Barber-surgeons traveled to do their work. They cut hair, pulled teeth, set bones, dosed people with herbs, and stitched up cuts.
Master Robbie continued. “I don’t know how long she’s been here. I imagine she gave Johan-bee his toothache remedy. Yesterday she trimmed Master Tuomo’s beard and Deeter-bee’s beard and toenails.”
“Deeter-bee?” She remembered the bee with the beard trimmed straight across the bottom. “Is he the oldest bee?”
Master Robbie nodded. “The historian of Lahnt.”
Elodie wondered if the details of the first theft might help them.
The door to the great hall was only a few yards away. “Is Dror-bee sweet on Mistress Sirka?”
“I see her watching him, but he doesn’t watch her.”
From inside the great hall a nasal voice sang another ditty.
There was no time now, but Elodie wished she’d had the time to ask about Master Tuomo and the courage to ask about Master Uwald. She thought, Are you safe with him, Master Robbie?
They entered.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
His Lordship surfaced from deep sleep and opened his eyes.
Fee fi! A net had been draped over the boulders. Six men stood outside, arrows nocked and aimed at him. Fo fum! A dead mink lay over the shoulder of one of them.
The hunter who’d shot the swift cried, “Ready!”
Before they could shoot, His Lordship bellowed, “Brunka Arnulf!”
The mountains carried the echo: Brunka Arnulf.
No one released an arrow. No one lowered his bow.
His Lordship spoke as softly as he could, explaining why he’d come to Zertrum and why Brunka Arnulf had been convinced he meant no harm. No one answered, as if he were speaking a foreign tongue, as if he were a talking bear, but a man was dispatched on horseback to find the brunka or Canute-bee.
More delay. The morning was half over.
The weak November sun failed to penetrate His Lordship’s shelter, and the hunter had reclaimed his cloak.
“I need a fire or I’ll be useless,” Count Jonty Um said. Nesspa, he thought, I miss you. Meenore, Elodie, if the mountain spews, you’ll never know what happened to me or why I didn’t return.
CHAPTER TWENTY
His Lordship wasn’t in the great hall. Disappointment made Elodie more tired than before.
IT was eating—and singing again.
“There once was a dragon called Aidan
who ceased dining on maiden,
preferring cabbage and beets,
ITs new delectable treats,
Deep-fried so they tasted like bacon.
“Ah, Mistress Elodie and the young squire have returned to breakfast with us.”
Calling her Mistress Elodie hid their connection—clever, but now, she realized, Master Robbie wouldn’t believe she was assisting IT in any extraordinary way.
A long board had been set on trestles near the front door so Masteress Meenore could partake. IT filled the head of the table, facing into the chamber, and High Brunka Marya perched on a tall stool at the foot. Bees and guests sat on benches on either side, all apparently having lost their fear of IT.
Albin’s face brightened when he saw Elodie. “The heroine returns.” He slid to make room for her in the middle of a bench, and she sat close enough to him that Master Robbie could squeeze in, too.
Master Uwald’s expression also lightened. “You’ve made a friend, Robbie?”
Master Robbie shrugged, his eyes on IT, his expression rapt.
Albin filled a bowl for Elodie, and Master Uwald, across the table, heaped one for Master Robbie.
“We may as well eat.” Master Tuomo cut himself a chunk of bread. “My sons will soon die, but we may as well eat. The land we’ve devoted our lives to will vanish, but we may as well eat.” He bit into the bread. “Everything tastes like sawdust.”
“Like sawdust?” Ludda-bee said. “What a thing to say!”
Elodie ate hungrily, passing food to diners nearby and accepting tidbits in return, as was the custom. The meal was a feast: fresh beets in cream sauce, pickled cabbage, pottage with lentils, goat cheese, and bread.
As a defense against the charge of sawdust, Ludda-bee recounted every step in her cooking: repeatedly brining the cabbage, skimming the cream for the beets, peeling each lentil.
When she drew breath, Master Robbie said, with his eyes still on IT (Elodie wondered how his spoon found his mouth), “The handkerchief that weeps still has not been returned.”
