Martin Millerson: A Retelling of "Puss in Boots"

By A. M. Offenwanger

You never know what will happen when you buy your cat a pair of boots...
Martin Millerson is a dreamer who would rather write verse than work in his family’s mill. Still, he is bitterly disappointed when the only legacy he gets from his father is a cat. But then the cat starts to talk. And ask for a pair of boots. And everything changes.
Can Martin, his friend Walter Shoemaker, Nicolaida the new Town Witch, and Mafalda the King’s Daughter work together to rid the town of the menace beyond its gates? Or will it take the cunning of a cat—A Cat in Boots?

• Language: English
• Publisher: A. M. Offenwanger
• Release date: Feb 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781988273112

A. M. Offenwanger

A. M. Offenwanger has loved books ever since she was six years old, picked up a novel and found she could read it on her own. Some years later she discovered that she could write books herself. Her preference is for stories that are set in other worlds - whether they are fantastical worlds full of magic, or long-gone times and places. She can be found on the Internet on Facebook, Twitter, and her blog at www.amovitam.ca. In her off-screen life she lives in Western Canada with her family, two cats, numerous dust bunnies, and a small stuffed bear named Steve.

Book preview

Martin Millerson

or, SOMETHING WITH CATS, A Retelling of Puss in Boots

A.M. Offenwanger

amovitam press

Copyright ©2023 A.M. Offenwanger

amovitam press

All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons or events, living or dead, is purely coincidental, except in the case of the cats Morgana and Ahasveros, who are drawn from life.

Note: This book uses Canadian spelling and punctuation.

Also by A. M. Offenwanger:

THE SEPTIMUS SERIES

Seventh Son

Cat and Mouse

Lavender’s Blue (A Septimus Short Story)

Checkmate

Star Bright

Novellas:

The Twelve Days of Christmas: A Tale of Christmastide. With Elves.

The Forty-Dollar Christmas: A Canadian Holiday Story

In memory of Cleo and Johnny,

for letting themselves be used as models extraordinaire for

Morgana the Sorceress of Great Wile and Ahasveros the Mighty and Powerful.

Every detail of their personalities is true.

Contents

1. The Cat

2. The Shoemaker

3. Boots

4. The Witch

5. The Princess

6. Bismarck

7. The Cat and the King

8. Selling Rhyme Sheets

9. The Shoemaker and the Witch

10. The Kitten

11. The Cat's Lady

12. Repairing Rhymes

13. Witches Together

14. The Cat Is Taught a Lesson

15. Market Day

16. At the Castle

17. Visiting the Witch

18. Flying

19. The Plan Takes Shape

20. Marquis in Distress

21. Setting the Scene

22. Martin Meets His Muse

23. The Ogre

24. The Marquis

25. Flying to the Rescue

26. Catastrophe

27. Wooing the Witch

28. Witches and Husbands and Cats

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Chapter 1

The Cat

Martin stared through the small window panes out into the mill yard.

The cat. He got the bloody cat.

He squinted past the thin layer of flour dust coating on the glass at the sacks of meal which sat by the back door, waiting to be loaded into William Baker’s cart. The water wheel in the mill stream creaked slowly; he could just see it beyond the corner of the house.

Geoffrey got the mill. Robert got the donkey.

Well, of course they bloody did, they were the elder brothers, weren’t they? It had always been understood that the miller’s sons would run his business after his death, and the donkey was necessary to the operation of the mill—they needed it to haul the grain and carry the finished flour sacks. So Geoffrey got the mill, and Robert got the donkey.

But all Martin got was the cat. Not that the cat wasn’t necessary, too; it wouldn’t do to have mice in the grain stores. But—the cat? As an inheritance? He might as well have been left the weather cock on the roof. It seemed like a slap in the face, one last vote of non-confidence. Couldn’t Father have told him to his face that he didn’t trust him, that he didn’t think he would ever amount to anything? It would have been better to have been left with nothing, instead of this joke of a legacy. Then the town would know he had been slighted, treated like a stepchild instead of the legitimate son he was. As it was, he had been left something, so nobody could blame the miller for the way he had divided his property between his children. Oh no, nobody could blame the miller. Not that he would give a farthing for anyone’s opinion now that he was dead.

The cat. Some legacy.

The legacy rubbed his black and white body along Martin’s ankle and purred.

Oh, damn it all! said Martin and slammed his fist on the window sill. A white cloud of flour dust rose and made him sneeze. It’s not fair, is it?

