Chapter Nine: The Bribe
Baron's breath came a little easier, as Toto soared through the sky like a hot knife through butter.
The trip Toto had taken for a map with area boundaries had proven to be useless, since the land in question had been passed between the two enemies' families for centuries like a hot potato.
But, knowing that the Cat King would stand by Baron's judgment, the tawny half-feline had settled the dispute by splitting the land right down the middle, and making sure that the two lords would immediately start fencing off their lands, so that their mouse herds wouldn't intermingle again.
Even now, three days after the task, Baron groaned at the memory of splitting the herds as well. Neither lord was very happy with his decision, but then again, Baron wasn't too pleased with the lords' childish conduct either.
"Hold it, Toto," Baron said suddenly, as his home came into view. "Can you drop me off behind the house?"
"What for?" the dark crow asked, as he made the necessary U-turn in the air over the manor.
"I want to see what Miss Haru does when I'm not around to watch her. Go rest for a while, that trip must have exhausted you," the orange and cream cat softly as he expertly slid off his friend and onto the solid earth.
Toto seemed to understand Baron's need for subterfuge, because he immediately took off to the sky again, going quite a bit farther up then he needed to before sailing to his tree.
Baron muttered an invisibility spell under his breath while approaching his home, praying that no one had seen him.
He had but to peak through the kitchen window to become comforted.
Haru was making some strange rice dish that he wasn't familiar with, and her brother was chopping up fresh herbs at her side. His three treasures were at the table, bent over their homework as their quills danced over the thick paper.
Baron sighed softly. Everything looked in order. He could see Elly's adorable little nose wrinkle up in confusion.
"Haru? What's the capital of your native kingdom?"
"Preal," the human said, stepping aside so her brother could dump the cut herbs into a steaming pot. Baron's nose could just smell it from the other side of the door, and the scent made his mouth water shamelessly.
"Thanks." The white kitten wrote in the answer. "What was it like there?"
"I don't know. I've never been to my kingdom's capital. Father used to go there all the time, but he didn't enjoy it. The Yrathean king always used to set his teeth on edge."
Hashi looked up at her sharply as he stirred the vegetable broth. "You never told me about that."
"You were about a year old when he stopped going, and he didn't like talking about his experiences there very much afterward." Her somewhat grim mouth broke into a gentle smile, and she fondly mussed her brother's hair. "Dinner's ready when you three are. How's the homework coming?"
"Done!" Lily said triumphantly, making a final dash on the smooth paper as her sister also closed her book.
But Thomas was still frowning at his botany book, gripping his quill almost like a weapon. "I can't figure out this last question!" he burst out. "How should I know what plant does a certain race of canines fear and despise?!"
"Aconitum vulparia," Hashi said immediately, almost like a reflex action.
His sister laughed and wrapped her brother in a warm embrace, despite his somewhat weak protests. "You actually remembered! I'm so proud!"
Thomas cocked his head, and started leafing through his book. "There's no mention of that plant in here, what is it?"
"It's the original name for wolfs bane," Haru said as the tomcat's sisters began clearing off the table, and setting it for supper. "Humans use it to kill wolves and each other. It has yellow flowers, and is quite poisonous. Wolfs bane is usually found in mountain forests. The higher, the better."
Thomas stared at the two, and then wrote in the information. "Wow. Thank you, that might come in handy later."
"As long as you don't abuse that information," Haru said a little firmly, setting the huge rice bowl on the table. "I doubt your father would approve of me telling you about various natural poisons for anything besides study."
Baron smiled, and laughed a bit as he released the spell hiding him from the happy group and opened the door in one move. "I couldn't agree with you more, Miss Haru."
It was quite a good thing that she had already put down the rice bowl, and that her brother hadn't picked up the vegetable-filled pot yet, because they both nearly jumped out of their skins at the sudden intruder, and landed firmly on the floor with rather impressive shrieks of shock.
"Father!" Lily cheered, racing her siblings to the door to swarm over their sire. He laughed, and embraced the three of them the best he could.
He had long held the belief that the good part of being away from his precious kittens for any amount of time was the moment when he came home. Very few things could top what he felt, being reunited with his beloved children.
"Have you been good?" he asked a bit sternly, most pointedly looking at Elly.
She nodded, but turned a little pink from the extra attention around the question. "Yes, and Haru's been taking really good care of us. She's really smart!"
Baron looked up at the nanny, who was turning a little red behind her thick glasses as she helped her brother get back to his feet. "I noticed. Just out of curiosity, Miss Haru, how is it you know so much about wolfs bane?"
She shrugged a bit, and picked up the vegetable concoction as her brother found a hot pad for it. "Hashi and I grew up in a bookstore. Father had us reading before we could walk."
Her brother's smile turned slightly humorous. "I'm still convinced that we only learned how to walk so that we could get to the books faster."
Baron wouldn't help but chuckle a bit at that. "No wonder you two got so excited by my library. Well, were there any problems?"
The brunette paused a second from pumping water into a pitcher. "None that I can think of. Well, there was this really annoying cat that kept popping up everywhere, but I could handle him."
"Oh? What did he want?" Baron asked, taking a seat at the table as Elly readied another plate setting to accommodate his sudden presence. Even from over here, he could see just how subtly his nanny was biting her lip.
"Nothing much," she said evasively, making her employer sigh tiredly.
"Miss Haru, I should think that if some strange cat has been prowling around my home when I'm away, I deserve to know about it. Please tell me what he wanted."
The bespectacled brunette sighed tiredly in defeat. "All right, all right. He wanted me to pack up my brother and leave your kittens alone to fend for themselves. He even offered me a decent amount of gold if I'd do it while you were gone."
"He what?!" Baron almost roared, jumping out of his seat. Haru held her hands up defensively, slightly scared of the half-cat, since she had never seen the half-feline in anything less than in a sweet temperament. Even his three kittens took a few steps back from him.
"Hey, if I was going to do it, I'd have done it my first night here! Believe me, I've been turning him down as many times as he asks, and I even kick him off your property when he gets too insistent. Literally, and I'm not too gentle about it, either."
The orange and cream cat stormed up to the human girl, and took her firmly by the shoulders. "What did he look like? What was his name?" Baron pressed.
Haru subtly bit her lip again, realizing that it wasn't really her that he was angry with. "His fur was black, but kind of an ashy variety of the color. His eyes were on the light grey side, but I'm afraid that I don't remember his name. He only mentioned it once, when he first approached me, and I was a little too outraged at his offer to cement the information into my mind."
Just barely through the thickness of her glasses, the lord could see her somewhat fine eyebrows curl up in concentration.
"But I'm pretty sure that he was acting on someone else's orders. A Countess, or something like that."