at Pell. “I’m a woman grown and I can do as I please. You can’t make me go with you.” She was not the cat’s woman who fed and sheltered him, so he had little interest in her. Yet he dropped the rat and, under cover of the tall grasses along the side of the tavern, crept closer. He flattened his ears and paid no attention to the woman’s yammering. She was not what interested him; what fascinated him were the three men who stood in a half circle, almost ringing Pell and the shrieking woman. One was an older man, big but looking both tired and sad. He would fight, thought the cat, but without much heart. The men who flanked him, however, were hard muscled and narrow eyed. Their shoulders were up as if they were wild dogs putting up their hackles, and their feet were set wide. And they were glaring at Pell.
The cat sat down. He curled his tail neatly around his feet.
There was shouting, but the woman remained defiant. It reminded him very much of a queen in season. There was the yowling female and the circle of males who wanted to claim her. But a true queen would have been slapping and slashing at them, daring them to prove themselves worthy of possessing her. This woman merely shrieked and shouted and stood defiantly behind her very poor choice of a male. The cat rumbled low and waited for the bigger dogs to attack.
The oldest male seemed to be the leader of the three. They would not charge Pell and pull him down unless he gave the signal. Pell was clearly overmatched, and yet the old man did not take action. He appeared to be listening to what the female was yowling rather than merely subduing her with his strength. Foolishness.
The old man suddenly stepped forward and grabbed the woman by the upper arm. She turned on him, claws raised to scratch, but the man blocked her with the ease of experience. “Come with me, Meddalee. For your own good. You’re drunk right now. I’m taking you back to the boat so you can sleep it off. And tomorrow, when the tide changes, we’ll be going home. And by the time we get there, maybe you will have decided which you want more: this ass who has no future other than making more bastards, or an inheritance from your father. Because I promise you this, girly. You can’t have both. Ever.”
His words took something out of the girl. Her fight faded and she pushed the hair back from her face, to stare at her father in blurry disbelief. “You wouldn’t,” she slurred out, but she did not sound certain.
“I would,” her father asserted. He lifted his stare to the intruder. Pell was standing with his fists lifted, as if he only waited a reason to attack. But with his seizure of the female, the moment had come and gone and Pell had not acted. “I assure you, Pell. You may lead my Meddalee away from me and down a garden path, but my money won’t follow her. Not now, not ever. You’ve abandoned one woman and one child. And that for me is your measure, forever. I’m done with you. And if my daughter has even a fraction of her mother’s good sense, she’s done with you, too. Come along, Meddalee.”
And that was it. The cat hissed low to himself in dismay. They hadn’t attacked the intruder male, hadn’t killed him or even struck him. He lashed his tail in frustration, then stilled. Provocation. That might be the key.
“Meddalee!” Pell suddenly bellowed and stumbled forward in a drunkard’s charge. Her father kept his grip on her arm and pushed her to keep walking. She looked over her shoulder and cried dramatically, “Pell, oh, Pell!” But by then her father’s men had closed on the hapless man. They pushed him down easily. Marmalade watched them from the shadows, big blue eyes wide. But they toyed with him as if he were a mouse. When he stood, they pushed him down, talking and laughing as they did so. But there was less good play in him than there had been in the rats Marmalade had caught earlier. The fifth time he was shoved into the dirt, he still muttered oaths but crawled off into the darkness on his hands and knees. At the edge of the tavern porch, he collapsed and rolled himself into a ball. The two men looked at each other.
“No,” one said. “He’s done, Bell. Let him go. He ain’t worth killing.”
The cat did not share their assessment. He remained where he was for a time, pondering his own chances against the man now. But he remembered that the man had been faster than he had first thought. He recalled too well the savage clutch of the man’s hands around his body. No. There had to be a better way.
He moved out of the sheltering shadows. The men were vanishing up the street. He went to where Pell was curled and sat down just out of reach. He yowled loudly until the man uncovered his head and stared at him.
The man just stared at him, eyes wide.
“Go away. Damn Wit beast!”
The cat stared at him for a moment longer. Then he sprang at him with a sharp hiss and was pleased to see Pell cover his face with his arms.
The woman was drunk and walking unsteadily. She was also weeping noisily. It was easy for the cat to catch up to them. Night was deeper, even the dogs were sleeping more soundly, and Marmalade trotted unseen down the very center of the road. He followed them as they walked down to the boat harbor. He did not like walking out on the wooden dock; the boards were spaced for a man’s stride, not a cat’s. But he was sure-footed and silent as a shadow. They came to a boat, one that smelled more of wheat than fish. One of the men lifted the woman and set her feet on the boat. She sank down bonelessly, bowing her head and sniveling miserably. A watchman came out of the dark to greet them.
“It’s just us. Bringing Meddalee back.”
There was some conferring, and someone was sent to wake someone else. Another female, stumbling with sleep, came out on the deck. The cat wondered if the males knew how annoyed she was to be given charge of the drunken girl. But she accepted the burden, dragging her to her feet and walking her into the boat’s house and down a short walkway. Unnoticed, the cat followed her.
She took the woman into a small room and sat her down on a narrow bed. She pulled the shoes from her feet, then pushed her back on the bed and spread a blanket over her. “Sleep it off,” she muttered to her, and then leaned across her to open a porthole. “Fresh air do you good,” she added, and then left, shutting the door behind her. For a time, there were other noises, the sounds of men’s boots, the mumble of conversation.
When all was still on the boat, the cat jumped lightly to the bunk. He poked the sleeping woman’s face. She did not stir. He leaned closer and bit her lightly on the cheek, as if he were rousing Rosemary to be fed. She muttered and turned her face away from him. Her graceful neck shone white in the lantern light that filtered in from the small window.
There would be no sport to this.
Rosemary lay down next to her boy but did not dare to sleep. Exhaustion buzzed her head, and she traversed the night in that state that is neither rest nor wakefulness. She arose before dawn, refusing to think about the crowing that did not happen. She had let the fire go out, and it felt very strange to rise and perceive her usual chores as useless things. Marmalade had not come back. Her heart smote her when she realized that; she hoped he had not gone off somewhere to die, and then she thought that perhaps that was for the best if he had. He had no home now, any more than she did, and no one to offer him kindness or shelter. “Eda take him into your heart,” she prayed to the goddess and did not think that she wasted a prayer on a mere cat.
She decided to ready the cow for travel before she woke Gillam. When she limped out to the cow’s byre, she could only stand and shake her head at the terrible trick fate had played on her. Two gleaming new calves, red and white as their mother, lay curled together in the straw beside the cow. She had dropped them both in the night without even a bellow. The cow looked at Rosemary with placid, trusting eyes. “Good cow,” Rosemary whispered, and then walked away, leaving the door of the byre open. Pell would not, she was sure, put the cow in and out and bring her buckets of fresh water or stake her on the best grass. All she could do for her was to leave the door open so she could come and go as she would. Her thoughts were bitter as she walked back to the cottage. Had Pell never come back into her life, she would have been shouting and dancing for joy at this multiplication of her wealth. Now
