“I pay for your services!”
“And the others would as well. Lodie, Bonay has the king’s custom because Bonay’s fire is hottest.”
And the fire was hottest because Masteress Meenore heated it.
“I will ask once more: Who brings you silver and gold?”
“Do not say I told you.”
“I make no promises.”
Bonay dug his poker into the dirt and rocked it back and forth. “Thiel brings me silver.”
I swallowed a gasp.
“And when they come to Two Castles, a Goodman Twah and his Goodwife Celeste bring both gold and silver. They come infrequently, but they bring a great deal. I don’t have to pay them as much as I pay Thiel, who bargains hard.”
“Anyone else?”
Anyone else I admired? The princess? Sir Misyur? Master Dess?
“Just those three—Thiel and the old couple.”
My masteress wouldn’t let me into the lair or listen to any of what I had to tell until I had washed myself and laundered my clothes. The sky had darkened to night by then, and I was damp and cold, but the lair warmed me.
An area between the cupboard and the door had been curtained off. Curious, I approached the curtain.
“Leave it be, Lodie.”
I backed away.
The cheese and bread were in bowls on the fireplace bench.
“I have new cheese. Tell me how you like it.” IT threaded skewers and toasted them in the fireplace, one for IT, two for me. “And we still have a few figs and dates from His Lordship’s visit. They are in a bowl in the cupboard. Fetch it.”
I wondered if IT had saved the delicacies for me.
When the skewers were toasted, I sampled the new cheese, which was sharper than any I’d ever tasted. “Mmm. Delicious.”
“Make more skewers if you like.” IT settled on ITs belly, ITs head and neck along the floor between me on the bench and the hearth, ITs eyes on me. “And tell me everything.”
I did so, ending with my visit to the menagerie.
IT raised ITs head. “When you found the ox, you saw nothing of a lion?”
“Nothing.”
“The grass around the ox had not been disturbed? You saw no tracks?”
“The grass was bloody, but not torn up.”
“Why is this detail important, Lodie?”
I imagined a lion, stalking a grazing ox. The ox smells something amiss, lifts his head, turns. Sees the lion. The ox gallops. The lion is faster and springs. The ox swings his horns, misses the lion. The lion’s teeth rake the ox’s shoulder. The lion’s claws scratch.
I closed my eyes tight and screwed my face into a grimace, feeling the pain of the ox.
The ox whirls, trying to get free, sending up great clods of dirt and grass.
“Oh!” I opened my eyes.
“Yes, Elodie?”
“There was no lion.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Was there a dragon? Did I do it?”
I didn’t have to think. “There would have been a struggle as well. You didn’t do it. But I knew that already.”
The ridges above ITs eyes rose. “Ah. You have already exonerated me.” IT sat up and picked ITs teeth with a skewer. “Undoubtedly the attacker planned to create signs of a struggle. If Nesspa had not barked and given warning—unintentionally, certainly—you might have caught him or her at it. Someone wants the folk of Two Castles to believe in the lion, and most do believe, save us deep thinkers.”
“Then who or what attacked the ox?”
“Yes, who? Who indeed?”
I considered. “A person with a rake. Someone the ox trusted. Someone he wouldn’t run from.”
“But who? You stayed in the castle. You may know better than I.”
“The stable master Gise . . . The grooms and stable hands. Master Dess, the animal physician . . . no animal fears him. And the beasts may be used to Master Thiel if he often sleeps in the stable.”
“You are ready to accuse handsome Thiel?”
To cover my discomfort, I helped myself to a handful of cheese squares. I no longer knew what Master Thiel might do.
IT said, “He was with you. He couldn’t have interrupted himself. May he be exonerated too?”
I hoped he might be, but I wasn’t sure. “Perhaps he was frightened off before I came.”
“Then someone else would have discovered the ox.”
“Anything might have startled him.” I frowned, searching for ideas. “The grooms exercise His Lordship’s steeds in the outer ward. At the sound of hooves Master Thiel—or anyone else—would have run without looking back, but the grooms might not have rounded the tower. Then he might have gone with me to discover the ox, which he knew was there.”
“That is cold-hearted enough for Thiel. Anyone else?”
I hesitated, hating to say the words. “His Lordship as himself, not as a lion. But why would he maul his own ox?”
“I doubt he did. Common sense deems it unlikely.”
I felt tears coming. “He is likely dead, isn’t he, Masteress?”
“Common sense says yes, but induction and deduction have not yet proved the result.”
I swallowed the tears. “He may be alive?”
“Or dead. We may never know.”