Cats Triumphant (6 page)

Dawna Keen-Eyed upended her water skin and drank the few last drops. Walking the rough horse track between villages was thirsty work, but she was happy. It was better to be breathing country air full of the smells of new-cut hay, wood smoke and pig poop than blood, rot, burning oil and the smell of corpses beginning to decay. The way the land sloped the river shouldn’t be far ahead, and by it the town where perhaps a decent meal and a clean bed waited. Her longsword, carefully cleaned from the last battle and wrapped in its oiled cloth, and her shield with its red stripe down the center bumped against the tall woman’s back with every step she took. The red pennant that indicate her status as a mercenary fluttered from the hilt and tickled the back of her neck under her long, brown braid. King Drealin III himself had handed the pennant back to her with a brief statement of gratitude, at the same time that the paymaster gave her her fee. The money wasn’t much, but it ought to last long enough for her to reach home. For the moment she longed to sit down. Her legs were tired, and she had finally worn through the thin place in the sole of her left boot.

CABBAGE TOWN
, the gold-lettered plaque read, as the track changed from mud to gravel at the edge of the village. Dawna glanced around with pleasure. Life was here, not death. It was market day. Hearty merchants wrangled with their customers, apple-cheeked women in kirtles and wimples, or tall men with colorful liripipe hoods. Farmers argued about the relative merits of this or that cow. Dogs slept in the sun.

A plump gray puss slept tucked up on a window sill beside a scarlet flower in a pot. An orange-striped mother cat, her teats heavy with milk, wound about the legs of the tables on which the merchants’ goods were displayed.

A group of shouting and laughing children ranging in age from five to ten or eleven years old raced up the hill along a lane that led up from the river that Dawna could now see from the village’s main street. They stopped to stare at the mercenary in armor with her pack and sword slung upon her back. She smiled at them.

“Good day to you,” she said, shifting the heavy load to the other shoulder.

Immediately the children went wide-eyed with distrust and curiosity.

“Are you here to conquer us?” asked a little girl with long plaits tied with blue ribbon.

Dawna laughed. “No, I’m just back from the wars.”

“You were fighting?” asked the biggest boy, hair the color of fresh wood and eyes of leaf green.

“Indeed I was. I killed eight men in the last battle at Songhelm. I and my fellow sell-swords were in the front line when we laid siege to the pirates’ stronghold at Valorin on the coast. We broke the walls down in only three days, and saved the town.”

“Ooohhh!” the children gasped, awed.

“Did you burn their boats? Did you meet the king? Did you find bags of gold?” Now that she had proved friendly, questions bubbled up out of the children like steam in a stewpot.

“Perhaps I’ll tell you a tale or two later. I just want a rest now,” Dawna said, with a smile. She turned back to the butcher, who was hacking a slab of meat into collops. “Where’s a good place to get a meal and a bed for the night?”

The man stuck the tip of his carving knife into the chopping block and consulted the sky. “Oh, well, there’s Brenner’s tavern, or Mistress Peck’s…”

The biggest of the boys, bored by such ordinary talk, picked up a stone and heaved it at the orange cat. It struck her in the side. She let out a cry and skittered underneath the weaver’s table, next to the butcher.

“Stop that,” Dawna ordered. The boys paid no attention. They picked up more stones and continued to pelt the cat, who mewed piteously, trying to find a place to hide. “For Gods’ love, what’s the matter with you? Whose children are those?” she asked the tradesfolk.

“Just children,” the butcher replied, with a shrug. “Just a cat. What do you care?”

“It’s wrong,” Dawna exclaimed angrily. “Cats are the Gods’ creatures, the same as we are.”

The man blew a derisive raspberry. Dawna felt her temper flaring. Those brats were hurting an innocent animal, and he didn’t intend to do a thing about it. After all the killing she had seen, senseless cruelty fired her blood.

“Mind that for me,” she said, thrusting her pack into the butcher’s arms. She drew her sword and stuck it, point quivering, into the nearest tree. No need for it in what she intended to do.

