Acropolis Cats, Chapter One
In which Don Stephano, High Librarian of Castle Sforza, involves himself in the affairs of rats.
“There can be no substitute for Democracy, gentlemen,” insisted the rat. “It is the cornerstone of our proud Republic!”
“Senator Mozart!” shouted one of the multitude rushing and scampering in his wake, “How do you respond to your opponent’s allegations?”
Senator J. Cleandoctor Mozart spun upon his heel and placed his back haunches broadly against his office doorframe.
“I shall address all such scurrilous and unfounded concoctions, Mr. Strawlick, in a fitting manner and in my own time; as did the great politicians, lobbyists, and philosopher-pundits of the High Golden Age of Milanese Rats; before soft-toothed upper-story dwellers like my opponent corrupted the delicious dreams upon which the safety of the Union relies!”
The reporters stood silent, at the most scribbling furiously and at the least simply staring ahead with uncertain expressions.
“Indeed,” said the Senator. “Now, respected friends, if you’ll please join the rest of the assemblage in The Hall of Debate, I must briefly examine my notes and make myself ready for this afternoon’s, uh…”
The reporters waited expectantly.
“Good afternoon!” said the rat, and turned nimbly around and through his office door, his tail describing a vanishing swish as it swung shut behind him.
Senator Mozart regarded his reflection in an old aluminum can and saw, in the sudden dark, two glowing eyes – each one the size of his head with the snout and ears bitten off – hovering at the office’s far end. He spent the next few seconds startling and stumbling and twisting his ankle, then falling all the way down; so fearful was the sight of the cat which took up almost the entire room. Not just any cat, in fact, but Stefano Palestrino de Palma, the High Librarian of Milan.
“Watch your step,” the cat intoned.
Mozart rolled about, resumed his feet, and set about extricating himself from the clutter around his legs.
“My journey floorward was undertaken not for want of caution, Don Stefano, but for an insufficient wariness of the feline’s dramatic predilections.”
“I thought it unwise to wait in the hall,” Stefano answered. “How soon can you be ready?”
“I must have time, Don Stefano! To figure out what I’m going to do!”
“We’ve already decided what we’re going to do,” Stefano said stoically. “We must not lose our focus, Senator. We must not lose the way.”
Mozart made a sound in his snout like, nnnnnnnnzh.
“This had better work, Senor!” he said. “This-“
“Yes,” said Stefano. “It had better work. Otherwise Rom Gillette will win the election instead of you, at the very best. At the worst, you’ll be carried out of the assembly hall and thrown in the canal to try your luck with the fish.”
Mozart made the sound again.
“If this does work, on the other hand, then you shall be Governor of Lombardy.”
“Bird poop!” snapped the Senator, “I’m not risking my good name for a paltry regional presidency. After this stunt, every rat in Europe will know my name, and my loyal constituency will carry me to national office on their filthy backs!”
"Patience, Jack. One step at a time. The House of Sforza knows the value of a strong ally among the rats of Milan. Let us focus on the task ahead."
Stephano hooked a single claw in the neck of Mozart's cloak and passed it over from its place by the patent leather shoe desk. The Senator snatched it away and assumed its burden with a huff. The cloak was for rats’ eyes only, clattering with medals, festooned with feathers and regalia. It showed his age and experience, and it made him look like a general instead of a warmonger. To human eyes, it was one of a hundred old pieces of trash crammed into this forgotten inner chamber of the Naviglio Grande waterworks, the canals upon which Milan’s fortune was built.
"Well then," said J.C. Mozart with aplomb, "Shall I climb up?"
Don Stephano showed him the eyes of a murderer as he pleasantly tilted his ears.
"Please be my guest."
There was hardly room for the overdressed rodent between the slimy concrete ceiling and the child’s toy saddle strapped to the cat’s back. Mozart ducked his head and pulled up two leather reins in his forepaws, as his outsized and overqualified mount opened his jaws to receive a bit. What a stunt, thought Stephano.
“Forward!” shouted Mozart.
The far edge of the room was a high purple curtain, moldy and faded. Shrill horns sounded from the other side, soon overwhelmed by a din of voices in every state of agitation. Don Stephano strode toward the curtain, drawn apart by tiny unseen paws. It was showtime.
The pair emerged into The Grand Hall of Debate, a vaulted brick chamber so colossal and so crowded with rats that its dimensions could not clearly be divined. Water splashed down on all sides from the unfinished locks of the Conca Fallata. In every dry spot, rats: Rats arrayed on old lead pipes, rats clustered on buttes of worn stonemasonry, terraced rows of rats round the cistern wall, and in the center of the room a groundling rabble that teemed like worms in wet mud. The sight of a full-grown cat emerging from the Senator’s chamber and the horns which blew again to achieve maximal cacophony in the echoing concrete expanse, fixed them into stillness and silence.
