Master

The Marquis is a pale, nervous man who might have once been handsome, had not constant fear and worry made their mark upon his face. His smile of greeting is awkward and strained, his attention never able to remain focussed upon his guests. The reason for his distraction sometimes shows itself. The Cat stalks into the room with a confidence Kings can only envy.

The Marquis is afraid of the Cat. Perhaps he hates it, but certainly he is afraid.

It sits on the windowsill, by the fire, at the table, and regards him with the amused, condescending look particular to the feline species. His wife laughs at his fears, but she and all the servants skirt around the Cat all the same.

It has never had a name. Just 'the Cat'. The children call it 'Puss', and the Marquis is always wondering when the Cat is going to let the other shoe (boot) drop. He knows it's just waiting for the right moment. It's a cat, after all.

A name, Mistress? the Lady Carabas imagines it inquiring blankly, regarding her with bemused scorn in its gold eyes, the word 'Mistress' imbued with an effortless and almost undetectable mockery. What would I need a name for? We all know perfectly well who I am. Sometimes it deigns to approach guests, regarding them with singular contempt until the Master introduces it uneasily as 'The Marquis of Carabas.'

His guests think he is joking.

(the Lord Marquis of Carabas is your name now, my Master. You have never been anyone else. Do remember this.)

"Puss," the Marchioness calls awkwardly, feeling ridiculous, and knowing there is no logical reason she should be so nervous. It's only a cat. It raises its head and sniffs disdainfully. She feels, as she does every time her path crosses with the Cat, a sudden empathy with mice.

There was a time when she was entranced by the Cat. It was sleek and suave then, effortlessly elegant; she had whispered shyly to her new husband that the markings on its face made her think of fairies painting those irregular, marbled patterns with slender fingers. Her husband had laughed for so long and so hard she had been worried he would choke.

It was a beautiful cat then. Perhaps it is her imagination, or the latent hysteria that coats every part of the Carabas estate, but it seems bigger. Fiercer.

(Good people, you that mow, if you do not tell the King that all this corn belongs to my Lord Marquis of Carabas, you shall be chopped as small as herbs for the pot.)

Her father was impressed by the Cat too, she remembers. She had thought it sweet, with its neat white hindpaws (boots? wasn't it wearing) presenting a hare, a fine silver scaled fish, a brace of pheasants… Her father had been impressed by the Cat's servility. Any man who can get a cat to be servile, he said on the day of her wedding when she'd wept and pleaded and begged him not to give her away, is a man worthy of respect.

(Good people, you that reap, if you do not tell the King that the meadows you mow belong to my Lord Marquis of Carabas, I will )

She has grown to like (love, even) her husband very much, though secretly she is perhaps a little condescending to him. His good fortune is a very clever cat, after all.

(Good people,)

She remembers their first meal together, seeing a stranger wearing borrowed clothes staring at her across the long table, her father cheerful and unreserved, and she knew her father was considering this man as a provider for her, as a future son-in-law, a future king. He had a pleasant enough face, she remembers thinking; she also remembers noting that his hands were rough and calloused – hands of a working man, and that too had pleased her, for she was tired of pale faced fops who did nothing but talk of hunting and riding and hawking. She had thought perhaps he was a noble who was secure enough not worry about being known to do menial work, but she knew by the dinner's end that he was no more a rich noble than she was a washerwoman.

He didn't know how to deal with the cutlery, wouldn't eat until the Cat entered the room; the Cat sat at his shoulder then, purred into her suitor's ear as he stroked its ears awkwardly, nervously, with light touches – definitely not enough to engender such an enthusiastic response. She'd teased him that perhaps the Cat was whispering in his ear, for she liked him well enough (not enough to marry him, for a husband and a suitor are so often very different things) and had thought that he must prize the Cat and would be pleased at the compliment. He was frantic in response until the Cat had hissed angrily and he had instantly subsided.

(You don't know your good fortune, Master.)

The Cat followed him faithfully during her father's tour of the palace as it would never do these days, and his comments were well timed and intelligent and insightful… and always followed a soft mrow from the Cat.

He was ill at ease, clearly a little edgy around the nobles and courtiers. She watched him and noticed, smiling with wondering delight – and perhaps that was what had convinced her father most all, for he had been a kind enough man and had wanted happiness for her as well as a good match – that he sometimes imitated the Cat in all its haughty, well-bred superiority. In those moments he fitted right in.

(I can make you rich, if I but put my mind to it.)

The Cat is not so accommodating these days. She looks at her husband sometimes, watching the Cat, and she knows, unquestionably, he is wondering when it will die and hoping fervently that it is soon.

"Don' mind tellin' you, Mistress," her maid tells her one day, with a careful sideways glance to check if the Cat is nearby, "but that thing gives me the creeps."

