by Gabriel King
Tag watched her go. He was astonished. ‘How did you do that?’ he asked Majicou.
No answer.
‘Majicou?’
Still no answer.
As he turned to the old cat to ask again, Tag saw that he was with another animal altogether. It was shrinking even as he caught sight of it. But it still sat four or five feet tall, with shoulder blades as sharp as knives. Its fur was of a savage, shiny black, dappled like woodland shade with faint tobacco-brown rosettes. It gave off a rank and untamed smell. Its square muzzle and stony yellow eye were absolutely still. It knew he was there. He looked quickly away. He felt less afraid than shy. But he didn’t want the slightest glimpse of what happened next, even out of the edge of his eye. He didn’t want to watch the big cat shrivel back down to the Majicou he knew…
‘You brought her back to life,’ he said.
There was the faintest of rustles, a kind of settling noise. A sigh.
Then Majicou answered wearily, ‘Much is illusion in these places. I have traveled the wild roads for longer than I can remember, Tag, and I still don’t understand everything they can do. I’m not sure she was here at all. If she was, the Alchemist had a hand in it.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘He knew where we were, after all. He watched us leave the warehouse along the old highway. He sent me a message – a challenge, if you like. I have signaled my reply. He will hate that,’ said Majicou with satisfaction. Staring after the departing tabby, he said, ‘That little animal is not entirely what she seems. Have a care with her, as well as for her. The Alchemist has a special fate in store for her.’ Then, as if that reminded him of something, he asked himself, ‘I wonder. He had to get into the warehouse somehow. Has he poisoned this road too?’ He considered this. ‘It’s a pity we can’t talk to human beings. Tag. From them has always come our greatest danger; and the Alchemist is the most dangerous of them all. No cat has ever wanted to walk like a man. But he is a man who wants to walk like a cat. Down the years I have wondered if there is anything wrong with that ambition in itself.’ Majicou shivered. ‘But he will destroy everything in pursuit of it. Everything I have ever worked for.’
‘You speak as if you know him.’
The old cat was silent. Then he said, ‘I was his cat for many years, Tag. He called me Hobbe, and I sat by his fire.’
8
The Cat Thieves
What can you have of a cat but her skin?
– PROVERB
‘I must go now,’ said Majicou.
They had returned to Piper’s Quay.
The moon was not yet down, though it hung close to the irregular line of rooftops on the far bank. A chilly northeast wind made the surface of the river resemble a cobbled street after rain. Perhaps an hour had passed since they’d left.
An hour hardly seemed long enough to contain the things that had happened. Tag knew he would never forget his glimpse of that other river, closed and secured by history, as fixed as the image on a cameo: the calm light playing from every ripple, the cats playing calmly in the light. And the highway! His legs were still trembling from the journey back, with the spirit wind blowing firmly from behind and the one-eyed cat loping encouragingly in front. What had seemed effortless at the time now seemed eerie. He had run with a growing sense that he had no idea of his own size. A sense that to travel this way was simply to become as large as the distance between the start and the finish of the journey!
He was tired and puzzled. He was elated. He didn’t want the old cat to leave. There was such a lot more to know. But now that Majicou had brought Tag safely back, he seemed preoccupied. If a breeze fluffed the water, he lifted his nose to interrogate it. If he heard a car pass on the Caribbean Road, his head came up and he stopped speaking until the sound had faded.
‘There are things you must learn,’ he said, ‘and this is a way to learn them. Do you understand?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
‘Why do you always congratulate me when I don’t know something?’
‘The first thing an apprentice must learn is that you can’t learn by knowing.’
‘Am I your apprentice?’
Majicou regarded him with exasperated affection. ‘Unfortunately,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Because I need a young cat like you who can walk the world in my place.’
‘How will I learn if you aren’t here to teach?’
‘A good question, to which you may find your own answer. But I will come when I can. Meanwhile, if you need help, there is the fox.’
‘Oh, the fox.’
‘He has looked after you well, little cat.’
‘Must you go?’
Majicou sighed.
