Catfantastic II

by Andre Norton

  Ferdon smiled at her pleasure. Then, remembering, he hurried after her, just in time to see her pick up her bundle of goods and open the kitchen door. “Will you return to me this evening, after the market?”

  “What?”

  “This evening. Will you come back?”

  “Yes. Perhaps. I-I have to think.”

  She went through the door, almost stumbling, trying to balance the packages and still look at herself in the mirror. Ferdon laughed aloud. She would be back. He knew it.

  Suddenly and ferociously hungry, he opened a cupboard and began setting out dishes. Some porridge, perhaps. Ede would be hungry as well. Magic-making always did that to one, drained all the reserves of energy, and one had to cast spells on an empty stomach to begin with-

  ” Ede!” he called, rattling the dishes. Usually this was enough to bring her running; porridge was one of their favorite breakfasts.

  But she stayed hidden, still sulking, until he had the porridge cooked and poured, with her bowl all nicely prepared with milk and a dusting of expensive cinnamon-a very special treat. Only then did a faint clink of jeweled earrings tell him that she was in the same room with him. Yet she did not jump up onto the table to eat with him, as was their wont. Stubbornly, she sat at his feet and glared at him out of blue-green eyes; stubbornly, he refused to set her dish on the floor. Only when he had finished his portion and had taken his bowl to the sideboard did she climb, with great dignity, to the tabletop and begin eating the now-cold porridge.

  Dala did not return to the magician’s house that evening nor the next day, nor the day after that. She almost stopped coming there altogether. Ferdon went calling on her instead, any time his duties took him near the farm where she lived, just beyond the town walls. This happened not nearly as often as he would have liked. As a physician-mage, he needed to be available for anyone who needed him, and in the good-sized country town where he lived, there were many who did, and those sometimes at very odd hours. It interfered with his courting, but there was no help for it. He began to long for a servant, to help him keep track of appointments and messages. He purchased a slate and kept it propped over the kitchen fireplace for those who had missed him, but few in the town knew how to read or write.

  Courtship it had become, and no mistake. Every time they met, Ferdon asked Dala to marry him; and every time he did, she turned him aside in such a way that it was no refusal at all. She needed more time. She was just now beginning to enjoy her life. Why did he want her to give it up so soon?

  The main trouble was, Ferdon was not alone in his attentions to Dala-or Doucette, as she called herself these days, saying that “Dala” was an ugly name fit only for the ugly creature she had once been. It seemed that half the eligible young men in town were now paying court to her, including, if rumor was to be believed, the son of the ruling baron.

  Doucette only laughed whenever Ferdon objected. “They mean nothing to me!” she told him, over and over. “I hated myself for far too long and they make me feel good. Do you think I could forget who I have to thank, the wonderful man who was responsible for all my good fortune?”

  At such times, she would take his hand in both of hers, and sometimes press it to the warmth of her breasts. But Ferdon could not help noticing that he was not the only person who gave Doucette presents these days. At least, he knew he hadn’t given her the locket hanging from the fine chain around her neck. And surely her new-found success in the marketplace didn’t account for the beautiful clothes she now wore every day, nor the various improvements to the farm, the house, and its furnishings. He could have discovered where all these things had come from if Ede had been there to help him, but Ede always knew when his rounds were going to take him to Doucette’s house and refused to accompany him then. Ede ‘s anger had become unhappiness. He grew used to the sight of a brown cat-lump sitting in the window, watching him as he walked away, her blue-green eyes glowing with disapproval. They were both miserable these days, but it seemed to him she might be coming around, if slowly. At least, since that day when she had knocked his books all over the workroom, she didn’t jangle her earrings at him any more.

  Ede had a lot of time for contemplation while Ferdon was away. She took to leaving the house as well, sometimes for a week at a time. When she was home, she hunkered in the window or near the fireplace, brooding. Sometimes she threw herself into a mood of play and mischief, batting a toy around and leaving destruction in her wake for Ferdon to clean up when he returned.