As she turned the children instantly divined her intention. They dropped the rest of their stones and fled down the street towards the river. A coracle lay on the churned-up mud bank. No doubt they intended to make their escape in it, leaving the woman unable to follow them in her heavy leather-and-bronze armor. They had the advantage of lightness, but her temper lent speed to her feet. With a surge of strength she hurtled down the hill, angling to come up in front of the largest boy, the initial stone-thrower.

“Now we’ll see how much
you
enjoy a thrashing,” she said, grabbing him by the arm. She sat down on the coracle’s edge and swung him over her knee. “That’s for assaulting a poor innocent beast. And that’s for harming a mother. And that’s for not listening to your elders.” Her open hand smacked down hard on his upturned backside again and again.

The other children fled as soon as their leader had been captured. By the time Dawna marched her captive up the hill, a crowd had gathered.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing to our children?” demanded the weaver.

“They needed a lesson,” Dawna stated, thrusting the boy toward the crowd. He immediately ran to a prosperous-looking man whose sandy-blond locks suggested to her that he was the boy’s father. “Cruelty to animals is a sin.” The gray cat had been awakened from his nap by the shouting. He wound around the legs of the crowd. The weaver distractedly aimed a kick at it when it brushed against him.

“Get away with you,” he growled.

Dawna turned on him. “You’re no better! Children learn from their elders. You should teach them kindness. These animals are your friends and protectors.”

“Oh, please,” the weaver groaned, rolling his eyes. “Don’t spout your animist noises at me. The Father put all creatures under the command of humans. If He wishes us saved from plague He will be the one to save us, not some dumb animal.” From the sound of the grumbling, the rest of the crowd agreed with him.

“Dumb! Can
you
catch a rat with your hands?”

“You’re a fine one to talk about holding life sacred,” a gaunt, gray-haired woman declared, shaking a finger at her. “That red flag of yours gives you away. You work for a price, killing for pay.”

Dawna walked over to the tree beside the butcher’s stall and pulled her sword free. The crowd watched with worried eyes as she sheathed it. “I accept a fee to defend what I think is right, goodwife. I only use my weapon in worthy service. I never harm anyone who cries me mercy and lays down his weapons. Thank you.” She tugged her pack out of the butcher’s limp arms.

“Fine words,” the prosperous man said, “but you were quick enough to paddle a harmless boy.”

“It’s a lesson he had coming, if not from you, then from me,” Dawna said frankly. “If the king’s marshalls saw him he’d have gotten more than a swat, I can tell you that. His punishment was with my empty hand. I will never draw my sword against an unarmed man, woman or child.” She sighed. “I am only passing through your town. I’m not looking for a fight. But don’t doubt that I can defend myself well without it. I don’t want a fight with you. All I want is to sup here and sleep, and I’ll be on my way in the morning.”

“Not in my establishment, you won’t. You stay out of my inn,” the wrinkled old woman ordered her.

“And mine,” added a stout man.

“Leave our town,” the boy’s father declared, shaking his fist. “We don’t want you here, sell-sword. No one here wants your services, or your presence.”

Dawna growled to herself. If she hadn’t been so tired she’d have given them
all
the flat of her hand. If anyone she’d ever met needed spankings, it was these people. “I’m on the common property, and I claim the king’s peace.” She raised an eyebrow, defying anyone to disagree with her.

No one did. The king’s peace meant they couldn’t drive her off the green or within a body-length of any public highway. Paying her no more mind the townsfolk closed up their market stalls and went in to dinner. Dawna watched longingly as a cluster of merry-makers followed Mistress Peck through the cheerfully-painted wooden door at the corner of the square.
Beer
, she thought, wistfully,
roast beef
. Tempting smells floated out to her on the evening breeze.

No chance gettiing a hot meal from Mistress Peck or the other innkeeper, nor of paying a villager for a share of their supper. Dawna sat down against a tree and began to rummage in her pack for dry, tasteless journey biscuit. It’d gripe her belly more than usual knowing that good food was so close by.

