The Truth-Teller's Tale Page 5

  Melinda made a sound that, in a less-refined woman, would have passed as a snort. “The prince. Well, he failed to show up for the tea party that had been arranged first. Lirabel sent the servants up to his room to find him, but he was nowhere in sight. Naturally, quite a hue and cry ensued—because, well, he’s the prince. And even though he’s got to be sixteen years old by now, I suppose Lirabel always fears that someone could kidnap him or do him some kind of harm.”

  “And was he kidnapped?” my mother breathed.

  I was fairly certain that, if that had been the case, the whole kingdom would be aware of the event by now. So I was not surprised when Melinda shook her head. “No. If you please, he and his cousin had taken it into their heads to go off to the boat races along the southern shore, and they’d left that morning. He’d written his mother a note—he just had managed to make sure it didn’t get delivered to her until he’d been gone for half the day.”

  “His cousin,” my mother said. “Now who exactly would that be?”

  “Tobin is the son of the king’s brother,” Melinda said. “Charming as they come, but completely feckless. Darian never gets into trouble that Tobin’s not right by his side, cheering him on. I would think Lirabel would have him barred from the palace, but she loves him too much, and she’s the type who holds tight to such family as she has.”

  “So Tobin and Darian went off to these boat races,” Adele prompted. “Wasn’t the queen furious?”

  Melinda grinned. “Well, she was, but it was all her fault to a certain degree. She had been very casual about how she was going to introduce Roelynn—she didn’t want Darian to suspect that she was bringing in a prospective bride—so she hadn’t really told him that special company was on the way and he had to be present. And apparently he scoots off like this all the time on some lark or another. She could hardly think he’d done it on purpose to spite her.”

  “I’ll bet Karro was mad, though,” I said.

  Melinda looked unconvinced. “Not as much as you might have expected,” she said. “He was really more focused on Lirabel and making sure she had a good impression of Roelynn. Because if the queen doesn’t like the match, you know, it has no hope of going forward.”

  “That seems unfair,” I remarked. “If the queen herself got to marry for love.”

  Melinda smiled a little grimly. “It’s only fair when it’s happening to you,” she said.

  “So did she?” my mother asked. “Did the queen approve of Roelynn?”

  “Oh, yes,” Melinda said. “Roelynn was on her best behavior.”

  “Which, you know,” I said, “wasn’t something we could really count on.”

  Melinda laughed. “Indeed, no! But she was having the most wonderful time. It’s not every day a fourteen-year-old gets to go to the royal palace and have tea with the queen and a dozen other nobles, and have everyone tell her how beautiful she is, and have the queen sit right beside her and talk to her like an important lady. You couldn’t blame her if she preened a little. She behaved very prettily, and she looked quite lovely, too, and I could see the queen was quite taken with her. And the next night, at the ball—”

  “Was the prince there that night?” I asked.

  “No! Still off at the races! Anyway, at the ball, Roelynn was besieged with suitors. She was allowed to dance only a few times—as were all the other young girls who had been permitted to attend—but she looked so adorable and danced so well that everyone who watched her couldn’t help smiling. And everyone watched her. Karro was very proud,” Melinda added in accents of distaste. “It was almost enough for me to wish Roelynn would suddenly become very vulgar, just to spite him.”

  Adele and I could not help giggling at that. My mother was more interested in the central point. “But then—it’s settled?” Mother asked. “They’ve made the match?”

  Melinda spread her hands in a delicate gesture of uncertainty. “Let us say, the queen seems very well-disposed toward Karro,” she said. “But as far as I know, no actual deal was struck. No dower agreements were discussed, no betrothal was set. But as I understand it, the queen will not be actively looking elsewhere for a bride for her son.”

  “And how did Roelynn react to that?” I wanted to know.

  Melinda shook her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t get any of this from Karro or Roelynn, you understand. I only know what I observed and what Fiona told me afterward.” She gave me a sharp look, and then sent an equally pointed one in my sister’s direction. “I’d imagine the two of you would have a better idea of how young Roelynn would feel about such an arrangement.”

