What friend? “You mustn’t tell anyone!”

  “I won’t. I promise.” After a pause, he added, “Trying to bribe you was wrong.”

  I didn’t say, What about threatening my life? Don’t you care about that? “I’m worried about you and Trunk, because you both know me and came to Frell with me.”

  He said, “You cured King Imbert, and we brought you here to do so. That will keep us all safe.”

  It wouldn’t. However, he was too honorable and, though I hated to think it, not imaginative enough to understand Sir Peter’s character.

  I wanted to tell Lady Eleanor the truth about her beloved but equally didn’t want to be the one to break her heart. She might discover his falseness from some other source, or he might find a wealthier or more noble maiden to bedazzle.

  Trunk, who had taken mightily to Lady Eleanor, opined that she’d be the making of Sir Peter. “He won’t dare lie again for fear of disappointing her.”

  If only Wormy were here! He’d advise me. Or, if he had no good ideas, he’d sympathize.

  Horrible to be unique and alone.

  By the ninth morning after my arrival—nine days left!—a mere two patients remained on their pallets in the kitchen apothecary and four others were recovering in their chambers.

  Trunk announced that a third of the castle’s two hundred residents—courtiers and servants—had died of the blight, most of the deaths before I came. “Because of you, Mistress Ogre, the castle still has a lot of people.” He set two kitchen maids to peeling carrots and a third to sweeping and tending the fire.

  I said that most of the credit belonged to the purpline.

  “And who brought that?” Lady Eleanor asked, crushing fenuce leaves in a mortar, as I’d shown her.

  Squire Jerrold came in.

  My tingling fingers dropped the dried coweye daisies I’d been holding. Gallant as he was, Squire Jerrold picked them up and put them on my worktable. I curtsied as daintily as I could.

  Lady Eleanor was watching me. I saw her pity.

  Save it for yourself, I thought angrily.

  While I stripped the coweye leaves, I said, “Coweyes in a sachet under the pillow bring calming dreams.”

  Such a timid knock came on the door that I was the only one to hear it. I went to answer it.

  Wormy stood in the corridor, holding his hat by the brim. “Evie?”

  “Wormy!” I tingled.

  He seemed surprised, too. His eyes twitched. He was feeling something strongly, but I couldn’t tell what because of the people in the kitchen. “It’s just that I didn’t expect you, yourself, to open the door.”

  “Is Mother all right? No one in Jenn caught the blight?” I couldn’t help smiling. And with him, I didn’t have to hide my fangs.

  He smiled back. “No. I mean, yes, she’s all right. No one caught it. I’m glad you’re safe.”

  I pulled the door wide. He bowed to everyone, including Trunk, the kitchen maids, and the convalescents.

  His bow was smooth, springy. Had I never noticed? When he straightened, his weight rested on his back leg, as if he were about to begin swordplay. And he had taken to heart my frequent refrain—shoulders back!—because he stood erect.

  “I am Lady Eleanor.” She curtsied and looked at me—a hint of a look.

  Oh! I introduced him to everyone. “Master Warwick—Wormy—is my friend from Jenn.”

  Lady Eleanor curtsied. Squire Jerrold bowed. Trunk bobbed and touched his head in a salute.

  How comely these people were, especially Squire Jerrold, Lady Eleanor, and Wormy.

  Lady Eleanor said, “I’m Mistress Evie’s friend in Frell.” She touched my arm, and it jumped an inch as a fresh tingle ran through me.

  Could I be in love with them all, including Lady Eleanor? Half swooning with hunger and feeling, I imagined a chorus of marriage proposals and my ecstatic cry. Yes! Yes! Oh, yes! Ah, yes! Come closer, yes!

  To quiet myself, I reached for a leg of the goose Trunk had taken off the spit half an hour before. I’d already eaten the breasts. When my thoughts became civilized again, I was able to listen to the conversation.

  Lady Eleanor had been questioning Wormy about his journey.

  He said, “A farmer was kind enough to shelter me until the BB sign was taken down. Now I must find lodgings in town.”

