The Baker's Wife--complete

by Amy Keeley

  Daegan glared at the wall behind Zhiv. “I’ll take her. But the women will talk.”

  “Let them,” Zhiv grinned. “It only makes you more valuable.”

  Daegan nodded and went upstairs. Zhiv got up from the floor. “And now, goodwife, if you are done with your water?” She nodded, still unhappy with the direction her information was taking. “Good. If you wouldn’t mind putting the cup in the kitchen, you may join me upstairs. I have a new instrument I wish to show you.”

  With a sigh, she washed the cup, dried it and put it away. Instead of continuing upstairs, Zhiv waited for her. They both walked up to the second floor, and when they got to the top step, Zhiv turned and put his finger to his lips to be silent.

  Instead of leading her to the instrument room, he walked up to the door of his bedroom. Eyes wide, she hoped he wouldn’t try another proposition. He’d respected her decision then and had, as she herself had said of him, never acted as anything less than a gentleman since. And yet, with each undoing of the multiple locks on his door, her cheeks grew increasingly warm. When he turned, he fought a grin. Leaning forward, he whispered, “I remember, goodwife.” And then smiled in a way that made her believe he truly did.

  Deciding to trust him with this as well, she followed him through the door. I’m exactly where the King wanted me to be, she thought, and felt a little sick. Zhiv had once said she would have none of his secrets until he was ready to give them. And now she stood here, in a place surrounded with so much silence the Dogs couldn’t help searching the place with spells to try to penetrate it.

  He lifted a hand and she felt the silence become complete around them. “Won’t they realize,” she said, “that we aren’t looking at instruments?”

  “They might. It’s rare for anyone to come near during the daytime, though. Daegan will warn us if a Dog tries.”

  “And we won’t be where we said.”

  “Of course we will. We may not be doing what we said we would, but that would be according to the imagination of the Dogs, not reality.”

  Her cheeks burned, this time with anger. “And my reputation?”

  “Already gone the moment you left your husband.” Zhiv pulled a chair forward, and for the first time, she was able to focus on the room, not the spells surrounding it or the man who captured so much of her attention in it. There was nothing really to see. An empty desk was against the wall. His fiddle case sat against that, and a bag hung from a peg. Except for the bed, there was nothing else that caught her eye. Except for Zhiv himself.

  “He left me,” she said.

  “And you left to, I believe you said, think things through? Or something like that. Unless your sister was receptive to your visit, and unless you had no need for a job, it looks as if you couldn’t stand the man anymore and wanted to see what else there was in the world for you.” She began to protest, but he held up a hand. “And we both know the truth of what happened.”

  With a disgusted sigh, she folded her arms. “What do you wish to say?”

  Serious once more, he leaned back in his chair until only the back legs supported the weight, feet on the bed’s footboard. “I thought, given current events, it might be wise to explain to you what Daegan and I are trying to do, and how you might fit in.”

  Hardly able to believe he would be this open with her, she narrowed her eyes. “Go on.”

  His gaze never leaving her, he said, “I know you don’t trust me. As I said all that time ago, I’m not one to be trusted. Daegan is. So, if you doubt anything I say, feel free to ask him the veracity of my words. I promise he will never lie to you. Because, you see, he has the same ability as you.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Do you remember when I sang at the Felldesh manor?” It was the first time he had referred to himself in any way as Zhiv, and it threw Krysilla off-balance with the memory. “Yes,” she replied.

  “Do you remember trying to discover if it was truly me there on the stage?”

  “Yes.” She remembered that far more clearly than she felt comfortable remembering, the layers of effects on his voice slowly melting away, just as they had...and then she became more willing to listen.

  As if knowing where her thoughts had led, he said, “You don’t even realize you’re doing it when you try to discover me, but it’s a truth spell, a kind that needs no gestures. And those who cast it are those who seem built to be nothing but honest. They cannot stand hypocrisy or lies. Telling one makes them physically ill, and secrets are like walking with a broken leg. They do it only if their destination is more important than the pain.”