‘I must, Tag. Something important – something magnificent – is going on in the world. This part of it, I believe, has been entrusted to you. You are strong enough to bear the weight of it; though when I first saw you I wasn’t so sure of that! You must take the King and Queen to Tintagel, where the wild roads meet. It is a place of great power. There is not much time – a few weeks only. When the hours of light and dark fall equal on the vernal equinox a new age will dawn…’ He became thoughtful. ‘I have other tasks. If the Alchemist is everywhere, I must be everywhere too. His artificial highways are undependable and short-lived. Except by proxy, he has no access to the real ones; but as his reason gives way to something else, they will cease to resist him, and already his experiments have begun to warp and tangle them. Old forces have woken, to travel the wild roads again, out of control. I must go!’
‘Don’t leave me,’ said Tag.
‘I must. I am too old and too weary for the world. Go to Tintagel. Go as fast as you can. Take them with you, and keep them safe from the Alchemist. Tag, keep her safe especially! Take her as fast as you can; she is your responsibility now.’
‘But—’
‘Tell no one but the fox that I was here!’
And Majicou bounded off across the unfinished piazza of Piper’s Quay, a dark soft-edged shadow against the newly laid setts. He was fifty yards away, then a hundred. Was he growing larger as he went? It was impossible to decide. He paused for an instant on the bank of the ornamental canal, then, extending himself contemptuously, seemed to fly over it. On the other side he halted. He was larger. His eye gleamed fiercely in the moonlight.
‘Good-bye, Tag! Look for me as you go!’ And he was off again.
‘Where shall I see you?’ called Tag.
‘Follow your nose, Tag!’ he heard the distant voice reply.
The moon sank behind the houses, and Majicou had gone.
Tag looked around dispiritedly. A cold wind came up off the river. He closed his eyes and let himself remember for a minute or two the other wind, the spirit wind that blows a million years. He had claimed his heritage. He remembered the other cats – big or small, angry or hungry, untamed, unassuaged, determined to live – who had seemed to run alongside him as he followed Majicou down the ghostly road. He lived in the heat of them, the breath going in and out of them, the sharp white teeth of them. He felt their joy and he felt their pain. He wanted to be one of them. He wanted to be a baby cat again, safe at home with no one to look after. He had claimed his heritage, and found it more a burden than a blessing. He shivered. ‘This won’t get anything done,’ he said. He sighed, drew himself up as tall as he could, and went inside to find his friends.
*
Morning arrived gusty and raw. The wind dashed a few dry flakes of snow across the piazza outside. Inside, the cats looked up, then put their heads down, huddled together for warmth, and went back to sleep.
An hour or two later, Tag woke to find snow billowing in quietly through the unglazed window to sift down among the plastic wrap, discarded nails, and offcuts scattered across the partly finished floor. He shivered. He was hungry. Today they would have to get food. A glance around the room revealed Loves a Dustbin and Mousebreath to be missing. The Mau slept peacefully between S
ealink and Ragnar, all but the tip of her elegant nose buried in their thick fur. Cy lay on her own in a corner, her condition unchanged.
That part of it was a dream, then, thought Tag.
Just in case, he went over and tried to wake her by touching the side of her face gently with his paw. Nothing. Before he knew what he was doing, he had shut his eyes, put his mouth close to her nose, and exhaled sharply into her nostrils. How would Majicou have brought the magic down for her? How would he have commanded it, or let it command him? Tag had no idea, so he just thought very hard, Wake up now. Wake up!
Nothing happened.
He thought. No one can really breathe someone back to life. So that part was a dream too. He thought disappointedly, Perhaps it was all a dream.
That morning everyone was slow, cold, and hard to love. Nobody wanted to talk. The comradeship of the night before had evaporated, leaving behind an uneasy truce. It felt as if they were waiting for something. The fox returned. He paced the edges of the room. Mousebreath returned separately and gave him an absurdly wide berth. Sealink fluffed up her fur and stared forward with slitted eyes at nothing; she barely said a word. Only Ragnar seemed happy. He went outside and spent some time with the weather. Through the window they could see him galloping energetically if aimlessly to and fro. ‘The Norsk Skogkatt is most viable in snow terrain, I should say,’ he announced on his return. ‘Very good grip from these claws, and—’ he showed them the underside of his front left paw ‘—note the tufts of fur insulating the paws of this specimen.’ He beamed. ‘Very survivable. And, yes, now breakfast!’
