A Tale of Two Castles(18)

Hugging my cloak around me, I stood and went outside. Sunny day, cold air, November in October.

IT was breathing fire on one of the outdoor rainwater vats behind the lair. IT swallowed ITs flame. “Fetch the stool.”

I did.

“Your bath is ready. Here.” IT opened ITs claws to reveal a milky brick of soap.

At home we saved our soap for laundering. “But—”

“Use it. While you bathe, I will scour the lair.” IT left me.

I placed the stool and climbed up. The water seethed and smelled like year-old eggs, but when I put a toe in, the toe liked it, hot, not scalding. And I was first in for once—Father, Mother, and Albin hadn’t taken their baths before I had mine.

Sloshing and sizzling sounds emanated from the lair. I pitied my dying fleas. In a few minutes IT emerged with a cloth in ITs claws. “I will return shortly. You have been generous with your filth . . .”

Filth seemed too strong for truth.

“. . . and now I must bathe, too.” IT draped the cloth over the edge of the vat. “When you are entirely clean, wrap yourself in that. Then launder your clothes, not omitting your satchel itself, until they are also entirely clean.”

“Yes, Masteress.”

“I have heated that, too.” IT pointed at another steaming vat. Then IT flapped ITs beautiful wings and headed south.

I wondered where IT bathed and wished I could watch.

While IT was gone, I washed my things, rubbing cloth against cloth until my arms ached. When IT returned, IT steamed everything dry in a trice.

A Lahnt proverb goes, Love your lice. Only skeletons have none. But here I was, louse free and still breathing.

Inside the lair, IT seated ITself by the fire and took a clawful of skewers. “Did you sleep well?”

I took a skewer, too, and sat on the fireplace bench. The skewer basket was almost empty. “I was awakened once by roaring from the menagerie lion.”

IT clucked ITs tongue, and the orange in ITs scales deepened to scarlet. “This is the sort of pronouncement my assistant must not make.”

What had I said?

“Suppose there were no lion in the menagerie, and someone from the town heard you assert there was, and moreover that you heard it roar.” IT waved the skewers. “Your nonsense would—”

“But it did roar. It’s not—”

“Do not interrupt your masteress.”

I blushed. “I’m sorry. But I heard it.”

ITs scales dulled. “You may say ‘I heard a roar from the direction of the menagerie.’ You can be certain of nothing more.”

I grew afraid. “Was it the ogre?”

“You may probe the possibilities.” IT put the skewers in the fire. “But you must not draw unwarranted conclusions.”

“Then might it have been Count Jonty Um?”

“Indeed. He is capable.”

I shuddered.

IT removed the skewers and ate one.

“Was it the count, Masteress? Do you know?”

“Not of a certainty. Nor a likelihood. I have never known His Lordship to shift into a lion, and I have known him since his infancy.”

My heart lifted. He seemed a decent ogre; I wanted him to be a good one. “Why is he so disliked and feared?” My heart prepared to sink. “Does he turn into something else, or eat people?”

IT raised ITs eye ridges. “Many who neither shape-shift nor eat people are disliked and feared. Our king for one.”

A perfect example. On Lahnt no one liked him. I waited for an answer about Count Jonty Um eating people, but none came, so my fear remained. I toasted my skewer. “Are there any lions nearby that are not in the menagerie?”

“Perhaps. The menagerie houses none. The last lion in the environs of Two Castles was killed a year before my birth. King Grenville wants to procure one for his zoo, but he refuses to pay full price.”


What could I have heard? I began to eat.

IT ate a skewer uncooked and went to the table. “The day is passing. Nothing done, nothing earned. Fetch a sheaf of skewers.”

IT meant the skewer sticks, which I took from the cupboard, and IT set me to cutting bread into cubes. I had to stand on the bench to be tall enough.

“Now tell me, what did you see on your way here last evening?”

As I cubed, I told IT about the open menagerie gate. “I heard calls from inside.” I imitated the rise and fall of the creature’s voice.

IT said the cries came from an animal called a high eena.

“Masteress, a man was leaving town, Master Dess from the cog. He brought a donkey and two cows and a basket of kittens over—”

“His appearance?”

I described him and told what had happened outside the town gate. “When he knocked”—I rapped the bench— “on the gatehouse door, the guards raised the drawbridge without seeing who he was. His knocks were”—I stopped myself—“may have been a code.”

IT scratched around ITs ear hole and looked unconcerned.

“What if there’s a plot against the king?”

The noon bells pealed. Testily IT blamed me for the lateness of the hour.

What if IT was part of the plot?

We pushed cheese and bread onto skewers in silence. After a few minutes, I called up my courage and asked if I might write and post my letter home.