  “And Daegan is one of these?”

  “As are you. I saw it in your eyes. You will keep secrets, though you’ll hate it. You will lie if you must, but a lie must be awfully important to tell for you to feel comfortable with it. You would much rather withhold the truth.”

  “Isn’t everyone like this?”

  “No, goodwife.” He spread his arms wide. “I grew up with lies and secrecy. I doubt I could live with the truth for more than a day or so. I enjoy deception too much.”

  And that is why it’s better if we never join, she thought with more sadness than she expected. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  He waved her sorrow away. “It’s mine, and I rather enjoy the burden. But, back to you two, Daegan has been keeping his secret for some time now, and, given what I’ve told you, I’m sure you can now appreciate the fullness of the importance of that secret.” He sat the chair back on all four legs, feet on the floor, his arms draped over his knees. “Daegan and I (I’m sure you’ve guessed this by now) are studying the ways of the Ornic.”

  To have the information the King so desperately wanted, presented so casually, made her disbelieve it, in spite of her instinct that told her it was true. “Are you really?”

  “Oh, don’t tell me you’re going to ignore that sense that I’ve seen far too often.” Zhiv almost sounded disappointed. “You know what I’ve said. I didn’t turn you in to the Dogs when I caught you with those locks in the forest, and I even used your talent to get into the Felldesh vault.”

  “And put us both at risk,” she muttered.

  “It was perfectly safe, and you know it.”

  “Even when pain crept up our feet that promised something awful if we failed.”

  “Lord Felldesh would only kill us openly after a trial, not in a dark hallway.”

  So much for perfectly safe, she thought. His soberness deepened, and she knew without doubt that what he was about to say was coming from a place in his heart few saw. “Goodwife, the current world cannot continue as it is.”

  “Are you talking treason?”

  “No,” and on this he was emphatic. “Not treason. Every night, I go to the King and we talk. We discuss politics, events of note, festivals and songs and stories and history. We have done this ever since I was hired as his minstrel. We have spoken ever since he demanded to see me in person, not shrouded in mystery. I had no choice, and as a result, I think I know him better than most in his court. Perhaps even better in some ways than his own wife.” And, for the first time since she’d met him, she got the sense that he was afraid. “King Jivon is going mad.”

  The room suddenly felt stifling.

  Zhiv continued, as if her reaction to the news didn’t matter. “I first began to realize it when he began to talk of allowing the Disciples the right to question anyone regarding their adherence to Tothsin principles. I said nothing, because there was nothing to say. The last of the Ornics died many years ago,” his eyes grew distant as he said this, as if seeing a reality that existed beyond the room. His gaze snapped up. The moment was gone, and he was once again Zhiv, not a seer. “I thought it foolish, but the Disciples would gather a token group of miscreants, make a show—”

  “And kill them,” Krysilla whispered. “How could you be so cruel? It isn’t foolish, it’s—”

  “I am the minstrel to the King,” he said firmly. “And we speak of many things. He listens to me
. Or did then. Do you truly think I’d let innocents die for the sake of an old man’s paranoia?” He clenched his jaw and his fingers tapped a rapid rhythm on his thigh. “Perhaps I should have expected that.” Taking a deep breath, she realized she’d truly insulted him. “I’m too used to speaking crossways, never really saying what needs to be said.” He ran the fingers of one hand through his hair, mussing it up into a wild tangle. “I had planned on freeing them, if he rounded them up and if he refused to listen, using whatever means available.”

  “Lucky you have a locksmith.”

  He chuckled at that. “It’s one of the few things I know I can count on him to do, save the innocents. But I digress. That was when I first realized something was wrong in the King’s thinking. He’d never mentioned it before, this mistrust of those around him. As time went on, and we continued to speak, his questions and thoughts became even more disturbing. Eventually, I began to see that his purification was taking dangerous turns, beyond even that small, disgusting show I thought he had planned.”

