With the sympathy of a brunka, Brunka Arnulf brought out a meal for Count Jonty Um. The ogre devoured half a wheel of cheese, two loaves of bread, and a bunch of late carrots, and drank two pitchers of cider, dining as quickly as he could while preserving his noble manners. When he finished, although he longed to sleep in a warm place, he shape-shifted into a swift again and flew.
Dawn had just begun.
If His Lordship hadn’t been tired, if his mind hadn’t been sluggish with food, if he had been a bird more often, he would have remembered that dawn was the hunting hour and would have waited before shape-shifting.
As the swift rounded the eastern slope of Zertrum, an arrow pierced his shoulder, and he fell.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“There once was a dragon called Roarer
who filled the people with horror.
Their fear pleased IT mightily,
IT flamed at them frightfully
and caused a boisterous furor.”
Enh enh enh.
No one else laughed. Elodie smiled, while wishing her masteress would stop amusing ITself.
ITs head, shoulders, and forelegs (ITs arms, as Elodie thought of them) inched gingerly into the Oase. “I will not force the matter,” IT said when ITs sides filled the opening.
Everyone but Elodie, Albin, and High Brunka Marya rushed to the opposite wall.
Master Robbie took a few hesitant steps forward, managing to look at once afraid, curious, and hopeful.
High Brunka Marya said, “IT’s going to help us find the Replica. IT’s as clever as a ratcatcher.”
“I am assuredly cleverer than that. Thief, you may confess now and save me the trouble of smoking you out, so to speak.” Enh enh enh.
Elodie scanned the bees and guests. If she had stolen the Replica and had never encountered a dragon before, her knees would have buckled. But everyone remained upright, looking equally terrified.
IT grinned, showing ITs teeth, which were pointy as spikes.
The high brunka said, “IT wishes to speak with some of my bees first. Um . . . Ursa, take the first turn. I expect you—bees and guests—to be frank with IT, as open as children.”
Elodie thought the high brunka didn’t know many children.
“Share everything, even your suspicions, no matter how absurd you think they are.”
Ursa-bee, as it turned out, was the bee Elodie had noticed weeping with her fist in her mouth when the high brunka had announced the theft. She was a woman of middle height, neither thin nor fat, probably in her mid-twenties, with a high forehead, thin nose, and receding chin. Her pale green eyes contrasted with her dark skin. She crept forward, her hands clasped prayerfully.
“Everyone else, in the pairs I named, can help with the search. Give the masteress and Ursa a wide berth for their private conversation. I’ll be watching and listening.” She drew a stool from the pallet corner into the center of the great hall.
While Ursa approached IT with slow steps, Master Robbie grabbed Elodie’s hand. “I’ll show you what else is missing, and what’s still there.”
His hand was gloved, as hers were. How bold of him to take her hand!
“Wait!” She pulled free and tried to catch ITs eye to see if she should go or stay and listen to the interviews, but IT stared fixedly at Ursa-bee. “All right. Show me.”
And, she thought, tell me what you know about everyone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ITs smoke rose in white spirals. People to frighten, a puzzle to untangle—bliss. Begin with an accusation: “You are from Zertrum, are you not?”
Ursa-bee shook her head so hard her cap trembled.
“From where then?”
She swallowed several times. “From Dew.”
“This Dew is hard upon Zertrum? In the shadow of the volcano?”
“N-no! It’s the north harbor village, Sir—M-Mistress—Masteress.”
“Yes, Masteress. That is the correct appellation. You despise being a bee?”
“No!” Vehemence seemed to give her courage. “Anywhere else I’d be just a maid of all work. Here I dust, mop, help with the laundering, sweep up the old rushes, put down the new, as a maid would, but I also take my turn guarding the Replica.”
“You regard your fellow bees highly?”
She smiled, revealing small and uneven teeth. “Certainly! They’re bees. They want to help Lahnt. Some come from rich families and could have been anything. Dror was offered the choice of soldier or bee, and he chose bee.”
Which might merely mean, IT thought, he preferred not to die. “In the while since Master Robbie arrived, have you guarded the Replica?”
“Three times, Masteress.”
Now to the heart of it. “Did anything out of the ordinary occur?”
She turned to see where the high brunka was, still on her stool, too far away for a human to hear but doubtless an easy listening distance for a brunka. The bee’s fear had come back. “We didn’t t-tell Marya because all seemed well.”