Tales From High Hallack, Volume 2 Page 26

  That something deep in him which was his only direction homeward seemed soothed also, and somehow he was sure he was headed in the right direction.

  There were, Noble Warrior discovered as they trundled along, three of these wagons. They did not ride as smoothly as the carriage he had shared with Emmy, but they each had their own store of the most enticing smells. There were other children beside Jankos also, but Noble Warrior held aloof from their coaxing, keeping close to his first friend.

  At least they were getting away from the place of noise and bad smells, and at last Noble Warrior felt secure enough to curl up on the blanket bed to which Jankos introduced him and got to sleep, relaxing for the first time since his terrors when he had seen the smoke breathing dragon swallow Emmy and he had been stolen away.

  Once he had had a refreshing sleep, he did some exploring. No one shooed him away or yelled at him. He spent some time sitting under a cage swinging with the movements of the cart in which hunched a bird, brightly feathered. Noble Warrior sniffed and sniffed again.

  He had seen tame birds many times and knew that they were not to be troubled by guard cats. But there was something wrong with this one—it was sick. And the woman fussed over it, trying to get it to eat and drink, folding it closely in her arms from time to time, making soft chirruping sounds as if it could understand her.

  They did not keep to the main highways in their traveling, but rather took lanes and often forest tracks. Yet all the time Noble Warrior felt the pull of his instinct. Home WAS in this direction.

  On the fourth morning the bird had fallen from its perch and lay a crumpled mass of feathers on the floor of the cage. Noble Warrior watched the woman dig a resting place for its small body in the softer earth of a ditch side. There were tear marks on her brown cheeks.

  “No Thother,” she said when she returned to the wagon. “He served us well, always seemed to know just which card to pick. Remember the gentleman who gave a gold piece—hunted us up after the race and said Thother had picked the winner for him. We shall not see such a clever feathered one again.”

  That night, when they halted, she brought out a small folding table and set it up as straight as she could on the ground, a lamp stationed at its side. Then she produced a long bag which glinted in the subdued light as if made from one of Princess Suphron’s fine robes.

  Out of that she shook a number of flat sticks of a dull yellowish color. Noble Warrior’s ears flattened a little.

  This woman was going to play some of the tricks he had seen used to amuse the women of the court. Much of the past faded from his mind—he was back in a garden beside a pool where a woman, much older and more raggedly dressed than this one, went through the same gestures.

  He jumped to the second caravan step, whiskers twitching. Was this woman also one of power whom even the treacherous Khons would answer?

  Each stick was marked on one side—the other was plain of any pattern. She gathered them all up again, holding the plain sides uppermost, and tossed them once more.

  For a long time she just sat there. Noble Warrior grew impatient. This was not the way matters should go at all. He gave a snort, leaned closer. With a dark paw flipped one of the pieces over.

  There was a sharp exclamation from the woman. She snatched up the stick he had moved and examined the pattern on it—then she looked beyond it at Noble Warrior himself as if she had never seen him before.

  “Mammam—” Jankos had pushed past the door curtain.

  “Quiet!” Her voice carried the snap of an order. “I must—I must think!” She set her elbows on the table and steadied her head on the support of her hands. With a breath which was almost a whistle she again gathered up the sticks, the eyes focusing on Noble Warrior holding a new wariness.

  For the second time she tossed them loosely and then leaned back, her attention centered on the cat.

  She—she wanted— He put out a paw which hovered over three sticks and then flipped up and over the middle one, settling back to watch her reaction.

  He knew the danger of the Great Dark—one learned that as a kitten hardly before one’s eyes were open—but this was no harmful curse play.

  The woman did not pick up the stick he had chosen, just leaned forward to see it the better as it lay on the table. Jankos crowded closer and now Pettros loomed on the other side.

  “This—this one—” The woman’s voice began as a half whisper and then arose louder. “This one—” She flung out her hands as if she could not find the words for more of an explanation. Now the man leaned the closer.