  “Who wouldn’t want to marry a prince?” our mother said, blue eyes at their widest. “And go live in the palace and know that one day you will be queen?”

  “Roelynn isn’t like other girls,” Adele said with a little smile.

  I turned on her in exasperation. “Oh, and I suppose you’d want to move to Wodenderry and leave behind everyone you know and try to figure out how to govern the whole kingdom? Not that I ever heard you say!”

  Melinda was laughing. “Adele isn’t like other girls, either.”

  I felt a little sulky. “The truth is, it would be hard to be bartered off to someone you don’t know and leave behind all your familiar life, even if you would be rich and powerful once you got married,” I said. “I think it would be very hard to be queen. I suppose it’s just as much work as it is glamour, and not much fun on most days.”

  “And yet Lirabel likes being queen,” Melinda said. “And perhaps Roelynn would, too.”

  Mother sighed. She was quite the romantic, and she liked to believe that all princes were charming and all young maidens were happy to be swept up into the royal embrace. “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to see what happens next,” she said. “I for one would very much like to see our little Roelynn marry the prince.”

  Adele smiled that secretive, infuriating smile. “I don’t think we’re likely to see anything like that for a while yet.”

  It was three more days before we received Roelynn’s report on the week in Wodenderry, but it basically tallied with Melinda’s. She had had a wonderful time; the queen had been most incredibly gracious, and Roelynn had met the handsomest young men who had said the nicest things to her and made her feel quite beautiful. She would like to go spend a season in Wodenderry sometime—attend all the spring fetes, all the summer balls—and become much better acquainted with some of the young men and women she had met.

  “And would Roger be going with you during this visit?” Adele asked in an innocent voice.

  We were sitting under the chatterleaf tree at the time—well, Adele and I were. Roelynn was swinging in circles around the trunk. At Adele’s words, she stopped for a moment and stared. “Who?” she said, and then she blushed a color deep as summer roses. “Oh! Roger! Yes, of course, I will always want Roger with me, wherever I go—except, I don’t know, perhaps while I’m in the city he might be here in Merendon, minding the house and the business, you know—”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, we all know Roger is just some boy you’re flirting with to flout your father,” I said crisply. “Tell us more about Wodenderry.”

  Roelynn scowled for a moment, then allowed herself to forget my last unflattering remark. She recited the rest of her tale, and spoke in great detail about one of the attractive young noblemen who seemed to have spent the majority of his time at the ball telling her how beautiful she was. In fact, this enterprising young man had succeeded in stripping away one of her very expensive gloves so that he could kiss her on her bare wrist, and then he had insisted on keeping the glove as a memento of their encounter.

  “He said he will write me every day,” she concluded rather dreamily. “I’ve told him that I can’t possibly write back so often, but he said he will live for the one or two letters I manage to get off to him without my father’s knowledge.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to look at Adele. I knew she would be smiling. “And I suppose you’ve brought one
of those letters with you today?” my sister asked. “So that we can post it for you?”

  “Yes!” Roelynn replied. “I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

  “But what about the prince?” I asked impatiently. Clearly it was pointless to ask again after Roger. “Melinda says you didn’t meet him. Did you form any impression of him by what other people said? Did you spend any time thinking what it might be like to live at the palace?”

  “Oh—the prince,” Roelynn said, waving a hand. “I don’t think I have to worry about him for a while yet. He wasn’t even there during my visit. And the queen scarcely mentioned his name to me. I don’t really think she’s looking for a bride for her son yet. I could tell my father was very happy about how the visit went, but I don’t think they came to any kind of arrangement, or he would have been crowing about it the whole way back in the carriage. And he didn’t. He just sat there and looked greedy and pleased.”

