New Decameron Forty: Harry Turtledove (Patreon)

The Talking Cat

by Harry Turtledove

“Listen to me,” the cat said. “I’ve got a problem, and maybe you can help me fix it.”

Clever Rolf looked down at the mug of red on the tavern table in front of him. It wasn’t swill, but it was the same vin extremely ordinaire Marcel had been dipping up from the barrel under the Blue Fox’s bar for a lot of years now. And it was only his third mug of the evening. It shouldn’t make him start hearing things.

Then he looked at the cat. It was a chat extremely ordinaire, too, a grayish brown tabby whose only notable feature was a fine plumy tail. It was also looking at him. Its green eyes seemed full of ancient malevolent wisdom. They were the eyes of an extremely ordinary cat, in other words.

“Are you listening?” the cat demanded.

“I’m listening,” Clever Rolf said with a sigh. When he was younger, he’d thought things like this happened to him because he’d offended a god or a demon or a fairy or some kind of Power, anyhow. He wasn’t so young any more; the way his back creaked, his knees ached, and his hand stiffened up on him reminded him of that every day. Young or not, things like this kept happening to him. As far as he could tell, they happened because they happened. If that meant anything, he’d never worked out what.

“You’d better be,” the cat said, and licked its balls to show it was serious. “I’ve heard things about you, I have.”

“I wasn’t there,” Clever Rolf said automatically--and quickly, very quickly. “If I was there, I didn’t do it. If I did it, it was an accident. If it wasn’t an accident, the son of a whore had it coming.”

The cat licked a foot and washed behind its ear. Clever Rolf couldn’t recall the last time he’d washed behind his. When the cat said, “Not those kinds of things,” it sounded impatient.

“Oh.” Clever Rolf knew he sounded relieved. He glanced over at Marcel. Would the taverner think he’d gone crazy--well, crazier--because he was talking with a cat?

Marcel was paying him no mind at all. He was telling Luc the carpenter a very long, very dirty story that involved another carpenter, his wife, and a red-hot poker used where it would do the most good. Clever Rolf would have listened more, but Marcel had told him the story a few days before.

`Luc and Clever Rolf were the only men in the tavern. It was late. Torches guttered toward death. Once Marcel finished his filthy tale, he’d probably shut up shop.

So Clever Rolf could talk to the cat all he pleased. He asked, “If I fix your problem, what do I get from you?” Yes, he thought of himself first. Somebody had to do it.

The question didn’t faze the animal. Cats thought that way, too. “Oh, I can make it worth your while,” this one said. “Unless some fool flings a rock at me or turns his nasty dogs loose, nobody even notices me. I hear things humans don’t--best believe I do. Some of them ought to be worth something to you. I’ll pass a few along. Once we’ve both decided I’ve done enough, we’re square. Deal?”

Before Clever Rolf could answer, Marcel finished the story. Luc threw back his head and laughed like a loon. With his long neck, low forehead, and pointed nose, he rather resembled one anyhow. And his guffaw gave Clever Rolf a moment to think.

Once we’ve both decided I’ve done enough was the obvious kicker. Like a lot of people, cats did no more than they had to do, and even that grudgingly. But Clever Rolf wasn’t likely to get gold or silver out of this one. You did the best you could, that was all. Or you told the beast to get lost, and he wasn’t about to do that. Even more than his bump of acquisitiveness, his bump of curiosity itched.

“Deal,” he said. He would have clasped hands with a man. Here, he just nodded. “Tell me what your trouble is.”

Before the cat could, Marcel called, “Drink up and head for home, you old souse. I need some sleep myself, you know.”

“Old souse?” Clever Rolf echoed. “You’ve got your nerve!” But drink up he did, and walked to the door. The cat followed him in front of him, so he almost tripped over it a couple of times. But it was still on all fours and he still on all twos when they went out into the cool, misty night.

