The Safe-Keeper's Secret Read online

  The secret

  With one abrupt movement, the man thrust his bundle through the open door. “Take the baby,” he said baldly. “The child is not safe in anyone else’s hands.”

  With a soft exclamation of surprise, the woman placed her candle on a nearby table and accepted the infant into her arms. “But whose child is this?” she murmured, looking down into the small sleeping face and beginning to rock slowly back and forth on the balls of her feet.

  “I will whisper the name into your ear,” the man said, coming near enough to do just that. “It is a secret.”

  She nodded, and he brought his mouth so close to her face he might have been kissing her on the cheek. She listened, nodded again, and looked him directly in the eyes as he straightened up and drew back.

  “I will tell my sister,” she said.

  “And no one else,” he said.

  “And no one else,” she repeated.

  FIREBIRD

  WHERE FANTASY TAKES FLIGHT™

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  Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Fantasy and Science Fiction Sharyn November, ed.

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  Spindle’s End Robin McKinley

  Tamsin Peter S. Beagle

  Treasure at the Heart of the Tanglewood Meredith Ann Pierce

  Waifs and Strays Charles de Lint

  Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson

  Waters Luminous & Deep: Shorter Fictions Meredith Ann Pierce

  Books by Sharon Shinn

  The Samaria

  Novels

  ARCHANGEL

  JOVAH’S ANGEL

  THE ALLELUIA FILES

  ANGELICA

  ANGEL-SEEKER

  THE SHAPE-CHANGER’S WIFE

  WRAPT IN CRYSTAL

  HEART OF GOLD

  SUMMERS AT CASTLE AUBURN

  JENNA STARBORN

  THE SAFE-KEEPER’S SECRET

  MYSTIC AND RIDER

  THE TRUTH-TELLER’S TALE

  The Safe-Keeper’s Secret

  SHARON SHINN

  FIREBIRD

  AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC.

  FIREBIRD

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by Viking,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2004

  Published by Firebird, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2005

  3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Sharon Shinn, 2004

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Shinn, Sharon.

  The Safe-Keeper’s secret / by Sharon Shinn.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Fiona is Safe-Keeper in the small village of Tambleham,

  where neighbors and strangers alike come one by one, in secret,

  to tell her things they dare not share with anyone else.

  [1. Secrets—Fiction. 2. Villages—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S5572Saf 2004 [Fic]—dc22 2003023538

  ISBN: 978-1-101-56397-7

  Printed in the United States of America

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that

  it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise

  circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover

  other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition

  including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The publisher does not than any control over and does not assume any

  responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  FOR AARON

  Because reading the last few chapters aloud to

  you is one of my most special memories.

  A TRUTH COMES OUT WHEN IT MUST;

  A DREAM COMES TRUE WHEN IT WILL.

  THOUGH THE WORLD TURN TO ASH AND DUST,

  A SECRET ‘S A SECRET STILL.

  Prologue

  The solitary horse and rider clattered through the sleeping town, iron-shod hooves striking sharply against the half-buried cobblestones of the market square. Twenty yards outside the village green, the road turned to dirt again, and the animal’s feet made only a muted thud against the dry soil. It was still an urgent sound, for the horse was moving fast—as fast as it could after a long night of hard running.

  The rider only slowed as he passed the last houses on the road leading out of town. He bent to peer at each lawn and roofline, clearly looking for a mark or signal. Not till he came to the small gray-brick cottage on the very edge of Tambleham did he pull the horse to a complete halt.

  A spray of roses by the gate, dark and colorless in the moonlight. A low hedge of no particular shape or beauty. And a kirrenberry tree planted by the front door.

  A Safe-Keeper’s house.

  Moving awkwardly because of a bundle clutched tightly to his chest, the rider dismounted and led his horse through the gate. There he let the exhausted animal stand untethered while he hurried up the flagged walkway and knocked on the front door. When there was no immediate answer, he pounded even louder.

  A moment later, a young woman opened the door, holding a candlestick that illuminated her face. Despite the lateness of the hour, she looked wide awake and not at all alarmed at the appearance of this midnight visitor. Her dark hair was pinned to the back of her head, and her yellow gown appeared to be spattered with a variety of stains.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  Her visitor was not nearly so calm. “You are the Safe-Keeper of this village?” he demanded in a low voice.

  She shook her head. “No. I—”

  He fell back a step, clutching his bundle even more tightly to him. “No! But you—but the kirrenberry tree—”

  “My sister is Safe-Keeper here. I am Safe-Keeper in Lowford, thirty miles over that hill.”

