The Secret's Keeper and the Heir

by Jackie McCarthy

  Turning on her heels to leave, Sara collided heavily with the body of an unveiled young woman. She began to mutter an apology, but the woman’s appearance and expression frightened the regret from her lips.

  The woman was pale, her hair as black as the moonless night and her eyes eerily purple. She wore a simple gray shift that betrayed her low station. Sara vaguely recalled hearing of people who looked like this. The woman was a Tikaani slave.

  She didn’t look like a slave, however. Her carriage was proud and her features unfettered. Her pale face was lit then in an expression of pure joy, as though Sara was the very sun in the sky.

  “Ijibuuktuuk,” murmured the savage, in awe. “I…I have found you.” Eyes brimming with tears, the slave girl lifted a callused hand to her open mouth.

  “I beg your pardon?” Sara said. The woman’s tear-filled reaction made the girl feel as though she’d always been the most important person in the world. Sara had to fight the glow of emotion that threatened to ignite within her racing heart. More likely, of course, the slave was crazy—possibly even dangerous. Sara took a step backwards, but found herself trapped upon the post of the Grainer’s stall.

  “Be not afraid,” said the Tikaani in her careful but broken speech. She smiled and said lovingly, “I have seen your ashes, and they will be beautiful.”

  Sara gulped, wondering if she was being threatened. Just as she felt she might swoon, however, the savage was knocked to the ground. Catlike, the woman regained her feet and ran away, disappearing so quickly that Sara wasn’t sure she’d ever been there at all.

  “Get out of here, savage,” a boy’s voice yelled as the woman ran. The owner of the voice turned to face her, and Sara, who hadn’t yet recovered from the first astonishing encounter of the day, quickly lost consciousness as a result of the second.

  She awoke within moments. Two faces slowly came into focus above her—one the dark, lined visage of Pella, and the other belonging to the most handsome young man Sara had ever seen. She immediately amended this thought, however, because she’d seen few young men, in truth. No, this was the most handsome boy she had ever imagined, which was a far greater accomplishment.

  “Wake gently,” said Pella, patting her check softly.

  Sara heard none of it. All she sensed was the opening and closing of the most perfect lips as they inquired, “Are you alright, miss?”

  “I—” Sara said to the rich brown eyes, “I don’t know.”

  The perfect lips smiled and Sara’s own followed suit. She was lifted from the ground, her eyes never leaving the boy’s, and found that her veil had been pulled back, her hair flowed free.

  “I’m Haskal Brockhammond of the Uppertown Brockhammonds,” said the boy, bowing stiffly from the waist and offering his hand. Sara placed hers gratefully within and felt she might faint again when it was given a gentle squeeze. “Please allow me to guide you and your father through the crowd,” said Haskal. “They’re far more ravenous today than usual.”

  “Oh, he’s not—” began Sara, aware enough of her faculties to know she wanted no part in a mistaken connection to Pella.

  “—the least bit disinclined to that,” finished the Landlord, however, before she had a chance. “Come, daughter,” he said, taking a firm hold of her other arm, “we mustn’t spurn the aid of a nobleman’s son.”

  Sara felt her knees buckle. This beautiful boy was not only the picture of perfection on earth, but also a nobleman? She grabbed Pella’s arm gratefully, walking forward with his support.

  “I didn’t know Pella Palaga—the infamous Landlord of East Side—had a daughter,” said Haskal to them both as they walked.

  “I sent them away years ago, my Lord,” invented Pella. “This city has little to offer children.”

  “Them? Children?” Haskal repeated, seeming stunned. “I hope it isn’t the Isabien accent that confuses me. I didn’t know you had a collection of cubs.” Looking Sara in the eye, he asked, “Are the others as pretty as the first?”

  “They’re all very lovely,” said Pella coldly, “I thank you for your concern.”

  Haskal ignored the Landlord’s unfriendly tone. “Tell me, Miss,” he inquired of Sara, “why is it that you’ve joined your father only now? I happen to know for a fact that he’s been here for years.”

  “Raids in the villages,” answered Pella for her.

  Haskal didn’t bat an eye at this interjection. “A tragic thing,” he said to Sara. “I should like to call upon you, if it pleases.”