  The farmer would have been well paid. “Wormy is generous,” I said while chewing, glad to boast about my friend. “Lady Eleanor, he keeps his family’s ledgers. Squire Jerrold, numbers turn cartwheels for him. If you need his help, he’s most obliging. Wormy, dear, what will your parents do without you?” Oh! “But you may be hurrying home before you’re missed.” He may have come as a favor to Mother—

  —and not to propose again.

  He bowed to me, acknowledging the compliments and surprising me by the formality. In the gesture, he reminded me of the young man I’d watched through the window at the master’s manor.

  He said, “I’m not sure how long I’ll stay.”

  What did it depend on?

  At least he hadn’t become a rock of certainty. He might stay. In this one way he was still my Wormy.

  “Squire Jerrold,” I said, “you’re never ill—except for the barley blight—but Wormy has benefitted from all my remedies.” Now I seemed to want to boast about myself.

  “I’m better for them,” Wormy said stoutly.

  “What was the last malady before I—” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  He coughed.

  “You have a cough?” I dropped the gnawed bone on the platter that held what remained of the goose. Then I pumped water into the basin in the sink and scrubbed my hands. “I have elecampane. It will just—”

  He coughed again. “I’m fine.”

  I dried my hands and didn’t reach for the elecampane, but if he kept coughing, I’d insist.

  Lady Eleanor said, “I hope you’ll stay until Friday.”

  Just five days away. I hoped he’d stay longer!

  She produced two creamy envelopes from her apron pocket and gave one to me and one to Squire Jerrold. “Now that health has returned to Frell, my parents are hosting a ball and, afterward, a supper. Mistress Evie, you’ll be the guest of honor. . . .”

  I didn’t hear her next words. An ogre honored at a ball?

  Might that protect me from Sir Peter?

  Or had he suggested it?

  Would he spring a trap?

  What could I wear?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  WORMY THANKED LADY ELEANOR. “I’ll certainly stay and hope Evie and you will spare me a dance.”

  “Of course.” I doubted I’d have to spare him one. “Thank you.”

  As a human, I could dance decently well. Wormy, who’d learned from a dancing master, had taught me. Would I still be able to?

  He said, “Thank you.”

  Dutiful Squire Jerrold asked me for a dance, too.

  “A slow allemande,” I said, remembering our conversation in the carriage.

  “Oho!” Trunk said. “The courtship dance!”

  It was so called because couples stayed together more than in other dances.

  Wormy frowned.

  Squire Jerrold waved his hand in front of his nose, though I’d bathed an hour earlier. “An allemande,” he said. “Or something else will also do.”

  “As long as it’s with the guest of honor.” Lady Eleanor beamed at me.

  I wondered if Wormy might learn to admire her. She’d soon notice how much kinder, sweeter, and more genuinely sympathetic he was than Sir Peter. They were both wealthy. Their parents would approve the match.

  How strange it would be to see Wormy the doting husband.

  Squire Jerrold bowed and left.

  Wormy turned to me. “I had a headache for two weeks in Jenn. No one could cure it.”

  Really? Every healer was equal to a headache.

  “I woke up with it again today. If you have a moment . . . If you aren’t too pressed by other patients . . .”

  Had he come to Frell just for me to cure a headache? A rocking chair idled by the fireplace. I pulled it to the worktable. “Sit.”

  Lady Eleanor’s eyebrows rose.

  “Er, if you please.” I opened my clay pot of honey balm. When I dabbed the salve on Wormy’s temples, a spark leaped from my fingertips to my chest.

  Wormy’s shoulders trembled. Was he afraid?

  “Lady Eleanor, would you rub the balm in for me? I should start my recovery tea. It’s delicate.”

  Lady Eleanor took the pot from my hand, and, when her fingers touched mine, I felt a lesser spark. She didn’t seem to notice.

  “Evie, I’ll wait until you can do it. Lady Eleanor, she knows exactly where to press.”

  How like Wormy that was. I frightened him, but he cared more that his headache be properly treated.

  Lady Eleanor pretended to be affronted, but she was laughing. “Old comforts can’t be supplanted by new fingers.” Then she suggested lodgings for him, a family with rooms to let. “I’ll write a letter of introduction.”

