“We’ll be safe at home, eating your mother’s excellent pottage.”
She’d be herding geese, and by then Masteress Meenore or His Lordship or both might have died in the volcano.
The idea arrived, although she hadn’t expected it to be so frightening. “The thieves will want to be safe, too. Because of them, we’ll still be in danger.”
Albin wasn’t used to deducing. “How do you come to that?”
“Because the thieves will plot to silence everyone who was here during the theft. Don’t you see? There are clues even if we don’t recognize them yet. One may be that Mistress Sirka tried to dose Dror-bee—I mean, Goodman Dror—with what she says was a love potion, or that Master Robbie’s grandfather was the last thief, or that Ludda-bee hates everyone and everything except cooking. Or something else.”
Albin’s eyes were tight on her, concentrating as only a mansioner can.
“The innocent will go home. Some of us will try to forget, and some of us will try to remember. One morning, you or I or Master Robbie or another of us will sit up in bed with all the pieces fitted together.” Her heart began to gallop. “The thief will dread that morning, and he or she—who will have killed many on Zertrum—will have the wealth to kill us, too, not in person, but by using hirelings. You may not come back from fixing a fence. I may not return from herding. Master Uwald may be poisoned. Master Robbie may seem to have run away. Mistress—”
“Enough. I understand.”
“One more thing. If everyone stays here, that can’t happen. We’re safest here.”
He thought about it. “Lady El, Lady El. All right. We stay. For now.”
She took his hand and turned to go back to the others—and discovered her mistake. She had stopped observing.
The entrance, without the rainbow glow, remained unguarded, and the great hall had half emptied.
Lambs and calves! Had the thieves escaped already? Escaped with the Replica?
Mistress Sirka continued to tend High Brunka Marya, who had been moved onto a pallet. Ursa-bee and Goodman Dror hovered nearby.
Several other bees, not in pairs, searched the shelves and cupboards. Deeter-bee watched from a bench by the fireplace outside the kitchen.
But Masters Robbie, Tuomo, and Uwald, as well as Johan-bee and Ludda-bee, were gone.
“Albin, did you see anyone leave the Oase?”
“My eyes were on you, Lady El.”
She called out, “Has anybody gone out?”
Ursa-bee answered, “No one, little mistress.”
Relief flooded her. “Oh, good. Thank you.” Trailed by Albin, she went to the entrance, leaned against the heavy door, and felt the cold of a November evening penetrate her shoulders.
Albin smiled fondly at her and said a mansioner’s proverb: “‘A butterfly cannot portray a bear.’ You can’t be a guard, and I know only stage fighting.”
“We have to stop whoever comes.”
“Very well.” He bowed his most elaborate bow. “I hope the farmer’s helper doesn’t have to die for the heroine.”
From the door that led to the corridor, Johan-bee entered the great hall carrying a longbow, with a quiver of arrows on his back. What’s more, he’d strapped a sword around his waist. As awkward as ever, he strode stiffly toward the entrance.
Johan-bee was the thief?
Her masteress had never deduced or induced him as a villain.
Armed as he was, they’d have to let him go.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The sun sank below the horizon. Zertrum blew out a gob of fiery molten rock, which lit the gray sky with a second sunset as it dropped back into the mouth of the volcano.
Masteress Meenore thought the boulder reduced enough. IT heaved, and the rock rolled off the herder. By the half-light of dusk, IT saw that Goodman Hame’s right leg had merely been scraped, but his left ankle was covered with dried blood and swollen to thrice the size of the other.
“We will leave in a moment. First, what is the name of your new master?”
“Erick.”
“Excellent. Can you kneel?”
He proved he could by kneeling.
IT lowered ITself and extended a wing. “Spread your cloak across my back. . . . Good. Now climb on. . . . You may crawl. You will not hurt my wings, which are nearly indestructible as well as beautiful. When I fly, refrain from touching my scales, which will be burning hot.”
The man was in place. IT flapped ITs wings and sprang into the air, aware instantly of the difference in weight between Goodman Hame and Elodie.
Three wing flaps took IT above Master Uwald’s house, where the limping man was just taking his place on a loaded sledge behind a team of oxen.
Below the house was a small field edged with pine trees. IT spiraled down.
“I thought you were saving me,” Master Hame cried.
“I am.” IT landed carefully, not so near the oxen, IT hoped, that they would bolt.