A Cat Among Dragons

by Alma Boykin

  Along with Rada Lord Ni Drako and Shi-dan, Lords Sheedak, Tarkeela, and Daesar had accepted his Imperial Majesty’s invitation to hunt. The Prince Imperial, Bis-tahbi, had arrived earlier and waited within the keep for the rest of the party. Technically, in Court precedence and privilege, Rada held a lower rank than the others guests, at least until a war started. However, because Shi-dan had made it clear that he favored Lord Ni Drako, the other nobles found it wiser to treat Rada as if her status more closely approached theirs. She never pushed matters. As she observed the three nobles jostling slightly for precedence, Rada grumbled, Yech. It’s worse than when Col. Adamski had to fit new officers into the Adamantine Division—all preening, egos, and vanity.

  Once inside the walls, a number of servants waited to show their new daimyo and the royal guests to their rooms. Shi-dan knew where the royal suite was and had already veered off to the western side of the courtyard. Rada’s own rooms and office clustered on the northern side of the keep. That much she knew from her communications with Lokat, the Royal Steward who really managed and ran Singing Pines. After servants met and led the other lords to their chambers, Lokat approached Lord Ni Drako and bowed.

  She smiled down at him. He had been running Singing Pines for over a decade, and Rada had gone out of her way to assure him that she would not be changing anything without discussing matters with him first. “Welcome to Singing Pines, Lord Ni Drako,” he said. “If you care to follow me, please my lord?”

  “Thank you, Steward Lokat,” Rada told the reptile. She noticed that he and the others sported paler hides than other Azdhagi she’d met, with more yellow in their various colors and patterns. Interesting, she thought. Other servants picked up her minimal baggage and trailed along behind the lord and steward. She could tell they were disconcerted, to put it mildly, by her presence, and she inquired, “Steward Lokat, did you have the opportunity to tell the others about me?”

  “No, my lord. They have no need of such information,” he explained, giving her a mildly perplexed look. They walked up a treaded ramp to the second floor, and he opened a thick wooden door carved with a stylized animal head. “Your personal chamber, Lord Ni Drako.” Rada looked around at the small room, noting the minimal furnishings. They were of very high quality, however, and she nodded approvingly. It also had an attached lavatory that had been adjusted to suit her needs.

  “Very good, Lokat! This is just what I like. You and your people have done quite well,” she praised him. “If you have a moment, could you show me my office?”

  The grey-brown reptile hesitated a long few seconds before replying, “Of course, my lord. This way, please.” They paced down the wood-paneled corridor, his talons scratching lightly on the tile floor. Her office would be on the eastern wall of the keep, and indeed just around the corner Lokat paused before another door, this one plain. He took a key off the ring on his carry harness and unlocked the door, pushing it open with his forefoot.

  Rada was less happy with what she saw here. As she had ordered, a custom desk and chair stood in the room, along with the more usual Azdhag benches. “Lokat, I requested a weapons stand, did I not? And shelves for holding papers and other items. And cushions.”

  He made the noise that served Azdhagi as hemming and hawing. “Um, my lord, that is to say,” and she folded her arms and waited. “Yes, you did, my lord. But I assumed that you would be spending time at the estate only in season, so there was no need of such things in here.”

  Rada frowned as she beckoned him to follow her into the room and to shut the door behind him. “Steward Lokat, once matters reach a stable point, I anticipate spending half my time here. That may be during hunting season, it may not. And my work will follow me, so I must be able to meet with people, attend to paperwork, and send and receive communications.”

  “My lord, that’s, that’s unheard of!” he protested, neck-spines and tail trembling with agitation.

  She swished her own tail and extended her claws. “So am I, Lokat. I will not interfere with day-to-day running of the estates, but I will be here, and you will furnish me with what I need. Is that clear?”

  Lokat apparently decided that he’d underestimated the mammal, because he bowed. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Don’t do it now. Your people have enough to do with the Imperial party visiting. But see to it as soon as possible, please.”