“Fear not, my fellow Milanese!” Cleandoctor Mozart shouted down from his high perch. “Your next Governor is in control!”
He tugged at the reins, and Stefano’s bit pinched painfully against his cheek.
“Easy,” muttered the cat. Senator Mozart offered him a sly wink, and resumed his long-anticipated speech.
“Now – this very day – ends the age-old dominance of feline over rodent! A vote for Mozart is a vote for yourselves, and for YOUR SPECIES!”
The pause which followed had, in the Senator’s extensive rehearsal for this moment, been necessary to make way for a thunderous ovation from his would-be constituency. The scattered applause and nervous chittering that came instead opened up the floor for his sole surviving competitor, City Councilman Romulus Gillette.
“This is a cheap and irresponsible stunt, J.C. – even for you. The wise rats of this ancient city won’t be taken in so easily, however brazenly you endanger their lives for shock value.”
“Taken in?” said Mozart, his snout wrinkled with feigned incredulity. “Shock value?” He reached for a third term. “Uhh… brazenly? Councilman Gilette, how can you deny the evidence of your own eyes? Am I not riding, even now, astride our shackled and saddled oppressor? Is this not proof enough of my courage? My power? While you wallow in the muck with the vermin, I gaze down upon you all… from the Imperial heights!” A bit too evil, though the Senator, and added, “To which I shall lift up our people, with the steady paternal hand of Authority.”
The cheers came this time, though still not enough for Mozart’s liking. His opponent sat implacably for a few seconds, then made eye contact with Stefano and spoke a single word:
“Poppycock.”
What a relief, though the cat. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could have waited. He nudged the bit forward with his tongue, clenched it in his teeth, and with one sharp nod pitched his rider head-over-heels into the air. As Mozart’s naked tail thrashed in an arc from Stefano’s shoulders to the stunned mob below, shadows darkened the scene from above. One, two, three leapt the cats from the lip of the spillway. Soft-footed, they alit amidst the multitude with claws bared. All the tension that had built up in the Great Hall, that cord of self-control stretched to its limit from one heart to the next, plain and simply snapped.
The shrieking, scattering rats were a turgid sea of tails and fur, yet Stefano snapped the Senator up in his jaws and stood tall on his hind legs so he could be seen.
“Unhand me!” the Senator demanded. “You’re a fool to take sides against Ratkind’s most beloved politician?”
These were the last words of Cleandoctor Mozart.
Everywhere there was carnage. Though they had been instructed to frighten rather than kill, no power could fully restrain the instincts of a feline hunter surrounded by its natural prey. The exits were blocked by rat bodies striving without success to scramble over each other all at once. The cats bounded showily from place to place, swatting their quarry right and left. Before this piece of theater devolved into a bloodbath, or worse still the rats organized some collective resistance, Stefano gave the signal to halt.
His piercing yowl echoed insanely in the vaulted Hall of Debate. His three compatriots harkened, their muzzles red, and scampered up the walls and onto the ledge above. Stefano spat his erstwhile conspirator onto the bricks below, then followed them up into cool night air.
Between the shadows of a nondescript brick staircase slipped the Sforza Cats. The familial piebald of tan, black, and white showed in their fur as they entered a pool of city light reflected from the surface of the canal below. They scarcely stood out from their graffitied surrounds.
“Well, that’s done,” said young Fabrizio with a nonchalant flourish of his tail.
His friend Bruno commenced an unhurried bath, licking his paw to wipe away small flecks of rat blood from around his face and neck. “A reasonable night’s exercise,” he added. “What, might you imagine, will come next from ambitious Brother Stephano?”
A third cat glanced up from his own post-slaughter grooming. “Tradition suggests that he must stay out of sight for a time. Avoid the rat leadership.”
“Quite so,” said Bruno. “Long enough for them to forget the whole affair and move on to their next petite intrigue.”
Then Stephano was among them in the blink of an eye.
“My preference,” he said, “has been to do the opposite of what tradition suggests.” Standing sheltered beside his haunch was the presumptive Governor of Milan Rats, Romulus Gillette.
“That much,” he said, “is undeniable. And I doubt the rats will forget this within my lifetime. J.C. Mozart was beloved by our people.”
“J.C. Mozart,” answered Stephano, “was a charlatan, a thief, and a zealot for his own self-interest.”
“A paragon of ratly virtue!” came Rom’s retort.
Stephano’s bemused smile showed no teeth. “But among we cats of Sforza Castle,” he intoned, “your own virtues are held in higher esteem. Wisdom, benevolence, cooperation. We need a man like you at the head of the swarm, that we might together resist the incursion of the canine police.”
“Hmph!” said the rat. “Let’s hope your needs don’t realign, or it may be my blood soaking into your muzzle next.”
“Yes,” said Stephano. “Let us hope.”