9 Tales O’ Cats
An Anthology of Fables of Fantastic Felines
by
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
All rights reserved
Copyright © October 2011, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Cover Art Copyright © 2011, Karen Gill
Gypsy Shadow Publishing
Lockhart, TX
www.gypsyshadow.com
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.
No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission from Gypsy Shadow Publishing.
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DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the memories of Andre Norton and Martin H. Greenberg, for whom most of these stories were written.
Publishing History:
1. The Queen’s Cat’s Tale © 1991 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. First appeared in Catfantastic II edited by Andre Norton and Martin H. Greenberg, Daw Books
2. Bastet’s Blessing © 1989 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. First appeared in Catfantastic edited by Andre Norton and Martin H. Greenberg, Daw Books
3. Mu Mao and the Court Oracle © 2001 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, first published in A Constellation of Cats, and in Feb. 2003, published in Scarborough Fair and Other Stories by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, published by 5 Star in conjunction with Tekno Books and Ed Gorman.
4. Boon Companion ©2002 by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, First published in Vengeance Fantastic by Tekno Books and Daw Books, reprinted 2003 in Scarborough Fair and Other Stories by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Five Star in conjunction with Tekno Books and Ed Gorman
5. Cat Among the Pigeons © 2005 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, first published in Magic Tales, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Janet Pack, Daw Books
6. The Cat Quest of Mu Mao the Magnificent proof ©1994 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. First appeared in Catfantastic III edited by Andre Norton and Martin H. Greenberg, Daw Books
7. Tinkler Tam and the Body Snatchers proof © 1999 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, first published in Cat Crimes Through Time edited by Ed Gorman, Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff, Carroll and Graf Books
8. Born Again © 1996 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, first appeared in Catfantastic IV, edited by Andre Norton and Martin H. Greenberg, Daw Books
9. Final Vows, © 1998 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, first appeared in Midnight Louie’s Pet Detectives, edited by Carole Nelson Douglas, reprinted 2003 in Scarborough Fair and Other Stories by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Five Star in conjunction with Tekno Books and Ed Gorman.
Annotated List of Stories
9 Tales O’ Cats (and 4 of the 9 Feline Lives of Mu Mao the Magnificent)
1. The Queen’s Cat’s Tale: Guinevere’s Cat tells the true story of the fall of Camelot
2. Bastet’s Blessing: An Egyptologist’s Cat curses some mummies
3. Mu Mao and the Court Oracle: The much-reincarnated feline bodhisattva, Mu Mao the Magnificent, first introduced in Last Refuge breaks out of an animal shelter to assist a depressed fellow inmate.
4. Boon Companion: A former barn cat learns how to be a true familiar to defend a young woman against greedy kinfolk.
5. The Cat Quest of Mu Mao the Magnificent: in which the much-reincarnated feline bodhisattva goes looking for love in all the wrong places.
6. Cat Among the Pigeons: the cat who ratted on the 12 Dancing Princesses tells how this fairy tale actually happened.
7. Born Again: In which Mu Mao the Magnificent, the cat who survived the end of the world, helps another cat in his quest for a reincarnation that will reunite him with his beloved human friend
8. Tinkler Tam and the Body Snatchers: A canny Traveller cat making his home in Edinburgh battles the greedy resurrectionists for the love of his friends.
9. Final Vows: This time Mu Mao the Magnificent appears as a secondary character in the story of a reincarnated cat attempting to solve his own betrayal and murder
1. THE QUEEN’S
CAT’S TALE
My first cat story for Andre Norton’s Cat Fantastic series of cat anthologies, this story was dedicated to Lady Jane Grey, a delicate and diffident tabby.
I’ve held my silence long enough and see no reason why my story cannot now be told. My children are grown, everyone concerned save only my lady and me has passed beyond, and though you’d never know it by looking at me, I’m getting on in years. So is my lady, drowsing now beside the fire. Her hair—that smelled so like wild violets I delighted to roll in its spring-bright strands during those long months when her lord was campaigning and we lay together for comfort . . . Ah her hair—where was I? Oh yes, (how one does wander as one gets on in years).
Her hair is now white as that cold stuff—snow, it’s called—that sticks to the paw pads and inevitably comes around whether it’s wanted or not.
Just like some people I could mention. But more about them later.
As I was saying, it’s peaceful here in this simple, quiet place, and although it is drafty, my fire. Of course, the idea is that we live here with the sisters because my lady has been humbled, you see, and they, she and the sisters, are supposed to be all the same, but snobbery springs eternal and my lady’s rank gets us our little fire and the choicest morsels and never a cross word about me even if I choose to sleep in the chapel. A queen—even a former queen, even a disgraced queen, is still top cat.
Not that we haven’t made many sacrifices. This is not as nice as the palace with its lovely fresh rushes twice a day and the delicious fur coverlets to nuzzle and knead and that little velvet cushion just for me. Not that I ever actually used the thing, mind you, but I appreciated having it reserved for my exclusive occupation nonetheless.
But those days have long since passed away, as soon shall I and my lady as well, though not necessarily in that order. Just in case I’m someday left alone I’ve taken as my protégée Sister Mary Immaculata a common but cheerful young calico who loves to hear of life among the quality. As well she might. For who came closer to any of them than me? Who knows better the truth behind the dreadful events that preceded the fall of Camelot, and who else fully realizes why anything or anyone worthwhile was salvaged from the entire mess? Who knows with more claw-bearing conviction than I the true villain of the piece?
