“Are they? I could hardly wait to surprise you, and your reaction was at best cordial. In letters I received, yes, you said you missed me sometimes, but I rarely felt any depth to it in the past months. And you don’t seem at all concerned you have no idea what’s become of Old Woman or Cyril, I know for whom you once had great affection, and I thought for me as well.”
He knew nothing about my last visit to Old Woman. I had no desire to tell him then, or ever.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I said.
“What’s happened to you?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not the Secret I left.”
“This you can say after a few words of conversation.”
“You forget we knew each other beyond words, before you ever spoke one.”
“I’m not that girl any longer,” I said.
“Who are you, then?” he asked.
“A keeper of tales.”
“Is that a title, or a pet name?”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. That’s what, not who anyway.” He shook his head, pushed away from the table, and walked toward the door. “I’m sorry I came unannounced and certainly disappointed I harbored expectations of a happy reunion.” He snatched his coat. “Perhaps we can see each other again under more convenient circumstances. That is, if you have time between now and when I leave for the quest.” He fumbled with the key until the lock turned free.
The door closed with a harsh thunk.
A sob lodged in my chest.
It weighed heavy when Julia stopped me on the stairs the next morning to say she’d seen from her window “the handsomest carriage in the world with four horses” and her mother said the man she watched step out was the prince himself.
“Was it him? Your friend, Nikolas?” she asked.
“Yes, it was he,” I said, although I wasn’t so certain after our argument.
The pressure of tears returned when I agreed to meet him at a teahouse a week later. We’d never been so uncomfortable with each other. I tried to blame my behavior on a harrowing day—how tired I was after work—but he didn’t believe me and said so. He tried to figure out what had caused the distance; I tried to keep it. As I watched him walk away, angry and hurt, I wondered if what was happening was how a friendship ended—once parallel paths, violently forked—each going toward whatever fate or possibility beckoned.
Still, the cry remained caught even after Father informed me he’d received an invitation to Nikolas’s departure banquet, addressed to us both. Of course he was on the guest list; Father had risen to be an important man, thanks to Fewmany. My inclusion, under the circumstances, seemed to be a formality.
APRIL /37
ON THE TWENTY-THIRD OF April, Fewmany and I had dinner alone. After the meal, he suggested a walk through the grove, as the weather was so fine. Whistling what sounded like a folk song, with odd discordant notes, he poured two glasses of wine, handed one to me, and pulled a ring of keys from his pocket.
I hadn’t been to the grove since the hunt. Had I asked for a key or his escort, the request would have been granted, but I’d kept away on purpose. The memory of what happened was still numinous. I felt expectant as he walked beside me across the green and unlocked the gate. A waxing moon shone down through a star-spattered sky. The breeze carried a warm, wet scent. I thought of the evening soon to come. A feast, the flesh. I hid an anticipatory smile behind a sip of wine.
He led us into the trees. We strolled for a long while, our conversation as easy as ever. A fox darted in the distance, yipping to others who answered.
“Do you recall the conversation we had in the map room some months ago?” he asked.
“I do.”
“Is your answer the same, that if you could have anything, it would be a library like mine?”
“Yes.”
“What if I were to give it to you?”
“What? Why?”
He halted his steps. The moon pierced through a gap in the branches, casting a glow in his eyes, against his Tell-a-Bell, within the red gem on his ring.
“If you allow me to obtain what I desire, I will give you my entire collection.” He did not blink. “That, and your favorite objects from the rooms, a beautiful manor in which to hold them, and a guarantee to maintain the luxuries to which you’ve been accustomed here, until the end of your days.”
My breath caught. My hands shook. My bottom lip fell, but I couldn’t speak. Had he just . . . ?
Fewmany smiled softly. “Ah, no, Secret, what I propose is not of that sort, though I’m flattered.”
I stood there, somewhat embarrassed by the assumption and—dare I admit it?—somehow disappointed. He waited for my response.
Finally, I asked, “What you desire, what makes you think I can help?”
He balanced his glass near a tree, laid his coat on the ground, and rolled his left sleeve to the elbow.
“Because I know you know where one of these is carved in stone,” he said.
Burned into the underside of his arm—the symbol.
His palm closed when my fingertips brushed across his skin to the relief. He flinched as if my touch hurt him, but he didn’t pull away. What I felt was not anger or betrayal, although both would come in time, nor did I feel manipulated and seduced, although I had been. In that moment, I felt trusted, not only because I knew he was about to reveal a secret but also because he was so suddenly, nakedly, vulnerable.
When I met his eyes, he drew back and covered himself.
“Who did that to you?” I asked.
“I did. Here’s a tale of wonder for you,” he said as he slipped into his coat and took up his glass. “When I was but a frog-voiced lad, I spent many a night exposed to the dreadful dark, but safe from the stinging strap. Once I ran farther than I’d ever run. I slept in the cradle of a tree. Morning brought hunger’s gnaw—no strangers were we—but also light to see that I was lost. For a moment, I was also free. I spied a cottage from my nestie-bed and thought to sneak about for food. I found a comb of honey on the table and bread golden brown in the hearth.
