Shirley Murphy - The Catswold Portal

All the Catswold women had taken human form. They wore their finest silks and their sacred jewelry, golden anklets, amber necklaces, ruby and emerald girdles. Lapis and emerald combs were fastened into piebald locks, religious treasures all, brought down to the Netherworld in ancient times from the Celtic lands and from Egypt. In the white stone temple as the women knelt, their jewelry was blessed by the five Catswold priests, and their weapons and the weapons of the Catswold men were blessed. As midnight approached the Catswold nation prepared with feasting and then with spells and with prayer. Tomorrow they would ride against the dark queen.

Their rituals spoke to the sun god Ra, though none of them had ever seen the sun. They prayed to Bast and to Sekhmet, speaking in the lost cadences of Cyprus and Crete, or in the tongue of Mycenae and Knossos. But in spite of the ritual spells a tenseness held the Catswold, a fear none could name, a sense of threat far greater than Siddonie. As dawn began to green Zzadarray’s towers, the rituals ended. The Catswold went silent; a wariness held them. And then they sensed a nearer threat. Something approached the city. Someone moved through the forest toward Zzadarray and it was not one of their own.

Weapons were sheathed, spells were repeated. And a dozen Catswold took feline form and moved into shadow among the trees, listening, watching.

Soon every Catswold heard the hushed footfall of a lone horse, and smelled the crushed leaves and grass. At the edge of the forest a branch moved and a rider emerged on a tall, fiery horse: not a horse of this world.

The rider was a woman, young and thin, hard muscled. Her black hair was streaked with orange, her face sharp-planed, and the shadow image of a darkly mottled cat clung about her. She was dressed in the golden robes of the Catswold queen, yet the Catswold did not lay down their weapons for her. They did not kneel. Why would a queen appear now, when no queen had appeared in Zzadarray in a generation?

When they saw that she was followed by a consort, an ermine-robed king who rode in the shadows behind her, whispers flared across the crowd and arrows were fitted to bow.

Her consort was Efil of Affandar. And from out of the forest behind him emerged an army of horse soldiers. The Catswold warriors mounted their steeds, and faced the advancing party quietly.

The approaching warriors were hard-looking men and women. They were Catswold but they were strange. And far more alarming than their looks was the fact that they rode upperworld horses and wielded oddly shaped swords and knives of unfamiliar design. Their clothes, though seeming at first to be Netherworld garments, were not of the Netherworld.

The approaching army paused in the forest shadow. Their eyes gleamed like jewels in the dimness, and then as they moved out of the forest the darkness of their tanned faces struck another foreign note.

The Catswold queen—if such she be—sat her mount haughtily, studying the gathered Catswold, studying each priest intently. The Catswold nation watched her.

Then she shook her dark, mottled hair, and fingered her golden robe open, revealing a thin, sheer gown which draped over her breasts. And between her breasts against the gold filament hung an emerald. It was huge and tear-shaped. It was held by two gold cats, their paws joined. It was the Amulet of Bast, or it pretended to be.

“I am Helsa. I am your queen. The wisdom of the Amulet has brought me to seek you.”

“For what purpose?” said a priest.

“Because you are my subjects,” she said, smiling gently.

“And also I come to free you—to lead you against Siddonie of Affandar. I mean to free you from her subjugation. I mean to free all Catswold and to strengthen the four eastern nations. I come,” said Helsa smoothly, “to free the Netherworld.” She smiled again, speaking softly. “Won’t you kneel to your queen?”

No one moved. No one knelt. Helsa’s eyes narrowed in thinly concealed anger. But she was Catswold; she knew better than to demand that they kneel. She said, “Within the hour I mean to ride to defeat Siddonie. I hope you will join me in setting our nations free. I pray, as Catswold queen, that you will see fit to arm and provision yourselves to ride against Siddonie.”

When still no one spoke or moved, Helsa’s color rose and her eyes blazed. But still her words were soft. “Would you see Siddonie of Affandar destroy us all and defeat Zzadarray?”

A priest said, “We are only shocked, my lady. The Netherworld Catswold have seen no queen in my lifetime. Indeed,” he said smoothly, “we will follow you to destroy Siddonie.”

Helsa nodded. “I mean to ride out in an hour, once my troops are rested. I pray you to sharpen your heaviest weapons. If Siddonie should win this war, all the Netherworld will be enslaved. And for nothing,” she continued. “Siddonie has no longer any right to the throne of Affandar.”

A puzzled hush held the gathered Catswold. The five priests glanced at one another.

Helsa said, “By Netherworld law, Siddonie has no valid claim, now, to the throne.” She gave Efil a bold look. “I am now queen of promise. I carry within me the future prince of Affandar. I carry King Efil’s child. The soothsayers have so confirmed.”

After a long silence, someone among the Catswold said, “The child of Efil and Siddonie is well again. All the Netherworld knows that.”

Efil sat his horse calmly. He looked very pale beside the sun-darkened Catswold woman. He said, “The boy who travels with Siddonie is not her son nor mine. The boy is a changeling. He was brought by Siddonie from the upperworld.” The Catswold folk shifted and glanced at one another but no one spoke. Efil said, “Soon I will produce Wylles. I will show you the two boys side by side. Meantime, hear your queen. She is not only Catswold queen but queen of promise of Affandar. Hear the plan we have structured.”

Helsa waited for their full attention. Her creamy voice carried as insidiously as a breeding cat’s rich mewl. “I have promised Queen Siddonie that I will lead you with my own band of upperworld Catswold to fight beside her. I have told her that together we will defeat the rebel bands.”

Her voice softened to a haunting murmur. “We join with Siddonie’s armies on the battlefield. And then,” Helsa said, her hands curving as if she made claws, “we will turn on them. We will destroy Siddonie’s troops and destroy Siddonie. We will kill her and free the Netherworld.”

There were nods among the Catswold. But again the priests glanced at one another. Helsa watched them and smiled, and raised her fist. “One hour.”

And as she turned away, one among the crowd said, “My name is Oeden the Black.” And another said, “I am Galvino Grayleg.” Helsa turned back and nodded, smiling at them because they had given her, by such greeting, admission of their belief and fealty.

When Helsa had gone to rest, the Catswold moved about their hasty chores, their eyes meeting slyly at the lies their men had been able to speak to this false queen. If, while wearing the Amulet, she could not detect lies, then she was not of queen’s blood and likely the amulet was as false as she.

Yet quickly they made their final preparations for war, readying supplies, inspecting horses and equipment. King Efil moved among them, greeting one then another. He spoke for a long while with the Catswold priests. He did not notice an occasional cat slip away between the robes of its companions; he had no notion that three dozen cats left the ranks of the preparing warriors.

Helsa was escorted to the most luxurious apartments to rest. She was led through the honeycomb of pale stone bowers and grottoes to a high tower, to a chamber walled in white marble and carpeted with embroidered cushions. She took off the outer, ceremonial robe of gold lamé, and in her transparent gold shift she stretched out on the damask covers of an ornate bed. She did not change to cat. Glancing above her at the high, small alcove lined with silk, she studied the true bed of the apartment’s occupant. The alcove looked deliciously comfortable, but she did not intend to abandon her human form. She lay relaxed, stretching, thinking with satisfaction of the web she and Siddonie had woven.