A Tale of Two Castles(62)

If she was her father’s poisoner, too, she would have used something slower on him, because his symptoms had appeared much later.

I climbed to the window, tied my cap to a bar, and descended for my stew and tumbler. As I was about to tip them out, I realized the danger. Even in the rain, she might come out to look for spilled stew.

I threw the meal into the fireplace and began to pace. My masteress said that one culprit was elegant, but there had to be two in this case. Master Thiel had certainly been the poacher and the thief of castle valuables. I would assume Her Highness responsible for everything else: stealing Nesspa, signaling the cats, poisoning her father.

Why do any of it?

Put myself in their steads. That’s what I’d told Master Thiel about mansioning, and I’d thought the words significant. Now I knew the meaning: put myself in Princess Renn’s stead. She might poison her father because he was about to betroth her to an infant, and she wouldn’t be allowed to say no.

But the new betrothal had come after the feast, and he was poisoned at the feast.

I felt bewildered.

Let the king go for now. Why set the cats on the count?

She told me that the king had betrothed her to the count. Put myself in her stead. Suppose she hadn’t wanted to wed an ogre, but she had pretended to love him.

And signaled the cats.

To simplify the task, she stole Nesspa. She must have been horrified when I found him. But then, luckily for her, he needed to leave during the feast.

How had she stolen him?

With treats.

How had she kept him hidden?

The answer broke on me like a mallet on the head: by poisoning him, just enough to keep him docile. When I found him he was alert, but he didn’t have to be quiet on the wall walk where no one would hear him. Likely she had dosed the other dogs in the hall, too, and that was why they did nothing to stop the cats.

I had tied my cap to the window only a few minutes ago, but I climbed up to look for IT.

The rain prevented me from seeing as far as I had yesterday, and I didn’t see IT.

I climbed down.

She must have lulled the ox with poison, too, then raked its shoulder. Why?

She’d spoken about thoroughness when she tied her cap laces three times under my chin. If she did a thing, she did it more than once, or in more ways than one.

Why?

Think elegantly.

If His Lordship (as a mouse) had been seen being devoured by a cat, she would have had to do nothing more about him. But when the mouse escaped, she had no certainty, so she mauled the ox and frightened the town into believing the ogre a hungry lion. If he returned in his ordinary form, the people of Two Castles would find a way to kill him.

I wished IT would come.

Now for the king’s poisoning.

Perhaps at the beginning she didn’t want to kill anyone but an ogre. Causing a monster’s death wouldn’t be evil, according to her. She didn’t intend for Nesspa to die. He would have been freed when she was safe from His Lordship.

But when her father announced her new betrothal, she realized—while I was alone with the two of them—that he would go on making matches for her. She decided that he had to die, too. She couldn’t have much daughterly affection for him, horror that he was.

That meant he wasn’t really poisoned at the feast. She might even have dosed him while I watched. I shuddered.

How?

The fashion of long, flowing sleeves! Perfect for concealment. Prepared for anything as she was, she could have kept a hidden pouch of poison on her always.

With closed eyes, I recalled the scene. I saw her spear a chunk of sausage on her knife with her right hand. Her left passed over the meat to gather up her right sleeve and keep it from trailing through the food. Likely the poison was in her left sleeve. She sprinkled with her left hand.

I remembered the missing mortar and pestle on the morning of the feast. She might have taken them to grind her poison.

Where was my masteress? As soon as King Grenville recovered enough to do without constant watching over, his daughter would feed him something else. In his weakened state, he would certainly die. Everyone would think he’d merely taken a turn for the worse. Cures for poisoning were uncertain.

IT had to come soon!

I returned to my deducing. Princess Renn must have been behind Cellarer Bwat, my accuser. She had probably hinted to him that I might be to blame, hinted so subtly he thought the suspicion his own.

As I mulled it over, I saw she had reason to fear me. I’d witnessed her dismay when His Highness revealed her new future husband. She had directed me to search the stable when she knew Nesspa was elsewhere. I had dis-

covered the mauled ox. And I was the assistant to a dragon skilled at unraveling mysteries. Thorough again, she thought imprisoning me not enough. She had to poison me, too.

I wondered if His Lordship had seen her set the cats on him. Poor count. If he loved the princess, what a blow that would have been.

Had she poisoned him as well as signaled the cats? I remembered his face had been mottled red and white when the minstrel sang, and he’d swayed when he tried to address everyone after the king announced the betrothal. Also he’d hugged himself as if he were cold just before he shifted into the lion.

Poison might have made him less able to resist the cats.

Again I climbed to the window. Below me a hooded figure rounded the tower, walking slowly, hugging the wall. Even from above I recognized Princess Renn’s thin shoulders and awkward gait. She was seeking the remnants of my meal.