And who besides myself and my lady knows the deepest, darkest, most private secret of the great and fearless Sir Lancelot DuLac himself? No one, that’s who. And so no one else is aware that this weakness in the great warrior is the crux of the entire matter. Ordinarily I would never cast aspersions on such a seemingly flawless reputation, but willy-nilly there’s no tampering with the plain and simple fact that Sir Lancelot was allergic to cats and it was this weakness that was the undoing of Camelot and the salvation of my lady.
When I say allergic, I do not mean dislike leading to the genteelly martyred sniffles some affect in my presence. Oh, no. Blew up like a toad, he did. Broke out in spots the size of mouse droppings. Got so itchy he looked like he was trying to dance a pavane in a seated position. Sneezed loud enough to be heard halfway to Cornwall. And his eyes, usually so clear, swelled shut as if encased in two red pillows.
And me? I was crazy about him. He was like catnip and cream to me. Something about his scent, I expect. But particularly when I was younger, I simply could not stop myself. No sooner did he walk in into the room than I twined around his ankles. No sooner did he drop his hand to the arm of a chair than I began grooming his fingers. No sooner was he seated at the Round Table than I leapt upon his shoulders and ran my tail beneath his nostrils, rubbing my face against his hair, purring like a chit of a kitten.
The other knights laughed at us and my lord, the king, looked rather sad that I had never so favored him, for he was very fond of cats and had given me as a kitten into my lady’s service, but I was shameless. My mother always told me it is a wise creature who knows her own mind and I knew that I wanted to be with Lancelot. Not that I ever got to spend a great deal of time with him. My lady would always come to pluck me away, though often I brought with me a bit of fabric or a strand of hair for a souvenir, to purr over at some later time. Lady Elaine, my lady’s minion, once tried removing me and all I will say about that is that she never tried again. Lancelot was too polite and too afraid of offending my lady to swat me. Also, I am quite sure he admired me from afar, for as events revealed, at one time he was fond of cats, despite his malady. My fur is very soft and my purr is very soothing, as my lady so often has said. I used to hope one day his iron will would overcome his unfortunate reactions to my presence.
Alas, we never had the chance to find out, for my lady, at the instigation of that beastly Elaine, shut me up in the privy tower whenever Lancelot was in the vicinity. After the time when I almost fell into the hole and had to be rescued after hanging on by a clawtip and screaming for hours before anyone heard me, I decided that my attraction to Lancelot was merely a superficial one, and whatever silly problems Lancelot had to overcome, he would have to find some other cat to train him out of them.
Never let it be said that I am anything but generous and patient to a fault, but I had my position to think of and my lady could not be expected to do without my services for long periods of time just because a mere knight, no matter how worthy, had what was really a rather comical reaction to cats.
So I hid. I hid in the little hollow of the crown at the top of Arthur’s throne, under the Round Table, and on nice days in one of the arrow slits overlooking the moat. I particularly liked the top of the canopied beds because I couldn’t be got down before I made sure the tapestries, as well as arms and faces, suffered, and I knew very well how much Lady Elaine hated mending. After awhile, they forgot to look for me, and I once again assumed my rightful duties as my lady’s chief confidante concerning the supervision of the business of the castle.
I could have told them never to let those two in, Mordred and that so-called cat of his. Any cat worth the water to drown her in could have told them that Mordred was the sort of boy who torments cats with unspeakable indignities (and I should know), not the sort to share a morsel and pillow and a bit of companionship with one of us. That alone should have warned them, as I could not, but since it did not, they should have realized what those two were up to at once when that so-called cat snuggled up to Lancelot and he didn’t even sniffle.
That should have told the humans, poor things, that something distinctly fishy was brewing and it wasn’t chowder. I knew at once, of course. The creature’s accent was dreadful and her manners worse.
I was in the garden when they arrived, Mordred riding his golden steed, that creature in a basket in front of him. I was engaged in efficiently rearranging the piled leaves the gardeners had gathered and paying no attention to traffic. My lady, His Majesty, and Sir Lancelot played dominoes on a nearby bench. Mordred, sweet as pie, dismounted, lifting down the basket more tenderly, I swear, than he ever did anything. To no avail. The nasty creature hopped out, landing with a plop in the middle of my leaves, where she sat as if she belonged. Naturally, I hissed at her and told her whose territory she was invading before giving her a pawful across the nose. She did not even do me the courtesy of hissing back. She did not raise a hair, did not arch her back. She merely flipped her tail as she deftly avoided my paw, rose, and sprang straight onto Lancelot’s lap.
I crouched expectantly, quick thumps of my tail sending the leaves flying like so many gold and orange birds flushed from the gorse. Soon she would get her comeuppance as he sneezed and swelled. I was not greatly surprised that no one stirred a finger to remove her. It had been some months since I had made my private, privy-bound decision to leave the man alone in his poor cat-deprived existence. I’ve noticed people have very short memories when it comes to who suffers what ailments, and a good thing that is, too, I suppose. But when, after several minutes, the knight’s long fingers strayed to stroke her sleek black-and-red mottled fur, and his eyes didn’t swell and he did not cough or sneeze, I confess I was quite insulted. To all appearances, he was unperturbed by the newcomer. To all appearances, therefore, he was not allergic to cats in general, but to me in particular.
Not that I cared, mind you. I’d given up on the man as hopeless already. I sat washing the fur of my stomach with great concentration whenever he glanced my way. But he did not glance my way. While Mordred charmed Their Majesties with soft words, the tortoiseshell slitted her sly gold eyes at my lady’s Champion and purred in a disgustingly ingratiating manner. And Lancelot, normally so intelligent and perceptive, called her la petite minou and fondled her ears while smiling like a total ninny.
