NB from Malin, your resident Book and People Management Herding Dog:

Please forgive me for the delay in retrieving the next installment of your bonus story. My peoples all got the flu, including my favorite writer-person. I had to chase all the bad flu germs out of the house before I could collect your story for you. Also, there was a septic truck. Very suspicious. Required much barking.

Now here is your story, part 5. I fetched it.

Conall’s low voice slides into silence as his story concludes.

That was almost touching. The woman, saving the injured dog despite the sorcerer’s threat. Conall, watching the woman and realizing his assumptions were wrong. The promises he made, to the dog and the woman. Almost touching.

But I can’t admit that. I am, after all, a cat. I wash my ear instead, ignoring both dogs and the dust motes in the sun and the sweet smells of warm straw and fresh breeze. Must get ear clean. Very clean.

Kappa, the soldier dog who has been listening, heaves a great sigh. “What a beautiful story, Conall. Just beautiful.”

“I did my best to protect them,” Conall rumbles.

“What happened to Odarnat?” Kappa asks.

“She escaped in the—”

There is a clatter in the hallway, and the door swings open. We are in the Castle of a Thousand Doors, and the doors open on their own. (Very handy, when you haven’t any hands to manage the knobs.) Five more black wolfhounds pace inside, all smelling of sun and dirt, panting, their paws muddy.

“I see you’ve stopped that infernal howling,” Theta says to Conall.

Theta is the gray-muzzled patrol leader. He is sharp and bossy, which is similar to myself, so I can’t decide if I like him or despise him. Since he’s looking at Conall and his hackles are slightly raised, I decide that I don’t like him at all. After all, I’ve known Conall for years, but the others have only been here a few weeks.

“He has quite the story,” Kappa interjects.

Theta growls. “I don’t care about stories. I care if the work gets done and my men stay safe.”

“I’ll take my position on patrol,” Conall says.

“Finally,” Theta snaps. “Where’s our dinner?”

The servants bring it in just then. They look like ordinary humans and smell like ordinary humans, but they have no faces. Trencoss is a sorcerer of the animals and so usually he turns his prey into animals, but a hundred years or so ago, he figured out how to do this transformation too. I don’t approve. Trencoss can make all the rabbits and dogs and birds (yum) that he wants, but there is something unsettling about these human with no faces. 

At any rate, they are carrying pots of meat stew, and we all approve of meat stew. The dogs coming off patrol slurp water from the fountain and arrange themselves to eat. The servants ladle stew into giant bowls. I leap down from the shelf, impressing everyone with my sinuous grace, and nose my way through the room.

Theta glares at me, but I didn’t want to share stew with his yucky smell on it anyways. Sigma wags his tail—he is a friendly one—and I select one piece from his dish, just to be polite. Show up that silly Theta. Conall flicks his ears and lets me have my choice from his bowl, before he starts to eat. I might think the way he is looking at me means he is amused, but it’s not like dogs can express complex emotion like that. He probably just has gas. I crouch down and find all the good bits, chewing slowly to savor each delicious bite.

“You’re just going to let that cat eat your food?” Alpha asks. He’s still a young dog, gobbling as fast as he can. 

“He’s going to do a favor for me,” Conall answers. 

“No, I won’t,” I mumble around a mouthful of delicious beef.

“He’s going to check on Ailbe for me,” Conall says.

“I told you!” Theta snaps. “She’s just fine. Trencoss put her in a nice bedroom with a wardrobe full of fine clothes. He lets her wander all over the palace and grounds. The servants do the work for her, and she can do whatever she likes. She’s the luckiest lady in Ireland. Humph.”

“Trencoss has dinner with her in this really big room.” Alpha has finished his dinner already. “It’s all shimmery with marble floors and candlelight, and they drink wine out of golden goblets! It’s incredible. I was on guard duty there last night. I wish I could drink from golden goblets!”

“She’s not the luckiest lady in Ireland,” Conall warns them. “Trencoss is dangerous, and he is going to do something nefarious.”

“He hasn’t turned her into a dog.” Theta licks his muzzle and yawns. “You’re borrowing trouble.”

“No,” Conall says, so low that only Kappa and Sigma and I can hear. “I know what the sorcerer is like. I assure you that when it comes to Trencoss, no one needs to borrow trouble. It’s already here.”

I blink my eyes. I agree with him. Not that it matters—not that Trencoss can do anything to me—but I agree that’s he’s trouble.

“You’ll take good care of her,” Kappa says. “You’re used to being a head dog, Conall. You’ll do the right thing.”

“I can’t,” Conall answers. “I can feel that my collar restricts me even more than it used to. I can’t even serve as a guard while she eats her dinner, like that young fool there.”

We all stare at Alpha, who is licking the last drops of his stew so vigorously that his tongue clatters the bowl across the flagstones. 

Kappa hangs his head. “I can’t take care of my wife, either. I promised I would send for her. I promised.”

“Ailbe would care for your wife. If she could.” Conall watches Kappa, his gaze steady. “She is a Head Lady, and would know what to do.”

Kappa doesn’t answer, just sighs and heads farther into his stall. He spins in three slow, creaky circles, then drops heavily into the straw.

“He didn’t even finish his dinner!” I exclaim.

