A Tale of Two Castles (15 page)

“He is rich. He will be tall. His father, the earl of Profond, is tall.”

She swallowed again. “How old is the son?”

“He was born six months ago. Love is deep when it starts early.”

“Cruel!” The word exploded out of me. My hand flew to my mouth to snatch it back, but it seemed to fill the entire tower.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“I
—cruel?” the king said mildly.

I looked down at my shoes peeking out from my hem. How worn they were, water stained and grimy. What would His Highness do to me?

“Am I cruel, daughter?”

“You are never cruel. Does the son have ringlets in his hair?” Her voice lightened. “Ringlets are charming.”

“I am told he has golden ringlets.”

“Will he be handsome, do you think?”

I looked up.

She threw her arms around the king's neck. “You are goodness itself.” She raised her head. “
Eh
lodie, my husband will be tall and rich, and he will never turn into a mouse. How happy I am.”

King Grenville patted her back. “I'm glad, child.”

“And how sad I was a moment ago.”

“Eat, my love. The sausages are very fine.”

She returned to her seat. “If they are fine, we must share them.” She cut off a chunk and fed it to him.

While chewing, he continued. “The count would have been a great help against Tair, but the earl is eager to put money into the undertaking.” He seemed to remember my presence. “Girl, you may leave. You will do well to stay out of my sight unless a real snake is exiting from your mouth. That I would like to see.”

His laughter followed me out the door.

In the inner ward, I went straight to the well. The jam came off easily, but the sauce had hardened. On my chin I needed to chip away a congealed bit with my fingernail. When I thought I had rinsed the food away, I scrubbed again. I felt dirty under the skin.

From the well I returned to the great hall to ask Sir Misyur how I might help in the search—not to see if Master Thiel was still there, which he wasn't.

Several servants carried trestles to the middle of the hall, in readiness for a meal, I supposed.

“Elodie,” Sir Misyur said, looking up. “Nesspa must want a walk. Will you be so kind as to take him to the outer ward.”

I got him from the count's apartment, and he pulled me into the postern passage, which was long enough to be dark even in midday.

“Young Mistress Elodie?”

My heart lurched with fright until I recognized the voice. Then it simply lurched. In the gloom, I saw Nesspa leap up to lick Master Thiel's face.

“May I walk with you?”

I nodded, although he couldn't have seen my head bob.

Outside, Nesspa ran here and there, sniffing as I let out his chain.

Master Thiel slung his sack over his shoulder. The coins in his purse jingled. “There is a question I would like to ask you.”

The start of a Lahnt love song ran through my mind:
A secret meeting and a secret, a sweet greeting . . .

“You may ask.” How grown-up I sounded!

“In Master Sulow's mansion, what were your thoughts when you pretended to be Thisbe?”

This was his question?

I sighed. “I was very hungry. Remember the bowl of apples? I pretended an apple was Pyramus. I adored that apple.”

Nesspa sniffed a patch of grass, then barked and scuffed up clods of dirt with his back legs, after which he tugged me away, following a new scent.

“And last night, when you mansioned the princesses?”

“I simply thought about the fairy tale. When I was the princesses, I imagined myself in their stead.” The words repeated in my mind:
I imagined myself in their stead
. The words were important, but I didn't see how.
I imagined myself in their stead
. “Why do you ask?”

“I hope to be . . .”

I looked up.

He was blushing. “. . . something more than a plate mender or cat teacher. Despite Sulow's first no, becoming a mansioner may be within my grasp, and it would be”—he paused—“an exciting life.”

No one could be a true mansioner who wanted the life, not the mansioning.

Nesspa raised his head. He sniffed the air, then howled deep in his throat and ran, pulling me helplessly along.

Master Thiel grabbed the chain just above my hand. Between the two of us, we controlled the dog, who continued to strain toward the south ward, keening eerily. We followed, Master Thiel so close to me that my shoulder jogged his side. He smelled of hay—another night in the stable, perhaps.

Was Nesspa taking us to the ogre, safe out here by some miracle?

When we neared the southwest tower, I heard groans above Nesspa's whines. Master Thiel and I stopped restraining the dog and raced behind him.

We rounded the tower. Not many yards away, an ox lay on the ground, bleeding into the grass.