Low in the west, the first-quarter moon dimly fought its way through the mist. Heading toward midnight, Clever Rolf thought. He didn’t stay up this late so often any more. Had he gone home sooner, the talking cat might never have found him. Would that have been good news, or the other kind?

“Are you trying to kill me before I can do anything for you?” he asked when the cat did its best to make him fall over it again.

“Watch where you’re going,” it retorted. He wished he could. Moonlight through mist wasn’t much for a man’s eyes. The town called this road High Street, mostly likely because of the way it smelled. Puddles and horse turds and what came out of slops jars made walking at night more interesting than he wished it were.

An owl hooted from a tree or rooftop. The cat drew close to Clever Rolf once more, this time, he judged, for protection. He didn’t believe an owl could swoop down and carry off a cat, but he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t blame this cat for not wanting to try the experiment.

“You were going to tell me what kind of trouble you were in,” he reminded the beast. “Then Marcel threw us out.”

“So I was. So I am,” the cat said. “What I want you to do is, I want you to help me find out whether I’m a vampire.”

“I’ve heard of vampire bats,” Clever Rolf said, peering down at the animal. “As far as I know, I never heard of a vampire cat before. Why do you think you might be one?”

“Something bit me on the neck a week or two ago, and I haven’t felt quite right since,” the cat said. “I don’t know what it was. I want to find out whether I should start biting necks myself.”

“You do that anyway, don’t you?” Clever Rolf said.

“Well, yes, but not the same way. Don’t be difficult. You know what I mean.”

Clever Rolf did, too. He’d had more to do with the occult, the weird, and the magical than he’d ever wanted to. He thought for a moment. “Do you just drink the blood when you kill something these days, or do you still eat the meat with it?”

“I still eat meat, but I don’t know how much that proves. Sometimes a sickness takes you a little bit at a time, not all at once.”

“That’s true. Here we are. Come in.” They’d come almost to the edge of town, where houses started giving way to fields and woods. Clever Rolf unlatched his door. He used the hot embers on the hearth to light a dry twig, and the flame from the twig to start a tallow lamp. The smell of hot fat filled the house. The lamp gave . . . a little light, anyhow. The cat’s pupils remained enormous. Clever Rolf asked it, “Do you find yourself steering clear of daylight?”

The cat’s sniff said it didn’t think he was so clever. “I always steer clear of daylight,” it said with dignity. “I find somewhere gloomy and quiet and sleep from sunup till sundown. What else is a cat going to do?”

“Cats come out in the daytime, too. You see them every now and again, chasing rats and hunting sparrows and keeping an eye on people.”

“You need keeping an eye on, yes. You’re like stupid cats, only you’re big enough to be dangerous.”

“I love you, too,” Clever Rolf said. The cat bared its teeth in what might have been a feline laugh. He persisted, “Does daylight pain you, or not?”

“Some. It’s too cursed bright. More than I can say about you.”

“I didn’t tell you to tell me your troubles. If you don’t like the way I’m trying to get at this, you can always leave.”

The cat glanced back toward the door, as if thinking of leaving. The door was closed. Clever Rolf took half a step towards it, as if thinking of helping the cat on its way. “Don’t bother,” it said.

“I wouldn’t be,” Clever Rolf answered, but he stopped. “Let’s try it again, shall we? Does daylight pain you more now than it did before you think something bit you? Something you think was a vampire?”

“I don’t know.” For the first time, the cat’s air of snotty good humor slipped. “I think so, but how can I be sure? I may just think so because I’m afraid I’m turning into a vampire, and I don’t want to.”

“That makes more sense than I wish it did.” Clever Rolf thought for a moment. He hadn’t needed to worry about vampires for a good number of years. He needed to do some digging to come up with what he thought he remembered about them. After a bit, he asked, “How do you feel about garlic?”

“What’s garlic?” the cat asked. It was, Clever Rolf realized, a reasonable question. A cat, even a talking cat, wouldn’t know about the stinking rose. A vampire would, but maybe not instinctively, as it were. Maybe a vampire needed to meet it to find out it was something unpleasant and dangerous.

