The Truth-Teller's Tale by Sharon Shinn
“Delton Karro,” she said, and her voice rang to all corners of the room, “you know that I have the power to make some wishes come true. For the past seventeen years, your one and only wish has been to see your daughter marry the prince. It has been the thing you have worked for above all others. Now, tonight, you may see a second dream present itself. You may wish to save your good name and rescue your business, both at dire risk right now. What shall it be? I cannot make both dreams come true. You must choose.”
I held my breath to hear the answer. All around me, it seemed, the whole crowd similarly suspended breathing. No one spoke, no one moved, as we waited for Karro’s reply.
At last he spoke, slowly, reluctantly. He was not a man used to being thwarted, not a man accustomed to giving up one thing to secure something else. He was a man who had always believed he could have everything he wanted. “I choose—I choose myself,” he said heavily. “My daughter can marry whom she pleases.”
“And your son?” Melinda added.
Karro dipped his head. “And my son. Let them wed where they will and be damned to them.”
Melinda gave a brief, quick nod. “What I did not tell you,” she said, “was that I would grant the wish you didn’t choose. Your reputation is lost, but your daughter will still marry the prince.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, then pandemonium. My heartbroken cry of “Noooo!” was lost in the general uproar. How could she do such an awful thing, how could Melinda snatch happiness away from both Roelynn and Adele, even to punish this terrible man? It was wrong; it was unjust; it was so unlike her. She might be granting Karro one of his wishes, but she had ruined the dreams of four other people in the room. Or three people, if Alexander really had gone off and married another girl yesterday morning . . .
The unruly crowd now rocked back and forth, calling for more penalties to be inflicted on Karro. I felt a hand close over mine and draw me back toward the relative safety of the wall. It was Adele, and she was smiling.
“Do not look so upset,” she whispered in my ear, and even over the incredible noise in the room, I could hear her. “You’ll see. Everything will turn out.”
“What did he tell you?” I whispered back. “That day at the inn? What is the truth?” For emotions had been so high in the room that even I had had trouble telling when a lie was being spoken.
She smiled again and put a finger to her lips.
Just when I thought the noise level in the small room could not get any louder, there was an ear-splitting inhuman sound that made it seem as if the whole world was baying. I snatched my hand away from Adele’s so I could clap both palms to my ears, and around me everyone else did the same. The noise came again, and I realized that it was the harbormaster blowing a foghorn, designed to steer ships away from trouble—or silence intemperate mobs. We all stared at him in stupefaction, and he pointed at the door.
There, unnoticed in the hubbub, stood a new arrival. He was not a man I knew, but it was clear he was a sailor of some sort, and the exhaustion on his face proclaimed he was the survivor of a very hazardous journey. When he saw every person in the room staring his way, he drew himself up stiff and straight and gave us all one smart salute.
“Jack Ailsley of the Melva Blue, just come into harbor,” he announced. “Captain heard as there was some worry about our tardiness, so he sent me here to let you know we was all well.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
After that, it was clear the room was too small to hold all the rejoicing, recriminations, and retellings that were necessary to make sense of this night. The whole crowd streamed out into the corridor and then down toward the ballroom—or, who knows, perhaps to the dining hall or some other chamber meant for large gatherings. I didn’t know where they ended up. I didn’t follow. Like my sister, Melinda, and Gregory—like Alexander and Roelynn, still embracing on the floor—I stayed in the little den as the room emptied out. When the last man had exited, talking volubly to his companion, Gregory closed the door behind them all and set his back to it.
“Now,” he said, and his glinting blue eyes surveyed those of us remaining. “Will somebody please explain what just happened here?”
Melinda sank to a seat in one of the spindly upholstered chairs that were scattered around the room and that no one had wanted to take advantage of before. “Oh, my heavens,” she said, and her voice was faint. “That’s not a night that I’d like to live through more than once.”
Alexander looked up from his position on the floor. I wondered how Roelynn could be so comfortable in his embrace when she had just learned that he had married another woman, but in fact, she seemed quite happy. For his part, Alexander seemed to be smoldering with a righteous fury. “That man,” he said, in his low melodious voice. “Roelynn’s father. He ought to be horsewhipped out of this town.”
Melinda waved a languid hand. “Oh, he’ll suffer some reverses of fortune, and the queen may break her connection with him, but he’ll regain his footing, mark my words. He’s too shrewd a businessman not to recover from this. He’ll repair his standing. His real dream will come true after all.”
That was too much for me. I propelled myself away from the wall and came to stand beside her chair, my whole body trembling. “How could you do such a thing?” I demanded. “When you knew—when surely you knew—oh, it’s Alexander that Roelynn wants to marry, not that stupid prince! How could you destroy her happiness like that?”
Melinda looked up at me, the expression on her aristocratic face a little sardonic. “You realize, of course, that I cannot choose which wishes to grant and which to ignore. Whatever magic flows through my body makes its own decisions. I said all that merely to make Karro think. I said all that merely to force him to say aloud that he would give up his dreams for his daughter.”
