The Safe-Keeper's Secret by Sharon Shinn Read Free Book Online Page A

boy,” Isadora added. “I’d have accepted him myself if he’d come wooing me!”
    They all laughed. “Haven’t you been in the royal city for a little while?” Damiana asked.
    Isadora nodded. “It’s an odd place, though. So full of people, so rife with dreams and desires. I can feel them pressing at me when I walk down the streets. Some people will run after me and catch at my clothes and pour out their hopes and wishes. Other people will come to my rooms at all hours, night or day, desperate for favors. It is a very exhausting place to be.”
    â€œI wouldn’t like such a place,” said Fiona.
    â€œNo, and I didn’t stay long,” Isadora agreed. “But I felt a compulsion of sorts to go there. I don’t know if there was a particular person who needed me. I don’t know if I did that person any good.”
    â€œDid you see King Marcus?” Fiona asked.
    Isadora nodded. “And his daughter. From a distance, of course. They were riding through the streets in a very formal procession, and there were guards all around them, so I didn’t get a very good look.”
    â€œWhat was he like?” Damiana asked curiously.
    Isadora wrinkled her nose. “I thought he appeared quite disagreeable,” she said frankly. “He sat very straight on his horse and looked out over the crowd as if he was trying to smile but he didn’t have much experience with smiles, so he wasn’t sure how to do it. Now and then he’d lift his hand and wave, but you could tell he didn’t really want to. People cheered him, of course, but I do have to wonder if they really love him.”
    â€œHe’s a good king,” Damiana observed. “The roads are well mended, the taxes are fair, and there hasn’t been war since his father was on the throne. Maybe we don’t need someone warm as long as we have someone competent.”
    â€œMaybe,” Isadora said rather doubtfully.
    â€œDid he look like Reed?” Fiona asked.
    Isadora laughed. “Not at all. He and his daughter are both dark, though she at least has a fair complexion. His is swarthy as a farmer’s.”
    â€œPrincess Lirabel,” Damiana said. “What’s she like? Isn’t she all grown up now? Eighteen, at least?”
    â€œTwenty,” Isadora replied. “She had a more pleasant face than her father, but she looked sad. I don’t know why I say that, because she was smiling and waving with much more energy than he was. But I just thought she looked unhappy.”
    â€œPerhaps her father has arranged an unwelcome marriage for her,” Damiana guessed.
    â€œI didn’t hear any talk like that while I was in Wodenderry,” Isadora said. “The rumor going around was that she wanted her father to acknowledge her as his heir next year, on her twenty-first birthday. But he will not do so—at least, this is what people were saying. I wasn’t at court, you understand, and no one was confiding in me.”
    â€œWhy won’t he acknowledge her?” Fiona asked.
    The older women exchanged glances. “They say he doesn’t want a woman on the throne,” Isadora said. “You know, he married again last year, practically the minute Lirabel’s mother was dead. His new queen is quite a young woman, but so far she hasn’t borne him any children. Daughters
or
sons.”
    â€œI’ll bet there’s someone who would have been wishing hard for your services if she’d known you were in town,” commented Damiana. “The new queen.”
    â€œPerhaps I should go back soon,” the Dream-Maker said with a trace of humor, “and introduce myself at the royal palace. I could live quite a life of luxury while I tried to do a favor for my king.”
    â€œMaybe that’s why you felt compelled to go there after all,” Damiana said. “Maybe in a few months we’ll hear good news from the