  How comforting to have him in Frell, he who saw me in the old good way as well as the horrible new. I finished mixing the recovery tea and applied myself, despite the tingling, to his headache.

  How would he occupy himself here? He was too delicate to dig graves with Squire Jerrold, but perhaps he could help with the squire’s many other acts of kindness.

  I wished the two of them could be combined. Both were honorable. One had energy and resolve, the other warmth, humor, and sympathy.

  But this perfect blend wouldn’t propose, either.

  “There, Wormy.” I stepped away. “Is it better?”

  “It’s gone!”

  Why was Lady Eleanor smiling?

  He opened the purse at his waist and produced a copper KI, my usual headache fee. No one else here had paid me, and I hadn’t asked.

  I took it. “I’ll brew some darkroot tea to keep it from coming back.” I shaved four slivers from my knob of root into a mug and poured ginger tea over them. “Let it steep for a few minutes.” I gave it to him, careful to keep our fingers from touching.

  “Will it taste bad?”

  How I’d missed him! “You’ll like it.”

  Lady Eleanor ground pepper and bonny-jump-up leaves in my mortar. While he butchered a side of beef, Trunk warbled a ditty about a cat and a butterfly. I rolled dough for pill casings that would hold a dollop of remedy.

  Finally, I nodded at Wormy, and he drank.

  How pleasant this was. Healing work. My three friends. The company of the kitchen maids too, who, unlike the castle’s other inhabitants, were used to me enough to chat among themselves and rarely glance my way.

  When my dough was thin enough, I cut it into circles. Next I dabbed on the medicine and enclosed it in pastry, which I patted onto a greased pan for Trunk to bake. “Half an hour will do. I have patients to visit.”

  Wormy drained his tea. “May I come?” When he stood, the rocking chair went over backward.

  I was eager, too. Was he planning to propose? What would I say?

  At least, if we were alone, I’d know his feelings.

  If only I knew my own. If only I could zEEn myself!

  Trunk put four cups on a tray and poured recovery tea into each. I sprinkled in a pinch of fenuce and stirred. Wormy surprised me by taking the tray. He started for the door, which I opened. Then, feeling useless, I trailed him out.

  The corridors were too busy for me to sense anyone’s emotions. In my patients’ bedchambers, I discovered that Wormy was happy—but, alas, not why.

  When I closed the door on my last patient, Wormy asked if I had to return to the apothecary. I had no emergencies that I knew of, so I led him to the library, where, now that the castle had enough servants again, a fire was always burning in the two fireplaces. From my visits to consult the medical tomes, I expected it to be empty of people, as it was.

  We pulled chairs up to a fireplace between a bookcase and a longcase clock, which showed the hour: ten before two in the afternoon. Every day rushed by more swiftly than the one before.

  Wormy leaned forward in his chair and squeezed his hands together. He was roiled by an internal commotion: joy, affection, sadness, worry, elation. “It’s November thirteenth.”

  “Indeed.” So? “I hope you brought your muffler.”

  “I have it. A little snow fell on my way here.”

  Were we going to keep talking about weather?

  “November twenty-second is nine days away.”

  He remembered. My heart fluttered.

  But I couldn’t tell what I wanted. Being an ogre muddled love. I appreciated him more than before, but I didn’t think love meant weighing this virtue against that fault on a scale. I wanted every scintilla of me to shout Yes!

  I couldn’t wait for certainty. I’d say yes.

  He didn’t propose. “Are you safe?”

  This was new! I’d always been the professional fusspot, protecting him with tonics, physics, and advice. I wanted to tell him about Sir Peter and his threat. Wormy might be at risk, too, for being my friend. And I wanted someone who cared about me to know. But if I worried him, he’d get a stomachache and his other usual complaints. His headache would return. I just said, “Beware of Sir Peter.”

  His gaze sharpened. “Might he hurt you?”

  “Me?” I forced a laugh. “I could eat him, and they’re going to honor me.”

  “Yes, but are you safe?”

  How well he knew me. “Yes.”

  “Then why should I beware?”

  “He isn’t honorable.”

  “Many aren’t.”