“Mmm. A handkerchief that weeps?” ITs eyes touched Ursa-bee and lingered on Master Robbie. “How useless for wiping tears.” IT ate the same meal everyone else shared, as well as a branch of a pine tree, which IT must have brought in. Habitually, IT dined on human food as well as wood, although IT detested oak. When IT felt light, IT downed pebbles. On occasion, knives became irresistible, though they made IT queasy.
Elodie watched everyone, remembering what Master Robbie had told her. The barber, Mistress Sirka, sat next to Dror-bee and passed him the best in her bowl. Without a doubt, she doted on him.
He seemed lost in misery, eyes down, tears streaming, hardly eating, merely pushing his spoon through his pottage. Too much sadness? Elodie wondered.
Unlike Dror-bee, Ursa-bee (the bee Master Robbie called too sweet) seemed to have recovered her composure. “Ludda, these are the best beets I’ve ever tasted.”
Deeter-bee, the historian, ate at a slow, steady pace. Crumbs and flecks of food dropped into his beard and onto his cloak. “Fascinating times.”
“Deeter, dear!”
“I didn’t wish it to happen, Marya. But since it has, I’m glad to be a witness.”
“A pox on you then.” Master Tuomo stood. “I’ve eaten my fill, and I can’t be idle. Mistress Sirka, will you search with me again?”
“I’m still eating.” She spooned cabbage into Dror-bee’s bowl.
Master Tuomo sat again and put his head in his hands.
IT turned to the high brunka. “The girl slept not at all last night. Goodman Albin, you are in charge of her now, but I suggest she rest an hour or two.”
At this, Elodie couldn’t hold back a yawn.
IT continued. “Afterward, I request her attendance in the stable. There is a dog for whom we are jointly responsible who needs exercise I cannot provide. Do you acquiesce?”
Albin nodded. “As you wish.” If he realized that more lay behind the stable visit than a dog, he didn’t show it. “Lady El, may your slumber be sweet.”
The high brunka told Ursa-bee to take Elodie to a room. “Give the lamb the Donkey.”
IT insisted that another bee go along. “Pairs, High Brunka Marya, will spare us wondering what Ursa-bee did alone on her return.”
Ursa-bee protested. “I’d come right back!”
“Apologies.” The high brunka assigned Johan-bee to accompany them.
Ludda-bee’s voice followed them out. “Don’t fall over your feet, Johan.”
Elodie followed the bees through the archway on the north wall, which led into the kitchen. She formed a quick notion of the chamber: two fireplaces, sundry shelves and cabinets (possible hiding places for the Replica), pots and pans hanging on hooks from the ceiling beams, a long oak worktable upon which rested a brass handbell, a loaf of bread, a bowl of unpeeled beets, and a pitcher—a wealthy kitchen, almost as fine as His Lordship’s.
Johan-bee’s hip bumped the table and made the wooden legs stutter on the stone floor.
“Johan, Johan,” Ursa-bee said in a sugary voice that annoyed Elodie and must have infuriated him.
They exited through a door on the east wall. Outside, they followed a short corridor straight ahead and then turned left, the opposite direction from the high brunka’s chamber, into a region of the Oase Elodie hadn’t yet penetrated. As they walked, she hatched a plan to search the other guests’ rooms. She probably wouldn’t find the Replica, since bees had already looked, but doubtless she’d find clues. IT would be pleased.
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They progressed down a corridor lit by glowworms: unbroken wall on the left, a series of closed doors on the right.
“What are these rooms for?”
Ursa-bee answered. “They hold relics and books.”
“Are all the walls in the Oase made of stone?”
Ursa-bee stopped to think. Johan-bee continued for a few steps, then waited.
“All,” Ursa-bee said, “except the one in the great hall that faces out of the mountain.”
“The floors and ceilings are carved out of rock, too,” Johan-bee added.
Nothing could be hidden in solid stone. A little less to search.
They turned right and came upon a row of doors on the left.
“The guests are staying in these rooms. Here’s the Donkey.” Ursa-bee pointed at the last door, on which an elegant donkey had been painted in yellow, with a garland of blue flowers around its neck.
