by Melanie Rawn
“Bubbledy wine.” He stretched his arms wide and snuggled back into the cushions. “And mocah-dust berries.” He ran his tongue around his molars, searching for stray seeds. “D’you know I can explode a withie in midair, just like you and Rafe?” Honesty made him confess, “Only sometimes I get a few cuts on my hands.”
“So I’m guessing you liked this sort of thorn?”
“Oh, yeh. Let’s do more.”
“After Trials, I think.”
Suddenly he grasped Mieka’s arm. “You’ll be there? You’ll be with me?” He’d felt so safe in that dream, so happy. “Say you’ll be there.”
Mieka smiled. “Of course.”
Cade turned onto his side, purring low in his throat. “This life,” he murmured, and fell asleep thinking he’d heard Mieka whisper, “And none other.”
Chapter 3
Whatever Mieka had told Cade that night, he’d been very careful not to lie, especially after the thorn faded and Cade seemed so fretted about having Mieka there with him the next time he tried that particular mix.
But he hadn’t joined Cade in pricking thorn. He’d wanted too much to know the truth. Finally, at least some of the truth about an Elsewhen dreaming.
What he’d learned had been amusing and, oddly enough, a comfort. Infinitely better than “I think I hated you.” Cade had seen them old! For himself, he couldn’t imagine it. But he rather fancied picturing Cade with gray hair, or receding hair … or no hair. This made him snigger, earning an annoyed glance from his mother at the interruption in her lecture about behaving himself at Trials, and especially at High Chapel. She knew very well that Mieka behaved badly when he bothered to behave at all. It was touching, really, that she might actually think his plans for marriage and a family and a home of his own would suddenly turn him into a fine upstanding subject of His Gracious Majesty the King.
“I’ll be good, Mum, I promise,” he said.
She looked him in the eyes and sighed a Why do I bother? sigh, then gave him a fierce hug. “And no running off to Frimham all in a fluster,” she whispered in his ear. “She’s yours, no matter what her mother hints about other boys. You’ll both just have to wait a bit, and it’ll be all the sweeter for the waiting.” Standing back, she looked him over, and he was afraid she’d cry and say humiliating things about her baby being all grown up and other suchlike motherish drivel. But then her gaze flickered over his shoulder and she let out a shriek. “Tavier! Come down this instant! Hadden, he’s packed himself onto the roof!”
Mieka fell over laughing. His littlest brother had swarmed up the side of the hire-hack and found a perch amid the crates of glass baskets and withies, and the half-barrel of whiskey Auntie Brishen had sent for luck. They would have found him, of course, once they got to the Palace and unloaded everything to be transferred to the King’s coach for Seekhaven. But if they couldn’t coax him down soon, they’d be dreadfully late. There were threats (“None of Mistress Threadchaser’s pies again, ever, not one, for the rest of your life!”) and promises (“Be a good boy and come down, and we’ll take you to see Blye’s kiln—it’s just like a dragon’s mouth!”), but the only thing that impressed the child was Rafe’s solemn vow to find him a dragon egg.
“It’ll take a bit of a while,” Rafe cautioned, “because the only dragons in the Kingdom live up in the far reaches of the Pennynine Mountains.”
“I know that,” Tavier said, peering down from the roof railings. “Will you really? A dragon egg?”
“I shall.”
Mieka steadied his frantic mother as Tavier very calmly stood up and leaped down into Rafe’s waiting arms, as casually as if at any moment he could spread wings and fly if the mood took him.
It was at this exact moment that the huge colorful wagon belonging to the Shadowshapers pulled up on the opposite side of the street, pulled by two of the biggest horses anyone had ever seen. Mieka admired the timing, and hoped Tavier did, too: the surprise arrival spared him the scolding that seethed in Mum’s eyes.
“Oy!” shouted Rauel Kevelock from his perch next to the driver. “Excellent, we got here in time!”
“Look at that,” drawled Mieka. “It’s the famous Shadowshapers.”
“In their famous wagon,” contributed Jedris.
“So it famous is!” Vered Goldbraider grinned from a window. “What’re all you lot waitin’ for? Pile in and let’s be off!”
