Ben Soul

Bonding began. Notta, exhausted, beamed with joy, and wished earnestly for DiConti to hurry home so she could show him this wonderful expansion of their lives.

  The llama, She-Who-Shuns-Males, was fortunate that Willy Waugh was at hand. Her labor was difficult, and she was terrified. None of the llama mothers in the herd had thought to explain to her what would happen when her cría came. Willy soothed the llama’s fear, calming her, until the cría slid from the womb into the world. Willy caught the infant as it came out, gently lowering it to the ground covered with soft blankets. He used warm towels to dry the babe. Then he put it where She-Who-Shuns-Males could sniff at it. Bonding began. Shakily, She-Who-Shuns-Males stood still to allow the cría to nurse. When it had finished, she lay down with it in a corner of the shed. Willy put feed near her, and withdrew to let her rest.

  In the cove, the Crablord returned to his ordinary sensorium. He scuttled slowly over the sandy bottom, feasting on shrimp and mussels as he went. He mused, in his crustacean way, on the balance of the Cosmos. He fed more than he mused, and grew into his new carapace.

  Ten days passed, alternating suns and moons. Inland, the green hills grew rumpled looking as random clumps of grass grew taller than the general herbage. Yellow mustard bloomed across the meadows, spreading butter color on the hills. Orchards bloomed, each according to its fruit variety flooding the air with perfume from white and pink petals. Carrie Oakey came to San Danson, and before the assembled Villagers and representatives of the police powers in the County, christened Hyacinth Sharif. DiConti strutted, Notta beamed, and Hyacinth gurgled. All in all, as Ben later remarked to Dickon, a delightful naming ceremony.

  In the llama shelter, Willy took the horn that made a unicorn of a llama cría from its hiding place. He unwrapped it from the blanket that protected it, and laid it alongside the cría. A calm sense of bliss warmed She-Who-Shuns-Males. Willy stroked the cría’s muzzle with a gentle finger, and rubbed the budding horn socket with bag balm to soothe its itch. The sun shone through the morning mists, driving them away.

  The sun light reached the shallow waters of San Danson Cove and dived deep into them to warm the Crablord’s sand. He stirred the warm sand with his claws, scuttled forward to snap up a shrimp, and basked in the sun. Darkness stirred in his sense of well-being. A taint touched the psychic ether. The Crablord stood still, tasting the currents. The threat did not come from the sea. Some other part of the Cosmic Balance felt a disturbance. The curious Crablord searched for the source. Evil slumbered uneasily somewhere on the land, far away at present, but connected, somehow, to the Cove and the Crablord’s domain. He set a portion of his unconscious mind to monitor the evil, and went on his way eating the shrimp and mussels he found in his cove.

  Ermentrude Finds a Purpose

  Ermentrude quickly adjusted to living in the manor house. It had so many nooks and crannies for a cat to explore. One of her favorites was a room La Señora had called the old lumber-room. Old furniture seldom moved from its position over the decades had allowed a patina of dust, dead insect husks, odd bits of paper, and the like, to build up. A cat could find much to play with and investigate.

  It was as well the cat had this outlet. Notta and DiConti had little time for her, now that the squalling infant had come. Like all creatures, Ermentrude’s people doted on their young, and offered little to longer-term companions who had been ever faithful, in their fashion. Ermentrude no longer had the joy of twitting that stuffy Prime Pussy, who presumed to rule Emma’s household.

  Ermentrude had discovered the old lumber-room one day when she had probed a crack behind a seldom-used fireplace. A broken stone had tumbled out of place when she pawed at it. It left a space just large enough for her to squeeze through without flattening her whiskers. Once in the hole, she found herself in a space between the walls of two rooms. The space was quite wide enough for her to run in, although she could not have turned around had she wanted to. The wall into the next room had a large break in the plaster through which she could easily enter the lumber-room. The plaster break let her out under a low table that supported several layers of boxes.

  Even though the dust made her sneeze, Ermentrude guessed at once that this room was her discovery alone. The human scents were so old as to be almost not present. They didn’t connect, either, with any scents anywhere else in the house. Ermentrude was far more interested in the spicy scent of rodents. Mice teemed in this room, and with their scent she detected another kind of rodent, rats. Her experience of rats was limited to a single encounter, which she had won, because the rat ran from her.