When Johan-bee opened the door, Elodie thanked him twice, to make up a little for the bees’ rudeness.
The room was tiny. If Johan-bee had spread his arms, his fingers would have touched each wall. The head of the bed abutted the wall next to the door and the foot touched the one opposite. Still, a bed was a luxury compared to her pallet on the floor at her parents’ Potluck Farm.
Next to the foot of the bed stood a three-legged stool. A wooden chest squatted against the adjacent wall. The chamber was warm and glowworm bright.
Ursa-bee lifted the pillow to reveal a dark-blue linen mask. “Tie this on to block the light.”
Elodie took off her boots. Ursa-bee and Johan-bee left. As soon as the bees had returned to the hall, she’d leave, too, and start her search.
While she waited, she’d lie down.
She was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Masteress Meenore had interviewed the bees who guarded the Replica when High Brunka Marya discovered the theft. Both had been at the Oase for more than fifteen years, and they’d sworn that their post had never been abandoned. If true—and IT had found no reason to doubt them—then the most likely time for the theft was near the end of Ursa-bee and Johan-bee’s turn guarding, when he’d been in the privy and she’d gone to investigate the weeping.
IT had also already interrogated Johan-bee and Ludda-bee. The conversation with the cook left IT wishing to scrub ITs earholes. Johan-bee’s brief answers had revealed little. He’d talked at length only about his digestive difficulties.
IT chose Dror-bee to interview next.
“Please find the Replica, Masteress.” Dror-bee looked hopeful and eager to help.
“I intend to. You are from Zertrum, are you not?”
“How did you guess?”
ITs smoke spiraled. “I never guess. You are not permitted to guard the Replica, correct?”
Dror-bee shook his head. “Yes. I’ve only been a bee for three months.”
“Just so. Who do you think may have stolen it?”
The bee shrugged, raising his shoulders to his ears.
“Speculate.”
He clapped his hands, then wrung them. “Mistress Sirka.”
“Ah. Is she avaricious?”
Silence. He shifted from foot to foot.
Masteress Meenore wished to hold him in place. The man was never still. But why wouldn’t he answer? Ah. “Avaricious means greedy.”
“She doesn’t mind being poor.”
“Why then?”
“She’s reckless.”
“Mmm. How would she have done it?”
Dror-bee put his index finger on his chin, the image of someone thinking. “I don’t know where it was kept, so it’s hard to guess. She’s a night owl. She would do it when others are sleeping.”
“Mmm.” How did this youth know the barber’s ways—her recklessness, her tardiness to bed? “You became a bee rather than a soldier. How did that choice come about?”
“My father said I couldn’t stay on our farm, and I could be only one or the other. I’m happy as a bee.”
Masteress Meenore’s internal flame flared. Here was a reason for anger against someone on Zertrum. “A farmer always needs more help. Why then did your father have no use for you?”
Dror-bee nodded twice. “I had too many ideas, which often failed. Father said I made him tired. Mother said, ‘The sheep with too much wool gets caught in the brambles.’”
Masteress Meenore thought that Lahnt had as many proverbs as sheep. “Are you enraged at your parents for sending you away?”
“No!”
“Were you angry at the time?”
His shoulders slumped. “I was sad. But Marya doesn’t mind my ideas, and a month ago when I found two lost goslings for a farmer, he thanked me. He said”—Dror-bee’s chest expanded—“that Lahnt was lucky to have bees like me.”
“You called Mistress Sirka reckless. Why?”
Dror-bee flung out his arms. “You’d think so, too, if you watched her cut hair. It’s a wonder she hasn’t chopped off an ear, and yet the result is always pleasing.”
“Is it reckless of her to court a bee?”
Softly, so IT had to strain to hear, he said, “It is hopeless.”
“Please tell the alleged thief to come to me. I will speak with her next.”
But a reckless thief would snatch and run. If Mistress Sirka were the thief, she would have to be cunning, too. Perhaps she was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Fear and hatred had almost killed Count Jonty Um in Two Castles town. Lahnt, he thought, may finish me off. His teeth chattered, and he’d lost feeling in his feet. At a safe distance, the hunters had cleared snow and built a fire, fetching branches from the woods below, but when it was roaring, they held burning brands to keep him from approaching, until he half wished they’d thrust one at him. Fee fi! Roasting might be preferable to freezing.