“Get Master Dess from the stable,” I yelled. Master Thiel could run faster than I could.

His face was pale, as mine must have been. “Can—”

“Go!” I cried.

He left me at a run.

The blood was seeping from gashes that striped the beast's neck and shoulder. He struggled to his knees, then collapsed on his side, panting heavily. Nesspa wagged his tail and licked the wound.

“Poor thing.” I stroked the ox's face. Lepai oxen are mild-tempered. “What happened to you?”

Masteress Meenore could have done this.

A lion could have done it. My hand stopped in the air above the beast's cheek. Had the count turned back into a lion?

Or might this ox be His Lordship?

Master Dess arrived soon, carrying a sack, but Master Thiel didn't come with him.

“Honey, honey. Dess is here.” He pressed linen from his sack into the cuts, layer upon layer of cloth until the blood stopped showing through.

“Master Dess . . . is the ox—”

“Just an ox. Girl, put your hands here. I need to move him.” He had me take his place pushing down on the bandages.

“Like this?” I wished my hands were bigger.

“Yes, and don't stop pressing.”

No one could move an ox if the ox didn't help, but Master Dess got his hands under the beast and murmured in his ear. The ox groaned and rolled backward a few inches.

“Now your mouth, honey, honey.” He eased it open. “Keep holding, girl, girl.” He placed a large leaf on the beast's tongue. Then he gently closed the mouth and released me from my task. “If you and Master Thiel hadn't found him, the beast would soon have been beyond my help.”

“He'll live?”

“Likely he will.” The ox squirmed. “There, honey. I'm here. I'll stay with him now.”

I had been dismissed, but I hovered. “Did a lion attack him? Did—”

“I don't know.” His voice was harsh again.

I brought Nesspa back to His Lordship's apartment. Afterward I paused in the inner ward, uncertain what to do next.

Voices came from the kitchen. I heard “lion” and stood in the doorway. News of the ox couldn't have reached anyone yet except by way of Master Thiel's tongue.

Master Jak set me to peeling and slicing turnips. The kitchen servants were jubilant, despite the ox. All were certain that His Lordship had been the lion. He lived and would return soon in his usual form. I wished I shared their certainty, but I kept thinking of my masteress killing the hare in almost the same spot as the ox had fallen.

A maid said, “What if he remains a lion? What if he cannot change back?”

“He stopped being a mouse, didn't he?” Master Jak said. “And he never harmed a hair on a human being before, though he was big enough as his ordinary self.”

“But,” the butcher said darkly, “they'll think the worst in Two Castles. When he's an ogre again, someone will try to kill him.” He whacked his chopper down on the neck of a struggling chicken. “By cat or arrow or ax, eventually someone will succeed.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

W
hen my turnips were all peeled and sliced, I slipped into the great hall, which was deserted now. I claimed my satchel and left, exiting the castle by the postern entrance.

I started down the track that would take me to the road to town. But after a few steps, I stopped. I couldn't go to IT if I believed IT could have mauled the ox.

Did I?

I stared up at the sky, which was milky with haze across the sun. Not far from here, IT had dropped out of the air to shelter me from the rain.

IT wouldn't hurt an ox. I didn't deduce or induce or even use common sense to decide. Lambs and calves, I trusted IT.

At the menagerie the gate was open again or still open, but this time two guards flanked it, facing inward.

Although I had planned to go directly to my masteress, I went in under the noses of the guards, who seemed not to notice me. Beyond the ornamental shrubbery, a peacock strutted, its feathers fanned open. I recalled the roasted peacock at the feast.

“One tin for entry!”

To my right a plump man sat on a high stool with a basket in his lap—the menagerie keeper, no doubt. I dug in my purse.

“Everyone must pay. Except the king and the princess and anyone they say doesn't have to pay. Did one of them say that to you?”

I was tempted to lie, but I shook my head.

“An honest girl needn't pay. Honesty is worth a tin. Parade of people today.”

Who?

“The princess didn't pay,” he said. “And she told me to let that pleasant young man, the miller's son, in for free. They arrived early.” He slid down from his stool and turned out to be no taller than I. “Come.” He headed toward an avenue of cages and pens. “You want to see the monkeys. Everyone did. No one lingered. They've all gone. I'll go with you myself. Perhaps the creatures are shedding golden hairs.”

