While they walk home they discuss what the cat triumvirate were up to. It's confusing. They seemed to be after getting control of the streets. It makes some sense since it's probably easier to snatch the uttermost part of a territory, the street or sidewalk than to snatch a part of an insula or a domus. On the other hand it doesn't make sense because the streets are free to walk upon and it's considered free to walk into the inner courtyard of an insula (but not into apartments or domuses). On the third hand, it's considered free out of tradition so it could be possible for at cat to start to say otherwise about a street part of their territory. It would be weird and they would be frowned upon but maybe it wouldn't be definitely wrong. At least not until there's a verdict regarding it. Maybe someone thought that no one would go to court over it and no one has yet either. The Tryggtass court case was about her streetpart of her territory and foul play during duel and not regarding what privileges comes with a territory and different parts of it. Hopefully cats have been inspired by the Tryggtass case to stand up for their rights and go to court if needed.
They discuss the matter back and forth but they can't really find anything especially interesting in their part of the region either, nothing that differs from other parts of the region. It's made up of a lot of insulas with well off craftsmen and their families and upwards in the insulas poorer and poorer people working for the craftsmen or at the dock, warehouses and similar (the higher up the harder to get the, no water, mor work to transport water, waste and food and so on). In these insula areas there's a big mix of different businesses; bakers, baths, taverns, fast food and so on. At one border of the region there are a bunch of small domuses (e g Svansglidaren's burden's domus). They decide to spend the rest of the day as cats do; sun bathing, resting in the shade, sleeping, sunbathing, sleeping, resting in the shade...
Suddenly a scent catches their attention. A rat. An albino rat sits close to the wall of Grå's insula's wall peering at them. They assess the target. It's a rat, an unusual big rat, and so a prey that could be slightly troublesome. They would catch it but someone could actually be hurt. Tryggtass looks at the rat who could be dumb as a stone or slightly sentient and says "It's lucky for you that it's nice weather and that I have a good spot here. I don't fancy quick movements and hunting right now.". "What do you want?" Grå asks it. "Be eaten" Tryggtass answers for it "but we don't provide that service at the moment". "True, true" Grå says. "Come back tomorrow" Tryggtass calls to it. If it understands them or not is unclear but suddenly it climbs up the timeworn wall beneath the windows and sneaks into a window. Usually the the shutters are slightly open to block out as much sun as possible but still let in some air, very convenient for cats - and rats. "Hmmmm, rat for dinner tomorrow" says Tryggtass lazily. Svansglidaren contemplate if he should hunt an albino rat as sacrifice for his warden of his burden's domus. Such an unusual sacrifice should gain some extra attention from Pluto and thereby more power for Svansglidaren's magics. "In that case you should have been gone doing that a while ago" Tryggtass says. "Yes, I know" he answers "but it's so hot and the spot is so nice. Maybe it comes back" "I told it to come back tomorrow" Tryggtass says.
Grå jumps up to the window and peeks into the apartment. As expected it's a well off family's apartment on top of their business located on the street level. It has some furniture and an actual bench for the embers where the food is cooked and water. The door to the apartment is closed although it should be possible even for a big rat to slip under the door. Grå jumps into the apartment to find out where the rat went. The apartment is empty of both humans and rats but there's a distinct rat scent trail between the window and the door. It's not the first time a rat passed by here. Grå wants to follow it but fret at the need to run the whole way down on the outside, around the corner, into the yard and up the stairs to get to the other side of the closed door. At the view of all that trouble he decides to jump into the apartment and try to slip under the door instead. He is after all known for being able to slip through the smallest holes (stunt). On the other hand, should someone arrive home to the apartment he would be caught snooping around in the apartment or sneaking under the door. Humans tend to act weird on foreign animals in their homes since they don't understand what's going on around them. He sighs and goes the long way around it all.
On the outside of the door he starts to sniff where the rat went. He follows it down the stairs, along the wall under and behind some waste on the inner yard and to a hole in the wall that seems to have slowly appeared as the plaster has crumbled somewhat and then been widened by the rats and maybe mice as well. It would be possible for him to get into the hole but it's very, very dark in there, even a cat wouldn't see much in there. More important though; he can hear water running down there. He returns to his spot and realise he has to move a little to get the same amount of sun and shade. They rest until the evening comes. During the time Grå tells them about the hole. Svansglidaren has decided to go for another try on dream walking and convince the mother of the half sick baby at the top floor in Tryggtass's insula to sleep close to her baby. They're still confused over the humans weird behaviour of not sleeping close to their offspring. Grå decides to get a worn baking towel from his burden's bakery that Tryggtass could use as a blanket for the child until Svansglidaren manages to convince the mother to take real care of her offspring.
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