“Your royal highness, this is Fletch, the village mayor.”
“You let them have their own government?” Mathu asked in surprise.
Fletch nodded. “Lord Desean allows us to manage our own affairs, your royal highness. Up to a point.”
Stellan smiled. “We disagree about where that point lies, occasionally, but generally, it works well. It’s less work for me and the Crasii appreciate a little autonomy, don’t they, Fletch?”
The old canine nodded, his lips curling back from his teeth in a smile, although it looked rather more like a snarl to the uninitiated. But Stellan was used to the old dog, and they got along well enough, given the inequitable nature of their relationship.
“There are a few areas of contention,” Fletch informed the prince. “For example, his grace won’t let us chase the felines, even for exercise.”
“It’s for your own protection,” Stellan reminded him. “You know that.”
“It’s a risk we’re willing to take, your grace.”
“But one I’m not willing to take,” the duke replied. “You’re too valuable, all of you, canine and feline alike, to risk anybody getting hurt or possibly killed in a pointless game.”
“It’s only humans who think chasing felines is pointless, your grace. We think it’s a noble and worthwhile pastime. Not to mention, well, fun.”
“The felines think fishing for tadpoles is fun too,” he pointed out. “I don’t let them indulge in that game, either.”
“As always your wisdom is exceeded only by your concern for our welfare, your grace,” the old Crasii replied respectfully. He bowed low and stepped to one side. “Please, don’t leave it so long before you visit us again.”
“The Tides protect you,” Stellan replied, using the formal Crasii salutation that few humans bothered to remember.
Fletch smiled and bowed even lower. “The Tides protect you also, your grace.”
“Tadpoles?” Mathu asked in surprise, as they resumed their walk toward the feline compound. “You have amphibian Crasii?”
“You’ve never heard of Lebec’s freshwater pearls?”
“Of course I’ve heard of them.”
“Where do you think they come from?”
The prince pondered the question for a moment. “I never really thought about that, either.”
“We farm the pearls in the lake just north of the estate. The amphibians do most of the work.”
“I heard they were notoriously hard to keep in that sort of setting,” Mathu remarked. “Rumour has it the minute you put them in the water, they’re gone.”
“You have to give them a reason to come back,” Stellan told him.
“Well, you certainly seem to have the canines eating out of your hand.”
He smiled and glanced over his shoulder at the old Crasii who watched them walking away with an unblinking stare. “If you’re referring to Fletch’s grovelling admiration of my animal husbandry skills, just now, don’t be fooled. He was a hunter in his day and he’s wily as they come. He knows the right thing to say. It’s the canine need to please their masters. It can be dangerous to mistake it for what they really feel.”
“Which is what?”
“Ah, now for that you would have to ask Arkady. She knows much more about the Crasii than I do.”
They reached the end of the common and the first of the high brick walls dividing the villages from each other. There was a wooden gate set into the wall, with a small round window cut out at about four feet off the ground. Beside the gate was a brass bell with a small metal ball hanging from a short length of rope. Stellan rang the bell a couple of times and then bent down to peer through the hole in the gate.
A few moments later the sound of a bolt sliding back was followed by a metallic screech as the gate was opened by a black-and-white feline who bowed when she realised her visitor was the duke.
“Your grace! Welcome!”
“Hello, Mitten. We’ve come to visit our new arrival.”
“Of course,” she said, stepping back to let them enter.
The gate screeched closed again, making Stellan wince. “Why don’t you oil those hinges?”
The feline shrugged. “Because the noise drives the canines crazy.”
“I could rescind the order about them chasing you anytime I wanted,” Stellan warned with a frown. It was just like the felines to find something that annoyed their canine neighbours.
“We have no problem if they chase us.” Mitten shrugged. “And they have nothing to fear unless we let them catch us.”
Mathu seemed amused. “There’s a reason we confine the Crasii to pens back in Herino, you know, Stellan. We’re not confronted with any of these discipline problems you have to contend with.”
“You get less than half the productivity out of them, too, I’ll wager,” he countered. “This is Mitten, by the way. Mitten, this is Prince Mathu.”
The feline bowed just low enough to be respectful. “Your highness.”
She held out her arm, indicating they should follow her toward the largest building at the back of the compound. Off to the left, against the outer fence, were two separate residences. There were armed feline guards standing outside and caged yards surrounding the cottages.
“It’s where we keep the males,” Stellan explained, noticing the direction of Mathu’s glance.
“How many do you have?”
“Four at the moment,” he replied. “The three younger males share the larger house. Taryx lives in the other pen on his own.”
“Taryx? The sire of the Crasii you won last night?”
Stellan nodded. “Named for the Tide Lord. He’s been a very profitable and prolific sire.”
“Did you tell her that her sire was here?”
He shook his head. “It wouldn’t have made much difference if I had. The felines don’t pay much attention to familial ties. If they do, it’s usually because they’re bragging about their lineage. The felines like to brag.”
“Why do you keep him separated from the others?”
“Because he’s old and cranky. Did you want to meet him?”
Mathu nodded. “Is he dangerous?”
“Not if you stay out of reach.”
