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A Cat in Gloves
Leo heard Archie coming up the hill behind him, still in bare feet and holding the bow hopefully. They both looked down at a mess of felled feathers. “Did you get that one or me?” Archie asked.
Leo could generously say it was a team effort. The boy’s arrow had startled the quail from their nest, and Leo had brought them all down. But he would give the boy full credit so long as it meant the human would keep trying.
Really, Leo knew it wasn’t entirely Archie’s fault he was still so terrible. It hadn’t even been a week, and they had to make do without a proper teacher. If Leo could hold the bow, then he really could show Archie how it was done. The thought seemed automatic and certain, though a cat holding a bow should have been just as ridiculous as a cat wearing boots.
But the flashes of memory were so frequent now. Leo was sure he was on the right track.
Archie shrugged and added the bird to his growing sack. “Well, we can take it to your lady friend either way,” he said, his golden-brown eyes brightening with far too much mirth. “It’s been almost a week, and Tabitha said everything would be done today.”
Leo scowled. He didn’t have a “lady friend.” That would also be ridiculous. He was a cat. Tabitha was a human girl. A beautiful human girl with sable-brown hair, blue eyes like the sea, and a secret smile that could make a pirate blush, but still a human girl.
Not that Leo had ever been interested in courting female cats either . . . Just another way Leo was different from the other cats, but Archie had no cause to tease him for it.
Archie was lucky Tabitha had been so willing to assist them. She might be working as an outer-row shop assistant, but she was talented. She had never trained as a proper seamstress—only running the till and sewing up a few seams to busy her hands and earn her keep—but Leo had seen the dresses she had been restitching in her own private loft, and he was certain a team of castle seamstresses could do no better.
Whatever she had made for Archie would be top quality and more than the boy deserved.
And if Tabitha got the boy properly attired, Leo had another plan he could enact. A greater risk than anything they had tried so far, but Leo was certain the reward would be worth it.
Leo was getting one step closer to the castle, and if nothing else, it would put the boot on the other paw and make Archie rue the day he ever thought to tease Leo about his connection to Tabitha.
* * *
Less than an hour later, Archie came out of the second-hand shop wearing a fur-lined hunting cloak. He still wore his old shirt and trousers, but the new belt and high boots covered up the frayed seams and made everything look fresh. The cat seemed pleased, and Archie had given Tabitha a few more of Leo’s kills in payment, though Archie still suspected she was giving him a deal based on her own fondness for the cat—who seemed to have no problem shamelessly purring for her.
The cat and the girl were always so transformed in each other’s presence. Sweet, even if Archie planned to tease the self-important cat for it until one or both of them died.
It was only right.
Either way, Archie had to admit the fresh outfit made him feel a bit better about braving the castle walls to inquire about a hunting charter, though he was just as glad to be directed down a side-hall by the household steward instead of having to face the king himself.
Along with the black background and silver fox representing Umbrae and the royal family, swords and shields bearing the crest of another noble house decorated the walls of the gamemaster’s office. The man at the desk had a mustache and introduced himself as Sir Orrick.
“You’re a knight? A real one?” Archie asked, barely containing his excitement. He had never been this close to one before, and they seemed almost as magical as faeries.
The gray-haired man squinted at him. “Of course I’m a real knight. Or at least, I was when I was younger. Now I do the forms. And you wish to hunt on the king’s land and in the forest?”
“Yes, sir.” Archie puffed up his chest. He had at least gotten better at passing Leo’s kills off as his own. “I’ve gotten pretty good at catching rabbits and quail, and I think I could get some deer and make a living of it, with the king’s blessing.”
“You know the law?”
“Yes. I’m happy to contribute a share of my hunt to the crown and the kingdom’s welfare.” He handed over the rest of the quail in his sack to demonstrate. “For the king’s table.”
Sir Orrick nodded. “I’ll get it to him. And it’s twenty silver crowns to issue your charter.”
Archie blinked. “That much?” He wasn’t even sure he had seen that much altogether. Even when his father sold the flour and feed, the other villagers often paid them in trade.
“For the season,” the gamemaster said. “You can bring it in installments, but no deer until the balance is clear. The king doesn’t tolerate poaching.” He stiffened then, as if remembering a time when he had been able to enforce that law with steel.
“All right. I’ll do what I can,” Archie said, though he found himself looking doubtfully at the cat on his way out. He might have preferred to be a huntsman over a farrier or some other menial and much-too-common trade, but he still wasn’t very good at it. Most of his kills came from what Leo could catch. What if he never made enough to make the price of the king’s charter worthwhile?
Instead of earning his fortune, he would be broker than he was before.
And that was even assuming becoming a huntsman was what Leo intended for him. Archie had thought when Leo spelled out his name, that meant the cat was going to help, and their fortunes were about to change, but it had still been a challenge to iron out any of the particulars. No matter how intelligent the cat might be, Leo couldn’t talk, and there were limits to how much he could communicate.
They reached the city streets, welcomed by the bray of Harris’s donkey. The beast lumbered by one of the nearby market stalls before Archie remembered he still had one thing he could look forward to today.