I entertained myself listening to Mordred, who was attempting to convey greetings from the exiled witch, Morgan le Fey, the King’s sister. His Majesty did not want to hear about it. I had heard rumors that the witch was exiled for plotting the King’s murder. I have also heard rumors that she once stole Excalibur and arranged for the disappearance of the king’s old tutor, the wizard Merlin. Whatever the king’s true reason for her banishment, to him it was an urgent one: that brave and kind man’s brow sweated at the mere mention of her name.
My lady the queen nodded politely at everything Mordred said, but stretched out her hand to the newcomer in Lancelot’s lap, who arched so that her head butted my lady’s palm. Well! That was enough for me. I bounded from my leaf pile, not that anyone noticed, and twined about my lady’s ankles, plaintively reminding her who was her trusted associate and who was not. I was poised to jump up when Lancelot, the traitor, began sneezing and snotting and, though I couldn’t see for my lady’s skirts, swelling, I am sure. To my great satisfaction the tortoiseshell horror was dumped from his lap and I did a bit of swelling myself and lashed for her with my front paws. Bat-a-bat-bat! I would give her, mincing her nose. That would teach her to bring it interfering into the business of others.
But once more she neither cowered nor raised a hair to attack. She simply sat there and then, as I was poised to strike, emitted the most un-feline meow. Well! Really! I halted in mid-swipe, amazed at her dreadful shredding of our mutual language. Not even her apparent origin in the country could account for such noise. Before I could administer the chastisement due such a creature, rough hands grabbed me up, nearly breaking my ribs, and flung me into the fish pond.
If I had had any delusions that Mordred contained a scrap of decency, they would have vanished at that moment.
I dashed back into the kitchen to complain to cook’s mouser, who laughed at my soaked and bedraggled condition as heartily as ever did his mistress but allowed me a place by the fire. I make it a point to be always on good terms with the kitchen cat, as I may have mentioned.
From this inauspicious entrance, Mordred and his familiar, as I believed her to be, continued to ever more dastardly deeds. Mordred kept the King constantly upset, though he was outwardly polite to everyone else, and was especially smarmy to my lady and Lancelot. And that beast never let Lancelot alone while he was in the castle. What was worse, he tolerated her. He even seemed to like her. He never swelled at her, or sneezed at her, or broke out in spots from her. He was quite pleased with himself and with her, looking at her as if he had composed her himself.
I lay atop the canopy and watched them, mourning the ignorance of men. I knew something was wrong but I wasn’t sure what until I stalked her, one night, to Mordred’s lair in the east tower room.
Even as I stalked, I realized my instincts were correct and the beast was not what she seemed.
It was her scent, you see. She smelled not of honest cat musk, but of bitter herbs and night-blooming cereus.
And once behind the door, Mordred bolting it safely after her, she spoke. I knew it was her. I recognized where the accent derived at once. Her mews were the sort made mockingly to a cat by a woman who does not care for cats. Her new voice was like this too, nasty-sweet as the smell of a rotting carcass.
“This is rather fun,” she said, “But I hope you remembered my tray. I’m not about to actually eat one of those birds I’ve been catching for sport unless it’s properly marinated, spitted, basted, and served.”
“Oh, well said,” Mordred answered. “And I take it I must wait until our other quarry is likewise prepared before I may begin planning my coronation?”
“Certainly, my dear. As we cats might say, ‘patience.’”
I confronted her the first time I caught her alone. “See here, you, you, whatever you are. I’m onto you. And let me tell you, dearie, the pecking order is well established around here. My master is king,king; my mistress is queen, and Sir Lancelot their champion. He may be taken in by your mincing ways now, but if you and that pimple-faced princeling try anything with Their Majesties, he’ll make stew meat of you in a thrice, make no mistake.”
“What hideous noises you make. I can’t understand a word,” she said, and sashayed off. I sprang for her back, feeling her tail in my teeth as I leapt. But at the last moment, she was twenty flagstones away and I in midair before I landed—and not on my paws.
It was perfectly obvious to me then who she was, of course. Any cat who could escape my claws had to be using witchcraft. And the witch most closely associated with Mordred was none other than my lord’s chiefest bane, his sister Morgan le Fay.
Unfortunately, though I understand the human tongue quite well, my people were more limited when it comes to my language, and were wonderfully dense.
“Look at Gray Jane!” my lady laughed. “She is so jealous of Mordred’s little cat she cries all the time now for attention.”
Lancelot laughed and kept his distance, but the king very kindly knelt and stroked my ears. I tried hard to tell him who the intruder really was, and badly wished the old wizard was still there so that I might warn my good master that his old foe stalked him in a new guise.
But Merlin was long gone and I had only my own wits and skills on which to depend, so I stalked the witch myself. Lurking silent as dust in the shadows, I slunk behind her, through the rushes of the chambers to the flagstones of the halls, sliding along the walls and darting into corners if she stopped and turned. Once I let her see me, but she summoned Mordred. Fortunately, he was not quick enough to catch me and I always stayed well out of range of her tail. When that tail stilled a bird in flight so that it dropped into the yard so stone-like that I half-expected it to clatter, I knew that the tail was her wand.
By the waving of it, and the long gaze of her eyes, she had hypnotized Lancelot. I scooted in behind her as she padded through the half-open door into his chamber where he sat on the edge of his bed, his head bowed from the weariness of the day’s labor and the heavy responsibilities of being the king’s most trusted advisor. I dared not draw too near lest his allergies betray me, but I watched as she sprang onto the bed beside him, wriggled herself under his elbow and onto his knee, and sat gazing raptly up at him, the tail describing magic patterns in the air as she held his gaze. His hand, which had moved to stroke her back, hung in the air above her as she purred, sounding less like a real cat than like a Scotsman gargling.
