Vincent had reported that the Cat had been immured in a cell buried deep in the heretics’ quarters. That much was expected, of course, although it was nice to have the artist’s exact pinpointing of the cell’s location. The more interesting tidbit, however, was that the Cardinal was having a tunnel dug from his own chambers—his bedchamber, to be precise—to the Cat’s cell. True, his motives in so opening a line of communication with the Cat were unknown. Perhaps he simply wanted to be able to take her confession, so she could die in a state of grace. The various means of restraint which he was simultaneously having attached to his great bed, however, argued otherwise. Not to mention his long-standing reputation as one of the world’s legendary satyrs. Not to mention his not-so-long-standing but not-so-recent-either lust for the body of the Cat.
“He was ogling her back in Blain,” growled the strangler. “I should have choked him then.”
The rest of us kept silent. Best policy around Greyboar in a snit, don’t you know? Eventually the big guy calmed down and we started trying to work out a plan.
“How about Vincent?” asked Jenny. “Would he help us—you know, dig us a tunnel to the Cat’s cell?”
Still on that “us” business, the two little imps. I’d tried to get our meeting place changed, so as to get the girls out of the picture, but Greyboar insisted that it was best to hatch our plots at their house. Less chance of being overheard by slobs who’d squeal to the porkers for a penny. The Trio had readily agreed, mainly—I suspected darkly—because Jenny and Angela made their depraved hearts go pitter-patter. And that was another thing I didn’t like about the whole business!
I tried to warn the girls of the horrid reputations of the Trio—especially that goat McDoul—but they treated me like I was retarded.
“Now, now, Iggy,” cooed Jenny, chucking me under the chin, “you know Angela and I aren’t interested in any men.”
“Except you, Iggy,” cooed Angela, grinning like a hussy, “and that’s ’cause you’re just the cutest little thing.”
Anyway, the Trio poured cold water on Jenny’s proposal. As they explained it, Vincent wouldn’t be any help except as a source of information. This, for two reasons. Point One: Vincent was practically a midget, so his tunnels weren’t big enough for what the Trio called “normal-sized” men—translation: beer-bellied slobs. This part made me wince, because naturally Jenny and Angela started squealing with pleasure and right off proposed that the two of them and me carry out the rescue, since we were all small and could fit in the tunnels.
Fortunately, that plan fell through because of Point Two: Vincent was also a temperamental artist with his head in the clouds and wouldn’t be bothered with digging any tunnels that weren’t necessary for his art. Quite the rugged individualist, Vincent, as the Trio portrayed him.
So we were back to square one. And, now that it’s all over, I’ll admit that maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to bring the girls in on the plotting and the scheming. Fact is, even though they were young as the morning and fresh as the dew and innocent as the lambs of the field, they had fiendish good brains. So it was Angela who actually came up with The Plan.
“You know,” she said, peering at McDoul closely, “you look a lot like the Cardinal. He used to come over to the Baron’s house now and then and I’ve met him up close. I mean, if you cut your hair decent and shaved off that horrid great beard you’ve got growing on you like moss on a tree. And even though the Cardinal’s not a hunchback, he always walks all stooped over like he was being crushed by the weight of his sins, which he probably is, so if we cleaned you up and dressed you right, we could pass you off as the Cardinal and maybe that’s how we could rescue the Cat.”
McDoul was delighted with the plan. It appealed to his conceit, his much-vaunted (him doing all the vaunting, naturally) perception of the social graces. All of it except the barbering and shaving part, I should say, but his objections here became moot after Greyboar held him upside down and the girls went to work with their scissors. Then it didn’t take long before the girls had a full set of Cardinal’s robes made up, which fit McDoul like a glove.
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