I was Elodie when IT was pleased with me.
“Your home is scrupulously clean.” I may have brought in a louse or two, a flea or three, but none had preceded me.
“Yes. I will tolerate you for the night, but you must bathe in the morning. I will burn your clothes.”
My clothes that Grandmother had worn or Mother and I had made? I rushed to my satchel and hugged it. “I’ll wash everything.”
“Twice. No, thrice. And scrub!”
I nodded, lowering the satchel. IT stretched ITself along the floor, ITs snout near my feet, ITs eyes fixed on me. I yawned.
“You are sleepy.”
O masteress of deduction! I nodded.
“Then tomorrow you may tell me what you observed on your way to me, and tomorrow night, when you are clean, you may sleep on pillows. But now it is the floor for you. I suggest under the table. I am a restless sleeper.”
Don’t crush me! I barricaded my dirty self behind the long bench under the table. The clay floor was even harder than the deck of the cog. I fetched my cloak and my satchel, layered everything for cushioning, and stretched out on my side, back to the wall, my head sticking out beyond the bench, so I could still see into the room.
IT went to the cupboard, then sat on the floor with the box of knucklebones in ITs claws. Hunching over, IT spilled them out. One of the bones, the jack, was yellow, according to custom. The others were their natural ivory. IT tossed the yellow bone into the air, picked up another bone, and caught the yellow one in the same claw, in one deft move. On the next throw, IT picked up two bones.
Oh, Father! Dragons play knucklebones!
Knucklebones was a popular girls’ game. I had played a thousand times. Did this make IT female?
“The dragon claw is as nimble as the human hand, Lodie.”
The knucklebones tip-tapped the floor. My last awake thoughts were: Here I am, full belly, bedded down near a dragon. Father, Mother, you would wring your hands. How lucky I am!
Chapter Ten
I woke once during the night and heard a distant lion’s roar, probably from the menagerie. Or from the town, with the menagerie gate open. Not from Master Sulow, because the mansions were too far away for the roar to carry.
Perhaps the ogre turned into a lion at night and terrorized the town. I moved closer to the bench. The lion would hardly attack a dragon in ITs lair, would he?
Masteress Meenore lay on ITs back. ITs legs, loosely bent at knees and elbows, bobbled in the air, in the manner of a dog completely at ease.
In the morning I awakened to chill and silence. At home in Lahnt, Father used to build up the fire before waking me. He’d kiss my ear or my forehead or my nose, whatever part of me I’d left out of my blanket.
Hugging my cloak around me, I stood and went outside. Sunny day, cold air, November in October.
IT was breathing fire on one of the outdoor rainwater vats behind the lair. IT swallowed ITs flame. “Fetch the stool.”
I did.
“Your bath is ready. Here.” IT opened ITs claws to reveal a milky brick of soap.
At home we saved our soap for laundering. “But—”
“Use it. While you bathe, I will scour the lair.” IT left me.
I placed the stool and climbed up. The water seethed and smelled like year-old eggs, but when I put a toe in, the toe liked it, hot, not scalding. And I was first in for once—Father, Mother, and Albin hadn’t taken their baths before I had mine.
Sloshing and sizzling sounds emanated from the lair. I pitied my dying fleas. In a few minutes IT emerged with a cloth in ITs claws. “I will return shortly. You have been generous with your filth . . .”
Filth seemed too strong for truth.
“. . . and now I must bathe, too.” IT draped the cloth over the edge of the vat. “When you are entirely clean, wrap yourself in that. Then launder your clothes, not omitting your satchel itself, until they are also entirely clean.”
“Yes, Masteress.”
“I have heated that, too.” IT pointed at another steaming vat. Then IT flapped ITs beautiful wings and headed south.
I wondered where IT bathed and wished I could watch.
While IT was gone, I washed my things, rubbing cloth against cloth until my arms ached. When IT returned, IT steamed everything dry in a trice.
A Lahnt proverb goes, Love your lice. Only skeletons have none. But here I was, louse free and still breathing.
Inside the lair, IT seated ITself by the fire and took a clawful of skewers. “Did you sleep well?”
I took a skewer, too, and sat on the fireplace bench. The skewer basket was almost empty. “I was awakened once by roaring from the menagerie lion.”
IT clucked ITs tongue, and the orange in ITs scales deepened to scarlet. “This is the sort of pronouncement my assistant must not make.”
What had I said?
“Suppose there were no lion in the menagerie, and someone from the town heard you assert there was, and moreover that you heard it roar.” IT waved the skewers. “Your nonsense would—”
“But it did roar. It’s not—”