Alexander the Caracal and the Wedding

The Badger

Slowly creeping, Alexander stared at the pheasant. The bird had yet to show any sign of noticing his presence and for that Alexander was grateful. He had been hunting this bird for an hour and he was ready to bring this game bird back to Quebec Castle's kitchen.

Growing still, the Northern caracal prepared to spring. He would have to be fast. When the bird flew, he would have to bring it down with a swipe and then finish it with a bite to the neck. His father Amen-Ra and his mother Olympias were both champion hunters back in Egypt and here in Canada he would make them proud.

The wind blew threw the trees in his favour that autumn day. It brought the scent of the pheasant to him rather than his own to his quarry. The time was right. Now was the time to strike!

Charging forward from the underbrush, Alexander watched as the bird flew for safety. From any other cat, the avian might have gotten away, but not from him, not from a caracal. He was capable of leaping ten feet in the air and that alone sealed his victory.

Leaping as John Carter might on Barsoom, Alexander brought down his right paw onto the pheasant's back, sending the bird crashing to the ground. Once he had come down to the earth, he then bit the neck of his prey and then it was all over.

What Alexander did next was something he would regret deeply. Taking a moment to groom his right shoulder, the Northern caracal soon found his kill stolen from him by a fox, one of the enemies of his people. It mattered not where he was be it in Egypt or here in Canada. In both nations foxes existed to compete with or to steal the kills of caracals, even tame caracals such as Alexander.

What did he do next? What else could he do? He pursued the fox, determined to get his kill back. He would bring that pheasant back to Quebec Castle's kitchen even if he had to fight that fox to the death and it would not be him who would be lying cold when all was over.

Alas, what pursuer and pursued came across soon caused all thoughts of fighting over the pheasant to be forgotten, for in a small clearing lay the body of a badger and near it was a scent all too familiar to Alexander. It was the scent of the lynx Miltiades, he who had fatally wounded Alexander's predecessor Darius and had gone on to wound him as well, though Alexander had not been defeated easily. From his great enemy he had taken the sight in one of his eyes and from the lynx's footprints, it was evident that the badger had managed to take something as well: Miltiades' speed.

The footprints belonging to the right hind leg were not as deep as they should have been. Miltiades had been injured, he was limping, possibly even rendered lame!

Looking to the fox, quite frightened at the sight of the dead badger, Alexander decided to let him have the pheasant. There had been enough death this day.

Turning around, Alexander began to make his way back to the monumental country house that was Quebec Castle. As he walked, his mind thought not of the coming triple wedding where his master Captain Kull Smith would marry Igraine Lombard, the head gardener Robert Cook would marry Eleanor Armstrong and his master's former students Herman Petit and Verna Gillespie would marry. No, his mind was on the coming second battle between him and Miltiades.