CHAPTER 27 PINA’S PLIGHT
Kat trudged through the castle corridor.
As it turned out, her peer and fellow student, Mr. Caleb Herra, had not been on the grounds and had in fact returned home to console his mother, who had been devastated ever since Seth Herra had been imprisoned. As a result, the council decided to conclude the meeting for the day. Many of them were too exhausted or hungry to bother trying to force a decision right then and there, and even if they had, Lord Herra looked more than ready to battle them on that suggestion.
“Fin says he’s going into town to talk to Likon about the powdered Witch’s Brew testing,” Eric announced to his wife as he caught up and fell into step beside her.
Kat’s tired eyes sharpened instantly at hearing her childhood friend’s name, then dimmed sadly.
“I hope he’s come around a bit since being away … I know a lot of his initial reaction was because of what happened to his sister …”
Moving his hand into his right pocket, Eric began opening his mouth to find out what had happened to Likon’s sister when Broghan Miller barreled up to the redhead.
“Ashowan! Problem! You need to come! Now! Please, before my brother finds out!”
“Isn’t your last name Reyes now?” Eric asked with a wry eyebrow arch.
Halting in her tracks and staring in alarm at her peer, Kat ignored Eric’s observation as her mind raced with whatever could have happened.
“It’s … It’s Pina,” Broghan gasped while hastily stepping aside for one of the noblemen who passed by the trio.
“What happened to Pina?!” Kat demanded, her hand automatically moving to the hilt of her sword.
Broghan Miller’s eyes darted to the noblemen that continued to stream by them nervously before he leaned closer and dropped his voice so that only Kat and Eric might hear his next words.
“She’s … She’s been arrested.”
Kat’s hand fell from her sword hilt. “Come again?”
“I’m not sure I understand either,” Eric joined in with a bewildered tilt of his head.
“Your kitten has been arrested!” Broghan hissed frantically. “If my brother finds out, he might slaughter half the king’s army!”
It was Broghan’s genuine terror over whatever violent vengeance Sir Cleophus Miller might invoke in light of the familiar’s arrest that made the news finally sink in for Kat.
“W-Wait … They arrested my cat?! Those bastards!” she burst out furiously, then took off in a sprint, leaving Eric and Broghan behind as she headed toward the dungeons.
Eric, however, was still struggling with the concept as he opened and closed his mouth twice more before looking to Broghan Miller.
“Is this a prank?”
Broghan shook his head vehemently. “Gods, I wish it was. She was arrested on grounds of magical mind tampering.”
Eric’s jaw dropped and his eyes squinted at the younger man, at a complete loss about what to say or do …
However, Broghan didn’t plan on waiting around when so many lives were at stake, and so he turned and ran after Kat.
Sensing that there was something outrageous afoot, Eric followed suit.
Well … Kat did warn me she wasn’t going to be the typical wife. It’d make sense if her cat wasn’t a typical cat either …
“What if they have her in shackles!” Kat fretted while rushing down the winding stone steps with Eric and Broghan on her heels.
“Oh Gods! They’d be too heavy for her to move!” Broghan gasped in response.
“Right … I don’t actually think they have shackles that are small enough for Pina … Plus I’ve never heard of anyone shackling or arresting a cat …” Eric contributed while trying to remain the voice of reason.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t time for his perfectly logical point to be properly processed before they touched down on the dungeon floor where there was a crowd gathered.
Men were standing packed shoulder to shoulder, and many of them were shouting.
Some of the snippets that Broghan, Eric, and Kat overheard were: “Injustice!” “Satan’s work!” “You sicken me!”
Kat glanced back fearfully at Eric before wedging her shoulder between two of the men at the back.
As she moved farther into the surprisingly well-lit dungeon, the dull roar of men around her increased to a din.
She was surprised no one tried to stop her as she continued to muscle her way through. Miraculously, her aura wasn’t even showing yet …
Kat tried to peer into the many cells to see if she might find her familiar chained up somewhere, but alas, she couldn’t see over the many heads of the Troivackian men that surrounded her.
Adjusting her search to locate anyone who looked to be in charge, she spotted the gleam of a chest plate three rows down. A man holding a piece of parchment taped to a board and a quill in hand was scowling at the crowd before him. Just as Kat was about to make her way through to go speak to him, he let out a bellow of his own.
“EVERYONE! SILENT!”
Incredibly, the unruly crowd did settle down … for a moment.
“I was here before him!”
“No, you weren’t! We got here together, an’ I bought the last round at the pub the other night, so I should go first!”
Another scathing look from the knight with the board and chest plate had the pair of men that had been arguing fall silent.
Kat took this opportunity while everyone was distracted by the argument to slip through the final rows of people and step before the man whom she was presuming to be in charge. Behind him were two other burly soldiers that were appropriately frightening for men who were tasked with guarding a dungeon.
“Hi, I’m not sure what is going on, but I’m here for my familiar, Pina.”
