Catfantastic II

I lay atop the canopy and watched them, mourning the ignorance of men. I knew something was wrong but I wasn't sure what until I stalked her, one night, to Mordred's lair in the east tower room.

Even as I stalked, I realized my instincts were correct and the beast was not what she seemed.

It was her scent, you see. She smelled not of honest cat musk, but of bitter herbs and nightblooming cereus.

And once behind the door, Mordred bolting it safely after her, she spoke. I knew it was her. I recognized where the accent had come from at once. Her mews were the sort made mockingly to a cat by a woman who does not care for cats. Her new voice was like this too, nasty-sweet as the smell of a rotting carcass.

"This is rather fun," she said, "But I hope you remembered my tray. I'm not about to actually eat one of those birds I've been catching for sport unless it's properly marinated, spitted, basted, and served."

"Oh, well said," Mordred answered. "And I take it I must wait until our other quarry is likewise prepared before I may begin pla

"Certainly, my dear. As we cats might say-patience."

I confronted her the first time I caught her alone. "See here, you, you, whatever you are. I'm onto you. And let me tell you, dearie, the pecking order is well established around here. My master is king, my mistress is queen, and Sir Lancelot their champion. He may be taken in by your mincing ways now, but if you and that pimple-faced princeling try anything with Their Majesties-, he'll make stew meat of you in a thrice, make no mistake."

"What hideous noises you make. I can't understand a word," she said, and sashayed off. I sprang for her back, feeling her tail in my teeth as I leapt. But at the last moment, she was twenty flagstones away and I in midair before I landed-and not on my paws.

It was perfectly obvious to me then who she was, of course. Any cat who could escape my claws had to be using witchcraft. And the witch most closely associated with Mordred was none other than my lord's chiefest bane, his sister Morgan le Fay.

Unfortunately, though I understand the human tongue quite well, my people are more limited when it comes to my own language and were woefully dense.

"Look at Gray Jane!" my lady laughed. "She is so jealous of Mordred's little cat she cries all the time now for attention."

Lancelot laughed and kept his distance, but the king very kindly knelt and stroked my ears. I tried even harder to tell him, and badly wished that the old wizard was there so that I might warn my good master that his old foe stalked him in a new guise.

But Merlin was long gone and I had only my own wits and skills upon which to depend, so I stalked the witch myself. Lurking silent as dust in the shadows, I stalked her, through the rushes of the chambers to the flagstones of the halls, sliding along the walls and darting into corners if she stopped and turned. Once I let her see me, but she summoned Mordred. Fortunately, he was not quick enough to catch me and I always made sure to stay well out of range of her tail. When I saw how the waving of that tail stilled a bird in flight so that it dropped so stonelike into the yard I half-expected it to clatter, I knew that the tail was her wand.

By the waving of it, and the long gaze of her eyes, she hypnotized Lancelot. I scooted in behind her as she padded through the half-open door into his chamber where he sat on the edge of his bed, his head bowed from the weariness of the day's labor and the heavy responsibilities of being the king's most trusted advisor. I dared not draw too near lest his allergies betray me, but I watched as she sprang onto the bed beside him, wriggled herself under his elbow and onto his knee, and sat gazing raptly up at him, the tail describing magic patterns in the air as she held his gaze. His hand, which had moved to stroke her back, hung in the air above her as she purred, sounding less like a real cat than like a Scotsman gargling.

But Lancelot did not know the difference. Nor, for a time, did he know anything else. When at last the witch jumped from his knee to the floor, he stood, belted on his sword, and sleepwalked to the door of the royal chamber.

The king answered. "Yes?"

"My lord, I-" he said. I darted past him into the chamber where my lady was brushing her hair. He sneezed abruptly and said. "I suppose, my Liege, I came to bid you and Queen Guinevere bon nuit and a well-deserved rest." But he was covering up. He had no idea why he was there.

I got some hint the next day of what the two malefactors were scheming when I followed the beast and Mordred to the Great Hall where the knights gathered to brag about their latest good deeds. Most of the knights never quite got the hang of virtue being its own reward!-they enjoyed topping each other with stories of who was the most modest and selfless, but usually the knight talking finished, as did Sir Geraint that day, by proclaiming, "So honest and humble was I when I accepted the purse that poor clothier begged me to take for rescuing his daughter from the dragon that I'm sure God will notice my goodness and let me find the treasure first."

"Poppycock! The treasure will be mine! I have the most calluses on my knees from praying," Sir Gawain said.

"You can show them to us all if you like, sir," Mordred said. "But I doubt you'll have as many as Sir Lancelot, who will surely have the treasure as he has the confidence of the king and queen. He is so good, in fact, it's a wonder he isn't the king."

Normally, such disloyalty would have been overridden, but with the witch sitting on Mordred's shoulder, waving her tail, gargling Rs, and gazing into the middle space among the knights, the louts didn't seem to understand that anyone was being insulted.

"In fact," Mordred said, languidly stroking the witch's tail where it hung down over his shoulder, "I shouldn't be at all surprised, you know, if he didn't try to do something about it sometime. Really, the tradition is that the strongest and most infallible should lead, you know. I wonder if anyone, even the queen, would really object. Certainly Papa-I mean, the king-doesn't seem to guard his own reputation that zealously. He practically allows Lancelot to run things as it is. And the queen seems to agree. But then, may the best man win as they always say."

Someone should have said, "Nonsense, boy. The king has already won and no one could be happier than Lancelot and the queen." Someone should have said, "How dare you sully the name of our gracious queen by even hinting that she is other than perfectly loyal to King Arthur." Someone certainly should have said, "Who does this fool think he is anyway? Throw him in the dungeon and that bedraggled piece of fur with him. Let her try to keep the rats from nibbling him." But no one did.

My position as advisor and confidante of the queen has always been a more personal than a political one for the most part, but even I know treason and accusations of treason when I hear them. Mordred and his accomplice were casting a sticky net indeed to catch the three people who ruled the kingdom. My three people.

I could not but emit a hiss of indignation at the whole scene but remembered myself in time and slunk quietly away, resisting the urge to give that mealy-mouthed Mordred such a slash across the legs he'd be hamstrung. By keeping my peace, I permitted them to underestimate me. Their mistake, of course, for it allowed me to continue my investigations.

I skulked ever so stealthily, shadowing Morgan as she bewitched that poor noble knight, using his thwarted affection for feline-kind to lure him into her clutches (well, actually, she insinuated herself into his clutches but the effect was much the same) where she mesmerized him into performing suspicious-seeming actions while Mordred continued to use his poison tongue and his sneaky charm to pollute the minds of the knights of the Round Table.