  On one of these occasions, by accident she knocked a book off the shelf and it opened when it landed on the floor. Flinging herself on the pages, she danced madly, scrabbling at the expensive paper with her paws, delighting in wrinkling the pages as she turned them. The marks on the paper meant little to her and she quickly grew bored with this volume. Leaping to the shelf, she selected another and then a third, and a fourth, according them the same treatment. Methodically, she worked her way along the shelf until she came to a small, leather-bound one, hidden between two larger books. This one contained many pictures and it caught her interest. If Ferdon could have seen her then, he would have observed the cat crouched over the book for all the world like a schoolboy studying his lessons. From time to time she raked at a page, turning it, absorbed in what the pictures were showing her. When she finished looking through the book, she sat very still, tail wrapped around her paws, staring at nothing. Then, with great care and deliberation, she shoved all the rest of the books off the shelf until that particular volume was quite lost in the welter.

  A few weeks later, when the summer was beginning to draw to an end and the evenings to grow cool, Doucette came to the magician’s house, letting herself in the kitchen door. She wore a new shift of creamy linen and her skirt and bodice were of rich velvet; now she went shod in red leather, all in all looking nothing like the disfigured farmgirl she had once been.

  “Ferdon?” she called. “Are you home? I have something to tell you-Oh.” Ede trotted through the open door. Doucette eyed the cat sourly. “You. Where’s your master? Can’t talk, can you? Or won’t, is more like it, at least to me. Who knows what little chats the two of you have when you’re alone.” Her lips lifted in a smile that didn’t touch her eyes. She stifled a sneeze. “We’ve never liked each other, but at least I was smart enough to try to hide it. No sense in pretending now, is there? I’ve got a message for your master.”

  She took the slate from over the fireplace and sat down at the table and began to write. Because the art had come late to her-the lessons another present from an admirer-she unconsciously spoke the words aloud as she wrote.

  “Fare you welle, trend Ferdon. I am getting wed. To Rikkar, the barron’s sonne. Thank you aginne. Your trend Doucette.”

  She propped the slate against a bowl on the table. “There. He ought to see it when he returns.” Ede jumped up onto the table and stared at the woman. “It’s a good thing for both of us that you and I didn’t get along. I might have married Ferdon out of sheer gratitude, except for you, and then where would I have been? Not as well off as I’m going to be.” She laughed out loud. Ede walked toward her, miaowing. “I would have kicked you out of the house the instant the bans were read and no mistake. But that’s all past. Might as well be friends now, eh? No harm in that, I suppose.” She sneezed and wiped her watering eyes on a cambric handkerchief.

  With a luxuriously sinuous movement, Ede stropped herself against Doucette. The earring on that side fell clattering to the table. The cat turned and stropped back in the other direction and the second earring fell off.

  Doucette recoiled from the contact, and then saw the jewels lying on the table. “How nice!” she exclaimed. “A wedding present!”

  She took the earrings, admiring the gleam of the sapphire and emerald beads, the glitter of the gold, and put them in her own ears…

  Ferdon let himself in, wearily unslinging the carry-sack of medicinal and magical supplies from his shoulder. It had begun to rain outside and he was tired and
cold. To his surprise and pleasure, the lamps were lit and the good smell of supper cooking filled the air. There was a woman at the fireplace, bending over, but not to tend the cookpot. Rather, the woman appeared to be doing something with the poker-stirring the fire to make it burn brighter, perhaps. The wife of a rich, ailing townsman, come to fetch him and preparing a hot meal while she waited? She was certainly dressed well enough, in velvet and red leather shoes. He dropped the sack beside the door. “Can I help you?” he said.

  The woman-girl, really-started, as if caught in the act of doing something questionable. “You are the physician-mage, Ferdon?” There was a lilting quality to her speech, almost like an accent, hard to identify. “I have a message from Doucette.”

  “What message?” He moved toward the cookpot, sniffing appreciatively. His stomach growled; he had not eaten since that morning. Something flared up, a flash of purple in the depths of the flame, then died away. He caught a whiff of another odor from the fire itself, as if the girl were burning an old shoe. From force of habit he glanced up at the slate, but it was as clean as it had been when he had left that morning-cleaner, even. “You know Doucette?”

