A Tale of Two Castles (8 page)

Chapter Fourteen

H
is Lordship's arms fell to his sides. The vibrating slowed and stopped. His cloak and tunic hung in heaps and folds over the narrow shoulders of a monkey, an animal I recognized from an illustration in Mother's only storybook. The monkey was hardly bigger than a fox, his miniature ivory face fringed by coarse orange fur.

He smiled infectiously, showing his teeth and gums. His amber eyes were merry.

I had to smile back.

He removed the count's clothes and shoes while grinning as if at the silliness of lavish attire, or attire at all. When he emerged, I saw how delicate he was—thin arms, thin legs, and a scrawny chest showing through his frill of fur. All the luxury was in his long bushy tail, which curled up at the end. He stood half erect on his two back legs, with one fisted hand on the ground.

I touched his arm to feel the fur, which was as rough as an otter dog's coat. As I stroked, a spark passed between us. The monkey threw back his head and panted, laughing, I thought.

Something had to be done with his clothing. I began to fold each item while wondering how I could fit it all into my satchel and then carry it as well as the sack of food.

I rolled his belt and tucked his purse—still heavy despite all the purchases—between his hose and his tunic. Mean-while he bounced on his bare feet, chirping like a bird, adding a screech, a
choo
, and a sucking sound.

“I wish I spoke monkey language, Your Lordship.” I folded the cloak and added the huge shoes, soles up, to the pile.

The pendant lay on the ground, apart from the rest. I hid it in the toe of a shoe.

Night would fall soon. Were we safe out here, where Two Castles's thieves might kill us for the pendant and the purse? A monkey who took five minutes to transform back into an ogre would be unable to defend us, and one dog wouldn't be enough to hold off a gang.

The monkey sat in the road and pulled apart the strings of the sack.

Sheeyen tried to stick her nose in, but I pulled her away.

“Your Lordship, we mustn't stay here. Robbers and bandits may come.”

He chittered and patted the ground next to himself in a gesture that said as clearly as a word,
Sit
.

The monkey was a count. I sat.

No. I was human, and he was a monkey.

The road stretched along a low rise. In two trips, tugging Sheeyen along each way, I carried everything down the western slope to a spot low enough, I thought, that we wouldn't be noticed in the dark. The monkey followed, then sat again, pulling me down next to him. Together, we watched the sunset turn the sky gold and scarlet.

Chirping, he took a packet out of the sack and opened the burlap covering to reveal lamb pottage.

“Sit, Sheeyen,” I said.

Pottage was humble food, but delicious: grain mixed with beans, a chopped onion, a little shredded meat, shaped into a ball, wrapped in a square of linen, simmered with other wrapped packages of carrots, celery, beets. At home we'd eat the pottage and vegetables atop a plate of stale bread with broth spooned over. At the end we'd break off pieces of our plates and devour them, too.

Here there was no broth, but the pottage was moist, with more meat than I was accustomed to. The monkey and I shared it, feeding each other by turn, as people do. He ate daintily but as much as if he were still ogre size. I gave Sheeyen a little at first, too, then ignored her. After a while she lost hope and slept.

“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.

In the dimness, I surmised I lay among the servants' pallets, with my pallet in the middle of the group. The best places clustered close to the hearth, where a few embers still glowed. Against the opposite wall, another hearth also smoldered. High above us, slitted windows made a dotted line near the ceiling. From my low vantage point, I saw small squares of blue-black sky.

There would be lower, larger windows, too, recessed into the wall of the inner ward, the courtyard at the heart of the castle, but I couldn't see them from here.

My mind refused to return to sleep. The pallet next to mine might be occupied by His Lordship's enemy, the dog thief and poacher. Or the snorer might be the one. Or the mumbler. In some neglected castle nook, Nesspa might be whining and gnawing at the bars of a cage.

What better time than now to look for him?

I rose to my knees and found that I had been sleeping in my cloak. At the foot of the pallet, my shoes pointed away from me. I pulled them on, stood, and threaded my way between the sleepers.

As I walked, the rushes scattered across the floor swished, but no one stirred. I sniffed the air. The rushes had been strewn with bay leaves. How rich! How like a castle!

I paused to decide where to go. During the day, as I'd been told, the emptiness would be filled by trestle tables and benches and bustle. But now the furniture leaned against the wall. Ahead, in a row on a dais, stood three chairs, two human sized, one built for an ogre. Of the two, one chair gleamed silver, the other gold. The third, barely visible in the gloom, was wood.

Three doors always exited a great hall. One, at the end of the wall on my left, would lead to a tower, which would hold a donjon for supplies on the lowest floor and a residence above on the next two stories. The door on the wall to my right would open into the inner ward. The third door I couldn't see, but it should be behind the screen in the corner ahead, and this would take me into the kitchen, across which I would find another door to another tower.

Where to hide a dog? Perhaps in a tower or in the stables.

Statues win no races and find no dogs. I should decide and go.

The towers adjoining the hall would be most convenient to search, but also most dangerous in case I made a noise. I rejected them for now. Tonight I'd investigate the kitchen tower.

I tiptoed behind the screen to the door, which groaned as it opened. I stopped breathing and waited, listening for sounds of waking.

What would they do if they caught me?

Silence. I slipped through and left the door ajar, so it wouldn't groan on my return.

Now I was in a short passageway; castle walls are so thick that rooms are separated by little tunnels. I entered the enormous kitchen, only slightly smaller than the great hall.

Door on my right, but not the tower door. Dimly outlined shapes of tables, stools, benches, buckets. At last, to the left of the sink, the tower door.

I pressed my ear against it. Through the thick wood, I thought I heard a thud and a whine. I pictured Nesspa, hiding from thudding feet, whining in fright.

Of course the explanation was likely more innocent. The castle steward and his family, for example, could live above the donjon. Someone might have risen to use the garderobe and stubbed his toe.

This door opened noiselessly. A stairway rose to my right. Ahead, beyond an open doorway, a light flickered in the donjon. Grain sacks piled twice my height faced me, parted by a narrow aisle. Except for the aisle, the sacks butted one another, leaving not enough room between them for a rat, let alone a big dog.

The donjon wouldn't contain just grain, however. I started down the aisle. After perhaps ten steps, the piles ended, and I saw a candle in a holder on the floor and a monstrous shadow flowing across rows of barrels, the shadow bigger by far than the ogre.

I backed away. Don't hear me! Don't see me! Whatever sort of monster you are, be deaf and blind!

Safely out the tower door, I sped through the kitchen and across the great hall to the servants' pallets, where I turned about, looking for the biggest sleeper.

There. I knelt at his side and shook his shoulder. He rolled over. I shook harder.

He raised his head. “What?” Then he leaped up, tucking his blanket around his waist. He wasn't as tall as he'd seemed from above, but he was muscular, with a hairy chest and a graying beard. He grasped my arm, whispering, “Who are you?”

“Someone is in the donjon.”

“By thunder, who are you?”

“The new kitchen maid.” I repeated, “Someone is in the kitchen tower donjon. Or something. It's big.”

His grip tightened. “How do you know?”

“I know.” What else could I say? “I saw.”

He half dragged, half lifted me out of the hall, making much more noise than I'd have dared. No one woke. In the kitchen he took a long knife from a chopping table. “This will do. By thunder, it will do for you if no one's there.”