Sleeping. Was warm.
“This is mine. You’re not to take things off my shelf.” I saw now that the plate I’d put on top of my bowl of hard bread had been pushed aside. With the bundled cloak under my arm, I made a quick inspection of my supplies. The bread had been chewed at the edge and rejected. I’d had half a sausage up there. Only a few scraps of casing remained. “You ate my food! And slept on my cloak.”
Not yours. Hers.
I paused in mid-breath. “Well, it’s mine now. She’s dead.”
She is. So it’s mine. It was promised to me.
I stared at him. My memories of that day had an overlay of haze, not for the evening events but those from the morning. I could not remember why I had gone walking to that part of the estate grounds. They were shady and chill, uninviting during the gray and wet days. I could scarcely remember seeing the butterfly wing on the ground; I could not tell if it was a memory from that day, or a memory of my dream. But I did recall that as my father had approached, he had given a shout of surprise. And something had raced away into the brush. Something black and furry.
Yes. I was there.
“That doesn’t mean the cloak belongs to you.”
He sat up very straight and wrapped his black tail neatly around his white feet. He had yellow eyes, I noticed, and the candlelight danced in them as he declared. She gave it to me. It was a fair trade.
“For what? What does a cat have to trade?”
A gold glitter came into those yellow eyes, and I knew I had insulted him. I’d insulted a cat. Just a cat. So why did a little shiver of dread go down my back? I remembered that my mother had told me to never be afraid to apologize when I was wrong. She had said it would have saved her and my father a great deal of trouble if they had only followed that rule. Then she had sighed, and added that I must never think that an apology could completely erase what I had done or said. Still, it was worth trying.
“I beg your pardon,” I said sincerely. “I do not know much of cats, having never had one of my own. I think I have misspoken to you.”
Yes. You have. Twice. The idea that a human could “have a cat of her own” is equally insulting. Abruptly, he lifted one of his hind legs, pointed his foot toward the ceiling and began to groom his bottom. I knew I was being insulted. I chose to bear it in silence. He carried on for a ridiculously long time. I began to be chilly. I surreptitiously picked up an edge of the cloak and draped it around my shoulders.
When he had finally finished, he focused his round, unblinking eyes on me again. I gave her dreams. I lay down beside her and purred through the long cold night. She was badly hurt. Dying. She knew it. Her dreams were dark with sharp edges, full of faces of those she had failed. She dreamed of the creatures that were inside her, chewing their way through her guts. I came into her dreams and in them I was the Cat of Cats, powerful beyond imagining. I chased and slew those who had hurt her. I embraced them with my claws and tore their entrails from their bodies. Toward dawn, when the frost was coldest, I promised I would bring you to her, and she would be discovered and her message delivered. She thanked me, and I told her I had enjoyed the warmth of the cloak. That was when she said I might have it when she was gone.
His story rang with truth. Right up until his last statement. I knew he was lying. He knew that I knew he was lying. He smiled lazily without moving his mouth at all. It was something in the set of his ears, perhaps. He was daring me to dispute his story. Deep in my heart Wolf-Father growled, a low rumbling. He did not like this cat, but his growl was to warn me as much as the feline.
“Very well. I will leave the cloak here at night for you to use.”
Trade, he suggested.
Aha. I tipped my head at him. “What do I have that a cat could possibly want?”
His eyes narrowed. The cat who is allowed to sleep by the kitchen hearth has a basket with a soft blanket in it. And herbs …
“Catmint. And fleabane.” I knew about that. My mother had begun that tradition.
I want the same. And if you see them chase me with a broom, you must shriek and fuss and slap them so that they never dare do so again.
“I can do that.”
And you must bring me delicious things. In a clean dish. Every day.
Somehow he had come closer to me. Slowly he stepped up into my lap and arranged himself. “I can do that,” I agreed.