Cavern of Secrets

by Linda Sue Park

  He fiddled with the rope coil across his chest, keeping his head down as long as he could before looking up. The ferry landing was busy. People hurried past in both directions, intent on their own affairs. No one paid him the least bit of attention.

  Visible, but not seen—it was almost as good as being invisible!

  But he couldn’t stay there long. The wagon traffic had come to a halt. He saw four wagons in a line, awaiting their turn to board the ferry, which would take them across one at a time. The driver of the first wagon climbed down from the seat and walked to the fare collector’s hut to pay for his passage. Then he returned to the wagon and drove onto the ferry.

  At that moment, Raffa inhaled a dreadful stench. It was coming from the fourth wagon, whose open bed was full of compost. The compost was probably a delivery for the Commons gardeners, who needed a lot of it to grow flowers, fruits, and vegetables for the Commoners.

  The last time Raffa had smelled something that strong was when he had been enveloped by Roo after nearly drowning in the Everwide. Could a bad smell help save him again?

  Raffa had a hollow reed in his rucksack. Missum Yuli had given it to him at the settlement, to use as a dropper for his apothecary work. He took it out and tucked it into the pocket of his tunic.

  He waited until the compost wagon was second in line. Then he sauntered forward and bent down to examine the wagon’s rear wheel, as if he were the driver’s helper. His legs were shaking so hard that he had to clench his jaw to keep his teeth from rattling.

  The wagon rolled forward slowly; Raffa scooted along with it, keeping low to the ground. From that perspective, he could look underneath the wagon, and he saw a pair of boots hit the ground when the driver jumped down to pay his fare.

  Quickly Raffa stepped onto the hub of the wheel and in one motion rolled up and over the edge of the wagon bed, landing right on the compost. He sank down into the stinking mass, then lay on his back and pulled at his neckline to make sure the sleeping Echo had breathing room. Taking the reed from his pocket, he stuck it in his mouth and buried himself with handfuls of the disgusting compost—including his face. He was careful to sprinkle only a little compost on the bump that was Echo.

  He angled the reed downward, so only the very end stuck out and would hopefully not be noticeable. His heart racing, he struggled to breathe through the reed.

  He wasn’t getting enough air, and even breathing through his mouth, he was nearly gagging from the smell. The stench seemed almost solid. . . . Was it possible that the bad smell was blocking the good air from getting to his lungs?

  It took every shred of his resolve not to sit up and yank the reed from his mouth. This would never do. He had to relax somehow.

  Then he heard a little squeak, muffled by his tunic.

  “Very smell,” Echo said sleepily.

  “Shussss,” Raffa hissed through the tube—then swallowed a giggle.

  Echo had done it again: made him feel better when he needed it most.

  Raffa was astounded by how slowly time crawled when he had to think about every breath he took. He tried to distract himself with the knowledge that it could have been far worse: He was lying down, fully stretched out, and the compost could almost be called comfortable, if it weren’t for the smell.

  When the wagon began moving, he realized with dismay that only moments had passed. The wheels bumped up onto the ferry; Raffa could feel movement of the water below. Then one of the oarsmen called out to his partner, and the ferry began its journey across the Everwide.

  Get to Gilden. Find Mam and Da. . . .

  For the first time since he had seen the ruin of his home, Raffa allowed himself to wonder what he would do if he got to Gilden and his parents weren’t there. His body went cold—as cold as it had ever been in the Suddens. He shivered to the depths of his bones and began gasping for air again.

  No! They couldn’t be dead. They’d escaped the fire, they’d gotten away—because if they were dead, wouldn’t he know it somehow? Wouldn’t he have felt their utter absence when he was there at the remains of the house?

  He was sure that he would have. Or maybe he was just hoping so hard that it felt like certainty.

  But if they escaped, why weren’t they there, cleaning up, rebuilding?

  He shoved away that thought as hard as he could.

  The ferry dipped and swayed, bringing his attention back to the present. He frowned. Something about the crossing was bothering him. What was it? He was on his way to Gilden; surely it was cause for celebration that he had gotten this far undetected—

  The guards!