Chattim Czillag’s voice yelled from within: “And don’t forget the whiskey barrel!”
The mostly familial commotion of loading the hire-hack for Touchstone became a mayhem that involved most of the neighborhood as people spilled out of homes all along Waterknot Street to witness the actual presence of the Shadowshapers. The lower servants stood and gaped, the implements of their early-morning duties dangling from their hands; the upper servants forgot to chide their underlings and indeed didn’t notice that their own livery had been buttoned askew; their employers appeared in windows and doorways with dressing gowns hastily wrapped and hair left undone, not even bothering to call out to their children running wild across the cobbles. Fortunately, the horses were stoical creatures, inured to the noise of Gallantrybanks; Jorie, Tavier’s twin sister, walked right up to the huge animals drawing the Shadowshapers’ wagon and petted each velvety white nose in turn. The wagon had acquired a little parade of drays and carts selling everything from bread to milk to fresh flowers, and the local dogs raced madly amid it all while the local cats played sneak-feast on the fishmonger’s cart.
Rauel, Vered, Chattim, and their fettler, Sakary Grainer, descended from their wagon into this uproar to greet the Windthistles, whom they’d met at Rafe and Crisiant’s marriage celebrations last month here at Wistly Hall. When a trio of giggly maidservants from a house up the street approached with a placard, they smiled and obligingly signed their names. This seemed to be the signal for everyone to find any scrap of paper or parchment they could lay hands on.
Mieka strolled over to Cade. “Well, this is fun,” he remarked.
“That’s us, next year,” Cade predicted resolutely.
Mieka’s attention was caught by a tall, graying personage whose dignity as a gentleman’s gentleman was in no wise diminished by the fact that his immaculate white silk gloves were stuffed untidily into a pocket and his immaculate white silk stockings ended in one polished black leather shoe and one dark green velvet slipper. The man approached with that consciousness of his employer’s rank that always paralyzed Mieka between the urge to snap a salute and the urge to snap the man’s braces.
“Oh Gods, he’s coming to complain,” Cade whispered.
“No, he’s not.”
“Next somebody will send for the constables.”
“No, they won’t.”
The man paused in front of them with a bow almost as low as the one given Royalty. “If the young Masters would be so kind, the household which I have the honor to serve would be greatly beholden should the young Masters consent to bestow upon them their signatures.” From the breast pocket of his blue-and-black livery he produced an immaculate white sheet of paper and one of the innovative new silver-nibbed pens, plus a tiny bottle of ink.
After they had scrawled their names, the manservant gravely inclined his head and departed to find Jeska and Rafe. Mieka looked up at Cade, who was still rather stunned, and crowed with laughter. “That’s us, this year!”
It was another half hour before the hire-hack driver had been paid off and everyone and everything had been loaded into and onto the Shadowshapers’ wagon. Jeska sat up top with Rauel and the driver—two beauteous masquers with a part-Giant alternately grinning and grumbling between them. Though Rist had inherited a Giant’s ancestral aversion to horses, none but a Giant was in possession of muscle enough to control the two great beasts.
“When we get one of these,” Mieka said, settling back with his boots propped on a bunk, “I’ll ask Yazz to come work for us, shall I?”
“Your friend up in Gowerion? The one you had to beg not to damage me?�
�� Cade laughed. “I’d like to set Yazz loose on that innkeeper up north—you remember, Prickspur.”
“Prick-licker,” Vered snarled.
“We heard about that,” Sakary said, frowning. “The one who took the contract for the Winterly but won’t allow Elfenbloods under his roof.”
“Innocents, that’s what you are,” Chat observed calmly. “Never run across that sort of thing before, any of you. Wait till the artist exchange scheme with the Continent. You’ll find out.”
“What’s the latest on that, anyway?” Rafe asked.
“It seems,” said Vered, “that we’re all waiting for a princess, two grand duchesses, and a few noble heiresses to make up their silly little minds about Ashgar.”