Stellan changed direction and headed across the compound to the smaller cottage with Mathu beside him. Mitten took another few steps before she realised her visitors were no longer behind her, and then turned to find out why, obviously displeased when she saw the direction they were headed.
“Your grace,” she called after them. “Please. Don’t encourage him…”
Stellan and Mathu ignored her call and kept walking toward the bars of the enclosure behind the cottage on the right-hand side of the compound. Inside, a figure reclined on a battered sofa, soaking up the sunlight that broke through the clouds. It would rain again before the day was out and the old cat was making the most of the sunshine. He was a huge beast, outwardly human from the chest down, but his tawny fur was black streaked with silver and grew in a thick mane that completely encircled his neck and reached partway down his back and chest. He made no attempt to rise as they approached; instead, he rolled on his back and tucked his hands behind his head, exposing his impressive genitalia to his visitors.
“That’s Taryx for you,” Stellan remarked. “The king of good manners and civilised behaviour.”
“He’s fairly impressive,” Mathu agreed, sounding a little uncertain.
Stellan laughed. “For the Tides’ sake, don’t let him know you think that. He’s insufferable enough without you feeding his narcissism. Be nice to him, though. He fancies himself king of the pride.” They stopped at the bars. “Good morning, your highness,” Stellan called.
“Good morning, your grace.”
Stellan waited and after a moment, the Crasii deigned to rise from his couch and wander over to the bars where Stellan and Mathu waited.
“What’s this then?” Taryx asked, as he leaned on the bars, eyeing Mathu up and down curiously. “Lunch?”
“This is his royal highness, Prince Mathu Debree, Crown Prince of Glaeba.”
“Dinner, then,” the Crasii corrected.
Stellan smiled. Crasii felines no more ate humans than the canines did, but Taryx enjoyed perpetuating the myth. “Mathu, this is Taryx, the king of the Lebec Pride.”
“Your reputation precedes you, your highness,” Mathu informed him, playing along with the notion that the Crasii had some sort of royal rank. “You’ve sired half the fighting Crasii in Glaeba, I believe.”
“More like two-thirds,” the feline corrected, a little miffed. Then he smiled suddenly and turned to Stellan. “I hear one of my cubs took out a Jelidian snow bear last night.”
Stellan nodded. “She certainly did.”
“Damn, I’m good,” he preened.
Stellan was used to Taryx’s arrogance. As far as the Crasii tom was concerned, he was directly responsible for anything impressive his descendants did, while being in no way responsible for their mistakes. Sometimes, Stellan envied this uncomplicated creature, kept in comfort, fed on demand and required to do nothing more than mate with the females of his pride. If his pelt was a little scarred these days, it wasn’t all from fighting. A feline in heat was a ravenous beast and intercourse between any two creatures with retractable claws capable of tearing the throat out of a Jelidian snow bear was bound to be dangerous.
“You tell her I’m proud of her,” Taryx instructed.
“I will,” Stellan promised. “And you take care, eh? Those young bucks aren’t ready to take your place yet.”
“They’ll never be ready,” the tom predicted confidently.
“Your grace,” Mitten reminded them, a little impatiently. “Did you want to see Chikita or not?” She was standing behind them, her tail lashing back and forth with annoyance.
“Of course,” Stellan agreed and they turned to follow Mitten. As they walked away, Mathu glanced over his shoulder at the old feline and then looked at Stellan. “How will you know when one of the other males is ready to take his place?”
“The felines have an annual festival. They call it the Passage of the Tide. Part of the celebrations is a chance for the younger males to take on the head of the pride.”
“And the winner becomes the new leader? That must make for a rather peeved loser.”
“The loser is usually dead, Mat,” he told him. “So it’s not a problem we’ve ever had to deal with.”
The prince looked shocked. “You let them fight to the death?”
“Their idea, not mine. But I can see the logic behind it. Taryx would be dangerous and unmanageable if he was deposed by a younger male. We’d end up having to put him down, anyway. At least this way he’ll get to go out in a blaze of glory.”
Mathu shook his head, sighing. “And I thought you were trying to be more humane in your treatment of the Crasii.”
“But they’re feline Crasii, Mathu,” he pointed out as they entered the longhouse. “The object is to let them live by their rules, not ours.”
Chikita was confined to a cage at the back of the longhouse, normally reserved for felines on heat that Stellan didn’t want mating with any of the males. They walked the length of the empty dormitory behind Mitten, past rows of narrow beds piled with furs and blankets, as if each Crasii was trying to own more bedclothes than their neighbour did. Stellan always found it intriguing that the Crasii slept on top of their bedclothes, rather than under them, even in the dead of winter. It was a feline thing, he guessed. They didn’t like to be covered. Even in battle they eschewed armour or any other sort of protection, preferring the freedom of movement that came with fighting in nothing but their own skin.
The Crasii jumped to her feet as soon as she spied Stellan and Mathu approaching, grabbing at the bars of her cage, her tail whipping back and forth angrily as she growled at them.
“You lied!” she accused, before Stellan could utter a word.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You told me if I won the fight I’d be free!”
