The Wyvern's Spur - Kate Novak [81]
"Anyone would be upset by what you've just been through," Giogi replied. He stood up. "I think you should wait here," he said.
"Where are you going?" Cat asked with alarm, grabbing at his arm but stopping herself.
"I'm going to get Thomas and search the house," Giogi said. He lit a second lamp and carried it with him out into the hallway. Halfway down the stairs, he met Thomas hurrying up in the darkness.
"Sir! I thought I heard a scream! Is something wrong?" the servant asked.
"Yes, Thomas," Giogi explained. "Someone attacked Mistress Cat in her room. We may have a burglar or worse."
"In the red room, sir? Are you sure?" Thomas asked.
"No. Someone in the lilac room. Mistress Cat preferred it to the red room, just as I thought she might, so I invited her to use it instead. Someone tried to smother her, but fled when she screamed. She says her attacker went through the wall, but she may have been confused or the attacker capable of magic. In any case, we ought to search the house."
Thomas nodded and moved up the stairs toward Giogi. "Perhaps we should start in the lady's room," the servant suggested.
"I was just in there, Thomas. I told you, the intruder fled when Mistress Cat screamed."
"There may be, um, footprints, or some other evidence, sir," Thomas offered.
"Hmmm. You're right," Giogi agreed. He turned around and marched back to the lilac room with Thomas right behind him. The door stood open. Cat had risen from the bed and wrapped herself in a robe. She stood staring out the window at the grounds below.
Giogi knocked on the door frame to announce his presence. The mage whirled around, brandishing a small crystal dagger.
"It's just me, with Thomas," Giogi said.
Cat gave a relieved sigh. She crossed the room to stand at Giogi's side and lean against him.
Thomas nodded politely to Cat before entering the room. "Perhaps I could use that lamp, sir," he suggested.
Giogi handed him the light. As the nobleman stood beside Cat, watching his servant investigate the windows, something brushed against his legs. Giogi let out a cry and jumped aside.
A large black-and-white cat looked up at him and meowed with annoyance.
"Spot! Thomas, it's Spot." Giogi said, picking up the large tomcat and brushing its face fur. The cat began purring immediately.
"Is it possible, Mistress Cat," Thomas asked with an exaggerated patience, "that Spot tried lying on your face and you mistook him for a smothering pillow? When you screamed, he would have jumped away. His shadow in the moonlight could have been mistaken for a larger figure. When he landed, he would have disappeared from your sight and perhaps slunk beneath a piece of furniture."
"It was not a cat," Cat insisted.
"Someone must have sneaked in somehow, Thomas," Giogi said.
"I will check all the doors and windows, sir, though it is also possible that someone broke in magically, in which case, they would undoubtedly have left by that way as well."
"Well, Thomas, we'd better have a look around, just in case."
Master and servant went through every room in the house but turned up no forced or broken windows or doors, nor any house-breakers. Giogi dismissed Thomas and trudged back upstairs to the lilac room.
"Nothing," he reported to Cat. "Is it possible Flattery might have sent someone else to do his dirty work, someone less competent than he would be?"
Cat paled. "I don't know," she whispered. "Perhaps."
"I think, just to be safe, you had better sleep in my bed. I'll stay in here."
Cat nodded. Giogi escorted her to his room. He checked behind all the curtains and wall hangings and under the bed. "All clear," he said.
"I don't know if I can sleep," Cat said.
"You must try. I'll be right next door if you need me." Feeling a little more confident, Giogi bent over and kissed Cat on the forehead before he turned and left the room.
Back in the lilac room, Giogi sat on the edge of the bed, wondering if Thomas could be right about Cat mistaking Spot as her attacker.