The Catswold Portal

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  “She’s starving, Brade. Look how thin she is. She needs meat.” She opened the can and dumped the boned chicken on a plate. The cat leaned out from Anne’s shoulder, her paw reaching for the plate.

  He said, “That cat ate two eggs this morning, five strips of bacon, and a piece of toast. It’s had enough protein to run a polar bear. I eat that canned chicken for lunch.”

  “You eat hamburger and eggs for lunch. Go call Morian yourself.” She sounded more like Anne again. She got the milk, poured some into a salad bowl, and watched tenderly as the cat slurped and gulped.

  “That was the last can of chicken,” he said, watching the cat with interest. He had always thought cats were neat, silent eaters.

  “You can go to the store for more chicken. The cat can’t.”

  “I wouldn’t bank on that. It’s got what it wanted so far.”

  “She really isn’t yours? She’s beautiful, Brade. Where did she come from? Her coat is lovely. And those eyes…” She knelt, lifting the cat’s chin, gazing into its eyes. “So green—and a line of kohl around them, the way the Egyptian queens did. Oh, you are beautiful, my dear.” She seemed to need the diversion. As she knelt there stroking the cat, the line of her body softened, her face grew softer. “Did Morian bring her to you? That would be like Morian.” The cat had finished eating. She picked it up again and rose, holding it against her throat. “How can you hate her, Brade? She’s so dear.”

  “I don’t hate her. I just don’t want a cat. She’s a stray. She’s Morian’s.” The cat looked at him coolly and intently from Anne’s shoulder, her green eyes nearly on a level with his. He stared back at her, annoyed, then headed for the phone.

  Morian picked up on the third ring. He tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

  “Mor, the cat’s still here.”

  “I just got home. I’ll be down in a while.”

  “Anne’s here. She has a problem.”

  Morian came on down, took a look at Anne, and drew her to the couch. As Anne talked Braden cleaned up the broken plate, then began to clean his palette and brushes. The cat lay curled in Anne’s lap, asleep.

  Morian didn’t argue that Anne might be mistaken about Tom or overtired, or that Tom needed mental help. She didn’t suggest seeing Bob, she just listened.

  When at last Anne was eased, Morian took the cat from her, cradling it in her arms. It hardly woke, relaxing against her as it had against Anne. Nothing was changed about Tom, Morian hadn’t solved anything, but Anne felt better, had gotten it out of her system. The two left together, Morian giving Braden a pat on the cheek, carrying the cat away to make it a bed and get it settled; there was no question of her wanting it.

  Not until some hours later did Wylles wake from napping, confused about where he was, feeling sick and cold then hot. He rose and slumped to the window, sweaty and irritable in the unfamiliar, sticky pajamas. He was looking at a garden he had never seen before. He tried to find some coherent memory, and could not. Everything was muddled, unfamiliar, and confusing. He could remember nothing before this day.

  He knew he did not belong here. Maybe he was caught in some enchantment, though he could not remember much about enchantments. He did not know where he belonged, only that he did not belong here.

  When he saw, in the window of the house next door, a cat clawing at the glass trying to get out, he froze. He hated cats, though in his crippled memory he didn’t know why. But watching the dark, white-marked beast, he was filled with fear and disgust.

  Chapter 30

  The Harpy sat rocking beside Mag’s wood stove, her expression content but remote, her thin hands cupping her little mirror, her wings lifting awkwardly to avoid the chair’s moving rockers. She regarded Mag stubbornly. “If I showed you where Melissa is, you’d go charging off to find her. You wouldn’t leave her alone. This is her life; she must sort it out for herself. I assure you she is all right.”

  “She’s not all right. She’s been changed into a cat, and she has no idea how to change back. I never let her learn a changing spell, never let her see one. Now,” Mag said remorsefully, “she’s in danger every minute. How can you say she’s all right? And if Siddonie learns she is still alive…” Mag stopped speaking and glared at the Harpy.

  The Harpy thought Mag would love to wring her feathered neck. She said, “I would not worry about Melissa. At this moment she is content and happy.” She wanted to spy on Melissa some more—she knew she was in Braden West’s studio—but she would bring no vision until Mag had left the cottage. She closed her eyes, slowed her rocking, and pretended to doze.