“Here. I’ll show you.” Clever Rolf carried the lamp--which would soon need more fuel--over to his larder. A little fumbling, and he came up with a garlic bulb. He was fond of the stuff himself, and flavored stews and mutton with it when he did his own cooking. He used a thumbnail to separate one clove from the bulb. Then he laid the clove on the rickety table by the hearth.

Up hopped the cat. It sniffed the garlic clove, then drew back with an almost human expression of distaste. “Doesn’t smell very good,” it said.

Did that mean it was becoming a vampire and starting to be repelled? Or did it just mean the cat didn’t like that odor? The clove still wore its skin, which would blunt the aroma, and presumably the effect. Clever Rolf took his knife, still sheathed, off his belt. Reversing it, he brought the end of the pommel down smartly on the garlic clove.

Bang! The sharp smell of crushed garlic filled the air. The cat jumped off the table, hit the floor once, and sprang out through the window into the night.

Clever Rolf looked out the window. The cat was gone without a trace. “A pestilence!” he said. Had the garlic reek driven it away? Or had the sudden loud noise scared it off? He couldn’t begin to guess, and wondered if he’d ever find out.

#

When Clever Rolf woke up the next morning, his first thought was that he’d dreamt the whole thing. Yes, he was a man who attracted the odd like a lodestone, but he didn’t do it all the cursed time. Easier to believe he’d imagined a talking cat than that he’d truly met one.

Then he climbed out of bed and saw the smashed garlic clove on the table. He stood there in only his tunic, staring at it for a long time. “I will be the pup of a female dog,” he said, or something to that effect. Only afterwards did he pull on his breeches and belt them so they wouldn’t fall down again. It had happened after all.

He ate some bread and a thumb’s worth of sausage for breakfast. The sausage tasted of fennel and dill and caraway seeds, not of garlic. Thoughtfully, he cut off a couple of thin slices and went outside.

“Here, cat, cat, cat!” he called. “I’ve got a snack for you, you stupid beast!”

A couple of women pouring well water from the bucket into their pitchers glanced his way, but then went back to gossiping. Anyone who knew him--which just about everybody in town did--knew he didn’t have a cat, but it wasn’t impossible that he’d get one.

It also wasn’t impossible that the talking cat would saunter out of the tall grass behind his house and delicately take the thin rounds of sausage from his palm. After it ate them, chances were it would tell him it had had better. Well, so had he.

Only nothing like that happened. A blackbird hopped through the grass. It suddenly stopped, struck, and pulled up a worm. No sensible bird would do anything like that if it thought a cat, even a talking cat, lurked anywhere close by.

If the cat really was turning into a vampire, it might not want sausage, or even a tasty blackbird. It might be lying almost undead in some nasty, dark hole in the ground, shielded as well as it could manage against the dangers of even this morning’s watery sunlight.

In case it wasn’t, he called it again. Cats didn’t commonly come when you called them. The talking cat definitely didn’t come when he called it. Sighing, he swallowed the sausage slices himself.

“Stupid beast,” he said again, but quietly, so the women at the well wouldn’t wonder about him. Maybe he’d never find out whether the cat was a vampire. He hated stories with ambiguous endings, especially when they happened to him.

He ambled around town through the day, looking for the cat while trying to seem like someone who wasn’t doing anything in particular. His best was more than good enough. Luc the carpenter, Marcel the taverner, Yves the miller, Magda the madam, they all had regular places where they made their livings. That was much less true of Clever Rolf, and everybody knew it.

Clever Rolf did a little of this, a little of that, sometimes a bit of the other thing on the side. Some of what he did might have been against the law, had there been enough law in that town at that time to notice him. There wasn’t. No one else cared, least of all himself.

No sign of the cat, of course. Cats never turned up when you looked for them. That proved no less true of this talking cat than of any other. Clever Rolf knew that as well as anyone else. He tried playing a deep game, sitting out in front of his cottage on a stool while trimming his nails with his belt knife.

