Cat-O'nine Tails

by Julia Golding

  Frank took a look around our crowd of well-dressed spectators and gave me a roguish grin. He bowed.

  ‘Things appear to be at something of a stand. Miss Royal, would you do me the honour of the next dance?’

  ‘You’re joking?’ I took a step back. ‘What – dressed like this?’ I gestured to my rows of beads and belted green shirt with silver coins.

  ‘Yes, dressed like that, but perhaps without the bow and arrows.’ He removed my weapons and handed them to Syd. ‘Music, please.’ He waved to the conductor but the man was still frozen with shock.

  Pedro elbowed his way over to the orchestra and commandeered a violin off the nearest musician. With a smile at us, he struck up a minuet.

  Frank saw my hesitation. ‘Do you care to join me or do Indian maids not know how to dance?’

  ‘Of course we do.’ I curtseyed, hand curved elegantly to my breast. ‘Every savage can dance.’

  Syd gave a guffaw of laughter and slapped me on the back. ‘Go on, Kitten, show these Yankees ’ow to do it then,’ he said, beaming. ‘As long as you let me ’ave the next dance.’

  Frank took my fingers lightly in his and we began to walk through the steps of the minuet. Strangely, no one else saw fit to join this set but stood aloof. Frank’s eyes sparkled as he took in my attire.

  ‘I can see that you have an interesting tale to tell,’ he murmured. ‘I can’t wait to hear it.’

  ‘On the condition you let me get my version in first, before you get a garbled one from Mr Davies, our intrepid explorer.’

  Frank squeezed my hand. ‘I can’t tell you how relieved I am to find you still in the land of the living, Cat.’

  ‘I’m rather glad myself.’

  Smiling at the scandalized faces surrounding us, Frank dipped with polish ease as I stepped lightly round him, our hands still clasped.

  ‘I always said you would make a fine dancer, in silk or buckskin,’ Frank murmured in my ear as we progressed up the hall once more. ‘We may have had to travel to the New World to do it, but I am proud to be dancing with you at last, Miss Royal.’

  GOD-DAUGHTER

  Two weeks later, I stood in the sunshine in an upper room of Johnny and Lizzie’s house, holding a mewling bundle in my arms. Lizzie was collapsed on to the pillow, snuggled up in fresh sheets and clean nightgown, taking a well-earned rest. I hadn’t realized having a baby was so hard.

  ‘Lovely, isn’t she?’ Lizzie murmured.

  ‘Perfect,’ I agreed. ‘Shall I tell the proud father that he can come up?’

  She nodded and gave me a tired smile. ‘I hope he’s all right.’

  ‘You are worrying about him!’ I marvelled, shifting the baby into a comfortable crook in my arm. ‘If I know Frank, Pedro and Syd, they will have plied him with brandy for the past twelve hours. I doubt he will be still standing.’

  The men summoned, far more sober than I expected, I moved to join Syd and Pedro in the doorway as Johnny and Frank gathered around Lizzie’s bed. Johnny’s face was a picture – a mixture of joy and terror as he held his tiny daughter and touched her exquisite feet.

  ‘Is Lady Elizabeth well?’ Syd asked delicately, putting an arm around my shoulders.

  ‘Yes, she’s fine now, though it was worse than a storm at sea giving life to that armful of trouble.’

  Syd and Pedro looked at Lizzie in awe.

  ‘Put me off having children, I can tell you,’ I added.

  The baby squawked and batted Johnny on the nose, flailing out for the breast.

  ‘Do you know what? She reminds me of someone,’ Johnny said. ‘Boisterous, demanding, making a noisy entrance into the world.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Lizzie, with a tired smile. ‘Takes after her godmother. Perhaps we should name her after her too?’

  ‘Just what I was thinking, my love,’ agreed Johnny. ‘So, what do you say, Cat?’

  ‘What?’ I took a step back into Syd in surprise.

  ‘Catherine Elizabeth Fitzroy: not a bad name with which to start life. That’s if her godmother will let us borrow it.’ Johnny felt for his wife’s hand and pressed it to his lips.

  My heart filled with pride as I realized they were talking about me. I took the wooden carving of the fish from around my neck and moved to hang it on the baby’s swinging crib so she would see it whenever she was awake. ‘I, Cat Royal of Drury Lane, and of the Wind Clan, would be delighted to sponsor her.’ I said the words solemnly, meaning every syllable. I then turned back to my friends with a grin. ‘After all, with two such perfect parents, someone’s got to set an example to her of how not to behave.’