But Lancelot did not know the difference. Nor, for a time, did he know anything else. When at last the witch jumped from his knee to the floor, he stood, belted on his sword, and sleepwalked to the door of the royal chamber.
The king answered. “Yes?”
“My lord, I—” he said. I darted past him into the chamber where my lady sat brushing her long golden hair. He sneezed abruptly and said. “I suppose, my Liege, I came to bid you and Queen Guinevere bon nuit and a well-deserved rest.” But he was covering his confusion. He had no idea why he was there.
I got some hint the next day of what the two malefactors were scheming when I followed the beast and Mordred to the Great Hall where the knights gathered to brag about their latest good deeds. Most of the knights never quite got the hang of virtue being its own reward—they enjoyed topping each other with stories of who was the most modest and selfless, but usually the knight talking finished, as did Sir Geraint that day, by proclaiming, “So honest and humble was I when I accepted the purse that poor clothier begged me to take for rescuing his daughter from the dragon that I’m sure God will notice my goodness and let me find the Grail first.”
“Poppycock! The Grail will be mine! I have the most calluses on my knees from praying,” Sir Gawain said.
“You can show them to us all if you like, sir,” Mordred said. “But I doubt you’ll have as many as Sir Lancelot, who will surely have the Grail as he has the confidence of the king and queen. He is so good,good; in fact, it’s a wonder he isn’t the king.”
Normally, such disloyalty would have been overridden, but with the witch sitting on Mordred’s shoulder, waving her tail, gargling R’s in a bad imitation of feline language, and gazing into the middle space among the knights, the louts didn’t seem to understand that anyone was being insulted.
“In fact,” Mordred said, languidly stroking the witch’s tail where it hung down over his shoulder, “I shouldn’t be at all surprised, you know, if he didn’t try to do something about it sometime. Really, the tradition is that the strongest and most infallible should lead, you know. I wonder if anyone, even the queen, would really object. Certainly Papa—I mean, the king—doesn’t seem to guard his own reputation that zealously. He practically allows Lancelot to run things as it is. And the queen seems to agree. But then, may the best man win as they always say.”
Someone should have said, “Nonsense, boy. The king has already won and no one could be happier than Lancelot and the queen.” Someone should have said, “How dare you sully the name of our gracious queen by even hinting that she is other than perfectly loyal to her royal husband, the king?” Someone certainly should have said, “Who does this fool think he is anyway? Throw him in the dungeon and that bedraggled piece of fur with him. Let her try to keep the rats from nibbling him.” But no one did.
My position as advisor and confidante of the queen has always been a more personal than a political one, but even I know treason and accusations of treason when I hear them. Mordred and his accomplice were casting a sticky net indeed to catch the three people who ruled the kingdom. My three people. I could not help but emit a hiss of indignation at the whole scene but remembered myself in time and slunk quietly away, resisting the urge to give that mealy-mouthed Mordred such a slash across the legs that he’d be hamstrung.
By keeping my peace, I permitted them to underestimate me. Their mistake, of course, for it allowed me to continue my investigations.
I skulked ever so stealthily, shadowing Morgan as she bewitched that poor noble knight, using his thwarted affection for feline-kind to lure him into her clutches (well, actually, she insinuated herself into his clutches but the effect was much the same). She mesmerized him into performing suspicious-seeming actions while Mordred continued to use his poison tongue and his snake-like charm to pollute the minds of the knights of the Round Table.
He pointed out that the Round Table, supposedly so democratic, made conversation with any but those next to one very difficult—and Sir Lancelot always sat on the king’s right hand, Sir Cay to the left, so who, after all, had a chance to talk to the king and share his good ideas? No wonder Lancelot had taken virtual control of the kingdom! And the queen, he intimated, spent too much on her wardrobe and had too many relatives in high positions and wasn’t it she who had dreamed up the abysmal Round Table anyway, tables being women’s stuff, and might she not be secretly in control of the kingdom? With Lancelot to provide the brawn to her brains, what did they need poor King Arthur for? And more drivel of that ilk.
The king remained suspicious of Mordred, but since the conversation always changed when he entered the room, he had no idea of the infamy perpetrated by his guest. Mordred took advantage of his befuddlement by fawning over him, the fawning looking very much like pity to the other knights.
Meanwhile, Morgan La Chat would jump down from Mordred’s shoulder and go find Lancelot, who was always absent during these little character assassinating sessions, of course.
While I watched fuming, she purred in his ear and in a moment, he would rise and walk to the royal chambers or to wherever my lady happened to be, for all the world, to suspicious eyes, as if he was conspiring treason with her. Even though, once he got there, he stammered and stuttered and seemed to have very little to say while she asked his opinion on whether to use the carmine thread or the scarlet in the latest tapestry or if Sir Cay would get the most use out of a linen shirt with wool embroidery or a wool shirt with linen embroidery for his Christmas gift.
From my perch in the window or atop the canopy I would have tried to warn them, but even if it had not been futile, Lady Elaine, who had something of a crush on Lancelot (most unseemly since she was a good five years his elder and of much lower rank besides), would glare at me and I would set to grooming my paws as if I would not dream of approaching while Lancelot was there.
In the same way, of course, Morgan and Mordred couldn’t truly approach while the king was present. And so, with Morgan wrapped around his neck, one day Lancelot urged the king to take a break and go hunting. He and the knights could handle any crisis that might come up.
“Yes,” Mordred said sweetly. “You’re looking a little tired these days, sire. And of course, you needn’t worry about the queen with her champion right here to protect her.” The king didn’t see the broad wink the nasty boy directed at the Round Table in general.
