“Someone did steal it,” His Lordship said.
“So you say.” He sighed. “Franz was angry.” He explained that he had told his bees not to help a farmer named Franz after his shed burned down for the second time. “He’ll be more careful in the future. He put up a new shed, which took longer without our aid, but I brought him a basket of eggs a month later. He invited me in for a meal, and we were jolly together.”
“Anyone else?”
Another rainbow flashed out. “Dror.”
“He’s angry?”
“Maybe. Three months ago his father kicked him off his farm and made him choose to become either a bee or a soldier, and he picked bee, as I advised. He’s at the Oase. Being a bee will settle him. He wouldn’t steal the Replica or hurt his family. He’s a loyal lad.”
Meenore would want to know about this.
“Has anyone else left the mountain recently?”
“Master Uwald and Master Tuomo, his steward, rode to Zee. They’ll pass the Oase going and coming back. I don’t know if they’ll stop. And Master Tuomo’s sons are on their way to a wedding on Letster Mountain.”
Count Jonty Um frowned. “Does Master Tuomo have daughters and a goodwife?”
“Just his sons. He’s a widower.”
“Does Master Uwald have children and a goodwife?”
“Neither. He lives with his steward and his steward’s sons, and he has servants.”
Meenore would be interested in this, too. “Anyone else?”
“Mistress Sirka left, but barber-surgeons never tarry long anywhere. I heard a rumor that she and Dror were betrothed, although nothing came of it.”
The brunka had now answered Elodie’s and Meenore’s questions, but Count Jonty Um suspected Meenore would have found more to inquire about if IT had been here. A headache started, which would have felt familiar to Elodie.
“Oh!” Brunka Arnulf extended his arms, palms down, fingers spread, as if he were calming something. “Did you hear that, Master Count?”
“No.”
“The volcano rumbled. It was so slight I might not have noticed if you hadn’t come with your news. The Replica hasn’t been found yet.”
A winter hare hopped across the snow to the right of the brunka’s cottage. Canute-bee would warn the humans, who would flee the mountain if they could. If they had time, they’d drive their herds and flocks along with them. His Lordship ground his teeth in misery. The wild beasts wouldn’t understand the warning.
The hare stopped, nose twitching, ears straight up. His Lordship remembered being a hare and hearing thunder. His frightened hare’s heart had jolted painfully before his ogre mind took over. If the tremors grew strong enough for the beasts to sense them, they’d run hither and yon, crazy with terror, but they wouldn’t know to leave the mountain. If the worst happened, they’d stay and die.
CHAPTER TEN
In the corridor again, High Brunka Marya told Ludda-bee and Johan-bee to accompany her to the great hall. Once there, Ludda-bee bustled off to the kitchen. The high brunka brightened the chamber with a grand rainbow. Elodie blinked in the light, her eyelids sandy from lack of sleep.
High Brunka Marya awakened her bees and gave some of them tasks, which they began unquestioningly, although a few sent curious glances Elodie’s way. The bees seemed unremarkable—most in middle age, plump or thin, straight or stooped, evenly divided between men and women.
Possibly one of them had stolen Lahnt’s most precious thing, but Elodie could hardly credit it. Bees helped people. They devoted their lives to helping, and most appeared to love it. They didn’t need to steal because everyone contributed to the brunkas and their bees. The saying went, One bean to the brunka, nineteen beans remain. Lahnters gave a twentieth of everything to the brunkas and their bees. The saying continued, They give out of goodness. We give out of gratitude.
High Brunka Marya’s rainbow dwindled as her bees lit tallow lamps and torches around the great hall, creating almost as much smoke as light. The youngest bee and the most eager, a man, hurried to the northwest corner of the great hall, where benches, stools, wooden boards, and trestles were stacked. He dragged four benches to the largest fireplace, the one opposite the entrance to the Oase, and arranged them in a line.
Elodie circled the chamber, whose immensity rivaled the great hall in Count Jonty Um’s castle. She took it all in: the stone floor under a scattering of rushes; the distant stone ceiling, reinforced by oak beams; and the stone walls, interrupted at intervals by oak posts. Only the outer wall was entirely man-made, plaster over ordinary wattle and daub, broken near the ceiling by a line of eight small windows covered with the usual oiled parchment, which gleamed a gray that gave nothing away. Dawn might have begun, or it might not have. Her masteress might be here any minute or not for another hour or two.