  “A far journey—” he said slowly.

  “Gatto can SEE—just like Thother!” Jankos grabbed up a handful of the sticks and tossed them so that a number fell just in front of Noble Warrior’s waiting paws. He bent his head and sniffed—the old knowledge. Yes, it still was with him. He flipped another of the sticks.

  “Trouble—” the woman shook her head. But Noble warrior was not yet through; he had already curved a claw around a second stick so that once in the air, it fell across the first. Then he sat back satisfied.

  “Gain!” it was Pettros who cried out that word. “Trouble and then gain! Maritza, this is no cat—he is a treasure for us. Do you not see?”

  She drew a deep breath. “I see,” she answered slowly. With the upraised fingers of one hand she made a sign in the air.

  Thus Noble Warrior became indeed one who chose futures. Where Thother had before picked sticks from the bundles people held out, he waited until they were tossed and then turned one, sometimes two, or even three. It was dabbling in things beyond the curtain of this world, that was true. But he was of the breed who knew both worlds. Had he not dealt with Hob on his arrival in this land, soothing the spirit of the house no man could see? Had he not identified the evil Khon sent to destroy Emmy and her father, and finished that nasty spirit off? Had he not talked with ghosts and managed to defeat a would-be follower of the black arts?

  Thus they traveled from one village to another. Always, Noble Warrior was assured by instinct in the right way for him. Maritza made him a velvet collar marked with glittering spangles which he wore when he was on duty at the table. Sometimes he thought that she was a little afraid of him for some reason. But the villagers who came to have their fortunes told were certainly in awe and there were a number of coins to ring in the bag Jankos carried when he escorted Noble Warrior back to the caravan.

  It was when they came to the fair that there was a shadow sensed by the cat. Something tickled his innermost thoughts as might a wisp of a dream. It was of the dark—not intensely, threateningly so, as had been the Khon, but it was here and he had no wish to seek it out.

  Others had come to see what might be offered by the dealers. There was a girl with a thin, sharp-nosed face, a mouth which was a line of discontent and peevishness, dressed like Emmy when she went to some place of importance.

  When she came up to the table, the villagers gave way and none of them showed any smiles.

  She flounced herself down on the stool opposite Maritza and looked at Noble Warrior with a sly smirk.

  “A fortune-telling cat! La, what will it be next, I wonder. A horse to sing opera, a pig to dance? All right, Gypsy, let this animal of yours tell my fortune!”

  Noble Warrior’s blue eyes stared into hers which seemed unable to meet his squarely. The faint whiff of the dark which had disturbed him since early morning was now like a full puff of rising incense in his face.

  She was not a Khon, no. Nor was she of some very ancient evil of this land. But in her there was darkness and danger—not for herself but for others.

  Catching up a handful of the sticks, she threw them straight at the cat. One caught in his collar and swung there. But the rest hit the tabletop. He was aware that Maritza had drawn back a little, that Jankos was on the move to come between this girl and Noble Warrior.

  For a long instant Noble Warrior simply stared at the girl. She gave a spiteful giggle.

  “No fortune for m
e then, cat. As I thought, it is all a hum—gypsy trickery.”

  Noble Warrior’s right paw swept out. He did not linger to make any choice, he simply snapped one of the sticks into the air and it flew much as the one she had shot at him through the air to land flatly before her.

  The pattern on that stick was red and black and curled in a tight series of circles. He heard Maritza gasp.

  “Well, what is the meaning?” The girl tapped the stick with one fingernail.

  “Lady—” Noble Warrior saw Maritza stiffen. Pettros had come up behind her. Now his hand had reached out to close protectingly on her shoulder. “Lady, you must watch yourself—your thoughts—well—there is danger—”

  The girl’s giggle became a crow of unpleasant laughter. “What, no dark haired knight to court me? Your cat is not very polite, Gypsy. You should teach him better manners.”

  She stood up abruptly. Jankos made no attempt to offer her the money bag, nor did she show any sign of dropping in a coin.