“Who else visited?”

“His Lordship's steward and the animal physician. Master Dess visited all the animals, stayed awhile at each cage. And half the town came—the tailor, Master Corm, the baker, Master Gatow, and . . .”

Naturally they'd come. As the menagerie keeper listed the townspeople who'd stopped by, I clenched my jaw with impatience. He walked so slowly, and I, too, wanted only to see the monkeys. If His Lordship were anything else, I wouldn't be able to tell, but I might recognize him as a monkey.

Still, I looked around. I had never visited a menagerie before. Some animals were shackled as well as caged, and both the cages and the pens needed cleaning.

I asked the menagerie keeper to point out the high eena, which turned out to be a striped beast, the size of a wolf, who stood motionless in a corner of its cage.

Before reaching the monkeys, we passed an assortment of other beasts: a huge creature with a murderous-looking horn, a yellow-and-blue snake, a dozen ratlike animals with long snouts, and more.

The monkeys' cage was at the end, holding three adult monkeys and a lively monkey child, who climbed the bars of the cage. Two adults sat together, one of them picking through the fur of the other. Across the cage, the third adult lay on its side and seemed to be asleep.

“You've always had three?”

“The third came last year, and the little one was born here.”

The monkeys ignored us. Not one smiled at me. I felt a pang in my chest.

“Master, is there more than this?” I gestured at the line of cages and pens.

“No more animals, except the fleas.”

We started back to the gate. When we reached it, I bade him farewell and thanked him for his kindness.

“No trouble. Had to get down from my stool anyway. End of day. Feeding time.”

“Master? Do you lock the gate at night?”

“Not I. No key. His Majesty's guards do it after I've gone.”

The guards might forget sometimes, I supposed. I curtsied and left him. When I reached the lair, I found it empty, so I hurried to the market square, where the marchpane vendor said IT hadn't sold skewers today.

“IT came earlier,” she said, “and bothered people with questions about the ogre's feast.”

I decided to wait in the lair, but on Sabow Street I saw a column of black smoke ahead and remembered that IT sometimes made the fire hotter for Master Bonay, the blacksmith. I followed the smoke.

ITs shoulders and trunk filled the doorway of the smithy. ITs head was inside.

The shop abutted the town wall, set apart from the line of houses across the way. And no wonder it was alone: The entire building glowed fiery gold.

Master Bonay stood nearby, holding his poker in his right hand. He turned as I approached, although I don't know how he heard me over the rush of fire. “Ah, the dragon's apprentice.”

“Assistant, master.”

Ash drifted down on us.

He grinned. One of his front teeth was gone, but the others shone white against his sooty face. “A great day. Meenore the Unfathomable, the Stingy, lights my furnace for free.”

Smoke eddied from the side of the shed as well as from the chimney. Curious, I went there and discovered a window. I waved to clear the smoke, peered in, and gasped.

A thick jet of white fire shot from ITs mouth into the forge, the flame roaring as it spewed forth.

How could IT create such an inferno?

Nearby, a man worked a bellows. I marveled that he didn't melt.

Master Bonay spoke into my ear. “I used to pump the bellows.” He chuckled. “Better to be a master than an apprentice.”

Undoubtedly. I crossed the street to where the heat was less fierce. Master Bonay joined me there, and we waited several minutes while, gradually, the noise dwindled. The shed's incandescence dimmed. A few minutes more and my masteress backed away from the doorway.

“Bonay?”

“Behind you.”

IT turned. ITs eyes were paler than I'd ever seen them.

“Bonay?” A set of almost transparent eyelids lifted. IT had two pairs of eyelids. “There you are. Lodie, you are in time to hear Bonay answer my inquiries.”

How did IT know I hadn't come on some urgent matter?

“Fire away, Meenore.” Bonay laughed at his own joke.

Enh enh enh.

The smith hadn't been a guest at the castle. Why was IT questioning him?

“Do you believe the ogre is now a lion, Bonay, a lion who mauled his own ox?”

“I believe it. I heard a lion's roar a few nights ago—”

As I had.

