The Safe-Keeper's Secret Page 13

  Other than that, very little changed. People came to her door to confide secrets that were shameful or ridiculous or surprising, but none of them moved Fiona the way Jillian’s story had, and so she made no attempts at intervention. Summer slipped away and the autumn harvests kept Fiona and Allison busy, drying herbs and canning vegetables. Reed and Angeline came to town for a few days to celebrate Fiona and Reed’s birthday, and then reappeared at Wintermoon, Isadora and Thomas right behind them. It was the second Wintermoon they had celebrated without Damiana, and though they talked of her frequently and with great affection, the loss was not so severe this time; the memories were good.

  Reed had news: He had decided to take a job up north, with a merchant trader whom Robert knew. “I might be gone two months or more,” he warned Fiona, “if I actually go out on one of the ships.”

  “Then let me know if you leave and when you’re back,” she said.

  “It’s a difficult life,” Thomas commented. “You won’t like it.”

  Reed shrugged. “I don’t mind hard work.”

  “No, but you won’t like this.”

  “If you go someplace exotic, bring us all back jewels,” Isadora said. “Opals or black pearls or emeralds.”

  “I hate to think of you aboard a ship,” Angeline said. “So far away in the middle of so much water—how can I ever think you’re safe?”

  Reed laughed. “I’ll be fine, I promise you.”

  “He’ll come back home,” Fiona said. “He always does.”

  Nonetheless, she was sad when he left, and, like Angeline, worried about him being on an oceangoing vessel; there seemed to be no margin of safety at all in such a venture. But she worked in her indoor garden, and made dinner for Allison and Ed, and gravely heard out secrets, and watched the white winter months tiptoe past. And then it was spring again, and all the flowers were blooming, and she got a letter from Reed saying he would be home within the week. He had hated being on board ship, he had been frequently sick and dreadfully lonely, and even the chance to see foreign shores did not erase his misery. “Though I have seen some beautiful places and have so many little trinkets for all of you that I think even Isadora will approve,” he wrote.

  Indeed, when he showed up six days later, he was loaded down with treasures—jade carvings, ivory horns, mother-of-pearl hair pins, onyx beads. Allison loved them all, so Fiona let her choose first from the cache, and then saved the rest for the next time the others would visit.

  “Where now?” she asked Reed one afternoon as they walked down to the streambed. It was hot for spring and they had decided, with a minimum of discussion, to cut short their chores for the day and head out to familiar haunts. “Merendon? Wodenderry? Lowford again?”

  “Here, I think, for a while at least,” he said, slipping off his shoes and stepping into the water. “Ow! That’s cold! You don’t want to get in.”

  “I do,” she said, and splashed in beside him. Her feet were instantly numb with the shock. “But not for very long.”

  He was obviously determined to stand it as long as she could, so he bent over and plunged his hand wrist-deep in the water, and emerged with a rock between his fingers. “I’ll work at the tavern for a month or two while I decide what I want to do next.”

  She smiled. “If you ever do decide.”

  He sent the stone skipping down the undulating surface of the water. “I’m not like you. I wasn’t born knowing. I have to keep trying new things till I find the one that fits.”

  “Don’t you have any—any real dreams?” she asked. “Something you think about all the time, something you’d do if you could only figure out how?”

  He shook his head and dug for another stone. “Nothing. It all looks interesting to me, at least for a while. And there’s nothing I’m missing, nothing I really want.” He was quiet for a moment, standing very still with the stone caught in his curled hand. “Well, two things I’d wish for, but I can’t do anything about them.”

  “What two things?” she asked. Her feet were so cold her whole body was starting to shiver, but she was not about to climb out of the stream now.

  He tossed the rock and it made a series of graceful landings along the top of the water before sinking out of sight. “I wish I knew who my father was, for one.”

  “I’d tell you, if I knew,” she said. “But I don’t. What’s the second thing?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Some other time.”

  She waited, but he only teased out more rocks and bounced them down the water. “I’m freezing,” she exclaimed, and clambered out onto the bank. She had to sit with her legs crossed and her icy toes tucked into the backs of her knees until her feet warmed up enough that she could feel to put her shoes back on. Reed stayed in the water a few minutes longer, just so it was clear who was not afraid of the cold, then climbed out beside her. Barefoot, he stretched out on the bank and looked up at the cloudless sky, a delicate blue that looked ready to fade at the first sign of sunset.

  “At any rate,” she said, “I’m glad you’re home. For now.”

  Isadora came by a few weeks later and happily picked through Reed’s store of treasures. “Ah, if no one else wants this little jade pendant, that’s what I’ll have,” she said. “Look at that. Did you ever see such a color? It looks like the water in the pond by my mother’s house just under the shade of the elm tree. Mysterious and full of things. Reed, you can buy gifts for me any time.”

  She stayed a week and seemed very tired, so Fiona made her sit in the garden and do nothing but watch the flowers stretch their petals to the sun. When her own chores were done and Allison was off with her young man, Fiona sat beside the Dream-Maker and listened to the tales of her travels.

  “Where are you going when you leave Tambleham?” Fiona asked.

