Stolen Magic(14)

Meenore would want to know about this.

“Has anyone else left the mountain recently?”

“Master Uwald and Master Tuomo, his steward, rode to Zee. They’ll pass the Oase going and coming back. I don’t know if they’ll stop. And Master Tuomo’s sons are on their way to a wedding on Letster Mountain.”

Count Jonty Um frowned. “Does Master Tuomo have daughters and a goodwife?”

“Just his sons. He’s a widower.”

“Does Master Uwald have children and a goodwife?”

“Neither. He lives with his steward and his steward’s sons, and he has servants.”

Meenore would be interested in this, too. “Anyone else?”

“Mistress Sirka left, but barber-surgeons never tarry long anywhere. I heard a rumor that she and Dror were betrothed, although nothing came of it.”

The brunka had now answered Elodie’s and Meenore’s questions, but Count Jonty Um suspected Meenore would have found more to inquire about if IT had been here. A headache started, which would have felt familiar to Elodie.

“Oh!” Brunka Arnulf extended his arms, palms down, fingers spread, as if he were calming something. “Did you hear that, Master Count?”

“No.”

“The volcano rumbled. It was so slight I might not have noticed if you hadn’t come with your news. The Replica hasn’t been found yet.”


A winter hare hopped across the snow to the right of the brunka’s cottage. Canute-bee would warn the humans, who would flee the mountain if they could. If they had time, they’d drive their herds and flocks along with them. His Lordship ground his teeth in misery. The wild beasts wouldn’t understand the warning.

The hare stopped, nose twitching, ears straight up. His Lordship remembered being a hare and hearing thunder. His frightened hare’s heart had jolted painfully before his ogre mind took over. If the tremors grew strong enough for the beasts to sense them, they’d run hither and yon, crazy with terror, but they wouldn’t know to leave the mountain. If the worst happened, they’d stay and die.





CHAPTER TEN



In the corridor again, High Brunka Marya told Ludda-bee and Johan-bee to accompany her to the great hall. Once there, Ludda-bee bustled off to the kitchen. The high brunka brightened the chamber with a grand rainbow. Elodie blinked in the light, her eyelids sandy from lack of sleep.

High Brunka Marya awakened her bees and gave some of them tasks, which they began unquestioningly, although a few sent curious glances Elodie’s way. The bees seemed unremarkable—most in middle age, plump or thin, straight or stooped, evenly divided between men and women.

Possibly one of them had stolen Lahnt’s most precious thing, but Elodie could hardly credit it. Bees helped people. They devoted their lives to helping, and most appeared to love it. They didn’t need to steal because everyone contributed to the brunkas and their bees. The saying went, One bean to the brunka, nineteen beans remain. Lahnters gave a twentieth of everything to the brunkas and their bees. The saying continued, They give out of goodness. We give out of gratitude.

High Brunka Marya’s rainbow dwindled as her bees lit tallow lamps and torches around the great hall, creating almost as much smoke as light. The youngest bee and the most eager, a man, hurried to the northwest corner of the great hall, where benches, stools, wooden boards, and trestles were stacked. He dragged four benches to the largest fireplace, the one opposite the entrance to the Oase, and arranged them in a line.

Elodie circled the chamber, whose immensity rivaled the great hall in Count Jonty Um’s castle. She took it all in: the stone floor under a scattering of rushes; the distant stone ceiling, reinforced by oak beams; and the stone walls, interrupted at intervals by oak posts. Only the outer wall was entirely man-made, plaster over ordinary wattle and daub, broken near the ceiling by a line of eight small windows covered with the usual oiled parchment, which gleamed a gray that gave nothing away. Dawn might have begun, or it might not have. Her masteress might be here any minute or not for another hour or two.

Count Jonty Um must have reached Zertrum by now. Was the mountain aflame? Had he learned the identity of the thief? Was he on his way back to them? Was he safe?

All four walls were lined with closed cabinets and open shelves, which held what Elodie supposed were relics of Lahnt and brunka history. The Replica could be hidden in a cabinet or even on an open shelf, concealed behind something larger. A person could spend days—a week!—combing through everything. And then there were the chambers of relics High Brunka Marya had pointed out and probably others besides. Lambs and calves! A legion of bees would be needed to search everywhere in time.

Two doors and an archway opened off the chamber: the big outside entry door in the west wall; an archway far to the left of it in the north wall; and a small door on the right side of the east wall, the door the high brunka had taken her through, which led to her distant chamber.

Johan-bee and two more bees stirred up embers in the three fireplaces and added logs until crackling and spitting spiked the quiet.

In the center of the hall, High Brunka Marya spoke softly to a knot of older bees—those, Elodie supposed, who’d been with her for at least seven years, as IT had required. She heard muffled exclamations and cries of distress. When the high brunka finished, they left the hall in pairs, except for the bee who seemed oldest. Elodie deduced the pairs were off to begin the search and perhaps to wake the guests. On their way, a bee detoured to Johan-bee and jogged his arm so that his poker clattered on the hearthstone. Johan-bee looked up, flushing, but said nothing.