Plain Kate meets Linay
Go read the intro to Plain Kate and to Taggle before you read this.
As usual I've started the first chapter in the middle. Oh well. Here, headless, tailess, is the first chapter of Plain Kate, Her Cat, and the King's Shadow, complete with way too much talking, as is also usual for an early draft. I am greatly encouraged by remembering LeGuin's report of her editor's notes: "Ged talks too much. Can't you shut him up?" It's that peculiar writerly sort of schadenfreude, that comes from knowing your betters have the same problems you do....
______________________________
"Lovely lass," he said, leaning his sharp elbows on the counter, "I hear you work wonders in wood."
"There's a guild shop – " she began, as she was required to.
He snorted, and managed to make it elegant. "Young Chuny? Boxwood for brains, dead twigs for fingers. No, no, my girl. I want someone with some feeling. You see," he widened sad eyes at her, "I've suffered a loss." And he drew from his back, where it was slung like a sword, a length of wood.
The thing was the size of a small branch, polished and curved. An undone string curled around it. The back of the curve was splintery and broken. Plain Kate took the thing, feeling the arc of it, simple and powerful like a longbow or the bow of a ship. "What is it?"
"A courtier to the queen of all wooden things," said the stranger. He had taken something from his pack, big as a big book, and wrapped in blankets. He laid the bundle in the woodshavings between them and unwrapped the swaddling cloths. Polished wood gleamed up at her. She smelled beeswax and oil. "My fiddle. It's a bow for my fiddle." And he half sang: "A walker, a wanderer, a trader in tin – a gypsy with a violin. My name is Linay, and I grant wishes. What do you wish for, Plain Kate?"
Just then, Taggle sprang from nowhere to plunk down on the counter between them. He stuck his long nose into Linay's pack.
"Tag!" Plain Kate picked him up. He gave a squirm of disdain, then relaxed into her arm and started to purr. Plain Kate eased him onto one shoulder and he slunk around her neck, where he draped bonelessly, like a fur collar with glittering eyes.
"Why," said Linay, "the king's ermine could not match that." He reached out to chuckle the cat's chin. Taggle bit him, idly. Linay pulled his hand back and smiled with many teeth. "Sweet-tempered little beast."
Plain Kate ran a finger down the dark polish and into the pale splinters. "I could make another, I think. But I haven't made one before. It will need some work and some time." She put down the broken bow. "What can you pay me?"
"Mmmm," he leaned close. "I could write a song about your eyes."
"Don't be stupid. Something I can eat."
"Do I have twenty pounds of potatoes in my pack? I travel light, lass. I have nothing my music and my magic and a few thin coins."
"Magic?" she echoed
He smiled slow as a fern uncurling, and sang: "What do you wish for, at night in your dark drawer – what do you wish for, Plain Kate?" And while he was singing he reached out and brushed the side of her face. His hands smelled of bitter herbs and something shot through her like ice on the neck.
"Now that's a wish," he said. "But I wouldn't. To raise the dead, it's a tricky thing. Goes awry most often."
Plain Kate jerked back. Taggle slid off her shoulders and landed on the counter with a bump. He gave her a huffy look, then sat down to clean himself. "I didn't wish for that."
"Of course you do, orphan girl. Everyone does and I should know. I've raised a man or two in my time, and how they come shambling, how they come hungry, how they come wrong as a bird in water --"
Plain Kate blurted: "I wish my cat could talk."
"Oh ho!" Linay grinned at her. "Good, good, wonderful good! That's a true wish, that is, a heart's wish for all that you said it to cut short my tale. And I could do it, yes I could." He leaned in and gave her an elaborately sly look, like an actor playing a villain, and playing for laughs. "Now, it's more than a bow is worth, but we might trade."
"I won't marry you," she said. She had heard about musicians.
He laughed, merry but not kind. "Little stick, I don’t want to marry you."
"Well," Kate stuck out her square chin. "What, then?"
"Your shadow." He eyed her over the fiddle strings. "If you give me your shadow, I will make your cat talk. Sing, if you like. Fly." He plucked at the strings with his fingers, creating a skirling run that rushed up into twang. "Even land. How about that, a cat with wings?"
"But why do you want it?" Plain Kate lived in a market, and knew about market value.
"For the music. I weave shadows into the strings." And now he plucked something slow and sad as a lonely road. "With shadows in the strings, how the music moves and sings … With a shadow like yours, orphan girl--" he winked at her "--I could make the king cry."
"Potatoes," she said. "Or fishhooks. Fine wood, maybe. I'll have no deals with witches."
"Won't you now?" he said, smiling. "We'll see about that." He began to bundle his fiddle back up. "I have no potatoes or fishhooks or oxcarts or sailcloth. Two coins, silver."
"Five," she said.
"Three," he said. "You have a week."
3 Comments
I like it! Keep the talk!
This is great! Don’t worry about the talk now—just keep the story coming. And, oh, don’t let Kate give him her shadow! Big mistake! (On the other hand, big mistake=big trouble=strong plot).
Oh goodness, I love this, love it! I like the talk, it flows. Talking is the best way to introduce characters and let the reader into the rules of the world… or so I think.
Linay is sly and ever so slightly unsettling, Kate is blunt and canny. I like them quite a bit. Write the book, I’ll buy one. =)