by Paul Kater
"Oh, nothing, nothing," the young man said too quickly.
"Right. Now you sit down and you stay on that chair until you told us what's going on," the witch said. "And not on that chair, that's Baba Yaga's spot. She likes keeping things like that simple."
"But I have to-" said the young man as he could not stop himself from sitting down.
"-tell us what's the rumour," William ended his sentence for him. "Come on, we can feel there is something, so just tell us and you can go on with your work."
The young man swallowed hard. "There's a rumour that one of the giant cats who attacked the king was in the village last night."
"One of?" Hilda said. "Who claims there are more?"
"Oh... many people in the village say that. I'm not sure, but some may have seen a few even."
The witch released the young man, who took off in rather a hurry. His exit was the cue for Baba Yaga and Esmee to enter the hall and find a seat at the table. Hilda and William told them what they had just heard from the servant.
"An army of cat-women? I don't believe a word of that," said Babs as she tapped her empty cup and filled it with her favourite tea.
The four magical ones agreed on that, but wondered where the rumour had come from. William did point out that, if this was indeed just a rumour, that proved his point about putting their own rumour in the world. "There is genuine power in that. See how the servants are sweating with the thought of many cat-women?"
"But what if there really are more cat-women?" Esmee asked as she watched his plate of food. "And why don't they bring us food?"
"Uhm, that last bit might be my doing," Hilda said. "Pinning down a servant may have been a bit harsh."
Babs grinned. After a few encouraging waves, someone dared to bring two more plates of food. Over breakfast they discussed options for the day, and then they left the castle. As planned the other day, they headed over to the shed again.
"Well, that takes care of that," Baba Yaga said as they stood close to the ruins of the shed. Obsi and Grim carefully tiptoed around it, sniffing and clearly not appreciating what they found. "Looks like we just found out that someone found out that we found out."
-=-=-
"I don't want to do this anymore!"
Those words came from Santera's lips as she was clawing at Lindolf's face. The young woman was furious and Magda on her own was not capable to remove the furious person from the one that tried to protect his head.
"Get that mad woman off me!" Lindolf yelled.
"I am trying!" Magda screamed as she yanked at Santera's hair, which in the end proved to be effective in that Santera did not claw at Lindolf anymore. Now Magda was the subject of her anger. Lindolf ended that quickly though; once he was free he put his arms around Santera and prevented her from lashing out at the witch. All she now could do was scream. And that she did, until Magda stuffed a rag in Santera's mouth.
"Can't we sedate her?" Lindolf asked. "I can't hold her like this for-aaah!" Santera had kicked one of his kneecaps.
Magda looked at her old book of magic, the one she had saved from the shed before she'd set it on fire. She took the book and whacked Santera on the head. The cat-woman's fighting came to an abrupt end.
"Not magical, but effective," Lindolf said as he lay the limp body on the floor.
Magda inspected the book. It was not damaged. Then she checked Santera; the book was quite heavy. The young woman was fine, just out of action for a while. "This is getting to all of us, Lindolf," she commented as she sat down with her book. "Santera's going mad over all this stuff you make her do."
"You make her do it, Magda," he grinned. "I just make suggestions."
"You are a swine, Lindolf."
The man smiled. "And you are my pearl, Magda. I do agree that Santera is becoming a weak spot in our plan. We have to act quickly."
"What do you have in mind?"
Magda held on to her book as he spoke.
-=-=-
Four brooms landed on the market square in the village. Four magical people and two magical cats got off them.
"So, where do we begin?" Baba Yaga asked. She looked around. The square was remarkably empty. "Not here," Babs replied to herself. "Nothing to do."
William asked Esmee to take them to the tavern, where they would start their spread of rumours and also enjoy a cup of tea.
"The tea there is awful," Esmee whispered to the wizard.
"And we have magic to improve it," the wizard whispered back, "so let's go."
Once away from the market square, they encountered more people again, but none of them seemed very happy to see them. Hilda wondered why that might be. It should be clear that they were here to catch the strange cat-woman, and yet the people looked at them as if they were responsible for the cat-woman to be there in the first place.
Esmee ushered the others into the tavern. Several tables were occupied. As soon as the four magical ones entered, all talks died away as heads turned.
"As usual, your ravishing beauty renders them speechless," William said. He did not go into specifics whose beauty he was referring to, but Babs snorted. "Inn-keeper, we need a table. With four chairs and four tea, and the table should be in a place where we can't be overheard."
Hilda looked at her wizard and wondered if he had gone stark raving mad. The inn-keeper however came galloping along from behind the counter and guided the honourable group to a table close to that very counter. "Not many ears around here, honourable wizard," the man said as he bowed a few times. "Four cups of the best tea for the honourable company, certainly sir-... wizard-... sir wizard."