If he played a deep game, the cat played a deeper one. It didn’t come out to ask him what he was doing. For all he knew, it really was in a hole in the ground. Or maybe it was on its way to the big city, to ask help from someone not just clever but actually wise.

Wistfully, Clever Rolf wished he were wise. Wish for the moon while you’re at it, he thought. There it was, as pale in the daylight sky as if drained by a vampire itself, a bit fatter than the half-coin it had been the night before. He wished for it. He didn’t get it.

He did take his fingernail trimmings and burn them. Like any sensible person, he tried to leave nothing behind that might give a wizard a grip on him.

Supper was bread and sausage again. He cut a bit more for the talking cat, but it still didn’t come when he called. As he had in the morning, he ate those bits himself.

He started for the Blue Fox for a cup of red and whatever talk he could find there, then changed his mind and his direction, heading for the sporting house instead. Magda would sell him wine, too. She’d charge more, but he’d have more fun there.

When he walked in, she greeted him as an old friend, which he was. He’d been visiting that establishment longer than she’d been in charge of it, longer than the girls who worked there now had been alive. He’d never been married; he’d never been foolish or faithful enough to dream that a woman would put up with him for long. Whenever he got the itch, this was where he scratched it.

“It’s a slow night,” Magda remarked after the slavey brought Clever Rolf the wine he wanted.

He sipped and nodded. “Must be,” he said. This was better stuff than the house usually served, certainly better than he would have bought at Marcel’s place. Well, he was at least as much a regular here; that also might have counted for a little something. Or, given the abacus Magda had where most people kept a heart, it might not.

She nodded back. Yes, she understood what his agreement meant. She wasn’t far from his age, though that looked better on her. When he’d first started coming here--a joke he’d made a time or three--her aunt had been running the place along the same mercenary lines.

He set another coin on the slavey’s tray. “Go fetch one for Ugo there,” he told her. The bouncer, perched on a stool outside the girls’ gathering room, sketched a salute. Clever Rolf waved back.

Magda waved, too, toward that doorway. “Pick yourself someone lively. Have a good time,” she told him. Both those sentence, of course, meant only Spend money. You had to speak the language. Clever Rolf did.

Into the gathering room he strolled. Some of the girls were chatting, a couple sewing, three or four more throwing dice. All of them wore mostly themselves, which offered . . . inspiration. The fire in the hearth helped there, though it wasn’t a chilly night.

They smiled when he came in. They knew he wouldn’t cause trouble or want anything that hurt, which made him a good customer. “Hello, ladies,” he said, and doffed his cap. His eye settled on a honey-blonde. “You want to go upstairs with me, Fleur?” She wasn’t uncommonly pretty or well made, but she could laugh with someone in bed, not at him.

“I’ll do that,” she said, and did.

Once in a little room with a bed and a candle, he paid her before he took off his own clothes: the going rate, and a little above it. Maybe Magda would get that, too, but maybe she wouldn’t. Then they lay down together and did what they did.

Afterwards, Fleur leaned up on an elbow and said, “It’s nice with you.”

“Oh? Why’s that, dear?” Clever Rolf asked lazily, though he wasn’t so lazy as to make that bump of curiosity go away.

“Because you treat whoever you’re with like she’s a person, too, not just a toy to make you happy. All the girls know it.”

“Better when everybody has a good time. I think so, anyway. Don’t most men?”

Fleur’s mouth twisted. “Most men don’t think at all, not when they’re here.” Her hand wandered experimentally. “Want another go? I won’t charge extra--not like anyone’s yelling for me down below.”

Clever Rolf knew he’d give her something extra if he did. He knew some other things, too. “Are you daft, sweetheart? Twice? Not likely, not at my age.”

“You never know till you try.” She giggled. “Wait. I know what may help.” She got off the bed and went out of the room and down the hallway. He heard her open another door. A bit later, she came back and set up a mirror by the side of the bed. “Here you go. We’ll see what this does.”