‘Don’t hold your breath, hon,’ Sealink counseled him. ‘There ain’t any.’
As for the Mau, who knew what she thought? Her eyes were clouded with Africa, mist rising over green water in the morning, ibis like newly washed white handkerchiefs flapping in the air. Her eyes were just this side of some long, sacred panic, history that sees itself passing. They rested for a moment on the motionless tabby. Then she trembled, got to her feet, and – her back legs staggering a little as if they were still asleep – went over to begin licking and licking Cy’s face.
‘Can’t we help her? We must help her,’ she said distractedly. ‘Can’t we help somehow?’ When no one answered, she licked and licked. ‘Someone must help me with her.’ Lick, lick, lick. ‘Please!’
The fox stopped pacing, stared at her for a long time, and then said quietly to Tag, ‘We should talk, you and I.’
They went out into the cold and watched the snow fall into the ornamental canal. There was a fraction of a second in which each snowflake, still distinct but softening and growing transparent, lay on the water. Then it was water and could no longer be snow, and that was that.
‘She sees her own plight in the tabby’s,’ said the fox. ‘She sees her own fears.’
Tag said angrily, ‘What do you think I can do?’
His tone surprised the fox. ‘But Majicou—’
‘Oh, Majicou!’ said Tag dismissively.
He hadn’t intended to speak like that. He stared hard at the snowflakes. Because he liked the fox so much, he wasn’t sure where anger left off and hurt began. ‘I thought you were my friend,’ he accused, ‘but you only helped me because the black cat had set you to watch over me.’
‘Ah,’ said the fox gently. ‘I see. I’m sorry.’ He began carefully, ‘I am your friend—’
‘Are you?’
‘—for my sins. But life is complex, little cat, and things are rarely what they seem. Don’t take it so hard.’
‘My name’s Tag,’ said Tag. ‘I want to be liked for who I am, not what use I can be.’
The fox looked exasperated. ‘Don’t you understand that Majicou has made you one of us?’ he said. ‘Since you took up the cause of the King and the Queen you have been no less an agent of Majicou than I am, or the magpie was. Yet why do you take care of them? Only because you love them! Oh dear,’ he said, ‘part of you is still such a young cat.’ He thought this over. Then he said, ‘To be honest, I like that part a lot.’
‘Good,’ said Tag coldly.
‘So are we friends again?’
Tag would not answer. The fox looked upset. ‘What do you know about me?’ he asked bitterly. ‘What I might like, how I might feel? Nothing! You never even asked. You just took what I offered.’
That’s true. Tag thought. But I don’t know how to apologize. Instead he heard himself suggest, ‘Everyone is hungry. We should get some food first, then find a way to help Cy and the Mau.’
The fox tried to make his voice businesslike. ‘At least this snow won’t last,’ he said. ‘That’s one good thing.’
After a moment Tag said, ‘I’m sorry. I do want to be friends.’
‘I can’t make more sense of you than any other cat,’ said Loves a Dustbin.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tag.
Then he went quickly back inside.
There, he found Pertelot restlessly quartering the floor around the inert tabby’s body.
Her pain and confusion were clear to see. She would take three or four urgent steps, as if she had had an idea, stop abruptly, as if she had thought of something else, then take three or four steps in a fresh direction. She faltered at every draft, every change of light in the room. Her eyes shone blankly. She was in a fever of motherhood, kittenhood, fear, and need. Her signals were crossed. Up and down she roamed, purring in distress, carrying her tail high, stopping only to mb her head against Cy’s or to lick, lick, lick at the dull fur. She paused with one elegant forepaw raised as Tag came in. Then she turned away and began to knead the tabby’s ribs, as if that ancient plea of the kitten to the mother – -Feed me! – might gain Cy’s attention.
