The girl hesitated, then stood where she was, shifting her weight from foot to foot, regarding him doubtfully. She had certainly been told to be wary of housebreakers and thieves, but even dressed in his oldest clothes, Kellen figured he didn't look very much like either one.
'I live nearby,' he said coaxingly. 'Won't you tell me why you're so unhappy?'
That seemed to decide her, and her face regained a little color. 'Can— can you help me, goodsir?' she asked hopefully. She gestured up at the branches over her head with a slim little hand. 'Milady is in the tree— she got out of the kitchen and climbed up, and if Mistress finds us here, she'll have me whipped—and she'll drown Milady!' Fresh tears began to roll down the girl's face.
'I know she will, I know she will, and Milady—'
— Is probably the only friend this little one has, Kellen supplied for himself, feeling a surge of anger at a woman he didn't even know, who would be so heartless as to snuff out the life of a child's pet because it did what any cat would do. When she'd first started to speak, he'd wondered if Milady might be a child of the house that the girl was supposed to be watching, but if the girl was afraid that Mistress would drown her…
It had to be a cat—though the Light help him if it turned out to be a white squirrel, or a monkey, or a ferret, or some other form of outlandish pet. A cat he could probably coax down; with an exotic, he'd probably wind up with a handful of sharp teeth.
'Hush now, don't cry.' Kellen rummaged inside his tunic for a clean handkerchief—reasonably clean, anyway —and handed it to the girl. 'Blow your nose and dry your eyes. I'm sure we can do something about your problem.'
He approached her; she wasn't going to run now. 'Can you show me where she is?'
The girl stood beside him and pointed up into the tree. Kellen looked in the direction she indicated, squinting against the last rays of the setting sun. High in the tree, perched on one of the topmost branches, he could barely make out a small grey fuzzy kitten, its fur nearly the same color as the slippery bark of the tree. It edged back and forth on its branch, which shifted dangerously with every move it made.
Kellen sighed, just a little. Still, he couldn't leave the little thing up there to get all three of them in trouble. And he couldn't just leave the poor little girl here to try to coax it down. Kittens had the bad habit of climbing into inaccessible places, then being too frightened to get down by themselves.
He glanced over his shoulder. A high hedge of ornamental shrubbery screened the bottom of the garden from the view of the house, and at this chime, the inhabitants would be dressing for dinner and the staff would be preparing it. For a little while, at least, it wasn't likely that they'd be found here. He thought hard, coming up with a plan.
He patted her clumsily; she didn't seem to mind. 'Now look here, I'll see if I can't help you out. I'll climb up and get your kitten down. If anyone comes while I'm up there, you must scream as loud as you can, and point up at me. Don't say anything, just scream. Do you understand?' Kellen asked.
The little girl looked puzzled. 'But why?'
Kellen smiled ruefully. 'Well as to that, sweeting, I think you're far too pretty to be whipped for wanting to save your kitten. If you make a lot of noise, they'll all think you came out in the garden chasing me, and you'll be a great heroine.'
'But what about you?' she asked. She might not be very old, but she was evidently wise enough in the ways of her household to know that if she acted as if he were an interloper rather than someone who'd come to help her, he would be in serious trouble.
Then again, anyone who had spoken so casually of being whipped knew plenty about punishment.
'Oh, I'll think of something,' he said airily. And thought: I just hope I don't have to.
And keeping that thought in mind, Kellen turned away from her, put foot and hand to the trunk of the tree, and began to climb.
The lower branches were easy, though the fine-grained bark was as slick as polished wood. The flowers had an overpowering sweet and slightly unpleasant scent as if they were just on the wrong side of decay, even in the cool of the evening, and he dared not get any of their fleshy, greasy petals between his hands and the bark. Once he was higher in the tree he could hear the kitten mewing—hoarsely, as if it had been doing it for some time—but with the leaves in his face Kellen could no longer see it. He did know it was still somewhere above him.
'Here, kitty-kitty-kitty,' Kellen muttered, mostly to himself, for he doubted that the cat could hear him over its own plaintive cries. As a matter of fact, at the moment he felt like making a few plaintive cries of his own…
The tree was very tall. He looked out once, and found himself on a level with the third-floor windows of whatever Mage-house's gardens he was trespassing in, and fought down his vertigo with an effort. After that, he kept his eyes firmly focused on the trunk of the tree and the branches in front of his face.