  Ermentrude prowled the lumber-room for several days, gradually decreasing the rodent population. After each foray, she had to clean quantities of dust from her fur. After one particularly dusty trip into the room, she spent so long at her toilette that Notta noticed. Little Hyacinth was asleep, and the house was very quiet, so Ermentrude’s very busy tongue made enough noise to alert Notta. She watched Ermentrude for several minutes, until the cat, exhausted by her labors, lay on her side and slept. Notta laid aside her magazine, rose from her couch, and went to the sleeping cat. She picked her up and stroked her. Ermentrude purred. She had missed this human contact; she had especially missed living with Haakon, who was a persistent and gentle stroker of cats. Notta and Ermentrude spent several minutes in this precious communication. Then Hyacinth woke, crying.

  Notta hurried to the nursery she and Haakon had established in a room La Señora had seldom used. She carried Ermentrude with her, and did not put her down until they were in the nursery. Ermentrude had not been in this room since Hyacinth had come. While Notta attended to the noisy infant and her noisome diaper, Ermentrude began an olfactory tour of the baseboards. She soon discovered rat scent, strong and fresh. Her ears could hear breathing in the wall. She mewed, to alert Notta, and scratched at the wall. Notta, busy with Hyacinth, paid Ermentrude no mind. Ermentrude continued along the baseboard. She found a hole large enough for a rat, but too small for her. She crouched before it and waited.

  Notta took Hyacinth and left the room. Ermentrude was relieved that she also took the wastebasket with the soiled diaper as she went. Its malodorous contents had masked the subtler play of rat smell and mouse smell in the walls. Yes, mice ranged here, too, though not as many as in the lumber-room. Ermentrude had a sudden picture of rodents attacking Hyacinth. It came with great force, and impressed on her the need for a guardian for the baby. It was a sending from the young unicorn with the unique horn, itself a mere infant, but more educated and aware than a human child, because its mind matured at an animal’s rate.

  Ermentrude had never thought of herself as a guardian of anything, except Haakon’s lap, which she had defended her primary right to against all of Prime Pussy’s claims. That old rivalry was of the past. Ermentrude discovered she needed a purpose, and the unicorn advised her that guarding Hyacinth against rat intrusions was the purpose she should have.

  After an hour or so of crouching, Ermentrude got the reward for her patience. The rat, a young one, scurried out to prowl the nursery. Ermentrude pounced, and broke its neck on the first bite. She dragged the carcass into the open and left it where Notta or DiConti could easily find it. Notta found it; she almost stepped on it when she brought Hyacinth back to lay her in the crib. It was well she did not step on it; her feet were bare, and the shock of a cold and furry body on her soles might have caused her to drop the baby.

  She laid Hyacinth in her crib, and went to the kitchen to get a broom and dustpan. She scooped the corpse onto the dustpan with the broom and bore it to the trashcan outside. Then she called Ermentrude, for she guessed the cat had slain the intruder, and rewarded her with a tuna treat, and a rub under the chin. Ermentrude purred. DiConti heard the full adventure when he came home, and he praised Ermentrude for protecting his beloved Hyacinth.

  From that time, Ermentrude became a rodent exterminator. The manor house was large, and she ne
ver did entirely rid the structure of mice and rats, let alone clearing the yard of gophers, but she pursued her purpose with due diligence. It made her, who had been a frivolous and spoiled kitten, a most mature cat of the utmost gravity. Notta and DiConti took little notice of Ermentrude’s change, attributing it solely to the cat’s being an adult now. Prime Pussy knew better, and wondered if she could claim any credit for providing a sobering example to the younger feline.

  Spaces in their Togetherness

  Dickon and Ben took stock of Dickon’s cottage. It was no larger than Ben’s, with a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and two small rooms that could be bedrooms. Dickon, of course, had expanded to fill his available space long ago. Now he and Ben wondered how to put Ben’s belongings into that compressed space as well.

  “I just don’t see it working,” Ben said. “It’s too much volume for this amount of living space. And, I have things in storage I’d like to bring in, some time.”

  “Big things, like furniture?”

  “No. I got rid of all the furniture. It’s books, mostly, and some china, a few figurines, that kind of stuff. Important to me, if