A Tale of Two Castles

In Lahnt five tins would buy two meals at least.

The second rule on Mother’s list warned me not to be impetuous.

Mother, I’m not. I need a cap! “My coin is hidden.” I half turned from the mending mistress and hunched over, so she wouldn’t see, as if my purse held jewels.

When I straightened, I held out the copper. The cat leaped up. Its paw batted the coin from my hand.





Chapter Four

I dived after the coin, but the cat took it in its teeth and scampered into the crowd. I shoved people aside and gave chase. A streaking cat with a coin in its mouth should be easy to spot.

But there was no streaking cat.

I stood still in the middle of the street and looked about. A cat sunned itself on a windowsill, its mouth empty. A cat crossed an awning pole, its mouth empty. A cat washed itself in a doorway. I wished I’d noted the robber cat’s markings when I’d had the chance.

I returned to the mending mistress.

“Did you get it?”

“No, mistress.” I took a deep breath for courage. I had never spoken to an adult as I was about to. “Your cat owes me a copper.” Another breath. “Or you do.”

“The cat wasn’t mine.” She entered the shop behind her.

Parley ended?

But she returned with a fat cat in her arms, all black except for a white patch on its back. “I’m sorry, young mistress.”

She could have ten cats. But I could prove nothing against her. Still, I wanted someone to blame. “What kind of cats live in Two Castles?”

“Here we have thieves of every sort. You should have been more careful.”

More careful? My ears grew hot. It was my fault? More careful than bent over, hiding my purse? No one had warned me of animal robbers.

“I can’t give you a cap.”

My ears were going to catch fire. I untied the cap, dropped it back on the table, and walked to the next stall, a tallow candlemaker’s. Now I had no money for food.

“Honey! Girl! Wait for Dess.”

I turned.

Master Dess and his beasts had progressed as far as the shoemaker’s stall. He waved to me. “Too bad. I saw the cat. Terrible bad.” He toiled upward, his cows at his side, his donkey lagging. “Come, honey.”

“You saw?” I said as he reached me. We hadn’t exchanged a word on the cog, but in this town of strangers he felt like family.

“What a shame.” Letting go of his animals, who didn’t budge, and putting down his kitten basket, he opened his cloth purse. “The goodwife gave me three tins for your kitten. Here they are, maybe not the same three tins.” He took my hand and put the coins in it. “I have your kitten again. It’s an even exchange.”

“Thank you!” The exchange wasn’t even. I hadn’t returned the kitten or paid the tins. “You’re very kind.”

He hefted his basket and opened it. Only three kittens remained, one with a white ear. It extended a paw at me. “She knows you.”

I touched the pink nose.

“You should have her. Everyone has a cat. I’ll give her to you.”

“I have no way to feed her.”

“Too bad! Cats must eat.” He closed the basket and resumed his upward trek.

People must eat, too. If I were one of Master Dess’s animals, I would have no worries.

I started back downhill, hoping to question the cat teachers. But when I reached the corner, the two of them were gone. I wondered if they might have sent a cat to rob me and left when they had my coin. On the wharf, the young man had also departed.

Had they all been in league? Perhaps they’d noticed my capless self and singled me out as easy prey.

But my thieving cat had been under the table when I arrived.

I looked out at the strait, where cloud reflections moved across the water. White fishing boat sails bit into the bottom of the sky.

No more dallying. First food, whatever three tins would buy, then the mansioners. I headed uphill again. A grand lady outstripped me on a palfrey. I saw her and her mount only from behind: the lady’s straight back, her bright green kirtle, the dark hair spilling from her cap down her shoulders, the horse’s dappled rump, and its tail braided with scarlet ribbons.

How lovely it would be to ride, especially to ride to a castle or a burgher’s house, where a big meal was laid out for me.

I wished this were a food vendors’ street. Nothing sold along Daycart Way was edible.

Behind me, coming from farther down the hill, a bass drum of a voice boomed, “Make way! Make way!”

The crowd fell silent. Was King Grenville passing by?

The throng closed around me and pushed me until my back pressed against a vendor’s table. A woman and I were separated by her five young children, who leaned into her skirt and mine. Because the children were shorter than I, my view wasn’t completely blocked by the adults surrounding them.

“Make way.”

My neighbor, the mother, whispered, “Turn into a mouse.”

The ogre! My breath stuck in my throat. If he plucked me for his cauldron, what could I do?

“Very thin here,” I squeaked. “Not worth the trouble.”

The voice roared, “I want no broken bones or flattened heads.”

Flattened heads! Had that happened?

“Ogre coming. Dog coming.”

I heard the full, echoing bark of a big dog.

Count Jonty Um’s voice gentled to a rumble. “Hush, Nesspa.”

He smelled like a clean ogre, perfumed with cinnamon and cloves, pounds of them. As he climbed farther up the hill, I began to see him. First came a thatch of black hair, cut so haphazardly that his barber was blind or couldn’t keep his hands from shaking. Like me, the ogre wore no cap. Next came an ear as big as a slice of bread. He turned his head my way.

He was a young man ogre! Shrunk down, he could have been anyone. But as himself, he was eleven feet tall or more, puffed up as a pudding. His face might have been pleasant if it hadn’t been so red with anger or blushing. He had round cheeks, level eyebrows, a square chin, brown eyes, and freckles across the bridge of his nose.