Chapter
Eight

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern waited with little patience for the door to be opened.

“Off you go, then!” Fanny said, opening a pair of French doors to let them out into the still-dark morning and its mist, the mist made colder by it being November. “But don’t forget to come back—you know that the master likes to see you first thing!”

They were already too far away to make out Fanny’s words, not that they would have understood them anyway. And not that they even thought of Fanny as Fanny. To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, she was just another one to be grouped among Them. The only two they made any exception for were The Man, who seemed to run the whole show and who spent more time with them than anyone else, and The Girl, who seemed to run The Man.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were cats, Persian cats to be exact, Persian cats having grown popular in Britain after being exhibited at the first cat show at the Crystal Palace in 1871. Not that they knew that, either, being cats and all.

What they did know was that sometimes Them tried to call Rosencrantz “Rosencatz,” which they seemed to find very funny, but it had never stuck.

And they also knew they had the run of the place, the whole estate inside and out, unlike that poor unfortunate house cat who seemed to spend his entire existence in the kitchen, never getting to go anywhere. The house cat wasn’t beautiful like they were, either. They were white from the mouth area down through the chest area and front, and gray in the upper face, back, and tail. They were also the very definition of the word “fluffy.” The poor house cat had short hair by comparison and was just a tabby, a mackerel tabby—too common. Why, it wasn’t even a real breed!

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern thought no more of the house cat, though, as they exercised their free rein, gamboling over the verdant lawns, the pleasure gardens, the rockeries, lakes, and croquet lawns. With the exception of the occasional pause for a little on-the-spot grooming, they only stopped long enough to take a piss by the tennis courts.

It was there, while they were doing that, that they saw the man.

Not The Man.

This man was one they had never seen before.

Or at least they didn’t think they had.

So many of Them looked alike, particularly the men, like the ones with their similar suits who spent a lot of their time in the kitchen area of the house. Come to think of it, this man appeared to be dressed like they did.

But Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had never seen any of Them out here in the early morning, unless it was the one who always smelled like horses, and certainly not stumbling around so awkwardly like this.

Not unless they included the way The Man got on rare occasions very late at night.

The man lurched past them, almost as though he didn’t see them standing right there, and toward a stand of trees. Such peculiar behavior, even for a human. Immediately, their hairs stood on end, their backs arching, as though a grave danger were present. But then, humans got up to all sorts of behaviors that made no sense to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, like using utensils to eat. And then there were the things you never saw humans doing, like chasing mice. It was a puzzle.

Oh well.

It was time for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to head back to the house for their morning chin scratch. If they were lucky, The Man might give them some of his kippers.