“It was also the only chance he had,” Ciara said.
	“I didn't want it to happen,” Fithir said.
	“Is that really true?” Ciara said.
	The hurt look on Fithir's face was enough of an answer.  Fithir was nothing like Sabia.  The Queen of Cearnach wasn't a soldier, she was just an ordinary person who did her best and who was really too meek for the job she had to do.
	“We've all been on this miserable island for a thousand years.  How many times did we try to make friends?” Ciara said.
	“Never,” Deirdre said, and her tone was bitter “Crovan was right.  We're well on the way to destroying ourselves.”
	The Keep of Blackpool burned like a candle.  The city flag, dark blue with bars of silver, lay torn from its staff and trampled in the mud at Ciara's feet.  Those lynxes who could fled out of the city from every gate and every hole in the wall, most of them with nothing but what they could carry.  Ciara wondered how it could be that so many innocent people had died in just a handful of days.
	Niamh met them at the door of Deirdre's tent and she pushed a mug of hot tea into Ciara's hands and slipped an arm around Ciara's waist, settling into her old, comfortable embrace.
	“You can't change the world all by yourself.  For good or ill,” Niamh said.
	“But we could have done better than this.  We could do more than just watch people die,” Ciara said.
	“Just like Crovan told you, you care.  That's all you can do, sometimes,” Deirdre said.
	Deirdre put an arm around both of them.  She smelled of whiskey and leather polish, the way Ciara remembered her from the earliest days of her childhood, with the same hint of what Ciara could only think of as bone weariness.  There had been a time when her mother's scent had made her angry, and she has blamed her mother for all the bad things that had happened to them.  Now, her Deirdre's embrace made her feel safe and protected in a way she hadn't felt for half her life.
	“I used to dream of this day.  Twenty years ago I'd have been down there leading the charge myself, just like that goddamned fool Nessa is doing now,” Deirdre said, then she smiled just a little “Then there's you.  Who would have ever thought I could raise such a smart girl?  Maybe there's hope for the future yet.”

	That night, for the first time in her life, Ciara got thoroughly drunk.  She and Niamh lay curled up together in the pile of blankets Deirdre had scrounged for them, and they shared a bottle of whiskey sip for sip.  The alcohol burned her throat and made her feel light headed and disconnected from herself.  It made her feel better for a little while.  Then she broke down crying.  She could still see Alana's grave in front of her, and Crovan's body as it was lifted up onto the pyre.  But the warmth of Niamh's arms around her and the sweetness of her wife's breath when they kissed lifted her up out of her pain a little.
	“I think I understand Deirdre better than I ever have in my life,” Ciara said.
	“I was afraid of that,” Niamh said.
	Niamh tipped a generous amount of whiskey into her mouth and shivered a little.  Then she laid her head on Ciara's shoulder.
	“If I didn't think you'd hate me so much for it, I'd grab you by the ear and drag you back to Oseille tonight,” Niamh said.
	“If I thought Deirdre would come too, I'd go,” Ciara said.
	“Fiachra could see to that.  He's really quite fond of her, you know.  I never knew our mother, but he says Deirdre reminds him of her,” Niamh said.
	“I think she'd be flattered,” Ciara said.
	It came as no surprise when the tent flap opened and Nessa stormed in.  The young General wrinkled her nose at the smell of the alcohol and her upper lip curled back in disgust, showing sharp white teeth.
	“Just like your mother, I see,” Nessa said.
	“There are worse people to be than Deirdre Lohan.  If she has a failing, it's that she cares to much, just like me.  Or did you never wonder why she drinks?” Ciara said.
	“Did you want something, or are you just here to stomp and shout some more?” Niamh said.
	Nessa folded her hands and tried to fake a smile.  Ciara didn't think she'd attack them, but she wasn't inclined to trust anyone who would stoop to ambush.
	“You're lucky girls.  You get to go home,” Nessa said.
	“Now?  But what about Fithir?  She still needs our help,” Ciara said.
	“You think so?  It was Queen Fithir herself who ordered me to see you out of the city,” Nessa said.
	“But what about Brigit?  She's still hurt and I can't just leave her,” Niamh said.
	“Do you really think we want a rabbit to help us take care of our own?  We've had more than enough of outsiders as it is, and you see where its gotten us,” Nessa said.
	The young General grabbed Niamh's arm and pulled her to her feet.  Nessa went to grab Ciara the same way, but Niamh kicked the General in her shin which distracted her long enough for Ciara to scramble out of her reach.
	“Foxes never think they need rabbits, until they come begging us for help,” Niamh said.
	“As you wish.  Our queen is a sentimentalist.  Like you she wishes the world could be a different place.  Which is stupid, but lucky for you,” Nessa said.
	“So you've taken it on yourself to see to it everything goes on the way it always has, have you?  You're worse than Sabia was.  At least she was honest about what she was,” Niamh said.
	Niamh sank her claws into Nessa's wrist and ran to Ciara's arms when the General let her go.  Ciara could feel her wife trembling with fear and anger and her hand automatically fell to her hip, where her sword should be.  Then she caught the look of pleading on Niamh's face and she let her hand drop.
	“I hope you never have to find out how wrong you are,” Ciara said.
	Nessa shoved the tent flap back out of the way and held it for them.
	“Go home.  What happens here is no longer any of your business,” Nessa said.
	“What about Deirdre?” Niamh said.
	“I quit,” Deirdre said.
	She ducked in under Nessa's arm and gave Niamh and Ciara both a kiss on the cheek.  Deirdre was dressed in a clean red and black uniform, the traditional colors of Cearnach City, but there was just a blank where her badge of rank should be.
	“Nessa's right.  There's nothing else for us to do here, and Fiachra's waiting just outside with Thirteen and a couple of new horses Fithir let us have,” Deirdre said.
	“You're going to give in?  Just like that?” Ciara said.
	“Oh, no.  I'm not finished yet.  But I can do more than just swing a sword, and at my age maybe it's time I found out what that is,” Deirdre said.
	Outside, what was left of Blackpool smoked in the fading sunlight.  The stink of burned wood and scorched bodies set Ciara's teeth on edge and made Niamh cry out.  Nessa led them up a small rise where they were met by Fiachra.  He led their horses behind him and he looked as defeated as Ciara felt.  When he saw her, he gave her a smile and tousled her hair, the way he had sometimes done when they were all children.
	“We acted out of love, little sister.  The rest was out of our hands,” he said.
	Ciara swung herself up onto Thirteen's back and turned the mare around for one last look at Blackpool.  She had the feeling it would be the last time she ever saw it.  The Cearnach camp was just a dark smudge at the base of the city walls, but Ciara was sure she could just make out Fithir and General Nessa, standing a little way apart, watching them.
	“When you chose your life with the rabbits over being Queen, that was when I knew you'd grown up in to a daughter I could be proud of,” Deirdre said.
	Ciara clucked her tongue and turned Thirteen back down the road to home.  There was still life and hope for the future in Oseille, and they could all be safe there for a while.  Ciara would make sure of that.