“Hello, mousie, an old woman said to me. I jumped out of my skin and missed it in the landing. I meant to run, but I knelt before her and blubbered shamefully. Boohoo. Boohoo. Pitied me, she did, then fed me solid as a rock. I slept in her bed and filled my belly at the sun’s summit and at its return to rest. I slept again that night on a pallet at her feet. Safer in darkness or light I’d never felt.
“I knew I couldn’t stay, but I didn’t wish to go. She knew, the old woman, she knew. Before she sent me away, she took me to her fire. ‘Look at this stone,’ she said, ‘and see where the triangle points. Follow this symbol wherever you find it, child, for it will lead you to the riches you desire.’ Then she had me exchange my worn shirt for a clean tunic and told me to watch for rabbits, who would guide the way.
“So I set off in the point’s direction until I found myself in a village far from my own. A man seized me and tied me up like a pig. My father had put a bounty on me, a sum paid in my sister’s rough hand in marriage. I returned to my toil, to what seemed like my loathsome fate, furious I’d been forced to stop my search. But then I found the jewels and coins the old woman had sewn into the tunic’s hem and buried them in a secret place. With those, after a cutting clash with my father, I escaped.” He rubbed the red gem in his ring.
“To where?”
“The unknown at first, back into the woods. I followed rabbits, which led me in circles until one left me at a vacant hut with a cold hearth and the symbol in the stone. I knew then there were others who knew of a treasure, for what else explained the old woman’s words and what she gave me? In time, I made my fortune, and here I am. But I have never found what I truly wanted.”
“The hoard,” I said.
“ ’Tis but a name for what is hidden and yet to be claimed.”
“What does that symbol have to do with the treasure you assume exists?”
&nb
sp; “That, your father and I hypothesized together. As best I could, I described to Bren where I had seen the two identical stones, many miles apart. I sent men to scour the land, find them again, map the locations, and bring the stones to me. I believed they were an ancient guide to those who knew how to follow them.”
“Has he always known what you sought?”
“Since I realized his particular talents would be useful and his fealty assured. ’Twas Bren who observed the symbols’ proximity to a trading route and mines as well as battle sites from The Mapmaker’s War and—in the way a true scholar apprehends what cannot be readily seen—recommended a careful survey of certain lands. Then—huzzah!—another was found, then another—some laid not far from an abandoned port or exhausted mine—enough to floor a few square feet of a small chamber.”
If he knew how close one such old woman was, he didn’t reveal it. Rothwyke was built on the land where The Mapmaker’s War’s first battle took place. There was no mine or abandoned port, but it was near an old trade route. Was it missed because there was no reason to look, based on their assumptions?
“If anyone can help you find what you suspect is lost, that person is my father. You know his tenacity well,” I said.
“The best of qualities have their limits and their complements.” His eyes met mine with a glimmer I couldn’t read. Was it affection or certainty that reflected back? “We’ve come to know one another, my keeper of tales. Confide in me. You’ve met an old woman who keeps a stone.”
“What makes you think so?” I asked, wanting to tease out how he could be sure.
“A sense beyond common ones. You were convincing in your denial as a girl, so guarded, as I would have been had someone asked of what I’d seen. We knew to keep quiet, didn’t we? Through the years, my belief endured doubts but couldn’t be shaken.”
“Why not?”
“You are not an ordinary young woman, and this you have evinced time and again. ’Tis not only your intelligence and determination, but also your willingness to go beyond the limits of, let us say, convention. Then there is the mystery of your hair, such dramatic changes when you were younger, the growth, the silvering, as if you are endowed with a quality that defies the laws of Nature. I believe this to be so, because I have observed animals behave most strangely around you, as now, daring to come near, as if they have a special knowledge about you.” He stamped his foot. The trees and shrubs rustled. Hoofs and paws scrambled. “I suspect you have powers, so to speak, latent ones, something I sensed, too, about your mother.”
A sharp twinge ripped at my navel. I remained silent.
“Regardless, and aside from that,” he said, “anyone can stumble on the stones, or like my men, be told where to search. However, I believe only the rarest persons are given hints to what greater things await.”
His words, so veiled, but hiding nothing.
“How do you know I didn’t merely stumble?” I asked.
He smirked with good humor. “Your own body betrays you. That was a draught for courage if I’ve ever seen one, and I’ve seen many.”
I had taken a heavy mouthful of my wine, feeling the heat rise through my face.
“I’m not angry, Secret. You have no reason to be afraid,” he said.
“So, what if I have?”
“Do you recall what I offered you this evening?”
“Yes.”
“What I ask is that you do what my men and I cannot. Go to the places where the old women live. They will tell you how to follow the stones and how to reach the treasure. I will cover every expense for your travel and provide any means you require to obtain the information. All I have promised is yours—if you lead me there.”
All he promised is mine, I thought. A library, a manor, the luxury. Study and solitude.
“Well then?” he asked.
“What makes you think one would reveal to me what wouldn’t be revealed to you?”
Fewmany dipped his finger in his wine and traced it along the glass’s edge. A singing chime rose high. “Now the mundane world meets the magical one. You are the adept here. What do the old tales forecast will happen to an innocent girl with a dead mother?”
