A Tale of Two Castles(6)

The women were clad as the mother and daughter in the cog had been, in narrow kirtles with long sleeves and long hems and with colored aprons tied round their waists. As at home, the tunics of the men ended just below their knees, revealing a few inches of their breeches. Everyone—men, women, and children—wore hoods or caps that tied under their chins.

I tugged on my sleeves to make them seem longer. I am a mansioner in costume, I told myself, not outlandish, not a bumpkin.

Two dogs chased each other to the edge of the water and back again. On the pier, a plump black cat with a white tail ambled to my kitten and began to lick it all over. Other black-and-white cats sunned themselves here and there on the wharf. If this had been a town for yellow cats, my kitten might have been snubbed.

I heard applause.

Mansioners? Here?

Three young women and four in middle age stood in a loose row on the wharf, backs to me, blocking the reason for their clapping. When I reached them, I saw two black-and-white cats at the feet of a young man perhaps seven or eight years older than I.

Yellow hair flowed from his cap down his sturdy neck. His skin seemed to glow. Large gray eyes, fringed by thick lashes, and curving lips might have made his face feminine but for the strength of his jawline and chin. Powerful arms pulled tight the sleeves of his frayed tunic. His hands and bare feet were long and graceful. The bare feet, the hollows in his cheeks, and his worn tunic bespoke desperate poverty.

Twisted around the fourth finger of his right hand was a ring of twine, knotted in front where the jewel of a silver ring would be. Goodwife Celeste wore a twine bracelet. Was this fashion, or did twine-jewelry wearers belong to some confederacy?

The young man’s hands described a circle in the air, and the two cats rolled over. The women clapped as enthusiastically as if he’d stopped the sun. I clapped softly.

“Ooh, Master Thiel. Again, if you please.”

His name was Thiel, pronounced Tee-el.

He bowed, rewarded each cat with a tidbit, then obliged. The cats obliged, too. We clapped again. I touched the purse at my waist—still in place.

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.