A Tale of Two Castles(46)

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?