The memory of the demon face comes back to him. He swallows, feels for his knife. It’s gone. Dropped upstairs in the bedroom. There’s nothing he can use on the locked, barred ornamental gate to get out. There’s no way he can get rid of the silken rope. They will find it on him in the morning, when they call the police. There is a specific name for the charge of being found with tools which might be used for burglary: it’s called “going forth equipped”. It’s good for about twenty years, these days, on a second offense.
This is his fifth.
He sits down on the green marble bench under the scriptural bas-reliefs with their thirty kinds of inlaid marble, and begins, very quietly, to weep.
Just outside the bars, the darkness smiles and walks away on little cat feet.
Out in the Home Park, a black brougham waits until two a.m. precisely: then, slowly, quietly, moves off into the night.
There was a tremendous fuss the next morning when the burglar was found downstairs. There was less certainty about his status as a burglar when the lady-in-waiting found, dropped next to the Queen’s bed, a switchblade knife of terrible length and keenness. The police came, and the police commissioner with them: he questioned the Queen with the utmost respect. No, she had seen nothing, heard nothing. Her dear little kitties had been sleeping with her all night: she woke up and went to her toilette … and then all these horrible discoveries began to make themselves plain. The policemen took time to stroke the cats, which lay about on the white linen coverlet with the greatest possible ease and indolence, and a fairly smug look on their faces. The cat scratches present on the burglar’s face and head made it fairly plain where he had been, and (probably) what he had been up to. As a result, all that morning, the cats were petted and fussed and made much of. Instead of running away, as anyone might have expected with such young creatures, they stood it with astonishing stolidity.
It was nearly ten in the morning before the Queen finally saw the final visitors out of her apartment, sent her lady-in-waiting away, and shut the door to have a few moments’ peace. She slipped back into her bedroom, where the two young black-and-white cats had been asleep on the bed. One of them was lying on her back with her feet in the air, utterly indolent: the other had rolled over on his side and was watching her come with an air of tremendous intelligence.
“Ah, my dears,” she said, and sat down on the bed beside them. “How I wish you could speak and tell me what it is that happened last night.”
The slightly larger one, the male, gave her that unutterably wise look. The Queen turned her head to look out at the bright summer morning, which she might not have lived to see. The other cat rolled off her back and blinked at her lazily.
“Madam,” she said, “do you think this life is a rehearsal? It’snot.”
The Queen’s mouth dropped right open.
“She’s right, Queen,” Arhu said, getting up and sauntering toward her. “You’re acting like you’ve got as many lives as we have … and you don’t. Don’t you think it’s time you stopped hiding in here—time you got out there and started making some use of yourself? Honestly, I’msorry you lost your big tom with all the fur on his face. He sounds like he was nicer than the usual run ofehhif.But as far as I know, he’s with the One now, Who’ll certainly know how to treat him right: and if what I hear is anything to go by, he wouldn’t like you sitting here grieving for him while you have all this work to do.”
“But—” the Queen finally managed to say. “But, oh, my dear little puss, how can you possibly know anything of the kind of pain I suffer when I think of—”
“I’lltell you what I know,” Arhu said. “Sif, let’s show her.”
They showed her … the pain they knew all too well, and shared.
The Queen sank back into the chair beside the bed, a few seconds later, staggered. Tears began to roll down her face.
“Beatthat,if you can,” said Siffha’h at last.
The Queen hid her face in her hands.
“So don’t think you have a corner on the suffering market,” said Arhu. “Or on being lonely. Or that other people ‘can’t know’. When the sun comes up at last, we’re all stuck in our own heads by ourselves. Everyone around you feels the pain of it, sooner or later—the Lone One’s claw in their heart. Some feel it a lot worse than you, even if youarethe dam to a pride of millions. So stop acting as if you’re so special.”
Even through the Queen’s tears, her jaw dropped open again at that. “And stop shirking your work,” said Siffha’h. “Bad things will happen to your pride if you don’t come out and do the things you were reared to do. They’ve started happening already. If you act now, you can stop the process.”
“Oh,” Arhu added. “And by the way, lay off the nuclear weapons. I know Dizzy likes them … butthisis what will happen if you don’t.”
He showed her.
The Queen went ashen at the sight of the Winter.
For several long minutes she was speechless: possiblyarecord. At the end of it, all she could whisper was,“You are little angels of God.”
“Please, madam,” Arhu said, “don’t get confused. We’recats.If you mean we’re messengers of the One, well, so is everybody: it’s hardly an exclusive position. But this is the word. Nonukes.You really ought to get rid of them, lest someone later be tempted to use them who isn’t as morally upright as you are.”
Flatterer.
She’s susceptible. A good wizard uses the tools which are available. “And make sure you don’t let them get out of control while you’re having them destroyed,” Siffha’h said. “Some people might be tempted to get light-fingered … try to sell a few to somebody else on the grounds that no one will notice since they’re being destroyed anyway.”
The Queen looked suddenly determined.“I have never liked them,” she said softly. “I will begin work at once, if you say so.”
“It would be a project,” Arhu said, “which would probably be productive of some good.”
The Queen looked around with some surprise, for suddenly the bedroom seemed to have a lot more cats in it, and she had no idea where they might have come from. A huge gray tabby: a small neat black cat with golden-green eyes: a massive gray-and-tan tabby with astonishing fluffy fur: a small tidy marmalade cat with a slightly sardonic expression. All of them looked at her with interest.
“Our colleagues,” said Arhu. “We have been here on errantry on your behalf: the errand’s over. They just wanted to look at you before we all left.” Arhu smiled slightly. “It’s in the job description.”
“But, but my dear kitties,” the Queen said, “you cannot go now, you must stay!” Perhaps she already read the answer in their eyes. “I command it!”
“Majesty,” said the black cat, with a nod of what might have been respect, “our People have their own Queen, to whom we answer: a higher authority, I believe, than even yours. We cannot stay: we have other errands to perform for Her. But She wishes you well, by us. Do well by your people: andfarewell.”
And then they were all gone.
The Queen wept a little, as was her habit, and then started to put herself right after the events of the morning. She did not get around to readingThe Timesuntil almost bedtime. When she did, it took her a while to get to the parliamentary report, which she was about to skip, since for some days it had contained an interminable report about the Public Worship Regulation Bill. But suddenly, in the middle of the dry, dry text, she began to smile.
The right Honorable Gentleman was at this moment startled by a burst of laughter from the crowded house, caused by the appearance of a large gray tabby cat, which, after descending the Opposition gangway, proceeded leisurely to cross the floor. Being frightened by the noise, the cat made a sudden spring from the floor over the shoulder of the members sitting on the front Ministerial bench below the gangway, and, amid shouts of laughter, bounded over the heads of members on the back benches until it reached a side door, when it vanished. This sudden apparition, the cat’s still more sudden disappearance, and the astonishment of the members who found it vaulting so close to their faces and beards, almost convulsed the House.