Three Wise Cats by Harold Konstantelos

Ira’s musings while remaining hidden in a coiled rope on deck. “No, you are alive because you are too great a warrior to be vanquished by an ordinary enemy.”
    â€œBut he wasn’t my enemy,” Ira said. “After all, you were the one who frightened him into rearing. And you are my enemy!” He pounced on the pile of rope, but Asmodeus evaded him and ran for the opposite side of the ship. He dived down a rat hole and waited for the black cat to begin a vigil at the entrance. “You have to come out sometime,” Ira told the invisible rat and settled himself to wait.
    Asmodeus smirked to himself. He enjoyed placing doubts and fears into their minds, causing the cats to worry.
    â€œWhat an honor—to be pounced upon and devoured by the greatest warrior this poor ship has yet seen!” he began.
    Ira sighed. “Don’t try compliments, Asmodeus. They won’t change my mind about catching you.”
    â€œNo, no, no—what I tell you are not mere compliments, but facts. You are in truth a great warrior; you marched and learned with the other soldiers strategy and planning—or perhaps not. Even with Ptolemy, you never did pay close attention to your lessons, did you?”
    â€œI did, too!” Ira protested. “It’s just that I had other important things to do. So of course the girls listened to Ptolemy more. I had to learn to pounce and to kill far more readily than the two females. They lack my instinct for the death blow,” he concluded, a bit smugly.

    â€œAnd you do indeed possess that, my young cat,” Asmodeus agreed, his voice silken. “Thanks to you, I no longer have any companions with whom to pass a quiet hour or even to share a bit of bread—”
    â€œA bit of bread!” Ira laughed. “You and your disgusting companions were destroying several bushels of grain a day, with your droppings fouling what you did not stuff into your greedy faces.”
    â€œWell, they are all gone now,” Asmodeus snarled. He drew a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “I alone and a few frightened or injured mice are all that remain.”
    â€œSo what do you want?”
    â€œA truce?”
    â€œWhy should I grant you a truce?”
    â€œBecause when we arrive in Tyre, I shall leave the ship and live ashore the rest of my days,” Asmodeus promised.
    â€œYou aren’t going to return to our tower outside of Lepcis Magna?”
    â€œNo, and neither are you.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Ira asked, startled.
    â€œYou cannot convince me that a warrior of your stature, of your hunting skills, would meekly consent to live out the rest of his days in a dreary tower, where nothing exciting ever happens. Unless you count the odd butterfly or beetle that sometimes becomes bewildered and lost within its walls? Or perhaps,” the rat added nastily, “you want to listen to Ptolemy maunder on and on about prophecies and religions and parchment scrolls until he draws his last breath. You will be too aged yourself by then to set forth once more to see the world.”
    Unwillingly, Ira thought back to the weeks and weeks of lessons he’d endured, listening to Ptolemy’s patient instructions. Those weeks were boring . I’m glad Abishag listened so carefully; sometimes I got to doze in the sun instead of having to pay attention every second.
    He shifted his position beside the rat hole. “A soldier must do what is right,” he replied.
    â€œIs it right for the old cat to expect you to give up everything you have fought for during this long journey and submit to his learned knowledge once you return? You cannot convince me that you do not long to stay with Gracus, because you and he are of the same mind,” Asmodeus said craftily. “Two warriors, marching off to foreign lands and tremendous battles. Think of it! Think of the cheers that would greet you as you returned triumphant from your latest