  “Wodenderry. Which reminds me, didn’t you have some young girl here you wanted me to take an interest in?”

  Fiona had almost forgotten. “Megan! Yes. Why, have you found someone who wants a companion?”

  “Well, if nothing else, I thought I might like someone to travel with me. She could stay with me as long as she liked, and if she found a position with someone else in the city, all well and good. And if not, I’d either buy her a passage back home or let her travel on with me. If I liked her,” Isadora added. “If she’s whiny or puts on airs, I won’t be able to abide her very long.”

  Fiona grinned. “I haven’t seen Megan in a few months. She comes by now and then for the herbs I can sell her, and she hasn’t seemed so determined to get away. In fact, I think they’re planning their wedding for next spring, so she might not be so willing to go. But I’ll ask her.”

  Megan, when she arrived at the Safe-Keeper’s cottage the next day, was in transports at the idea of traveling anywhere in Isadora’s company, particularly to the royal city. “To Wodenderry with the Dream-Maker!” she exclaimed. “Yes! Oh, yes! When do we leave? Do I have time to go home and pack?”

  Isadora was laughing. “Two days from now was what I planned. That should give you ample time, I think.”

  “How early in the morning will we leave? Should I sleep here the night before?”

  “Goodness, no. I’m an old woman. I don’t believe in hauling my bones out of bed before dawn.”

  “Megan, what will you say to your father?” Fiona asked practically. “And to Cal? Or do you not plan to tell them?”

  She tossed her pretty dark hair. “I’ll tell them. But once they know I’m in company with Isadora, they’ll be very happy to have me go. They both have plans and schemes that they’d like to see come true. They’ll think I’ll have a chance to put in a good word for them.”

  Isadora looked faintly alarmed. “It doesn’t work that way, you know—I wish it did, sometimes.”

  Megan laughed. She sounded more girlish than she ever had during any of the other times she’d come to Fiona’s cottage. “I know that,” she said. “But I won’t tell them.”

  Isadora left with Megan; Reed stayed be
hind. Once again, he took up his old job at the tavern, and once again, Fiona thought how his presence brought warmth and joy to the little cottage. Allison’s young man was not so shy when Reed was around, so the four of them enjoyed several convivial evenings, playing games, telling stories, and laughing till their ribs protested. Now and then Elminstra’s grandson Greg—Allison’s cousin—would join them, bringing the young lady he was courting. The six of them had their own private Summermoon festival and stayed up all night talking, just as if it had been the winter holiday. None of them got any real work done the next day, though Fiona and Allison had a day’s worth of planting ahead of them, and Greg and Reed had real jobs to go to. Greg’s young lady lay on the sofa all day, complaining of a headache, but she revived by dinnertime when Greg came back to fetch her. In fact, they all found themselves in a social mood by then, so they made a meal out of leftovers and celebrated the first day of midsummer.

  “This was the best Summermoon ever,” Reed said that night as they stood at the gate and waved good-bye to the departing couple.

  “This is what I love about living in the village,” Fiona replied.

  “Oh, and you have to love the village gossip as well,” he said as they turned back to the house. “Did you hear about Ned’s daughter? The one who married Josh’s grandson?”

  Stepping up on the porch while he stayed on the walkway, Fiona turned to frown at him. “Did I hear what, exactly?” she said.

  “The child she just bore. Not her husband’s after all.”

  This was a secret Fiona had heard from the errant wife herself, who had sobbed out the story one afternoon in Fiona’s kitchen. “Who told you this tale?” she asked quietly.

  Reed’s eyebrows rose. “Am I not supposed to know? I didn’t tell anyone else. I never do repeat the things anyone tells me—except to you, of course. I tell you everything. You already know everything.”

  “But who told you this?” she insisted.

  “She did. A few days ago. She’d come to the tavern to buy her family’s dinner for the evening because she said she didn’t have the energy to make a meal. I thought, well, you have enough energy to walk to town, but I think she meant she can’t bring herself to pretend to care for someone she hates, and making his dinner means she cares for him. You know?”

  “Yes, I understand,” Fiona said softly. “I just—I wonder—”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes people tell me things. I think it’s because of our mother. They think I understand how to keep silent—and I do. But sometimes I wish they didn’t choose me to talk to.”

  She smiled and went in. Allison and her beau had gone down to Elminstra’s for the evening, so it was just the two of them for a change. “Sit down while I get dinner,” she said. “Tell me what other secrets you know.”

  The report took some time, and some of the revelations surprised her; they were such emotional stories that she had not thought the tellers would be able to recite them more than once. One or two were stories that she did not already know, but she did not tell Reed that. She didn’t want him to think he was betraying a confidence.

  “Dirk says people who have been drinking often choose to pour their woes into the barkeeper’s ear, and he says he’s glad I’m the one who hears them these days,” Reed finished up. “But sometimes I think he never heard any stories like the ones I’ve been told.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right,” Fiona said. “But you have to honor the secrets. You have to be as silent as a kirrenberry tree.”

  He smiled at her. “As silent as you.”