“Yes, but then you said that other thing!” I cried, knowing that I was not being entirely clear. I knew she understood me, though. “You said that Roelynn would marry the prince after all!”
Melinda shrugged. “Well, I wanted to disappoint Karro, at least for a moment. And besides, I wish my job as Dream-Maker was always so easy—to proclaim that I can make come true something that has already happened.”
For a moment, there was absolute silence in the room.
Then I realized my legs would not support me anymore, and I sank to the floor in a puff of stiff black fabric. “What?” I finally said in a faint voice. But I was not looking at Melinda when I spoke. I was staring at Alexander. Roelynn, who had been lying so peacefully in Alexander’s lap a moment ago, was also staring at him. Adele and Gregory were also staring at Alexander with oddly similar expressions of astonishment and amusement.
Melinda spoke into the stillness. “What your sister said earlier was true, you know. This young man did marry a girl of Merendon yesterday morning, and I was his witness. But the girl he married was Roelynn, not some seamstress he’d been flirting with on his free days. Adele told a secret, but it was not a secret from Roelynn.”
“But—you said . . .” I whispered.
“That Roelynn would marry the prince? Well, of course. He’s called himself Alexander for the past month, but his name is actually Darian. The queen’s son. Heir to the throne.”
This next silence was even more profound. This time Roelynn was the one to break it with a single word. “What?” she squeaked.
I saw Alexander—rather, Darian—draw her closer when she seemed to be pulling back. “That was always my dream,” he said in a serious voice. “To marry a girl because she loved me, not because she wanted to marry the prince. A girl who didn’t care about pomp, who didn’t particularly want to be royalty. My mother kept encouraging me to meet you. She kept inviting you to Wodenderry. But I didn’t want to meet you as the prince. I didn’t even really want to meet you at all. I was sure you would be ugly and squint-eyed and speak in a high, loud voice.” He momentarily adjusted his own tones to replicate those of his supposed bride. Then he pointed at Gregory. “It was his idea t
Now all eyes turned Gregory’s way. If Alexander was really the prince, then Gregory must be . . . heavens, he could be anybody, but certainly not an impoverished dancing master. He was most likely both rich and noble.
And one of the biggest liars in the kingdom.
I dropped my gaze to stare at my clasped hands, but not before I saw the rueful expression that crossed Gregory’s face as he watched me. “Yes, it was my idea, but I didn’t expect things to go in such a spectacular way,” he said in a pleading voice. “I thought we would merely meet the young lady and see if she was actually hideous. We’d stay a week or two and move on. We had plans to be back in Wodenderry on Summermoon, you know. We never expected to be detained here so long by—circumstances.”
Roelynn’s voice came again, still weak but growing stronger. “You’re the prince?”
“I am,” Alexander replied. “Sorry.”
But Roelynn, of course, was laughing. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek and chin and forehead. “Oh, I’m so happy for you! I worried about you so much, and thought what a hard life you must have led, because you would never talk about it. I imagined your mother as this dreadful ogre and your father as cruel and cold. But I’ve met them several times and they’re quite delightful people! Then you haven’t suffered at all!”
“Well, I’ve suffered a little bit,” he said in an unsteady voice. “Wondering what you were going to think when you found out how I’d tricked you.”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure to be angry about that,” Roelynn said in a mocking voice. “I thought I was marrying a charming but feckless ne’er-do-well who would always make me happy but never amount to much. And I find I’ve married the charming prince who will one day make me a queen. I don’t know how I shall ever get over it.”
Adele and I exchanged quick glances, unable to keep the smiles from our faces. Roelynn. So typical. How could he ever have worried? Of course, he had still behaved very badly. It’s really not acceptable for anyone, royalty included, to go parading around the countryside pretending to be someone he’s not. If it had been me, I would not have forgiven him quite so easily.
If it had been me . . .
I studiously did not look at Gregory as I spoke to Melinda again. “So, then, I suppose you knew who Alexander really was the minute you laid eyes on him.”
The Dream-Maker nodded. “But he made me promise not to give him away. I told him I would wait no longer than Summermoon, and then he must confess or I would do it for him.”
“What about the others? There were half-a-dozen families from Wodenderry here for the ball. Any one of them could have betrayed him to Roelynn—or Karro.”
Gregory answered, addressing me even though I refused to look at him. “When they first arrived in Merendon, it was just a matter of avoiding them. Simple enough to do, till Roelynn invited us to attend the festivities. Then we merely extracted the same promise from them—keep this secret till the end of Summermoon. They were happy to comply. Everyone likes to be on the receiving end of a secret. Most people just can’t hold on to it for more than a few hours.”
This made me turn to my sister again and give her a rather more searching look. She had been entirely too calm through this whole affair, entirely too certain that all would be well. “How long did you know this particular secret?” I asked.
“From the moment they arrived at our inn that night.”
“No!” I exclaimed, and the others in the room echoed my astonishment.
“What gave me away?” asked Alexander—that is, Darian.
“I recognized your name,” Adele answered.
“You knew Alexander was my secret name? How?”
“Fiona told me the day Eleda and I went to Wodenderry to meet your sister.”
