Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron Page 13

  Having not, until the cat appeared, put two and two together, at last Radlo did. And two and two seemed to make ten. The manner in which Fatty had spoken about the girl in fur, the way this lot spoke of her—they had seemed different females. But Fatty, the outsider, was scared of her. The villagers were in awe?

  And there was no method to get out of it now, whatever anyone thought. Eggy was shambling off the way the cat had gone, along a side path that led from the village and up another thickly treed hill. While the big, thrash-threatening hunter gave Radlo a shove, and pushily fell in behind him. Just as a pair of guards might herd a prisoner to his doom.

  Well done, Radlo, he congratulated himself sourly.

  The woods now were jet black and thick with a night like a horsehair blanket. Somewhere an owl hooted, another bloody joker laughing.

  The lamp in the window showed first, dark amber. Then, in the open doorway of the little house up the hill: a young woman, dressed in the ordinary village way.

  She had gotten herself ice-green eyes. Her hair was fur—short and spiky and furry, in color tabby. Her skin—flawless, of course—was covered by a furry velvet nap, like palest pearliest gray velvet.

  Radlo’s legs gave way.

  He landed (prone) at her feet.

  Fatty hadn’t lied.

  2

  Did the cats pick him up, and courteously carry him indoors? There were certainly enough to have done it. So far he had counted at least thirty, and some were very alike, and therefore he could have undercounted, and they could be twice that number.

  He’d felt ashamed of fainting. He hadn’t eaten anything, it was true, but grass and a withered apple for three days … but hunger had happened before. No excuse.

  Hers was a rambly cottage, with one upstairs room. Up there she had her bed, behind a curtain most likely, and otherwise did all her work with herbs and potions. Unless invited, who would dare intrude?

  The cats did go everywhere. Yet Radlo noted from the start none of them relieved themselves indoors or scent-marked walls or furniture. Nor did they spoil the herb and flower beds outside.

  She was a witch, obviously. A witch covered in fur. And though he had seen later the green irises of her eyes had each a circle of white around them, as a human eye did, it was a small circle of white. And some cats had that too.

  She was a cat.

  A witch and a cat.

  She’d told him her name was Felidis.

  And she had been very kind, brought him some strengthening broth, and warm bread baked in her own oven by the hearth, and beer she had apparently brewed as well. Radlo was so hungry he hadn’t, right then, had any problem with a cat-woman making and serving up his food.

  That evening too, as he sat on the comfortable cushioned bench by the fire, he heard the huntsman, the big one who’d shepherded him there, telling her about a wild cat, a “panther,” he called it—no doubt a wood-lynx—that was bothering the village. (This was what they had been talking about when Radlo went into the village with Eggy.) And in her calm cool voice, witchy-catty Felidis had said, “Oh, that’s fine. I’ll go out tonight and have a word with the panther. I think I did catch sight of him a few evenings back, but I’ve been that busy.…”

  Later still, when the moon was well up, splitting the woods into ranks of black pillars and thin white-moonlight spears, out she went. And peering through one of the little windows, Radlo saw her at the edge of the clearing where her cottage stood, moving quietly up and down with a large shadowy cat-thing about the size of a hunting-hound. There wasn’t anything dangerous-looking to this interview. If anything it was like a couple of friendly acquaintances taking a short walk after church. (The black and white cat was out there too, the one Radlo had seen in the village. It sat on a tree stump, not seeming concerned about the other cat, which was three times its size. It must really trust her.)

  Eventually she (Felidis) touched the moon-doused shadow-panther’s head, and it rubbed once against her hand. Then the animal turned and sprinted from view. Surreal, all this. A dream? But Radlo knew he hadn’t dreamed it. Nor the velvet silver of her hair and skin, the luminous green flash of her cat’s eyes as she walked back to the cottage.

  She had said he might sleep the night on the floor of the downstairs room, with a cushion and a blanket and the dying fire for comfort.

  “I know how it must be,” she had said to him mildly, “to be wandering about on your own in the dark.”