The men behind Kat shuffled backward away from her.
She didn’t bother looking at them.
Instead, the knight she faced, with his square jaw and dimpled chin, raised an eyebrow at her.
“I see. Then perhaps you are the person who should be handling this matter.”
“Handling what matter?! What is going on?! She’s a cat! Why in the world was my cat arrested?!”
The man held up his hand as though trying to calm Katarina down, and she had to fight the urge to snap his wrist.
“Now, now. I am Sir Beloff. I am the knight who is in charge of the castle dungeons, and I am handling the arrest of Pina Colada. However, I am not as familiar with the procedures concerning this unique case.”
“You mean the idiocy of some nobleman who ordered the arrest of a cat?” This new question came from Eric, who had managed to join his wife’s side, though it had been a troublesome endeavor.
Sir Beloff raised his chin before bowing to the prince.
“She was arrested on suspicion of mind tampering. I admit … I … I can understand how such a conclusion was reached now having met her.” The knight had a faint blush rise in his cheeks as he cleared his throat.
“Where. Is. My. Cat?” Katarina growled while leaning forward threateningly, her eyes glinting with sparks of magic.
The knight recoiled slightly, gripping the board in his hands closer to his chest.
When he composed himself again, he gave a cough before speaking while also attempting to appear aloof.
“Lady Katarina, I assure you she is perfectly comfortable.” Sir Beloff leaned aside then and revealed what the two imposing men at his sides were actually guarding …
There, on a purple plush velvet cushion, lay Pina. Her paws curled under her body, and her eyes were large in the low light of the dungeon.
A chorus of warm awes came from the men behind Kat and Eric in perfect unison.
Eric was beginning to wonder if he was trapped in one of the most realistic and possibly strangest dreams of his life.
“Is this … Is this truly not a prank?” he found himself asking while Kat attempted to move forward only to have Sir Beloff stand in her way.
“I assure you, Your Highness, this is of the utmost seriousness. Look at what she has done to all these respectable Troivackian men.”
“Who ordered this?” Eric queried next, his tone turning imperial.
“That would be Lord Ball.”
“LORD BALLSACK GOT MY CAT ARRESTED?!” Kat exploded crassly while seizing the collar of Sir Beloff’s tunic and wrenching him down to be eye level with her.
The knight’s throat bobbed as Kat’s aura flickered around her.
The group made a collective unspoken decision not to chastise the redhead in that moment for her insult of the nobleman.
Eric gently touched his wife’s shoulder. “Kat … they can’t arrest an animal, and furthermore, she’s Daxarian. I’m relatively certain there would have to be a whole investigation conducted prior to her arrest, and she would be permitted to stay with you during that time. If they were to treat the complaint as though she were a person, that is … This is absolute lunacy, by the way.”
“Hang on! I was on the ship with Your Highness! Lady Katarina found her on board a Troivackian vessel—that makes her Troivackian!” a man called out from somewhere near the middle of the dungeon.
Kat’s head turned slowly to stare over her shoulder, and she succeeded in making the men shift backward into one another as they tried to retreat from her wrath.
“We were on Daxarian waters,” Eric hollered back.
“She may have been born on the ship, making her Troivackian,” one of the guards who stood behind Sir Beloff and beside Pina contributed sternly with a nod.
“That was never confirmed. She was old enough to be weaned from her mother, meaning she could have been born on Daxarian soil and moved to the boat— Why the hell am I arguing citizenship of a cat?” Eric asked more to himself then anyone present as he lowered his face to his hand.
“If she is bonded to a witch, then she belongs to the witch.” Kat continued the discussion through gritted teeth, completely ignoring her husband’s exasperation. “Watch.”
Releasing Sir Beloff, Katarina straightened.
“Pina, come.”
At first, nothing happened, though everyone waited silently regardless.
A feat they were most happy that they did, as Pina then pounced onto Sir Beloff’s shoulder, and from there, straight into Katarina’s arms.
The men behind Kat went ballistic.
Turning around to face the adoring crowd, the redhead frowned while Pina nuzzled her ear lovingly.
“I … I thought you were all here to demand her death.”
The men gasped.
“Of course not!” One of the knights approached Kat, separating himself from the crowd as though he were their spokesman.
“Lady Katarina, I was trying to tell you.” Sir Beloff sighed behind the redhead, making her round back to face him. “These men are here to petition for her release.”
“That isn’t terribly strange, I suppose. People petition for the release of prisoners all the time—”
Eric was interrupted by the man who had spoken on behalf of the crowd moments before.
“And we want to pet her! Maybe hold her. If she’s fine with it of course!”
At long last, Kat looked as astounded and exasperated as her husband.
The couple looked at each other and then back to Sir Beloff. “Is this true?”
“I was taking names for the petition, but they were also intending to go down the list for who would be first to … pet … or scritch— Have you noticed she likes cheek scritches?”
