Cataindar

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Luisa’s life had become split between two worlds, above ground and below it; with her old life just a shadow held in her heart.

She missed her mother every day. Her grandmother’s presence was suffocating. Luisa and Max’s time was scheduled to the minute. The day was divided up like school, with blocks of homework, constitutional hikes along countryside paths and evenings of appropriate television or quiet reading.

As much as the days were dry, the nights were rich. Each time her eyelids fluttered opened she felt refreshed, excited to continue her rites immersing herself in the culture of the catains. Despite spending her nights awake, Luisa felt no ill effects, in fact she felt better than ever.

Luisa had spent her first day after the kitchens with the moppers, or the seiri as they referred to themselves (she had quickly found out they weren’t fond of the term ‘mopper’). They were responsible for the repairs and cleaning of the general areas of Cataindar.  If it wasn’t someone’s private quarters, or part of the readers’ or scougers’ area then they dealt with it.  They were headed by a saggy faced, near-deaf catain called Mrs. Bowood.

Mrs. Bowood had little time for princesses or catains alike, but made sure Luisa understood how important her job was, as without the seiri, catain waste would build up and up until they all drowned in it. 

Luisa was given a short tour of all the different kinds of their cleaning apparatus and how the sewage was transported and worked into soft points around Cataindar to coax the edible knarl root to grow there.  In the coming years the knarl roots could be harvested for food.  She was shown down the deep cave where there was the Sacred Pool, part of an underground water system that give Cataindar its supply of fresh water. Then, she was promptly given a scrub brush and bucket and sent off with the young catain mopper to scrub the Great Cavern floor. 

She took to the work with enthusiasm, eager to match her silent companion but couldn’t keep up and after a while, sat back, her arms aching.  A huge tapestry adorned the far wall of the Great Cavern and ran its whole length. The faded detail and colours were brought to life by the flickering flames of the torches underneath. The tapestry depicted rich forests with thousands of Catain scougers marching in a line. Behind them was a young handsome human man in armour; a crown adorned his brow and bolts of blue lightning coming from his hands.  

Is this what they expect of me?

Her eye fell to the end of the cavern, there sat the ‘Royal Chamber’ through which Luisa had fallen. A squat test-tube, surrounded in brass gilding and pipes with stone steps that lead to the little ornate door. Luisa shivered, the memory now inflicted a deep cringe upon her.

 No. How could they. 

Thank goodness she wouldn’t need to go through something like that again.  

She continued her rites next with the cerddorion. They were the Catain's fine arts guilden. Their members made up the same orchestra that had so horrified Luisa when she had first arrived in Cataindar. Luisa found out from Mr. Notes that they had only been working on the song for three decades to herald their new princess’ arrival. They took the opportunity to proudly play the coronation song in full.

Luisa was no musician, but to her ears it sounded awful. Perhaps Catain ears were tuned differently, because the high-notes pierced to her ears, and it was only from politeness that she didn’t cover them. 

Soon it was her turn to try and play. Their instruments were difficult to operate and even harder to coax a tune from. In the attempt Luisa plucked the string right off a small guitar and Mr. Notes had let a loud shriek. He assured Luisa a little too forcefully that everything was fine while delicately carrying the guitar away from her like it was a wounded babe.

The ceddorion did several performances throughout the year in various arts discaplines. They had run out of painting supplies a long time ago, but now specialised in incredibly detailed root carvings and held the Cataindar Carver Championship each year.  Mr. Notes taught Luisa in the art of whittling wood. By the end of the day she had managed to make a rough outline of a person.  Mr. Notes held it up in his paw,

“Not bad… not bad at all Princess,”

He looked at her over his glasses, while carefully handing back to her the carving.

“Humans are very strange aren’t they, with only fur growing on top of your head? I wonder, you must get very cold.”

“I guess so,” said Luisa touching the top of her head absentmindedly, she hadn’t really thought of that before.

Her next day of rites were with Miss. Gleave, one of Cataindar’s young teachers.

Fluffy kitains, piled into the classroom, mewling and tumbling around with one another. Once settled, Luisa had sat at the back to observe. One kitain (ignoring Miss Gleave’s demands for attention) left it’s small stool, tottered over to Luisa and pounced on her lap.

“Aww,” She scratched the kitain behind its ears and it squirmed in delight, purring.

Miss Gleave was, in two great pounces, across the class and with apologies, took the kitain by the scruff of its neck and placed it firmly back in its stool.  For the rest of the class the kitain kept turning back to Luisa, staring at her in the charming un-bashful way that children do, and waving at her with its oversized paws.

It was everything Luisa could do not to try and take it home.

In school the kitains would learn how to read, write and fight before taking the tests that decided in which guildens they would serve.

Her following rite was with the catain doctors, defined by their distinctive blue tunics and white sashes around their necks. She toured the catains small medical chamber. It was sparsely stocked.  Cataindar’s doctor, Dr. Carnduff, sat down on a stool and explained to Luisa, 

“We do our best, we have a large volunteer committee of medics, led by the indomitable Ms. Chopland.  Most of our severe injuries come from the scougers and she is very close with a certain few. As you can see we are sparsely stocked, the scougers do their best of course, they gather as many medicinal roots and herbs as they can for us. But I have a feeling that more than a fair share of these end up in Ms. Chopland’s cupboard.”

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Tim