Catland - a humorous fantasy

Chapter Twenty-Six: The King

"This need be no great matter," continued Byron. "I won't ask you to swear allegiance, or any pageantry such as that. Nor will I cry it from the rooftops that a Bannockburn knelt before me. Indeed, if it'll ease your mind any, I can swear an oath of secrecy. This'll only be one cat kneeling before another—in a deep, dark dungeon with no one to witness but his bosom friend."

"But kings don't kneel," Leopold objected. "You know they don't. They can't kneel, and you know why as well as I do. If they kneel, they're not kings."

"Kings do as kings must do," replied Byron, "or they suffer as other cats suffer. Don't lecture me about kingship. You seem to forget you're addressing a king."

"Would you leave me to rot in this dungeon?" Leopold cried. "Would you leave your daughter to rot here?"

"My daughter, no," replied Byron easily. "Milly and I'll be leaving this dungeon soon enough. We can leave it with you, or we can leave it without you. If it's without you, your friends'll not come to your aid. I've spoken to Jasper. Your uprising is dead if you're not at the front of it. And you can't be at the front of it from within a cell."

Leopold hesitated. Greg could see the war he was waging inside his mind. If he didn't kneel, his throne was lost to him forever—along with his freedom and, probably, his life. Yet if he did kneel, could he ever look at himself in a mirror and see a king? It didn't matter that no one else would know; Leopold would know. This moment would haunt him forever. It might even poison the joy of reclaiming his throne.

Of course, it was perfectly clear to Greg what the right decision was. Greg hadn't been born into a rigid feudalist society; to him, kneeling was just another bodily posture, like standing, lounging, lying down, or hopping on one foot. Come to think of it, it was a great deal more dignified than hopping one on foot—but Greg knew it would do no good to point this out.

Leopold had to make this decision for himself. Any attempt at persuasion would only harden his resolve. Yet there was one thing Greg could do, without saying a word, that might make things a little easier for Leopold—that might even make the difference between disastrous pride and life-saving humility. So Greg did the one thing Greg knew Greg could do. Greg knelt.

And, after a long moment, Leopold knelt too.

"Excellent," said Byron. "Shall we go reclaim a kingdom?"

* * *

Off they raced down the torchlit corridor, with Byron in the lead. It had taken mere moments for Byron to release them from their cell, using a key he had pilfered from a guard on his way down to the dungeon. Greg wondered how Byron had managed to move so freely about the castle, but he didn't feel this was the time to ask.

Most of the cells that flashed by on their left were empty, but a few were tenanted by meager, skeletal cats with wide bloodshot eyes. Those eyes followed them, unblinking, as they tore along the corridor. None of the prisoners spoke, or raised a paw. Only their eyes moved.

At length, they came to a blank stone wall, with a new corridor branching off on either side. Here they halted, and Byron's ears twitched as he strained to listen. At first, there was only the dripping of dungeon-water, and the thick, stifling hush that ruled in this dark place. Then a faint cry off to the left sounded in the stillness, and Byron bounded away after it, with a speed that belied his pampered appearance.

The corridor began to slope downward, more and more steeply, and soon a jagged hole yawned in the stone floor ahead of them, an eerie gleam of torchlight flickering up from its depths. Beyond the hole, the corridor ended; a sheer face of raw stone blocked the way forward. The cry had come, without a doubt, from the hole in front of them. They crept to its edge and peered down.