The next morning the king set out for his hunt, carefully selecting the three best hounds. He wanted to be alone. I think his instincts were telling him what his friends were keeping from him and he was very worried, without knowing precisely what worried him.
I was worried, too. I kept close to my lady’s side all the day, sprawled across her feet when she sewed and curled up in her lap when she read. Neither Mordred nor Morgan La Chat came near us, but if one of the knights passed by, he would duck his head and look away, as if ashamed to face my lady.
As Lady Elaine readied her for retirement, I grew restless and went in search of a flowerpot so that I might ease myself without leaving the premises. My favorite was the captive palm from Palestine a foreign emissary had brought the king. It was kept near the fireplace in the Great Hall. A drunken party was in progress there, however. The king did not approve of drunken revelry and the knights, like mice, were playing in his absence. I would simply have to find somewhere else. I couldn’t go in there now without getting stepped upon. But as I fled toward the kitchen and cook’s indoor herb garden, I heard familiar hateful voices whispering.
“I still think you should come along and put them under a bit before you go to Lancelot,” Mordred whined. “They don’t really like me, you know. They’re very snobbish about anyone who hasn’t bested them in battle at least once. I’m not sure I can convince them to play peeping tom without a bit of magical motivation.
“I made sure a potion went into the wine,” she said, and I heard the staccato beat of her tail impatiently drumming the floor. “They’ll do the highland fling from the crenellations with the slightest suggestion. Lancelot’s tougher. He is really such an impossible prig. So afraid of appearances. Good thing for me he is so very fond of cats and so very unable to tolerate any but me. I’d scare him to death in my true form, but he is so delighted with his itty bitty kitty cat he just can’t get enough of me.”
“Hah!” Mordred commented, and swaggered off toward the Great Hall. I slunk behind Morgan La Chat and followed her to where Lancelot knelt in the chapel, praying, his sword by his side. Lately he had been troubled by his own odd behavior, going to the king’s room at odd hours and seeking out the queen’s company when in truth he had no interest in the colors of embroidery thread whatsoever.
Most of all, I think he was troubled by the way the other knights had been avoiding him. Like most toms, he valued the goodwill and camaraderie of his brothers-in-arms more than any other sort of relationship. Little did he think that had he spent more time with them and less with that phony feline he could have continued to lead a happy life indefinitely.
But it was not to be.
Morgan sat upright in front of him, staring straight into his face, her tail curled like a beckoning finger. Lancelot rose and slowly she sidled away from him toward the door, the tail all the time beckoning. Lancelot, his sword at his side, followed.
Why did he need his sword to be captured “conspiring” with the queen? And then I knew. He was not to conspire with my lady: he was to slay her! I bounded ahead of them back to the Royal Chamber, making use of the private entrance the carpenter had devised for me at the foot of the bolted door.
My lady was asleep already, her golden hair fanned out across the satin pillow, her fingers curled against her cheek. I leapt onto her chest and roared my battle cry, so that she would know I required her immediate and undivided attention. Nevertheless, the effect was somewhat more dramatic than I anticipated. She sat bolt upright, flinging me away from her so that I hit the bed curtains, where I clung to avoid tumbling off the bed.
At that moment a loud knock thudded against the timbers of the door.
“Good heavens,” my lady yawned, “what on earth is all this commotion about? Who on earth can that be? And what in heaven’s name can have gotten into you, Gray Jane?”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and I did the unforgivable, had it not been for the dire circumstances. I grabbed her feet with my front claws and would not let go until she picked me up by the scruff of the neck and flung me away again.
“Who is it?” she called. “What’s the matter? Is the palace on fire? Is there a dragon in the courtyard? This had better not be a false alarm.”
“C’est moi, madame la reine. C’est Lancelot. I have a matter of the utmost urgency on which I must speak to you.”
“Oh, very well. But it had better be a matter of an invading army at the very least or I shall be very cross.”
I heard all this human chitchat through a bit of a daze since my lady, in her drowsy state, had tossed me against the stone wall and my head was somewhat the worse for wear. I rose on trembling paws and watched helplessly as she trudged on bleeding feet to the door and opened it. Lancelot stood there with his hand on his sword, the wretched tortoiseshell smirking on the floor beside him.
“Oh, my. It must be at least one invading army for you to come to my chamber armed,” the queen said. “You’d better step inside to make your report.
The tortoiseshell came in, too, glancing around the chamber. I scuttled up the bed curtains and peered down at them from the canopy.
Lancelot drew his sword. “Madame, my regrets—” he began, and I sprang for his head, landing on his shoulder when he moved to raise the sword. He threw back his head and sneezed six times, during which time the sword clattered harmlessly to the floor—harmlessly, that is, except that the heavy hilt landed on Morgan La Chat’s tail. She let out a hideous yowl and sprinted back out the cat door, her tail dragging after her in a rather dashing forked lightning shape.
“Mon dieu!” Lancelot exclaimed. “My Lady, my apologies! The hour—my sword—what am I contemplate—Ahhhhchoo!” He was breaking out in spots already and I was twining desperately around his face. The spell was well and truly broken, I was convinced, but I did not want to take any chances.
At that moment, the door banged open and a throng of Camelot’s finest flooded in, brandishing weapons and perfuming the chamber with the stench of a cheap tavern. I jumped clear of Lancelot to let him retrieve his sword as Mordred yelled. “You see! You see! They’re conspiring.” I sprang for Mordred’s face at great personal peril to myself, and jumped from pate to pate of the bare-headed and in some cases balding knights, giving them something to think about besides harassing innocent queens and their hapless cat-enchanted champions.