“Of course I know she likes cheek scritches!” Kat snapped while she proceeded to do that very thing while holding Pina firmly against her shoulder as though one of the adoring knights might try to snatch the kitten from her arms.
“Wait … So why were you arguing so intensely about her being Daxarian or Troivackian?” Eric was barely following along, but he was doing the best he could.
“Our petition for her release will carry more weight if she is Troivackian,” the other man who had been guarding Pina explained.
“Right … right … I … I really don’t think I can take much more of this … Kat, you didn’t happen to put something strange in my coffee this morning, did you?” The prince once again addressed his wife before covering his mouth and rubbing it.
“I promise I didn’t this time.”
“What do you mean ‘this time’?”
“Well, sometimes you complain about being sore, and you refuse to take any painkillers because you’re stubborn and don’t want to admit you’re old, so—”
“Kat! Honestly? You’re dosing my morning coffee?!”
“Just with a bit of willow bark! Nothing that bad!”
“You said I was imagining things when I said it tasted earthy! And yet you’ve been slipping in a painkiller. You know that could be harmful if used for too long!” Eric rounded on Kat in exasperation.
“It’s not all the time! Just this morning, really!”
As the situation continued to descend into the darkest depths of absurdity, things were about to reach entirely new levels when a roar that could’ve rivaled a dragon’s shook the dungeon walls.
“Oh Gods … he found out,” Broghan all but whimpered, his eyes fixed in expectant horror on the arched dungeon doorway.
“Right …” Eric rounded on Sir Beloff. “We are going to tell Sir Cleophus Miller that Pina was down here hunting rats and everyone just wanted to watch her, got it? We are going to treat her as a Daxarian for the sake of these charges so that we can walk out of here, and therefore you will not be punished by Lord Balls— Pardon. Lord Ball.”
Sir Beloff looked momentarily torn by the prince’s forceful instruction, however, when Sir Cleophus Miller appeared in the doorway holding his unsheathed great sword and his eyes thirsting for blood, he nodded hastily.
“Smart decision,” Eric whispered while turning around and waving to the gigantic knight that could and would most likely crush an average man’s head in his hand should they attempt to harm Pina in any way.
“Ah, Sir Miller! Sorry to say you missed the show! Pina just caught a mouse! It was adorable!” Eric cheered.
“I thought you said it’d be a rat,” Sir Beloff whispered urgently.
“I changed my mind. I was forgetting how big your rats are. It’s a lot more believable this way,” Eric retorted while doing his best to smile and look casual while holding Sir Cleophus’s gaze.
Kat watched the scene unfold and decided her husband’s course of action was indeed the smartest one and that she may as well help things along.
“Alright, baby girl, your most devoted worshiper has come. Please do your best to calm him down, hm? I really don’t want to have to stay up late explaining why there was a mass slaughter in the king’s basement. Alina would be livid,” the redhead whispered in between peppering Pina’s cheek with kisses.
The kitten gave a small mew.
Meanwhile, the men had practically climbed atop one another to clear an aisle for Sir Miller, who still hadn’t put his sword away.
Upon reaching Eric, Broghan, Kat, and Pina, Cleophus halted, his boots thudding against the stones beneath his feet.
Even Sir Beloff and his guards shrank back fearfully.
“Sir Cleophus, how are you this evening?” Kat asked brightly.
The knight didn’t answer. His beady eyes instead fixed themselves on Sir Beloff.
“I heard Pina was arrested.”
“O-Oh, it … It is a matter to be investigated. These men here are all willing to sign a—”
“Who?”
No one needed Cleophus to expand on what he meant.
“L-Lord Ball.” Sir Beloff looked as though he were on the verge of wetting himself.
A rumbling snarl clawed at Sir Cleophus’s chest before he turned back around and headed toward the stairway he had just descended from.
“Oh Gods, he might kill Lord Ball!” Broghan made to follow his brother when Kat reached out and seized the back of his tunic, stopping him.
“I’m not that merciful of a person. Let the crumbs fall where they may.”
Broghan stared wide-eyed at the redhead despite her breezy tone.
“Besides, if he does kill Lord Ball, that means his wife, Elyse, can join my next class! All’s well that ends well. Now, come along. I think it’s about dinnertime and I’m about ready to eat twice my normal amount after all the suffering we endured today.”
“I think I might go to bed,” Eric informed his wife dazedly.
Pina let out another mew and stretched her neck toward the Daxarian prince.
Taking her from Kat’s arms as the kitten indicated she wished, Eric grasped Kat’s hand with his free one and gradually set the pace as they headed down the aisle of bodies for the dungeon exit. Broghan Miller trailed behind, still tormented with his anxieties.
As they made their way back up the stairs, the prince managed to spare one final thought on the whole endeavor …
“Remind me to ask Mr. Julian to look into laws governing the citizenship of animals tomorrow morning just to be on the safe side.”
Kat grinned.
She knew she’d married the right man.