  He had seen no guards at the ferry landing. No one searching for him, no one checking the wagons.

  Then he realized why: Because the guards were on the other side.

  They didn’t need to be on both sides of the river. On the Gilden side, they could check travelers going either way, and were much closer to both the barracks and the Garrison. Once the ferry docked, they would inspect the wagon, and he would be discovered. . . .

  Raffa tried to stay calm. He debated plan after plan: Should he get out of the wagon here on the ferry, and try to slip past the guards as a foot passenger? Should he stay where he was and hope that they wouldn’t search the wagon bed? Could he simply bolt and elude them?

  No. He couldn’t disembark on foot. He’d be too conspicuous, both filthy and stinking, and either the oarsmen or the guards would be sure to notice him. He’d just have to stay where he was, and improvise. For the rest of the crossing, he tried to remember what he could about the landing on the Gilden side.

  The wooden dock. Crates, pilings, gulls. A broad path from the dock to the road. A travelers’ inn on the left. Maybe he could get out of the wagon without anyone seeing him and then hide behind a piling. But it was sure to be even busier than the other landing; the chances were better than good that someone would spot him.

  Raffa heard the lead oarsman call out a hoy. The crossing that had once seemed interminable was ending much too soon. Unable to think of anything else to do, he drew up his legs very slowly, an inch at a time, trying to make himself smaller in the reeking mess.

  The wagon rolled off the ferry onto the dock. Raffa heard voices.

  “Your name, mannum?”

  “Fitzer.”

  “Fitzer—that’s right. Compost for the Commons, is it?”

  A guard was querying the driver. Raffa began to quiver beneath his shroud of compost.

  “Yah, and I’m late. Had to wait to cross.”

  “Won’t keep you but a moment.”

  A double set of footfalls: two guards.

  “Go ahead—check the load.” The same guard again.

  “I checked the last load. It’s your turn.”

  “Where’d you leave your brain? I checked the last load. It was barrels of salted pork—”

  “The last load of compost. A week ago, remember? Not fair for me to have to do it again.”

  “We take turns checking the load. Doesn’t matter what it is. Fair’s fair.”

  “Favor me, Seniors!” The driver’s voice again. “Meaning no disrespect, but as I said, I’m already late. Compost, same as last time, same as every time.”

  A short silence. Raffa could almost see the two guards shrugging at each other.

  “Steady,” one of them called out. “On your way, then.”

  The wagon lurched forward. Raffa blew a whoosh of relief through the reed. Saved—by a load of reeking rot!

  But he still had to contrive a way to get out of the wagon unseen. After only a few minutes, he felt the wheels slowing. The wagon turned to the left and creaked to a stop.

  Raffa heard the driver jump down. A moment later, a metallic squeal sounded, followed by a rush of water. A pump.

  We must be in the yard of the inn.

  Water glugged and splashed a little longer. Then the man stopped pumping and spoke.

  “I don’t know who you are, or what you’re about,” he said. “But I been hauling compos
t all my life, and I know when my load gains weight along the way. Not much weight, though, so I figure you’re just a kiddler.”

  Raffa was stupefied. The man was talking to him. He had known Raffa was there all along!

  “I’m going into the inn for a jar of appletip. I don’t want to lay eyes on you. The trough is full, and there’s no one around. Get out, get washed, and get away before I change my mind.”

  Raffa heard footfalls receding. A door opened and closed.

  He sat up and shook himself like a dog. He brushed off substances he was glad he couldn’t name, then scrambled out of the wagon and obeyed every one of the man’s orders.

  Fitzer, he thought. He didn’t even know what the man looked like, but he would do his best to remember the name. As he left the yard, he waved a silent thanks toward the inn.

  Then he hurried up the road to Gilden.

  The slums were even worse than he remembered. Mud and muck in the streets, grim expressions on every face . . . Raffa supposed he should be thankful that no one met his eye, but he found himself longing for even a nod from people who seemed to have lost the ability to smile.

