Chapter Twenty-Five
I woke suspecting Master Dess, who knew all animals, not merely cats. He could understand the animals that lived inside His Lordship better than the count did himself. Master Dess might share Two Castles’s hatred of an ogre, or he might have been paid, and he might have known exactly what the ogre would do in the face of stalking cats.
But he hadn’t been in the hall.
He might have been in league with someone who was.
Master Dess, who seemed so kind, might be a whited sepulcher, the worst villain of all, according to Mother.
Or Goodwife Celeste might be the villain. She certainly had secrets, and she’d worn a cloak embroidered with cats.
Oh, not the goodwife. She wouldn’t kill. My masteress told me to doubt everyone, but he also said to use common sense. Common sense ruled out Goodwife Celeste.
But it didn’t rule out Master Thiel or Master Dess.
When I entered the kitchen, no one sent me away. The search for the mouse continued, although I wasn’t able to take part because King Grenville had requested that I wait on him. I almost wept.
Master Jak let me eat a thick slice of bread and then told me that the king was in his chambers in the northwest tower. “Take this to him.” He held out a tray loaded with more food than I would eat in three days. “Egad, I’m pleased His Lordship thought we needed you.”
A minute later I rapped on the tower door. A guard admitted me to the first story, which held the castle armory. I knocked again on the second level, and His Majesty bellowed for me to enter.
I never thought I would see a king’s hairy legs. He stood at his window embrasure in a silk undershirt that hung to just below his knees.
No guards, only His Highness and I. My heart thumped.
Holding the tray in an iron grip, I curtsied. The dishes rattled, but nothing spilled.
The room was a parlor, not a bedchamber, which must be upstairs. The biggest area was occupied by two benches that faced each other, both piled with pillows, with a low, rectangular table between. A chest butted against one wall and a small cabinet against another. A round cloth-
covered table and two chairs kept company by the fireplace, where a fire blazed. I placed the tray on the round table and hoped that was right.
His Majesty stumped to the chair nearest the fire and sat. “Girl, make the snake come out of your mouth again.”
I didn’t understand. “Your Majesty?”
“When you crossed your eyes and pretended a snake was coming out.” He bit into a slice of bread and spoke with his mouth full, white bread and yellow teeth. “That was comical. Do it again.”
I stared. He began to frown. I crossed my eyes and held out my arms for the imaginary snake.
He laughed. “A pity you were interrupted. What comes next?”
For once I didn’t want to mansion, but I enacted the rest of the tale. When the prince rode in to see the pretty sister, I straddled the spare chair and made it clatter back and forth on its wooden legs. I snapped at the chair’s imaginary withers with an imaginary whip.
The king even stopped eating to laugh. When I finished, he said, “To think of you here, performing for me alone! How lucky I am. Again, girl. No, wait. Take my tray and find my daughter. She must see it, too. Bring her a breakfast as well, and I should feel so very fortunate for a leek pie in brown sauce.”
The kitchen was half empty. At the long table Master Jak cut butter into flour.
He nodded when I told him what the king wanted. “My pies are half ready. Come back in twenty minutes, and you shall have it. The princess is in the great hall. By thunder, Her Highness has a new idea every moment, and Sir Misyur must listen.”
But instead of entering the hall, I cut through the inner ward to the count’s apartment, where the door stood open. Inside, a guard sat on a stool along the inner wall with a tureen lid in his lap. Between his feet lay a wedge of cheese.
His chin came up when I entered, and he blinked sleepily at me. Then his hand flew to the hilt of his sword. “What is it, girl?”
I went to him. “I was sent to find Her Highness.”
Nesspa lay by the fireplace hearth. His tail thumped the hearthstones. I went to him and patted his head.
What if the mouse was in the walls in this room, comforted by Nesspa’s presence?
What if this guard was the cat signaler?
“Not here.”
I could see that. “What will you do if a mouse comes out?”
“Clap this over it.” He raised the lid.
“Then what?”
“Bring it to Master Dess in the stables.”
“What will Master Dess do?”
“He’s magic with animals, says he’ll know a mouse that isn’t a mouse.”
“Can he turn the mouse back into His Lordship?”
“Dunno. Maybe he’ll cast a spell.”
“What is he doing with the real mice?”
“What one does with mice.”