  It wasn’t till after they’d celebrated their birthday that Reed grew fidgety again. Fiona was on the watch for the signs, for she knew he could never stay in one place long, and she was braced for the announcement when it came. But she found she was, after all, not nearly as well prepared for it as she’d thought.

  He said nothing till they were alone one night, Allison and Ed having walked down to Elminstra’s for the evening. She was putting away the clean dishes, and he was stacking more firewood beside the stove. Then he turned to her and said, in a tone of great resolution, “Fiona.”

  She didn’t even bother to turn from the cabinet. “Where to this time?” she said.

  There was a moment’s silence, and then he laughed. “How do you always know?”

  “I can read you the way I read the shape of my own name on a piece of paper,” she said quietly. “There’s somewhere else you want to be.”

  “No, not exactly—I want to be here, but I think—I have—there are so many other things I need to do first,” he said.

  She kept her back to him. “What things?” she said. “Shovel horse manure? Get sick on a merchant ship?”

  He gave a soft laugh. “It’s true, neither of those turned out exactly as I’d hoped—”

  “And where are you off to now? To bury yourself in a copper mine and find you don’t like the dark? To work in a mill to discover you don’t like breathing in flour dust the whole day long?”

  “I want to go to the royal city,” he said quietly.

  Now she turned to look at him, astonishment on her face. “And why?”

  He looked defensive but determined, a big, fair-haired, sweet-natured, restless young man whom no one had ever been able to deter or direct. “I want to see my father.”

  “You don’t even know if he is your father!”

  “Everyone says he is—everyone believes it.”

  “And you will do—what? Walk up to him? Introduce yourself? Say, ‘I’m your bastard son, will you allow me to come to court?’”

  “No—I don’t think so—I don’t know! It’s just that—my whole life—everyone has always thought, everyone has always looked at me like I was a royal bastard. Perhaps I am. Perhaps I’m not! But maybe if I know, once and for all, if I see him and I can tell—”

  “Then what?” she demanded. She was blazingly furious and did not even know why. “He will invite you to court? He will name you his heir? Is that what you really expect? Is that why you can’t settle down in Tambleham or Lowford?”

  “No, of course not. Fiona, I want to know, can’t you understand that?” He flung his hands out and took a few paces around the kitchen, so big and so agitated he seemed to fill the whole room. “I don’t have any idea who I am! Who was my mother? Who was my father? Who am I supposed to be?”

  “I never knew who my father was, either, but I never questioned who I was supposed to be,” she answered. “It’s not like we were missing out on any love. You and I were raised by the same woman. The same friends and family cared for us.”

  “Yes, but they were your family—they were related to you by blood,” he pointed out. “I showed up in the middle of the night, dressed in silence and secrets, and everything that I have become I have had to fashion for myself. I want to know what life I was supposed to lead, what I was born for. It might not be a life I would choose, but shouldn’t I know where I was destined to belong?”

  Now she was even more angry. “There comes a point in every man’s life where it does not matter who his parents were—yes, and in every woman’s life, too! You are a strong man or a weak one because of your own experiences and your own heart, not because someone else’s blood runs in your veins. You are kind or cruel for the same reasons. You might be the king’s legitimate son and be a man I would not care to know, or the child of a peasant laborer and be the most beloved man in five kingdoms. Your father’s rank might determine some privileges, but it is your own soul that determines who you are.”

  He was shaking his head, adamant and unyielding. “You don’t understand. It is different for you.”

  “I do understand, and it is no different,” she snapped. “But nothing I say will stop you. Go to Wodenderry! Meet the king! Then come back and tell me what you’ve learned.”

  He looked at her, his eyes narrowed. “Why are you so angry? What is it you think I’m going to find?”

  She turned away, suddenly weary. “I am angry if
you value yourself only at your birthright, and I think you’ll find—I think you’ll find more questions than answers.”

  “Then I’ll come back here, as I always do,” he said softly, “and see if the answers are in Tambleham.”

  She didn’t look at him. “And if the answers are in Wodenderry?”

  “I’ll come back here anyway. Always. Or wherever it is you are.”

  He left two days later. Fiona felt the loss of his presence even more deeply this time; for the first few days, the house was almost unlivable. When Allison and Ed were not around, the silence was too severe for her to endure, so she would go down to Elminstra’s or all the way to town just to have company. One day, she and Elminstra made a little excursion of the trip, going to Lacey’s shop to order new bolts of fabric, then having a noon meal at Dirk’s tavern.

  “I don’t know if she’s had a chance to tell you yet,” Elminstra said, as they ate their bread and cheese and drank glasses of pressed apple juice. “But Allison and Ed have decided to marry in the spring.”

  Fiona felt herself come alive with the first real smile she’d managed since Reed left for Wodenderry. “But that’s wonderful news!” she exclaimed. “I like him so much.”

  “We’ve been trying to decide where they should live,” Elminstra went on. “She has become so attached to you and your garden that she does not want to move far from you. Ed’s father had wanted him to take over his land, but Ed’s no farmer. He’s been working for Ned in town doing black-smithing, and he likes that much better. So if they lived on my property, or somewhere near it, she could be close to you and he could get easily to town.”