  “I’m sure you have many other important things to do,” Pella answered, gesturing to them both that they’d arrived at the door of his establishment. Sara shot him a disapproving look, though she was still too out of sorts to speak.

  “I’m heir to the Earl of this fine city, of course I have many important things to do,” Haskal bragged in agreement. “That shouldn’t stop me from getting to know my people, however—especially relatives of a Palaga, and a pretty one at that.”

  Bowing in farewell, Haskal took Sara’s hand again and this time kissed her bare skin. A jolt of electricity shot from her hand to her heart, and the rapidly beating organ vowed in that moment to be his.

  “I’d be much obliged for your permission to visit,” he told her with a wink.

  “How can I refuse?” Pella answered quickly, his voice dripping with disdain. Tugging Sara over the entry’s threshold, he slammed the door behind them. Once they were alone, he muttered to himself, “How can I refuse? That oily snake.”

  It was only then that Sara regained control of her senses. She stared longingly at the closed door. “How can you say that about him?” she cried, holding her anointed hand to her chest. “He seemed a perfect gentleman to me.”

  “And you seem a helpful, obliging girl,” Pella said by way of comparison, “so you see how appearances can be deceiving.”

  Sara dropped her hand, the moment of magic gone. “Thank you for your help,” she said testily, heading for the stairs.

  “I’m not quite finished,” Pella said, chasing her.

  “Well I am!” Sara yelled. “You can’t—”

  “No, child, you can’t. That’s exactly the point,” Pella said, stopping with her as she reached her rooms. “You shouldn’t be in charge of this family.”

  Sara gave him a dirty look and opened the door only far enough to admit herself. Pella, however, pushed past her, crossing the room and stopping before the motionless form of Sara’s Mama.

  “Hello Mother,” he said gently, placing his hand gently atop hers. “My name is Pella. I understand that you’ve been through a great deal, and I know your heart bleeds from the sorrow of it.” When none of this prompted even the tiniest response, he continued. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’ll be back every day even so, and I’ll speak to you…In case you’re in the mood to listen.”

  He rose from her side and walked to the door where Sara waited to let him out.

  “I’ll return tomorrow,” he said to her.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Sara replied, a chill in her voice.

  “Necessary,” Pella echoed with a scoff. “Child, I’ll return tomorrow.”

  * * * * *

  The day was still new when Rose set off to find Fenric. She dared not wait for him to return, and worried that he might come to harm as he was, crippled and alone.

  Stepping down from the Turnagain’s gangway, Rose felt her boots crunch on the solid dirt ground. She swayed upon the spot uncertainly, getting used to the idea of steady earth beneath her feet. She looked back at the sea, finding it a rich, satisfying blue, and then smiled up at the eagle masthead of the ship she now considered home. She would be back, she promised the majestic bird. With a final nod, Rose turned back to shore and the task at hand.

  The port town of Lilly-on-Dunsmere was a clean settlement of white buildings with dark brown frames. Growing everywhere around them were the lush green leaves of bushes and trees. Though she’d seen the emerald land from the decks of the Turnagain
, she’d thought it was green the way Kentshore was brown and Portridge was black—that it simply was. This place, however, was teaming with life.

  Half expecting to see the streets as over-run with beggars as the city she’d come from, Rose was shocked to find the light brown cobbles swept clean, with tall, wide-wheeled carriages rumbling joyfully over them. As she walked further inland, the town became even cleaner, with the whitewashed walls of bakery and tavern alike gleaming in the sunlight. The people seemed tidy as well. Their clothes—in varying degrees of blue—were sewn cleanly and their hair was neatly braided or cut.

  The streets grew ever more busy, and Rose soon feared that she might never find Fenric in the bustle. Just as her hopes waned, however, she heard a familiar voice calling from a tailor shop.

  “Ah, just the man I was hoping to see!”

  Rose veered across the street to the waving Scribe, who wasted no time in holding a fine silken black shirt up to her chest. “You left without me,” Rose said severely while he fussed. “You hired me to run errands for you. I can’t do that if you don’t tell me where you’ve gone.”