Mieka glanced over at Cade, whose father was First Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the Prince. Cade nodded. “Once some poor girl finally accepts him, they’ll send a few of us over there with the ambassadors to escort her to Gallantrybanks. A few shows for whichever court in whichever city, then back home. Depending on how well the players are received, a bigger tour will be organized.”
Vered’s brows arched. “And you know this because why?”
“Lady Jaspiela,” Rafe said, then explained, “his mother, with Court connections of her own. She’s in a bit of a quandary, she is,” he went on with a smirk. “Can’t decide if the horror and humiliation of a son playing the Circuit is worth Royal recognition of worthiness to represent Albeyn.”
“Which isn’t to mention the possible international contacts of a son who’s been abroad at other courts,” Cade put in. “She has it in mind for my little brother to become an ambassador or some suchlike.”
Mieka snorted. “Oh, I can just see Dery making a knee and kissing wrists for a living.”
As they all relaxed into the comforts of the wagon for the journey to Seekhaven, Mieka reflected that whatever was in that thorn last night had produced a happy, mellow, smiling Cayden Silversun this morning, and was definitely to be encouraged. He’d saved the twist of paper with its identifying marks on the inside, and would send to Auntie Brishen as soon as may be for more.
A little past noon, the eight young players reenacted the same scene from the previous year—a lavish lunching from baskets provided by Mistress Mirdley—under the same tree beside the same inn where other groups stuffed down whatever food they could in the minutes it took to change horses. Touchstone and the Shadowshapers greeted the arriving players with lazy smiles, idling on the lush spring grass, enjoying with indecent glee the envious glares of those who dared to think they might be competition.
The two shaggy-hoofed horses that had drawn the coach thus far would be waiting here for the last bit of the journey back to Gallantrybanks. Two fresh animals had replaced them, and with the other horses drawing the King’s coaches to compare them to, Mieka saw how really massive those white beasts were.
“Rommy took himself a holiday on the Continent last summer, and came back with eight of these monsters,” Chat explained as they strolled round the wagon, admiring the painted swirls and patterns. “We only need two between the traces for this trip, as we’re not full-loaded—even with all your gear added on. But on the Circuit, four of them can take us almost twice as fast between stops, and we don’t have to change, because there’s all that time for them to rest while we spend five or six days performing, y’see.”
Mieka didn’t, quite, and said so.
“Four of the usual horses, drawing the usual coach, have to be switched off at intervals. Our wagon is bigger, but these horses are half again the size of usual horses. Given a breather every so often, they’ll go all day and half the night.” He walked around, patting flanks and smoothing manes. “Rommy’s plan is to send the other four up to Scatterseed, to be fresh and rested and get us over the Pennynines two days quicker than usual.” He chuckled. “More time, more shows, and especially more private bookings, which is where the real money is.”
“Nice to be you, and rich,” Mieka observed, sidling away from a huge, skeptical brown eye set in a massive white head. “How’d they ever get these beasts across the Flood?”
“You’d think they’d kick a ship to splinters, wouldn’t you? But they’re really very sweet-natured.”
“I’ll trust your word on that, and won’t be testing it out.”
“Rommy’s of a mind to start a breeding scheme, once he finds a stud that suits. An investment, he says.”
“Turning all pastoral, are you? Interesting plan for a bunch of city gits.”
“Speaking of studs and breeding,” Chat said with a sidelong glitter of blue eyes, “how do Rafe and the fair Crisiant like marriage so far?”
“They never left their bedchamber at Fairwalk Manor. Cade’s of the opinion that they never left their bed, though he can’t actually prove it.” Knowing his friend was about to tease him regarding things Mieka didn’t want to discuss, he waved merrily to the last of the King’s coaches, just arriving in the yard. As the vehicle decanted eight tetchy young players, Mieka chortled. “Crystal Sparks and Black Lightning. If they manage to stagger into High Chapel tomorrow evening, I’ll stand you a drink at the best tavern in Seekhaven Town.”
“No bet. And I thought Pirro was a friend of yours.”
“Not since he took up with that lot.”
“Chat!” bellowed Vered. “We’re off, with you or without you!”
