The Truth-Teller's Tale (23 page)

Mother nodded. “Oh, but this is enough to hire Lissette's cousin—and Lissette, too, if she wants the work. You know the dressmaker's job is finished the minute the ball begins.”

“So you told him yes?”

“Well, I didn't see any reason to tell him no! Unless you don't want—I mean, I suppose it's one thing for you girls to work at our place, it's a family business, but perhaps you don't want to be treated as servants at another man's house. And Roelynn is your friend, after all. If you don't want to—I'll give the money back. I'll understand.”

She sounded so resolute and so kind that I had to lean over and give her a damp kiss on the cheek. “I can safely speak for Adele when I tell you we'll both be happy to go,” I said. “But where
is
Adele? I really have to talk to her.”

“She went with your father to the orchards for a few more bushels of fruit.” The orchards, with their ordered rows of delicate trees, were some miles away out the western road. “She won't be back for two or three hours. Maybe longer if the rain doesn't stop.”

Two or three hours. Could I really keep a secret that long? Should I? I could feel the words jumbling around in my mouth, begging to be spoken. I pressed my lips together to keep them in.

Mother roused herself from her fascination with the money. “Well! As long as you're so wet anyway, could you run down to Lissette's shop and ask her if she and her cousin will come work on Summermoon? But come back as quick as you can. I haven't even started the laundry, and there's two pies still to make. . . .”

I divided the rest of the morning and the early part of the afternoon into three activities: completing a wide range of chores, watching out for Adele's return, and keeping an eye on the weather, which gradually began to clear. Flocks of gaily dressed dancing students blew through the front door like jeweled birds turned rather bedraggled by the rain; the accented triplets of the waltz and the mazurka followed me whether I was upstairs or down, inside or out. I had not yet had a chance to tell Gregory I would accompany him that night. I wondered if I would have even more startling news to impart before the day was over.

The sun had just begun to break through a sullen mass of clouds when I saw Adele's bright hair as she arrived at the front door of the inn. I was upstairs in a guest room, but looking out the window for the hundredth time. She was alighting from the inn's little gig, which my father then drove off toward the stables. I dropped my pile of dirty linen to the floor and headed straight for the hall. I was halfway down the stairs, close enough to call Adele's name, when I saw someone hurry in the front door after her and stop her in the foyer.

Thick, dark, hunched over a little as if to shield himself from rain or merely to brace himself against the onslaught of trouble. Karro.

I halted on the steps and tried to twist myself over the railing in such a way that I could see the two of them talking without revealing that I myself was present. Karro didn't bother to glance up or around or anywhere except at Adele's face, but Adele knew I was there, I could tell. She instantly turned her back on me and addressed Karro in a low voice, as if she didn't want me to hear. It was an instinctive gesture on the part of a Safe-Keeper, I knew, but still it was annoying.

“Good afternoon, sir. Is there something I can help you with?” she asked.

His voice boomed up the stairway, and I could hear him as clearly as if he stood right next to me. “Yes. I spoke to your sister Adele this afternoon and now I want to talk to you. There's something you have to know.”

Adele laid her hand on his arm and very gently steered him back toward the door. “Let's go outside where we might find a little privacy,” I heard her say, and then the door to the kitchen closed and shut off all other sounds.

Furious, I raced into one of the bedrooms that overlooked the back lawn so I could see where she led him, and then I gasped aloud. To the chatterleaf tree! She had the nerve to pretend that she was me, and that whatever he was telling her was something she would then attest to if anyone ever pressed him for the truth! I fumbled with the sash and eased the window open, leaning far out over the wet casement, but I could catch nothing of their conversation. Karro was a bellower, but Adele had managed to convince him to keep his voice down, and naturally she was not the kind of person who would ever permit herself to be overheard. I could see him gesturing, could watch her head bob up and down, but I could not even guess at their conversation.

Whatever his story was, it did not take long to tell. A very few minutes passed before Karro was on his way again and Adele was calmly stepping through the back door into the kitchen. I had flown down the stairs, and I grabbed her arm before she had even closed the door.

“I have to talk to you,” I hissed.

She nodded but put a finger to her lips. Down the short hallway, the music had come to a syncopated conclusion, and there was the sound of sudden laughter and conversation. Lesson over; in minutes, this particular class of students would be pouring into the hall. I nodded my head toward the steps and pulled Adele all the way to the third floor before I released her arm.

“What did he say to you?” I demanded as soon as we were safely in our own room. “He stopped me on the street this morning, and he thought I was you, and he told me—”

Adele reached up and put her hand across my mouth. “Don't,” she said rather sharply. “Don't repeat it.”

I jerked my head away. “But it's terrible! Even you—how can you know things like this?—I can't keep it a secret.”

This time she laid a single finger against my lips and made a
shushing
sound. Incredibly, she was smiling. “And he has told
me
something, believing I am you,” she said. “But I think it is not so terrible a thing, this once, that I am you and you are me. I think, for a few days at least, you can safely keep this secret.”

Adele could lie to anybody, but she wasn't lying now. “Is that the truth?” I whispered. “Because my silence could mean that people will get hurt—maybe killed—”

“Wait until Summermoon,” she said. “And then we'll see.”

“You know something,” I said.

She nodded. “I always know something.”

I took a deep breath, looked away from her, and slowly released it. If I trusted anyone in this world, it was Adele. If she said to wait, I would wait. “I bet I know something that you don't,” I said.

“I suppose that could happen,” she replied, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “Is it something you can tell me?”

“Karro has requested that you and I come work at the mansion on Summermoon, to replace two servants who have been called away.” I turned my head back to look at her, and I saw the color fade from her face. “So we'll be there for the ball.”

