A Tale of Two Castles

  IT was being horrible. “Master Thiel brought Pardine. The mayor’s wife had a cat. Goodwife Celeste’s son-in-law had one. The man whose water you heat.” I squeezed my eyes shut in hopes of extracting more from my memory. “I don’t know who else.”

  “I see,” IT said coldly.

  This wasn’t fair! IT should have hired an assistant who knew Two Castles—and left me to starve. “I’m sorry.”

  “No doubt.”

  Goodwife Celeste was right about the moodiness.

  “Masteress . . . why did Master Thiel arrive with the other guests when he’d been here last night?”

  “The correct question is, Why was he here last night?”

  I could say nothing to please IT. “Yes, why?”

  “We will ask him, now that we know the proper question. Tell me again: You saw no one signal the cats?”

  I shook my head. “My eyes were on His Lordship, except when I looked down, where the snake was coming out of my mouth.”

  The skin above ITs snout crinkled, which I deduced or induced meant confusion.

  “The imaginary moonsnake.”

  “Ah. Go to bed, Lodie. Perhaps you will dream something useful.” IT lifted into the sky.

  When would I see IT again?

  I started toward the gatehouse, although, with His Lordship gone, I no longer had a right to sleep in the castle.

  No one stopped me. The guards didn’t even look my way. In the great hall, the tables had been taken down. Only one lamp was still lit. By its glow I saw that several servants were already asleep. Others sat up, their pallets pulled close together in clusters.

  I wanted to hear the conversation.

  My pallet, bulging with my satchel, was an island yards from the others. I carried it to the nearest cluster.

  But as soon as I set it down, a woman servant turned around. “Sleep elsewhere.”

  I chose better this time, placing myself behind Master Jak’s broad back, where no one seemed to notice me. Now, if only I had the cupped ears of a donkey for better hearing.

  “. . . beeswax candles . . . niece . . . Beeswax! Worth . . .” I heard a sniffle, something mumbled.

  “. . . kind . . .”

  “. . . Two Castles . . .”

  I leaned over the edge of the pallet, set my forearms down, and pulled myself nearer to the voices. The pallet’s wooden frame slid silently on the dirt floor.

  Ah. Now I could hear.

  “What was the longest he ever stayed a monkey?”

  “Two weeks, by thunder.” The speaker was Master Jak. “When he grew big again, he half ate the castle out of food. Never lost his ogre appetite.”

  “Might he . . .”

  “Perhaps.”

  “In a hidey-hole.”

  “Growing hungry.”

  “Frightened, by thunder.”

  Silence fell. These people loved him. I wondered if I’d hear like talk from each cluster and from the sleeping servants if they were awake.

  Someone snuffed out the lamp. People became shapes. The murmuring continued. I wished they would talk about the moment before the transformation. Master Jak had been in the kitchen, but some of the others might have served the guests. One might have seen or heard something: a nod, a word, a guest’s hand flash in a cat signal.

  The whispering began again.

  “Misyur will read the will.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Not tomorrow, by thunder. We’ll keep searching tomorrow. But soon.”

  “What will become of us?”

  Whispering voices sounded much alike. I had recognized Master Jak’s only because of his by thunder and the masculine rumble under his whisper.

  My heart skipped. Could I ask a question and have each think another had spoken?

  The conversation moved along. “Will the king let His Lordship’s will stand? His Highness wants this castle.”

  “Two castles in Two Castles, and both his.”

  “We’ll lose our places, very likely.”

  “I wouldn’t serve Greedy Grenny if he got down on his royal knees and begged me.”

  “He went back to eating after His Lordship turned into a mouse. I won’t serve him either.”

  The murmurs turned to where servants might be needed. Slowly, slowly, I crawled off my pallet, holding my breath, hoping the whispers would cover my tiny sounds.

  I wanted my voice to come from within the circle, and at last I knelt between two people. The servants discussed the merits of serving nobility or burghers. I rehearsed what to say and how to say it, while waiting for a pause. If they had gone over my question already, they’d catch me.

