A Tale of Two Castles

But it didn’t rule out Master Thiel or Master Dess.

When I entered the kitchen, no one sent me away. The search for the mouse continued, although I wasn’t able to take part because King Grenville had requested that I wait on him. I almost wept.

Master Jak let me eat a thick slice of bread and then told me that the king was in his chambers in the northwest tower. “Take this to him.” He held out a tray loaded with more food than I would eat in three days. “Egad, I’m pleased His Lordship thought we needed you.”

A minute later I rapped on the tower door. A guard admitted me to the first story, which held the castle armory. I knocked again on the second level, and His Majesty bellowed for me to enter.

I never thought I would see a king’s hairy legs. He stood at his window embrasure in a silk undershirt that hung to just below his knees.

No guards, only His Highness and I. My heart thumped.

Holding the tray in an iron grip, I curtsied. The dishes rattled, but nothing spilled.

The room was a parlor, not a bedchamber, which must be upstairs. The biggest area was occupied by two benches that faced each other, both piled with pillows, with a low, rectangular table between. A chest butted against one wall and a small cabinet against another. A round cloth-

covered table and two chairs kept company by the fireplace, where a fire blazed. I placed the tray on the round table and hoped that was right.

His Majesty stumped to the chair nearest the fire and sat. “Girl, make the snake come out of your mouth again.”

I didn’t understand. “Your Majesty?”

“When you crossed your eyes and pretended a snake was coming out.” He bit into a slice of bread and spoke with his mouth full, white bread and yellow teeth. “That was comical. Do it again.”

I stared. He began to frown. I crossed my eyes and held out my arms for the imaginary snake.

He laughed. “A pity you were interrupted. What comes next?”

For once I didn’t want to mansion, but I enacted the rest of the tale. When the prince rode in to see the pretty sister, I straddled the spare chair and made it clatter back and forth on its wooden legs. I snapped at the chair’s imaginary withers with an imaginary whip.

The king even stopped eating to laugh. When I finished, he said, “To think of you here, performing for me alone! How lucky I am. Again, girl. No, wait. Take my tray and find my daughter. She must see it, too. Bring her a breakfast as well, and I should feel so very fortunate for a leek pie in brown sauce.”

The kitchen was half empty. At the long table Master Jak cut butter into flour.

He nodded when I told him what the king wanted. “My pies are half ready. Come back in twenty minutes, and you shall have it. The princess is in the great hall. By thunder, Her Highness has a new idea every moment, and Sir Misyur must listen.”

But instead of entering the hall, I cut through the inner ward to the count’s apartment, where the door stood open. Inside, a guard sat on a stool along the inner wall with a tureen lid in his lap. Between his feet lay a wedge of cheese.

His chin came up when I entered, and he blinked sleepily at me. Then his hand flew to the hilt of his sword. “What is it, girl?”

I went to him. “I was sent to find Her Highness.”

Nesspa lay by the fireplace hearth. His tail thumped the hearthstones. I went to him and patted his head.

What if the mouse was in the walls in this room, comforted by Nesspa’s presence?

What if this guard was the cat signaler?

“Not here.”

I could see that. “What will you do if a mouse comes out?”

“Clap this over it.” He raised the lid.

“Then what?”

“Bring it to Master Dess in the stables.”

“What will Master Dess do?”

“He’s magic with animals, says he’ll know a mouse that isn’t a mouse.”

“Can he turn the mouse back into His Lordship?”

“Dunno. Maybe he’ll cast a spell.”

“What is he doing with the real mice?”

“What one does with mice.”

Feeds them poison. That’s what we did at home, and I’d hated it. But Master Dess might make a mistake! He might even make a mistake on purpose!

I hurried to the stables, guessing that I had ten more minutes at least before Master Jak would be ready.

Master Dess stood crooning in a horse stall just beyond the big aisle. I approached, and he beckoned me in with him. Master Gise, the head groom, entered behind me with a bucket.

“Another mouse.” He handed the bucket to Master Dess. “Who is she?” Meaning me.

“A lass from Lahnt. His Lordship took her in.”

As the bucket passed between them, I saw a frantic mouse scrambling at the bottom, trying to climb out.

Master Dess reached for it.

He would have his pick of common poisons. Farm folk knew them all: frogbane, tasty false cinnamon, ground boar tusk, apple-pit powder, and the many poisonous mushrooms.

Albin had schooled me in the more exotic poisons that appeared in mansioners’ tales, such as murder milk. I knew the poisons that killed quick and the ones that killed slow, those that caused fever or stomach pain or sleep. It had amused Albin to school a child in such gruesome arts.

The mouse stilled in Master Dess’s hand.

Let it be His Lordship, I prayed.

Master Dess looked into the mouse’s eyes, then shook his head.

Now he would kill it. I snatched it from him and began to run out of the stable with the squirming creature. I’d saved this one, but how many had already died? Had Count Jonty Um been among them?

I was halfway to the door. What would I do with the mouse?

It answered by wriggling out of my hand. I lunged, but it raced into a stall. I gazed after it and fought back tears.

“Honey . . . Girl . . .” Master Dess came to me. “I wasn’t going to kill the poor mouse.”

“You weren’t?” I felt shaky with relief.

Master Gise walked toward us. “His Lordship doesn’t let us kill mice.”

I should have guessed.