Quickly, the blush returned to her cheeks, leaving them pinker and rounder than before. She looked both pleased and slightly apprehensive. “My wish come true,” she said lightly.

“I wonder what else people have wished for lately that is about to be granted that night?” I asked.

Adele laughed soundlessly. “It seems like that kind of season,” she admitted, “when a lot of dreams will fall due.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I ate a hasty dinner, then left Adele to do all the cleaning up. In our room, I put on my new Summermoon frock, a light, sleeveless dress whose colors of blue and green and yellow matched my eyes and hair. I wore the thinnest pair of flat shoes and threaded a blue ribbon through my hair.

This was about as beautiful as the Truth-Teller from the Leaf & Berry was likely to get.

I made my way downstairs just as all the clocks were striking six, and found Gregory waiting for me in the small foyer. I had never told him I would accompany him, and we certainly had not set an hour to meet. But there he was and there I was, and he smiled to see me descending.

“Don't you look like the very spirit of summer,” he greeted me. For himself, he was wearing a royal blue shirt that made his eyes look like a noon sky, and pale pantaloons tucked into calf-high brown boots. I thought the silver buckle on his belt looked very fine. He had trimmed his beard and combed his hair, and it was clear that, like me, he had made an effort to appear to his best advantage. “I like that dress.”

“I like it, too.”

He crooked his elbow, and for the life of me I could not forbear resting my fingers on his arm. In this formation we swept out the front door and down the street, heading for the sounds of revelry.

It was truly the most wonderful evening of my life. The temperature was warm but not unbearable, and a light breeze meandered through the town as soon as the sun dropped toward the horizon. Every few minutes we stopped to sample some of the food or drinks being offered by the itinerant vendors—sausage on a stick, fresh fruit, cheese, dill bread, sweet confections, lemonade, wine, flavored water. One merchant was selling necklaces of white flowers so powerfully fragrant that their scent overcame almost every other odor. Gregory bought one for me and dropped it over my head, lifting my hair from the back of my neck so the blossoms would lie against my skin.

We stopped at the booth where people could test their skill in throwing a blade into a target, and Gregory won a prize, a cheap bracelet hung with dangling charms. He presented it to me and I wore it for the rest of the evening. At other booths we played ringtoss or tried to determine the number of beans in a jar. They would not allow me to guess the ages of the three crones sitting on bare stools at another booth. “Not the Truth-Teller,
she's
no fun at this game!” the barker cried, but he was smiling, and he made me laugh. Gregory speculated that they were each fifty years old or less, which won him no prizes but made the women blow him grateful kisses.

We listened to singers on the street corners, flutists in the parks, harpers hidden under the low-slung awnings of shops that had been closed for the evening. We ducked into the red tent of a fortune-teller who read our palms and guessed our futures. “You will find love and contentment in the unlikeliest of places,” she told Gregory. To me she said, “Everything you have ever wished for will come true.” I found myself ruing the fact that I had not been more prodigal and specific whenever I had made a wish in the past.

It was dark by the time we made our way to the small arena where the acrobats were performing, and we stood in back of the large crowd that had gathered to watch them. I spent most of the hour we were there clutching Gregory's arm and mute with horror, expecting at any moment one of the tumblers would fall to his death from a high wire or a swooping swing. Everyone survived, however, and their flawless arabesques through unsupported air were truly amazing to see. I applauded madly once the performance was over, and Gregory handed me a few coppers to toss to the stage in appreciation. There were so many coins of every denomination being flung at the acrobats that the whole arena appeared to be under a deluge of metallic rain.

“I have never seen anything like that,” I exclaimed as the crowd began to disperse and we strolled away. “I can't imagine that even Wodenderry has anything more thrilling.”

Gregory laughed. He had taken my hand to guide me out of the press of people, but once we were free of the crowd, he did not release me. “I've seen acrobats in Wodenderry, but they were no better than these fellows,” he said cheerfully. “Can you figure out why they aren't all dead?”

“Witchcraft, most likely,” I joked. I did not believe in witches. “I can think of no other answer.”

He made as if to speak and then paused, cocking his head to one side. “I hear music,” he said. “Dance music. Is someone holding a ball?”

I pointed. “Sometimes they set up a stage on the east edge of town, and use it as a dance floor,” I said. “They don't do your fancy numbers, though! Reels and country dances, mostly.”

He tugged on my hand to pull me in that direction. “Oh, but we have to go investigate this,” he said. “We have not danced together in a very long time.” Micah and Roelynn had stopped coming for lessons three days ago.

“You have a strange notion of time,” I commented, but I let him tow me through the streets.

He grinned down at me. It was very close to midnight now, so the city should have been quite dark, but every window was filled with candles, and special torches had been lit along all the major thoroughfares. His face was perfectly plain to see. “Some days seem a lifetime long,” he said. “Others only last an hour. Tonight, for instance. Already it is too short, and it's not over yet.”

“I shouldn't be out more than another hour,” I said, conscientiously remembering what my mother had told me when she agreed to give me the night off.

“It will seem like a minute,” he said.

I did not answer, but privately I agreed.

Soon we arrived at the makeshift dance hall, a thick wooden floor laid over a sturdy frame and open to the night sky. The railing that enclosed it had been gaily festooned with knots of ribbons and bunches of flowers, but that was not its most impressive decoration. All around the square of the floor were hung brightly colored globes, filled with flickering interior candlelight. They threw a muted, multihued illumination across the square of the dance floor and provided a most festive air.

Four musicians sat in a tight group in one corner of the floor, sawing away at stringed instruments that I couldn't even identify. The music was lively, and the couples galloping around the dance floor looked breathless and delighted.

“Oh, what fun!” I exclaimed without thinking.

Gregory pulled me up the three steps that led from the ground to the wooden platform. “Then let us join in,” he said.