Aided by Auntie Brishen’s whiskey, they passed the daylight hours pleasantly enough. Mieka rode up top with Rist for a time, enjoying the pale yellow flowers that were the Tincted Downs’ spring raiment, promising himself to bring her here when the blue and purple flowers bloomed later in the summer, and bed down with her in a meadow the color of her eyes.
Away from the others, with only the silent Rist for company, he could let himself think about her. She was his, he knew she was his, but with part of him he simply couldn’t believe that anything that exquisite could belong to him. Somehow, talking about her with anyone else was impossible. He’d never even told anyone exactly how he met her. She was no longer a secret—he’d brought her and her mother to Gallantrybanks for Rafe’s wedding, and they stayed at Wistly for three days thereafter. But he never discussed her with his friends, not even with Cade. To think of her was to feel things he’d never felt before in his life, things he couldn’t identify with words. He had a fanciful notion that once he knew her name, all those emotions would settle quite happily on her like a silken cloak he’d made with his own magic. In her, he’d discovered that there was an eighth category of woman. All the plays and poems asserted that there could be only one Beloved for any man, and she was his. He’d known it the instant he caught sight of her, tending her mother’s cramped little booth at the Castle Biding Fair. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
But he couldn’t talk about her. Not to his parents, nor to his sister Jinsie, nor to his older brothers, nor even to Cade. It occurred to him as the wagon rattled down the road between rolling golden fields that he might be able to talk about her with Blye. Perhaps when they got back home, before departing on the Royal Circuit. He was as sure of Touchstone’s advancement from the Winterly as he was that Blye wouldn’t tease him or mock his feelings.
At nightfall they took a break for dinner at a very nice inn. Rist predicted that they would be in Seekhaven well before morning, so they arranged themselves in the four bunks and two soft chairs, with Rafe choosing to join the coachman for a while and Jeska curling in a blanket and some pillows on the floor.
Everyone slept but the three tregetours and Mieka—who was beginning to think that the only way he ever learned anything real and true about Cade was by pretending to have taken thorn when he hadn’t, or pretending to be sleeping when he wasn’t. He found this deeply annoying.
The three of them traded compliments and analysis about past performances, commiserated over the relative recalcitrance of words, fettlers, and gliskers (though not of masquers; Vered and Rauel traded off that function, and avoided criticizing ea
ch other, at least in front of other people). Mieka bit back protests as Cade complained about how difficult he was sometimes to control before Vered goaded him into admitting that he wouldn’t trade his “mad little glisker” for any other. Mollified, Mieka rolled over onto his back and grunted as a sleeping man might, and set himself to listening even more closely as they began to talk about ideas.
It started out with general chagrin that there just wasn’t enough time in the average performance to do a really deep piece, something that touched the audience more powerfully with each moment. Vered made an acid reference to being bludgeoned for a quarter of an hour by Black Lightning and wanting never to repeat the experience. This set off a round of denigration that might have irked Mieka on his friend Pirro’s behalf, except that Pirro had given him some unknown and scary type of thorn this spring, for which Mieka intended never to forgive him. He was looking forward to blowing Black Lightning off the Trials stage.
Then the three tregetours got round to what they’d be doing for private performances while at Trials. There were the official invitations from the lords and gentlemen, and the unofficial invitations from the ladies, and it was Cade’s opinion that one didn’t have to modify a piece one little bit to suit an all-female audience. Rauel worried about women’s emotions being more delicate; Vered told Cade he was an idiot if he thought the little shit-witted birdies at Court were capable of understanding more complex pieces.
“The one we’re working on now, for instance,” he said. “We’ve got it two ways, one mine and one Rauel’s, and the one we’ll do for the men and the other for the ladies.”
Rauel laughed softly. “It’s his way of being invited back to do mine for the gentlemen, or his for the ladies, I can’t figure out which!”
“Why not do both in the same night?” Cade asked.
Mieka could almost feel them staring at him, and then at each other.
“You’re the only group as ever works trading off tregetour and masquer. Do one version, then fill up the space with shadows the way you always do, and go right into the second version. I’d imagine,” he added dryly, “they’re different enough so nobody will think you’re repeating yourselves.”