He turned on his heel, crammed his fists into his pockets, and stomped out of the room. His fingers encountered a few coins left in his pocket. Really? He had forgotten he had a bit of money left from the song sheets he had sold at the market the week before. It was rare enough he made any money from his rhymes, but this one had tickled the townsfolks’ fancy, being all about the fun to be had at the market stalls at the fair. The bawdy line about pinching your girl on the bottom hadn’t hurt either. Usually he wouldn’t have put in anything like that, but he’d had a few beakers of ale when he wrote it. And then when he’d sobered and read it over, he left it in, because he couldn’t think of anything that fit the rhyme and meter so well as that line, and he copied it out on the sheets just as an experiment. Turned out it was just as well he had, because it was popular. He jingled the coins in his pocket. How much did he have? He pulled out his fist and counted. Ten, eleven—a dozen farthings. Great. Not much worth in that. A few beakers of ale, and that was about it. Well, at least he could get that, it might make him feel better. He turned down Fishmonger’s Lane in the direction of the alehouse.

The cat pranced after him, his tail pointed straight into the air.

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It wasn’t working.

Gimme anodder, Hu—Hubert! Martin waved his empty beaker—the third? fourth? fifth? No, surely not the fifth. Whatever number it was, it was empty again. So Martin waved it at the landlord. ‘Nodder ale, Huber.’ Need ‘nodder ale.

The burly innkeeper raised his head from wiping the deal table and gave the young man a steady look.

I don’t think so, Martin Millerson, he said, you’ve had eight already. You’re swimming. It’s time you went home.

Whaaa? No, no, no no no. Not been eigh’—eight. Can’ have been more’n five. Or ma—mabbe shiksch. C’mon, gimme ‘nudder. Shtill go’ money, shee, Huber’—shorry, HuberT. T! He pronounced the letter with exceptional clarity, sending some spittle flying across the tabletop, and plonked his remaining four farthings on the surface. B’sidesh, canno’ go home. Haven’t got a home. Geoffrey’sh got de mill. Robert’sh got de donkey. No home. No mill. No donkey. Jusht de cat. I got de CAT! Shee? He waved the empty ale beaker at the large black and white animal curled up on the settle beside him. A drop of liquid flew out and hit the cat on the nose. The cat twitched, opened his green eyes, darted out his pink tongue, licked the drop off his nose, then put his head back down on his paws and went back to sleep. Shee? repeated Martin. Canno’ go home. No home, no work. Canno’ do any—anyshing wi’ de cat. Roasht him, for shupper, maybe. Make a muff from hish fur, dat’sh it. I’m poor. Had it. Gonna shtarve. Need ‘nudder ale. Shtill got money.

Come off it, said Hubert, your brothers wouldn’t make you sleep in the streets. Sure, it’s time you got your head out of the clouds and learned a real trade, especially now you know you don’t have the mill to fall back on, but first, you need to go home and sleep off the ale. He swept the coins into his palm, took the ale beaker away from Martin and pressed the farthings into his hand. There, take your money and hold onto it. Now get out of here, get yourself home. It’s late, I want to lock up. He pulled the young man to his feet.

The cat opened his eyes, gave a wide yawn that showed the dark splotches on the inside of his mouth, rose on all fours, stretched with his paws forward and his rump in the air, and leapt off the settle.

But I canno’ go home, protested Martin blearily, nee’ more ale…

The landlord pushed him out the tavern door and shot the bolt behind him.

Then the bolt scraped back again, the door opened a crack and the cat slid through. He padded up to Martin as he stood weaving in the alley and rubbed his head against the young man’s ankles.

Then he looked up at the miller’s son. You don’t want to roast me for supper, he said, I wouldn’t make a very good meal.

Martin stared down at him with a puzzled frown on his face. The cat could talk? Huh, the cat could talk. He knew the cat was a clever cat—he had seen him at his mousing, lying completely still and pretending to be dead, and when the mice got bold and crept closer to check it out, he would pounce. Martin had only been able to see that because he was very good at lying still himself; there had been more than one day up in the hayloft of the donkey’s stables, dreaming up his next rhyme, when he had watched the cat at his catch. But talking? Did cats normally talk?

Martin did not think so, but he found it a little difficult to get his thoughts straight in his current state. It was the ale. The ale made it hard to think. And he’d been drinking lots of ale because… Because he had lots of money, that was it. No. No, that was not it. He never had lots of money, people did not want to buy his rhymes. But he had sold some, he had! He wasn’t useless, like Geoffrey and Robert always said he was. He had sold some rhyme sheets, he clearly remembered that. Katryn Bakersgirl had bought one, and she had giggled when she did it, which did interesting things to the bodice of her gown. But it wouldn’t do to look at Katryn’s bodice too much; Wilfric Smith got red in the face when he saw you at it. Wilfric was Katryn’s sweetheart and had big beefy hands and arms like tree trunks, so Martin had looked away once he had counted the farthings Katryn had given him, giggling. Yes, money. He got money for his rhyme sheet. So then he had gone to the tavern to drink. Right? No… no, there was something else.

