by Melanie Rawn
Kearney provided an airy little office for him just down a hall from the library. He worked from just after breakfast until tea, then went for a ride or a walk to clear his head, then returned to bathe and dress for supper. He imagined that this must have been the sort of life some of his ancestors had lived, the Highcollars and the Blackswans, before choosing the wrong side in the Archduke’s War had ruined them. Gazing out on one’s hereditary acres; strolling paths one’s forebears had strolled; swinging up into a saddle used for three generations on a horse with registered bloodlines going back as far as one’s own; dining off porcelain plates ordered by one’s great-great-grandmother. Cade could enjoy the life of a country gentleman because he knew he would always go back to town. Though his ancestors had owned places like this, he was a Gallybanker down to his bones.
He missed the turbulence of the city, the noise and crowds and smells and being careful where you put your feet. He’d never seen a day-old pile of horseshit at Fairwalk Manor—he’d never seen any horseshit at all, not even in the stable yard, not even in any of the two dozen stalls. He began to doubt that Kearney’s horses were allowed to shit, any more than raised voices or snapping logs in the fire or the slightest speck of dust were allowed. One afternoon Cade forgot to leave his muddy boots at the garden door, and tracked footprints all the way to the back stairs before realizing his rudeness. Turning, he saw a manservant down on his knees, already wiping up the mess. An attempt at an apology was met with “Oh no, sir, not at all! My pleasure!” and a further kneeling to remove his boots for him. Moreover, instead of having to pad upstairs in his stockings, he was given a pair of black velvet slippers conjured from the servant’s pockets.
Mistress Mirdley would have made him clean it all up himself, and assigned him to scrape clean every pair of boots in the house for a week.
When he thought of home, that was what he missed: the Trollwife, dictating, scolding, dispensing buttered muffins and hangover remedies and excellent advice that he rarely had the brains to follow. He missed his little brother, too, especially when on horseback, thinking how Derien would adore a long gallop across flower-strewn meadows. He missed Blye, who listened to him when no one else would. He even—and this was a shock—missed his mother. Not often, and with a wry twist to his lips, but he did miss her.
Delving into his own feelings for the purpose of writing “Doorways” compelled him to admit that one reason he was here at Fairwalk Manor rather than at Redpebble Square was that he simply couldn’t face having to tell his family that Touchstone was once again on the Winterly Circuit. He could endure the quickly masked dismay of Lady Jaspiela—though she deplored his profession, she had at last recognized there was a certain distinction to having so many important men admire her son’s talents. But Dery’s furious protests of injustice—Cade writhed inside at the thought of how disappointed the boy must be. Blye wouldn’t say much, but he wasn’t sure that wouldn’t be even worse. What he dreaded most was a long, assessing look from Mistress Mirdley, a look that understood him perfectly. He didn’t want to be understood. He wanted everyone to leave him alone so he could work and make “Doorways” and “Treasure” into plays that would have the whole Kingdom talking for the next ten years. And on the Royal Circuit, not the Winterly.
Ten years on the Royal Circuit …
Back in this place where he’d dreamed that horrific Elsewhen over and over and over, it was too easy to catch the echoes. As he struggled day after day with the scripting of the two plays, alternating between them, dissatisfied with both, he gradually realized that he couldn’t work in this house where he’d known such fear. The enjoyment he needed, the delight in his craft, the opening of his heart as well as his mind to shaping the words and visualizing the ideas—none of it could be found at Fairwalk Manor.
He suspected it was in Frimham. But there was nothing he could do about that.
He would have to go back to town. He was getting nothing substantial done, he missed home, the quiet unnerved him, and Mieka had been right: He needed Lost Withies.
Besides, he’d had another dream.
In it, the tavern was just a nondescript taproom, no better and no worse than a hundred others like it up and down the Kingdom. This version of Tobalt Fluter was older but not yet gray, his broad, genial face a pattern of regret and perhaps some anger. The man interviewing him was different, though: young, fair-haired, his thin features intense as he scribbled his notes. Nothing too frightening, really, until Tobalt began to speak.