He could shape-shift into a bear and have fur to warm him; however, he feared what the men would do to it or it would do to them.
Brunka Arnulf arrived at last on a mule. He jumped off, crying, “You’ll kill our rescuer! Let him warm himself!”
The men backed away, and His Lordship, who was usually graceful, lumbered to the fire. When he stopped, Brunka Arnulf flashed rainbows at his half-frozen feet.
“My rainbows have no other medicinal use, but they’re good for this.”
His Lordship’s feet tingled agonizingly, but agony was better than no feeling at all. And being touched by rainbows made the pain worth having.
“How bad is your wound, Master Count?”
His Lordship boomed, “Not so bad for me. Dreadful for a bird. I can’t fly.”
Brunka Arnulf stepped back from the sound. “Otto, you chose the wrong swift to shoot. We’re lucky your aim was off.”
“He really is a count?” Goodman Otto said. “A count?”
“I believe him when he says he is.”
“Oh.” Goodman Otto touched his cap. “I’m s-sorry. Er . . . p-pleased to make your acquaintance. Brunka Arnulf, is it true? The Replica was stolen?”
“Alas, yes. I hear the mountain rumbling. Count Jonty Um was flying back to the Oase with information.”
“I can walk, though I’ll be too late.”
“Then stay,” Brunka Arnulf said. “Folks here need you.”
His Lordship felt heat behind his eyes. Fo fum! To be needed! Meenore, he thought, if I could reach you in time, I’d leave. Forgive me for allowing myself to be wounded. Forgive me, Elodie, Nesspa. “I’ll stay.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Elodie awoke with no sense of how long she’d been sleeping. The glowworms shone as brightly as ever. She sat up.
Her masteress had said IT would want her in an hour or two. Had that time come? Or passed, and the Replica had been found and she had slept through it? She hoped not, then felt ashamed. Of course she wanted it to be recovered, but she preferred to be there when IT proved ITs brilliance with her penetrating mind helping IT reach ITs conclusions.
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Most of all, she hoped His Lordship had come back.
She left the Donkey Room. Before going to the great hall, she could still investigate the other guests’ rooms.
Painted on the door next to the Donkey Room was a parrot with red-and-blue plumage. She eased the door open while trying to think of an excuse in case its tenant happened to be inside.
There was no one, and no need to tarry. Albin slept here. She recognized the room as his because her favorite thing lay atop the bed: his thick book of mansioners’ plays.
The cover was raised a little, and the pages didn’t lie flat. He was always careless with his things. She went to the book, curious to see which play he’d marked. But when she opened it, she didn’t even notice. The marker was a silver coin.
Lambs and calves! How did Albin come to have a silver, which would pay passage for all of them to and from the mainland many times over?
Did she have to mistrust him, too?
Since the room had been searched, she didn’t have to replace the book exactly where it had been. Now she did comb the chamber but found nothing else of interest. Albin’s satchel held only a spare undershirt. His mountain staff leaned against the chest, which proved to be empty.
Back in the corridor, the Stoat Room came next, a bigger chamber with a double bed and a single: Master Uwald and Master Robbie’s quarters. Either the bees who’d searched had turned everything topsy-turvy or Master Uwald, the just-so man, was slovenly. Rich apparel was heaped on the unmade big bed, the pile capped by a single shoe, while its mate rested on the floor. Atop the chest, a backgammon game lay open. Within the chest: nothing.
By contrast, Master Robbie’s bed was neatly made. At the foot, carefully folded and stacked, were three spare undershirts and two spare tunics, everything new, the undershirts silk, the tunics soft linen. The tip of something leather protruded from under the pillow. Elodie went to it and discovered a long knife in a leather sheath.
She, like everyone else, carried a little knife in her purse, for ordinary tasks that might arise, like cutting thread or opening nuts. But why a long knife? For protection? For murder? An inheritance from his grandmother?