Translator Natalia Lilienthal

© Natalie Yacobson, 2023

© Natalia Lilienthal, translation, 2023

ISBN 978-5-0059-6992-7

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Jewels and claws

This castle is incredibly difficult to get into. But is it easy to escape from here? Tobias glanced at the rope ladder thrown down from the window of the not-too-high tower. The end of it was less than five meters from the ground. Yes, he was in trouble! He would have to use the normal entrance instead of the window. Fortunately there were no guards except the statues. He would have been arrested with a sack of stolen jewels, and they would have quartered him for sure.

Tobias tried to shove the diamond tiara he had just noticed into the bag as well. It wouldn’t fit anymore. The sack was already filled to overflowing with jewelry, and his pockets were stuffed with gold coins minted from the Kingdom of Cats. At least that’s what Tobias himself had called the country. In the old days it had been called something else. Now it was called Grapevine-land, because the country was covered with grapes and roses. A pretty maid told Tobias that a cook had once tried to sneak away with a basket of stolen oranges. Vines supposedly caught the boy in a net and tore him to pieces.

«The road to Cat’s Castle is paved with the bones of those who have tried to come here, and soaked in the blood of all those who have been invited and escaped from us,» confided the pretty former chaperone of the local princess at dinner. «If you go out into the wasteland behind the castle and look closely, the sand there is mixed with human skulls and body remains. You’ve come to a dangerous place. Only supernatural beings are welcome here, but you’re an ambassador. Ambassadors have to be let in.»

Tobias remembered waiting under the gate for nearly three days and three nights before they took pity on him and let him through. The gate itself resembled the mouth of a mythical beast. On the chains of the winch lived mischievous leprechauns that taunted anyone who wished to enter. A strange whisper seemed to emanate from the vines on the ramparts. Or so he thought from the long wait. What were the castle dwellers thinking? He could, after all, get sunstroke or die of dehydration. The only well near the castle was rotten, and some water creature had taken up residence in it and filled the ambassador with riddles. It was she who first called the kingdom the Cat Kingdom. Tobias understood why only when he met the scratched beauty who had been acting as both steward of the castle and maid to the princess.

«It’s a dangerous place; deserted, saturated with magic,» she explained, studying the royal seal on the message Tobias had delivered.

«So why don’t you move to my suzerain’s court?»

Tobias liked the pretty brunette much, despite the scratches on her shoulders and neck.

«I wish it were that easy to leave,» she sighed as if the horses and carriage house were never in the castle.

Tobias at first mistook her for a harmless lunatic who’d read fairy tales, but in time he realized that it wasn’t that simple. It was as if the devil himself had taken up residence in the castle. Feline portraits of the ruling dynasty were interspersed with human portraits. The tapestries were torn apart by claws. But the royal coffers were full of jewels. And it was not Tobias’ fault that he decided to rob the castle. Here he had been treated in a way that could not have been done otherwise.

He shoved the sumptuous tiara into his tunic. The caftan swelled with it. It was hard to breathe. The diamonds chilled his chest as if his heart were frozen in ice.

No matter how hard one tried to take all the treasure with him, he could not take it all with him. There were too many treasures piled in chests and forged chests. And there were many more glittering crowns on velvet pads in the depths of the treasury. Tobias looked at them with great regret. He had more than he could carry.

That’s it, it’s time to get out of here, and the royal regiments should be brought here to put all the cats on leashes.

Tobias grinned at his plan. Maybe it wouldn’t turn out so easily. But the troops would deal with the local population far better than he would alone. There would be no peace.

The greedy ambassador reached for the glittering ruby crown. Why didn’t he think of putting it on his head and throwing away his inexpensive beret? With what he could get for the cat’s jewelry, he’d buy up all the velvet of Aluar instead. Tobias’s fingers were on the verge of reaching for the coveted crown when nimble, hard claws scraped across them. And how sharp they were! Tobias howled in pain. His little finger and middle finger had been replaced by ragged stumps.

Cats didn’t scratch like that. It wasn’t a cat, either. Cats’ claws weren’t the size of human fingers, and they didn’t wear sleeves with lace cuffs.

Finding out who had maimed him was as inappropriate as protesting. He was the thief here, not the assailant. Tobias dashed away, dropping rings and bracelets from his overstuffed bag along the way.

It was a good thing he had spotted the marble staircase that spiraled down into the garden from the parapet of the tower where the treasure was kept. It was as if it had been specially made for thieves. The architect here was excellent. He planned everything for the benefit of burglars.

The steps led up into the night garden, into a thicket of lavender and balsam. The smell of the flowers was suffocating. But there were no guards in the garden. But the gardener’s gate must be there somewhere.

The jewels fell out of the sack as often as if holes had been made in it. Tobias stepped on a dropped ring, lost his balance, and fell. He fell, and his foot was sorely stabbed, as if by knives or claws.

The bag fell out, its glittering contents scattered in the flower bed. He couldn’t get all that expensive things together fast enough. And time was running out. Tobias couldn’t see the pursuit, but he could sense that something was moving behind him. Only the vines that braided the wall had changed position. It happens! Suddenly they looked like snakes.

Several vines were wrapped around his legs and arms. This was no joke. The vines twisted his limbs like ropes. There was blood on the skin beneath them. Maybe the myths about plants eating fugitives weren’t fiction.