She jumped back in alarm as something cold and slimy fell on her hand. The tabby cat she had rescued sat at her feet with tail wound around its paws, looking up at her with big, green, saucerlike eyes. The thing that had now fallen off Dawna’s hand was a freshly caught trout.

“Taking pity on the hungry traveler, eh?” she said, reaching down to scratch the cat behind the ears. “Thank you. It’ll be most welcome.”

With flint and tinder from her pack she struck a small fire, gutted and staked the fish over it to cook. It was delicious. The cat watched her eat, accepted a morsel and no more, rubbed against Dawna’s knee, then disappeared into the darkness. Dawna banked the fire and settled herself uncomfortably against the tree. With the townsfolk unkindly inclined toward her she didn’t dare strip off her armor. After a few drinks they might be bolder. She hated fighting with drunks; they always threw up on her, and bronze took so much polishing.

The blanket of twilight began to draw across the sky. Now that the sun was down the chill river mist was rising. She pulled her gray wool cloak out of her pack and wrapped it around herself, tugging the hood down over her forehead. Not warm enough, but it would have to do. She’d have to sleep with one eye open and her sword at her side. It’d be a cold night and a wakeful one.

* * *

Birdsong woke her at false dawn. Dawna’s free hand clenched on something unfamiliar, which squirmed. She struggled to sit up. A heavy weight on her chest and legs shifted. Her hand fumbled for her sword. Instead of metal her fingers touched fur. Her eyes flew open. Green eyes in a wedge-shaped gray head regarded her from an inch away.

“Wha’?” Dawna sputtered, thrashing. “Gah?’

The gray cat was curled up just underneath her collar bone. More of the weight on her moved. She raised her head to look. Behind the gray cat a blanket of felines rolled or stalked off Dawna’s body, leaving behind cold morning air. Dawna gaped in amazement. They had spent the night on her, providing her with a living blanket. But that was not all. From the protected hollow in the crook of her arm four kittens, two gray, one orange and one calico, looked up at her with trusting eyes. The mother cat unwound herself from a ball next to Dawna’s head and came over to rub against Dawna’s jaw, then began to lick the kittens vigorously.

“Well, so much for my reputation for vigilance,” Dawna said, touching the little ones’ delicate heads. The kits were so young their ears were still rounded. The mother cat’s rough tongue pushed her fingers away from the calico’s ear. “I’m glad my sisters-in-arms weren’t here to see me sleep through that. Thank you for keeping me warm. I was comfortable. A kindness for a kindness.”

The mother cat arched her back upward, stretched forward and back, then stalked away, leaving her kittens in the curve of Dawna’s arm.

“Wait, I’m not a nursemaid!” Dawna called, then chided herself. How could she expect a cat to understand what she was saying?

It wouldn’t be long before the townsfolk emerged to take up their chores for the day. If Dawna hung about too long they’d begin to gather in small groups, eventually working up enough mob courage to drive her out of the village. She intended to be on her way long before
that
psychological moment arose, but in the meanwhile, her damaged boot needed attention.

Gingerly, she peeled off the battered black shoe. It would have been nice to have the local shoemaker fix it for her, but under the circumstances he’d most likely be afraid to do business with her. Never mind: she had pieces of leather, waxed cord and a needle in her pack, same as she used for patching her armor.

The kittens crawled in her lap and batted at the end of the string. Dawna gently pushed them away as she took another stitch.

“You still here, sell-sword?” a voice demanded. Two very nice, honey-colored boots stopped just over a body’s length from her knee. She’d have liked to have a pair like that. Dawna looked up, in no hurry. In them was the weaver, wearing a defiant expression, though his eyes were scared.

“I’ll be gone soon enough,” she said.

“Sooner’s better than later,” he replied. It
almost
sounded like a threat. Dawna went back to her work. The weaver hesitated for a moment, the beautiful boots rocking back and forth with indecision, then strode away. Dawna dismissed him. He wouldn’t be the one to attack her, but he’d stand at the back and shout encouragement to the stupid ones at the front. Dawna knew his kind.