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With a wave of a paw, she left the room taking one of the candles with her. Now that they were no longer being used as weapons for the subduing of silly clergy, it did not take long to have the bed made up. Once the remaining candles had been blown out, and the room in darkness, the sound of the rain against the window filled the space. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked into the gloom.

After the last few nights of poor sleep and disturbing dreams, I let my head rest on the pillow with a silent prayer for unbroken sleep. Gently, quietly, I was lulled to sleep by the hissing and pattering of the rain outside.

I didn't sleep well, waking every time I rolled over. What sleep I did manage was filled with vivid and disjointed images; not fully formed dreams, more like random flashes and snatches that were almost dreams. By the time I woke and could no longer get back to sleep, most of these images had faded to mere vague recollections. That being said, one short snatch of a dream remained, painted by my mind in lurid, cartoonish colours.

It was a short experience that repeated itself four or five times through the night. The images unrolled in front of my mind's eye like some kind of film strip. It began with the view of a hillside, rolling fields and a river valley. In the distance was a running figure, dressed in white. The image resolved and followed the figure, a fox with its paws flying and pelting through the field's crop of barley. Then the sounds of the fox's flight filled my mind: the rustling of the swaying barley, the sound of the fox's paws against the dry earth, his (by now it became apparent that the fox was male) panicked and panting breath. The image swung around: presenting the fox first in profile and then his full face. He was weeping, his fur streaked with damp tear tracks. His tongue was lolling out of his mouth as he struggled for breath.

Lazily, a thought made its way through my brain, a name: Gerald. That was who I was being forced to watch, again and again.

Gerald ran a little further, then stumbled and fell headlong. His disappeared in the barley and a cloud of dust. Heavy paw steps neared through the field. A shout:

'There he is! Come here, Gerald, you have a job to do.'

A voice I thought I recognised. And, there, my recollection ended.

I woke at six with the bedclothes wrapped around my legs. Sitting up, I looked around for my shirt, hugging my arms across my chest. Looking down, my fur was a mess, standing in clumps where I had been thrashing around. Oh yes, I'm sitting in Anna's living room, came the memory. I scratched my muzzle and yawned.

The rain from the night before had eased to a light drizzle, the water dribbling slowly down the window pane. A noise caused me to turn away from the window. Anna was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. She made a strange, small noise at the back of her throat. I flicked an ear in her direction along with a quizzical look.

'Hello.' I said, and yawned again.

'Shirt.'

'Pardon?'

'I've never seen so much of a priest before.' Smirked Anna. 'No shirt!'

I squeaked and lunged for my shirt, much to Anna's entertainment. I whipped the shirt off the chair it had been hanging on, a twitch and a wiggle settled the garment comfortably over my fur. There was a cough from the doorway, followed by:

'Breakfast?'

'Please.' I replied, realising that, for once, I actually had an appetite immediately after waking. Following Anna's retreating back I walked through to her small, neat kitchen. The power had yet to be restored to the village, so Anna was attempting to light one of the gas rings on the hob with a match. A whoomph sound came from the stove as the gas caught, along with the distressing stench of singed fur. Anna waved her slightly scorched paw.

'Bloody hell,' She muttered, 'And the naffing ring's gone out.'

I caught hold of Anna's shoulders.

'Are you alright?'

'Yes, yes, no harm done - just some fur missing, that's all.'

'Can I lend a paw?'

'You certainly can, I don't want to lose anymore fur. The electric clicker thing is so much easier.'

She held out the box of matches. I took them and pulled a piece of junk mail, a pizza menu, from the bin. Having rolled the pizza menu into a tight tube, I lit the paper with the match and held the burning end to the flow of gas. Another whoomph and the gas ring caught.

'Genius.' Said Anna.

'No, I just spent my formative years in a farmhouse with no mains electricity. I was lighting gas lamps before I could even spell "electricity". Mum and Dad only had a line from the national grid put in when I left for Anskar's. 'Course that meant I had to use Dad's computer and his generator for gaming when I was a pup.'

Anna nodded at this, then twisted the dials to start the gas flowing from the other hobs and deftly took hold of my wrist to touch the burning spill to them.

'I thought we could have a cooked breakfast.'

She swung an old copper kettle onto the stove top. Next, she brought out a heavy cast iron frying pan and set it next to the kettle. Anna stepped around me, trailing her singed paw along my arm and reached across to pick up a metal tea caddy shaped like a blue and gold elephant.

'Tea pot, please.' She said. 'It's on the top shelf over the cooker.'

As I reached up for the tea pot, Anna grabbed my side and then linked her arms around me for a hug. Carefully, I set the tea pot down and took hold of Anna's paws; we stood like that for a moment until I said:

'Don't you want to put something in the frying pan before you scorch through the bottom?'