  He sank a bit lower. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Thank you. Now where are my soldiers staying?” She’d brought five of the Palace Guards and Defenders along, partly to get them used to being away from the palace, partly to acclimate the manor staff to having them around. Once hunting season ended, she planned on taking them into the field to practice terrain studies and fighting with obstructed visibility. After all, no one ever limited their attacks to open, flat terrain any more. Lokat will truly have heart failure when we start planning attacks on the manor house Rada mused with warped humor.

  “Directly below us, in part of the servants’ quarters, my lord” he said.

  She smiled and motioned for him to open the door. “Again, thank you. I’ll go check on them, then will be in my personal quarters should anyone need me.” Lord Ni Drako strode off, leaving Lokat feeling rather befuddled. Then he shook himself and went to take care of whatever other disasters awaited him.

  Once she was satisfied that her men were take care of (and would behave themselves around the females), Rada made herself comfortable in her room and took a quick nap. Then she began prowling the halls of the keep, familiarizing herself with all the exits, entrances, corridors and other things. The staff didn’t know what to make of her appearing in the kitchen, cellars, and up on the walls. Shi-dan found their consternation amusing when he learned of it. Rada excused herself with a shrugged, “Felines are inquisitive by nature Imperial Majesty, my lords.”

  The staff also found Lord Ni Drako’s modest requests unusual in the extreme. She was content to eat whatever had been planned, didn’t require special personal service, and entertained herself. Although her concubine, the True-dragon called Lady Zabet, had not accompanied her lord to the manor, Rada expressed no interest in borrowing anyone’s female in the evenings. Adding to that season’s novelties, Rada’s sunrise weapons practices in the courtyard and outside the walls with her men soon drew an audience from both the keep and the village, and the Lord Defender had no hesitations about recruiting for the Defenders from among interested younger sons.

  Rada grew less happy with the situation as the sixt progressed. It wasn’t the servants, who had decided that it was safer to humor the mammal than risk her and the King-Emperor’s wrath. And it wasn’t the lords or Prince Imperial, because she accepted her low rank and stayed out of their way, or deferred to them as much as was practical. No, her frustration stemmed from the actual hunting.

  After four days she’d not caught anything, because she’d been assigned to be clean-up killer. Shi-dan had given her a position of great trust, because it was her job to protect the others if they only wounded their prey. Three of the five animals being hunted were predators that wouldn’t hesitate to turn and attack if cornered or wounded, or even if they were only surprised. Should the hunter not rearm fast enough, it was Rada’s job to protect the others and put the wounded animal out of its misery. But that meant that she couldn’t go after things herself, which irritated her. If Shi-Dan hadn’t been there, she might just have taken her chances with an unauthorized kill, or tried to persuade one of the other nobles to let her take a turn hunting. As it was, she kept her senses on alert and her thoughts to herself.

  One evening Rada decided that she’d had enough; if she did not kill something on her own, she just might break hunting discipline. Knowing full well that the Azdhagi did not go out at night, partly because they couldn’t see very well in the dark, Rada indulged in a surreptitious stalk. One of the planet’s two moons was new and the other less than a quarter and waning when she slipped out on her own. She’d found a small area of the courtyard that rem
ained in constant shadow at night, and used it to help her ease up to, and out of, the main gate. Once in the woods she changed form completely and sallied forth to do battle with the small animals that roamed in the darkness. She didn’t try to hunt the larger game, like ts’tali, because of the problem of explaining her kills if she came back before dawn with a trophy. And even she couldn’t eat a whole carcass in one sitting.

  Instead, Rada focused her ire on the rodent tree-fuzzies and the small, reptilian root diggers and nut eaters. The local Azdhagi considered them nothing more than vermin and Rada actually enjoyed the challenge of stalking and killing the smaller creatures, either in feline-shape or in her true form and using a small blaster. She did carry something heavier in case a roklat or talkak decided to wake up and attack her, or in the very unlikely event she stumbled onto a kirpash, the large nocturnal predator of the mountains. And once she had to climb a tree to avoid something she couldn’t identify that sported large fangs and a bad attitude. However, she found her nightly excursions both relaxing and profitable. She didn’t bother to tell anyone what she was doing. Shi-Dan hadn’t told her not to go hunting, and she wasn’t interfering with the trophy species, so it was no one’s business but her own. Or so she kept telling herself.

