A Tale of Two Castles

“Do not touch! You are signaling thieves.”


I pulled my hand away as though my apron were on fire. What a bumpkin I’d been.

“While you are out, observe and listen. Smell the air. All your senses are in my employ, Lodie.”

On Lair Lane, a shutter slammed shut. A cat cleaned itself in a doorway. I spied four cats. It occurred to me that Two Castles might have not a single mouse.

Roo Street was busier than quiet Lair Lane. At a weaver’s stall a man turned over lengths of cloth. I tried out the Two Castles accent I’d just practiced for hours and he simply directed me to a scribe’s stall. I skipped across Roo onto Trist Street.

Ahead, outside a jeweler’s stall, Goodwife Celeste held a silver bracelet close to her eyes while the jeweler pounded his fist into his palm and disputed with her husband, Goodman Twah.

I’d thought them too poor to buy jewelry.

“Mistress! It’s Elodie! From the cog!”

Her hand closed around the bracelet, and she lowered her arm. “Elodie! How nice to see you.”

Was it? I’d interrupted something.

“Have you become a mansioner’s apprentice?”

I told her about Masteress Meenore.

“The dragon Meenore?”

“ITself.”

“Look about for something else, Elodie.” She put her hands on my shoulders, the bracelet hand still a fist. “IT is moody. Today IT may be kind, but tomorrow IT could be angry and do anything. If you stay, be prepared to flee.”

To flee, but not to seek her aid.

“Come, Celeste.” Her goodman twined his arm in hers. “The grandchildren are waiting. Good day.” He nodded at me and at the jeweler.

“Good day!” The jeweler’s voice was sharp.

Goodwife Celeste and her husband headed uphill. She still had the bracelet, so her goodman must have paid for it.

I decided to be cautious in ITs company and to continue barricading myself while I slept.

In Romply Alley the scribe’s table took up little space between two cheese sellers’ booths. The scribe was a tiny woman with a large nose, as if the pungent cheese had directed all her growth one way. “You’d like me to write something for you?”

I said I needed no assistance.

She peered at me through small, red-rimmed eyes. “Remarkable.”

Thirty tins bought me postage and a scrap of parchment. I wrote in a cramped script,


Am well, am safe. Many weavers here. A master has taken me for free. Do not miss the geese, but miss you both and Albin. Your loving daughter, Elodie



I wished I’d had room to write loving a hundred times. Every sentence was a lie concealed in truth. I wanted to tell them what an adventure I was having, but I had no space and didn’t dare.

The scribe waved a fan over the parchment to dry the ink. “You write a fine hand, young mistress. Don’t set up in competition with me.”

I paid, while watching for thieving cats. The tins changed hands without trouble, and I started back to my masteress. As I turned into Lair Lane, I stopped, then ran into the lair, leaping as I went.

“Masteress!”

IT looked up from ITs game of knucklebones.

“An abecedary of vegetables!” I brushed aside the bones and put the book on the floor under ITs snout. “Look!” I opened to the first page. “A for acorn squash.” I turned to the end. “Z for zucchini. It’s an A to Z in vegetables.”

ITs smoke grayed.

Gray smoke for sadness, but I rushed on. “Mother taught me to read with an abecedary. I’ll teach you. We can start—”

IT sat up. “What did you see and hear and smell in the town?”

“Don’t you—” I stopped myself and told IT everything except Goodwife Celeste’s warning.

When I finished, IT had me read again until the evening meal, by which time I had progressed as far as mustard. After we ate, IT challenged me to knucklebones. I sat cross-legged on the floor, and IT stretched out facing me with the tip of ITs tail in the smoldering fireplace.

I couldn’t win. IT tossed the jack higher and straighter than I did and so had more time to pick up bones. My sole advantage lay in the variations. IT knew none, so I showed IT the ones I excelled at: round the castle, fairy fling, rolling the gnome. But soon IT surpassed me even at these.

And then, in the middle of a game, IT said, “Lodie, three scribes have attempted to teach me to read, and all have used abecedaries. But the letters fly apart. Straight lines curl. Curved lines throb. I know a single letter.” ITs right claw drew a circle in the air. “O.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, O. The trouble must be in the dragon eye, or in my eyes.”

I wasn’t convinced IT couldn’t learn. Clever as IT was, IT seemed meant to read.

We played a while longer, and then I slept, unafraid, not barricaded. Goodwife Celeste was certainly misinformed about my masteress.

In the morning IT gave me instructions. “Walk through the town and proclaim my powers. You will say”—IT inhaled deeply—“‘Today, in Two Castles and only in Two Castles, the Great, the Unfathomable, the Brilliant Meenore is available to solve riddles, find lost objects and lost people, and answer the unanswerable. Three tins for a riddle solved . . .’”

So now I knew what three tins would buy.

“‘. . . fifteen tins for a lost object found, three coppers for a lost person found—’”

I blurted, “A lost person should cost more than three coppers.” A person!

“What is a person worth, Lodie?”

“Many silvers.”

“And if the lost person is the son of a servant, who may never own a single silver, the son should remain lost?”

I blushed. “No. But what if the father or mother may never own a copper?”

“Then we will negotiate. You must also say, ‘The fee for answering the unanswerable will be decided between the parties. The Great, the Unfathomable, the Brilliant Meenore may be found in the square. Speak to IT with respect.’ Elodie, I charge you: Make the residents of Two Castles take note. This is your most important task. Make them listen.”