by Robin Hobb
Cat’s Meat
How is it, I sometimes wonder, that a dog person like myself writes so many stories that feature cats?
I really don’t have an answer to that. While dogs have dominated my life as companions, I’ve had a fair number of cat companions as well. The first that was mine, really all mine, was Loki, a long-haired black tom when I was a young teenager. He was fearless and as much dog as cat it sometimes seemed. Sometimes I’d find him outside in the dead of a Fairbanks winter, curled up snug between a couple of huskies.
When I was newly married in Kodiak, we enjoyed the company of my husband’s childhood cat, Chlorophyll. As an unspayed female, she contributed quite a bit to the gene pool of cats on Kodiak Island and was fondly known as “Cat Factory” by the neighbors.
Today, I am owned by Pi, a black-and-white tuxedo cat who is currently nineteen years old. She has been the most faithful of writing cats, sitting on my lap for long hours while I typed over and around her. Sam, a junior cat at only eighteen years old, is the table-walking, snack-stealing bane of my husband’s existence. And despite my resolution not to acquire any more cats, in December of 2009 both Princess and Fatty were added to our household. Grown littermates, they’ve proven remarkably adaptable to our dogs, kids, and senior cats.
Fatty is orange. With blue eyes. And full of tales to tell.
I made a mistake and I’m still paying for it.” Rosemary tried to sound stronger than she felt. Less forlorn and more matter-of-fact.
“You’ve already paid enough for that mistake,” Hilia responded stoutly. Her best friend since childhood, Hilia always took her part. She might be tactless sometimes, but she was loyal. Loyalty had come to mean a great deal to her.
Rosemary picked up little Gillam and bounced him gently. The toddler had been clutching at her knees and wailing since she set him down. The moment she picked him up, he stopped.
“You’re spoiling him,” Hilia pointed out.
“No, I’m just holding him,” Rosemary replied. “Besides, I don’t think he’s the mistake. If anything, he’s the only good thing I got out of my mistake.”
“Oh, I don’t mean him!” Hilia responded instantly. Her own baby, only a month old, was at her breast, eyes shut, all but asleep as she nursed. Gillam arranged himself in Rosemary’s lap and then leaned over to look down curiously at the baby. He reached a hand toward her.
“Let her sleep, Gillam. Don’t poke her.”
“You paid enough for your mistake,” Hilia went on, as if there’d been no interruption. “You’ve suffered for close to three years. It’s not fair he should come back and try to start it all up again.”
“It’s his house,” Rosemary pointed out. “Left him by his grandfather. His bit of land. And Gillam is his son, as he bragged yesterday at the tavern. He has rights to all of them.”
“This is not his house! Don’t you dare say that! Don’t you dare defend that wretch! His grandfather said it was for Gillam when he deeded it over. Not Pell. His own grandfather knew he couldn’t trust Pell to do the right thing by you and his child! And you are Gillam’s mother, so you have just as much right to be here as Pell does. More, because you’re the one who did all the work on it. What was this place when he left you here, with your belly out to there while he went traipsing off with that Morrany girl? A shack! A leaky-roofed shack, with the chimney half fallen down, and the yard full of thistles and milkweed. Now look at it!” Hilia’s angry words rattled like hail on frozen ground as she gestured around the tiny but tidy room. It was a simple cottage, with a flagged floor and stone walls and a single door and one window. On the sill of that window, an orange cat slept, slack as melted honey in the spring sun.
“Look at those curtains and the coverlet on the bed! Look at that hearth, neat as a pin. Look up! That roof’s tight! Well, it needs a new thatch, but where you patched it, it held! Look out the window! Rows of vegetables sprouting in the garden, half a dozen chickens scratching, and a cow with a calf in her belly! Who did that, who did all that? You, that’s who! Not that lazy, good-for-nothing Pell! That stupid little slut winked an eye and wriggled her rump at him, and off he went, to live off her and her parents. And now that she’s done with him, now that her father sees what a bent coin he is and has turned him out, what makes him think he can come back here and just take over everything you’ve built? What right does he have to it?”
