A Tale of Two Castles(47)

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.

She placed the tray on the table. “I’m sure the cook was slow, Father, not Ehlodie.”

“The girl has a name? A name in three syllables?”

This made me as angry as anything else he’d done.

“Yes, Father. Ehlodie.”

“How grand of her. Come here, girl.”

I moved a little closer.

He frowned. “Has she come near, Renn? Do you believe she has approached me?”

“No, Father.” She murmured. “Perhaps she is afraid.”

“Of me? Come, girl. I won’t spit at you again.”

Not comforting, but I advanced and stopped a few inches from him.

“Most mansioners paint their faces, if I am not mistaken. Extend your face, girl.”

I put my face forward and dug my nails into my palms.

“You don’t mind my finger in your jam, do you, dear?”

“No, Father.”

He dipped his forefinger in. I closed my eyes. He might accidentally or purposely poke one of them out.

“One sister is pretty. . . .” His finger rubbed jam into my left cheek and stroked it across the left half of my lips. “And the other is not.” After a moment he smeared something warm on my right cheek and across the right half of my lips.

I licked my upper lip on the right. The brown sauce.

“Mustn’t.” He applied the sauce again. “Ah. Stand away so my daughter may see.”

I opened my eyes.

“Is she not improved?” He didn’t pause for an answer. “You would have benefitted from my assistance yesterday, girl. Now perform the piece again.”

Shamed tears flooded my eyes. Do not cry, I thought, or he will be glad. I blinked them away and reenacted the scene. I did it well, too, to spite the king and please his daughter.

She didn’t laugh until I had the prince search the floor for jewels, my nose just above the wooden planks. But then she did and kept laughing until I finished.

“I am delighted to hear your laughter.” His Highness speared a chunk of his leek pie and put it in his mouth. “All but the pie is for you. You are too thin, my love.”

She took a hard-boiled egg and picked at it with her fingers.

I backed away. If they ignored me for a few minutes, I would slip out.

“I want you at your prettiest. With the ogre vanished, you still need a husband.”

I froze.

“I have chosen a better one.”

She swallowed and blinked. “So soon?”