The Safe-Keeper's Secret (22 page)

“I didn't think you'd mind,” Angeline said to Fiona in an undervoice as Reed went over to greet the older man warmly. “With Victoria having died just two weeks ago, he is at such a loss. I didn't think anyone should have to be alone at Wintermoon.”

“No, I'm happy to have him here,” Fiona said. “I'll give him the sofa and move Thomas upstairs and make Reed sleep on the floor in his room. We shall have quite the houseful.”

“Jillian went to Kate's for Wintermoon,” Angeline added. “I made sure to find out, because I knew you would ask.”

Fiona smiled. “My very next question.”

Despite the fact that all of them respected Robert's grief—and, indeed, their old friend seemed to be wearing a perpetual look of numb loss—they managed to have a very pleasant evening meal. Reed had bought a half-cask of wine in town, and they toasted each other and told amusing stories of their adventures in the weeks that they had been apart. Isadora related the tale of the princess's visit and then some of the other unusual requests she had heard from her noble visitors.

“One woman—not so old, I thought, perhaps forty-five—she came to me as heavily veiled as the princess. And I was thinking, ‘Don't bother to disguise yourself to me, for I don't know one of you court ladies from the other and I would forget your face in five minutes if you showed it to me now.' She came to me and told me her whole life was bitter and sad, and that she wanted the chance to make it worthwhile. Do something heroic. Well, I ask you, what could I possibly have said to that? How could I snap my fingers and confer on her the ability to be meaningful? I suggested she involve herself with some of the city charities, for there are all sorts of societies to aid orphans and other unfortunates, but she said that would not be good enough to atone. Atone for what, I wonder? I was as kind to her
as ever I could be, but I wouldn't have known what to do for her even if I'd had the power.”

Thomas was staring meditatively into his wine, apparently lost in some thought unconnected to Isadora's story. “I've always thought,” he said at last, “that the most dangerous place for a Truth-Teller to live would be in Wodenderry. I've only been there a few times myself, and I didn't stay. But I keep thinking of what you said about the princess.” He looked up, a sardonic smile on his face. “Now that I'm getting older, I begin to think about the things I'd like to do with my life before it ends. And one thing I'd like to do is tell a truth to the king. I don't know what that truth might be, but just think of it! To stand before royalty and tell him something no one else dared to say. I think that would be a rare privilege—though it might lose me my head.”

Angeline pointed at him across the table. “You remind me,” she said gaily. “Robert told me of a tradition he and his family used to observe at Wintermoon. They would stand in a circle around the bonfire, and each would whisper to the person on his left the dearest wish of his heart. And no one would repeat those wishes to anyone else—they all became Safe-Keepers for the year—but just the act of saying those wishes aloud would make them more likely to come true.”

Robert smiled with an effort. “Well, we were children, and our dreams were very primitive,” he said. “‘I want a new pair of boots for Wintermoon.' That was the sort of wish that very often came true.”

“I'll cut snippets of truelove for each of us,” Fiona said, “and we can throw them on the fire as we whisper our wishes.”

“And we'll all gather again next year and report to each other if our wishes have been granted,” said Angeline.

Fiona glanced around the table, augmented by one to, in some small way, make up for the loss of one. “Yes,” she said, “all of us.”

They spent the two days before Wintermoon braiding the wreaths and ropes of branches, baking sweet treats, and visiting with the neighbors. More snow fell, though the temperature was not so miserably cold as it sometimes was during the holiday season. Thomas and Reed and Robert spent the whole day of Wintermoon carefully laying the wood to construct the grandest bonfire Fiona had ever seen. After dinner, they lit the blaze and stood before it, admiring its reach and hunger. Its heat was so intense it drove them all a few paces away, to stand with their feet in the untrampled margin of snow.

Fiona passed out leaves of truelove and they arranged themselves around the fire. She wondered how deliberately some of them had taken their stances, though they appeared so casually to choose the confidant
who would stand on their left. Fiona herself did not care which of this group heard the deepest wishes of her heart, though she was glad enough to have Angeline on her left and Reed on her right.

“I will begin,” she said, and leaned over to whisper her own impossible desires in Angeline's ear.
“I wish I could meet my father and look again on my mother's face.”
Angeline kissed her on the cheek, and Fiona tossed her truelove into the fire. It instantly flared to yellow flame and burned away.

Naturally, Fiona could not hear what Angeline murmured to Isadora, but she had a guess; she had, for a long time, suspected what Angeline might wish for were she to open her heart. Again, she did not wonder what Isadora whispered to Robert, for she was pretty sure how the words would go:
I want to lay this burden down
. Robert, she thought, said to Thomas:
It is not too late. Perhaps I can still sire a son
. Thomas probably repeated to Reed the observation he had made over dinner:
I would like to tell a single truth to the king
.

She was smiling as she leaned toward Reed, who stooped down to put his lips against her ear. He would tell her that he wanted to travel to Merendon or Marring Cross or Cranfield, someplace far away and exotic. He was the sort of man whose wish altered every year.

He said in a voice that only she could hear:
“I wish you were not my sister.”

She pulled back and stared up at him. He smiled, his face just faintly touched with sadness, and tossed his true-love into the fire.

