A Tale of Two Castles

“Your Lordship, are you awake inside your present shape?”


For answer he twittered, but his eyes met mine in a way I had seen in no other animal. Perhaps he could understand and remember. I had questions, and I hoped he would answer them when he could speak again.

But before I could say anything, he pulled another packet out of the sack.

Lambs and calves! This was the saffron fish, as golden as if King Midas had touched it. The monkey held a chunk to my lips. I tasted, spat it out, and wiped my mouth on my sleeve. Ugh! Gold itself would taste better. How could people enjoy saffron so much?

The monkey’s shoulders shook. He took a great handful of the awful mess and crammed it into his mouth. After he swallowed, he smiled and pointed at his teeth, now dyed yellow.

I couldn’t help laughing.

Next he brought out pickled blue carrots. As we ate, the stars and the moon rose. I drew my cloak tight around me. The monkey jumped up, fetched the ogre’s huge cloak, and draped it inexpertly over my shoulders, making his panting laugh and ignoring my protests that it would get dirty.

I covered my head with the cloak, which enfolded me, and inside I was as snug as if I were in the lair.

We continued eating. The sack collapsed as its contents slid into our stomachs. In the back of my mind, I was aware of the marchpane still remaining. No matter how much I ate, I would make room for it.

Between bites I spoke. “Pardon me, Your Lordship”—I cleared my throat nervously—“I have a few questions. . . .”

He went on chewing.

I asked about the dog, Nesspa, what his habits were, what he dined on, whose company he kept in addition to His Lordship’s.

“My guess is”—I thought aloud, deducing or inducing or using my common sense—“that you don’t often change shape, because changing hurts so much.” More to myself than to the monkey, I said, “I wonder why you did with me.”

He reached across the sack of food and pressed my hand. Had he become a monkey because he liked me, and the monkey would show the feeling more clearly than the ogre could? A lump grew in my throat. Love lay back in Lahnt with my family and Albin. Goodwife Celeste seemed to like me, but she’d as much as told me to stay away. Masteress Meenore appeared to like or dislike me according to my usefulness.

After a moment he let my hand go and fed me a chunk of bread, which, more than the saffron, told me how it might feel to be rich. If you were rich, you could chew this bread without paying attention to how sweet and tangy it was. You wouldn’t close your eyes as I was closing mine and savor each bite, because you could have more whenever you liked.

I returned to my questions. How long could he remain an animal? Forever, if he liked? Or for only a few hours? Did he have to stay shifted awhile before he could switch back? If he changed into, for example, a rabbit or an owl, did other rabbits or owls know he wasn’t really one of them? Did he choose the sort of animal he would change into, or did it choose him?

Question everything. Could he get stuck inside an animal? Could magic force him into a shape and keep him in it?

“Is it strange to be yourself again after you’ve been a monkey?”

When the sack was almost flat, he drew out the small packet and opened it. Marchpane! I made out the shapes—strawberries, roses, tiny apples, daisies.

“May I sample one?” I heard awe in my voice.

He twittered. I took that as consent. If he’d snatched the packet away, I’d have taken that as consent as well and snatched it back.

I picked a rose and nibbled it. Oh, heaven. Father! I’m eating marchpane that no one stepped on.

I held the remainder of the rose out to the monkey, who took it and gave me an apple. Soon we finished the marchpane between us. Despite his ogre’s appetite, he let me have most of it. When all was gone, he lay back and stared up at the stars.

“Can you find the constellations?” I lay back, too. “They’re all from mansioners’ tales, you know.” I pointed as I spoke. “There’s Cupid as a cherub and Thisbe’s apple and Zeus’s lightning rod.”

The monkey chittered.

I let out a long breath. “Your Lordship, I came here to become a mansioner, and I will still be one someday.”

He panted softly, perhaps chuckling at my ambition.

“I will be. Albin says I have a gift, and he mansioned everywhere, before counts and kings, although not King Grenville or you.” I was off, telling a monkey about Albin and Mother and Father and Lahnt and the geese, telling him more than I’d told Masteress Meenore, despite ITs endless curiosity.

When my life’s story ran out, I just watched the stars and smelled the earth around us until, not meaning to, I fell asleep.

When I woke, I smelled stone and saw darkness. Terrified, half asleep, I raised my arms. My fingers encountered only air. Ah. I had not been entombed. My fingers discovered that I lay on a pallet bed. A woolen blanket covered me from neck to toe. No, three blankets. My nose and ears were cold, but the rest of me was cozy warm. Whoever put me here—the monkey? the ogre? a servant?—had considered my comfort.

My eyes adjusted to the dark. I found my satchel a few inches from my head. Nearby, someone snored a barrel-chested snore. A woman’s voice mumbled from a dream.

The room was vast, vaulted, Count Jonty Um’s great hall, no doubt. I hadn’t been in a castle since I was a baby, when Mother and Father presented me to the earl of Lahnt, but Albin had performed in castles. I had his descriptions to draw on. Although each castle was unique, he said, they resembled one another, like cousins in the castle family.