Alexander looked bewildered. “When did you and Eleda come to Wodenderry? When did you meet my sister?”
Adele waved a hand as if to indicate that that was the least important part of the story. “Five years ago. When the Truth-Tellers and Safe-Keepers were invited to the palace to see the princess. And Fiona told me Arisande’s secret name, and then she told me yours.” Adele paused to give him a rather stern look. “I didn’t think it was very wise of you to use it in public that way. Then again, it kept Eleda from suspecting you. She knew Gregory’s name was false, but she knew yours was a true name. It kept her from distrusting you.”
“So then—so then—all along you knew Roelynn was falling in love with the prince,” I said, stammering a little. “All along, tonight, you knew how things would turn out. You weren’t afraid at all.”
“I was a little nervous when we first walked into the room and Karro had his dagger out,” she admitted.
Alexander put his lips to Roelynn’s throat, where dried blood trailed toward the bright bodice of her gown. “If I had seen him holding a knife to your skin—”
Roelynn brushed this aside. “I wasn’t worried. I didn’t think he’d really hurt me.”
“But how did you know?” Adele asked me. “When you proclaimed that Roelynn would marry no one but the prince. How did you know that was true?”
“I didn’t know! I thought I was lying!”
“I thought you couldn’t lie,” Gregory said, sounding interested.
I gave him a brief, hot glance. “I can’t. Unlike some people. So I spoke the truth without knowing it.”
Alexander—I mean, Darian—was gazing at Adele. “But how did you know we were in the chapel getting married yesterday?” he asked. “We told no one but Melinda and the pastor. And surely they didn’t betray us.”
“Yes, Adele, how did you happen to be there to witness them being wed?” Melinda asked in a dry voice. I was fairly certain that she already knew the answer.
Adele, the most serene of women, was blushing a deep red. “We were—I was—I happened—”
“We?” Roelynn repeated, seeming to pounce on the word. “You were at the chapel with someone? A lover of your own, perhaps?”
“Oh, Adele,” I breathed. “You wouldn’t—you didn’t—not without telling me . . .”
She stretched down a reassuring hand to pat me on the shoulder. “No, never. I would never think to marry without you present. I was just inquiring—we were just inquiring—we were looking ahead to Wintermoon, and wondering if that might be a good time—”
“So you’re planning to marry,” Gregory said in a hearty, congratulatory tone. “Anyone I’ve met since I’ve been in Merendon?”
Roelynn clapped her hands together in excitement. “Micah, of course!” she crowed. So much for keeping secrets from her. “And just tonight—you all heard him—just tonight my father said he would free me and Micah to make our own choices when it came to marriage. He cannot possibly renege on that now after such a public announcement.”
Adele laughed, her face still pink. “Well, that’s not what I was counting on,” she said. “Earlier Micah had secured your father’s promise that, if you married the prince, Micah could wed whomever he chose. And since I knew who Alexander really was, and since you had clearly fallen in love with each other—”
Roelynn clapped her hands again. “Happy endings all around,” she said.
“It is a very good thing to be blessed by the Dream-Maker,” Alexander said in a solemn voice.
Everyone nodded or murmured an assent to this, except for me. I was happy for Roelynn and my sister, of course—though my head was still in a whirl from all the precipitous events of the night—but I was not positive my own dreams had come true. I was not even sure I could identify my dreams.
Before anyone else could speak, there was a quick rapping on the door. Gregory stepped aside to open it, and we all gazed out, expecting Micah or the harbormaster or someone else with portentous news. But it was merely the cook, looking irate and determined.
“That kitchen’s not going to clean itself, you know,” she said in an irascible voice. “You were hired to stay till all the work was done, and
Roelynn and the men protested—“I need them even more!” Roelynn exclaimed—but I jumped to my feet and Adele and I hurried to the door. We had been paid in advance, after all, and we knew very well the value of a good worker. Gregory caught my arm as I would have slipped past him.
“We must talk tomorrow morning,” he said in a low voice.
I shook myself free and kept walking. “Tomorrow afternoon, more like,” I said in a tired voice. “I’ll be up till dawn.”
“I have to tell you—I have to explain—”
I shrugged. “You can if you want,” I said, and followed the cook down the hall and back into the kitchen.
We spent a lifetime cleaning up the mess made at the Karro mansion on Summermoon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The day after Summermoon, the whole world slept late. Our guests were always informed that there would be no breakfast served that day, but they could help themselves to an assortment of fruits and breads left in the dining room. No carts or pedestrians ever clattered down the main street until nearly noon; no one was ever woken by loud voices raised in the early-morning hours. The sun would be well up in the sky and beating down with all its considerable might before the first soul was abroad in all of Merendon. Even the gulls and the crows seemed to take the morning off. Even the sea would lie quiet.
This morning, I woke up once, glanced over to see Adele still in bed, and promptly allowed myself to fall back asleep. When I woke a second time, a couple hours later, she was sitting up in bed and gazing around as if she couldn’t remember ever seeing this room before. I could understand her sense of disorientation and displacement; I felt much the same way myself.