Here was a cat teacher, as Goodwife Celeste had said there would be, although he seemed not to be earning much at it. A wooden bowl on the ground held but four tins.
“Mistresses, here is the cats’ newest trick.” He raised his hands high above his head. The right-hand cat leaped straight up, like a puppet on a string. The left-hand cat licked its paw.
“Tut, tut.” Master Thiel crouched. He rewarded the cat who’d leaped and snapped a finger against the other cat’s scalp, chiding it in cat parlance, I supposed. The cat shook its head and became attentive again. This time when the young man raised his hands, both cats jumped.
More tricks followed. The cats waved, shook his hands, and even leaped over sticks held a few inches above the ground.
My stomach rumbled. I wrenched my eyes away. Across from where I stood, a broad way marched straight uphill. Chiseled into the stone of the corner house was the street name, Daycart Way. This seemed the likeliest route to food and mansioners.
I set out, my satchel slung across my chest. People strolled on my right and left. A boy herded three piglets. Children and cats and dogs chased one another. The dogs came in every size and color, but the cats were always black and white. I watched my feet to avoid the leavings of the animal traffic—not merely dogs, cats, and piglets, but also donkeys and the occasional horse, bearing a burgher or a person of noble rank.
At the first corner, I came upon two more cat teachers, these hardly older than I. They practiced just the rolling-over trick. I wondered if Two Castles boasted a guild of cat teachers. These two might be apprentices and the young man on the wharf a journeyman.
I angled close to the merchants’ stalls at the edge of the avenue. If I had been rich, my fortune would soon have been spent. The first table I passed was spread with belt buckles, most iron, but a few brass and one silver, the silver one hammered in the shape of a rose. How Father would cherish such a buckle.
In the next stall a knife-and-scissors sharpener sat at his wheel, waiting for custom. “Sharp scissors and knives!” he cried.
Beyond him a shoemaker shaped leather on a last. Shoes stood in double file up and down the table at his elbow. Mother might express wonder that the natives of Two Castles had such pointy feet.
How I wished they could be here, saying whatever they really would say, wanting whatever they really would want.
In the shoemaker’s shop, which opened behind the shoemaker’s chair, his goodwife sat on a bench while a boy and a girl near my age stood and addressed her. From the attitudes of the two—leaning forward from their waists—they were vying for an apprenticeship. I supposed both had the necessary silvers.
I heard a voice I knew coming from behind. “Step lively, my honeys, my cows, my donkey. Come with Dess.”
Next I passed a table heaped with leather purses and touched the lump in my apron where my linen purse hung. A leather purse never needed darning or leaked its contents. I had double backstitched mine before leaving home.
My feet refused to pass by the next stall, a clothes mender’s. On her table were neatly sorted piles of chemises, kirtles, aprons, tunics, breeches, hose, garters, capes, hoods, and caps, all in linen or wool. Of course everything had belonged to someone else, and likely death or poverty had brought the goods here to be repaired and made ready to wear again.
Rich folks’ new garments were soft. Poor folks’ garments became soft after long use. At the beginning they were stiff enough to stand unaided. My grandmother first wore my chemise, which now slid against my skin as gently as rose petals.
From behind the table, the mending mistress disputed with a goodwife over the price of a cloak. The mending mistress’s right shoulder sloped upward. The goodwife had a hairy mole above her upper lip. A cat prowled in and out and around the legs of the table.
An orange kirtle caught my eye, pretty, adorned by three wooden buttons at the neck. I held it up. Narrow with long sleeves. Fashionable. I folded it again. My copper wouldn’t be nearly enough.
Closest to me on the table were the caps. I moved two aside to reach a madder-red one, faded to the same color as my kirtle. A copper might buy a cap. If they were here, Mother and Father and even Albin would tell me to keep my coin, which would doubtless buy me food for several days. But I wanted a cap. Wearing a cap, my head at least would belong in Two Castles.
A cap might help persuade a mansioner master to take me, while a bareheaded girl would be turned away.
The mending mistress and the goodwife agreed on a price. When the goodwife paid, her sleeves slid back and I saw no twine jewelry.
The mending mistress scratched her chin as the cat brushed against my leg, back and forth.
“I have a copper.” I held up the cap.
Her hand dropped from her chin, and her lips turned from down to up. “Ah. Are you an apprenticeship girl?” She emphasized her consonants and drawled her vowels long enough for me to think the next letter impatient. Two Castles talk, I supposed, and wondered if I could imitate it.