{“I’ve talked with Cayden at least a dozen times over the years, and he’s always full of the meaning of this and the significance of that, how Art reveals Truth—” The sardonic tone gave the words capital letters. “—but he’s a cold-hearted bastard and I don’t wonder his wife finally left him.”
“Cold?” The young man stopped writing. “But—the plays—they’re—”
“Yeh, I know—emotes all over everything in his work, doesn’t he? But the only feelings that matter are his, and a feeling’s important only if he can use it. Oh, he feels, that’s not in question—he’d never be able to prime a withie if he didn’t. But an emotion is no more than a bit of scenery to him, a bell chiming in the distance.” He smiled without humor. “Just part of the illusion.”
The young man wasn’t ready to concede the point. “Touchstone gives a great show.”
“Not up to their earlier work. Cade’s impulses were always dark, but in the last few years they’ve gone frightening.”
“Well, consider what he’s been through.”
“What he’s put himself through.” Tobalt paused for a sip from his glass. “About a year or so after it happened, I saw him in a tavern one night, hunched in a corner. Empty bottles on the table and a pouch of dragon tears half-falling out of his pocket—oh, don’t look shocked, son, the rumors were everywhere.”
The young man had dropped his pen. He picked it up and started writing again. “Are you confirming them?”
“Let’s just say there was no mistaking one of those little gold velvet bags old Lullfinch used for his best customers. Of course, this was before the Crown sent him to Culch Minster for murdering a couple of his girls at the Finchery. Anyway, there sat Cayden Silversun, Master Tregetour, stinking drunk and three thorns lost. I called a hire-hack, got him into it, and told the driver to take us to Criddow Close. That’s where his glasscrafter lives. There’d been some bitterness between them, but I was sure she’d take care of him.”
“Bitterness?”
“None of your affair, son.” Another swig, deeper this time, from the glass. “Cade sprawled across the seat for about half the drive, then woke up, looking sober as a High Justiciar, and stared at me for a moment. Then—and he was dead serious—he asked, ‘Why should that fucking little Elf have all the glory?’”
“‘Glory’?” The pen slipped from his fingers again, leaving a splotch of dark blue ink on the paper. “He died!”
“I might have mentioned something of the sort. But the dragon tears had taken him back by then, and he was unconscious when we got to the glassworks. I took the liberty of relieving him of that gold velvet pouch before he woke up and started for the stairs.” Tobalt shrugged. “I was trying to explain it all to the glasscrafter—she wasn’t half pleased to see him, I can tell you that—when he came tumbling back down the stairs, landing in a heap at our feet. He’d had a bit more thorn tucked into his boot, and he’d used it. He was damn near dead. I think he wanted to be dead.”
“But he survived.”
“Yes, he’s still here. For all the joy it gives him.” Tobalt stared into his glass, then said, “His life’s a horror and there’s naught he can do to change it. His tragedy is that he could have chosen to do so a hundred different times, and didn’t. When Touchstone lost their Elf, they lost their soul.”}
Cade had discussed various emotions with Vered Goldbraider the night of the Shadowshapers’ party at Seekhaven, and how to evoke them in an audience rather than simply provide them with
magic. As he lay awake in the early morning hours after rousing from that dream, he blinked the sweat from his eyes and recalled what his fellow tregetour had told him.
“True horror comes from inside, and it won’t be the same for any two men in the theater. Real horror, it ain’t just fear, it’s shock. Mindless. Like joy, or love—you’re helpless. The trick is to choose enough specifics without sacrificing the subtleties.”
It was akin to what Jeska had said about leaving space enough for the audience to inhabit the character. And it had surprised him to hear Vered, so much the advocate for thought over emotion, discuss feelings so perceptively. He’d thought he knew all there was to know about structuring a play, but he’d learned from Jeska, and from Mieka, and from Vered, and was humbled. It seemed to be his season for humility, he reflected, and, remembering Black fucking Lightning, outright humiliation.
