Trice, the jester, was getting old. So, he feared, were his jokes.
His joints were stiff and he could no longer do the amusing contortions that used so to entertain the Earl and his little court. In fact, the Earl was getting on, too. He looked as though he was falling asleep in his chair. Next to him the Lady Godwina was mumbling and giggling—not at poor Trice's feeble quips, but as a result of too much blackberry wine mixed with mead. She hiccoughed loudly and the Earl opened his eyes.
He glanced at the Lady Godwina with bored distaste, and then at Trice the jester. Would that the fellow would cease his tedious clowning and go to the kitchens! Yet he hesitated to get rid of him altogether. Having a jester at all in these days was a mark of prestige, and he didn't know where he'd get a replacement.
Now that King Henry was dead he had fortified his castle like the other barons. Since feudal pomp had become the fashion he hung onto its trappings—poor old Trice was one of them. But, ye gods, what stale jokes! Well, at least they seemed to please the younger serving men, who must be too young to remember them.
Trice was unhappily aware that his humor was missing the mark. He fell back on the one thing that never failed to make them laugh. He swung his bauble and hit himself on the nose. He staggered back with comic terror. "Hold on!" he cried to an imaginary assailant. "Not so hard!" He struck himself again, harder. "Stop! Or I shall appeal to my noble lord for protection!"
The Earl smiled faintly; he didn't want to disappoint the old man. Besides, his nose was bleeding. It really was rather funny. Curious about these people: they had almost no sense of pain. Trice, seeing the smile, hit himself again and again, and feeling the blood, he smeared it over his face in fantastic curlicues. The Earl closed his eyes again, and Trice caught the eye of the clerk, a young man who had come from Normandy. He was sneering. The Lady Godwina was singing a little tune to herself, and paid no attention.
The old jester shrugged, and turned towards the archway to the kitchens and offices. Better have supper and go to bed—his head ached and his nose hurt badly, although the bleeding had stopped. Next to a wooden stool he caught sight of his cat, Tybalt, staring at him fixedly. Tybalt. His only friend! he thought to himself. But as he passed him, the cat, instead of following him out with tail erect to share the jester's wretched supper, backed cringing under the stool and turned his head as he went by, keeping his staring eyes on him. Most unusual. Very un-catlike.
"Here! Tybalt!" Trice said, but the cat backed further away.
Just before he realized what had happened to him, Dax recognized that the big wooden thing that loomed over him was a stool.
Maybe it was this realization—and the sight of his own paws—that gave him an idea of his size, and on looking back at the rest of himself he knew that he was a cat. Something had gone wrong. The flashback and subsequent rebound must have taken him far into the dim mammalian past, but for what duration he could not tell. The transition had been unconscious. At least he did not remember it. But to judge by the style of the round stone arches of the hall he was now in—and the stonework looked brand new—the ultimate effect had been according to plan, and this was the early Middle Ages.
A movement caught his eye and he saw it was the cavorting of an enormous man, dressed in gigantic tattered motley.
No. He wasn't enormous; it was just the unfamiliar scale of things. The man was saying something in a booming voice, and Dax began to recognize it as a form of transitional early English—but with an admixture of Norman French and some pure Anglo-Saxon phrases. And what an accent! If this man was typical, how wrong modern research and learned speculation were! He would have some interesting things to tell the experts—particularly his tutor—when he got back.
When he got back.... That was supposed to be in three days approximately, when the inhibiting effect of the chemical would wear off. Then he would, he hoped, be swept back to his own time and his own body. But he was a cat. This was disastrous! How could he speak to people? He could understand them fairly well, but a cat's bucal cavity and vocal apparatus were not designed for the sounds of human speech.
He decided to try his voice, just on the chance, but stopped, horrified at the muffled yowl that resulted.
Two rangy hounds, six times his size, roused themselves from the rush-covered floor and glared growling at the sound with raised hackles. "Down, Colle! Stop it, Bayard!" a gruff voice commanded, and they reluctantly sank back again, keeping their fierce eyes on him. Was this a sample of what he must expect from dogs? He hoped it was merely his abortive attempt at human speech. Any further communication must be tried silently.
He looked around the hall. There were other humans too. Several men-at-arms standing by the walls and a few serving men. At the big trestle-board were seated five people—one of them clearly the lord of the castle—it must be a castle—and the one woman sitting next to him in soiled finery would be his lady. The place reeked with the stale odor of humans and dogs, and less obnoxiously the smell of wood smoke and cooked meat. Dax realized that he now had a feline nose, and made allowances. After all, the well-to-do bathed themselves, in the still existing classic tradition, and would until the Black Death.
The ridiculous giant in motley stopped his capering and came across the stone flags towards him. As he passed with ponderous footsteps he looked down and said, "Here, Tybalt!"
Dax backed under the stool, terrified at the deep, hoarse voice. The man was probably trying to be gentle. He must keep in mind that he had a cat's hearing now, and all sounds would seem lower and louder.
How were cats treated in Medieval England? He did not know, and he was not prepared for this contingency. But at least cats as a species had survived. He hoped he was one of the lucky ones. He must at all costs manage to keep alive for three days, because if he were killed before the drug wore off he would not return.
What would they think at the school? Nothing, of course. He would never have been there. That would be changing the future ... but you changed the future every time you exerted your free will, anyhow.
One of his experimental rats had not come back: it had merely disappeared with a loud pop. Perhaps an early Colonial terrier had got it. It might be the best thing to do to take to the woods, and wait out the time safe from the unknown dangers of men and dogs—but what of the dangers of the woods? It was winter, to judge by the fire in the hall, on a raised stone platform in the middle of the floor, from which the smoke found its way out through a louver in the high roof. And the icy drafts that came across the floor. Although he was a cat, he had little confidence of being able to hunt like one, or find refuge from the cold and snow.
He decided to follow the court jester. At least the man had spoken to him kindly. And he had a name: Tybalt. He must remember to answer to it.
He got up and began to walk towards the arched doorway through which the jester had disappeared.
Walking on all fours felt perfectly natural—rather as if he were following himself. There was no trouble about keeping in step, or, rather, just out of it. His mouth was dry and he ran his tongue over his muzzle ... he could lick his eye! Then he did something that also felt natural, though pleasantly novel: he waved his tail. Then he stuck out his claws. They clicked against the flagstones and he sheathed them again.
He had never in his life felt so supple and physically complete. He felt like running up the tapestry that hung by the doorway.
At the other end of the vaulted corridor that he found himself in he could see the jester as he went into another chamber that was lit with a smoky reddish glow. There was an increased smell of cookery, and he guessed it was the kitchen.
When he got to the door he could see the jester was being given something in a bowl that steamed, and a large hunk of dark bread. The man turned and came out again and saw him.
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