  “You’re my employee, Benson Rose, not my keeper,” Fenric chided gently. “However, you’re right. In my current state, at least, self-sufficiency is a habit I must learn to break.” Leaning back on his crutch, Fenric motioned to two black doublets that were laying out, one of decorated leather, the other a heavily embroidered silk. “Tell me, what experience have you in Chavenean fashion?”

  “Tons,” Rose replied sarcastically. She stood grudgingly still for the next half hour as Fenric and the tailor—chattering like brood hens all the while—fitted her with the trim black outfit of a wealthy young man.

  Later, when they walked back into town with several neatly packaged bundles under their arms, Rose headed moodily back to the ship.

  “Not that way, Master Rose,” Fenric said gently, nudging her away from the sea. He waved a hand in the air, and, as though there was some magic involved, a carriage pulled by two white horses appeared. Rose blinked, stunned, and had to be reminded of how to step in.

  She rode unsteadily as the carriage bounced along the tidy dirt roads, her shoulders and head out the window so as to take in the sights. The green truly was everywhere, she saw, and it was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. Fluffy white animals, which Fenric called sheep, grazed peacefully in the vast green patchwork of fields. Towering green trees lined each paddock. In some places the fields gave way to trees entirely. Those, she supposed, were forests.

  Fenric, meanwhile, talked contentedly to her as they rode on. At some point she became aware of his words, in time to hear as odd a question as she could expect to hear: “But what I want to know is this: what will you be, Benson Rose?”

  “Me, I suppose,” Rose said uncomfortably, settling herself down inside the carriage.

  Fenric smiled at her, seeming surprised to find that she’d been listening. “Don’t answer questions asked in idleness,” he told her. “If you answer, I won’t have the chance to muse.”

  “But you asked—” Rose began.

  “What will you be? Yes,” Fenric repeated. “And I do wonder, because I hardly know what to do with you until I’ve figured out what you are.”

  Rose’s mind was driven forcibly back to their immensely embarrassing conversation mere days ago. “You…you know what I am.”

  “Details, merely,” Fenric said vaguely, as though the fact that she was a girl in boy’s clothing was of little to no importance. “You’re Benson Rose. Or at least, I shall call you Benson Rose. It’s a floral name, is it not? It brings to mind a well-cared-for garden. Roses, you know, require a great deal of attention.”

  “I’m not a flower,” Rose said indignantly, worried that she’d stumbled into a riddle.

  “No?” Fenric asked seriously, proving her suspicions correct. “Then so you’re not. But I’ll put you in a garden, nonetheless. You interrupted my musings, after all. Besides, gardens are full of delicious analogies.”

  “You talk riddles, Scribe,” Rose said with a frown. She turned back to the window and the green landscape beyond, but inattention alone wasn’t enough to stop Fenric from talking.

  “If you’re not to be the flower, then perhaps you’re the soil,” Fenric said thoughtfully. “Are you? Are you the rich, dark earth which provides the world with its most necessary things? Are you the material from which all life springs forth? Are you the ground from which the great Eagle first formed your people so that the sea could breath into them life?”

  “Don’t call me dirt,” Rose said in the negative, regretting that she’d betrayed her attention by answering his idle inquiry.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Fenric answered, seeming pleased. “You’re not the soil. But what about the trees? Are you the great creatures that shield us from the harsh rays of the sun, protect us from rain, and give us the materials to conquer the seas? Is it you whose roots spread far and wide? And is it you who stands ever firmly against the wind?”

  Rose looked thoughtfully at the trees as they passed, feeling the alternation of warmth and cool as the leaves blocked and revealed the light. She remained reticently silent.

  “Not the tree?” Fenric said, taking her silence as an answer “I thought I had you with that one. Maybe you’re the rose after all. Roses appear to be a delicate flower, you see, but are protected by vicious thorns.”

  “Stop talking nonsense, Scribe,” Rose snapped. “Tell me what we’re doing here.”

  “Hmm,” mumbled Fenric at this response, “perhaps you’re more prickle than flower after all. You were right the first time. What’s the opposite of a flower? Ah, perhaps you’re the shovel! You’re the one who sifts and turns, uncovers and buries. A very useful tool.”

