The Hidden Blade Read Free

scrolls.”
    At this point Father would usually—and with great affection—ask Herb how much he had embellished the story. Herb would reply that he had added no sensational details, as the story had come to him already feverishly embroidered.
    But tonight Father only listened, a glass of whisky clutched in his hand.
    His attention seemed to gratify Herb, who smiled again. “Well, such valuables must not fall into the emperor’s greedy hands. So from all over the land the monks gathered under the guise of a great scriptural congress, while secretly moving the riches of their cloisters.”
    Leighton imagined squat wagon carts stripped to the bone, in order to not leave deep ruts that would give away the weight of the heavy load they carried. There would also have been palanquins in which the venerable abbeys of the monasteries purportedly sat, carried by the strongest monks. Except only gold and jade rode inside the palanquins; the venerable abbeys, in their plainest robes, dusty and road-weary, walked alongside the humblest of initiates.
    “Under the cover of night, everything was unloaded into a huge cavern. Then the cavern was carefully sealed, so that it would not be found by the emperor’s soldiers or other thieves and pillagers,” Herb went on. “The monks were sworn to secrecy. And three jade tablets were made and entrusted to the three seniormost abbeys, for the day when it would become either safe or necessary to find and reopen the cave.
    “Almost immediately the legend took root. It was said that grown men shaved their heads and took vows with the sole purpose of trying to locate these jade tablets in the inner sanctums of the greatest monasteries. But time passed—generations, then centuries.
    “From time to time stories would crop up of a lucky goatherd who stumbled upon an ancient silver ingot in his path, something that might have been dropped by the monks in their hurry. Others believe that the treasures were ransacked ages ago, much as the pyramids of the pharaohs had been emptied by tomb robbers, leaving behind only pits of vipers. But still others remain convinced that the treasures are exactly where they had been concealed long ago, and if only all three of the jade tablets can be reunited, the treasures too can be found.”
    The longcase clock in a corner of the library gonged the hour. Ten o’clock. When Mother was home, Leighton was expected to be in bed with the lights out by nine. Father, on the other hand, allowed him to stay up until the first yawn.
    Leighton did not in the least feel like yawning, but he did so anyway—he could sense when the grown-ups wanted to be alone.
    “Am I putting you to sleep?” asked Herb, smiling, his hand on Leighton’s shoulder.
    For a moment everything felt all right—the storm clouds receding, the sun shining in the sky. But then Leighton sensed it again, the underlying tension in the room.
    “I’m just tired.”
    They had rowed for hours that afternoon and walked even longer in the rolling hills that surrounded Starling Manor. Leighton was not actually tired—he could have hiked for miles more—but no one questioned his claim.
    Herb shook Leighton’s hand. “Sleep well, my dear boy. And may all your dreams be marvelous.”

    Leighton was not afraid of the dark—he did not believe in monsters under the bed. All the same, he did not like to lie awake, staring into the blackness of the night.
    It was easier to believe that all was well when the sun fell upon his face. That afternoon, atop a hill that gave onto a wide field of poppies in bloom, Leighton had felt buoyantly happy as he listened to Herb and Father discuss how long it would take to return home. The air had been crisp—almost a little warm; the sky had been pale but blue; and Mrs. Thompson’s apricot jam had never tasted so good, in a sandwich made with sturdy bread and fresh butter churned only that morning.
    But now, as night stretched on and on, he saw that even then Herb had been a