The queen huddled against the bed curtains, but Lancelot sneezed, scratched, swelled and sneezed again, then fled to the window, gasping for air, in his pain casting only a cursory glance through at the scene in the room. At last he was realizing that Mordred had turned his friends against him. I sprang from a shiny head, belonging, I believe, to Sir Lionel, freshly incised with a random pattern of scarlet ribbons, courtesy of my claws. In one light leap I pounced upon Lancelot’s back, giving him one more good sneeze which sent the two of us out the window and, I am sorry to say, into the moat.
He swam manfully out and jumped onto the back of a golden horse conveniently saddled and tethered and let out into the outer paddock for grazing. I, on the other hand, had to crawl and climb, sopping wet, onto the shore and sit out in the freezing rain, hearing my lady’s indignant cries.
After a very long interval, the drawbridge thudded down and a black and red streak ran across the bridge and stopped, no doubt wondering where that grazing horse could have gone. She was bleeding about the tail/wand and bedraggled, and I was mad as—as a wet cat.
I jumped on her back and bit her, giving no quarter to that injured tail, so that when she changed back into human form, she limped away from me, still kicking at me in an attempt to dislodge me, while trying to protect her eyes and her bleeding nose. I clung to her knee with every available claw.
We had barely entered the woods when she changed into a giant raven and I crashed to the ground. She dove for me, dripping feathers and gore, but thudding hooves distracted us both. In a heartbeat, I saw the horse and rider and heard the baying of hounds.
I jumped into the nearest tree as she flew away, and as the rider approached, I saw it was the king. With a last mad leap I landed upon his shoulders. Startled, he swore and shook himself. I meowed plaintively in his face.
“God’s blood, ‘tis wee Gray Jane! Whatever has happened to you, you poor puss?”
Of course, he was to find out soon enough and even his wisdom could not convince the knights that Lancelot’s apparent treachery with the queen had all been a great misunderstanding. He was forced to try the queen in his new courts of justice. She was found guilty of treason by the jury of knights. I could never tell him about Mordred’s treachery with Morgan La Chat, and could do nothing but sneak into my lady’s cell to comfort her as she waited to die.
The morning of her execution they led her outdoors into a chill and drizzling half-light, the dawn so troubled it was black and blue as a bruise and gray as cold iron.
I followed, jumping from one muddy footprint to the other behind the former friends who were now my lady’s guards. More than once I was almost squashed or kicked by heavy boots as I looked up past robes and tunics and into grim faces, searching for allies, all the while listening for hoof beats.
Arthur’s face was averted and wet with more than mist and rain, his hair gone silver-white in the week since the queen’s trial, his carriage that of a broken man. Lady Elaine, in her usual useful fashion, cried and cried and cried. The knights looked both truculent and shamefaced. More than one would have called the execution off if he could have, I think. Only Mordred glowed and gloated, though without his magical accomplice, he seemed skittish as a kitten in a kennel. Like all of us, he seemed to be listening, waiting.
My ears swiveling to the west, where Lancelot had ridden, I watched as they bound my lady to the stake with the cross in her hands. Mordred himself lit the pyre.
It was slow to catch in the wind and damp and the first lit piece blew away. I squatted over it, warming my tail as I wet the flame into oblivion.
The toe of Mordred’s boot caught me in the stomach and flung me onto the pyre, at my lady’s feet. Mordred poked the torch at me and I sprang for the well-loved safety of my lady’s shoulder as he set afire the straw at her soles.
But from there I saw them, Lancelot and his men, soldiers who loved and trusted him and would believe of him no wickedness. They battled the halfhearted knights of the Round Table, who got no leadership from Arthur or from Mordred, who fled before Lancelot’s men.
Lancelot rescued us with a slash of his sword that broke my Lady’s bonds and set her free to jump on behind him. Of course, he couldn’t ride far with us, because of me. But when he would have flung me down, my Lady cried, “No. I will not go without Jane. She would have given her life for me and I will not let her die out here to save myself.”
“Oh, very well,” Lancelot said, dismounting. “There is a convent some eight miles away.”
“I know,” she said. “I endowed it.”
“You and your cat may find refuge there. I must return to my men and lead them. There will be a great battle, you know—perhaps a war, I cannot imagine how we all fell into such a muddle but it can-can-c-c-c- fare—choo!-well.”
“Farewell, Sir Lancelot,” she cried.
All of those tedious historians have decried the sorry end of the lovely kingdom that was our home. And it was a tragedy to be sure that all the friendship and love and good intentions were laid to waste and came to such a sad end. But the end was far better than it might have been without my vigilance and intervention.
Some claim there was a last battle, but I have it on good authority that the battle at the pyre was the last one of any consequence, despite Mordred’s effort to stir up more trouble. Oh, there were a few skirmishes, to be sure, but since Lancelot refused to fight the king, any other conflict was purely anticlimactic.
The king was broken-hearted not only because he was deprived of my lady and his kingdom, but also because his own noble ideals of law and justice had been turned against him by Mordred’s attempt to destroy those he loved. He left Camelot and after a long illness retired to the magical island of Avalon, to have a good long think about what might have been if only he had done this or that otherwise.
Mordred meanwhile sat on the throne in the castle and played at being king, but everyone else went home and didn’t pay any attention to his edicts, and being thoroughly ashamed of themselves, tried from then on to conduct themselves as they thought King Arthur would have liked. Since they now believed him dead, his ideas were thought to be far better than they had been when he was still believed to be alive.
Sir Lancelot implored the queen to return with him to his old estates and live as befitted her station with his family. I think she would have done it, too, but by now Lancelot was not only violently allergic to me but, thanks to the witch, had also developed a totally unfair bias against all cats.