  “Stop comparing me to random things,” Rose said firmly. “I don’t like it. Now are you going to tell me what I’m doing here or not?”

  “My dear Master Rose, if only you’d see that I’m trying to do just that,” Fenric said with a sigh. “I’ll give you your way, however. You’re not a random object.” Scratching his chin, the gray-haired Fenric sat in worried contemplation. Then, looking up, he grabbed her sleeve, his eyes alit. “I’ve got it: you’re the gardener.”

  “I’m what?” Rose asked, tired of this game.

  “You’re the gardener,” Fenric repeated. “You’re the one who decides what will grow and then makes it happen. You’ll fill your tilled rows, determining which of your own flowers to nourish and which to cut away. You’ll decide which shovels to use. You’ll collect the rare, the beautiful, the deadly specimens and arrange them so that your garden is to your liking.” With a triumphant sigh, the Scribe sat back in his seat. “I have it at last: you’re the gardener.”

  Rose recalled the near-destruction of her Mama’s vegetable garden when it was left to the twins’ care years ago. It was a chore they hadn’t been given again. Fenric seemed so excited, however, that Rose didn’t have the heart to explain that the charge of a garden—allegorical or otherwise—was the last job with which she should be trusted.

  As the hired carriage approached the imposing gates of a fine country estate, however, the need for a response was soon gone. Fenric, who had mercifully looked out the window, now thoroughly satisfied with himself, motioned for the carriage to stop while the gate and property wall were still in the distance.

  “Why did you—” Rose began to ask, then she followed the Scribe’s gold gaze out into a green field. There, at the edge of the tilled rows, played a mahogany-haired girl in a blue dress. She was drawing together a bouquet of autumn flowers.

  Fenric opened the door and lowered himself to the carriage step, leaning weight on his good leg. He called to her, “When Piper played, who then did hear?”

  The girl looked up and shielded her eyes against the sun. Though Rose expected no response to this cryptic question, an enigmatic answer was returned, “The Lion-Guard and Pheasants dear.”

  Offering no word of explanation, Fe
nric lowered his weight out of the carriage with difficulty. The girl sprinted nimbly towards them, her bouquet scattered to the breeze. “Uncle Iggy!” she cried.

  Rose chuckled, looking askance at the Scribe, “Iggy?”

  Fenric either didn’t hear or chose to ignore this, his attention solely on the nearing girl. When she was within an arm’s reach, he drew her into a mighty hug.

  The girl pulled away, examining him carefully. “You’re so gray and ragged!” she exclaimed. “If not for that old fur cape I shouldn’t have recognized you.”

  “Recognized me?” Fenric cried in high humor. “Little Lucy, last time I was here you were a tiny child. Look at you!” He held her an arm’s length away and examined her carefully. He must have concluded that she was in good health, for he drew her close again. “I shouldn’t have been so long away. I’ll do better.”

  “I should’ve known you’d be coming, though,” Lucy said, smoothing her skirts when the embrace was broken. “Why else would you have failed to send me a dress for the Birthday Ball?”

  “Well, many reasons I suppose, none of which I’d like to consider,” Fenric said slowly, his meaning dark. “I’d certainly never forget, however.”

  “I knew it!” Lucy cried, jumping up in excitement. “I’ve been so worried, but I never doubted you!”

  “Dear one, the irony of that statement knows no bounds,” Fenric said with a sardonic smile. “But I suppose such senseless utterances are the charms of the young.”

  Fenric held out his hand and motioned for Lucy to join him in the carriage. She shook her head. “I’d much rather walk. These are the first hospitable days after a very hot summer. I can’t stand being indoors for so long.”

  “I myself have been cooped up for quite some time,” Fenric agreed. “Stay but a moment, I must give instruction to my footman.”

  Lucy nodded as Fenric spoke to the carriage driver, telling him to go to the stables at once. Sticking his head inside the cab, he met Rose’s eyes. “And you,” he instructed, “off with you.”

  “Off with me?” Rose asked. “Where am I supposed to go?”

  “I have two tasks for you,” Fenric explained, holding up two of his fingers, “first, find a way into the master’s chambers, and second, find a way into the ball.”