The Secret's Keeper and the Heir

by Jackie McCarthy

  “Please, no more,” he said, turning his face away in shame. “I don’t deserve this.”

  Ikpek nodded his understanding. “No touch,” he instructed, sitting back and offering the soft rag to the shipboy.

  Cricket accepted it sheepishly. “Where’d you learn to do that, anyway?”

  “Chief father,” Ikpek said, looking out across the sea. “Great healer.”

  Cricket followed his gaze. He said thoughtfully, “I never knew my father. I think I became a sailor because I thought I might run into him someday.”

  “Cricket know him,” Ikpek said, turning back.

  “What, are you deaf?” the redhead snapped, “I just said I didn’t.”

  Ikpek shook his head, searching for words. “Cricket know him…in self.”

  The freckled boy swayed as he considered this. Then, he concluded: “My father must be a jerk, then. I know what I am.” Unable to stop the trembling of his chin, Cricket let out a wordless cry, screwing up his eyes and wiping away the resulting tears. Remembering Ikpek’s presence, he shouted, “Go away!”

  “Cricket not jerk,” Ikpek said in disagreement. For the third time, he reached across the space between them and placed a finger on the boy’s speckled forehead. “Deep down, Cricket good.”

  “Why do you keep touching my head?” Cricket asked as the slave boy pulled away.

  Ikpek seemed amazed at the idea of putting his gesture to words. “Touch forehead means…connection. Live through head…where we meet…” He struggled to find words and failed. He shook his head sadly.

  “Right…” Cricket allowed. “So, your father was a healer, then? What, like a barbarian witch doctor?”

  Ikpek shook his head. He wasn’t offended, but was firm in his refusal. “Great leader. Like King.”

  “Are you telling me you’re a prince of the savages?” Cricket asked, momentarily forgetting the pain in his nose. The ghost of a smile played on his lips.

  Ikpek merely beamed broadly in answer, displaying his straight white teeth. “Ikpek is shipboy.”

  “And I’m the son of a sailor and his whore,” Cricket thought aloud. He stuck out his hand, “How do you do?”

  Ikpek stared at the hand in question.

  “Oh, come on, sav…I mean, Ikpek…” Cricket self-corrected. “You shake it, like this. It’s like saying hello, but more…you know…respectful.”

  Ikpek nodded, bowed, and shook Cricket’s entire arm enthusiastically.

  “Aye, close enough,” said Cricket, chuckling. He touched his nose and winced. “Hey, do us a favor, will you? Get my rations from the cook? I haven’t eaten yet and I’m starving.”

  “Cricket ate,” the slave boy told him. Cricket tensed. “But Ikpek share.”

  Cricket felt his cheeks flush. The savage was far too shrewd to lie to, it seemed. He nodded his head gratefully as Ikpek swung his body back over the rail.

  “Hey,” he called. “Could my nose really have poked into my brain?”

  “No,” Ikpek admitted. “But crooked always.”

  “You tricked me? You tricked me so that you could help me?” Cricket asked in awe. “You’re good.”

  Ikpek shook his head, “Cricket be good.”

  “No,” the redhead corrected, “I was giving you a compliment. Like, you’re good at things.”

  “No,” Ikpek echoed, “Cricket be good.”

  “Aye, of course,” Cricket laughed despite himself. “I be good.”

  * * * * *

  Rose paced back and forth in the short hall. She muttered in her frustration, trying to talk herself through the encounter she planned to start. Fuming more with every moment the Captain’s door remained closed, Rose stopped to tap an impatient foot. Regardless, the target of her fury remained within.

  When Fenric finally emerged and Jas closed the door behind him, she launched herself at him. “What was that, exactly?” Rose demanded.

  Fenric seemed uncharacteristically surprised to see her, wiping hurriedly at his moist eye. “As with most things, you’re going to have to be more specific,” he said distantly. His voice was tired and his shoulders slumped. He limped towards his own door. “Are you referring to my talk with the Captain just now or the well-to-do party that I had you invade?”