Anna made a noise that could only be described as _eep_and, as if by magic, there was a bottle of cooking oil in her paw. As she poured the oil into the pan it sizzled and spat on the hot metal. Coughing, Anna emerged from the cloud of smoke she had produced.

'Certainly don't want a scorched bottom!' She spluttered.

Any further remarks were cut off by the whistling of the kettle, a nostalgic sound much friendlier than the functional click of an electric cordless kettle. As Anna was busy with the breakfast ingredients, I measured out three spoons full of the aromatic tea leaves from the elephantine caddy. Reaching out for the kettle, my paw was caught by Anna. In her free paw was a towel.

'I thought you'd be more sensible than that, love.'

I looked at her with my head on one side, after a moment I said:

'Hot metal, of course.'

'It's like having a puppy in the house: don't touch the stove, it's hot!'

Gratefully, I took the towel (and my lecture), I wrapped the towel around the metal handle and filled the tea pot. Soon, the kitchen had cleared of smoke and was filled, instead, with the enticing scents that come with a cooked breakfast. This was followed by the international standard of: non-cook standing awkwardly whilst trying not to get in the cook's way. There was a merry little dancing moment as Anna tried to reach something behind me; in the end, she resorted to holding my paw and spinning around me in the manner of a ballroom dancer: free paw above her head and her tail tracing a graceful arc behind her.

I clattered around with plates and laid the table. Anna served up a generous helping of food onto each plate.

'Did you see Jason and Erin last week?' Asked Anna.

'Yes, their wedding rehearsal was last Saturday.' They're a lovely couple'

'I've known Jason all my life, Mum was close to his mum, Mrs Percheron. I only met Erin the once, she's not local is she?'

'No,' I said, calling to mind the very serious cougar, 'She's from Ameryksland, she's a copper in New Ridding, a lieutenant, sorry a loo-tenant.'

I said this, because Miss Concolor had been most put out when I had seen 'lieutenant' on the marriage application form and instinctively pronounced it correctly: 'lef-tenant' - it turns out that this is not the case in Ameryksland.

'She's a what? It sounds like she's renting a toilet.'

'She's a police lieutenant, according to PC Milvus it's somewhere between our police sergeant and inspector. Anyway, she's going to wear her dress uniform, so PC Milvus has scraped together some of his mates from Amblehead to form an honour guard for the happy couple. And, take her gun back to the firearms locker at Amblehead nick.'

'A gun?' Anna's mouth dropped open. 'An actual handgun, not just a shotgun?'

'Yeah, she had to have permission from the Home Office and the Chief Constable of Newtonshire even to bring it into the country; and she had to hand it over to a firearms officer at the airport. PC Milvus is bringing it for her later.'

'I don't like the idea of a police officer with a gun. Naturally, the wedding is the talk of the village, because it's the first one the church has had in years and some animals aren't happy because Jason Percheron is "marrying mixed".'

A vision of Arthur Oxfold and his cronies picketing the church flitted across my mind, my imagination adding placards and the odd piece of rotten veg for throwing.

I glanced at the clock on the wall, the wedding was at ten, so I had time to head home and change; and field awkward questions from Harry as well. I finished up my breakfast.

'I need to head home and find a shirt that I haven't pretty much slept in; I'll see you at church later.'

I stood and squeezed Anna's shoulder.

'You don't mind seeing yourself out?' She asked.

With a slight shake and nod of the head, I went home. Outside, the drizzle had all but stopped; now the moisture hung in the air as a heavy mist, the kind that settled on the fur in fine, pearl-like droplets. By the time I reached the vicarage, I might have well walked home in some torrential downpour, I was soaked to the skin and my fur was heavy with damp.

Standing on the doorstep, I shook the worst of the water out of my fur before ringing the bell. Harry answered and a slow, indulgent grin spread across his muzzle, a hint of razor sharp teeth. He blocked the door by placing his paw against the frame.

'Where have you been, you dirty stop-out?'

'At Anna's, has the power come back on?'

'Yes, a couple of minutes ago. So, what happened?'

'Dinner mostly, and that's still none of your beeswax, Harry. Are you going to let me into my own home?'

In the end, I gently pushed the still gurning cat into the hall. Once inside, I darted up the stairs, on the principal of: 'if I'm going to be given the third degree, I'm going to be dry and wearing clean clothes.' A towel and a change of clothes later and ready to face the interrogation, I came back downstairs.

Harry all but dragged me into the kitchen. He thrust a mug of coffee into my paws.

'You can't stay out all night and not let me know something.'

I threw up my paws in mock surrender.

'Fine,' I said, 'I went to dinner at Anna's and stayed the night on the sofa bed in her living room because the weather was dire.'

'Oh well, no gossip there.' Said Harry, mildly disappointed. 'What about the four hours you went missing?'

