Here we are again! Thanks to everyone who has been reading and giving me feedback!

As usual, I own nothing, profit from nothing, and breathlessly await the DVDs from those who do!

Special thanks to Seneselesswords for her help with the title.

Sept 17, 1806

The kitten's eyes were newly open, unfocused, and a brilliant blue. The child's eyes were brown, and, at the moment, only for the kitten. He cradled the little bundle of grey and white fur upside-down and rubbed its belly. Diego, fully two feet away-a new record, surely-watched proudly.

Senor Alvarez cleared his throat. "Don Diego, have you given any thought to what you will do with him when you get home? Or will you simply present him to your father with no particular plan in mind?"

Diego looked up sharply. "You agreed it would be wrong to leave him behind. We couldn't find even one single-"

"And I still agree," he said reasonably. "But now that you have taken this responsibility, you must consider what comes next. He is not a puppy or a pony, he is a child, and it is all very well for him to play with kittens now, here on the deck, but he will someday be a man, and he must be prepared for life."

"If he were a pony, Diego would have no trouble training him," Gilberto observed caustically. That earned him a dark look from the tutor.

For the first time, though, Diego looked a little uncertain. "He's not the first deaf child in the world. There must be...a procedure," Diego fumbled. "A pedagogy."

"No, there are...I think...two, in fact. The German method, which focuses on teaching oral speech, and the French method, which translates spoken language into, well, manual language. With gestures."

Diego looked up. "Like the hand language the Indians use for trade."

Senor Alvarez nodded. "Or the signs monks use during silent hours of the day." He sighed at the boy. "The swelling in his throat has just gone down enough for him to eat normally. Surely, it is too soon to attempt speaking..."

"He's never made a sound," Diego said. "Not in his sleep, not in pain, not weeping. I don't think he can."

Gilberto took a deep breath. "Diego. You have to consider...the blow he took to the head. He might be addled."

As expected, Diego bristled at the suggestion. "He's not!"

This conversation was one Gilberto had been putting off and Senor Alvarez and Juan had been avoiding entirely, but someone had to breach the topic because Diego was far too sentimental to look at this rationally. "You don't want to face the prospect, I know. But you must consider-"

"No, thank you, I don't need to consider." He pointedly turned away from Gilberto. "How much do you know about the French method? I suppose it would be too much to hope for, that you'd have a book?"

"I'm afraid I know very little. I had a friend who once tutored three deaf children for a family in Barcelona. But that was years, ago. I don't even know where he is now."

"Juan?" Diego asked. "Do you know anything about the Indian hand language?"

Juan shrugged. "I can barter for otter pelts if what you have to trade for them is iron pans, wool blankets, or steel knives."

Diego sighed heavily. "Then we will have to invent signs. At least to start with."

"If you are right about his mind being intact, once he starts, he will do that very quickly. But you may want start working on his literacy. Because he cannot hear the words, spelling will only be an arbitrary association of symbol groups with objects. I fear it will be slow going."

"His mind is fine," Diego said firmly. He walked around the child and squatted in front of him. At once the boy looked up. Diego smiled. The boy watched him solemnly. He had not smiled in the days since they'd found him, but Gilberto could not bring himself to fault him for that. He couldn't be more than five or six, he had probably seen his family killed, and he had no hope of going home.

Diego tapped the grey kitten and held out his palm. "Please," he said, an automatic politeness that meant nothing to the recipient. It wasn't needed: small hands at once offered up their prize. Diego smiled and patted the boy's shoulder, shooting a triumphant look at the others.

But triumph quickly faded to uncertainty: what now?

Diego looked down at the kitten. He turned it so the face was toward the boy and held it carefully in view. With one hand he guided the boy to stroke the fine whiskers. Diego handed back the kitten, but when the boy's eyes dropped to look at it, he tilted his chin gently back up and then pinched out pantomime whiskers beside his own mouth.

Could it be that easy?

No. The boy reached out and touched Diego's face. Gently, Diego guided the hand back to the kitten's whiskers. Slowly, he pointed to the cat and traced the sign again. The boy's earnest regard didn't flicker.

"'Berto, come here, sit beside me."

Knowing what was coming, Gilberto came and sat. Without waiting for prompting, he held out a hand imperiously and then made Diego's sign for cat. Diego reached into the battered box that held the rest of the litter and produced an orange kitten which he handed over. "Let's hope it doesn't have fleas," Gilberto muttered.

Diego ignored that and repeated the procedure for asking for a cat. In response, Gilberto shook his head. He wouldn't. Diego asked again, more strongly. With a show of false reluctance, Gilberto handed it over.

The child gasped. The grey kitten he was holding slid through his fingers and dropped to his lap. Diego waited. With unsteady hands the child asked for the kitten Diego was holding. Beaming, Diego gave it to him. "Would anyone care to comment on the capacity of his mind?" he crowed.