  His fingers had become restless on his thigh, almost manic. “And then I realized he’d begun to doubt me. It was only a matter of time. A lack of trust on one side tends to lead to a lack of trust on the other. And I’d already begun trying to...find things that the Ornic left behind. I used opportunities to travel as a chance to study what was left of the world the Ornic had once lived. I deciphered the writing, and learned what spells I could that they had once used.”

  “And you practice them here?”

  “No.” He almost laughed out loud. “Never here. The Dogs check this room too often and I can’t trust my silence spells with something that dangerous.”

  “Why?” Krysilla moved away from the door in spite of her good sense and knelt down on the floor beside his chair.

  “Because I have seen what fear and hatred do,” he said softly. “And I have sworn to myself that I would never allow them to destroy ever again. It’s the only promise I think I’ll manage to keep.”

  But if he didn’t practice here...she looked in his eyes and thought for a moment she could see a torment that would not let him rest.

  She remembered the pressing of the spell late at night. “If you don’t practice here, then why do you have the silencing spells?”

  His smile was sadder than she expected. “You’ll have to wait for that secret, goodwife. If I ever let it fall into your hands. Don’t bother waiting.” Getting up, he said, “This is why it is so important that you speak with this Disciple. The King has been planning something, an event that will purify and destroy at once. And now that he doesn’t trust me, I can’t discern what that might be. The books disappearing, the work on the tower...it’s connected, and it points to something awful.” He paused. “Which side was open?”

  “The one that points to the mountain.” And the rift, she realized. “Does he trust the nobles?”

  “Not in the slightest. Why?”

  “Hyaji said he stopped trusting them ever since the day the quorum did not show.”

  Zhiv nodded. “True enough.”

  “He’s doing something with the rift, isn’t he?” she asked.

  “Circle light, I hope not.” The words came out in a breath full of terror. Something she didn’t think Zhiv was capable of feeling. “Nothing we’ve learned so far can protect even ourselves from that.”

  She thought of the chest. “What have you learned that might be of use?”

  “That,” he said, walking toward the door, “is knowledge you’ll have to earn. All you need know is that time is against us, and we couldn’t stand against the Dogs in combat if the King sent them.”

  “You mean, when he sends them.” The reality of their existence, of what being near Zhiv meant, pressed down on her like a weight.

  He turned then, and—perhaps due to her troubled expressed—gave her a reassuring smile. “He only doubts your fidelity, goodwife. If anything should happen, I doubt he’ll do more than question you. And he has your promise.” The last word came out as a sneer. Smiling more brightly, as if he hadn’t shown his complete disgust with the King’s actions, he said, “Are you in charge of supper tonight?”

  Didn’t he miss supper to visit the King? “No. Daegan.”

  “Well, that’s not too bad. I was hoping it wasn’t me.” He touched the doorknob and Krysilla rushed forward and pushed the door shut. She looked up into Zhiv’s wide eyes.

  “I thought you were going to visit him tonight.”

  “We’re not having an affair,” he tried to joke.

  “He’ll become more suspicious if you don’t show.”

  Fury as real and full as the kind she’d seen when he’d blasted her husband’s hypocrisy filled his eyes, and twisted his features. “I shall not go to him tonight. Not after this.” He grabbed her wrist, the one the King had ensorcelled. He closed his eyes, chuckling bitterly. “I can feel it wrapping around your bones, like his own personal chain.” Opening his eyes, he gazed for a moment on her wrist. “I cannot, will not, speak to him when I know all I will do is shout. Too much rides on our survival for me to risk it with my own—” Whatever he’d been about to say shuttered up once more in laughing eyes and a smiling mouth. But she could still see his anger if she allowed herself. It wasn’t far from the surface. “Don’t ask me again. Please.”

  She nodded.

  “Now, let’s go see what Daegan has in mind for us, shall we?”

