Chapter 12: Secrets Are No Fun
"That's quite a flute you have there."
The notes wafting through the air ceased with Benedikte's comment. Adam glanced over the side of his platform to where the stable master sat. "Sorry?"
"I don't mean to insult your craftsmanship, but no note so pure has ever escaped a whittling project of yours." Benedikte returned his apprentice's gaze. "Tell me, however did you come by a mahogany flute?"
Adam frowned. "I might be a little hurt by that accusation."
"Accusation, no. Inquiry, yes."
"Like there's a difference." Adam swung his legs over the ledge, gently laying Elsa's gift to rest inside of its box. "I didn't steal it, if that's what you're thinking."
Despite their banter, Benedikte could hardly be blamed for suspicion. Adam's act had not always been so… perfect. He traced a finger along the crocus engraving of the box. But perfect's a good word for it now.
"Adam Westergard defends himself well, but he has yet to answer my question," Benedikte said, leaning toward Hans with a conspirational sigh. "I can see why you hate this boy so much, my friend. He's impossible, really."
"A gift. It was a gift." Adam tried to ignore the grin that had settled on his master's face. Benedikte returned to sewing the saddle draped across his lap.
"A gift? Now that answer I did not expect. Might a prying old man know from whom this gift originated?"
Adam hesitated. The urge to inform Benedikte was strong - he was, after all, proud of the affections that he had won. Even if it hadn't gone exactly as planned. She was Elsa, after all.
"Someone special," he decided, tucking the box under his pillow.
Benedikte chuckled. "Special, hm? Like the innkeeper's daughter was?"
"What?"
"No? Then special like the new servant girl they hired six months ago?"
"That wasn't anything, I just-"
"Of course. It's just that you sounded awfully similar when you wooed the tailor's niece."
"Alright," Adam snapped with a hopeless laugh. "This one's different. It's serious."
"Is it? I'm shocked. I would think I would have noticed a special young woman traipsing about in here."
Adam slid down the ladder to meet his mentor at ground level. "You may know her better than you think," he offered, toying with a stray bit of straw. "But that's all you're getting out of me."
"Very well then."
Adam arched an eyebrow, surprised by the sudden disengagement.
"Really? No prying? No holding an old guilt trip over my head?"
The old man eyed him from beneath his spectacles, drawing the needle in a long, slow stroke through the saddle leather.
"I could be doing that now."
"Whew!"
Their attention was snared by a Silver as he trotted into the stable. Anna was already half dismounted, her twin braids bouncing with his stride. "Did you guys see that? I cleared three hay bails!"
Adam moved to the flank on which she hung. "You didn't. Silver, however, did fantastically."
As expected, Anna huffed as she stepped down - right before her boot caught in the stirrup. Her eyes widened in alarm, but fortunately the situation was well-rehearsed. She pitched into Adam's dryly waiting arms, though an errant wave of the hand caught his cheek with an audible smack. If he wanted a perfect landing, he should have been in the business of catching someone else.
"Woah! Thanks," she said, looking venomously back at her own foot as she extracted it from Silver's saddle. "I swear, these boots are too big for me."
"I think the saddle's too solid for you."
"Stop it! You're lucky you caught me," she snapped back at him as he set her down with a chuckle. "Would you mind unsaddling Silver for me? I'm already kinda late."
It seemed to be more of a command than a request, because she was already removing her riding boots. Adam took Silver's reins, rubbing his throbbing cheek while the princess hopped one-footed to the chair upon which her day shoes rested.
"Late for what?" he asked, sharing a knowing look with Silver. "What's got the Princess of Arendelle so excited?"
"Nothing, I'm just starving!" Anna said, resuming her hopping in an attempt to secure her last shoe before she reached the door. Adam smirked as he began to undo the straps of Silver's saddle. Elsa's reappearance around the castle had become common knowledge to the staff at this point. Ravenous stomach though she had, Anna was never this excited for anything except chocolate. He somehow doubted that Henry was making chocolate-covered herring tonight.
Benedikte smirked. "Then enjoy, Princess Anna. I'm sure we'll see you on the morn."
"Just Anna - oh, never mind," she replied with an irritated huff. "G'bye, Adam!"
The stable boy offered an absent-minded wave over Silver's back, though the bright little red-head still got him to smile behind the horse's flank.
Anna swung the door shut behind her, a low click that began a long minute of silence. The horses huffed, Adam swung the saddle onto the rack at the back of room, and Benedikte sewed with the same steady strokes that he had all night.
"So, someone special?"
Adam huffed, smirking incredulously at the ceiling. "Benedikte…"
"You said I may know her better than I think."
The stable boy caught his master's eye, the way his brow tilted toward the stable doors. He laughed, maybe a little overzealously. It was a joke, of course, but it was near enough to the mark that he felt the need to dismiss it thoroughly.
"Yes, you caught me; Anna's and my love is eternal," he chuckled, rolling his eyes.
Benedikte shook his head, smiling to himself. Part of growing up, perhaps; Adam was rarely so secretive about his flirtations. A good thing, too - he did not always have the best wisdom about these things, charming as he was. Still, he would have resolved to leave the young man alone about it, had he not seen what he did at that moment.
Adam did not notice, busy as he was with Silver. It was so thin and ghostly that it was no wonder that he had failed to notice it until now. A gossamer strand of hair, almost white in its paleness, hung from the stable boy's ladder like a minuscule drape. It swung lazily into the open air as Adam opened the door to Silver's stall, touching it with a breeze that eventually unseated it and sent it drifting earthward. He leaned forward, allowing the hair to settle on his index finger. It was no horse hair, that was for certain.