  Mag glared, flung on her cloak, grabbed up a bucket of slops from the corner by the door, and went to tend the pigs.

  The Harpy sat petulantly, thinking. She didn’t understand where her sudden streak of caring had come from; she had never cared about anyone, not since she was a fledgling pecking around her mother’s feet among the flames of the Hell fires. Caring, feeling pain in her heart, wasn’t a harpy’s style.

  But she did care. She found herself uncomfortably worried about Melissa, though she would not have told Mag that.

  Maybe this burgeoning sentimentality was Mag’s influence. Or maybe it stemmed from some genetic fault, some weakness left over from gentler times when harpies lived in the upperworld and consorted with humankind. Then, when harpies still lured sailors to their deaths, there had been tender moments, moments of passion and sometimes of real love and caring before they drowned their hapless victims.

  Maybe she was a genetic throwback.

  Now, alone in the cottage, she brought a scene which she hadn’t shared with Mag, viewing again an encounter that had made her smile. As she watched Melissa and Braden West, the Harpy clacked her beak with pleasure.

  In West’s studio, the calico lay on the model’s couch sprawled across a spill of vermilion silk. West was reaching for her angrily as if he would jerk her off the couch and throw her out the door. But then suddenly he drew back, his anger seemed to dampen, and he lifted the little cat gently, almost cuddling her.

  The cat gazed up at him with languid ease and trust, her white paws limp, her small, pretty body limp in his comforting hands. The Harpy opened her beak with devilish interest as Braden carefully laid the cat down again on the silk, and stroked her. He was smitten, already infected with tenderness.

  The Harpy liked West’s tall, tanned leanness, his look of taut strength. But more than that, she liked his kindness. She was amazed at herself that she cared about kindness.

  And there was something else she liked about West, something she couldn’t sort out. Puzzling over the attraction, she thought maybe it was the fact that West didn’t know he was kind; West thought of himself as hard-nosed and blunt. The Harpy watched him with interest, but at last she turned from Braden and Melissa to bring another vision: a conversation in the Netherworld that she had glimpsed earlier.

  The queen and her seneschal stood in Prince Wylles’ chamber observing the changeling boy they had stolen. Siddonie was dressed extravagantly for the royal ball in a swirling satin gown the color of the deepest Hell flames, and with rubies woven into her elaborately upswept hair.

  On the bed, Tom Hollingsworth slept deeply. Drugged and spell-laden, the boy was now as pale as a Netherworlder. As the Harpy watched, Siddonie drew her hand across Tom’s closed eyes, renewing and strengthening the spells she had laid on him earlier.

  “You will remember nothing of the upperworld. You will learn willingly all I command you to learn. You will be healthy and strong in the Netherworld for as long as I require this of you.”

  The queen lowered her pale hands and turned to Vrech, her expression triumphant. “You did very well, my dear Vrech.” She stroked Vrech’s cheek, moving closer to him. “Now, of course, the boy must be properly trained.”

  Vrech nodded. “I have spoken with the horsemaster. In my absence, he will do quite well with the boy. He will put him on a horse, and teach him to handle weapons. The new Wylles should be ready s
oon to travel with you to the villages.”

  Siddonie brushed Vrech’s lips with stroking fingers. “I plan to take the boy to every village in Affandar. I want him seen by every subject, every croft and herding family. Everyone in the Netherworld must know that Prince Wylles is again healthy.”

  Vrech’s hands wandered over the queen’s breasts. But his eyes, regarding the boy, were cold with another kind of promise.

  Suddenly the boy stirred.

  Vrech and Siddonie drew back, and quickly Siddonie cast a sign across Tom’s face.

  But still the child’s eyelids moved. His hand slid across the cover, and his color rose. His eyes opened and he lay looking up at them, dazed, uncomprehending. Siddonie repeated a spell, and repeated it again.

  The boy shivered, seemed to be trying to move. Then he dropped into sleep.