'Ah, yes. Firstly, I wasn't missing, just out cold in the churchyard. Someone attacked me, I think. There was another note.

Harry gaped at me, his tail lashing. He opened his mouth to speak.

'Don't say it, Harry.' I said, holding up a paw to interrupt him, 'I'll speak to PC Milvus later: make it official.'

'Good.'

I drank my coffee and watched as Kiniun walked across the garden, the lion was holding something in one massive paw. I was steeling myself for a nasty shock, they seemed to be coming thick and fast, but it was a red and white striped carrier bag from the corner shop. I waved to him through the window. The door creaked slightly as he let himself in. Kiniun pulled a copy of the Global Telegraph out of the bag.

'I just went out for a newspaper. What happened to you yesterday?'

I explained what had occurred. There was a peeping noise from the clock radio, half past nine. I made my excuses to Kiniun and Harry. On my way out of the house, I took my cassock off its hook and pulled it on, buttoning it closed as I walked. The rain had finally ceased, leaving a few tufts of cloud in a now seemingly depthless blue sky. At the church there were already a few cars parked outside, including a police car and a minibus in police livery. The police car had a square red metal plate attached to its bumper, the standard warning sign for explosives and firearms. This must be where the infamous police pistol is being stored, I thought.

In the churchyard, six police officers were standing and chatting, all resplendent in their navy blue dress uniforms, the silverwork on their tall custodian helmets shining in the sun. Each officer had a polished wooden truncheon hanging at his or her belt in place of the everyday black metal tactical batons that coppers normally carried. PC Milvus caught sight of me and came over, his red and brown flecked plumage contrasting with the blue and silver of his uniform. As he neared, he pulled a sheet of paper from a pocket.

'Good morning, Father.' He said, the lilting cadences of the north of Ironmont bringing a musical note to his voice, he was from Bayshire originally, I think. 'Could you sign this? It's a firearms transfer docket, then you can be responsible for the gun during the service, though of course Lieutenant Concolor will really be in charge of it. Otherwise, I'd have to stand somewhere near the front, and we want to be able to get out to form the honour guard.'

I signed the form and made my way inside the church. Jason Percheron was standing at the west end of the nave by the font, shifting nervously from hoof to hoof. He shot me a weak smile as I walked through the door. The huge horse towered over me, requiring me to reach up to pat him on the arm.

'How are you doing, Jason?'

'Okay, Father, a bit nervous.' His voice was a soft tenor that did not seem to match his great bulk. Jason Percheron was a horse full of surprises: his father had been a farm labourer and (or so I had gathered) Jason had been expected to follow his father into the family business; instead, he had shocked the whole village by winning a scholarship to RISA, the Royal Ironmont School of Arts. These days he was a successful jeweller who made the most exquisite miniatures, fully formed works of art that would fit neatly in my paw.

I escorted Jason to the choir step and spent twenty minutes telling the poor soul my truly awful line in puns, they were and still are seriously bad, but I found they helped the groom to be to keep his mind off his nerves. I was also able to include my favourite: 'I had to throw my Theremin away - I just hadn't touched it in years.'

Jason was put out of his misery by Anna signalling from the back of the church. I pointed down the nave, so that Jason was watching as Erin Concolor entered, escorted by her father. Never before or since, have I seen a bride walk down the aisle in a police uniform with a dark peaked cap and a gun holstered at her hip.

The wedding went as smoothly as these things ever do, neither Jason or Erin forgot their words. There was the usual lingering moment after I had read the words of the legal declaration: 'If anyone here present know any reason why these two may not legally marry, I hereby charge and require him to declare it.' Followed by a series of silly grins when no-one said anything.

The whole service took all of forty-five minutes and then I had the chance to say my favourite thing that a priest ever gets to say, although today I fluffed it:

'Please welcome Mr and Mrs, sorry Mr and loo-tenant Percheron!'

After the happy couple had left the church and through two lines of crossed truncheons, the families left. I wandered outside chatting to Anna - who, it turns out has never cried at a wedding (I can't say the same, I'm a soppy old hound at heart). By now, the police honour guard was piling back onto the minibus and PC Milvus was locking a case with the lieutenant's gun in it back in his car. Harry was waiting by the lych-gate, looking more than a little worried.

'Francis, your Mum's here!' He said as we approached. 'She says she brought Gerald with her, but there's no sign of him.'

Abruptly, he strode away towards the vicarage, ears flat against his skull and his paws swinging; he was angrier than I had ever seen him before. Anna and I followed along in Harry's wake. My mother's elderly 4x4 was parked behind my car, looking every inch a mobile scrapheap. She was pacing back and forth in the front garden with Kiniun trying to calm her.

'Mum, what's wrong? Where's Gerald?'