  “No, I mean…” Rose stammered as Fenric opened his door and limped inside. She’d lost her confidence at the Scribe’s unwillingness to engage, but that didn’t lessen her perturbation. Uninvited, she pushed her way inside also, deciding to speak bluntly: “You didn’t deny that you might ask me to kill someone.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Fenric said, sounding unconcerned as he lit the three wicks on his candelabra.

  “So,” she demanded, “what was that? And why did you really ask me to dance with that girl?”

  Fenric gave her a tired smile. “Your sense of honor is admirable,” he said dismissively, “but in times of war, no man can have such high moral standards.” Laying out his dressing gown, he motioned for her to leave. “And I’ve already told you why you were dancing—”

  “No,” Rose shouted, “not ‘why tonight’ or ‘why this particular task.’ Why am I here? Why is she there? Why did you choose to bring us together? And what in the underworld are you doing that might require murder?”

  Betraying no emotion, Fenric said, “Good night, Benson Rose. We’ll talk again soon.”

  Rose tightened her aching fist. She was furious to be brushed aside and outraged that her questions were being ignored. She wanted to punch the old man—to feel the satisfying crunch of his bones that way she’d felt Cricket’s. Instead, she attacked with words: “Is it about the masked man?”

  Fenric froze mid-button, the collar of his nightshirt undone. He stayed still for several long moments, during which time the blood ran cold in Rose’s veins. He turned to her with a face made ugly by anger. “What did you say?” he asked in a voice so low it was frightening.

  Rose gulped, suddenly wishing she’d left when given a chance. Instead she pretended a bravado she only partially felt. “I asked if it was about the masked—”

  Fenric slapped her painfully across the face. With an explosion of movement—and as though his leg had never been injured—he rushed across the room and trapped Rose against the door. She felt his strong, bony hands upon her throat and she was soon gasping for air. “Where did you hear that?” he demanded, tightening his grasp and ramming her repeatedly onto the hard surface. “Who told you? Who are you working for?”

  “You!” Rose gasped before her head impacted once more onto the hardwood behind her. “I work for you.”

  “Tell the truth, damn you,” Fenric hissed. “Who are you working for?”

  “The letter!” Rose called, afraid. She motioned towards the pocket she couldn’t reach. “Couldn’t put it back!” she sputtered, “I…”

  Fenric stopped jostling her long enough to fish for the letter in her pocket. He pulled it out, hand still tight on her throat. Rose gasped for breath, now fully aware that this man could not only command a murder, but also commit it. Her frightened heart beat out of her chest.

  Fenric stared for a moment at the inked symbol on the letter’s face before reading the short message within. He turned it around to stare at his name, neatly penned on the front with a dozen or so changes of address alongside. Fenric wrinkled the sheet with his intense grip and held it up to Rose’s eyes.

  “Don’t lie to me,” he commanded, making sure she was looking at the symbol. “How did you know it was a mask? How did you know it was a man?”

  “I…I don’t know—” Rose said in panic. The edges of her vision began to go dark. In that moment—one so likely to be her last—she saw that the ink looked nothing like a mask at all. If she’d never had her strange dream, she wouldn’t have recognized it, for no other shape looked the same. The splotch could only be the mask.

  “You’re lying to me,” Fenric menaced. His lip was curled in a vicious snarl.

  “Please, Fen—” Rose cried, scratching fruit
lessly at the old man’s iron grip. “Can’t…breathe…”

  The Scribe released her neck and threw her to the ground. “You’ll be begging to be strangled after I’m finished with you!” he said in a deadly soft voice. “You don’t want to know what I’ve done to those who’ve lied to me. Now tell the truth.”

  Rose looked up at him from the floor, choking in air and fighting tears. “What?” she demanded defiantly. “Like you tell the truth?”

  From outside on the deck came the Captain’s clear call, “Ben!”

  Fenric ignored this. With an ease born of necessity, he knelt down beside her, hooking a strong hand under her jaw. “You want to play this contest with me?” Fenric growled in her face. “I’m far better at this game than you’d want me to be. I’ll start with the teeth,” he said, tapping the jeweled ring of his finger upon her incisors.

  “I dreamed about it,” Rose admitted, sobbing. It didn’t matter if he thought she was crazy, it was the truth. “I dreamed about a masked man after my village burned. The symbol on the page looked just like him.” She shook her head, crying, “I was just being stupid. It was just a nightmare.”

