A Tale of Two Castles(4)

“Thank you.” She tasted. “Excellent goat cheese.” She unwrapped her own package.

“Cats in Two Castles?” I said to remind her.

“The townspeople believe cats protect them from the ogre. There are many.”

“Many cats or ogres?” How could a cat save anyone from an ogre?

She laughed. “Cats.” Her package held bread and cheese, too, and a handful of radishes.

We traded slices and chunks, observing custom, according to the saying, Share well, fare well. Share ill, fare ill.

Goodwife Celeste’s cheese wasn’t as tasty as mine, but the bread was softer, baker’s bread. I wondered where my future meals would come from, once my food and my single copper ran out.

Goodwife Celeste returned to telling me about cats. “You know that ogres shift shape sometimes?”

“Yes.”

“Cats know they do, too. The cats sense that an ogre can become a fox or a wolf, but they’re not afraid.”

Our cat at home, Belliss, who weighed less than a pail of milk, feared nothing.

“They’re aware that an ogre can also turn into a mouse.” She finished eating. “More?” She held out her food.

“No, thank you.” I offered her more of mine, too, and she said no.

As I wrapped my food and she wrapped hers, her sleeve slid back. A bracelet of twine circled her left wrist. Were twine bracelets the fashion in Two Castles? She probably wouldn’t have minded if I’d asked, but I didn’t want to reveal my ignorance.

“Can an ogre shift into any kind of animal?” I said. “A spider or an elephant?”

“I believe so.”


“Can an ogre shift into a human?”

Her eyebrows went up. “I doubt it.” She returned to the subject of cats. “A cat will stare at an ogre and wish him—will him—to become a mouse. They say one cat isn’t enough, but several yearning at him, and the ogre can’t resist.”

I pitied the ogre. “Is that true?”

“Many believe it. What’s more, people train their cats. They don’t train them to try to make an ogre become a mouse. It is in the cats’ nature to do that, and the ogre must cooperate by giving in. But folks train cats to perform tricks and to stalk anything, including an ogre. Some make a living at cat teaching. With the flick of a wrist . . .”

She showed me, and I imitated her—nothing to it.

“With this gesture, anyone can set a cat to stalking.”

“If there were no cats, what would the ogre do?”

“Nothing, perhaps. Or dine on townsfolk.”

My stomach fluttered. “Does he live alone, or are there more ogres in his castle?”

“Alone with his servants. Count Jonty Um is the only ogre in Lepai. Likely there are others in other lands.”

“He’s a count?” You couldn’t be a count unless a king made you one or made one of your ancestors one.

“A count.”

“What happened to the rest of the ogres in Lepai?”

She turned her hand palm up. “I don’t know. They may have become mice and been eaten. And ogres sicken and die, just as people do.”

How lonely I would be if I were the only human. “Mistress? What about dragons? Are there many? Are any of them noble?”

“Just one in Two Castles, and IT is a commoner. Dragons don’t generally dwell near one another.” She straightened her left leg. “My old bones don’t like anything hard.”

I wished I had a cushion for her. She was so nice. I thought of Mother’s warning, but Goodwife Celeste couldn’t be a whited sepulcher. We had been together all this while, and she had done nothing to raise my suspicions.

“Beyond Two Castles,” she continued, “Lepai has a few dozen dragons, here and there.”

“Do people protect themselves from the dragon, too? Not with cats, with something else?”

“No. Everyone is used to IT. IT’s lived in the town since IT was hatched a hundred years ago.”

“So old?”

“IT is in ITs prime.”

We fell silent. I leaned back on my arms and looked up at the blue sky. Summer weather in October. No clouds, only a breath of a breeze. How safe I felt, like a twig floating in a quiet pond.

Goodwife Celeste picked shreds of cheese and bread crumbs off her lap in a housewifely way. She walked to the bulwark, tossed them over, and returned to me. Back at my cloak, she knelt. “Crossing is a holiday. For a few days we’re as safe as the kittens in their basket.” She gestured at the cog around us.

I had been thinking exactly the same thought!

“I’m sorry I won’t be able to help you in Two Castles.”

That startled me. I hadn’t thought of asking for aid.

Was she telling me in a roundabout fashion of her own troubles? Were she and her goodman too poor to feed themselves, or were they in some other sort of difficulty?

She put a gentle hand under my chin. “You have a determined face. Nothing will easily best you.” She stood. “My goodman may well be wondering what we had to gossip about for so long.” She left me.

That night, when I curled up on the deck, worries came and refused to be pretended away. The mansioners would not take me. I would starve. In the winter I would freeze, fall ill, die. Mother and Father would never know what had become of me.