  When not looking at her, one would never know what she was. She sounded like a human girl. But even in the glow of the last embers—you could see.

  That first night he’d barely said a word to her. He had gawped at her for hours. She made no remark on this rudeness. Nor had she told the villagers Radlo was quite unknown to her—not expected.

  He did dream of her, between being disturbed by the bouncing and purring of cats. Of course he dreamed. He was already part-afraid and part-fascinated, and entirely out of his depth.

  “What do you want, Puss?” Radlo asked the black and white cat—Jehankin, had they called it?—who was sitting about one-third of an arm’s length from Radlo’s face when he woke up. Radlo liked animals of all sorts, even snakes, even wolves at a safe distance. But his way of talking to this cat was falsely easy. And the cat gave him a look, as if to say, You don’t kid me, young fellow. He was a young cat himself, strong and glossy and clear-eyed. Even assuming it (he) could take on such a grandfatherly attitude towards Radlo, this cat was a boy. (Daft way to think. Daft, all of it. But then, this creature wasn’t afraid of a lynx.)

  Felidis came in with some red flowers and a basket of apples, and putting these down knelt by the cat and embraced him.

  “Jehankin, my prince!” she said, with great happiness and love. And Prince Jehankin purred like a gigantically buzzing bee.

  Radlo concentrated on the cat then, not to have to look at Felidis, which with daylight, and feeling better, he decided was almost impossible. (He had a feeling too the witch had patted his forehead as he slept. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea.)

  However, she was engaged entirely with her cat. Radlo saw that, although she was loving and caring with all the cats, she made an incredible fuss of this particular feline.

  They rubbed faces for minutes. And she too (oh the Lord!) made a weird purring noise far down in her throat. Then she brought for the cat a dish of meat, and another of curds, and left him to breakfast. When quite done, Jehankin groomed himself, polishing his fur end to end with his spic-and-span pink tongue.

  Of course. Jehankin must be the witch’s Familiar.

  A while after Radlo, to his joy, was given breakfast too. Then he sat on the bench and Felidis inspected him. The cat sat by her and seemed to inspect Radlo as well, with a considering air.

  “I must give you a drink of suitable herbs. That seems to be what you must have,” Felidis announced finally. “Then you’ll be well able to go on with your journey.”

  At that Radlo was covered by a cloud of depression. He had nowhere to go. Besides, a witch would want paying.

  “I can’t offer you a single coin,” he said gracelessly, looking down at the floor now.

  “No worry. People pay me or not, when or if they can,” said Felidis, turning towards the narrow crooked stair and the workroom above. The cat stalked before her and bounded up the steps.

  “You’ve been generous,” said Radlo. “Perhaps—are there any chores I could do to help you out?”

  And to himself, Be quiet, you total madman. Fly while you’ve gotten a chance! But, not looking at her, her voice seemed only human, rather musical and pretty.

  “That’s honorable,” said Felidis. “Well, if you will. There’s some wood to be cut, if you’re up to that. Or the berries in the raspberry vines are ripe to pick.”

  Outside, swinging the axe, Radlo was aware of endless cats, white patterned black, and black dabbed with white; ginger, and ale-brown, and a few pied like tree bark, and even some pale gray—like Felidis herself. Gold
eyes and amber eyes and eyes of jade winked and glittered like jewelry in the bushes.

  Radlo found he had begun, almost by accident, to sing. He sang rather well, he had been told. The sun was up and warm on his back. The clearing was attractive, the tall green canopy of woods all around, just lit in places by the first red and copper of fall.

  When he had cut and stacked the wood in the shed, he picked two baskets of the lush raspberries. He only ate four—they were irresistible and very sweet.

  About a mile off down the slope, and hidden by trees, the village sometimes gave off a homey sound, the tinkle of a sheep bell, the thump of a rug being beaten, or a hammer striking sharp from a forge.

  They lunched. He alone, if with several cats. The witch up in her room of spells and medicines. Then she gave him, at his request, other tasks. He said he would move on tomorrow, if she would allow him the pillow and blanket one more night. She answered carelessly that he was welcome.

