Ludda-bee rang her bell and didn’t stop ringing. People started toward the table. Elodie crouched to tie her bootlaces and delay sitting. Finally the clangor ceased. She stood and saw that almost everyone, including Master Uwald, was seated. Relief coursed through her. Only Johan-bee at the door and Mistress Sirka on the floor with the high brunka didn’t join them. Johan-bee closed the door with a creak and a thud.
Ludda-bee occupied the stool at the head of the table, farthest into the room, closest to the high brunka. The other stool stood empty. Elodie, feeling presumptuous, took it. She wanted to be able to see everyone, and she could, excepting Johan-bee at his post behind her.
Albin sat at her right and a bee she hadn’t met was at her left, until Master Robbie squirmed out of his place between Master Uwald and Ursa-bee and came around the table, where he squeezed onto the bench at her left.
Across from Master Uwald and Albin, Master Tuomo and Goodman Dror were on either side of Deeter-bee. The other places were filled by the bees who’d been searching the Oase beyond the great hall.
“I’ll stay for the meal,” Master Uwald said. “It would be foolish to leave hungry. Son, will that satisfy you?”
Master Robbie nodded.
Eat slowly, everyone! Elodie thought.
There seemed to be as many dishes as ever. No pottage, but a sausage-and-bean stew, along with poppy-seed rolls, spiced apples, long yellow beans, the eternal beets, and honey wafers.
Ludda-bee told Johan-bee to sit. When he told her twice and roared at her once that he wouldn’t, she filled a bowl and brought it to him. He put down his bow to eat.
“Well, girl?” Master Tuomo demanded.
Elodie tried to quell the flutter in her stomach. “Deeter-bee, would you tell everyone where the Replica was hidden?”
He obliged and answered Master Tuomo’s questions about who had known.
When the subject was exhausted, Elodie persuaded Ursa-bee to say what had happened when she’d been guarding and had heard the weeping.
As soon as she finished, Elodie asked Master Robbie to lay out ITs theory about what had happened. While he spoke, she worried about the next step, the deducing.
If only IT would blow the door open.
But she might get ITs help another way. Maybe she could be IT—shape-shift in a mansioner’s fashion. Lambs and calves, could she?
Master Robbie ended with “Now we have to deduce and induce and use our common sense.”
Elodie cleared her throat and glanced at Albin. Help me.
“Masters . . . Bees . . . Mistress . . . We’d certainly do better if my masteress were here, but if I mansion IT, IT may help us all think.”
“Absurd!”
“Master Tuomo,” Albin said, “if your sons survive, you can tell them and your grandchildren that you were fortunate enough to be present when Elodie of Lahnt mansioned.”
Thank you, Albin!
“Oh, hush, Tuomo.” Master Uwald smiled benevolently at her.
If you rush, you will bungle. In her own voice Elodie said, “If Masteress Meenore were really here, ITs smoke would rise in tight white circles, which mean dragon happiness. IT’s always pleased to show off ITs unfathomable brilliance. Please imagine the smoke rings.” She wished she could recline as IT would have, but she might lose everyone if she began moving benches.
She made her voice nasal. “When an object of great value is taken, there is never a lack, I mean, dearth”—she needed all the hard words she could command. Luckily, the mansioners’ plays were a help—“of persons who would benefit from owning it. Let us consider you one by one.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
The fires on Zertrum lit the north face of Svye.
Goodman Hame spotted the caves. “See? There!”
IT saw. A minute later, IT landed on the ledge, while everyone outside dashed inside.
Master Erick and Goodman Hame disembarked, the latter by crawling.
Goodman Hame shouted, “You can come out. IT’s a good dragon.”
Masteress Meenore’s smoke reddened. Good at what? Good for what?
Lovers of the good ogre—everyone—poured out of the cave, eager to meet the good dragon, and began coughing.
“IT rescued us. IT lifted a boulder off me,” Goodman Hame announced. Then he fainted.
Several people surrounded him.
“And almost killed me.” Master Erick couldn’t keep the tidings to himself: “Uwald stole the Replica.”
After an hour of Master Erick, IT thought, everyone will forgive Master Uwald. IT spied Brunka Arnulf and lumbered to the edge of the crowd, where the brunka joined IT.
“Did Master Uwald really steal the Replica?”
“Yes. Where is His Lordship?”
“Back on Zertrum, finding people and bringing them here.”
“Is that why you lied to me before?”
“He’d been injured as a bird. He couldn’t fly back to the Oase. But he’s recovered, and I didn’t want you to keep him from rescuing folks.” Brunka Arnulf flicked out a short rainbow. “His heroism will live forever.”
“I prefer he not begin his afterlife tonight. He owes me wages.” IT stared across the river. In the chaos, His Lordship could be anywhere. Even a being twice his size might be impossible to find.
“The last time he delivered someone to the cave, I begged him to stay.”
IT pondered.
Leave now and fly to Elodie?