“So you might enjoy a gift of more bees?” Agatha said, moving closer and dropping a kiss of greeting on the older woman’s proffered cheek. “I happen to know of some that are in need of a new home.”
“You’ve seen a swarm?” Mrs. Stowe brightened. “Were they flying or had they settled somewhere?”
“Very settled—they’re colonizing the back corner of my warehouse.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Stowe laughed. “Then they need rehiving. You’ll be wanting to talk to Mrs. Flood.”
“I’ll talk to anybody who knows how to get rid of bees.”
“Mrs. Flood knowseverythingabout bees.” Mrs. Stowe’s voice was emphatic with conviction. “What’s more—she’ll know if someone’s in need of a new colony. And she’s kind. A little too kind for her own good, probably.”
Agatha huffed. “What does kindness have to do with it?”
Mrs. Stowe clucked her tongue, as though Agatha were a stubborn child avoiding her lessons. “Becauseyoudon’t know anything about bees, and you’re asking her a favor.”
“I could pay—”
“Don’t you dare.”
Agatha snapped her mouth shut.
Mrs. Stowe’s smile broadened. “This isn’t London,” Mrs. Stowe went on, more mildly. “We don’t usually send invoices around when we help one another. And Mrs. Flood has money enough that she doesn’t worry about getting more.” She raised her elbows to the arm of the chair, steepling her fingers. “You might have to be in Mrs. Flood’s debt for a little while, is all. Until you find a way to pay her back in kind.”
Agatha shrugged, though even the mention of the worddebtmade her itch between the shoulder blades. She skated too close to that edge too often, and the anxiety of it was rarely far from her thoughts.
But she couldn’t justleavethe bees in the warehouse. It was untenable. That meant the bees would win.
There was only one decision to be made. Agatha steeled herself, and made it. “Where might this Mrs. Flood be found?”
Chapter Three
The Four Swallows tavern stood where Melliton met the river Ethel, and it was the custom for some of the local beekeepers to take their nuncheon together there on the small pier that stretched out into the water. Penelope had walked her usual southern circuit in the morning, and would circle around the cottages and farms to the north in the afternoon, checking on everyone’s hives, but the summer days were long and left plenty of time for a leisurely midday meal.
A willow overhanging the bank offered some shade, its fluttering leaves making the light shimmer in a way that would have been much more pleasant had Mr. Painter not been clouding the air with tobacco smoke from the pipe he was huffing into.
Mr. Koskinen shook his head and took an aggrieved draught of his beer, blowing smoke away from the surface of the liquid before bringing the pewter tankard to his lips.
Mr. Biswas was laughing silently, gray whiskers shaking against his brown skin.
Penelope had started to laugh, too, but it had turned into a cough that left her breathless, with tears leaking from smoke-reddened eyes. “Enough, Mr. Painter! It makes me dizzy.”
“Aye,” the man said, between puffs on the pipe, “but it makes the bees dizzy, too, doesn’t it? Goes to show: tobacco smoke beats wood smoke for tending hives.”
“Unless the tobacco makes the beekeeper so disoriented she stumbles and knocks over the skep,” Penelope countered with a wheeze. “Besides, it adds a bitterness to the honey. Give me a good base of pine needles and vary the aromatics: lavender for spring, dried roses in summer, orange peel for fall.”
“I find puffball mushrooms are best, myself,” Mr. Biswas offered.
Penelope was horrified. “Miss Abington always warned me that would kill the bees!”
“No, not if you’re careful.” Mr. Biswas pursed his lips and confessed, “If you’re truly careful, you wrap some linen around your mouth when you use it. For caution’s sake.”
Mr. Painter went back to smoking normally, and the air soon cleared again. His mouth worked thoughtfully around the pipe stem. “What do you use, Timo?”
Timo Koskinen tilted his shaggy red head and considered the question. He’d been a sailor before his marriage, but now he was perhaps the most learned beekeeper in Melliton: his octagonal glass observation hive was a marvel of engineering, and he’d read just about everything there was to read on the subject.
Perhaps the weight of all that knowledge was a burden, because Timo Koskinen could never, ever be rushed when someone asked him a question about bees.
A swallow darted by, flirting with the surface of the river. Beneath the willow branches a trout appeared, snapping at mayflies that hovered just out of reach.
