A Tale of Two Castles(27)

I pressed my ear against it. Through the thick wood, I thought I heard a thud and a whine. I pictured Nesspa, hiding from thudding feet, whining in fright.

Of course the explanation was likely more innocent. The castle steward and his family, for example, could live above the donjon. Someone might have risen to use the garderobe and stubbed his toe.

This door opened noiselessly. A stairway rose to my right. Ahead, beyond an open doorway, a light flickered in the donjon. Grain sacks piled twice my height faced me, parted by a narrow aisle. Except for the aisle, the sacks butted one another, leaving not enough room between them for a rat, let alone a big dog.

The donjon wouldn’t contain just grain, however. I started down the aisle. After perhaps ten steps, the piles ended, and I saw a candle in a holder on the floor and a monstrous shadow flowing across rows of barrels, the shadow bigger by far than the ogre.

I backed away. Don’t hear me! Don’t see me! Whatever sort of monster you are, be deaf and blind!

Safely out the tower door, I sped through the kitchen and across the great hall to the servants’ pallets, where I turned about, looking for the biggest sleeper.

There. I knelt at his side and shook his shoulder. He rolled over. I shook harder.

He raised his head. “What?” Then he leaped up, tucking his blanket around his waist. He wasn’t as tall as he’d seemed from above, but he was muscular, with a hairy chest and a graying beard. He grasped my arm, whispering, “Who are you?”

“Someone is in the donjon.”

“By thunder, who are you?”

“The new kitchen maid.” I repeated, “Someone is in the kitchen tower donjon. Or something. It’s big.”

His grip tightened. “How do you know?”

“I know.” What else could I say? “I saw.”

He half dragged, half lifted me out of the hall, making much more noise than I’d have dared. No one woke. In the kitchen he took a long knife from a chopping table. “This will do. By thunder, it will do for you if no one’s there.”

“Hurry!” I said, terrified of whatever was in the donjon and almost as terrified of this man.

But at the doorway he paused, yanked me up to his height, my feet dangling. “The steward hired you? By thunder, I’ll—”

“Not the steward.” My arm hurt! “The count said more help was needed for the feast. His Lordship brought me.”

He let me go. I staggered sideways as he flung the tower door open. I pointed down the grain aisle at the glimmering light. He tugged me along.

I saw the misshapen shadow again. He saw the person making the shadow.

“Your Highness.” He dropped to his knees. “Pardon us.”

I looked beyond the shadow and saw a tall woman with stiltlike limbs, thin shoulders wrapped in a blanket, thin hands holding the blankets, trailing sleeves, a head in a cap circled by a thin golden crown. I fell to my knees, too. The king’s daughter, Princess Renn.





Chapter Fifteen

Beg pardon.” I bowed my head.

“You have a knife? Against me?” Her voice rose in pitch until it cracked, then started lower and rose until it cracked again. “Enemies from Tair!”

The knife thudded to the floor. “Not from Tair, Your Highness. From right here. She”—he pulled my head up by my hair—“by thunder, she said there was an intruder in the donjon.”


I saw the princess more clearly. She had a heart-shaped face, cleft chin, small mouth, and a long, sloping nose. She might have been pretty if her blue eyes had been merely large, but they were enormously large with too much white. If she missed beauty, however, her mouth was sweet and her big eyes full of feeling, both fear and outrage.

“Who are you?”

He pulled back his shoulders. “Master Jak, His Lordship’s chief third assistant cook, Your Highness.”

Princess Renn’s lips twitched in a hint of a smile. She turned to me.

“I’m Ehh”—I extended the vowel even longer than a Two Castles person would—“lodie, the new kitchen maid.” If they were going to oust me or imprison me, they should know my proper name.

In the silence, I listened but heard no dog whimpers, no scrabbling paws, no panting.

“Ehlodie,” the princess said, “why did you come to the donjon?”

Feigning innocence, I said in a rush, “I’m the new kitchen maid and I woke and couldn’t fall back to sleep and I’ve never been in a castle before and thought I might look around and I’d heard that His Lordship lost his dog and if I could find it, it would be a fine thing and I came here and I didn’t see you, Your Highness, I saw your shadow.” I pointed.

The shadow still hulked. Princess Renn was thin, but the blanket expanded her. Her shadow suggested a bearlike creature with a tiny head.

She laughed and held out her arms, making the shadow even bigger. “La! Look at me!”

My shoulders relaxed in relief. Master Jak laughed, too, although his laughter sounded forced.

“I am afraid myself of myself! Jak, rise! Ehlodie, rise! Spread your arms.”

Papa and mama and daughter monster shadows filled the donjon. Master Jak’s laughter turned genuine.

When our laughter subsided, the princess said, “I commend you both on your courage. Ehlodie! To come back after you’d seen the monster! And Chief Third Assistant Cook Jak! To brave the monster with only a knife! Jak, you may return to your well-deserved rest.”