The tip of ITs tail flicked, in recognition of me, I supposed, but IT continued to fly, swooping here and there. When ITs face turned toward me, I saw a wild grin.
IT landed in the middle of the ward with ITs right claw outstretched. ITs left claw held three filled skewers.
I heard a terrified yeep! As I watched in horror, IT raised a fat brown hare to ITs flame. A minute later, IT held out the roast.
“Would you like a haunch, Lodie?”
I shook my head and kept half the ward between IT and me.
“Then come and eat your skewers. Breakfast will be gone by the time you return indoors.”
I rushed close for the skewers—uncooked—then backed away.
IT sat, placed the hare on ITs thigh, and carved the meat with ITs talons.
“Are you the ogre’s poacher?” I blurted.
ITs smoke blued. “I induce and deduce flawlessly, but occasionally I forget common sense. I should have let the rabbit live.” IT devoured ITs meal quickly, bones as well as meat. “I am no poacher”—ITs smoke whitened, ITs discomfort over—“not since I gave up catching and toasting young maidens.” Enh enh enh.
I smiled, although I imagined a squirming, shrieking girl in ITs claws. My fear of IT surged back.
“Lodie . . . come closer.” IT held my gaze.
I went, but slowly.
“Answer me. Even if you are a budding mansioner, I will know if you are lying. Do you believe I might roast a person?”
I swallowed. I wished Goodwife Celeste had never frightened me.
ITs smoke was bright pink, ITs scales red. “Angry as I am right now, am I flaming at you?”
I shook my head.
“I could broil you and eat you, and your parents would not know and no one here would care. . . .”
His Lordship might care. “You told me to doubt everyone.”
“Yes, but test your doubt. You slept in my lair unharmed for two nights. And during one of those nights, you were grimy and flea ridden. Awareness of your dirty state troubled my sleep.”
When I’d been awakened by the roaring, IT had been soundly asleep.
“Yet I did not harm even a lobe of your ear. Alas, you are almost as filthy as before, for all that you now have a cap.” IT lowered ITself onto ITs belly, keeping ITs head high. “Tell me what has happened and what you have learned.”
The most important news first. “Her High—”
“Wait.” IT lumbered to the outer curtain at the end of the herb gardens.
I followed, munching on bread and cheese, no longer afraid.
“The castle has ears, but the outer curtain is deaf. Now, speak.”
“Princess Renn is to marry His Lordship.”
“Start at the beginning, Lodie.”
I did. Under ITs prompting I recalled details I would have forgotten. For a mansioner, this was fine memory training. Still, I didn’t remember enough to satisfy IT. I had a sinking feeling of failure, just as I used to about the geese.
When I raved over how sweet the monkey was, IT held up a claw. “Emotion is of no consequence.”
But it was! “Please, Masteress, listen. He is a kindly ogre under his gruffness.”
“Inconsequential.” IT asked a dozen more questions about the journey to the castle, then progressed to my meeting with the princess. IT enh enh enhed endlessly over the monstrous shadow.
“If people in Two Castles know she is to marry His Lordship,” I said, “they must be furious. No one in the town wants to be ruled by an ogre someday.”
“I agree.” IT went on to questions about what had taken place in the stable.
Finally, when I thought I might pass the rest of my life in the outer ward, IT asked, “Is there anything else?”
My mind squeezed itself until I had a headache. Oh! How could I have forgotten this? “Master Thiel was sleeping in the stables. He slept through Princess Renn’s shrieking.”
“Or seemed to.”
I blurted, “Masteress, is he in need? Without a home?” Suffering? Could I help him?
“His father left him nothing and gave the mill and the mule to his brothers, but never fear. Thiel will make his fortune through marriage. Half the maidens in Two Castles are wild for him. If you have set your new cap for him”—enh enh enh—“you had best have more than three tins. Thiel’s blood runs noble. His great-great-grandfather, a knight, was the first owner of Jonty Um’s castle. Thiel’s bride—”
“What happened?”
“Lodie, do not interrupt your masteress.”
I apologized.
“Debts, extravagance. Jonty Um’s grandfather bought the castle from Thiel’s grandfather without regard for the opinion of the town.”
Another reason for people to dislike the count.
“Thiel looks much as the old man once did. I do not fancy him for you, so it is just as well you are poor.”
I didn’t enjoy being teased. “The stall he’d been sleeping in was empty on my way out.”
“Mmm. You peered into the same stall of a certainty?”
“I dropped a broom there.”
“Think. He may have moved the broom to a different stall.”