“His guests saw him turn into a lion. Only a fool would
dis
believe.” He shrugged. “Makes no difference to me if His Lordship the lion is still prowling.” He raised his poker. “I have this and my cat.”

“Tell me, Bonay, if you have your cat and your poker, why wear an aegis?”

What was an eejis?

Bonay looked down at the bracelet of twine on his left wrist.

“Lodie,” IT said, “you've wondered about the twine. We have a saying in Two Castles:
Innocence bares its wrist and trusts its luck. Guilt wraps its wrist and trusts no one.
”

I understood. The twine bracelets were a protection from harm—for people who had done harm.

Goodwife Celeste wore twine, and so did Master Thiel!

“Guilt isn't the only reason to wear a bracelet, Meenore. I need protection from fire, a roof beam collapsing.”

“I fly over town at night when the mood strikes me. Most houses are asleep, but your shed is awake. Who is giving you silver and gold, Bonay?”

The apprentice emerged from the shed. “The fire is hot enough, Master.”

“You may use the tongs, Gar. You're ready. I'll come in to see what you've done.”

The apprentice disappeared back into the shed.

“This is none of your affair, Meenore.”

“We have a bargain.”

He relented. “Burghers in debt bring me silver sometimes. Occasionally gold.”

Violet smoke rose from ITs nostrils. “Burghers in debt take their precious metals to a jewelry smith. Who really brings you silver and gold? Do not lie to me.”

“I didn't agree to be insulted. I answered your question. My obligation is discharged.” He shifted the poker from his left hand to his right. “You are all smoke and no fire, Meenore.”

IT grinned. “Two Castles boasts three blacksmiths, but the king sends all his sword work to you. Why is that, Lodie?”

Bonay's face was still sooty, so I felt rather than saw him pale. I cast about for an answer.

“I pay for your services!”

“And the others would as well. Lodie, Bonay has the king's custom because Bonay's fire is hottest.”

And the fire was hottest because Masteress Meenore heated it.

“I will ask once more: Who brings you silver and gold?”

“Do not say I told you.”

“I make no promises.”

Bonay dug his poker into the dirt and rocked it back and forth. “Thiel brings me silver.”

I swallowed a gasp.

“And when they come to Two Castles, a Goodman Twah and his Goodwife Celeste bring both gold and silver. They come infrequently, but they bring a great deal. I don't have to pay them as much as I pay Thiel, who bargains hard.”

“Anyone else?”

Anyone else I admired? The princess? Sir Misyur? Master Dess?

“Just those three—Thiel and the old couple.”

My masteress wouldn't let me into the lair or listen to any of what I had to tell until I had washed myself and laundered my clothes. The sky had darkened to night by then, and I was damp and cold, but the lair warmed me.

An area between the cupboard and the door had been curtained off. Curious, I approached the curtain.

“Leave it be, Lodie.”

I backed away.

The cheese and bread were in bowls on the fireplace bench.

“I have new cheese. Tell me how you like it.” IT threaded skewers and toasted them in the fireplace, one for IT, two for me. “And we still have a few figs and dates from His Lordship's visit. They are in a bowl in the cupboard. Fetch it.”

I wondered if IT had saved the delicacies for me.

When the skewers were toasted, I sampled the new cheese, which was sharper than any I'd ever tasted. “Mmm. Delicious.”

“Make more skewers if you like.” IT settled on ITs belly, ITs head and neck along the floor between me on the bench and the hearth, ITs eyes on me. “And tell me everything.”

I did so, ending with my visit to the menagerie.

IT raised ITs head. “When you found the ox, you saw nothing of a lion?”

“Nothing.”

“The grass around the ox had not been disturbed? You saw no tracks?”

“The grass was bloody, but not torn up.”

“Why is this detail important, Lodie?”

I imagined a lion, stalking a grazing ox. The ox smells something amiss, lifts his head, turns. Sees the lion. The ox gallops. The lion is faster and springs. The ox swings his horns, misses the lion. The lion's teeth rake the ox's shoulder. The lion's claws scratch.

I closed my eyes tight and screwed my face into a grimace, feeling the pain of the ox.

The ox whirls, trying to get free, sending up great clods of dirt and grass.

“Oh!” I opened my eyes.

“Yes, Elodie?”

“There was no lion.”