“Actually, I believe the duke told you that you could enter his service,” Mathu corrected, obviously alarmed by the feline’s aggressive tone. “Crasii weren’t meant to be free.”
“Step a little closer, human,” Chikita suggested with a snarl. “Then we’ll see who was meant to be free.”
“Settle down, kitten. You’re in here for your own protection,” Stellan assured her, putting his arm out to prevent Mathu from doing exactly what the feline suggested. In her current mood, she’d rip him from neck to navel if he got in reach of those claws. “It’ll take a few days before the others get used to your scent. Once they do, you’ll be free to join your comrades. Until then, and until you’ve recovered from last night’s fight, you’re better off where you are.”
Chikita glared at him for a moment and then looked past him. She hissed at Mitten, growling low in her throat.
“And you won’t be going anywhere until that stops, either,” Stellan warned.
“I am a fighter,” Chikita announced. “You would have me acting like a house cat.”
“Which is marginally better than being torn to shreds by a bear for the entertainment of a room full of bored humans, I would have thought.”
Chikita’s eyes flashed with defiance, but her tail slowed and she seemed to calm down a little. “I will wait then, until my lord commands me.”
Stellan frowned, thinking her capitulation a little quick. “That’s a much better attitude to take.”
“Will I be permitted to meet him soon?”
“Meet who?” he asked. He had no idea what the Crasii was talking about.
“Chikita is just nervous because she’s new,” Mitten explained, glaring at the young female. “She is pleased to meet both her lord and her prince. She doesn’t mean anything else.”
“But I can smell—,” the feline objected, but Mitten cut her off impatiently.
“She can smell Taryx, your grace,” the Crasii told them with a shrug. “It’s making her a little jittery.”
“Everything will be fine once you’re used to the place,” Stellan assured her. “Mitten will see to it you have anything you need.”
“Of course, your grace,” the older Crasii agreed with a subservient bow.
A little unsettled, but at least satisfied that his new slave was well in hand, he turned and headed back out into the sunlight. Mathu followed him, stopping on the top step of the porch to look out over the Crasii village.
“Is it my imagination, or was there something very odd going on just now,” he asked, “between those two Crasii?”
“No,” Stellan replied. “You weren’t imagining things.”
“So who do you think she can really smell?”
Stellan shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe she’s coming on heat.”
“I met a man once,” Mathu told him, “who decided to find out what a feline on heat was like.”
“That’d be a rather dangerous game to play.”
Mathu nodded. “It was. I mean, she looked human enough—if the light was low and you didn’t mind the idea of fur instead of bare skin—but those claws…” The young prince shuddered. “He said it was amazing. Trouble is, he damn near bled to death finding it out.”
Stellan grimaced. “Never seen the attraction in fornicating with another species, myself. Even an almost human one. There’s something innately repulsive about the very idea.”
Mathu clapped him on the shoulder, amused rather than surprised. “You really are a staid, unadventurous old prude at heart, aren’t you, cousin?”
Stellan smiled. “I guess I must be,” he agreed, idly wishing the rest of the world was as easy to convince of that as Mathu Debree.
Chapter 24
Tilly Ponting’s house in Lebec was set at the end of a cul-de-sac not far from the lake’s edge in the more exclusive part of Lebec City. It had been her town house before her husband’s demise; her family seat being located some forty miles northeast of the city. After
her husband died, she’d moved into the city full time. Tilly was a social creature and while she enjoyed the wealth that came with being one of the landed gentry, she wasn’t all that interested in spending time on the land.
A well-trained canine Crasii showed Arkady through the house to the morning room, where Tilly was indulging her latest hobby. The widow had decided several months ago that she had some talent as an artist based, apparently, on a passing comment an art tutor made to her when she was a girl. Now that she was free to pursue whatever hobbies she desired, she had decided to discover the hidden artist within, who had been—she’d assured Arkady—stifled by years of repressive marriage and suffocating conformity. When Arkady arrived at the house, Tilly was staring pensively at her latest canvas, paintbrush in hand, and appeared to have been in that position for some time. A large ginger cat slept curled on the table beside the easel, the tip of its tail resting in a pot of blue paint.
“What do you think, Arkady?” Tilly asked, turning to greet her guest. “Should I call this Mist on the Lake or Ocean at Rest?”
Arkady considered the painting for a moment. “How about Big Blue Blob?”
“You are cruel beyond imagining, Arkady,” the older woman replied. And then she smiled. “Although a little more tactful than my son, I have to say, who suggested naming it the Ode to My Complete Lack of Talent.”
Arkady laughed and took a seat at the table. “How is Aleki? I haven’t seen him in ages.”
“He’s fine,” Tilly sighed, putting down her paintbrush and taking the seat opposite Arkady. “He loves being a farmer. I despair of him ever finding a decent wife.”
Arkady smiled. Only Tilly Ponting would consider her son’s dedication to his family’s massive estates farming. “I thought you were trying to arrange a union between him and Davista Brantine?”
“It was a disaster,” Tilly lamented. “My son is a bore and Davista is a silly girl. Don’t suppose Stellan’s interested in marrying Kylia off, is he? Would you like some tea?” she added, indicating the silver tea service on the table.
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