  Three days after her first nocturnal foray, the mammal tails gave her away. She’d tried a few but didn’t care for them, and had buried them the second time she’d gone out. However, something found the remains and dug them back up. “Ni Drako, were these yours?” Shi-dan inquired, looking at the pile of five furry tails, all neatly severed at the base of the spine.

  “Yes, Imperial Majesty, they were.” She waited, wondering how angry he was going to be.

  Not very, judging by the dry chuckle. “At least you chose vermin to vent your frustration on. However,” and his humor evaporated, “you will confine yourself to hunting with Us from now on, unless told otherwise.”

  She bowed, not replying because he had already turned to other matters.

  One thing that not being actively on the prowl did allow was time and occasion to observe the other members of the hunting group. All had been invited to Singing Pines as a sign of favor by the King-Emperor or his son. Lord Sheedak was the vizier’s younger brother and quite likely to inherit Blacklands, the family’s estate. Tarkeela, the least-skilled hunter in the group, had served in the Imperial forces with Prince Imperial Bis-tahbi during his mandatory military duty, and they remained friends. Daesar’s family were mostly merchants who had been ennobled three generations previously, and Lord Daesar would be taking a position as Imperial governor on Sidara in a few moons. And then there was the Lord Defender, who hosted the group.

  Rada got along with everyone, although she wasn’t as fond of Bis-tahbi as she was of his father. The smooth and charming green-and-brown-blotched Prince Imperial possessed a full measure of his father’s cunning and aggression without the latter’s self-discipline and sense of limits. Perhaps it comes from being the only child, the woman mused as she watched Bis-tahbi in his cups. Tarkeela encouraged the crown prince, but carefully, and went out of his way to engage Rada in conversation or a game of brakti. Daesar had a diplomat’s smoothness but moved like a warrior when he was on the hunt, never wasting motion, just as he never wasted words. He and Rada shared a great many characteristics, including their common-born backgrounds and experience with commerce, and she found his opinions on the larger Imperial situation to be sound, based on her own knowledge. And it never hurt to cultivate the Foreign Ministry. Lord Sheedak raised the Lord Defender’s hackles although she couldn’t decide exactly why. He’d not done anything especially rude or problematic and hunted fairly well. Perhaps it was the stories she overheard from the servants about how he treated them when she or Shi-Dan were absent that bothered her.

  Although Shi-Dan had forbidden her from hunting on her own, he’d not banned Rada from going out after dark, and she continued to prowl for a few hours every night. She stalked without killing and basked in the quiet solitude of the woods and meadows. Even the one stormy night failed to deter her, although Rada didn’t wander as far or for as long that time. She’d found a way in and out of the keep that took her through the western wing, near the modified hot spring in the cellars that now served a soaking pool. No one else seemed aware of the ancient stone door and passage, leading Rada to suspect that they once formed an escape route in case of siege in the days before peace broke out and the cellars were reconfigured.

  On the stormy night, Shi-Dan had retired early with an attractive young female from the village who had been stalking him as the hunters went out in the mornings. Rada had her own thoughts about such things, but kept her muzzle firmly shut and just made certain that the female in question’s family had not pressured her into seducing anyone. Since the female already had a reputation in the village and manor for being “horizontal, willing, and able,” as Rada’s old Captain Szilliar would have put it, the Wanderer shrugged and focused her attention on other matters.

  Rada had come in through her new exit and was drying off behind a low wall where the hot spring bubbled up before artificial channels directed the water into the soaking and bathing pool. She heard voices approaching and decided on impulse to hide in the shadows and see who it was. Her soldiers and the servants also used the pool, and if it was her men, she thought about jumping one of them to see how he’d react.