He didn’t like it much.
He left for Gallantrybanks the next noon, unaccompanied by His Lordship, to whom he offered an apology and no explanation beyond a letter that had arrived that morning. Two laconic sentences from Blye: Jedris and I are getting married next week. I thought you might like to be there, if you’re done sulking.
“Well, of course you must go! I can’t accompany you—so much to be done here, don’t you see, I really can’t leave just yet—only wait while I scribble a note to the Brother Superior—”
“If I know Blye, she won’t want High Chapel. She’s a good bit Goblin, y’know.”
“She—well—oh, that’s fine, then,” Kearney stammered, as if he’d said something embarrassing. “But at the very least I must send along a present. Now, what would be beautiful and appropriate?”
As he bustled off, Cade remembered his manners and called after him, “It’s very kind of you to offer, Kearney—I’m sure she’ll be grateful—”
A languid hand waved in the air above his head. “Not at all, dear boy, not at all! And I think I know just the thing to send her!”
Kearney’s idea of just the thing turned out to be a matched set of twenty silver serving dishes. They certainly were beautiful, all scrollwork and curlicues, but Cade wondered (silently) how appropriate they might be to the home of a builder and a glasscrafter.
“You’ll note the monogram in the center,” Kearney said as the plates, bowls, salvers, and platters were lovingly packed into a huge crate that Cade was certain would end up weighing more than he did. “W, for my grandmother, who was a Winterwold.” Then, anxiously, he added, “Will she like these, do you think?”
Cade smiled. “W for Windthistle. I’m sure she’ll love them.”
As the carriage clattered down the graveled drive, Cade folded himself into a corner and stared sightlessly out at the countryside. He’d have to find a wedding present, himself—two wedding presents that were appropriate to Windthistle.
What was it Vered had said about horror, and joy, and love? That they were shocks that left a man bereft of reason. That they were different for everyone. And that to evoke them, Cade had to choose specifics, but be subtle.
Would it be unsubtle to give Mieka a yellow shirt?
Just to remind him. Just to warn him.
Just to be snide and superior and let him know that Cade could run his life better than he could.
Chapter 7
Unexpected arrivals, even at unsightly hours of the morning, had no power to startle Mistress Mirdley. When Cayden dragged himself through the kitchen door she looked up from pounding bread dough into submission, arched a brow, and said, “Your bed’s fresh made, and you’d best use it, by the looks of you.”
Cade was so glad to see her that he paused long enough for a hug, which she returned, and a kiss on her cheek, which she did not. Then he trudged up the wrought iron stairs to the fifth floor, stripped off, and fell into bed.
He was brusquely awakened that afternoon by a voice demanding, “What’s that bloody huge wooden crate with my name on it, then?”
Blinking himself to consciousness, he shrank back in bed with the covers clutched to his chin. “Mistress Cindercliff! What are you doing in a man’s bedchamber? And you so soon to be wedded! The scandal and the shame of it!”
Blye gave him a poisonously sweet smile as she set a large tea tray on his desk. “Who’s going to tell? Not you! Jed’s just as tall as you are, and half again your heft. They’d be carrying you out in more pieces than your glass baskets could hold.” She pulled the chair out and sat herself down. “Now. That crate downstairs in the kitchen.”
“Wedding present from His Lordship.”
“Good Gods.” She sat back, a bit stunned. Then, with brisk suddenness, “You already know everything I could say about what happened at Trials, so I won’t say it. I’ll not be discussing the wedding, neither, not yet, except to say that if you think you’ll not be the one putting my hand into Jed’s, think again. Dery will be up soon with the teapot, so tell me quick—how did Lord Fairwalk know to book Touchstone everywhere from Kiral Kellari to the Keymarker before the ink on the Winterly list was dry?”
“Did he?” Cade parried.
