The Safe-Keeper's Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

more cheerful whenever he came in for a visit.
    He was the one talking just now.
    â€œOh, yes, I was in Thrush Hollow two weeks ago,” he said, his voice slow and sardonic. “Called there by the village busybody—and a committee of her friends—who wanted me to tell her neighbor what a filthy pig he was.”
    â€œAnd was he?” Angeline inquired.
    â€œWorst sty I ever saw, that a man called a house and not a cow barn,” Thomas said roundly. “Must have had fifteen dogs, all of them living in the house, as well as a handful of wild boys who seemed as likely to throw their garbage on the floor as take it out back and burn it. More likely, actually. You never smelled such a stench. And don’t even ask me what the yard and garden looked like. Well, they’d been hobbling their horses inside the front gate at night, so you can guess for yourselves.”
    â€œSo you told him he lived like an animal,” Angeline prodded.
    â€œTold him he was a disgrace to his family, as well as a hazard to general health, and that his sons needed schooling and his animals needed training and that his neighbors had decided, rightly, to send in a delegation to clean out his place.”
    â€œHow did he respond?”
    â€œAt first he blustered, then he broke down, talked about his wife dying two years ago and how everything had slipped out of his hands. So I told him to welcome his neighbors’ delegation and ask for their help, and maybe life would get better—and cleaner—from now on.”
    â€œBut that wasn’t the end of it, I’ll wager,” Damiana said in a soft voice.
    He laughed. “No. Then I told the busybody neighbor lady that she fancied herself a righteous woman, but there wasn’t a bone of human kindness in her, since she did nothing to aid a man so desperately in pain.And I told one of her committee friends that her husband was not, in fact, dead, but living over in Merendon with another woman. I didn’t go looking for these truths just to be unpleasant, mind you, but they were there, apparent, and I was compelled to speak them.”
    Fiona could hear the smile in her mother’s voice. “Never call a Truth-Teller to your house unless you are not afraid of the truth. For he sees things you would wish never to be discovered.”
    â€œThere’s a truth that came out down by Marring Cross just a week or so ago,” Thomas said.
    Marring Cross was only a few miles from Angeline’s home of Lowford. “Really?” asked Angeline. “What was it?”
    â€œGold buried in the cleric’s back yard. Enough of it to send his two young sons on their way in the world.”
    Fiona felt her eyes widen. Clerics were not supposed to marry and certainly should not have children. But Angeline’s voice did not sound surprised when she answered. “Oh. Yes. They’re half-brothers, aren’t they, those boys?”
    â€œYes. Ten and twelve. Three people keeping those secrets, though it seems each woman was surprised as the other to find she was not the only love of this man’s life.”
    â€œHow did you know?” Fiona heard her mother ask.
    â€œHow did I know what?” Thomas replied.
    â€œHow did you know it was time to reveal this particular secret? Why did it become the province of the Truth-Teller and no longer the property of the Safe-Keeper of Marring Cross?”
    â€œActually, she didn’t know,” Angeline said. “But I did.”
    â€œBut then—did you let go?” Thomas asked. “Because suddenly, one day, the knowledge was just in my head. I wandered down to Marring Cross and advised the town council to begin digging.”
    â€œIt’s strange,” Angeline said. “You would think, being a Safe-Keeper, I would know the answer to that. Some secrets last only until the person who has told them is dead. Some secrets last until the Safe-Keeper knows it is time to