A Tale of Two Castles(7)

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.

I nodded.

“Have you settled your place yet?”

I shook my head.

“Which one are you trying for?”

“I’m going to be a mansioner.” I spoke my consonants decisively and stretched my vowels.

She looked puzzled.

I must not have done it right. I repeated myself more slowly, even harder on the consonants, even longer on the vowels.

“No matter,” she said. “A cap will keep you cool in summer, warm in winter. Not that one.” She took the madder cap from my hands. “It won’t show off your pretty face.”

I wished I could subtract her lie from the price of the cap. I wasn’t pretty. My eyes were too big, my eyebrows too thick, my mouth too wide, my jaw too pronounced. But if you were in an audience, even standing behind the benches, far from the mansion stage, you would still be able to make out my features. At that distance, the distance that mattered, I was pretty.

I tried the accent again. “Mother tells me my eyes are the color of moss.”

Perhaps that was better—or not. She said nothing, but picked through the caps, discarding half a dozen until she found the one she wanted, a woad-blue cap, hardly faded, the color of a bright blue sky, with cunning scallops along the edge. “Here. Let me tie it on you.” She did so. “Hmm.” She pulled two forehead curls from under the cap. “Ah. You are fetching.”

No, I wasn’t. The cat mewed, probably agreeing with me.

I abandoned the accent. “Will there be enough left over to buy my luncheon?”

“I will give you back five tins, young mistress.”

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.