  “So then,” Adele said, “tell us more about this handsome young nobleman you met at the ball.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It wasn’t quite the end of Roger, though. Proximity proved to be more compelling than penmanship, and as the weeks passed and the notes from the young nobleman grew less frequent, Roger began to seem more appealing again to Roelynn. We heard about their assignations only sporadically, for we were back in school and much of our home time was claimed by chores, so we were not often free to meet with Roelynn, even when she could sneak away to look for us. Still, there were a number of whispered conversations late at night under the kirrenberry tree. Thus we learned how Roger had summoned the nerve to hold Roelynn’s hand, the courage to kiss her, the temerity to touch her breast through the fine cotton of her dress. I was a little shocked at his forward behavior, but Adele, who was never shocked, merely recommended that Roelynn think very, very carefully before she allowed Roger to take any more liberties.

  “You’re a smart girl, and you know what can happen if you continue along this way,” Adele said. “Do you really want to explain to your father that you’re carrying the groom’s baby? I don’t think you’ll like your life much if that’s what happens next.”

  Roelynn was inclined to be indignant. “As if I would do something like that!”

  Adele shrugged. “You’re wild enough,” she said calmly. “Don’t do something stupid and then pretend you had no idea what the consequences might be.”

  Shortly after that exchange, Roelynn stormed away. I gave my sister an appraising glance. “For a moment there, you sounded like a Truth-Teller,” I said. “I’m not used to hearing you talk like that.”

  “Well, it would be hard to keep the secret if she really did become pregnant by him,” Adele said dryly. “A little plain-speaking now might save years of future heartaches.”

  We didn’t see Roelynn for more than a week after that conversation, and when we did, it was rather an adventure. We had headed to the dressmaker’s shop to pick up our new wool dresses. Autumn was well on the way, and we had outgrown last year’s good winter clothes. As we entered the shop, I idly noticed a tall, broad-shouldered groom loitering outside, holding the bridle of a lady’s horse. Adele saw him, too—Adele noticed everything—but she put it together more quickly than I did.

  “Roelynn must be here,” she whispered. And sure enough, Roelynn was the first person we saw as we stepped through the door. Only then did I realize that the handsome groom must be the beloved Roger.

  Roelynn seemed to have forgotten her pique. She greeted us with smiles and dragged us to a counter where the seamstress had laid out lengths of deep sapphire velvet and contrasting ribbons of palest blue. “Don’t you think this will be the most beautiful gown ever? I can wear it at Wintermoon.”

  We admired the color and asked about the cut. Lissette handed me my new dress as well as Adele’s, and I carried them both to the back room to try mine on. I had just stripped down to my chemise when I heard a commotion out front and the violent sound of a door being wrenched open.

  “Roelynn!” a man shouted, and he sounded as if he could not have summoned more rage if he had been falsely accused of treason. “Roelynn Karro! Are you in here? Your horse is out front, so you cannot hide from me. Come face me, you shameful, wicked girl!”

  It was her father, of course. I clutched my dress and peered out through the crack of the door to see Karro prowling through the rows of fabric. He was a thickly built man, not particularly tall, with dark hair and swarthy skin and heavily marked features. His head always seemed too large for his frame, and when he was angry, he would swing it from side to side in a manner that made me think of a furious bull. At this particular moment, his face was enraged and his big hands were balled into threatening fists.

  Roelynn stepped from around a counter and faced him with absolute coolness. “I’m right here, Father,” she said. “I wasn’t hiding at all. What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” he bellowed. “You’ve gone off with that sly, scheming stable boy, haven’t you, after I expressly forbade you to see him again! I’ll have him horsewhipped out of Merendon, see if I don’t—yes, and I might take the whip to your back, too, you wretched girl! Consorting with gutter trash—acting like the most common woman—I raise you like a queen, I treat you like a princess, and this is how you behave the minute my back is turned—”

  Roelynn took the verbal abuse—and what looked like the imminent possibility of physical abuse—completely without flinching. “That’s not true, Father,” she said, as soon as she had a chance to speak. “I’ve never consorted with stable boys, as you say. I’ve never done anything improper. I don’t know why you would accuse me of such a thing.”

