Three Wise Cats by Harold Konstantelos Page B

injured you. My sorrow is deep.” Tears stood in his eye as he carefully washed her torn ear with wine and then tied a soft bit of cloth about her head, to hold the ear close so it could heal.

    After Alexos’s ministrations, Kezia crept away to the cats’ basket in Gracus’s quarters, where the other two found her after searching for an hour.
    â€œNow you are acclaimed a warrior,” Ira said, dashing up to the basket and speaking half enviously and half in jest.
    â€œAre you still hurting?” Abishag asked. “Can we help by licking it for you?”
    Kezia showed her two closest friends a woebegone face.
    â€œI am now hideous,” she said to them and whimpered. “My appearance is no longer comely, and I am ashamed. I was a beautiful kitten, a lovely youngster, and a graceful lady cat. Now I am as ugly—as ugly as poor Alexos.”
    â€œYou need never be ashamed of your looks when you have saved a friend’s life,” Ira said stoutly. But secretly he wondered whether his foster sister was being punished for her immense vanity.
    â€œWhat have they tied about your head?” Abishag asked.
    â€œAlexos said it would make my ear heal faster, but I do not think so. It hurts and burns, Abishag. Please do something!” Kezia cried.
    The patient Abishag finally worked the bandage off Kezia’s head, then she licked her torn ear until Kezia fell asleep.
    â€œWill she be all right?” Ira asked Abishag as they left Gracus’s cabin to go claim their usual fish for dinner.
    â€œI think she will be just fine,” Abishag said. “And if the cut becomes infected, Polla will tend to her ear, for she loves Kezia, too.” I wish someone cared for me as Alexos does Kezia, Abishag thought sadly. He was trying to defend her from the snake, rather than killing the serpent because of the threat to himself. And Gracus and Polla dearly love Ira, their “little soldier.” I wish someone loved me. I miss Ptolemy, and even the old astronomer. I wish our journey was over. I want to go home . . .
    That night Gracus had another dream of the cats. He had gone to his bunk in the cabin thinking about Alexos and the snake. He is astonishingly afraid of serpents, Gracus thought. I wonder what has happened in the past to make him fear them so. In his dream, he saw past events repeated: Ira, hurt and lying in the dusty road; Kezia, half drowned when Citus rescued her after Abishag had clung valiantly to her to prevent the tabby from being swept away in the current; and now Kezia again, rescuing Alexos from sure death by snakebite. Then it seemed he entered a path or a corridor—he saw the three cats walking away from him. When he called them, they ran from him, not stopping to look at him or even turning their heads. A long, long time passed in his dream, and yet he still searched, looking at each small black cat when he saw another one, searching for Ira with his crooked leg. He woke after a restless night and lay there sweating. The gods obviously want them to stay together. But then why would I search for only the one? My heart knows that I am fondest of my “little soldier,” true, but I would not separate the three from one another.

11
    T YRE AT LAST! The seamen cheered as their ship sailed into the mouth of the harbor, and each man insisted on touching all three cats before disembarking. The two seamen who had muttered about having the cats aboard presented the felines with a wooden cage, whittled from a small cask, filled with crickets as a delicacy for them.
    â€œWhere to now, Alexos?” Gracus asked the captain as they stood for a moment on the deck.
    â€œWell, I am not—by the gods! That ship! Look, Gracus! It is a ship of my countrymen—it is from Athens. But who sails upon it?”
    A great, graceful ship was highlighted by the rays of the morning sun.
    â€œIt must indeed be Kaspar!” cried Alexos. “Come, Gracus—come