She too is a little afraid of the Cat, though it likes her best of all, will curl beside the fire as she reads there, will even allow her – sometimes – to stroke its ears. It will purr and purr and purr; her husband claims he can hear it from the passageway, though the walls are made of stone two feet thick. It is pleased with her, and she is happy to have pleased it and forgets how her husband flinches at the sight of the Cat, forgets how the servants will actually turn around and walk out of the room they were intending to clean if they see the Cat inside, forgets how much dread she feels when the Cat leans over the cradle to peer at the baby inside… Her husband was a peasant, after all, as much as she has learnt to love him. He is only superstitious, she thinks in those moments beside the fire, the heavy thrum of the Cat's purr filling the air like distant thunder, its fur so soft against her trembling fingers.

(Only give me a bag and fine pair of boots and you will see I am not so poor an inheritance as you think.)

She wonders sometimes how her husband came across this estate, for he was clearly not born to it. Their first week there he was always getting lost; it took him a month to figure out the extent of his lands, and there have still been times over the years when he has admitted, shamefaced, to have gotten lost. She knows better than to ask – her marriage is filled with such gentle compromises.

She knows already, she thinks, but feels silly for even thinking it. When her eyes meet those of the Cat she is the first to look away.

(Hush now, boy.

"But Cat--"

But nothing! Did I not tell you I would provide you with a fortune? And have I not done so? Where is your objection? Now is not the time to gain a conscience, boy.)

She knows. Of course she does. She is a princess but she is not stupid.

She wonders sometimes, irrationally – of course she's being irrational, she tells herself, but is actually very afraid she is not – if the Cat is supposed to ask for her firstborn child. He is a fine boy, Costantino, if a little prone to risk. He was as fascinated with the Cat as the Cat was with him as a chubby-faced child, and she wonders sometimes if he believes as clearly as the Cat in nine lives.

(A gift for His Royal Highness the King from my most bountiful master, the Marquis of Carabas.)

Costantino's first word was "Cat". His second was "Puss".

She had been cooing after his cot for months, had waited so patiently for his first words, wanting to hear from her beloved child that he knew and loved her as much she loved him, trapped in a marriage with a man she did not know, wasn't sure she could ever love (she was a terrible romantic, before her marriage). To hear the word 'Cat' felt like the blow her husband has never given her. When his next word was 'Puss' she had hysterics – much to the Cat's sardonic amusement from where it watched her, daintily balanced on the wooden rail of the crib – and the servants had put her to bed, still weeping, and cosseted her for days until she felt strong enough to face her son once more and try to coax a 'Mama' from him.

She still hates the Cat for that. Just a little. She gets the feeling it knows. Her husband certainly believes it does. "Don't look at it like that," he begs her under his breath, and she can't quite keep her exasperation from her eyes when she turns to look at him. She suspects that is the only reason the Cat does not hold her hatred against her.

(Ah, most remarkable, but can you, a being of such great – and impressive, of course you are impressive – size, go into something small… something like… a mouse?)

She pretends she doesn't understand her husband's fear, and maybe this is why the Cat will sit in her lap, will allow her to stroke its marbled fur. It doesn't mind that she is lying; perhaps that is the very reason it likes her, for it is the master of lies.

(I must tell you, I believe the feat impossible…)

She wakes up in the night, sweating, her head filled with images of her children smothered in their sleep by the Cat's thick fur, a nightmare she's had often ever since Costantino's birth, for the Cat is prone to lie in the crib beside her children when they are infants. The Cat is the reason she goes to her old nurse for potions and powders to prevent conception and she remembers still how the discovery of her nurse's business had amazed and astonished her. The Cat is the reason her children are always born several years apart, for every time she waits until they are out of infancy before she breathes a sigh of relief, before she can bear to even think of carrying another. Always she expects this time to be the time the Cat tires of them and simply—

(…such a tasty little mouse. Rest easy, little mouse, I shall make good use of your home.)

stretches out. Rolls over. Presses its heavy furred body against their tiny rosebud mouths.

She wonders sometimes how her husband's father died, how the Cat came to be his inheritance.

(Do not fret, my new Master,)

She dreams of her husband, drowning while the Cat watches, for of course he cannot swim, is afraid of deep water and has always been so since the day her father met him, bathing

(O My Lord Marquis of Carabas is drown'd!)

in the river. The Cat fills the world in her dreams, its gleaming eyes golden and shrewd. It fills the world outside her dreams.

The Cat itself currently dozes on her bed and watches her with half-lidded eyes, relaxation personified. She reaches out with one cautious hand, waits until it gives its tacit permission before she traces the curling, rippling patterns painted across its face with fairy fingers.

(Simply obey me, and you will have your fortune.)

Yes, she is afraid of the Cat, but it is a kindly enough master, so long as its servants remember their place.