  “Oh, yes.” The color rose in the girl’s cheeks. “I know her well. There is news, unpleasant for you, I fear. She-she could not stay to tell you herself.”

  Ferdon sighed. “Well, out with it. It won’t grow any better for being postponed.”

  “Doucette has gone away, for good. She’s never coming back.”

  There was silence in the magician’s kitchen, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the faint sound of the stew bubbling in the pot. Ferdon sat down heavily at the table. “Gone.”

  The girl stirred the kettle and spooned some of the contents into a bowl. A curl of half-burned paper drifted out onto the hearth and she stepped on it, sweeping it back into the fire. The fingers of one hand moved in a curious gesture as she set the food before him. “Here, eat,” she said. “You will feel better for it.”

  “Did she say why?” Automatically, he put a spoonful of the stew into his mouth. It was very good.

  The girl shook her head. “I believe she felt this town was unworthy of a woman of her immense beauty. There were larger worlds waiting for her.”

  “So she sent you to tell me.”

  “Actually, it was my idea to come.” The girl’s cheeks grew redder. “Please, forgive my forwardness. But she never cared for you, not after she got what she wanted from you. And I-” She bit her lip.

  Ferdon put down his spoon. Frowning, he studied the girl face, trying to remember where even if-he had seen her before. There was something, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. She had a heart-shaped face, brown hair, a slender figure-the velvet dress, laced to its tightest, was loose on her-and, he now noticed, the loveliest blue-green eyes tilted at the corners. “No,” he said. “I have never seen you before. If I had, I would have remembered.”

  The girl smiled a bit sadly. “How could you know? You never even looked at anyone but Doucette.”

  He had to smile with her. “That’s true. Ede -Where is she? Have you seen anything of an Egyptian cat? She’s not been around much lately, but the smell of this stew ought to bring her hurrying back-”

  “Doucette said to tell you she’d taken Ede with her.”

  Ferdon lurched to his feet, almost upsetting the table. “She took Ede? That’s impossible! Ede detested her!” He paced angrily across the room, calming himself by an act of will. His infatuation with Doucette evaporated as abruptly as it had begun. He bowed his head. “I never thought she would steal my Companion. She must have done it for spite. I will miss Ede. I-I loved her a great deal.” He drifted off into thought, remembering.

  With an effort, Ferdon brought himself back to the moment. The girl stood quite still in the firelight, only her fingers moving in the folds of her skirt. She swallowed hard. “Though I know you, you don’t know me. I am called Edanne.”

  Ferdon opened his mouth and closed it again, unsure of what he wanted to say. At that moment, something thumped against the window. He hurried to open the shutter and see what the trouble was. A ginger-colored cat squirmed through immediately and landed with a heavy thud on the floor. It shook drops of water off its fur, then stood up and snagged its claws in Ferdon’s leggings, miaowing loudly and showing its sharp white teeth, as if it wanted to tell the magician something.

  “Hello, yourself,” he said. He knelt and picked the cat up in his arms. The lamplight caught points of green and blue fire from the jewels on the rings in its ears. Ferdon stared in disbelief. Then, slowly, he began to laugh.

  “What does this mean?” Edanne said.

  “It means that I am lucky beyond measure!” Ferdon exclaimed. “In the space of one hour I have lost a treasured Companion, regained my senses, another Companion has come to me-not as fine a one as Ede nor as well-trained or clever I daresay, but a Companion nonetheless-and I have found you.” He set the cat down and folded Edanne in his embrace. “I have found you, haven’t I?”

  “Yes. I love you. I always have.”

  Outside, the rain began pelting down in earnest. The cat, an unfathomable expression in its greenish-brown eyes, stared and stared at the two of them. Then it sneezed.

  Clara’s Cat by Elizabeth Moon

  The old lady was almost helpless. She had never been large, and her once-red hair had faded to dingy gray. Behind thick glasses, necessary since the surgery for cataracts, her eyes were as colorless as a dead oyster. She had always had a redhead’s white skin that freckled first, then burned at the least touch of the sun. Now the duller brown spots of age speckled her knotted hands.