Ragnar, Mousebreath, and Sealink sat as far away from her as they could get, arranged along the base of the wall like a row of china cats.
‘Can’t you do anything?’ Tag asked them.
‘We tried, hon. She just ain’t at home.’
‘She’s got a bite on her,’ said Mousebreath with a certain admiration. ‘If you get too near, she’ll have you. She’s had His Highness there once or twice.’
Ragnar sat puzzled and hurt, too unhappy to speak.
Tag thought, Well I must do something! He approached the Mau with care. ‘Pertelot Fitzwilliam,’ he said quietly.
She eyed him like a speck in the distance, like something on the horizon in the noon haze, something she was not sure she had seen.
‘Pertelot Fitzwilliam, what do you want from this cat?’
‘I want her to waken.’
‘We all want that.’
‘Then help me!’
‘Pertelot Fitzwilliam, that isn’t the way to wake a cat like her.’
She stopped and regarded him. ‘In Egypt they mourned Her three days,’ she began in a febrile, singsong voice. ‘If She would not wake, they took Her to the canopic room—’ She looked around her suddenly. ‘I was never in Egypt,’ she said puzzledly. ‘What can I do for her, then?’ she asked.
Tag went close to the tabby’s face. ‘Watch,’ he said.
He took in a long, quiet breath. He exhaled sharply into her nostrils. The tabby remained motionless. Tag felt Pertelot’s eyes upon him. There was puzzlement in them but less fever. ‘See?’ he said.
As he turned away, he felt her staring after him distrustfully. But he had made her think, and she was already calmer. When he looked next, she had settled herself down so close to the tabby that their heads were almost touching. Her eyes were closed. Her tail lashed once or twice, as if she were gathering herself. Then she slept.
Silence filled the room.
‘Boy’s a diplomat,’ acknowledged Sealink.
Two or three minutes later there was an outbreak of deranged barking from the piazza.
Tag ran to look out.
The snow had already melted. The cloud base was softening and breaking up. Patches of blue sky were appearing. A wintry sun warmed the piazza – dimmed briefly, so that things seemed to shrink – then
struck through the cloud again, this time as a ray of pale golden light.
In that ray, framed by the doorway so that it looked like a picture rather than a real event, a curious scene was being enacted. All along the axis of the piazza ran a string of reproduction Victorian lampposts, painted a dignified dark gray-blue, their cast-iron moldings picked out in gold and their glass lamps faceted like the seed cases of poppies. The fox Loves a Dustbin was running full tilt around and around the base of one of these, barking and yelping, jumping up, standing on his hind legs and scratching at the paint. Above him, sometimes perched on the lamp or the crossbars beneath it, sometimes fluttering precariously in the air a foot above his snapping jaws, was a large bird. Its black-and-white livery was sadly charred, and some of its tail feathers were missing, so that it seemed scruffier and less agile than it had once been. But there was nothing wrong with its voice or its self-esteem. The empty piazza rang and echoed. Between the bird’s harsh croak and the fox’s ringing yelp, it was bedlam at Piper’s Quay. They were mad with their own delight. Around and around they went, like a windup toy. Wings cracked and flapped. Claws scraped on the setts. The morning pigeons fled and scattered across the sky like shot.
‘One for Sorrow!’ cried Tag. ‘It’s One for Sorrow!’
He sprinted out across the setts to join them, then slithered shyly to a halt. It was their reunion after all. They were Ma-jicou’s longtime helpers, and he was only an apprentice. But as soon as the magpie saw him it fluttered down and flapped noisily around his ears, calling him all the same names as it had done when he’d nearly eaten it. The fox danced around both of them, barking. Tag felt as if he would burst with pride to be part of it all.
‘One for Sorrow!’ he cried.
‘They’d better believe it,’ the magpie said. ‘That’s who I am! Fire and flood, I made it out with my feathers on!’ He perched on the ground between Tag and the fox. He cocked his wicked head and looked from one to the other. ‘One for Sorrow’s who I am!’