“I’m worried about him,” Theta snaps, from the other side of the room. “He has been growing depressed.”

“Well”—Tau is a big dog with sleepy eyes—“we are bloody freaking dogs. We are covered with fur and don’t have hands or voices. Anyone with sense would grow depressed. I’m going to bed.”

“It’s better than the last place,” Alpha says, sounding worried. “Isn’t it, Tau? Isn’t it, Theta? The last king didn’t feed us enough. We were cold all the time. So this is better, right?”

“We are dogs,” Tau growls, burrowing in the straw.

“No one wants to be a dog,” I agree. 

“I wouldn’t want to be a cat, either,” Tau grumbles. “You smell weird and don’t have hands either.”

“Rude!” I turn my back and flick my tail.

“But you don’t have a collar,” Conall says, very gently. “You are not under Trencoss’s control. You could go check on Ailbe.”

“I don’t know where she is,” I inform him, flicking my tail some more.

“You climb up the tree!” Alpha exclaims. “It’s the giant oak with the bench underneath. There’s a wide branch that goes right past her window.”

I open my mouth to inform him that I don’t like climbing trees, and I don’t need a wide branch either—

“Don’t bother,” Theta grumbles. “She’s fine, I tell you.”

“I’ll climb a tree if I want to,” I tell him. He’s not the boss of me!

Theta huffs and turns his back on us all.

“I’ll look in the window if I want to!” I add, more loudly. I don’t like being ignored.

“You don’t think Sorcerer Trencoss will hurt her, do you?” Alpha asks. 

“He has brought her here and locked her up,” Conall replies. “Of course he means to hurt her.”

“She seems nice.” Alpha whimpers, just a little. “I’m tired of people being hurt.”

“I’ll look out for her,” Sigma offers. “I’ve been assigned to her particular guard duty several times, and I’m good at figuring out how to communicate with this dog body. Don’t worry, Conall. I’ll pay attention.”

“What we need is to get her out of here,” Conall says.

“We need to get us all out of here!” Theta yells. 

“I don’t know how to do that,” Sigma says. “The sorcerer has rules on our collars. Rules on the gates.”

But Conall is watching me, his tail moving slowly, his ears cocked forward. “We need someone clever,” he says.

I wash my face. “Dogs are stupider than a box of rocks,” I reply.

“Hey, I’m not—” Alpha squeaks

“We probably are,” Conall interrupts, smooth and slow. “That’s why we need someone sneaky.

And wise. And brave.”

“Some cats are brave,” Sigma says. “I can’t tell about this one.”

“Some cats are smart, too,” Conall agrees.

“Very smart.”

“Very sneaky.”

“Some of them.”

I am trying to ignore them, but my tail is twitching. Just the tip. Then the whole tail. 

Conall finally starts to eat his dinner—or what I left of it, with my enormous appetite—slurping noisily.

“It’s pretty good stew,” Sigma says. “Passable, at least.”

“But do you know what?” Conall asks.

I wait, but Conall doesn’t finish the sentence.

I really want to know. Need to know! Foolish Sigma, doesn’t even make him answer!

“What?” I demand, whirling around to glare at them both.

Conall cocks his ears. “I bet Ailbe gets much better food than we do.”

“Oh, she does!” Alpha adds. “Roasted boar and thin-sliced ham and—”

“And smoked eel.” Conall glances at me.

Smoked eel? My ears perk up. “Do you think she keeps any in her room?”

“We’re not allowed to go in her room,” Sigma tells me. “The magic stops us at the threshold.”

“I guess…” Conall yawns, then leans back, stretching out his shoulders and front legs. 

“You guess what?” I flex my paws, reminding him of my mighty talons.

Conall sighs and settles into the straw. He is good at hiding how he is terrified of me.

“I guess…” He lays his shaggy head on his paws. “If someone wanted to find out, they would have to go along the oak tree.”

“I can do that,” I inform him, loftily.

Sigma shakes his head in a dog-laugh. “Of course you can. Any cat could do that.”

Conall yawns. “But only a very brave…very clever…very sneaky cat…could think of a way to trick Trencoss into giving up Ailbe.”

I wrap my tail around my toes, pretending to ignore him. Or maybe I’m pretending to consider how I could accomplish that. At any rate, I gaze into the distance, impressing all of them with my beauty.

“Don’t bother,” Theta growls. “She’s not worth it. Just go home, you fool cat, and don’t get stuck here with the rest of us.”

Well! Would you listen to that! I can do whatever I like—and just watch, I will! The sorcerer can’t stop me, and Theta can’t boss me around, and Conall can most certainly, not ever, no how no way, not possibly tempt with with smoked eel.

Mmm.

Smoked eel.

I prance through the room, going right in front of their big yucky noses. I keep my tail straight up in the air, twitching just the end, so they are all very impressed. I leap up onto the windowsill, which is even more impressive.

“I can do just what I like,” I tell them all. “Whatever I want to do. So there!”

Having delivered that stunning put-down, I slip out into the grass and the warm afternoon sun.

I feel like climbing an oak tree, and no one can stop me.

To be continued.... last installment tomorrow

Castle in Kilkenny: Romantic Fairy Tales