“As much right as I do, Hilia. Legally, we are both Gillam’s parents. We both have the right to manage his inheritance for him until he’s a man. As Gillam’s mother, I can claim that right, but I can’t deny it to Pell, too. And that is how it is.” She spoke sadly, but a smile had come to her face to hear her friend defend her so stoutly.
“Legally.” Hilia all but spat the word. “I’m talking about what is right and real, not what is legal! Has that wretch actually dared to come here?”
Rosemary bit down on her rising fear and hoped none of it showed on her face. “No. Not yet. But I heard yesterday that he’d come back to town and was talking in the tavern, saying it was time he went home and took up his duties as a father and landowner. I think he’s working up the courage to confront me. I heard he was staying up at his father’s house. I don’t think his mother has any more use for Pell than I do. Her life is hard enough, with the way Pell’s father knocks her around, without having another man to wait on. So I don’t know how long she’ll tolerate him under her roof. They’ll both lean on him to leave, and I suspect his father will push him in this direction. He’s always resented me living here. He’s always said that the cottage and land should have come to him first, not gone directly to Pell.”
“Didn’t his grandfather offer it to Pell when he got you pregnant?”
From anyone else, such a blunt reminder might have stung. But this was Hilia, her oldest, truest friend. Rosemary sighed. “Yes. He actually brought us both out here, with a minstrel to witness the vows. He told Pell it was time he stood up and acted like a man and took care of the child that he’d caused and the woman he’d ruined.” It was still hard to say the phrase aloud. She sighed and looked at the wall. “Pell refused then. He said we were both too young, that one mistake shouldn’t cause another. And a month or two later, he proved he was right on that. He left me. But at least I’m not married to him. He gave me that much freedom.”
“Freedom!” scoffed Hilia. “No woman with a babe on her hip is free of anything. What did his grandfather say when Pell said no?”
Rosemary forced her mind back to her tale. “Soader was a good man. He tried to help Pell do what he thought was right. When Pell said he wouldn’t wed me, Soader said he wouldn’t waste the minstrel’s fee. He willed the cottage and land to my unborn child, boy or girl, right then. It made Pell angry but he dared say nothing. He was already out of favor with the rest of his family. Our baby owning a cottage at least gave us a place to live. It made Pell’s father furious, I heard later. He felt that the cottage should have gone to Soader’s daughter, his wife, so that he could have the good of the land. Not that there was much good to it when we got it.
“But Soader meant well. He said that a couple that works together takes the true measure of each other.” Rosemary sighed again. “Well, I guess that when I was here alone, I got Pell’s true measure. I was sad when Soader died last year. He was Pell’s mother’s father, and the only one of Pell’s family who came to see Gillam at all after Pell left. Right up until he took the lung cough, he came every month.”
“He gave you money, then?”
Rosemary shook her head. “No. But he brought food sometimes, and other things. He gave me a rhubarb start, and walking onion bulbs that spread. Things I could use to better my life, if I were willing to work with them. He was a good man.”
“Good man or not, letting Pell refuse to marry you was not the ‘right’ thing for him to do.”
“Actually, it was. Hearing him refuse to speak the marriage oath before a minstrel was important. Up until then, I was sure he would marry me, right af
ter the baby was born. Not that he’d ever asked me or I’d ever asked him. I guess I was afraid to ask. Soader wasn’t. I didn’t want to hear what he made Pell say, but it was a good thing for me to know sooner rather than later.”
Rosemary sipped at her cooling tea. It loosened her throat that had closed tight as she recalled that humiliation. Kendra the minstrel had looked aside from her shame, but Soader had met her gaze steadily and quietly observed, “So that is how it will be.”
“Of course, later, when we were alone, Pell had all sorts of reasons why I shouldn’t be angry at him.” Rosemary forced the words out, trying to keep her tone light. “And I believed them. I believed that he was ‘married to me in his heart’ and that there would ‘never be another woman.’ I was so foolish.”