  She moved her hand from the door and left his room, only turning once as he locked up, watching him carefully place each bolt and slide in place. He’d been far more careful with his own room, which held far less than she’d expected, and had put hardly anything around the chest and dagger, and she had to wonder, was it a ruse? A distraction from what he valued most? She had thought, a moment ago, that she had begun to understand him. Now, with his smile firmly back in place and acting as if nothing mattered in the world beyond food and good conversation, he had become an enigma once more.

  But she remembered the fury in his eyes when he’d spoken of the oath she’d given the King. And the feel of his firm, yet mindful, grip on her wrist was a sensation she’d wanted more than she’d admit.

  All this ran through the back of her mind as she and Zhiv helped Daegan in the kitchen. Though Daegan commented (with a knowing glance at Zhiv) that he couldn’t remember a time Zhiv had eaten supper with them, the two worked together as if they had always had to work together, and knew each other’s habits well. Krysilla would have felt left out if Zhiv hadn’t made a point of including her in their work, making sure she always had a task of some sort.

  Supper itself was quiet. Krysilla said nothing, only listened to Zhiv and Daegan talk about work (Daegan’s had gone well and Zhiv had managed to make a good amount on the street with his fiddle). Daegan’s work she understood. His father had been a locksmith and he was expected to follow in that tradition. But Zhiv was the King’s minstrel. He didn’t need to go fiddling on the street when all he had to do was ask for more money. From the King. A King who didn’t trust him. A King who would want to know where the money was going.

  Now, it began to make sense. But surely the King knew Zhiv was getting money on the side. Or was that part of his increasing distrust?

  With her mind full of these thoughts and their implications, she helped clean up after supper and retired to her room. Below her, she could hear Zhiv and Daegan speak long into the night. And while she listened to the rise and fall of their voices, saying things she now knew she would be brought in on in time, she practiced writing her Ornic alphabet, tracing out the beautiful, dangerous letters with her fingers.

  ***

  The next day, Krysilla received a list of housekeeping duties from Daegan. “Might as well make it look official,” he said, still looking displeased with her presence, and yet more accepting of it than before. Using the list, she went through the house, cleaning and straightening, while he worked upstairs and down, sometimes in the specialty room, sometimes in the room with lock
s on the table (what her list called the “display room”), and sometimes going out to help a customer with their locks. She also oiled the wardrobe door, in case she wanted to silently enter it in the future.

  Zhiv was nowhere to be seen all morning, and did not appear at dinner.

  After dinner, just as Daegan and Krysilla had left the house, she heard the strains of Zhiv’s beautiful music floating on the air. “He shouldn’t play so close to home,” Daegan muttered, though she thought that perhaps he enjoyed Zhiv’s playing.

  Enjoy was too mild a word for her own reaction. She could hardly move at the sound, transfixed by a language without words that seemed to speak everything her heart wanted to say, even if it didn’t realize it. She followed the sound until she saw him, the gold strands among the brown in his hair catching the sun.

  And then he saw them and the music stopped. Unlike other times, there was no open case for people to throw coins in. Zhiv had to open it to put his fiddle away.

  Daegan continued to walk as if he hadn’t seen Zhiv, who now walked in the same direction. Only when their paths converged did Daegan say, “You’re coming with, after all?”

  “No,” Zhiv replied. “Only to the square. I feel like playing today.”

  Not singing.

  She could tell Daegan wasn’t pleased with this news. “Very well,” he grumbled. She wondered if it was because Zhiv had elected not to join them in inspecting the tower, or if Daegan felt as she did about Zhiv’s sudden disappearance from the King’s side. Neither could be ascertained in the open like this.

  Zhiv commented on the weather, the merchants they passed, even clothing styles and habits of the locals that he found particularly amusing. He was never mean in his comments, or insulting, and it made for a lighthearted walk that she found much too enjoyable. It almost made her think she was a fool not to take him up on his offer of help when she first arrived, no matter how bad it would have appeared.

  When they got to the square, they all stopped. A large platform had been hastily erected since the day before out of rough wood. The top of it couldn’t be any higher than Krysilla’s shoulders, and it was narrow enough, like a walkway with nowhere to go, that a crowd could easily see what was about to happen.