Say something useful, Elodie prayed. “About where the Replica is or who took it?”
“Expectation misleads.”
Master Robbie sounded disgusted. “What use is that?”
“Whose expectation?” asked Elodie.
“Yours. And your masteress’s.” In ITs nasal voice, the puppet added, “Think, Lodie!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Elodie couldn’t imagine what the hint meant, and being commanded in ITs voice didn’t help.
They let the puppet return to its worn-out state.
She looked at the empty table. “Did High Brunka Marya say what was in the missing box?”
“The handkerchief that weeps, like the flower that laughs.”
“How long has it been gone?”
He shook his head. “High Brunka Marya was surprised it wasn’t there, but she didn’t say the last time she’d seen it.”
“We can ask her. We should go back.” Maybe Masteress Meenore had found the Replica. Perhaps His Lordship had returned.
He pulled open the door and held it for her.
She walked slowly. “Can I trust you with a secret? You can’t tell anyone.”
“What secret?”
“Promise?”
He nodded.
“I’m helping IT find the Replica.” Why did this feel like boasting when it was true?
Master Robbie’s voice was gentle. “We’re all helping IT, aren’t we?”
He doesn’t believe me, she thought. “Yes, of course.” She resisted the impulse to tell him she was ITs paid assistant, but she couldn’t help adding, “In Two Castles I helped IT find the ogre when he’d turned himself into a mouse and we thought a cat had eaten him.”
“Where was he?”
“In the king’s menagerie. He’d shifted into a monkey.” There was much more to the story than that.
“You’ve seen him shape-shift?”
She described it. “It looks painful. Um . . .” She stopped walking.
He stopped, too.
“If we’re all trying to find the Replica”—she couldn’t think of a way to say it except straight out—“would you tell me about the people here and your opinion of them? You don’t need to accuse anyone.”
“Grandmother says”—his chest expanded in a deep breath—“used to say . . .” He smiled at the memory. “She said that gossip is the pepper of conversation, and we don’t have to be rich to enjoy it.”
Only the wealthy could afford pepper for their food.
“My mother says that, too.” Elodie took a chance and pried. “Goodwife Lilli wasn’t wealthy?”
“Poor as an empty fishhook. She also said she’d forgo gossip pepper and take gold.”
“Your grandmother must have been merry company.”
“She disliked gloom.” He looked down at his tunic and cloak. “Master Uwald got all this for me in Zee.” He changed the subject. “Ask me your questions.”
“What do you make of . . .” Which one should she start with? She wanted to know about Master Uwald, but that was mere curiosity, since he was too rich to need the Replica. “Ludda-bee?”
“The cook. She can cut steel with her tongue, but she prepares the best pottage I’ve ever tasted.”
“Do you think she took the Replica?”
“Only if she could make someone else seem foolish, particularly Johan-bee.”
“What about him? I think High Brunka Marya should stop the teasing.”
“They’re unkind, but he can’t take a step without a misstep. Grandmother would call him ‘a temptation to cruelty.’”
“Could he have taken it?”
“He’d bungle it, drop it, and everyone would hear, or he’d hide it where it would be easily found.”
“Ursa-bee?”
He started walking again without answering. After a few steps he said, “If somebody can be too sweet, she’s the one. She pats my shoulder every time she comes near me. I wish she’d hover over someone else. She wouldn’t take the Replica, though. She wouldn’t let other people suffer.”
Unless she was mansioning her pity.
A bell clanged, making the glowworms flicker.
“Breakfast,” Master Robbie said, walking faster.
Elodie’s appetite woke up, roared, and sped her feet. In a minute they’d be back in the great hall, and maybe His Lordship would be there.
But she and Master Robbie wouldn’t be able to speak openly. “What about the youngest bee, the one who was more distressed than anyone but Master Tuomo? The barber-surgeon put her arm around his shoulders.”
“Dror-bee? He comes from Zertrum.”
Three from Zertrum. Was that odd?
Master Robbie added, “He’s excitable. When he stands, he’s on his toes; when he sits at the table, he tilts into it. He talks to guests more than most bees do.”
“You notice as much as a mansioner.”
He looked pleased. “Mistress Sirka is sweet on him.”
“Sweet on a bee?” Bees couldn’t marry unless they stopped being bees.
“He’s new. Maybe she knew him before.”