  My knees grew numb. They spoke of monthly half holidays and wages.

  Finally, silence fell.

  My heart raced. I counted three beats, then whispered, “Did . . .” Mansion the accent! Draw out the vowels. Pound the consonants. “Did anyone see a signal along the table? A . . . a signal to the cats?”

  I drew back.

  Pause . . . Pause . . .

  They were going to find me!

  Pause . . .

  “Or a signal from the dais, by thunder. Any of them up there could have done it.”

  “It happened so quick.”

  I inched back to my pallet.

  “They were lifting tumblers, their knives . . .”

  “Feeding each other.”

  “The princess gave away more than she ate. Not like her father.”

  “Everyone was laughing at the snake coming out of the girl’s mouth. I laughed, too.”

  “Egad, Master Thiel could have done it. Hates His Lordship.”

  A female whisper said, “They all hate His Lordship.”

  “Not so much as Thiel.”

  “Nesspa would have protected his master.”

  “Thiel didn’t have to signal. Likely he gave the cat instructions. That Pardine is as smart as—”

  “We mustn’t name folks. We don’t know.”

  “If it was a signal, who could see a wrist flick in all those people?”

  “By thunder, I would have seen.”

  “By thunder, you mightn’t have. Somebody could have signaled under the table.”

  “If one cat saw the signal, all would join the chase.”

  “Perhaps no one signaled. A cat might just go.”

  “The dogs at the hearths should have protected him.”

  “They had bones to chew. He didn’t make a pet of any of them.”

  The voices quieted again, and soon the broad back in front of me stretched out flat. The others settled, too.

  I reviewed every remark, my thoughts snagging on Master Thiel. Could he show such courtesy and good humor and still try to murder a person—an ogre?

  I hadn’t thought the word murder before, but if His Lordship had been eaten, then murder it was, and no cat the true killer.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I woke suspecting Master Dess, who knew all animals, not merely cats. He could understand the animals that lived inside His Lordship better than the count did himself. Master Dess might share Two Castles’s hatred of an ogre, or he might have been paid, and he might have known exactly what the ogre would do in the face of stalking cats.

  But he hadn’t been in the hall.

  He might have been in league with someone who was.

  Master Dess, who seemed so kind, might be a whited sepulcher, the worst villain of all, according to Mother.

  Or Goodwife Celeste might be the villain. She certainly had secrets, and she’d worn a cloak embroidered with cats.

  Oh, not the goodwife. She wouldn’t kill. My masteress told me to doubt everyone, but he also said to use common sense. Common sense ruled out Goodwife Celeste.

  But it didn’t rule out Master Thiel or Master Dess.

  When I entered the kitchen, no one sent me away. The search for the mouse continued, although I wasn’t able to take part because King Grenville had requested that I wait on him. I almost wept.

  Master
Jak let me eat a thick slice of bread and then told me that the king was in his chambers in the northwest tower. “Take this to him.” He held out a tray loaded with more food than I would eat in three days. “Egad, I’m pleased His Lordship thought we needed you.”

  A minute later I rapped on the tower door. A guard admitted me to the first story, which held the castle armory. I knocked again on the second level, and His Majesty bellowed for me to enter.

  I never thought I would see a king’s hairy legs. He stood at his window embrasure in a silk undershirt that hung to just below his knees.

  No guards, only His Highness and I. My heart thumped.

  Holding the tray in an iron grip, I curtsied. The dishes rattled, but nothing spilled.

  The room was a parlor, not a bedchamber, which must be upstairs. The biggest area was occupied by two benches that faced each other, both piled with pillows, with a low, rectangular table between. A chest butted against one wall and a small cabinet against another. A round cloth-

  covered table and two chairs kept company by the fireplace, where a fire blazed. I placed the tray on the round table and hoped that was right.

  His Majesty stumped to the chair nearest the fire and sat. “Girl, make the snake come out of your mouth again.”

  I didn’t understand. “Your Majesty?”