My lady would not, of course, be parted from me. Though I’ve never been able to give her the details, I believe she may have been leaning out the window, looking to escape herself, as Morgan La Chat changed back into her true form as the human witch. Of course, we never talk about it. Mostly we pray and sing, work in the garden, she with her little spade and I with my paws. We sleep and we read scripture and lead a quiet life, minding our own business, modest and faithful to one another as once we were to the king and our subjects. So naturally, I can’t be sure exactly how much she has guessed, but I do know of all of the fabled participants in the fall of Camelot, only my lady and I, and now you too, gentle readers, know who really kept that sad historical incident from turning into a true and quite literal catastrophe.
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2. BASTET’S BLESSING
In memory of Shuttle, trusty companion, professional hunter, dedicated sunbather and excavator of cat boxes.
His coat was the tan of desert dunes, ornamented with bands shaded from pale amber to gold around his legs and tail and outlining his great peridot eyes with a tiger’s mask. When he moved, it was as if the sphinx had risen to its massive paws to stalk the paths of men.
The length of his tail and the height of his ears bespoke more than common lineage. When he roared, unfortunately, it tended to come out as a rasping maoao noise, in keeping with his size, but one had to be pragmatic. Probably he would never have been able to find good help if he roared when he wanted in, roared when he wanted out, roared when he wished a change in his menu or wanted his box changed.
And truthfully, roaring would have misrepresented him, for he was a gentle, scholarly creature, of quiet dignity and poise. Or so he believed, and so he told Dr. Mercer the morning he made her acquaintance. She found him in reduced circumstances, incarcerated in a wire pen.
“Poor cat,” she said, kneeling so that her eyes were on a level with his. Whether it was because her eyes were intelligent and kindly or because she had the good sense to kneel in his presence that he decided she would be suitable, he was unsure. But he rose to a seated position, his front half erect while his back half supported it. His unusually long tail flicked up and down slightly to indicate that he required her attention.
“Madam, please disregard my present habitation. I was evicted from my former lodgings because of xenophobic tendencies toward my species on the part of Miss Rosamund’s new patron. Do not distress yourself on my behalf, however. The arrangement was never truly to my liking. Miss Rosamund, in addition to housing my mother and siblings, kept five others of my species and I am a creature who prefers a degree of privacy and solitude.”
He forbore to mention that he also liked digging, which was why he alone of all of Miss Rosamund’s boarders had been ignominiously evicted on the patent leather toe of the patron’s shoe.
Dr. Mercer did not pry. She jingled a few coins in a small purse and selected one for the jailer. “I’m taking this cat.”
The jailer did not argue. The vivisectionists did not pay as well. And Dr. Mercer carried herself with authority.
Her confidence did not come from being an immaculate housekeeper. She was the despair of her twice-weekly cleaning woman. The appointments were nice enough. The rugs were old, rich with exotic patterning and ruddy color. Deep leather-upholstered chairs squatted around the flat in sufficient profusion to provide adequate seating for a Sunday tea. A carved cherry desk with clawed feet occupied half the parlor. The bedroom was dominated by the velvet canopied bed but also held a fainting couch, although Dr. Mercer hardly seemed the fainting type. A dressing table, wardrobe and a dining table were all fine old pieces from Dr. Mercer’s father’s estate. The vast walnut bookshelves that lined the walls with heavy old volumes in cloth and leather bindings had belonged to the estate, too. If the books had stayed on those shelves, the cleaning woman would have been happy. But they dripped across the dressing table, spilled onto the sofa, flowed onto the fainting couch, cascaded onto the chairs, burdened the bed, and all but drowned the dining table. Piled among the pillars of books were reams of papers, monographs, dissertations, notes, graphs, bits of other detritus, shards of pottery and scraps of ancient cloth. The decor, the cat decided upon inspection, suited him nicely.
When Dr. Mercer brought him home, she first filled an old clay dish with water and another with canned fish and placed it on the floor for his approval. For some reason, she put an old pillow near the dishes, beside the coal cook stove. Then she scooted a year’s worth of research literature to one side and sat on the couch, watching and waiting for the cat’s verdict. He sniffed the fish, sniffed the water, sniffed the pillow, paced the perimeters of his new domain.
Papers slid under his paws, the musty smell of old ink and a tinge of green mold filled his nostrils, and his claws clicked across the linoleum and the hardwood, until he padded onto carpet, turned and clicked back again, back and forth from the parlor to the bedroom to the kitchen. Then he leaped lightly onto the desk, the bed, the sofa, and the chairs, feeling knowledge, wisdom, information and also vast amounts of ignorance and misunderstanding push against his pads.
Dr. Mercer observed his survey with amused tolerance, the same feeling her flat aroused in him. “You’re quite the pacer, aren’t you? To and fro, to and fro, like a weaver’s shuttlecock. Very well then. Shuttle it is.” Perched high atop a trembling tower of tomes on ancient Egyptian archaeology, the cat regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, then blinked his approval.
Miss Rosamund had never called him anything except “cat.” His other name had been long forgotten, even by him. “Shuttle” would do.
In a short time Shuttle and Dr. Mercer developed a congenial relationship, based on mutual respect and interests.
During the wet, windy days when Dr. Mercer ventured into the gray world beyond their snug flat to reach her classes and practice her profession, Shuttle drowsed on the books, soaking up images of sun-warmed sand, tall fronded trees, and the heavy green Nile snaking through the dusty tombs of kings and queens, the ancient burial grounds where mummies lay dry as autumn leaves, withered and desiccated until their own cats would not have known their smell.
He learned of the classification of pottery shards by period and design, the intricacies of hieroglyphics, the blueprints of tombs, the interesting things canopic jars held, and about the ka or soul.