  Curtain falls

  BELAY – disregard, stop or make fast

  BELAYING PIN – wooden bar on ship’s rail to which ropes can be fastened

  BICORNE – two-cornered hat

  BOSUN – also boatswain, officer responsible for sails, rigging and tackle

  BOSUN’S MATE – seaman who helps the bosun execute orders, often with the aid of a rope on your back

  BOW – foremost part of the ship’s hull

  BOW STREET RUNNERS – London law enforcers

  BULKHEAD – upright partition in a ship

  CANTING CREW – thieves bound together by their own language

  CITY TAVERN – social hub of Philadelphia

  COTILLION – lively French dance, requiring all eight dancers to take part at same time, leaving much room for mistakes

  CROSS-TREES – junction of mast with yardarm, lookout point

  DOXY, DOXIES (pl.) – unflattering description of a woman

  FLAMBEAU – a flaming torch

  FLASH MORT – rich, showy girl

  FLIES – highest point above stage where scenery can be suspended

  FLING ONE’S HAT AFTER SOMEONE – make a futile pursuit

  FORT FREDERICA – abandoned fort on St Simon’s Island, Georgia

  GROG – watered-down spirits (or spirited-up water, depending on your point of view)

  GUNNER – officer responsible for ship’s heavy guns

  HALYARD – rope used to hoist a sail

  HEADS – very unprivate privy on board ship below figurehead

  HOLD – lowest space in a ship, below all decks

  HOLYSTONE – sandstone used to scour deck

  LARBOARD – left-hand side if you are facing the bow

  LINK BOYS – boys and men who are hired to light your way to and from evening entertainments

  MASTER – on a ship, the officer responsible for navigation and piloting

  MASTHEAD – lookout point on top of mast

  MESS – the group of people you eat with on board

  MESS KID – rope-handled bowl used to distribute food

  MINUET – slow, very elegant dance with little steps

  MIZZEN – mast at back of ship

  MUDLARKING – scavenging on the banks of the Thames, a smelly but occasionally rewarding business

  PHILADELPHIA – a major city port in America

  PRESS GANG – enforced recruiting agency for the navy not known for their subtlety

  PUMP ROOM – place in Bath for taking the waters and showing your finery

  PURSER – officer responsible for victuals

  QUARTERDECK – deck above main deck at back of boat (are you following this?)

  REEF – a tuck in a sail or (more ominously) rocks below water

  SAVANNAH – open plains

  SHROUDS – ropes supporting the mast from the side, rope ladders

  SKILLYGALEE – oatmeal gruel cooked in fatty water (is your mouth watering? I thought not)

  SKYLARKING – playing in the rigging (you have to be mad to like it)

  SLOOP – cutter-rigged (one-mast) coasting vessel (don’t worry about it – it’s a kind of boat, that’s all you really need to know)

  STARBOARD – right-hand side if you are facing the bow

  STERN – back end of the boat

  STEVEDORE – man who loads and unloads ships

  SWABBING – more or less t
he same as the landlubber’s scrubbing

  TOP GALLANTS – a square sail set above the topsail, the highest one of all (and not a bunch of swell gents as you might think)

  TOP MEN – elite crew who rig the highest sails

  UPPER ROOMS – new Assembly Rooms in Bath, place to see and be seen

  WEEVILS – small beetles that infest food

  YARDARM – horizontal spar (or pole to you and me) holding sails

  YOUNG BLOOD – rich young gentleman, sporting type

  CHICKAMAUGA – dwelling place of the chief

  ENHESSE – friend

  ENKA – all right, yes

  ESTONKO – hello, how are you?

  FO – Bee

  HELES-HAYV – medicine maker

  HERES CE – hello

  PUSE – grandmother

  SASAKWA – goose

  VHOYVKETS – let’s go

  WELEETKA – running water

  YOPO – nose

  Julia Golding

  Julia Golding read English at Cambridge then joined the Foreign Office and served in Poland. Her work as a diplomat took her from the high point of town twinning in the Tatra Mountains to the low of inspecting the bottom of a Silesian coal mine.

  On leaving Poland, she exchanged diplomacy for academia and took a doctorate in the literature of the English Romantic period at Oxford. She then joined Oxfam as a lobbyist on conflict issues, campaigning at the UN and with governments to lessen the impact of conflict on civilians living in war zones.

  Married with three children, Julia now lives in Oxford. CAT O’NINE TAILS is the fourth book in the brilliant Cat Royal series. The first Cat Royal book, THE DIAMOND OF DRURY LANE, was the winner of the Waterstones’ Children’s Book Prize and winner of the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book Award.

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