  “When you crossed your eyes and pretended a snake was coming out.” He bit into a slice of bread and spoke with his mouth full, white bread and yellow teeth. “That was comical. Do it again.”

  I stared. He began to frown. I crossed my eyes and held out my arms for the imaginary snake.

  He laughed. “A pity you were interrupted. What comes next?”

  For once I didn’t want to mansion, but I enacted the rest of the tale. When the prince rode in to see the pretty sister, I straddled the spare chair and made it clatter back and forth on its wooden legs. I snapped at the chair’s imaginary withers with an imaginary whip.

  The king even stopped eating to laugh. When I finished, he said, “To think of you here, performing for me alone! How lucky I am. Again, girl. No, wait. Take my tray and find my daughter. She must see it, too. Bring her a breakfast as well, and I should feel so very fortunate for a leek pie in brown sauce.”

  The kitchen was half empty. At the long table Master Jak cut butter into flour.

  He nodded when I told him what the king wanted. “My pies are half ready. Come back in twenty minutes, and you shall have it. The princess is in the great hall. By thunder, Her Highness has a new idea every moment, and Sir Misyur must listen.”

  But instead of entering the hall, I cut through the inner ward to the count’s apartment, where the door stood open. Inside, a guard sat on a stool along the inner wall with a tureen lid in his lap. Between his feet lay a wedge of cheese.

  His chin came up when I entered, and he blinked sleepily at me. Then his hand flew to the hilt of his sword. “What is it, girl?”

  I went to him. “I was sent to find Her Highness.”

  Nesspa lay by the fireplace hearth. His tail thumped the hearthstones. I went to him and patted his head.

  What if the mouse was in the walls in this room, comforted by Nesspa’s presence?

  What if this guard was the cat signaler?

  “Not here.”

  I could see that. “What will you do if a mouse comes out?”

  “Clap this over it.” He raised the lid.

  “Then what?”

  “Bring it to Master Dess in the stables.”

  “What will Master Dess do?”

  “He’s magic with animals, says he’ll know a mouse that isn’t a mouse.”

  “Can he turn the mouse back into His Lordship?”

  “Dunno. Maybe he’ll cast a spell.”

  “What is he doing with the real mice?”

  “What one does with mice.”

  Feeds them poison. That’s what we did at home, and I’d hated it. But Master Dess might make a mistake! He might even make a mistake on purpose!

  I hurried to the stables, guessing that I had ten more minutes at least before Master Jak would be ready.

  Master Dess stood crooning in a horse stall just beyond the big aisle. I approached, and he beckoned me in with him. Master Gise, the head groom, entered behind me with a bucket.

  “Another mouse.” He handed the bucket to Master Dess. “Who is she?” Meaning me.

  “A lass from Lahnt. His Lordship took her in.”

  As the bucket passed between them, I saw a frantic mouse scrambling at the bottom, trying to climb out.

  Master Dess reached for it.

  He would have his pick of common poisons. Farm folk knew them all: frogbane, tasty false cinnamon, ground boar tusk, apple-pit powder, and the many poisonous mushrooms.

  Albin had schooled me in the more exotic poisons that appeared in mansioners’ tales, such as murder milk. I knew the poisons that killed quick and the ones that killed slow, those that caused fever or stomach pain or sleep. It had amused Albin to school a child in such gruesome arts.

  The mouse stilled in Master Dess’s hand.

  Let it be His Lordship, I prayed.

  Master Dess looked into the mouse’s eyes, then shook his head.

  Now he would kill it. I snatched it from him and began to run out of the stable with the squirming creature. I’d saved this one, but how many had already died? Had Count Jonty Um been among them?

  I was halfway to the door. What would I do with the mouse?

  It answered by wriggling out of my hand. I lunged, but it raced into a stall. I gazed after it and fought back tears.

  “Honey . . . Girl . . .” Master Dess came to me. “I wasn’t going to kill the poor mouse.”

  “You weren’t?” I felt shaky with relief.

  Master Gise walked toward us. “His Lordship doesn’t let us kill mice.”