Dr. Mercer was cooperative in broadening his education. About the time he had napped on the top book of every pile in the house, she would come home with some new problem and a whole new layer of knowledge would be shuffled to the top.
Thus Shuttle’s education as an Egyptologist, ranging over a period of months, was thorough and comprehensive if not especially chronological.
Not all their time was spent in study. On occasion, colleagues and students would stop by, and long discussions and arguments would ensue while they drank sherry and catnip tea. Shuttle liked to lie along the top of the couch, basking under the reading light, pretending it was the hot sun of Thebes. He stretched so the warmth could penetrate his fur, until his body extended the length of the cushion, his tail tickling Dr. Mercer’s neck. He added occasional comments, but even human beings intelligent enough to read hieroglyphics were ignorant of his language, though Dr. Mercer, being his personal protégée, understood more than most.
He felt as if he had known her since he was a kitten, and longer, so well suited were they and so comfortable together.
At any rate, he grew very attached to her, and when she first came home, he would seat himself on her lap and allow her to warm her hands in his fur. At night he would first curl next to her head to lull her to sleep with his purr, then lie for mutual warmth near her feet. She was very considerate, and moved carefully, even in her sleep, never thrashing about as Miss Rosamund had done. Once she was quite asleep, he would often proceed with his own research, mapping out excavations in the sand in his commode, or lying on the books in the windowsill, to gaze across the rooftops at the thrashing sea and watch the wind scatter clouds across the moon’s wan eye.
Dr. Mercer, even while deep in her studies, would rub his ears or tweak his tail affectionately as he passed her chair. Sometimes when he lay near her book, she would seek out his fur with her fingers or read him passages and then argue with him as if she expected him to concur with her opinion. He usually did. She was unusually bright.
And then spring, a season he’d always anticipated with relish, betrayed him. Dr. Mercer pulled odd smelling receptacles from the closet and began packing heavy, functional clothing he had never seen before, things in desert colors, and a hat. She never wore hats. He sat on the cases and watched with avid interest for awhile. He thought the cases smelled something like the books. Like Egypt. The dust was old dust, sand and mummies, he imagined.
One day she snapped the clasps shut and bent down and picked him up, so that his face was so close to hers his breath clouded her spectacles. “Sorry, old dear, but duty calls. Monica Thomas will be here to see to you. You’ll remember Monica. I believe you liked her.” Nonsense. He barely knew the girl although he was, of course, polite to all of their guests. “I’ll miss you, but if I took you along you’d have to undergo quarantine back here, all that sort of thing, and you’d hate that. I will think of you often. I’ll be digging outside Bubastis. You’d approve of Bubastis. Sensible people. Thought cats were divine.”
And then she was gone and Monica Thomas came. Monica Thomas did not really care for cats as much as she cared for the professor’s lovely flat far from the dormitory, where she could study Shuttle’s and Dr. Mercer’s books at her leisure and, more often, entertain in private. She put all the books back on the shelves and screeched at Shuttle when he sat on the tables or touched his claws, even in thoughtful kneading, to the upholstery. She shut him out of the bedroom many nights, away from the window. Sometimes she would condescend to pat him, but she disliked getting his hairs on her clothing. She allowed his food to become stale or, worse, sometimes forgot to set it out.
At first he was patient, for what is time to a being with nine lives? But by the second round of the moon, he felt Egypt through the pattern in the rug, through the polished hardwood; he felt it through his claws and bones and in the fighting hairs of his back and tail and in the sensitive places where his whiskers touched the world around him. And he knew. All was not well in Egypt.
Monica did not agree. She came in brandishing a letter from Dr. Mercer, chirping to Shuttle that his mommy had said “hi.” When she went to bed that night, Shuttle hopped up on the desk and sniffed the letter. Dr. Mercer’s scent was on the paper, salty and faint but distinctive. He lay upon it, warming his stomach with it and absorbing the message. If he were human, he would have been reassured. “We have made a find. Of course, it is too early to know quite how important it will be, but already we have located the entrance to the tomb and the shrine. Unfortunately, work has slowed down as our fellahin have deserted us. Some complaints about odd noises at night. Negotiations are in progress, however.”
What she said was not as significant as her scent and that of the paper. It carried danger, wrongness. Shuttle scratched at the bedroom door and tried to explain to Monica that he needed to look out the window, to see if he could see Egypt, to divine the nature of the problem. She threw a house slipper against the door, but in the morning fed him fresh food and chucked him under the chin as if he were a mewling kitten. “Don’t cry, chum. She’ll be back in a few months.”
Months! He should have insisted on accompanying her. He spent the day staring at the sea, leaving it only to return, his claws clicking back and forth on the floor. He scratched at the sill and at the door. He had to get to Egypt. But it was no use. He was locked in.
At last, exhausted, he fell asleep on the desk, on the letter and the book whose place Monica had marked with it.
And at noon he rose and walked through the window, across the housetops, and with a mighty leap crossed the sea and all the countries between to Dr. Mercer’s tent. She was sleeping, mosquito netting draped over her, and her hair was matted with sweat. She smelled wonderfully like herself, only more so but she twitched and moaned in her sleep. Shuttle purred and she quieted, and he padded out into the night.
The tents would have been easy for him to penetrate as a flesh-and-blood cat. For his ka-form, they were less substantial than the heat waves that rose from the sand. Most of the tents held sleeping scientists, sleeping students. The native workers, he knew from conversations, would be at their villages. He kept poking, barely interspersing himself with the fabric of a tent before pulling out again, until he found the ones he sought.
Naturally, in his higher form, the cook tent did not tempt him, especially since the odors were old and complicated by disinfectant some conscientious scientist no doubt forced on the native cook.