It was easy to steal cheese from the kitchen gallery. Errol might not have been kitchen staff, but he knew how to blend into the crowd of kitchen girls and he knew how to smile at the cook when he was caught. However, this evening, things were different. It was Saints' Day, and the last day of the Candletide season.
The cook already had a nice plump cheese waiting for him, adorned with tiny cranberries and small mint leaves.
Errol would save the mint leaves for himself, but he would split the cranberries just like he would share the cheese.
Could rats eat cranberries? Fool! He should've looked into that before he left the great library and castle behind. Unless there weren't any books about rats, which was possible, really everything Errol had learned about rats came from Fink. Not long after Fink was adopted into the royal family, Errol was charged with a large secret.
Fink entrusted him with checking in on a dear friend once a week. As Fink got older, he was often selected to accompany both Roden and Mott on patrol. Fink had been asked to investigate the ruins of King Artolius's castle ruins, and hadn't been present in Drylliad for several days.
Normally, Errol would allow Fink's dear friend to handle herself; she was a rat, after all, and most animals knew how to care for themselves. However, the last time Errol had seen the rat, she'd been bloated and lethargic, bad signs in an animal during the height of winter snowstorms. And then there was the snowstorm from several days ago that left the streets coated in white.
There was no harm in checking on Ninette on Saints' Day. Fink would be home soon, and if his rat died, it would've been better for Fink to learn of Ninette's death from another person rather than stumbling upon the carcass on his own.
"I suppose I've done worse things," Errol mused as he balanced the plate of cheese and cranberries on one hand, and opened the door to one of Drylliad's cathedral prayer gardens. Ninette often hid in the cellar reached through the garden's second wooden door.
Memories of breaking rules threatened to remind Errol of how much he owed other people. But there were better things to think of, rather than dwell on his odd experiences as friend to the Ascendant King.
Things to think of like how the shrine to the Saints at the end of the garden looked so warm and cozy in the snow. A wide shell-like shelf bowed over several weathered statues of Carthya's patron Saints. The path to prayer stones and the shrine had been swept free of snow. Little paw prints dotted the wintry blanket.
Little paw prints.
How odd. Most outdoor animals had gone into hibernation or were running for their lives from the royal mouser.
Curiosity got the best of Errol, and he shuffled to the shrine. He held the plate high above his head, and squinted at the icons.