  Fenric released her jaw, seeming drawn in by this crazy tale. “Where was he?” the Scribe wanted to know. “What did he look like?”

  Rose shook her head, trying to clear it. “I…I don’t know,” she said honestly, trying to remember what she’d seen. “It was a big room. I didn’t know rooms could be that big. There were giant windows that…that reached into the sky. Chairs everywhere. A…um…a long walkway?”

  “The throne room?” Fenric insisted with an intensity that was no less frightening than his threats.

  “I don’t know,” Rose wailed, tearing apart her distant memories. “A…a beast-man sat on one end snarling and at the other end the masked man laughed. I think there were bones. Please,” Rose wept, “please I don’t remember anymore.”

  Upon seeing her tears, Fenric returned to himself. He fell back, feeling the pain of exertion on his mangled leg. “No, of course you don’t,” he said, extending a hand to help Rose regain her feet.

  Rose looked distrustfully at his offered hand, helping herself up while massaging the skin of her throat. “It was just a dream, anyway,” she said, wiping her eyes and nose upon her sleeve. “It didn’t mean anything.”

  “That might be,” Fenric said with a gentle non-commitment. He attempted to help Rose take a seat, but she shrugged from his touch. He stumbled to his cot and sat across from her, staring. “Words can’t express how sorry I am for…for what just happened,” he said carefully, his breathing still ragged. “You must understand, I don’t know who I can trust.”

  Rose glared up at him from her newly attained seat, her chin trembling. Her hand caressed the place where bruises would soon appear.

  “You asked ‘what’ this was tonight, and now you’ve discovered ‘what’ exactly,” Fenric allowed himself to explain. “The girl that was nearly killed isn’t my niece, she’s—”

  “Ben!” came the Captain’s yell, somewhat closer.

  Rose, knowing the call wasn’t for her, decided to ignore it. “She’s what?” came her frantic demand.

  “Heir to the throne,” Fenric finished slowly, wiping the sweat of effort from his brow. “You must never repeat this,” he cautioned. “I tell you only as a demonstration of my trust…and as an apology for my doubt.”

  Rose nodded, unable to comprehend this new information. Heir to the throne? She, a fisherman’s daughter, had danced with the heir to the throne?

  Remembering both the cruel laughter of the masked man and the playful sweetness of the girl, Rose could suddenly understand the justification behind Fenric’s violent reaction. Despite the ache in her body, she couldn’t help but agree with the Scribe’s monumental doubt. He did, indeed, have to be very careful in whom he laid trust. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my dream,” she said.

  “Your dream, yes,” Fenric murmured. “What does it mean, that you’ve seen this?”

  “That I’m insane?” Rose scoffed, drying her eyes.

  “No,” Fenric said, giving her a small, uncertain grin. “The crazy don’t ask if they’re insane. I believe you wholeheartedly, and I apologize again.”

  Rose kneaded at the skin of her throat thoughtfully. “I’ll forgive you,” she said, “if you tell me what the letter says.”

  Fenric pursed his lips to show his disapproval, but the yellow bruise blooming across Rose’s neck made a strong case in her favor. Sitting before her at his small table, he passed the crumpled paper to her once more.

  Rose opened it to see the symbol of the mask looking back at her, somehow more menacing than it had appeared before.

  “It says,” Fenric said, pointing to the few letters on the page, “’I found one’.”

  Before Rose could ask what this meant, Captain Kaille burst through the door. He looked upset. “Benson Rose,” he scolded, “didn’t you hear me calling for you?”

  Rose wiped hastily at her eyes. She felt her heart flutter, though she didn’t understand the cause. “Sorry, Captain,” she said, eager to follow orders but reluctant to leave before her questions had been answered. She could ask later, she supposed. There was plenty of time yet with Fenric. It was time to prove herself to the Captain. She asked an eager, “How can I help?”

  * * * * *

  Dunstan entered the dimly lit sleeping chamber with a gentle call of “father?” He didn’t wish to wake the sick man, but he hoped to share the old Master’s company if so invited.