“Chivvy-chavvy all over town has you playing four nights a week the whole summer! Tobalt Fluter came by the shop for a gossip. Not that I could tell him anything, or would. At least he bought a candleflat for his mother’s Namingday—while he was looking at the last windowpanes for the Keymarker. He wants to talk to you, by the bye.”
“Another interview!” He gave an elaborate shudder. “I’d rather talk about your wedding.”
“Open the door!” yelled Derien, and with a scowl Blye jumped up to oblige. “Mistress Mirdley said I wasn’t to bother you and I didn’t, not all morning long—beholden, Blye,” the boy said as she took the teapot, then rushed on, “and she also said I wasn’t to say anything about Trials and how unfair it was and how they could ever pick Black Lightning over Touchstone—so I won’t,” he finished, and threw his arms around Cade. “But it was unfair,” he muttered as Cade hugged him tight.
And suspect, said Blye’s expression.
Cade didn’t want to discuss it. So, as his little brother—who’d grown at least an inch in the weeks Cade had been away at Trials and Fairwalk Manor—settled at the foot of his bed and accepted the cup and laden plate Blye handed him, he regaled them with the story of Mieka, the High Chapel courtyard, and the yarking that really wasn’t.
Mayhap not the best tale while they were eating. But even when he wasn’t physically present, the mad little glisker could make anyone laugh. And that got him to thinking, after Derien and Blye had taken the tea things back downstairs and he was getting dressed, about something Kearney had said.
They had been talking over a selection of wines. Kearney was teaching Cade how to drink. Not that he didn’t know the theory, and had become quite adept at the practice. His months of working in Master Honeycoil’s wine shop had taught him the names of all the best vintages and vintners, but he’d been only twelve at the time and had rarely tasted any of them. Until Touchstone started making good money, all Cade really knew were the names, years, and makers of fine wines and brandies. His experience of beers and ales had taught him that the difference between tolerable and awful was the vehemence of his hangover the next morning. And having once tasted Brishen Staindrop’s whiskey, he scorned all others. Kearney had been willing to concede the point about the whiskey, but Cade’s total lack of discernment about other liquors appalled him.
“That is a glass of twenty-year-old wine! Do not throw it down your throat! You’re tasting a vintage, not filling a bucket!”
Cade had laughed, and mocked Kearney for trying to give a yobbo like him lessons in Snob. His Lordship had taken a moment or three to smile, and that had led to why certain people thought certain things were funny and others didn’t.
“Humor, don’t you see, is something extremely personal and frightfully manipulative. To share with someone what you think is funny, or to laugh at someone else’s joke, is a surprisingly intimate thing.”
Ca
de had remarked that there’d been a boy at littleschool with him and Rafe who found it riotously funny to pluck the wings off flies. Since the age of seventeen, the boy had been an involuntary guest of His Most Gracious Majesty, and was said to be very good at breaking rocks at the quarry attached to the prison.
“Well,” Kearney had said, “that was rather predictable, don’t you see? What someone finds ridiculous, hilarious, witty, or ironic says much about the sort of person he is. Once you know how to make someone laugh, you can manipulate him so he has no choice but to laugh. He’ll think of you with pleasure. And then you can get away with just about anything.”
Nobody else in that courtyard would recall Mieka Windthistle with pleasure. But it was true that he did get away with just about anything. Cade was looking at his own face in the mirror while shaving when it occurred to him that whereas there was much more to Mieka than the laugher, the laughter was all he allowed most people to see. With it, he manipulated; behind it, he hid. And to think he had the bollocks to goad Cade into putting more of himself into the magic.
Their first booking after Cade’s return was at the Keymarker, a new tavern at a prime corner location in a district the other side of the Gally River. The area had undergone extensive renovations in the last few years, turning abandoned warehouses into flats for the families of merchants who oversaw the Kingdom’s ever-growing trade. There were a few blocks of swank dwellings with views of the river, places where the rent stayed the same no matter how many flights one had to climb; fresher air and wider skies were considered ample compensation for more stairs and smaller rooms.