For the past three years, she’d been pushing herself to take responsibility for the mess she’d made of her life. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes she looked around and thought, If I can make that big a mistake, I can make just as big of a correction. And she’d thought she’d done so. She’d worked hard. The repairs to the cottage had been done by her own hand or paid for by barter. She’d turned the old garden over, one shovelful of earth at a time. She’d barrowed in manure dropped on the roadside by passing horses and worked it into the soil herself. She’d traded labor for seed and starts, and she and Gillam lived cheap and stingy to save up the coins for a spindly, worm-plagued yearling cow. That cow, healthy now, was soon to drop her first calf. The chickens had been eggs, kept warm near the hearth and turned daily, a dozen eggs to hatch a mere two pullets and a cockerel. But they had multiplied to a decent flock now. Her daily gathering kept a stack of wood by the side of the house and a neat pile of split and ready kindling beside it. She could do things, make things, and cause change to happen.
She looked away from the window to find Hilia staring at her, eyes full of tears and sympathy. “You deserved better, Rosemary.”
But, “I can’t run away from what I did, Hilia. I made a bad choice when I let that man into my bed. My mother warned me about him. I didn’t listen. Let’s admit the truth. There were two of us in that bed. And I’m going to have to deal with him the rest of my life. Pell will never be my husband, but he will always be Gillam’s father.”
“You were scarcely more than a girl and your father had just died. Pell took advantage of you.”
Rosemary shook her head at her friend. “Don’t. It took me six months to come out of wallowing in self-pity. I won’t go back to that.”
Hilia sighed. “Well. I won’t argue that you’re a lot more pleasant to be around now that you’re not constantly weeping. You’re tougher than you think, girl. When that man shows up here, I think you ought to bar the door and pick up the poker. Don’t you let him under this roof!”
Rosemary looked down at Gillam in her lap. His lids were heavy; the fuss had only been because he was tired. “The boy has a right to know his father,” she said. She wondered if that were true.
Hilia snorted. “The boy has the right to grow up in a peaceful home. And if Pell is here, you won’t have that.” She stood with a sigh, closing her blouse and shifting her dozing baby to her shoulder. “I have to go home. There’s butter to churn and the house to tidy. Two of our cows are with calf and will drop any day now. I need to stay home for the next week or so. But you listen to me. If Pell is drunk or even unpleasant when he gets here, you just take Gillam and walk away. You know the way to my house.”
Rosemary managed a smile. “Weren’t you telling me to stand my ground just a few minutes ago?”
Hilia pushed a straggling black curl back from her face. “I suppose I was. In truth, Rosie, I don’t know what to advise you to do, so maybe I’d better shut my mouth. Except to say that I’m always your friend. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”
“I know that,” Rosemary assured her.
Hilia stood up to leave. She paused by the window and stroked the sleeping cat. He lifted his head and regarded her with cobalt eyes. “Now is not the time to be lazy, Marmalade. I’m counting on you to look after Rosemary and Gillam,” she cautioned the cat aloud.
The cat sat up slowly and yawned, curling a pink tongue at her. She scratched him under the chin and he closed his eyes in pleasure. “I mean it, now! You’d have gone right into the river in a sack if I hadn’t saved you! You owe me, cat. I saved your life.” He returned Hilia’s gaze with narrowed eyes.
Cats do not enjoy being reminded of debts. Cats do not incur debts. You did what you wanted to do. My being alive as a result of it is something you caused, not something I owe you.
Rosemary stood up from her chair. She deposited her sleeping boy on the bed and came to join her friend by the window. She put out a hand toward Marmalade, and the tom butted his head against it. “Don’t say mean things to Marmalade, Hilia. He is the best thing that anyone ever gave me. In those days before Gillam was born, when I felt I was all alone, little Marmy was always with me.” She moved her fingers to tickle the white triangle at his throat. A grudging purr ground its way out of the big tom.
Hilia narrowed her eyes and spoke to him. “Well, even if you don’t owe me, cat, you owe Rosemary. You’d better take care of her.”
The orange tom closed his eyes and curled his front paws toward his chest. I have no idea what you think I can do against a human male.
Hilia cocked her head at him. You’re a cat. You’ll think of something. Or you’ll help Rosemary think of something.
She doesn’t have the Wit to listen to me. He tucked his head to his chest and apparently sank into sleep.
I’m not stupid, cat. No one needs the Wit magic to hear a cat. Cats talk to whomever they please.
Obviously true. But I didn’t say she couldn’t hear me. I said she doesn’t listen to what I tell her.