  The Harpy, watching in her little mirror, saw in that instant when the boy had looked up something that perhaps the queen and Vrech did not. She saw deep in Tom’s eyes a spark of sharp awareness. The boy was alert, intense; a look he quickly masked.

  Siddonie watched the boy with cold anger. “He should not have awakened. What has caused this? What sort of boy did you bring me?”

  Vrech had paled.

  “I assume, Vrech, that you were more efficient in carrying out your other instructions. I assume you took more care in seeing to my wishes regarding Melissa.”

  “I told you that after I dropped the cat, I patrolled the highway. I am certain that pack of dogs tore her apart. There was orange-and-black fur everywhere.”

  “You might have waited and seen it happen.”

  “The Primal Law—if I saw it happen and didn’t stop it…”

  “A technicality, Vrech.” The queen studied him with remote dislike, all her lust for him gone. “In the morning you will return to the upperworld. You will go directly to the ranch and set about replacing Melissa with a false queen. I want a girl who is sufficiently avaricious but who can be readily trained.” She turned from him abruptly, her red satin gown swirling, her ruby encrusted hair catching the lamplight. She paced the room as if too filled with energy to be still; then she turned back suddenly, giving him an unexpected smile. “You may, of course, attend tonight’s ball before you leave.”

  This ball, the Harpy knew, was another triumph for Siddonie. The wedding of Princess Natalia to King Allmond had brought into Siddonie’s fold of politically subjugated nations the rich kingdom of Shenndeth, and King Allmond would be a loyal addition to Siddonie’s cadre of obedient monarchs.

  They left the chamber of the prince and moved into Siddonie’s rooms, where Crandall Havermeyer waited.

  Havermeyer’s back was to them. He stood at the window looking out between the black draperies, his squarely built figure silhouetted by the fading green light. The upperworlder was so heavily built that he looked at first glance to be a strong, solid man. But at second look one perceived a frail construction, as if his body was made of hollow bones joined insubstantially by ill-fitting joints. The overall impression was of a body improperly designed, a rickety machine that could fall apart under physical strain.

  The pant cuffs of Havermeyer’s upperworld suit were wet, likely from the tunnel or the stream. His camel hair coat was wrinkled. His square jowls needed shaving. His skin always looked gray, dry as paper. His face was, as usual, without expression.

  Siddonie looked him over with distaste. “Have you arranged to get Wylles and the Hollingsworth woman away from the garden?”

  “I am arranging it. This is not something one does overnight.”

  She snorted. “You make a major project of everything, even something as simple as this. Have her fired, Havermeyer. See that she’s offered a job in another state, one she can’t refuse. I want this done immediately, not in your usual tedious fashion. I want Wylles away from the portal. If the spells on him don’t hold, I don’t want him trying to return here. You will arrange this quickly. Do you understand?”

  He nodded, stone faced.

  “Once this is done,” she said, “I want you to go directly to the ranch.” She moved to the window, looking out. Her view was of the courtyard, where the gates were wide open. In the dark green evening, carriages were already arriving from Cressteane and Ferrathil. Lanterns swung, sending arcs of light across the milling horses. Soon the courtyard would be full as a steady stream of richly dressed monarchs and their entourages made their way through the palace doors and into the ballroom. Siddonie turned, regarding Havermeyer impatiently. “You and Vrech will select, from among the captive Catswold, the girl to train in Melissa’s place. She must be calico like all of their queens. She must be spirited, selfish, and tractable. I want a girl who is a fighter. I want a whelp of alleys, a slut who craves power.”

  Havermeyer’s eyes hardened.

  “Once the young woman is selected, Crandall, you will remain at the ranch for as long as Vrech needs you. You will help with her training in any way Vrech chooses. Do you understand me?”

  Havermeyer nodded but still he didn’t speak. Vrech said nothing.

  “What is this silence? What’s the matter with you two?”

  Havermeyer shifted his weight. “You can’t train one of them. No one can—no spell can make them tractable.”

  “Of course they can be trained,” she barked. “The upperworld Catswold are nothing, not like these Netherworlders. I should think you would look forward to it—a young, fulsome Catswold girl to do with as you please.”

