Stolen Magic(35)

He didn’t move. “Do you have cats?”

She was already several yards away. “One cat. Hurry.”

That was all right then. A single cat couldn’t wish hard enough to make him turn into a mouse. In two strides he caught up with her and put his hand on the donkey’s rump for guidance in the deepening dusk. They traveled north and upward, their breath puffing white in a quiet, windless cold. As they went, he realized that going to Svye would have to wait for morning. He didn’t know how they’d do it even then, since the widow’s farm cart would instantly be mired in snow.

He wondered when he might eat again.

After a half hour, when night had fallen, they reached her home, where firelight shone through the single window. She tethered the donkey and bustled inside.

Although the hut’s walls came up to his chest, the steep thatched roof made the whole structure about a foot taller than he was. The wall gave off a little heat from the fire within. He stood close enough to benefit, but his head and shoulders were in the cold, and the exertion of walking no longer warmed him.

The donkey and the widow’s cart occupied a lean-to that abutted the cottage. He could haul the cart out and curl up in the shed, where the ground was free of snow. The beast wouldn’t mind. They’d be company for each other.

However, he wanted the Widow Fridda’s approval of this arrangement.

She emerged from the cottage with a baby in her arms and a clay crock in her free hand. “This will ease your shoulder, Your Countship.”

He crouched and bared his shoulder. She spread the ointment, which smarted and smelled like a frightened ferret.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She returned without the baby, carrying her entire pottage pot and a ladle. “Better you eat it than the volcano.”

She gave him permission to sleep in the lean-to, then went back inside. He started on the pottage: no meat, many onions, thick with oatmeal, and flavored with a spice he didn’t recognize and didn’t like. But he finished to the last speck.

Soon he was on his side in the shed, a mound of hay for a pillow, the donkey’s even breathing reminding him of Nesspa.

At least the dog was safe, and Elodie and Meenore would see that he lived well if his master never returned.

He slept.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN



Stars, a quarter moon, and the gleaming snow showed Elodie and Master Robbie the path back to the Oase.

“I’m not reckless!” Elodie clutched her cloak tight around her.

“Did you really call Greedy Grenny cruel?”

“It popped out. I think ahead—usually.”

“Did you, when you searched our room?” He didn’t add, And saw my knife, but the accusation was there.

She defended herself. “I did it to find the thief.”

“It had been searched by bees.”

“Everybody sees something different.” Hoping to win him over, she added, “If you’d been there, you might have noticed a detail I missed.”

He said nothing.

She pulled an apology out of somewhere near her toes. “I’m sorry.” Then, “But I won’t apologize to anyone else.”

He laughed.

Feeling immensely better, she said, “Maybe to Albin.”

The Oase door was just ahead.

“IT said the thief or thieves may be deadly.” She thought of what had happened in Two Castles. “Desperation could make them reckless.” She leaned her back against the door, her face inches from his. “Let’s look for desperate acts.”

His face, red from the cold, reddened more. “We will!”

Together, they pushed open the door. The bee who was guarding it looked at them and said nothing.

High Brunka Marya occupied her stool in the middle of the great hall. Bees were moving sleeping pallets close to the fireplaces, where the fires burned brightly. The guests clustered at the hearth across from the entrance.

Master Uwald and Albin, both smiling, hurried to Elodie and Master Robbie.

“You must be frozen!” Master Uwald untied his cloak and wrapped it around Master Robbie, who almost disappeared in it. “Come to the fire.” Master Uwald led him away.

Master Robbie turned his head to look at Elodie as they went.

“My cloak is at your service, Lady El.”

She shook her head. Albin could be no warmer than she was. She blurted, “I was in your room. I saw the silver. Where did you get it? How long have you had it?” Then, “I thought it was someone else’s chamber.” Which explained and excused nothing.

“You’re welcome in my room. I have no secrets from a fellow mansioner. I won the coin from Master Uwald yesterday afternoon.”

Probably after the theft. “What did you have to bet against him?” What, she thought, that would be worth a silver?

“He wanted my book of mansioners’ plays.”


“I love that book!”

“Lady El, I would have given him my right arm in exchange for coin to get you. We imagined you starving in Two Castles”—he patted her cheek—“not thriving as you were.”

She blinked back tears. “You didn’t get my letter?”

“No letter came. Maybe it will arrive next year and we’ll laugh over it.”