It was a very fine mirror, not polished bronze but silvered glass. Clever Rolf doubted you could get such a good one here; Magda must have had it brought from the big city. And, as Fleur knelt down and started doing things, the view certainly was educational.

Much to his surprise, he almost got where she wanted to bring him. Before he could, though, something that had nothing to do with Fleur and her talents occurred to him, and he started to laugh himself. When a man does that at such a time, he’s all too likely to wilt. Clever Rolf did.

Fleur looked ready to spit in his eye. “It’s all right, sugarloaf,” he assured her. “By the gods, it’s got nothing to do with you. I just found a way to answer a question that’s been driving me mad.” He kissed her and caressed her and gave her silver.

He sweet-talked her out of her annoyance, though she said, “You’re still mad, you know.”

“I should hope so,” he answered, not without pride.

“If your fit is over, do you want me to try and finish you now?”

“No, it’s all right. I truly am fine from the first time.” Clever Rolf sat up and started dressing. “If you and Magda don’t mind, though, I may be back for that mirror with a friend.”

“Oh? What kind of friend?” Fleur sounded intrigued, as well she might.

“You’ll see, honeypot. Or else you won’t.” Clever Rolf almost started laughing some more. He managed to hold it in this time. That wasn’t easy, but he did.

#

He went back to looking for the talking cat again the next day. Naturally, he saw no sign of it. The same thing happened the day after that, and the day after that. Clever Rolf began to worry. Was it a talking vampire cat now? Or had an owl or a wolf or a mean dog made it only a dead cat? He hated the idea that that might be true, and that it might be true without his finding out about it.

He went back to the Blue Fox. Wine didn’t cure worry, but did sometimes blur it. After he bought a mug’s worth, the taverner asked, “Say, did I tell you the story about--?”

“Yes, Marcel. You did.” Clever Rolf took his mug to a table near the door. He sat down and waited. He might get lucky. Or he might not.

He was halfway down his second mug when a voice near his kneecap asked, “Well, have you found a way to tell me what I need to know or not?”

Clever Rolf started. He almost spilled his wine; he would have had the mug been fuller. He’d been watching the door. He thought he had, anyhow. But a cat didn’t need magic to appear out of nowhere. After a whistle-wetting swig, Clever Rolf answered, “As a matter of fact, I have. I think so, anyhow.”

The talking cat sat back on its haunches and studied him. After a moment, it said, “If you’re lying to me, I’ll find a way to make you sorry.”

“I expected you would,” Clever Rolf said easily, doing his best not to show the small chill of alarm trickling up his spine and the back of his neck. “But I’m not lying, so I’m not worried. It may not work--nothing I’ve tried so far has. It’s got a better chance than anything we’ve done up till now, though.”

Quite visibly, the cat considered. Then it inclined its head as regally as a prince. “Let’s find out,” it said.

Clever Rolf knocked back the last of the wine. “Yes, let’s.” The room swayed a bit when he rose, but only a bit. He didn’t trip over the cat on his way out. That told him he was, if not sober, sober enough.

The night was clear, the moon most of the way to full. He could see tolerably well as he led the cat to Magda’s sporting house. The animal balked a few feet from the door. “A lot of people in there,” it said doubtfully.

“We need a people thing they have inside,” Clever Rolf answered. “Nobody will hurt you. The girls will probably fuss over you instead.”

“That may be worse,” the cat said, but it followed him into the sporting house’s front room.

“Hello,” Magda said. “I thought you were coming back with a friend.”

“I am,” Clever Rolf told her. He nodded down toward the cat. “Say hello, cat.”

“Hello, cat,” the cat said. It stropped itself against Magda’s leg. Like any cat, it could tell who was likely to do it some good.

“Well, well,” Magda murmured. She underplayed surprise, as she underplayed everything. “And what do you and . . . your friend have in mind?”

“I’d like to use your fancy mirror for a moment.” Even as Clever Rolf spoke, his hand fell to his belt pouch. He didn’t expect anything here to be free.