  She smiled. “You will train her to every power of magic you can force from her. I don’t care how you train her. I don’t care what methods you use. I want a Catswold woman who looks like a Catswold queen, who knows all possible Netherworld magic, who is totally ruthless. And who is totally obedient to me.”

  “But she won’t have the power of a Catswold queen,” Havermeyer said. “There is no way to train her to that.”

  “One can fake, with common magic, a formidable power. She must learn that magic. She must learn to manipulate. She must learn to feign sincerity just as convincingly as you, my dear Crandall, can fake honesty.

  “And the girl must have charisma.” She moved to Havermeyer, touching his cheek. “Charisma counts for much, Crandall. In both worlds.”

  The Harpy let the vision fade, preening her beak on her ragged feathers. To please herself, she brought a vision of the little calico being cuddled by the distraught Hollingsworth woman and then by the dark-skinned model. She smiled. Melissa would do all right.

  When Mag came in from slopping the pigs, the Harpy’s mirror hung idle and blank and the Harpy appeared to be sleeping.

  Chapter 31

  Morian carried the little cat up the garden, snuggling her, admiring her patterned coat of orange and black and white. The cat glanced up at her companionably, then flicked her tail at a winging bird and chattered a hunting cry. When Morian laughed at her, she looked back clear-eyed and snuggled closer, relaxed and trusting.

  Reaching the porch, Morian shifted the calico to her shoulder, opened the door and, carrying her, emptied the laundry basket. She took it into the bedroom and found an old quilted robe to line it. Stroking the little calico and talking to her, she put her down near the basket, shutting her in the bedroom while she went to collect a litter box and cat food.

  In the kitchen, as she filled a bowl with water, her thoughts were on Anne. She had been alarmed and puzzled by Anne’s distress, and amazed at Anne’s sudden helplessness. She couldn’t believe Tom was as changed as Anne said. Yet Anne was not given to imaginative flights. She would have to see him for herself; maybe she could figure out what had made Anne react so alarmingly.

  Anne’s husband had died in a mental institution. Anne had had a hard time and was sensitive about mental problems. Morian shook her head; the thought that Anne herself might be having such a problem chilled her.

  She had known Anne long before Anne and Tom had moved to the garden. Anne had kept her equilibrium remarkably well through the hard times wi
th her husband. It seemed strange that now Anne would be losing her grip.

  In the bedroom Morian arranged water and food dishes on a newspaper, knowing the little cat would be happier in one room until she got used to the house. She could let her deal with the black tom later. Morian smiled, speaking softly to the cat. “It’ll take Skillet a while to get used to you.” She stood watching as the calico peered with curiosity under the dressing table. Skillet had been lonely since Tiger died, but he wouldn’t want another cat in the house.

  She opened the window three inches from the top for fresh air, checking to be sure the screen was latched. The cat was sniffing the laundry basket. Morian watched her circle it then hop in and begin to knead the quilted satin as if she was pleased with the sleeping arrangements. This pleased Morian, too, and she knelt to stroke the little cat, admiring her brightly mixed colors against the cream robe. “You don’t seem anxious to get out. Too bad Braden won’t keep you—he needs something alive around him. He’s getting morose.”

  The little cat’s purr rumbled against Morian’s stroking hand.

  “You need a name, you know.” Morian thought of several, but didn’t offer any. The cat was beautiful and she’d like to keep her. But she didn’t want this to get too permanent. Maybe Braden would change his mind.

  In the kitchen again, she made a sandwich. She ate it looking out at the garden, thinking about Anne and Tom, then she left for an evening class.

  In the bedroom the cat napped briefly. When she woke, she ate all the food. She used the litter box with interest, then prowled the room restlessly. Now that she was alone she felt shut in.

  When the door wouldn’t open under her demanding digging, she leaped to the windowsill. The breeze blew in above her. She leaped again and clung to the top. Under her weight the window dropped a few inches. Encouraged, she climbed atop the sash. It dropped farther. Balancing, she sniffed the night air, pushing at the screen, then she clawed the screen. It was an old screen and rusty, and when it ripped she stuck her nose through the small tear and pushed.