  I should have guessed.

  Master Dess touched my shoulder. “Someone will find the mouse again, or not. It wasn’t the count.”

  “Have you examined the other animals, Master Dess, not just the mice?”

  He nodded. “All the beasts.”

  “I’ll see if more mice have been found.” Master Gise started out of the stables.

  I guessed I still had a few minutes. “Er . . .”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “The night we arrived in Two Castles . . . you heard someone outside the king’s castle, do you remember?”

  “That was you, girl? Why didn’t you speak out?”

  “Um . . . you sounded angry. I—”

  “I was angry, honey! After your coin was stolen, a thief took one of my cows, a good cow I had for five years.”

  “Have you gotten her back?”

  “Not yet.” His voice was as grim as it had been then.

  “I’m sorry.” A mystery solved. But the stolen cow was unsolved for Master Dess.

  I left the stables.

  In the kitchen Master Jak was spooning sauce over the leek pie. He made room for it on a tray that was as heaped with food as the king’s breakfast tray had been. “You are prompt to the minute, Ehlodie. Hurry. No doubt his royal gluttony is impatient.”

  As I passed behind the screen to the great hall, my nose caught a faint but biting odor.

  Master Thiel sat cross-legged on the floor before one of the fireplaces. The source of the stink, a glue pot, rested on the hearth, and he held together two pieces of a broken bowl.

  Master Thiel. Always where least expected.

  A glue jar and his satchel lay at his elbow, the satchel bulging with the tools of a plate mender’s trade. He was a plate mender?

  I surveyed the great hall. The sleeping pallets had been stacked, and the dinner tables were not yet set up. A manservant crisscrossed the hall, strewing rushes from a burlap sack. Seated on a low stool on the dais, Sir Misyur hunched over a writing board on his lap. He dipped his quill pen in ink and scribbled something on a sheet of parchment.

  Looming above him, the princess balled the cloth
of her skirt with both hands. “Have they checked the wall walk again, Misyur?” Her voice careened up and down the scale. “Have they combed the cellars?”

  I should have gone straight to her, but instead I went to Master Thiel. When I reached his side, I crouched and whispered, “Where is your cat, Pardine?”

  He smiled, and I almost lost my balance. “Pardine is rented today to a burgher’s wife whose own cat recently died.” His expression became serious. “Did you think I’d bring Pardine here after yesterday’s calamity?”

  I blushed. “No, of course not.”

  “I came to help, but Sir Misyur said all is well in hand, so I decided to mend a dish or two. Even lords need their plates mended from time to time.”

  I nodded and backed away to the middle of the room, not tripping over my feet purely by accident.

  “Misyur,” the princess said, “why are you writing when—”

  Sir Misyur craned his head up toward her, a tic pulsing at the corner of his eye. “I am recording where the search has been made, what has been found, where—”

  “If not the wall walk or the cellars, he would hide in a donjon, where food is plentiful.”

  “Your Highness,” Sir Misyur said, “two maids are circling the wall walk this very moment. Four menservants—”

  I coughed. Both of them turned.

  “His Majesty requests you.” I curtsied.

  She let her skirt go and waved her hand. “Requests which of us? No need to bow, Ehlodie.”

  I straightened. “You, Your Highness. He instructed me to bring a breakfast for you.” I held out the tray.

  “But I’m not hungry, and I’m helping! We’re finding Jonty Um.” Her huge eyes filled, reminding me of blue-yolked poached eggs.

  How wicked I was to have such a thought!

  “I’m coming.” Her hair bounced below her cap as she leaped off the dais. “My father would not like to know I jumped.”

  I smiled. “I won’t tell.”

  The king’s first words were addressed to me. “Half an hour is not long for a king to wait for his command to be obeyed. How lucky I am to be a king.”

  Instantly Princess Renn said, “La! I came as soon as I was told.”

  I flushed. She turned to face me. Under pretense of taking the tray, she mouthed, I’m sorry.

  Perhaps he did worse to her than he did to servants.