  It was going to be easy. Jeannie had a blood-claim-the only claim, she reminded herself. Her mother had been the old lady’s niece; the old lady had never had children. So it was simple, and no court could deny it. Besides, she was going to spend a while convincing everyone that she had the old lady’s best interests at heart. Of course she did. They knew that already. She had come to take care of dear old Great-aunt Clara, left her job in the city-a pretty good job, too, she had explained to everyone who asked. But blood being thicker than water, and her the old lady’s last blood relative, well, of course she had come to help out.

  “Did I ever tell you about Snowball?” The soft, insistent voice from the bed broke into her fierce reverie. Yes, the old lady had told her about Snowball… every white cat in creation was probably called Snowball, at least by senile old ladies like Great-aunt Clara. Jeannie controlled herself; there would be time enough later.

  “I think so, Aunt Clara.” Just a little dig, that implication of careful patience.

  “He was so sweet.” A vague sound meant to be a chuckle, Jeannie was sure, then…“Did I tell you about the time he clawed Mrs. Minister Jenkins on the ankle, when she scolded me about wearing my skirts too short?”

  Oh, god. Jeannie had heard that story on every visit-every reluctant, restless visit-since childhood. It was disgusting, that someone of Great-aunt Clara’s age remembered the juicy side of youth, remembered rolling her stockings and flirting with a skirt just a bit short… that she could still enjoy the memory of a minister’s wife’s clawed ankle, that she still thought a stupid cat had defended her. But there were visitors in the house, Clara’s friends, people Jeannie had not yet won over completely. Clara’s lawyer, Sam Benson, stocky and grave and not quite old enough to fall for any tricks. Clara’s old friend Pearl, still up and walking around-though Jeannie thought it was disgusting for anyone her age to wear sleeveless knit shirts and short skirts which left knobby tanned knees all too visible.

  Jeannie let out a consciously indulgent laugh. “Was that when you were courting Ben, Aunt Clara?”

  Again that feeble attempt at a chuckle. “I wasn’t courting him, dear; we weren’t like you girls today. He was courting me. Very dashing, Ben was. All the girls thought so, too.” Clara’s eyes shifted to her friend Pearl, and the two of them exchanged fatuous grins. Jeannie could feel the smile
stiffening on her own face. Dashing. And did this mean Pearl had been one of the girls who thought so, too? Had they been rivals?

  “I didn’t,” said Pearl, in the deep voice Jeannie found so strange. Little old ladies had thin, wispy voices, or high querulous voices, or cross rough voices… not this combination of bassoon and cello, like a cat’s purr. “I thought he was a lot more than dashing, but you, you minx, you wanted him to play off against Larry.”

  “Ah… Larry.” Clara’s head shifted on the pillow. “I hadn’t thought of him in…”

  “Five minutes?” Pearl conveyed amusement without malice.

  “He was so…” Clara’s voice trailed off, and a tear slipped down her cheek. Jeannie was quick to blot it away. “The War…” said Clara faintly. Pearl nodded. The War they meant was the first of the great wars, the one to end wars, and Jeannie was not entirely sure which century it had been in. History was a bore. Everything before her own birth merged into a confused hash of dates and names she could never untangle, and why bother? The lawyer cleared his throat.

  “Clara, I hate to rush you, but…”

  The old lady stared at him as if she couldn’t remember his name or business; Jeannie was just about to remind her when she brightened. “Oh-yes, Sam, of course. The power of attorney. Now what I thought was, since Jeannie’s come to stay, and take care of me, that she will need to write checks and things. You know how the bank is these days… and the people at the power company and so on don’t seem to remember me as well…” What she meant was lost bills, checks she never wrote, and a lifetime’s honesty ignored by strangers and their computers. But it had never been her habit to accuse anyone of unfairness. “Jeannie can take care of all that,” she said finally.

  In the face of the lawyer’s obvious doubts, Jeannie’s attempt at an expression that would convey absolute honesty, searing self-sacrifice for her nearest relative, and steadfast devotion to duty slipped awry; she could feel her lower lip beginning to pout, and the tension in the muscles of her jaw. Silence held the room for a long moment. Then Pearl, carefully not looking at Jeannie, said, “But Sam’s been doing all that, hasn’t he, Clara?”