I smiled because what he said was witty and smart, and I adored this side of him, the banter, how I felt in those moments a worthy match.
“What is said to happen to shrewd men with great fortunes?” I asked.
“ ’Twouldn’t that depend on who tells the tale? After all, ‘malum quidem nullum esse sine aliquo bono.’ ”
“There is, to be sure, no evil without something good.”
We grinned at each other. Mine ebbed when an owl hooted, and I knew in my bones the call was meant as a message.
On the walk back to the manor, I declined the offer of another glass of wine, as it was nearly midnight. He rang for the carriage and waited with me until it arrived.
The coachman remained seated as Fewmany opened the door. He offered his hand to help me inside. My palm fell into his firm warm clutch. A jolt surged through my arm.
There is a force between us, I thought as I settled on the cushion.
“You understand what we’ve discussed is with utmost confidence,” he said.
“Of course.”
“We’ll talk again next month,” he said.
I’d forgotten for the moment my holiday had begun so the manor could be prepared for the ball. “Perhaps I will see you before then.”
“Oh-ho, yes,” he said with a conspiratorial grin.
The door shut. As the carriage pulled away, we waved good-bye.
DIARY ENTRY 24 APRIL /37
Margana did one last fitting on my costume but refused to let me stand in a mirror to see until the final touches are complete. I also brought an old gown for new trimmings. Nikolas’s banquet is in six weeks. No matter the stale blood between us, I won’t fail to see him off.
I do feel strange today, as if I’ve been through a shock, which I suppose I have. What Fewmany asked of me! To at last know the reason they questioned me that night. Of course they didn’t explain why when I was a child.
What great trust he has bestowed—to tell me, to include me.
The symbol joins us, has always joined us.
Whatever skepticism I hold about an actual dragon’s hoard, there is surely some core truth of a treasure, since it so often has appeared in myths and tales. Father’s theories might address the mystery—a warrior’s plunder, a lost mine. A reasonable explanation.
But what if Fewmany is wrong that the symbols lead the way? What if this is an esoteric matter, like the symbols in his alchemy texts, figurative rather than literal?
Still, what if he’s correct? How is it possible no one has achieved what he aspires to do? There is a first for everything, isn’t there? Imagine if I can aid this. No greater find has ever been discovered.
Later: nightmare.
A man stood before me but didn’t reveal his face. From his throat to his groin was a gnarled scar, desperately knit. The wound destroyed his navel. I knew his name but couldn’t speak it. He was my husband and my father—but not both at once. I reached out to him and wept with grief for the agony he endured and for a grief that was my own. I loved him and he suffered with pain I couldn’t imagine, pain for which I knew I was responsible. I touched my hands, my lips, wet with blood.
This man—I dreamed of him before, during the fever. A warrior with a gold breastplate, the father of a child dancing at a ritual fire. The child’s mother, dancing, too, costumed as the Red Dragon.
This man—no, please, let this be imagination, madness—I’m remembering the visit to my grandmother’s, the day of the picnic, the first day I heard beyond hearing and saw beyond seeing.
I followed the bees into the hollow tree, and one told me of the terrified girl running through the woods, three men chasing her, tying her to the tree, and the man who tried to help her, horribly wounded the length of his body, and his wolf digging him up from the dead.
Now I’m
thinking of the queen bee’s three stings on my forehead as my mother tried to claw me from the dark hollow . . .
I don’t want to, but I feel now as I did after the fever.
The ancient language I awoke speaking. The dreams and ruptures I’ve suffered since I was a child. That arcane manuscript now hidden in my wardrobe. There is a link among them.
At the center of it all is the symbol, isn’t it?
I ROUSED TO A TAPPING, then realized it was a knock. My eyes ached and my head felt stuffed with gray. I wanted to lie quietly and let whoever was there go away, but another round shook my door. As I slipped on a robe, I noticed my diary was open on my desk.
There in the hall was Naughton holding a package.
“I’m sorry, Miss. Did I wake you?” he asked.
“Yes, but I should have been up by now. I never sleep so late.” The scent of cinnamon buns wafted up the stairs, what Mrs. Woodman made at the end of every week. This confused me as much as Naughton’s presence.
He handed the package to me. “I decided to deliver it instead of sending a courier.”
I thanked him and expected him to leave. He did not.
“He’s been in ebullient spirits these past few days but no reason has been divulged. The staff is inquisitorial why that might be,” Naughton said.
I was surprised he’d be so forward, but then I realized he’d never come to my apartment for any reason. For a moment, I was amused. “Are there rumors?” I asked.
“There is speculation of an agreement of sorts.”
“Nothing of the kind they perhaps imagine, I assure you.”
He smiled with apparent relief, but his eyes were troubled.
“What is it, Naughton?”
“There have been others.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Others who’ve captured his interest, on whom he has pinned a hope. When they have failed him—as they have, although I cannot attest to how—their falls from favor have been hard.”
“You have no idea what’s been spoken between us,” I said. A flare of jealousy scorched through me. Others?
The Plague Diaries Page 13