"You alright?"
Adam was looking at him appraisingly, closing Silver's door behind him. The stable master hesitated at his next words, waiting for the vague idea to finish forming in his head. Any of the staff would have thought it impossible, and perhaps it was, but none of them knew Adam like he did.
"Simply straying into my memories. I find myself doing that a great deal these days. I believe I truly am becoming an old man."
Adam chuckled, running his hand down Silver's muzzle. "You don't give yourself enough credit. Old man? You're sharper than the cooks, and they're half your age."
Benedikte smiled. "And you, young man, give me too much credit."
"Not that much." Adam paced across the stable to rest against a wooden support, wry grin ever-present. "I know a con when I see one. I also know that you don't get nostalgic in the middle of conversations."
He chuckled at that. "A con? I don't know if I would call it that. I am just…" He paused, trying to find the words that could convey the precise blend of emotions he was experiencing. Seeing the energy of love in Adam, even if he was only skirting the subject, brought up a fatherly sense of pride in Arendelle's stable master. It was not merely trouble he could see in Adam's life, though always it strove for a foothold. "I am just trying to believe how far you have come in these two years."
Adam glanced about the room. "What, all the way up to the rafters?"
Benedikte shook his head. "You know that is not what I mean."
"Geez, forget I said anything," Adam sighed, hopping back up onto the ladder. "Ask Hans or something. He'll rat me out in a second."
Benedikte took a second to enjoy the flat stare of reply with which the stallion beheld Adam.
"Hans was always the hardest to win over," he agreed, returning to his sewing. He only had a few more strokes left; it was best to make them count.
"He seems to be the only being in this castle you haven't impressed."
Adam paused in his ascent. There was something about the way Benedikte said that…
"Do you remember when we first met?" the man continued.
Adam swallowed, turning about on the rung and hanging off the ladder. Benedikte always sounds like he knows something you don't - that doesn't mean he does. "I don't think I could forget it."
"I was in the market for some leather sheets I'd ordered. Kai had allowed me to take a few men with me to help load the cart." He looped the thread back once, knotting it and slicing the remainder away with a knife. "That was a sordid scheme between the two of you. Wherever did you find that boy with the reindeer?"
Adam smirked, staring off into a dim corner of the room. He wondered where he was now.
"We were… victims of similar circumstance," he said softly. "Not much more to it than that."
"In any event, it almost worked," Benedikte continued, testing the sewn leather with a few sturdy tugs. "But I know a panicked animal when I see one. He was a good actor, though."
Adam chuckled, finding himself worrying less about what Benedikte knew. "Worked well enough at the time. A wailing reindeer catches eyes."
"And you caught coins all the while."
"Never much." Adam sighed, remembering how many times they'd told themselves that. "It… it wasn't one of my finer moments."
"Oh, but it was." Satisfied with his work, Benedikte lifted the saddle padding and set it on his stool. "You stood in for that boy, even when you could have escaped yourself."
Adam smirked. "You're saying my conscience would have put me in the stocks?"
"It was the only thing that kept you out." Benedikte removed his coat from the hook by the rear door. "I couldn't let a boy with the nobility to sacrifice his freedom for a friend's be put in prison."
For a moment, Adam could not find the words to speak. Benedikte's story had adjusted something that had been lodged in him for a long time. He realized how different he was from what he had been. It was a good different.
"I'm glad you felt that way," he finally managed to say. "God knows where I'd be without that."
"You'd have wormed your way out of it, I imagine."
Adam scoffed. "You know that's not true. I guess… you showed me my place in the world. Where I belong."
Benedikte adjusted the lapels of his coat, offering him a smile of agreement. "And you belong here?"
Adam looked about the stables in the dim, flickering lamplight. It wasn't much, to be sure - but "much" had never been part of the equation. He did have Anna's giggle, though. He had Hans's condescending snuffle, Benedikte's wit. And he had Elsa.
"Of course," he replied, being sure to look his mentor dead in the eye.
Benedikte exhaled, hands still hanging off his coat. He lowered his gaze to the hay-strewn ground, a soft stare that looked beyond the dirt into thought.
"You're a man now, I suppose; you're not the pilferer I met that day. You can make your own choices."
The stable master proceeded to the back door, resting his hand upon the handle without turning it.
"Just remember who you are. Where you are from. Our place in this world affects us all."
Adam cocked his head and set his jaw. This was not Benedikte's best finishing line.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, not sure if he knew the answer or not. Benedikte's face twinged with a smile, an elastic expression that reverted back to musing stillness in a second.
"As I said, you're a grown man now." He opened the door, allowing the red light of dusk illuminate his features. "You can decide what that means."
Adam did not reply, allowing the man plenty of time to shut the door behind him. He had a few minutes until Benedikte was well clear of the stables, before Elsa would even think of coming. Tonight, however, he wasn't sure he was ready for her. What was that supposed to mean? What had he dared to mean? Somehow, his mentor's vague words made him angry.
Behind that, however, there was a disquiet. Never in the last two years had Benedikte been wrong, about anything. What, then, was he trying to say?
Hans snorted, sending a stray length of straw curving through the air. Adam shot the arrogant stallion a look of pure ice.
"Shut up," he growled. "I'm trying to think."
The animal was indifferent to his threat, merely continuing to eat as he always did. He clenched the edge of his platform with white knuckles. Was it Elsa? Did he know?
He's not that clever, he responded. It was not a strong self-assurance.
Adam's jaw set as he looked up at the stable doors. He was a servant, but he cared so very much about her. There was nothing more powerful than that.
It was a mantra he repeated to himself many times as he waited for his princess to arrive.