  “Don’t lie to me!” he roared. “You’re sneaking off to the stables at all hours—you think I’m too dull to see you, but I know what you’re doing—hugging and kissing men who ought to be fawning on the ground at your feet—”

  She spread her hands. “Father! What are you talking about? I go to the stables when I want to ride. I’m friendly to all the servants and grooms at the estate—which is more than I can say about you, with the way you yell at everyone for no reason at all! I’m not—I wouldn’t—I’m horrified that you would say such things about me! That you would even think—” And here her voice trembled a little and she pulled out a handkerchief to cover her face.

  “Are you telling me—do you mean—but you’re off with the grooms every day! And that boy out front—yes, that one outside right now, holding your horse!—every time I go looking for you and you’re gone, he’s gone as well!”

  She lifted her tear-streaked face from her handkerchief. “You told me,” she said with great dignity. “You made me promise I would not go off riding alone. I thought you wanted me to bring someone with me when I came into town. All the other grooms are too busy to dance attendance on some young girl, but Roger has always been kind enough to come with me when—”

  “Ha! Roger! You call him by his name?”

  “I call all of them by their names,” she said coldly. “Marcus and Hal and Jim and Roddie. Do you know any of their names? Do you ever speak to them at all—except to shout at them when they haven’t saddled your horse quickly enough?”

  Karro’s dark face flushed darker, but he seemed to be losing some of the hot edge of his temper. He wanted to believe her, that was certain. He didn’t want to think his only daughter, his jewel, his Roelynn, had been sullying herself with inferior men in the stalls in the back of the barn. “Are you telling me the truth?” he demanded, staring down at her composed face. “Or are you just saying what you think I want to hear?”

  Roelynn pointed, and Karro’s eyes lifted in the direction she indicated. “Ask Eleda,” she said. “She’ll tell you the truth.”

  I had to stuff my fingers in my mouth to keep from crying out. Adele stepped forward tranquilly and gave Karro a little curtsy. Lissette and the two other customers in the store did not move or say a word.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” Adele said in a sof
t, demure voice. “What did you want to ask me?”

  “Are you the Truth-Teller?” he barked. “Or are you that other one?”

  “I’m the Truth-Teller,” Adele said.

  “Then is my daughter telling me the truth? Has she been spending time with this—this groom when my back is turned? Or is she merely behaving as any good gentle-woman should and making sure she is accompanied any time she rides out?”

  Adele managed to make her voice sound both scandalized and respectful. “Spending time with a groom, sir? Roelynn? Oh, no. Absolutely not. Roelynn has never done anything improper, with a groom or with anybody.”

  “Hmph. Well. All right. If you say so,” Karro said, appeased and mollified. He patted Roelynn awkwardly on the back and spoke in a gruff voice. “I’m sorry I accused you, then. But you’re such a tricky thing. No one can keep track of you.”

  “I don’t try to be difficult, Father,” Roelynn said, sounding wounded.

  “No. I’m sure you don’t. It’s just that you—but there. We’ve said enough about this. What do you say to a little treat, hey? Do you see some pretty ribbons you like? A yard of lace, maybe? You pick out something you want, and I’ll buy it for you. Don’t be angry with your old bear of a father. I just want what’s best for you.”

  “I know you do, Father,” she said in a quiet voice. “And you don’t have to buy me presents.”

  “Of course I do! My only daughter! I’ll buy you everything in the whole shop if you want it.”

  “Well, then—” she said and looked around. “There was this beautiful flowered silk. I saw it when I came in—”

  Karro wasn’t much interested in shopping, it turned out. He merely motioned Lissette over and stuffed a few coins in her hand, with the admonition to “let me know if this doesn’t cover it.” Then, with his characteristic heavy step, he stalked back to the door and out onto the street. I couldn’t see well enough to notice if he exchanged a few sharp words with the offending groom or not.