  Raffa caught sight of two guards coming toward him, and he ducked into an alley. Once they had passed, he slipped into the street again. Only a dozen paces later, he saw another guard. He crossed to the other side of the street and bent over, pretending to have dropped something.

  The last time he was in the slums, he had seen no guards at all. Why were there so many now? Were they all looking for him? Nerves fraying, he knew that he had to get off the streets as quickly as he could. His plan was to go straight to the house of his friend Trixin; from there, he hoped he would remember the way to the inn she had taken him to before. It had an underground passage where he could hide.

  But his first encounter with Trixin, in front of her house, had been wholly by accident, and he had no idea how to get there. As he wandered the slums, constantly on the alert for guards, he came to an unfamiliar square. A crowd was gathered there. Raffa found himself getting almost dizzy, still unaccustomed to being among so many people after the long winter on the mountain with just Kuma and Garith.

  People were milling about in obvious excitement. What was happening? In the midst of the crowd, he felt safely hidden, so he paused by a small knot of people to catch his breath. He listened in on their conversation.

  “Wheat, I heard.”

  “Corn, too.”

  “How much, I wonder?”

  Raffa saw a boil on one man’s nose, a rash on the neck of a woman. He heard ragged coughing from another woman. Almost without realizing it, he began thinking about the poultices and infusions that could be used to treat them. Yet he knew, too, that the long-term cure was good, solid nourishment, for all three had the sunken eyes of hunger-induced fatigue.

  Another woman joined the group. “What’s it about, then?” she asked.

  “Commoners,” one of the men replied, “giving away grain.”

  “Oh, you’re a funny one,” the woman said.

  “It’s true, Larrabel, Chancellor’s orders! Two Commoners—see them, across the square there? Hailed everyone, said to bring sacks and line up. Hannik’s fetching sacks now.”

  Raffa knew that for the poor, early spring was the hungriest time of year. Stores of grain from the previous fall would be all but spent, with fields and gardens not yet bearing. But he had never before heard of the Commoners donating food to those in need of it. He thought of Elson and Haddie and the others living at Kuma’s settlement, and wondered if the Commoners would be helping those outside Gilden as well.

  Then something he had just heard echoed in his mind.

  Chancellor’s orders.

  The Chancellor had ordered the grain donation?

  Raffa shook his head in confusion. For months now, the Chancellor had been the pure essence of villainy to him. He could never have imagined such an act of benevolence from her.

  The trained crows infesting the grain at Kuma’s settlement with weevils . . . and now the Commoners giving away grain in the slums. Suspicion ruffled his thoughts. Were the two acts related? For all that he reviled the Chancellor, Raffa knew she had a keen and clever mind. Whatever she did was done with a purpose. If the grain donation was somehow part of her scheme, he needed to find out how it fit.

  Scanning the square, Raffa saw a teenage girl walking toward him, her arms wrapped around a sack of grain. She was thin and pale despite her tawny skin, but her dark eyes were bright, which made her look friendlier than anyone else he’d seen so far. He decided to take a chance, and trotted to her side.

  “Is that corn?” he asked.

  “Wheat!” she said, making the word sound almost like a song.

  “Is it true that they’re giving it for nothing?”

  “True upon truer,” she said. “Told my family’s name, answered what they asked, and there’ll be bread for supper tonight!”

  “So what are they asking?”

  “Nothing, really. They’re doing a census. Where do you live, how many in the family and how old—that’s all. Oh, and how long have we lived here.”

  She cast a quick glance at him; he tensed and turned his head away a little.

  “But you have to bring your own sack,” she said. “Better hurry and get one before they change their minds!” She laughed and hurried off.

  Raffa faded back to the edge of the square, thoughts buzzing in his head like a swarm of midges.

  Until the past winter in the Suddens, he had never known hunger; his parents’ work as pothers meant a modest living, but one without need. He remembered his delight over the cattail-pollen bread. What would it be like for bread to be such a rarity all the time? He thought of the way the girl had caroled the word wheat, the happiness in her eyes, the pallor of her skin.