He groaned. It was so hard to think with all that ale in his head! It hadn’t been like that inside the inn, while he was drinking—inside, he had been comfortable. Warm. It was that cold air rushing around his head out here in the alley that made it so much harder to think. He looked down at his feet again, at the white markings on the cat’s face which shone through the darkness. The cat. Oh, yes, that was it! It was something with the cat. He tipped his head sideways and squinted at the cat, first with his right eye, then with his left, then with his right again. The image of the cat jumped a little bit to the left, then to the right. Cat. Shouldn’t the cat be at home, catching mice?

And then it rushed back at him. The cat wasn’t at home because he wasn’t at home, and he was the cat’s new owner. The cat’s, and only the cat’s. Damn it. DAMN IT! he yelled, the sound bouncing off the houses hemming in the narrow alley. I GOT NOTT’N BUT THE BLOODY CAT!! He lurched away from the wall which had been propping him up, and started staggering down the path. It undulated in front of him just a bit—sort of like Katryn Bakersgirl’s bottom when she had walked away from his rhyme sheet stall, Wilfric’s arm wrapped around her waist.

There’s no need to shout, said the cat, casually walking beside Martin with his tail aloft, or to turn me into a muff. I would make a lousy muff. Literally. Cat’s fur is very prone to lice when it is not regularly cleaned, and nobody but a cat can clean cat’s fur properly. So you would be much better off getting me a pair of boots. Just one pair is enough; I can walk on my hind legs. See? He sprang up on his back paws and sauntered along, walking in a much straighter line than Martin was able to do at the moment.

Martin tripped and had to hold himself up against the nearest wall. His head was beginning to throb. That bloody cat! It was all his fault. And there the cat was, standing on his hind legs like he was some kind of bloody circus performer, staring at him with his green cat eyes.

Damn you! Martin said loudly, "if you’re no’ even goo’ for a muff, what are you goo’ for? What’m I shupposhed to do wi’ you? Huh? HUH?"

I just told you, the cat said, get me a pair of boots. They’ll make it easier to walk through the dirt and the brambles, and besides, boots have style. I’d like to be fit to be seen in public.

Martin shook his head to try to clear the ale fumes, but all that resulted in was that the houses around him started to do a slow circle dance. That bloody cat. All his fault. He realized he was clutching something in his fist, and when he opened his hand, he saw the remaining four farthings in his palm. Oh yes, he still had some money.

Suddenly, Martin started laughing, loudly and hysterically. He flung out his arms. Fine! he yelled at the top of his lungs, all I got ish de bloody cat! And the bloody cat wantsh shome bloody bootsh! FINE! I shtill got shome money, LETSH GET DE BLOODY CAT SHOME BLOODY BOOTSH!

A window opened above his head. Shut up! an angry female voice demanded, people are trying to sleep!

Martin kept laughing.

THE BLOODY CAT WANTSH SHOME BLOODY BOOTSH! he shouted up at the window.

The window emptied a jug of water on his head.

Chapter 2

The Shoemaker

Walter Shoemaker bent closer over the slate, peering at the design he had drawn by the dim light of the candle. By day he had to work on the burghers’ slippers and boots, but when his time was his own, late in the night, he thought of new ideas, new patterns, something different. He could never afford the materials to put his thoughts into practice, but that did not stop him from dreaming. This little pair of ladies’ slippers, now, if he could…

A harsh hammering on the door brought Walter to his feet.

Wal—Walter? a voice called. Waller! Open up!

Good gracious. Martin Millerson. What did he want at this hour of the night?

Walter drew back the bolt and opened the door.

Marty! You’re soaking wet!

Waller! The young man beamed at him from under a dripping shock of hair, swaying back and forth in the doorway. You m’friend. You—y’unnershtand bootsh. Need you.

Walter held the candle closer. There was a cat next to Martin, a large black and white animal who gazed up at Walter with an inscrutable look on its face. Not that cats ever had any other look on their faces.

What is it, Marty? What do you need me for?

The cat, pronounced the miller’s son, a lecturing finger held in the air, "that cat, and he tried to point to the cat, who he apparently thought sat at his left. To his surprise, the cat was on his other side, but his pointing finger did not find the animal until it had wrapped itself once around Martin’s body, making him spin in a wobbling circle. By a near-miracle, he stayed upright. The cat, he began again, jabbing his finger at one of three cats his eyes seemed to be showing him, that cat—that one? Yesh, that one. That cat wantsh shome bootsh." He wisely nodded his