The four sat down. "Are you sure what you're doing, William?" asked Baba Yaga. "This is not exactly a place to unfold a plan of action, if you ask me."
William grinned. "But that is exactly the beauty of the whole thing, dear Babs. I'm not asking you."
Baba Yaga spread her hands out on the table and looked at the grinning man. "How long did you plan to stay alive?" she asked.
"I will let that remain in the hands of my witch," said William.
Babs pulled her hands back. "You just gave the only acceptable answer, Willy."
The inn-keeper came back with their tea. It looked like ordinary ordinaries' tea. After the inn-keeper had removed himself, Esmee sniffed her cup. "This needs improvement, William..." The wizard winked, wanded and things were well.
"So, where were we," he then said. Two out of three witches stared at him.
Hilda had spent enough time with William to play the game along quickly. "We almost have that cat cornered and caged," she said, "the cage is waiting." At least the last part was true. "And as far as the people who are behind all this..." Hilda looked at Esmee who picked up the cue.
"Yes, we have some of the traces from the woods," the former flower witch said, "and they are all leading to the same place, so it should be clear that is where we have to look." It was not much, but she did what she could, William was satisfied about the attempt.
"I'm just waiting until we can sock 'm," Baba Yaga said. Then she sat back, her cup in hand, indicating that her part in the play was over.
"Someone's going to pay for all this," William said. He magicked up a large sheet of paper which was full of marks, crosses, lines and arrows. The only places that everyone could determine were the village, the forest and the castle. The rest was total nonsense, but as many lines and marks moved over the map by themselves, it took a magical person to understand that.
Several people who had been at the tables suddenly had the need to come to the counter and talk to the inn-keeper or one of the waitresses, whilst also casting hidden glances at the paper that the witches and the wizard were looking at and whispering over all of a sudden.
After a while, William and Hilda had run out quasi-plotting talk, so the group paid for the tea and left the tavern. They went to several shops that Esmee liked to frequent, and dropped some words there about how their net was closing around the people who were responsible for the c
at-attacks.
-=-=-
"Lindolf! Lindolf!" The man puffed out the name, as he had been running to get to Lindolf.
"What do you want?" the businessman muttered.
"This is urgent," the man explained.
"It'd better be. Talk."
The man, who had come running from the tavern, told Lindolf that the witches had been talking about closing in on the people who were responsible for the cat.
Lindolf stared at the man. "And why are you coming to me about that? Do you think I have something to do with it?"
"No, of course not. But the animal damaged one of your carts, and killed your chickens. I thought you would like to know about it. I already told the butcher and some farmers."
"Idi- I mean, thank you. I very much appreciate your effort to come to me about this." Lindolf patted the man on the shoulder. "But perhaps you should be careful with that news. People might think the wild beast is almost caught, and if it isn't and something happens, they might turn on the witches or so, you know." An evil plan was already in the scaffolding inside Lindolf's head.
25. Prince Jordan
"Be brave, dear Jordan," said Snow White, the next morning. As a surprise she had shared his bed again for the night, as this day would become interesting.
"I'll be brave, Snowy. Anything for you." Jordan said the words, but his confidence had flown out the window, even though the window was closed. He dreaded getting up, because that meant he would have to face the world in general and a specific part of that in the form of something that the strange wizard was going to do to his privates.
Snow White hugged her husband over her bulging belly. "I know you will be, Jordan. I am so proud of you. Maybe you should get up now. It does not look good if you keep the wizard waiting."
"Uhhuh," was the response of the brave prince. He arranged for another hug (which ended far too quickly) and then squirmed himself to the edge of the bed. How on earth, he wondered, had he let himself be talked into this?
The prince tended to himself and had a personal servant dress him to perfection. If this was going to happen, he'd be looking his best. He couldn't do more anyway.
As he left his room, he heard Snow White say that she'd join them for breakfast soon. Jordan walked down, and suddenly wondered if he was allowed to have breakfast. So often when the royal physician had to perform some surgical thing, Jordan was not allowed to eat all day,
"Good morning, honourable magicals," the prince said as he entered the breakfast room. He actually managed to put some not-felt cheer in his voice. The witches and wizard were already present, as usual. He'd love to know if people like that needed less sleep than normal people.
"Hey Jordan, why don't you come sit here?" Hilda cheered as she made a chair move to their table from somewhere else. The invitee stared at the moving chair for a moment, Esmee never did things like that.