«The claws of masters wound thieves to death!» There was a lady in an opaque veil, and she was already standing there, as if she had sprung up from the ground.

«No, I am not a thief. I am an ambassador,» Tobias hissed, and felt the vines sink deep into his meat.

«Silence,» the lady held a hand mirror up to his face. In it, Tobias could see how badly his cheekbones, nose, and chin were scratched. That’s why it hurt so much.

He would have liked to see the lady’s face, but instead of a face she showed her claws. These claws would have cut him to death. They are as long as a stiletto blade.

«Thieves find death here,» the stranger almost chanted.

Tobias believed her eagerly. Especially when the white, sharp claws, somewhat reminiscent of a cat’s, darted toward his throat. The crown had long since fallen from his forehead, but the message from the local princess to the king was still in his pocket, rolled up like a tube. It looked as if it would remain undelivered.

The Wandering Minstrel

«That’s it! I’ve had enough! I’ll live by myself! To wander the roads and earn my living by playing the lute!» With pathos proclaimed Brendan.

The cat inside the crown purred and rolled onto its side. It became his favorite pastime to curl up inside the large royal crown. He was like a king who sleeps inside a symbol of his power.

It was a pity to leave the Bastard. But here he would be taken care of. All his antics are tolerated, because he is a cat of a very rare breed. He’s also the cat of the king himself.

«Come on, let’s say goodbye, kitty!» Brendan reached out to stroke him, and he did so in vain. The proud cat awoke only to scratch his mate’s palm with all five claws.

«Oh, you… they don’t call you Scoundrel for nothing,» Brendan blew on his palm, but the pain didn’t subside.

What was it the royal wigmaker used to say? Royal property must not be touched without asking. But the white fluffy Aluar’s cat named Scoundrel is also, after all, royal property. They even put a cot for him in the king’s study.

Brendan himself had sneaked in today just to get the locket with the portrait of his parents on it. He should have taken the money with him, but that would have been stealing. He could earn his own keep. If minstrels were in demand even at the royal court, music was not so difficult to make a living from. Brendan learned a variety of songs, changed his clothes to the simplest, and prepared for the challenges ahead. Better to wander the dusty country roads than to marry a capricious widow from a neighboring kingdom with which the uncle-king had decided to form an alliance. The influential relatives can get into their heads all sorts of things. So it’s better to do without them. One is more comfortable.

What is it about marriage? Brendan had no intention of getting married anytime soon. There were too many beautiful girls around. To choose a particular one as a lifelong burden would be to be completely out of love.

In Aluar, they could drive you mad, too. There was a mysterious old lady in his uncle’s court named Effigenia, who dressed exclusively in black and was reputed to be a master of spells. She boasted that she had worked magic on several impertinent young men so that they jumped off the tower and crashed to their deaths out of unrequited love.

This is another excuse to flee his uncle’s kingdom. Otherwise he too will be bewitched to some toothless gray-haired widow.

Brendan was delighted to find that no one would recognize him in the noisy corridors of the castle. All he had to do was dress poorly, and you were no longer the king’s nephew. He had also learned the secret passages behind the sliding panels of the walls, and could get in everywhere without opening a door. Here he was, all alone in the locked royal chambers, and outside he could hear outside conversations.

«More and more danger was coming from the east, and even Lady Ephigenia could do nothing more.»

«How can you send a witch doctor against danger when there are troops?»

«And how can you send troops not against men, but against the black mist.»

«They say it will be resolved soon, and if not, we will have to fight all the same.»

«Is it weapons or magic?»

«All means are good in a fight.»

«Or maybe we should just turn a blind eye to what’s going on until we are directly approached with an ultimatum?»

It sounds like the voices of counselors! Brendan was immediately disappointed in them. The wisest men in the kingdom were so drunk they were talking nonsense. Soon they would begin to shy away from their own shadows, suspecting that something magical had settled within them. What had Uncle King done to them that made them drink themselves to death? Usually they walked around the castle puffed up like peacocks, making puffed-up speeches. That was when Brendan saw them. Now all he could hear were frightened voices. It was a good thing he himself did not drink, even after fierce quarrels with the king over his future and even in moments when his uncle, enraged by his behavior, threatened to execute him.

«If it hadn’t been for the good memory of your humble mother, your head would be on a pole by now,» his uncle liked to say.

Brendan had long ago stopped believing him, so often he had heard such empty threats. In fact, his uncle took pity on him and would not have him executed even in the case of high treason. For it is always possible both to protect the guilty and to execute the innocent. There was much injustice in the kingdom, and the black magic of Ephigenia sometimes seemed to slip through the keyholes, inspiring a melancholy that made one want to howl.

Suddenly it seemed to Brendon that his shadow had become some kind of mythical horned creature, dancing on the floor no matter what its master did.

That’s enough! It is enough illusions, optical deceptions, compulsions and reproaches of his uncle. Better to be free than noble and rich. Brendan had made his choice. The main thing was that no one would stop him from getting away. A chase would be a nuisance, too, so Brendon cleverly disguised himself, even smeared his skin with grated chocolate powder to simulate a tan. Now he looks like a hobo.

«Sleep well in captivity, Bastard. I don’t let the guardian get to me again!» Brendan slung his bag over his shoulder, grabbed his lute, and was off.