  Then he recalled his time in the Commons, where there was too much food on every table at every meal. And a question began to grow in his mind . . . from the girl, to the crowd of people in the square, to the teeming misery of the slums themselves . . . swelling and spreading until he thought his head might burst from the sheer size and weight of it: Why were some people wealthy when others were so poor?

  Raffa pinched himself mentally. He couldn’t afford the time for contemplation—he had to find the inn. He remembered that it was an inn for Commoners, but for all he knew, there were dozens of such places. How would he ever find it?

  No use standing still. He set off back the way he had come; he’d start over, taking different turnings this time.

  As he walked, he tried to make sense of what he had learned.

  A census? It sounded like the kind of thing the government did every now and then. It also made sense to keep a list of those who received grain, so all families would get a fair share. Maybe everything he had been through was making him see shadows where none had been cast. Maybe the Chancellor—

  “Raffa! Raffa, hoy! Raffa, it’s me—Jimble!”

  Raffa turned and saw a gaggle of kiddlers, too many to count. He recognized the blondest head in the bunch: Jimble, Trixin’s younger brother, who had a baby tied to his back and a small girl at each hand.

  “Raffa! Remember me?” Jimble shouted.

  Raffa’s blood turned to ice.

  Stop it, Jimble! Stop yelling out my name for the whole world to hear!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HE rushed toward Jimble and spoke urgently into the boy’s ear.

  “Jimble, don’t say my name again! No one can know that I’m here!”

  Jimble’s eyes, blue like Trixin’s, lit up with interest. He detached himself and his siblings from the group and bid his friends a cheery good-bye.

  “Are they still looking for you?” he asked in a loud whisper as they walked away. “Trixin told me—but that was ages ago!”

  “Yes, but I don’t have time to tell you everything now. I need to use the underground passages to get to the apothecary quarter. Can you help me?” Before he did anything else, Raffa had to talk to
Garith, for two reasons: to see for himself that Garith had returned safely to Gilden, and to find out if Garith knew where Raffa’s parents were.

  “Sure upon solid!” Jimble grinned. “We’ll go by the house first.” He gave Raffa the hand of one toddler as if presenting him with a gift. “That’s Camma, and this one’s Cassa. They’re twins, just gone four years. And the baby’s Brid. Come, this way—it’s not far.”

  Jimble scooted through the maze of lanes. Camma and Cassa were apparently used to keeping up with him, practically galloping on their short legs. They passed right by another guard, but to Raffa’s relief, being in the company of Jimble and his siblings was almost like a disguise: The guard didn’t seem to notice any of them.

  The lanes began to slope slightly upward, which meant that they were getting closer to the Commons, on the highest ground in Gilden. The slums were giving way to quieter, less crowded streets lined with houses that, while still modest, were in good repair.

  Jimble stopped in front of a house Raffa had never seen before, and laughed at Raffa’s expression. “I knew you’d be surprised! We’ve only been here a few days. Wait till I show you!”

  Raffa followed Jimble through the door. What a difference from the Marrs’ previous home! Before, the whole family had lived in a hovel with but a single, dreary, dirt-floored room. Here, the main room was brighter and more spacious. Raffa saw a table and benches, a kitchen area with a stove and cupboards, and even a few toys scattered on the plank floor.

  Pots of herbs lined the window ledges. Raffa recalled that Trixin had grown them at the old house as well. The plants here were growing much more profusely, as if they, too, knew they were in a better place. Bundles of dried herbs hung from the ceiling in one corner, including a wreath of lyptus leaves. Raffa felt a small pang on seeing it: His mother, Salima, tied lyptus sprigs in just the same way.

  Jimble chattered without cease. “Da has his own room, Trixin sleeps with Brid, and I have a big alcove in the twins’ room. Isn’t it grand?”

  “Jimble, however did you come by such a house?”

  “It’s ’cause of Trixin. She done so good working in the pother quarter that the Chancellor organized us this house! And Da has a better job now—he works at the Commons, night watchman, and does repairs, too.”