  “Gypsies,” she said as she turned away. “There are those hereabout who have little liking for your kind. I would advise you to be on the road before sundown—well away from here.”

  Her wide skirts swept around in a swirl and she went off. Maritza’s hand came up to cover her husband’s where it rested on her shoulder.

  “The evil,” she said in a voice which was close to a whisper, “is not against her—it is in that one, Pettros—she is the danger.”

  “She is the stepdaughter of the squire,” he answered. “A word from her and—” he shrugged. “Best that we take her advice and get on the road—now.”

  As they trundled off, Noble Warrior, in his favorite place on the driver’s seat of the wagon, was no longer concerned. The dark-thoughted one was gone, but there was something else— His head was held high and he tried with all his might to locate that trace. Yes! It was growing much stronger. Home—he was nearly home!

  But the track they followed took a winding turn away from the right direction. Noble Warrior jumped from his vantage point and flashed into the woods making a thick wall on that side of the road.

  He sped on, leaping here a downed tree, there weaving a way around some mossy stones. There was the sound of water ahead. But there was another sound also—the crying of a child.

  Noble Warrior’s speed slackened. He was being pulled in two directions, but the crying won. Emmy? Could it be Emmy? No, the voice was too young for her.

  He came out on the bank of the small stream. There was a child there right enough, much younger than Emmy. His face, swollen from crying, had also been harshly scratched by briars in one place, and he rocked back and forth in his pain and fear, his clothing muddied and torn.

  Noble Warrior advanced with his usual caution when facing the unknown. The child let out a wail and then suddenly caught sight of the cat. His mouth fell a little open.

  “K–k–kitty?” he stammered.

  Plainly, Noble Warrior decided, this kitten had been lost. Where was his mother that she allowed him to stray so?

  “Lissy—Lissy branged you—k–k–kitty? She told Toddie wait, there would be a ‘prise. You the ‘prise, k–k–kitty?”

  He held out a badly scratched and mud grimed hand. “Where Lissy—Toddie go home!” His face was puckering again for further crying.

  Noble Warrior advanced until the small hand fell on his head. It was sticky on his fur, but he resigned himself to that. For a moment he stood and let the child pat him, then backed away.

  As he had hoped, the little boy scrambled up and followed, as the cat slowly withdrew. But which way would they go? Back to the village—or on toward that still far place to which his need called him?

  Best the village, he decided. Their journey was a slow one and Noble Warrior had to submit to a great deal of patting, and even once to the shame of a hand closing on his glossy tail. But they did come out at last on the track where he had left the caravan. There was no sign of that. Perhaps the gypsy instinct to get away from danger had taken them well ahead. But the village lay in the other direction.

  Toddie sat down much more often now and had to be coaxed to follow. But before they reached the first cottages there was the thud of horse hooves on the road. The man in the lead was mounted on a tall black horse which overran the spot where Toddie had taken his last rest, but he reined back, jumped from the saddle, and caught up the child almost firmly.

  Toddie wrapped arms around the man’s neck.

  “Toddie!” The man hugged him so tightly that the child squirmed.

  “Dada!” yelled the little boy.

  “Jus’ like Miss Elizabeth said. Squire, them there gypsies had him—dropped him off when they got to know as they were being followed!”

  “Lissy?” Toddie pushed a little away from his father to look up into the man’s face. “Lissy said Toddie—come to woods—show him big ‘prise. Then Lissy ranned away—Toddie no find her—only K–k–kitty! K–k–kitty good—brang Toddie to Dada. Lissy, she losted Toddie!”

  He had flung out an arm to indicate Noble Warrior who was preparing to edge back into the bushes.

  “Why—that there’s the gypsy cat—” said one of the men.

  But another approached Noble Warrior more closely, going down on one knee to survey him with care.

  “Squire—this here’s that strange cat Captain Ashley brought ‘ome from foreign parts for ‘is little girl. Stolen it was when they went to London to take th’ train to th’ seashore. The Captain, e’s near been crazy trying to find it—e’s offered a reward an’ all.”

