Story for the Day: Trinkling Secrets

Secret hoarding is one of the Royal Tailor's favourite pastimes. He had been used to collect secrets with his friend Rithea before she passed on, and now he sits in his office, occupied with his needle while his ears are busy trinkling away, slenching secrets he hopes to spread in the servant's hall:

The tea was poured and handed out, and Gaumhin melted in from the shadows, removing his mantle, sitting with his husband at the worktable and leaning back in his chair for the first of many evening delibations.

                “So,” said Pastaddams presently. “What are all these machinations Searle has planned which he thinks nobody else in the keep knows about?”

                “Doan’t know,” Gaumhin shrugged. “Ah heard hem talkin’ tae Vyrdin about announcin’ somethin’ at a comin’ burthdae, but he didnae sae anaethin’ about which burthdae it would be or what they wanted tae announce.”

                Pastaddams hung over his teacup and made a pensive thrum. “That sly old fox and his impenetrable privacy. I knew he was hiding something. He said hardly a word in the great hall this evening. He does mean to do something, and by Menor’s Might, my love, hear me now: if he dares try to eclipse the surprise we have planned, there will be some very stern discussions.”

                “Does he know about the books?”

                “No. He and Aghatha only think we are making a rather large party for Her Majesty. Only the commander, Lord Dobhin, and you know about the queen’s plan.”

                Gaumhin put his tea down and canted his had, moralizing to himself as he stared at the wall. “…Ye realize tha’ by no’ tellin’ ‘em, they might o’ started schemin’ oan they’re own, thenkin’ naebodae’s planned anaethin’ other than a celebration.”

                “Vyrdin knows, my cherish, because he must know, and I’m sure he would not allow the two surprises to conflict with one another—“ Pastaddams almost sipped his tea, but quickly put his teacup down. “—And I am absolutely sure that whatever they have planned, it will never be better than what we devised, but they will be secretive and hide behind door and skulk in the shadows.”

                “Aye, but yer daein’ the same thing, Rauleigh.”

                Pastaddams tutted at him. “Oh, posh. It is not the same. I am following Her Majesty’s plan, and therefore I am in the right. And they are creeping about like demure dormice, scheming something without me.”

                “That’s why yer reallae upset,” Gaumhin simpered into his cup, “’Cause they’re no includin’ ye in the meachin’.”

                “Of course that is why I’m upset. I am the sentry of scandal in this keep, now that the late head cleric is gone—poor Rithea, how I miss her-- and if I am not the keeper of secrets, I am sure I don’t know who is-- well, Vyrdin or Teague probably—but I am the know-it-most if I cannot know it all, and I dislike knowing nothing.”

                There was a pause, and Gaumhin sat sagaciously smiling.

                “Ah thenk Ah know what it is.” 

                The teacup was immediately put down. “Tell me immediately,” Pastaddams pressed him, fawning over his lap. “You must, because I am your wedded husband and you love me unreservedly.”

                “Aye, Ah dae,” Gaumhin laughed, “but Ah thenk we should let ‘em tell it.”

                “Does it have to do with the king?”

                “Doan’t thenk so.”

                “Her Majesty?”

                “No. An’ nothin’ tae dae with their burthdaes.”

                Pastaddams righted himself and seemed offended. “What can you mean, nothing to do with either of them or their birthdays? Another surprise entirely that they are going to break to us?”

                “Aye.”

                “But what can be so joyous to be broke to us like that? What can overtake a birthday in happiness?” Pastaddams tapped his chin with his forefinger, pleading with him himself to think, when a sudden idea seized him. “You mean—“

                “Ah thenk so,” Gaumhin stressed, holding up his hand, “but doan’t sae anaethin’ till they sae somethin’ first, just in case Ah’m wrong.”

                “Fiddlefaddle, my passion. You are never wrong, and now that you have put the idea into my head, I shall never get it out. Now I will be examining everything they do for confirmation of it. I will be revisiting all my interactions with them and fabricating meaning in things—Oh, why cannot they just tell us now?” Pastaddams took up his teacup and soomed with a glower. “…All this wretched waiting.”

                “It’s onlae yin more dae,” Gaumhin assured him, putting his hand on his husband’s shoulder. He gave him a doting touch of the cheek. “Ah know it’s gonnae be a hard night for ye, mho ludhan, but Ah’ll smother ye, tae keep ye from jumpin’ up in the wee hours and tearin’ aff to their room.”

                Pastaddams stared fervently at the worktable and sipped his tea in furious civility. “I need to know!” he sibilated, crumbling under the mental anguish. “Oh, how I can smell that secret from here—will you not breathe a word of it to me, even if only conjecture?”

                “It’s no’ gonnae make ye feel better.”

                “Yes—yes, it will-- I promise.”

                “No, ‘cause if it’s false, yer gonnae be upset that it’s no’ that. Ye realize Vyrdin mighta known Ah was standin’ in the hall and said what he said just tae fuddle me.”

                Pastaddams snuffed and clung to his cup. “You captains and your intelligence games. At this rate, I ought to offer to pay Teague, to have him extract what everyone refuses to say.”

                “Ye could always ask Bilar. He’d know about anaebodae being bairn-pegged.”

                Pastaddams seemed doubtful. “That wicked young sauce will never tell. He is all procedure and confidentiality-- rightly so, I should imagine-- and would rather die than divulge anything about his patients.”

                A voice came from the other side of the storeroom wall, muffled and affirming, “…Yes, that is probably true.”

                Gaumhin bellowed in mirth, and Pastaddams held his head in his hand and sighed.

                “We really must do something about that wall,” was the bitter lamentation, and Pastaddams leaned back in his chair, lounging between the bolts of harn and hodden, whinging over unspoken secrets and of the omniscient powers possessed by everyone in the keep except himself.