The Truth-Teller's Tale by Sharon Shinn
“Indeed, and I feel most dreadful about turning you away,” said my mother, who had agonized over this issue for the past three days. “I don’t know what we were thinking when we booked the inn to these young men for such a long time! But now that they’re here, we can hardly turn them out—”
“And I suppose I am to go from door to door, in the rain, to see if I can find anyone willing to take me in,” Melinda said. I thought she was amused rather than offended by the situation, particularly since my mother was clearly so distraught, but she couldn’t help teasing just a little.
“No, no, we have found a place for you already,” my mother said eagerly. “Constance has just begun to rent out her top room—really, it’s charming, and the street is quieter than ours. I’ve already reserved it for you, for you know how crowded Merendon gets on Summermoon. But she was delighted to think the Dream-Maker would be her guest. I hate to send you there. You’ll like the place so much you’ll never come back to the Leaf and Berry.”
Melinda blew on her tea, then took a cautious sip. “So, Hannah, who are these young men who have ousted me from my place? Do I know them?”
“A dancing master named Gregory and his apprentice, Alexander,” Mother said.
“Alexander has long fair hair that he usually wears tied back. Aristocratic features. Handsome,” I said. I was trying not to pile on too many adjectives. “Gregory is dark, blue-eyed, has a beard. They both seem well born but not very well off.”
Melinda looked thoughtful, then shook her head. “I don’t know anyone with those names who answers to those descriptions. But I’m hardly acquainted with every fallen nobleman in the kingdom. I take it they’ve been popular additions to the cultural scene?”
My mother threw her hands in the air. “Oh, Melinda! This is the first time the inn has been quiet since they arrived! That music never stops! I hear it when I’m dreaming.”
Melinda smiled. “Well, I’m sorry to miss them. Maybe I’ll catch them some afternoon when I come over to have tea with you. Though the next few days look to be very busy, and with Summermoon the day after tomorrow—”
“I’m sure you’ll meet them one day or another,” Adele said softly. “It seems like everyone has.”
It was still raining when I gathered Melinda’s bags and escorted her to Constance’s house just two blocks off High Street. In fact, the Dream-Maker quite liked the cozy little room on the second floor with its ruffled lace curtains and fluffy white bedspread. “Though it’s not quite the Leaf and Berry,” she said, smiling at me. “I would tell you to wait here until the rain lets up, but I don’t think it’s going to.”
“I’ve got to get back anyway, whether I’m wet or not,” I said. I had to work ahead on tonight’s dinner since I wouldn’t be there to help serve it. Of course, if it kept raining, not even the amazing acrobatic troupe would be able to perform. Now there was a discouraging thought. “It’s just not the same without you in the inn on Summermoon!”
“Remember that next year before you give away my room.”
In a few moments, I was back out on the street, holding a heavy shawl over my head in a rather feeble attempt to keep the rain from my face. The cobblestones were slick with mud, water, and the occasional unwary worm; the world smelled like hot, wet brick. The faint breeze was cool enough now, but once the rain stopped, the air would heat up to a sultry pitch, uncomfortable for as long as the sun stayed out. Still, there was an excellent chance that the temperature would be tolerable by nightfall.
I splashed along as quickly as I could, turning the corner onto our street and making for the inn, only a few blocks away. A dark and rather broad man, head down and shoulders hunched against the rain, headed directly for me, and I stepped closer to the buildings to try to keep out of his way. A pointless civility—he caught my arm as I hurried past, and peered in under my shawl to try to identify me. It was Roelynn’s father.
“You—you’re that girl from the inn, aren’t you?” he demanded. “My daughter’s friend?”
Imprecise but true. I nodded. “Yes.”
“I need to tell you something.”
I glanced quickly over both shoulders, looking for shelter, but he shrugged off such inessentials. “It’ll be quick,” he said. “I just—this has been weighing on me. I want—I had to tell someone, and who better than you?”
“What is it?” I said cautiously.
“I sent a cutter out,” he said flatly. “To intercept one of Mac Balder’s ships. He’s got a fresh cargo from a foreign port, or he says he has, coming in within the next two days. I don’t want—damn it, I’m the one who brings in the exotic merchandise! I’m the one who makes the best deals with other kingdoms! So I sent a ship out to commandeer his freight. You know his men will fight—my men would, under the same circumstances. I’m afraid there might be—well—who knows how it will end? Not well, that seems certain.”
I was staring at him from under the awning of my shawl. Gaping, more like. I could feel the rain beating against my dress from the knees on down, soaking the fabric, soaking my shoes. None of that seemed to matter at the moment. “You wanted to tell me that?” I demanded.
He shrugged. “Dreadful, I know. The things a man does to stay in business! The stories I could tell you of my last thirty years would turn that yellow hair of yours pure white. Never thought I’d have anything to say to a Safe-Keeper, but it’s true what everyone claims. I feel better having gotten all that off my chest.”
“I’m not—” I began, but he interrupted me.
“I know,” he said. “You’re not going to tell anyone.” He shook his head. “What a strange day this has been,” he said. And without saying another word, or giving me a chance to say one, he turned away and plunged back into the pouring rain.
More slowly I walked the final yards to the Leaf & Berry, letting my shawl fall over my head like a limp mantle, so wet now it did not seem worth the effort to try to keep my face dry. Clearly Karro had confided in the wrong sister; he had failed to ask the crucial question about my identity. But his confession was more shocking than his lapse of judgment. He had sent out a team of pirates to steal another man’s cargo—and, perhaps, to kill another man’s crew! It was heinous. It was unforgivable. I should be running even now to go pounding on Mac Balder’s door, to inform the harbormaster and Joe Muller and the other key townspeople of Merendon that this outrage was being enacted even as we spoke. I was a Truth-Teller; they would believe me without proof.
But. My essential honesty forced me to wrestle with this dilemma: I had been told his secret under false pretenses. I had done nothing to deceive him, but he had acted in accordance with the rules as he understood them. If it had, in fact, been Adele to whom he told his secret, no force in this world would have made her repeat his words. Did I not stand in for Adele, in this instance? Did I not owe him the courtesy of the covenant? Was not the role of a Safe-Keeper merely to listen, and to know, and to keep silence?
Only one person in the world could answer these questions for me, and she was gone when I came panting into the kitchen.
“Where’s Adele?” I asked my mother as I vigorously toweled off my hair and tossed my sodden shoes into the corner. “I have to talk to her. Right now.”
From the other room, I could hear the tinkling sounds of the music box plucking away at one of its melodies. The kitchen itself smelled like baking ham and cooling cobbler. My mother looked up from the table, where she sat staring at a pile of silver coins. “She’s not here right now,” Mother said in a strange voice.
I threw my shawl over a hook and sat at the table beside her. “Where did she go? Why do you look like that? What’s all that money for?”
Mother stared over at me, her soft blue eyes a little dazed. “It’s from Karro,” she said. “Can you believe how much? It’ll pay to fix the roof and refurbish half the rooms!”
“Karro!” I exclaimed. He must have been coming from the Leaf & Berry even as I encountered him in the street. “What did he wan
My mother shook her head, then nodded. “He was looking for both of you, actually. He said he wanted to hire your services on Summermoon night. One of his kitchen girls was called away because her mother’s dying and another one had to be let go just yesterday because he caught her stealing. He has all those people coming for the ball—he wants you and Adele to work for him, just that one night.” She fingered the silver coins spread on the table. “And he paid us all this money.”
I felt a little shiver go down my back. That was what Adele had wished for—to be at Karro’s on Summermoon. “But you need us on Summermoon,” I said slowly. “It’s our busiest night of the year.”
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
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.