  “Did you have a good time, my son?” came the gentle question from within his father’s four-poster bed.

  Dunstan allowed himself a satisfied smile and approached, stopping only to light a candle and bring it to the nightstand. “Yes father,” he said, hiding the shock he always felt upon seeing his father’s weak, clammy face. “It went very well.”

  Master Lorey stared back at his son, reading the boy’s unease. He waited for more, and when it didn’t arrive, his eyebrows shot skywards. “That can’t be all,” he chided. “Tell me of the sights, the music…the women.” The elder Lorey winked.

  “Father!” a reticent Dunstan whined, blushing.

  “Did you dance with the girl from the other day?” the Master prodded. “The one with a pretty name?”

  “Pretty name?” Dunstan considered, “Oh, you mean Emibelle?”

  “That’s the one,” he sighed, pointing a knobbed finger. “The Delahaye girl. Is she pretty?”

  “Father, I don’t want to…” Dunstan began a plea.

  “Dear boy,” the old man interrupted, “I’m barely able to leave this bed and can no longer go out into the world without great effort. I rely on you to bring the world to me.”

  Dunstan swallowed his questions and complaints—swallowed also his childish pride—and pulled up a seat beside his father’s sickbed. “I danced with Emibelle, yes.”

  “That’s good,” Lorey sighed. “She’s a gentleman’s daughter, yes? Do you have any intentions on her?”

  “What?” Dunstan’s head jerked up. “No! I—”

  “No? So decidedly he says it: no!” the Master remarked. “Is she not pretty enough?”

  “She’s very pretty, as are her sisters,” Dunstan allowed. He tried to think of Emibelle’s shiny auburn hair, her demure hand inside his, but all he could remember was the arched eyebrow of the tenacious girl in a ruffled pink dress. “No, it’s just…”

  “There’s someone else,” the Master Lorey read from his son’s distracted response.

  “No,” Dunstan insisted, embarrassed to be having this conversation before having a chance to explore his own feelings first. “And I hardly think I should be forming designs on any women at the moment.”

  “Such determined indignation,” the old man found himself grinning widely. “I must know, who is she?”

  “Father…” Dunstan set pleading eyes upon his sire, but the latter’s arched brow recalled the girl at the ball all too accurat
ely. His defenses sprung up: “She’s a child, it’s not like that.”

  “You’re a child, why should it be any other way?” the Master asked sweetly.

  Dunstan sat up straighter, “I’m not a child…”

  “Oh, aren’t you?” Lorey’s brow shot up further.

  “I most certainly am not,” insisted Dunstan, wanting to storm out. “Children don’t attend University!”

  “I suppose not. That’s a shame,” the old man said, letting his brows drop. He sank sadly into his blankets. “It’s the role of children to be carefree and adventurous, and I would have those things always for you, since I had so little of it myself. But as you don’t want them, I suppose I must provide other things to occupy your time.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Dunstan asked stiffly.

  “Well, among other things, I should say that I intend you to have a tutor,” the Master’s voice became harsher.

  “A tutor?” came the child-like protest from Dunstan. “But father! I’ve already told my friends that I intend to return to University!”

  “You’ll have to un-tell them, then,” the Master said sharply.

  “But why?” Dunstan whined.

  “Because I’m dying, boy!” Lorey blurted unkindly. His features softened immediately. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you that way.”

  “Father?” Dunstan breathed, choking on this unwelcome information.

  “You can’t return to university because I need you here, learning tend to my affairs.” The old man looked up at his bed’s canopy as he said this, unable to bear the broken look upon his son’s face. “I regret that I need you here, but I do. I need you with me.”

  Dunstan swallowed with difficulty and tried to banish a mixture of unwanted emotions from his shattering heart. “Of course,” he said, barely hearing himself. He placed a shaking hand upon his father’s. “I didn’t think.”

  The forlorn father took a hand from beneath his son’s and dropped it over top, clasping the fingers of his boy with gentle strength. “It was an honest reaction, please never regret those.” Master Lorey considered joining his words with a gentle smile, but it was too difficult. He removed his hand to rest on his chest and stared again at the canopy above. “You’ll share a tutor with the Delahaye’s ward, though—”