  Instead, the Prince Imperial and Lords Sheedak and Tarkeela came around the corner. They didn’t get into the pool, making Rada very curious since there weren’t any females waiting for them. She pushed herself back into her cover, hoping that the smell of wet fur wouldn’t give her away.

  The three nobles settled down just out of her line of sight. “So, what do you think?” Bis-tahbi asked.

  “I think I’ve seen enough. Requiring military service in order to be eligible for a governorship was bad. And hiring that female mammal? He must have lost his mind, your highness.” It was Lord Sheedak speaking, and Rada held her breath. There was only one person they could be talking about.

  “I’ve not spoken to the Healers yet,” Bis-tahbi replied, “but I fear you are closer to the truth than I like, Sheedak. He’s gotten less amenable to persuasion in the past year, and I’m concerned that this is the first sign of major problems.” Yet his tone didn’t sound concerned, Rada thought. It sounded more like a man giving his excuse for an action.

  She decided to take a chance and closed her eyes, extending her Gift to read the men’s emotions as Tarkeela’s deeper bass rumbled, “The Empire can’t afford to have an unstable leader, your Highness. Do you think your sire will listen to persuasion?”

  “I believe so,” the prince’s light tenor replied, but his words did not match his emotions.

  After more general discussion of the political situation, Bis-Tahbi departed so that he would not be missed if Shi-Dan left his sleeping quarters. Tarkeela’s claws scraped the floor and he asked, “Do you think the brown bastard will listen to reason?”

  “Not at all,” Sheedak snapped, sounding annoyed. “You’ve seen him this past sixt. And that mammal of his? Yeech! With so many qualified lords, he puts that thing in charge of the Defenders? We don’t need the Defenders anyway, but it’s obvious that he’s lost his mind. Not that he was stable to begin with,” the noble opined.

  “And of course your analysis has nothing to do with his ordering the execution of your oldest brother,” Tarkeela observed dryly.

  Actually, it does Rada thought from her hiding place.

  “As much as your dismissal from the Imperials does,” Sheedak dug back. “Or our mutual affection for that nasty furbearer he dotes on. That’s just unnatural,” and both reptiles shuddered, judging by the sound they made.

  “So his Highness is going to try and persuade his sire to change or retire in his favor, I take it?” Sheedak continued.

  “Yes. Tomorrow, while we’re out in the field. And if he’s unsuccessful, well, accidents do happen on hunting trips,” Tarkeela
said smoothly. “That floptail Daesar won’t challenge three of us, and he’s ambitious and smart enough to keep his muzzle shut. If not, well, if he dies defending the King-Emperor from that mammal’s treachery...”

  Rada almost broke her cover then and there, but her hunting knife was no match for the others’ claws and fangs. Do not give them an excuse, the smart part of her mind screamed. You would be the aggressor, doing their work for them. She kept silent and still until the two plotters left the room, then counted to a thousand before easing out of her concealment and returning to her quarters. Should she tell Shi-dan? By all rights she should—this was treason, pure and simple, and conspiracy to murder. But who would believe her? Shi-dan, some of her men, but no one else. And it would be all too easy for the Prince Imperial and others to say that the mammal was trying to eliminate the competition and threats to her position. After all, that’s what she would be doing if she were a normal Azdhagi noble!

  No, the better option remained watching and listening, and assuming that the plotters would eliminate her first, then go after Shi-dan. Or they would do their best to convince him that he’d been in error about hiring her and proceed from there. Hairball, your hours are numbered she thought, or theirs are. Ah well, if it was easy, anyone could do it. They forget that this mammal is as much of a predator as they are, but with an extra century of experience and her back to a cliff. If the incautious trio had seen her at that moment, fur up, claws out, cold fire in her eyes, they might have reconsidered their assessment of the Lord Defender. She sifted through her information and plotted her own plot, then retired for the night.