  Where had this worldliness come from?

  “Why should I distrust him in particular?”

  What to say? I picked my words carefully. “He doesn’t like me. He may try to harm me through my friends.”

  He didn’t press me further.

  “Wormy?”

  “Yes?” He moved his chair closer to the fire.

  “You’re different. What happened?”

  I sensed surprise. “My feet grew.” He laughed and extended his feet. “New shoes.”

  The buckles were set with tiny quartz stones. “Not your feet!”

  “Then I’m the same.”

  “People want to marry you.” I clapped my hand over my mouth, but the words were out. “I saw it at the master’s.”

  He flushed but said nothing.

  “I should go back to the apothecary.” I didn’t move, though.

  “If you have to.” He didn’t move, either.

  “I’ve made a friend,” I said into the lengthening silence.

  “Lady Eleanor?”

  “Yes. I’ve never met anyone so kind and delightful. And beautiful.” The opposite of an ogre.

  “She’s very pretty.”

  Naturally, he’d noticed.

  “She has many suitors?”

  Ah. “Only Sir Peter, and he isn’t worthy of her.”

  “I see.”

  But I sensed no more than polite interest, so I added, “She deserves someone as good as she is.”

  He turned his chair to face me. “Squire Jerrold?”

  “He’s extraordinarily good, but I wasn’t thinking of him.”

  He saddened. “I see.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I’ve decided never to marry. That could be how I’ve changed.”

  Oh. He would never propose.

  What had changed his mind?

  I sensed he was feeling love, but I’d misjudged that emotion in Sir Peter. In Wormy, it probably wasn’t self-love, but it might be love of me as a friend. That was probably it.

  He wouldn’t be happy alone. “You must marry! I prescribe it for you.”

  Wormy became both glad and even sadder. “Not marrying isn’t an illness, Evie. For you . . .” He didn’t finish.

  For me, it was a life sentence. “While you’re here, I’m your healer. Isn’t my advice always good?”

  I sensed his pleasure in my words, but he changed the subject. “Is Squire Jerrold your friend?”

  “He says he is, and I believe him. He’s a good friend to have—brave, loyal, trustworthy, honest.”

  “Handsome.”

  “I suppose.” Edible.

  I described Squire Jerrold’s activities since the blight. “You know I like people who work hard and serve other people.”

  Wormy stood. “You said you should get back. Patients may be waiting.”

  This was the first time he’d ever ended a chat with me. We returned to the apothecary, where Lady Eleanor had written the promised letter of introduction. She gave him street directions.

  “The house is well kept, the rooms suitable for a gentleman.”

  I said, “Come back if your headache returns.” Even though I’d promised it wouldn’t.

  The rest of the day passed in restocking medicaments, rolling bandages, whittling splints, waiting for patients who didn’t come.

  Lady Eleanor said, “I like your Master Warwick.” She rolled bandages at my side.

  “He isn’t mine.” If anyone could change his mind about marrying, it would be Lady Eleanor. “I believe he’s as good a man as Squire Jerrold.”

  “As good as Sir Peter?”

  “Yes.” Which was true but an enormous understatement.

  “He admires you.”

  “He can tell a good healer.”

  She laughed. “He admires you.”

  He used to.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  WORMY DIDN’T VISIT the next day—or the next, or the day after that. Three days out of my dwindling store—from nine days to six.

  Only two patients sought me out: one with a bunion and one with dizzy spells. Thus far, though the blight was over, the king hadn’t tossed me out. Trunk gave me food, and the pigs liked me.

  Lady Eleanor said Sir Titus had resumed his practice on Eastview Street. “People of fashion and the king consult him, but I would go to you.” She stirred an imaginary spoon in an imaginary beaker. In a cracked voice with a wheeze, she said, “‘This decoction cured my grandmother’s grandmother and her grandmother’s grandmother and her . . .’” She laughed. “You’re more modern. But I’m rarely sick. Sorry!”

  During Wormy’s absence, Squire Jerrold continued his visits. I’d have guessed he came for Lady Eleanor’s company, but she seemed not to interest him. He appeared gladdest to see Trunk, who was probably the reason for his calls.