Hilia reached over to tug at one of his orange ears, demanding his attention. Then you’d better make her. Pell is not kind to beasts of any kind. If you’re used to being fed and sleeping inside, you’ll find a way to help her. Or your life will be just as miserable as hers will be. “Rotten cat,” she added aloud. “I should have let Pell’s father drown you.”
“Pell’s father was the man with the sack of kittens? You never told me that!” Rosemary was horrified.
“Not a pretty thing to tell at any time, and right then you didn’t need any cause to add any more people to your hate list.” Hilia leaned over to kiss Rosemary on the cheek. “You take care of yourself and Gillam, now. And at the first sign of any trouble, you come running to my house.”
“Oh, I don’t think there will be any trouble I need to run from.”
“Um. Well, I’m not sure I agree with you about that. But just remember that my door is open.”
“I will.”
Rosemary watched her friend climb the little hill in front of her cottage and disappear over the rim of it. There was a cliff-top path that followed the line of the bay, but Hilia would probably take the steeper path down to the beach itself. When the tide was out and the rocky beach was bare, the quickest route back to the village was to cut across the exposed tide flat. Idly, Rosemary wished they lived closer to each other. The dell that sheltered her home from the worst of the winter storms off the water also shaded it for much of the day. The holding for Gillam’s cottage was small, a crescent strip of sloping but arable land between the sea cliffs and the salt marsh that reached around the back of it. An odd bit of land, too small to be a real farm, but enough, perhaps, for a woman and a child. “It could have been enough for all three of us, Pell. If you’d wanted us.”
The shadows of evening were already reaching toward her home. She gave a small shiver and glanced over at her sleeping child. “Well. I don’t think your father will be coming to see you tonight. And I have chores to do.” She took up her shawl before she left the house. The day had been warm, a promise of summer, but now the cool winds were sweeping in from the coast. She brought in her cow and shut her up in her rough byre. It was a rude structure, scarcely mor
e than four poles holding up a slanted thatched roof. Perhaps this summer she’d have the time and resources to close in the sides of it. Come winter, the cow would welcome at least a break from the wet winds.
The chickens were aware of the westering sun and were already coming home to roost. She counted her precious flock and found all nine were there. Soon, as the days lengthened, they’d resume laying. Picky the rooster had been energetic about mating with his harem. She looked forward to fresh eggs again, and to the possibility of letting one hen set a batch for chicks. She’d be willing to forgo eggs for a time if it meant she could put roast chicken on the table later. She wished she had a coop for the chickens. Right now, they roosted on the wall of the cow’s byre. A coop would keep them safer from foxes and hawks and owls.
There was always more to do, always something more to build. That was good, really. What would her life have been without something more to do each day?
As was her ritual, her next stop was the garden. The rhubarb had thrust up tightly curled leaves, and the early peas had sprouted. Most of the other furrows were bare brown earth. Or were they? She crouched down low and then smiled. Tiny seedlings were breaking from the earth in two other rows. Cabbages. She didn’t much like cabbage, but it grew well for her, and the tight-leaved heads kept well in the small root cellar she had dug. She sighed and hoped that next winter would not be another endless round of cabbage and potato soups. Well, if it was, perhaps a few of them would have a little bit of chicken in them.
She was coming to her feet when she heard his voice behind her. Startled, she stumbled away from him, trampling her own seedlings. “Damn!” she cried, and then spun to face him.
“All I said was hello.” Pell smiled at her. The expression was uneasy on his face, as if it clung to his mouth despite his eyes. He was as tall as she remembered him, and as handsome. He’d grown a beard, and it was as curly as his dark hair. His shirt was blue with embroidery on the sleeves, and his shining knee boots were black. His belt was heavy black leather, and he wore an ivory-handled knife in a fine sheath at his hip. Dressed like a merchant’s son, and as always, aware of just how good he looked. Handsome, handsome Pell, the dandy of the village. She stared at him, and his smile grew broader. He had once been hers. How amazed she had been at that, when he chose her. How grateful and how accommodating she had been, in her astonishment. She should have known she couldn’t hold him. Not even with his baby in her belly. He had left her, just as her mother had warned her he would.