Chapter Fifteen

T
hey stayed up till dawn and slept past noon, and then they all ate meat pies and cakes and pastries till they were sick. Elminstra and half a dozen of her relatives arrived as they were finishing up the meal, and they exchanged small remembrances and many fond wishes.

“We're walking down to the village to see Lacey and all the others,” Elminstra said. “Would any of you like to come with us?”

“Oh, I haven't seen Lacey in ages,” Angeline said, getting to her feet. “Wait till I put my cloak on.”

The rest of them declared themselves too lazy. “And I have to clean up the kitchen,” said Fiona. “I'm going to set Robert and Reed to sweeping up the remains of the bonfire, though they don't know it yet.”

Robert affected to be offended. “What? You put your guests to work? Angeline didn't mention that to me when she invited me to come for the holiday.”

“But once we're done, I'll take you hiking,” Reed promised. “I'll show you the creek! It's too cold to wade, of course, but we might catch something for dinner.”

Once the others left and Isadora retired to her bed to sleep away the afternoon, Thomas and Fiona were left to clean the kitchen. “No, you chop some more wood for the stove,” she told him, once she'd stumbled across his feet for the third time. “And then I'll make you some tea and you can just sit there quietly out of my way.”

He grinned and complied, and she joined him at the table once the last dish was put away. “So how long will you be staying?” she asked, sipping from her own cup.

He shrugged. “It depends on Robert and Angeline, since I rode in with them. It must be nice to be a rich man, because that was the most comfortable coach I have ever been in.”

Fiona smiled. “I like to have him here, and I know Reed enjoys his company. I cannot bring myself to be sorry that his wife is dead, though I know that is unkind of me.”

He grinned. “Angeline seemed genuinely attached to her,” he said, “but I find myself wondering if Victoria's death will do Angeline some good. It is not a truth I know, merely a suspicion I have.”

Fiona tilted her head to one side. “Now, what do you mean by that?”

He countered with a question of his own. “Why do you think your aunt never married?”

“I always thought it was because the man she loved was already taken.”

“Exactly. And now he's free.”

Fiona laughed. “Oh, not Robert. He's much too neat and fussy for Angeline. She speaks of him with great fondness, but she's more likely to matchmake for him, find him a pretty young girl from the village.”

Thomas shrugged and sifted more sugar into his tea. “Perhaps we're wrong, then,” he said. “Maybe she just never wanted to marry. Your mother never wanted to.”

“She had you,” Fiona said.

“She had me,” he confirmed.

“Which perhaps is why Angeline never married.”

Thomas just looked at her for the longest time, the expression on his face absolutely inscrutable. Then slowly, a faint wash of color reddened his cheeks, produced by some wild and random generation of new ideas. “I thought,” he said, in a voice he tried to keep casual, “you were in the business of keeping other people's secrets.”

Fiona smiled. “This was no confession whispered to me under the kirrenberry tree. This is merely something I have pieced together on my own.”

“So it is not something you know positively.”

She could not help it; she loosed a peal of laughter. “Oh, it never ceases to amaze me,” she said, “what truths the Truth-Teller does not know.”

“I am not the kind of man,” he said, “that women pine away for.”

“Indeed, no,” Fiona said, still suffused with merriment. “So if I were you, I would be grabbing such chances at happiness as came my way.”

He studied her a long time. “You wouldn't tell me this,” he said, “if you didn't believe it to be true. And if you didn't believe it would benefit the one you loved most.”

Fiona sobered a little. “There is nothing I would not do for Angeline,” she said. “I believe her happiness is tied to you, and I believe her loyalty to my mother will not allow her to say so. I would guess she whispered your name to Isadora last night as we all stood around the fire. You were right about me, of course—there are some silences I have always thought
it was better to break. But I will say nothing to her about this if you do not.” She smiled a little. “It will be a secret between the two of us. You will see how silent I can be.”

He was still watching her, his shadowed eyes narrowed and full of speculation. “And what secret was whispered to you last night?” he asked, in his old familiar quarrelsome way. “I think I would be less surprised to hear it than you were.”

Now she was the one to flush, but she lifted her chin and looked defiant. “A secret I will keep for a while yet,” she said.

He leaned forward. “Here's a truth for you,” he said. “Time always goes by faster than you expect.”

They did not have a chance to discuss it any longer—somewhat to Fiona's relief—because just then the front door flew open and Reed burst through, Robert at his heels.

“Fiona, Thomas—have you heard?” Reed exclaimed. “There is a royal procession arriving in the village!”

“A royal procession—you mean, the
king?
” she demanded.

“Yes, yes—at least, that is what everyone is saying! There must be fifty riders and two coaches blazoned with the king's coat of arms—”

“How did you see this?” she asked. “I thought you were out by the creek.”

He waved that aside. “We decided to go to town instead. I wanted Robert to meet Dirk at the tavern—but then we saw the coaches coming. Ned spotted them from two miles away with his new field glasses. I ran back to get you because I knew you would want to come see the king.”

She came to her feet. “Indeed, yes! Let me get my boots on. But is he really coming
here?
Or is he just passing through town on his way somewhere else?”