  He stepped forward again, instantly reassured. Any Safe-Keeper was to be trusted, no matter where he or she could be found. “Where is your sister? I must speak with her.”

  She gave him the tiniest of smiles. “My sister cannot come to the door now. She is in labor and will soon be delivered of a child.”

  Now he backed off again, turning away as if to shield the package in his arms from anyone
else’s sight. “Is she—is there a midwife in the house? Another woman from the town to aid you?”

  The young woman shook her head. “No. Just my sister and me. I have delivered plenty of babies in Lowford. I know what to do.”

  He stood there a moment longer, undecided, but it was clear from the set of his shoulders that he was weary almost beyond imagining. “I can go no farther,” he said at last, seeming to speak to himself more than the woman at the door. “I have ridden as long and as hard as I can. I must leave my secret with you.”

  Just then there was a wail from inside the house, the long, indignant moan of a woman who was not enjoying her circumstances. “Quickly, then,” the woman said. “I must go to her.”

  With one abrupt movement, the man thrust his bundle through the open door. “Take the baby,” he said baldly. “The child is not safe in anyone else’s hands.”

  With a soft exclamation of surprise, the woman placed her candle on a nearby table and accepted the infant into her arms. “But whose child is this?” she murmured, looking down into the small sleeping face and beginning to rock slowly back and forth on the balls of her feet.

  “I will whisper the name into your ear,” the man said, coming near enough to do just that. “It is a secret.”

  She nodded, and he brought his mouth so close to her face he might have been kissing her on the cheek. She listened, nodded again, and looked him directly in the eyes as he straightened up and drew back.

  “I will tell my sister,” she said.

  “And no one else,” he said.

  “And no one else,” she repeated.

  “Will she keep the baby? Will you?”

  “Or we will find a home that is safe,” she said gently. “Your secret is ours to keep now.”

  “Then I must go back,” he said.

  There was another cry from the back of the house, this one a little sharper. But the young woman lingered at the doorway, her worried gaze on her visitor. “What will become of you, when you return to the city and this one is missing?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I know what I must do next. Have no fear for me.”

  A pitiful cry came from the back room. “Angeline! Where have you gone?”

  “Who are you?” she asked. “I will tell no one. Just so I know.”

  For the first time since she had opened the door to him, he smiled, a rather grim expression. “I am the Safe-Keeper to the king,” he said.

  “Angeline!”

  “Safe passage home,” she said.

  “My deepest thanks,” he replied. Finally relieved of his burden, he lost some of his desperation and acquired a certain courtly air. He gave her a deep, flourishing bow, and kissed his fingers to her as he swept upright.

  “When should the secret be told?” she asked.

  “You will know,” he said. “But it will not be soon.”

  “Angeline! I need you!”

  “Good-bye, then,” she said.

  “Good-bye,” he said. Turning with a swirl of his cloak, he headed back to his horse. By the time he had led the tired animal through the gate and climbed back into the saddle, the door to the cottage was already closed. There was no sign of either woman or baby.

  In the morning, Elminstra was the first one to come knocking on the Safe-Keeper’s door. She had a loaf of fresh-baked bread in one hand and a bucket of milk in the other, for she was sure Angeline had had no time to be thinking of food, and Damiana was in no condition.

  “Hello?” she called, pushing the door open when no one responded to her knock. She was the nearest neighbor, living a mere quarter mile down the road, and she and Damiana quite freely walked into each other’s houses. “Angeline? Damiana? Has the baby come?”

  Just as Elminstra stepped into the big main room, Angeline came in from the kitchen, cradling a child in each arm. “In fact, two babies have come,” Angeline said, smiling.

  With a little shriek, Elminstra dropped both her loaf and her bucket to the floor. “Twins! I would swear she was not big enough to be carrying two—are they early? Are they healthy? Let me see them, the precious little ones—”

  “Not twins,” Angeline said, handing one of the children to the neighbor. Elminstra was a grandmother herself, though she looked more of an age to be a mother, and she had handled more babies in her time than Angeline and her sister put together. “This little girl was born around three in the morning. But this young man”—and she glanced down into the face of the baby she had kept in her arms—“he arrived a few hours earlier when a strange rider brought him to our door.”

  Elminstra, who had begun cooing into the blankets she held, looked up sharply at this statement. “So I didn’t dream it!” she exclaimed. “I thought I heard a horse go by late last night, very fast. It was someone coming here?”