  Now the speaker turned his attention to the cat. “Noble Warrior, you knows me—Tom Jenkins as is second groom. Time you get back home—Miss Emmy now, she’s near cried herself sick and th’ whole place is not th’ same without you walkin’ out in th’ mornin’ to take th’ air.”

  Noble Warrior all at once felt very tired, tired but at peace. He might not have won home all by himself, but he was certainly not far away. Willingly, he allowed Tom to pick him up carefully. For a fleeting moment he thought of Jankos and the caravan—but that was not meant to be the life of a guardian cat—no, not at all.

  Noble Warrior and the “Gentleman”

  Catfantastic V (1999) DAW

  It was dark, though a number of candles had been lit in the dining room. The paneled walls, the long table, the rows of chairs and all the other heavy furniture seemed to thicken the gloom. Noble Warrior had his own chair next to Emmy’s, with two pillows added to make him tall enough to see fully both the table and those gathered about it.

  There were no cheerful looks tonight, nor any light or happy talk. He felt shadows as well as saw them and was alert to any clue of the dark thing that threatened Princess Emmy and her family.

  It was Emmy who broke the silence first. “Why is it making us so unhappy, Father? I always thought it was a good thing to be a Lord—”

  The frown on her father’s face did not clear. Lady Ashley, his great-aunt, was watching him intently, as if she wished to echo that same question.

  “Emmy,” her father answered very slowly. He might want to make sure that his every word counted, “I was never meant to be Lord Garnley, you see. I had an uncle and two cousins, so the inheritance was never considered to possibly be mine. As a Lord, I will have many duties which I do not yet understand. I have been a sailor for many years, have lived in a far-away country. I am not the proper one to wear Garnley’s coronet. Why, I am not even acquainted with his lands, the people in his employ and—” suddenly he brought his fist down hard on the table. “And—”

  “You must, you know,” Great-Aunt Amelia said simply. It was quiet again as if she had made plain that this was so and could not be questioned.

  Emmy looked down at her plate. She had eaten very little of her serving because it seemed that one just could not swallow easily tonight.

  Noble Warrior was alert to the feelings he sensed. His brown-gloved paw went out and touched her arm gently. Emmy swung around and gath
ered him into her lap, which he allowed (although such a liberty was not suited, of course, to one of his rank) because he knew she needed comfort now.

  “Is the place in order? You have had some weeks to survey it all,” Great-Aunt Amelia continued. “Did Garnley have a bailiff who could be trusted?”

  Father shrugged, his frown still heavy. “Oh, they have reassured me, up, down, and sidewise, that all is well, both Findley and that law fellow Markson. Only—” He lifted his hand a little as if he were going to slam the table again. “What are we going to do, Aunt Amelia? I suppose I shall be tied there most of the year doing whatever is expected of me. But I can’t leave Emmy and you here—”

  Emmy nodded to that. She remembered only too well what had happened before when Father was doing his duty at sea for the East India Company and she and Great-Aunt Amelia had the terrible time with Miss Wyker. She hugged Noble Warrior tightly, and he nipped her arm, very lightly, to remind her that there were limits to this kind of comforting.

  “It is very simple, Giles.” Great-Aunt seemed to think that there was only one proper answer and she was now stating it. “I may be old; I may have to use a cane and welcome a supporting arm upon occasion. But I still run a good-sized household satisfactorily, and I shall have Asher and any other I need from Hob’s Green. We’ll simply visit Garlynstone for the summer and see how well it works out for all of us.”

  Father looked for a moment as if he were going to protest, but before he could say anything she added, “Do you forget, Giles, that I spent most of my girlhood there?

  Thus it came about several weeks later that they moved—nearly as a complete household—across country to an area Emmy had never seen. This time, remembering the bad time of being catnapped and then lost, Noble Warrior was in the carriage with Emmy where she could keep an eye on him.