  Radlo thought she wasn’t afraid at having a strange man in her house, even now he was well again. After all, she was a witch who could talk to panthers.

  3

  Am I in love with her?

  I can’t even look at her half the time, not properly—but am I in love?

  Radlo was upset even by thinking this. The one girl he had so far loved had dumped him for the local landowner’s son, less than two months before. And after that (or because of that) he’d been in some trouble, and then been thrown out of his own village, and so taken to wandering.

  He had no special trade, though he was strong enough to earn his bread—cutting wood, clearing paths, helping with sheep or horses, that sort of thing. Besides, he could read and write. He had been a scholar before the faithless girl ruined his life.

  As the year had begun to edge towards fall he grew nervous, wondering what he’d do all winter, holed up the Lord knew where, and that was if any village would make a place for him.

  He had been aiming for the big old town that lay along the river, westward. But for a man on foot, and always having to stop to earn some food, the journey so far had taken a while. And in the last thirteen days too, someone had robbed Radlo, someone else had lightly but nastily beaten him up, and last but hardly least, a farmer had cheated him of promised pay.

  Now here he was.

  Her voice was sweet and tempting as the raspberries and apples he had picked for her. But in evening gloamings that green flare of her eyes …

  No, he couldn’t love a being like Felidis.

  He had been sleeping on her cottage floor by now for five nights. By day he did work for her in the house or clearing, or went to the village on her errands. He had made friends with some of the cats—those that let him—and was always respectful to Jehankin, the beast that was her Familiar. Jehankin himself stayed with Felidis in her herbarium during a chunk of each day. At night the black and white cat went out on his own business, presumably to hunt or play, like the other cats, in the woods.

  On the fifth afternoon (yesterday) a boy had come hurrying up from the village, and dashed past Radlo, who was mending the wall of the second shed. In the cottage, a call, and then the village boy’s excited gabble. Somebody was riding directly up here, it seemed, to visit the witch. Somebody important.

  Felidis stepped downstairs, swathed in her broad gray apron, wiping her slender furry hands—paws?—on a cloth.

  Then they all—she, the boy, Radlo, and some sixteen cats—waited about. Until up the track from the village came an impressive group of callers. There were several mounted soldiers, heavily armed and in the uniform of a moneyed household. Also servants on mules. And in the middle was a rich man in a velvet coat, sitting on a big white horse he looked too sick to ride.

  Felidis said nothing. She only looked up at the rich man, calm as cream.

  One of the servants broke out haughtily, “Woman, show some politeness to my master—”

  But the rich man himself cut the servant off. “She’s polite enough. Hello, witch. I see you’re as they say you are.”

  “So,” said Felidis gently, “are very many of us.”

  “Maybe,” he answered. “But do you have the skill they rumor too?”

  “I have some ability.”

  “More than that, I hope. I’m not a well man. Can you help me out?”

  “Dismount, sir,” said Felidis, “and come into my house. We’ll see if I can.”

  The important man was assisted from his horse, and went meekly into the cottage with Felidis, and the last any of the rest of them saw of events, for a while, was Jehankin trotting up and in at the door, before the door was firmly closed.

  Then everybody idled about the clearing. The soldiers shared a beer-skin, and the servants muttered, while the other cats sat on stones, on the shed roofs, or up in the trees, and watched. And Radlo himself watched the plaster drying on the mended wall. The village boy who had brought the message idled about too. He began to talk to Radlo, showing off, knowing everything.

  “Oh, she’ll get him right as rain.”

  “Will she. Good. This lot could turn ugly if she can’t.”

  “Did you know, last year the great lady of Tall Trees came here, so sickly she lay on a litter—but within two hours she was up and out and pink as a girl. And since then, every month, our village gets a vat of wine and a barrel of grain, on account of the healing Felidis worked for her.”

  “You don’t say,” said Radlo. Little liar, he thought.