  Angeline nodded. “And leaving a package behind.”

  The baby girl made a sound halfway between a whimper and a cough, and Elminstra began to jiggle her absently. “But—who was he? And whose child did he bring to you?”

  Angeline merely smiled, and Elminstra nodded. Being neighbor to a Safe-Keeper for so long had taught her not to expect answers to all her questions. Not that many of those answers would surprise her. She was a healer and herbalist—some called her a witch—and people often came to her for medicines and remedies that some other woman might find shocking.

  “Will she keep this baby, then? Or will you?” Elminstra asked.

  “I was willing to take him back to Lowford, but Damiana is determined to keep him,” Angeline said. “She says it’s easier for one person to raise two babies than for two people to raise one apiece, though I’m not so sure that’s true. But she thinks these two will be company for each other as they grow older.”

  “Company for each other, and enemies with each other, and mischief-makers who incite each other to even greater mischief,” Elminstra said with feeling. “She could be right! But on the other hand, it is not such an easy thing to raise a child all by yourself—and to raise two children”—Elminstra shook her head. “I don’t suppose,” she added delicately, “this makes her any more interested in contacting her daughter’s father and seeing if he would be willing to help her out?”

  Angeline grinned. “No, nor has it made her any more interested in divulging the identity of her daughter’s father.”

  Elminstra sighed and continued bouncing the baby in her arms. “There is some talk about Damiana already, you know, choosing to have a child all on her own and telling no one who the father is. Oh, everyone loves her, of course—”

  “Everyone loves their Safe-Keeper,” Angeline interrupted. “She knows too many secrets for them not to love her.”

  “But now with two children in the house—well, it will cause even more talk.”

  Angeline shrugged and patted the child’s back. “Such things don’t bother Damiana. I think she’ll raise both children and she’ll be happy and they’ll be happy, and there won’t be any more talk.”

  “Until the secret about the child’s parentage comes out,” Elminstra said.

  Angeline laughed. “Which one?”

  Elminstra was still in the Safe-Keeper’s house when the next visitor came calling, and the next, and the next. To each of them, Angeline told the same story, of the boy delivered to the house at midnight and the girl delivered to the bed three hours later. Everyone was agog with curiosity—but, like Elminstra, they knew the futility of questioning a Safe-Keeper. Angeline would reveal no secrets now, and Damiana would reveal no secrets later. In fact, Damiana appeared likely to stay in her bed sleeping the entire day through, waking up only enough to nurse both infants whenever they started to wail.

  “You’ll need milk,” Elminstra said briskly. “She won’t have enough for both of them. I’ll bring you a bucket every morning.”

  “How long are you staying?” Lacey asked Angeline. She was seamstress in Tambleham and friendly with everybody. “I imagine they’ll be wanting you back in Lowford very soon. I can co
me once a day to help with dinner.”

  Other women chimed in with similar offers, and Angeline accepted them all on behalf of her sister. Damiana was the kind who could manage entirely on her own; but Damiana also had the ability to accept aid with great grace and sweetness. It was one of the reasons everyone in Tambleham liked her so much. That and her ready smile and her sweet face and her gift for silence. She was just the sort of person you would want to have for your friend, no matter what you needed a friend for.

  It was past lunchtime, and Elminstra had taken over the kitchen to prepare a meal for everyone, when running footsteps could be heard coming up the walk. All the women glanced at each other—there were eight of them by now, enjoying the chance to gossip and in no mood to go back to their own uninteresting chores when there were babies to be played with—and wondered aloud who might be approaching in such a hurry.

  It was Dirk, the tavern-keeper’s son, a promising and very large young man of about eighteen. “Have you heard?” he demanded, bursting into the house with all the vigor of youth having an exciting story to tell. “They’ve found a dead man on the road, not ten miles south of town.”

  All the women cried out in worry and alarm. “Who is it?” “No one from Tambleham, I hope!” “What happened? Bandits?” “Oh, please tell me the poor man simply fell from his horse.”

  “What happened?” Angeline asked, raising her voice enough to be heard over all the other women. Dirk turned in her direction.

  “A man. A stranger. He was dressed in fine clothes and wearing a black cloak lined with red silk,” the boy said. “His horse was tied to the side of the road, and there were twenty gold pieces in one of his saddlebags. Jewels on his fingers, expensive leather shoes on his feet.”

  The women exchanged glances. “He was not killed for his possessions, then,” Angeline said.