But the madam waved for him not to bother. “I need to make sure no one else has it right now. As long as nobody does, you can go ahead.” She started for the stairs in the gathering room, then stopped again. “I wouldn’t do this for just anybody, you know.”

“I’m sure of it,” Clever Rolf said sincerely.

Magda soon came back. “Yes, it’s all right. Go ahead. The room at the end of the hall to the left. I even lit the candle for you.”

“Thanks!” Clever Rolf strode into the gathering room, the cat beside him. He said, “Tell the girls hello.”

“Hello, girls,” the cat said.

They all squealed and exclaimed. “Is this your friend?” Fleur asked. Clever Rolf nodded. He had a demon of a time getting the talking cat to the stairway. Several girls petted it and fluffed its fur. Fleur fed it a piece of chicken.

“This isn’t so bad,” the cat said, licking its whiskers.

“You can get used to it later. Come on now,” Clever Rolf said.

Magda herself and several of the girls followed him and the cat upstairs. The madam kept them from getting too close. The door to the room at the end of the hall stood open. Clever Rolf went in ahead of the cat. He arranged the mirror so the beast would get a good look as soon as it came inside.

“Tell me what you see,” he said, pointing toward the looking glass.

“Another cat, curse it!” the talking cat exclaimed in horrified fury. “You didn’t tell me there’d be another gods-detested cat here!”

The talking cat’s tail bottlebrushed. So did the tail of the cat in the mirror. The talking cat arched its back and snarled. So did the cat in the mirror. The talking cat let out a yowl that would have made a wolf turn tail and run. It charged.

It hit the mirror so hard, it knocked it over. Luckily, Clever Rolf stood close enough to grab it before it smashed. Breaking a mirror was bad luck. Paying for a broken mirror was even worse luck, as far as he was concerned.

“What happened?” the talking cat said woozily. “My head hurts.”

“I bet it does,” Clever Rolf said. “But now I’m sure you’re not a vampire.”

“You are? How?”

“Vampires show no reflections. You saw yourself in the mirror, though. That wasn’t another cat. That was you, in the mirror.”

“Me? How could it be me? Never mind, don’t explain. Human things are peculiar. I’ve seen that before.”

“Everything is peculiar the first time you meet it,” Clever Rolf said. “Only one bit of this bothers me now.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s hardly a fantasy story at all. You aren’t a vampire. You can stand sunlight, even if you don’t like it. Garlic won’t hurt you. You do see yourself in the mirror after all. So where’s the fantastic element?”

“I don’t know,” the talking cat said. “Where?”

****************************************************

"Salami?" he says. "Thinly sliced, and flavoured with fennel?"

"Mmm, delicious," Maya says. "Good to have something substantial for supper."

He feeds a slice to the cat. "What did you think of that?" he asks. The cat opens his mouth, and for a moment both of them think he will answer, but he just yawns delicately then curls around with his head on his paws.

"It was a really fun story," Maya says. "Of course, Turtledove can do serious as well, but he's good at lighthearted."

"Yes," he agrees. "And I got a chance to refill my coffee bulb for the morning."

"Let's go to bed then," Maya says, though she is tempted to say she wants just one more story, even though it is really dark outside the windows. They settle down in their separate spots, and after she is lying down the cat again comes to sleep beside Maya, making a warm spot in the small of her back. This is their fourth night in the library, they know how to do it now. Maya feels as if she's getting a handle on this. Even when she wakes in the night and the cat is gone and she fumbles her way to the bathroom in the dark and the ceiling seems very high above her head she isn't afraid. The library is her friend, her safe place. She goes back and settles down again and sleeps until morning.

The light wakes them, and after he has emptied his coffee bulb and Maya has eaten a handful of Jessica's unwanted nuts, they settle down again upstairs. The sun is behind clouds today, but it's still quite light enough to read. He pulls the top book off the pile. "Nalo Hopkinson, Child Moon," he says,

And they read.