Jordan then said that he would rather have the large table, where all his family could sit. That of course was no problem, so soon Jordan sat at the large table with the witches and the wizard. He was relieved that he was allowed to eat. He had always felt that the royal physician had no reason other than to pester him with the not eating thing.
Snow White joined the group, together with a gaggle of children. Their appearance was the signal for the magical surgeons to retreat to the operating theatre, which usually was a salon.
They took Prince Jordan with them, despite his claim that he had not had eaten properly. Perhaps, the prince thought, they'd been talking to the physician already.
"So how do you think you will go about with this?" Hilda's question did not give Prince Jordan an overwhelming feeling of confidence, but his coughing and waving a hand for attention gave him no attention from the three.
William popped up his wand. "Let's first sedate our patient," he said.
"Do we have to?" Jordan asked.
William pointed that wand at the spot that would be affected. "If you feel up to it, I can do this with you temporarily awake," the wizard commented, "but I am sure you will pass out by yourself. Trust me, my way is far less painful."
"Is it that bad?" Prince Jordan asked.
"Worse," Baba Yaga informed him, even though she did not have a clue what actually was going to happen.
"Oh." The prince grew pale. "In that case..." He lay down on the table that William had made him sit on. Then a thought hit him and he sat up again. "How long will this take?" he wondered.
"Not too long, but you'll be unconscious anyway, so what would it matter?" William said.
"Oh, uhm, I was just curious," Jordan told the wizard.
"Don't be. Curiosity kills cats, except the big ones. And ours. And now..." William said and waved his wand. It was the last word Jordan would hear for a while. Then William did some magic on the prince's testicles and said: "That was that. Tea anyone? Or coffee?"
The three witches stared at him. "What was that? What did you do?"
William explained that he had simply done what he had read in a medical book someday, in his old life. "And that is all there is to it."
Esmee frowned. "And you had to make him sleep for just that?"
Hilda laughed and told her that things could not always be how they really were. "The best magic happens between people's ears, Esmee."
"Exactly," William said, "and while we have something to drink, we can decide on the amount of pain we should inflict on the prince, so he will remember what we did to his ballgame."
"But," Esmee wondered, "wouldn't it be good to make some show of it for the people outside the salon?"
"What people?" Hilda and William asked at the same time.
"This is a castle," Esmee pointed out how well versed she was in castle etiquette. "It something happens here, plenty of people will know about it and there will suddenly be a lot of them who suddenly have business outside the room where the show happens."
"Might as well give them something then," Hilda said as she popped up her wand. The witch looked at the door as a grin spread around her lips. It was a grin William knew all too well, and even Baba Yaga said: "Oh-oh."
First the door started pulsating in blue. She only let that go on for a short while before returning the door to its normal dark brown oak colour. Then she made it go white and icy cold for a while.
Esmee and Baba Yaga arranged the tea, and the four had a very nice time discussing all kinds of ailments to inflict on the prince that was still out, until the topic started to get out of control.
"Okay, okay," said William, "I'll make him hurt for four days. That is a nice amount of time, something not overdone."
"Very good. But first let me," Hilda grinned as she pointed at the door again. Suddenly flames burst out from nowhere, enveloping the door with their fiery tongues. All the ice that had formed on the door did not even have a chance to form drops and fall down: in a hissing steam they evaporated.
With his teacup in hand, William waved his wand and when the magic took hold in the dormant prince, the patient groaned. "Wow, talk about instant success."
Esmee had a certain look on her face, so William asked what she was thinking about. Esmee confessed that she was very curious about the royal 'equipment'. After all, she remarked, he had been able to produce quite a lot of offspring with it.
"Oh. Is that all?" William mumbled a small spell and Jordan's pants moved three feet to the left. "Go feast your eyes, Esmee."
Hilda raised an eyebrow as Esmee got up. "William, something like that is not done, you know."
"And wasn't it you who told me that wizards as a rule don't care about rules? Well, here is your proof. Again." He grinned and toasted her with his teacup.
"Hmmm, that's not much," Esmee commented from her position next to the table. Even though it was not done, Hilda and Baba Yaga got up to check on Esmee's power of judgment.
"Suck an elf," Hilda commented, "that's really pathetic."
-=-=-
While William was playing doctor, in the village a w
oman was talking in the tavern. The woman was Santera. She was under the spell of Magda, who directed her to talk about cat women and the seeming coincidence that the attacks had become worse once the three unknown magical people had come to the castle.
In an attic, Lindolf was on a small seat next to Magda, whispering in her ear what Santera was going to say. Magda looked awful, as he had pushed her magical abilities to the maximum. Simi, the woman who supplied the energy for Magda to perform her magic, was trembling.