  But the boy went chattering on, now about this wealthy patron and now that, or the old monk who was one hundred years old and wanted just one more year to finish painting in the book he was making, and the monk received several more, and Felidis was given a gold jewel from the monastery, which she in turn gave the village for their church, where it hung to this minute.

  “She never keeps a thing for herself. Says she never needs it.”

  Radlo climbed up the ladder to check the shed roof, slightly aggravating the cats now roosting there. But anything to get away from the chatty boy.

  It was almost sunset, the sun like a burning house low down in the trees, when the cottage door was undone.

  Out walked the rich man. He looked, Radlo noticed, about twenty years younger, and happy as Christ Mass.

  “By the stars, she’s done it, lads.” He had a flask of medicine too, which the servants took charge of.

  When they had all ridden off, and even the boy had gone scrambling down the hill to tell the village—no doubt another pack of untruths (the rich man had singled him out, Felidis had confided the secret of her spell)—Radlo left the roof.

  He felt angry.

  Either it was some trick she’d pulled. Or else she was just a jolly-woman after all, and an hour in her cosy arms was what had put Richy to rights.

  Inside the cottage he could hear her singing, sweetly too, up in the herb-room. And Jehankin sat half down the stair, washing his paws. His white whiskers seemed to grin at Radlo.

  “The hell with it!” Radlo snapped, and flung out for a stamp in the cooling, darkening wood. Here he disturbed a badger set, shocked a big clawed and militant owl, and ultimately stumbled over a tree root, ending in some mud.

  I’m jealous. Don’t be insane. Of what? A cat-girl with tabby hair. She probably even had whiskers too, if one went close enough and stared.

  When finally he returned, something wonderful-smelling was cooking in a pot on the hearth. (The rich man had brought a present she had accepted, it seemed, a roast for dinner.)

  And she had laid the table for the three of them: herself, Radlo, and the black and white cat.

  His anger melted in the firelight. It was too chilly to storm off. Why not sit down and eat, facing her properly over the candles, and with Prince Jehankin seated couthly between them, sharing everything, having his own bowl exactly like theirs, and a little matching cup of beer?

  Oh, in the candle- and firelight, after a little food, she looked—her skin was just … pale and velvet smooth. And her hair … s
o she had some gray in it before her time, as you might expect from a woman who worked very hard. And her green eyes? They were beautiful.

  She told him a joke and it made him laugh. He told her one, and she laughed too. The cat sat smiling, and presently lay down on the table, like a nesting pigeon (or a lion), his paws tucked under him.

  “Your cat smiles,” said Radlo.

  “Of course. All things smile. But—apart from humans—animals only when they mean it.”

  “Humankind. We’re false, deceivers,” said Radlo sadly.

  “Maybe we feel we have to be. Poor things, we are.”

  “Not you,” he said.

  “I’m the lucky one.”

  “What did you do to that rich man today?”

  “Helped heal him.”

  “How?”

  “Herbs, things I’m lessoned how to use. And … a kind wish.”

  “I thought perhaps—” Radlo faltered. He said, “Were you a bit kinder than just in your wishes?”

  She burst out now in a wild young laugh. It was so true and real it made him laugh again too.

  “No,” she remarked in a moment. “I don’t make myself kind that way with men. With anyone. That isn’t for me. I have no ambition, Radlo, of being any man’s lady, let alone his wife. I don’t want love or fun of that sort, or marriage, or children.” (Radlo stared, astounded. Never in all his days had he ever heard any woman, young or old, say such things.) “My path is another one.”

  “But you’ve no family,” he blurted, astounded now into astounding concern for her loss.

  “Don’t I? Look about.”

  Blankly he glanced around. All he saw were fire glimmers and warm shadows, and here and there a soft gleam of flame on fur, or a glint of a garnet or an emerald or a topaz eye.

  “Yes. They’re my family. All I have and all I want. You’ve seen what I am. Quarter cat at least.”

  Radlo sat dumbfounded. Strangely his eyes had filled with tears.

  Then she told him quietly how it had been with her. Since she was her own living proof, he believed her.