I blushed. I should have thought of that. “I picked this up in a wagon in the stable.” I pulled the little pouch out of my purse and opened it. The contents were only a few half-dried leaves. When I brought them to my nose, I smelled peppermint.
Goodwife Celeste?
“What is it?”
“Peppermint.” Had she been in the stables and then gone? I turned the pouch over in my hand, looking for some distinctive mark, but it was plain brown wool of ordinary quality. I thought back to the cog and was certain I hadn’t seen a pouch. “Do the goodwives of Two Castles carry peppermint?”
IT held the pouch up against the sun. “A healer might. A traveler might. The animal physician may have dropped it. A goodwife of the town would keep her herbs at home.”
“On the cog the goodwife Celeste gave me peppermint leaves. Do you remember I told you that I met her and her goodman when I was proclaiming?”
“Naturally I remember.”
I took a deep breath. “I didn’t mention that she warned me against you. She said you’re moody and might do anything if . . .”
IT stretched ITs neck and aimed a puff of fire skyward. The flame guttered out before reaching the ground. “Because dragons have fire, we’re believed to be hot-tempered.”
IT did have a temper.
“Everyone has a temper, Lodie.”
“Masteress, she wears a bracelet of twine. Master Thiel has a twine ring. Is there a league of wearers of twine jewelry?”
“Mmm.”
Mmm again. I returned the pouch to my purse. “Masteress, I like her, and she may not have been in the stables.”
“She warned you away from me!” IT stood on ITs back legs. “I will return at the nine-o’clock bells tonight. As soon as His Lordship’s guests arrive, remain with him.” IT flapped ITs wings. “Do not let him out of your sight. Trust no one. Keep him safe.”
How could a girl keep an ogre safe?
IT circled above me. “You can shout. A person half your size can shout. Act!”
Chapter Eighteen
In the kitchen, Master Jak, chief third assistant cook, whom I’d awakened the night before, swore at me for my late arrival, then grinned evilly. “Onions, Ehlodie. By thunder, onions.” He led me to the long kitchen worktable.
I scanned the room for Master Thiel, but he wasn’t there.
“Sit.”
I climbed onto a stool next to a sack of onions that rose to my elbow. Master Jak supplied me with a chopping knife, a peelings pail, and a big bowl for the chopped onions. He said a scullery maid would take away the bowl when it was filled and bring it back empty.
“His Lordship likes onions in his soup and onions in his stew,” Master Jak said, “and he is devoted to his onion pie. Don’t stop until they’re all chopped. By thunder, no weeping into them, Ehlodie.”
I began. Soon tears were falling into my lap, and yes, into the onions. Weeping made me think of mansioning. A true mansioner won’t use an onion to make her cry. I wondered if a true mansioner could conjure happiness and not cry in spite of a mountain of onions. I couldn’t.
Hoping the owner wouldn’t mind, I took the peppermint out of its pouch and put a leaf on my tongue. The mint helped against the onions, but not much.
The onions and I were stationed at the menial end of the table, far from the actual cooking. At the important end, yards and yards away, a baker kneaded dough, her arms floury up to the elbows. Next to her, another baker rolled out pastry. A scullery maid complained that her mortar and pestle were missing, and how could she pound the garlic and thyme without them? Master Jak told her to find a bowl and a spoon and cease griping.
At his own table, the butcher cut apart a lamb. Blood ran down grooves in the table to a pail on the floor. A small spotted dog—not Nesspa—sat at the butcher’s feet, staring ardently upward.
Master Jak and three others stood at the largest of three fireplaces, tending whatever was cooking. I wondered if Master Jak’s companions were the chief second assistant cook and the chief first assistant cook and the exalted cook.
I considered whether Nesspa could be stowed here somewhere. The lower half of the enormous cupboard between the two lesser fireplaces was big enough to hold a sheep. As if a fairy was granting wishes, a kitchen boy opened the double doors to get a frying pan, and I glimpsed shelves crammed with pots and pans. I saw no other likely place to hide a dog.
Sharing my end of the table, a boy—my age more or less, cap strings untied, narrow face, small brown eyes—peeled cucumbers.
He winked at me. “I’m in your debt, young mistress, for taking the onions.”
I was not partial to winkers, but I winked back. “I’m new, young master. I never saw the inside of a castle before today.”
Another wink from him. “A castle’s big so a count or a king can bring his friends in and keep his enemies’ armies out.”
“How clever.” I nodded encouragingly. Tell me something that will lead me to Nesspa or that I can tell Masteress Meenore.
“Thick walls, soldiers within, enough food to last a month. If we die, the rats can eat us for another month.”
Ugh!