by Melanie Rawn
When Cade nodded, Mieka let the door swing closed behind him. Then he met his own empty gray eyes in the mirror one last time.
He could have said yes, could have taken Mieka back to Redpebble Square to plot Dery’s Namingday party. He could have kept him out of her bed that night, changed just this one thing, and maybe from it more changes would come, and she wouldn’t be able to tame him and break him and that little boy with the sad eyes would never be born, and—
Turned out he was wrong: there was one person he hated more than he hated her.
Jeska laughed later that night, watching Mieka gulp down a post-show beer and then hurtle for the door. “Those two little beauties,” he said, shaking his head. “Can’t keep their hands off each other!”
Curfew hadn’t yet rung—they’d done a short show tonight—and the tall blonde was waiting for him. He took his time looking her up and down, then gave her a smile and held out a hand.
“Fancy a drink, darlin’?” he asked when she joined him.
“Ooh, yes!” she breathed, gazing up at him as if he were all the Angels wrapped up in one man. She was perhaps eighteen, perhaps not. Her eyes by the lamplight were a dark, sultry brown. “I want to hear all about the theater, and what you’re writing next, and—”
He tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow. “All about it,” he promised. A lie, of course. He didn’t discuss his work with silly little girls who couldn’t possibly understand. Mieka had been right about him: There were only two sorts of women as far as Cade was concerned—people, and not.
No, not entirely right. There were women who were women, there were women who were people, and there was her.
Chapter 8
After receiving no satisfaction from Cade on the question of Lord Fairwalk’s seeming prescience about the Winterly, Blye applied to Mieka.
“How did he know to put together all those bookings?” she demanded on the morning before her wedding. They were seated on the floor of the small dining room at Wistly Hall, every other available surface—chairs, table, sideboard—and much of the floor itself covered in decorations, stacked plates, crated glassware, unopened gifts, and baskets of clean table linens. “It’s as if he knew you were going to fail—”
Mieka arched a brow. She blushed.
“—not fail, I didn’t mean that,” she continued hurriedly. “That you wouldn’t make the Ducal Circuit, that’s what I meant.”
He smiled and went on tying white and purple ribbons round the stems of twenty little glass nosegays, one for each female guest. Blye hadn’t made them; they were the work of one of her late father’s friends. Delicate rosebuds of white and various shades of purple nestled in real ferns, and after the ribbons were on, he’d be taking them to his mother so she could becast the flower petals to open when Jed and Blye were pronounced husband and wife. Mieka had to make sure the ferns fanned artistically around the roses, then tie them off, clip the uneven ends, and set them upright in a tray of water so the real greenery would stay fresh. After the tenth nosegay, he was grateful that this was a very small wedding.
“The weather looks nice for tomorrow morning,” he said, looking out the wide windows at the river. “Mum’s been dithering for a week that it might rain—”
“Mieka! I don’t care about the weather!”
“You will if your gown gets sopped,” he predicted, then gave in as he finished yet another bow. “Oh, all right, then. Yeh, I admit it smells a bit, His Lordship grabbing up all those bookings. But Cade says, and I agree with him, that he was just bein’ safe. If we’d got the Ducal, we just would’ve shifted the Gallytown dates to this winter.” He frowned as he clipped the tag ends of the ferns. “Cade also says we got more money this way, too—if they’d known we wouldn’t move up, the way everybody expected we’d do, they would’ve offered less.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense! They booked you for the summer at a rate the Ducal or Royal groups get on the strength of an expectation that you wouldn’t be available this summer?”
“I’m not understanding it much, meself,” he admitted. “But the fact is we’re here, and we need to work, and work is on offer.” He measured out another length of white ribbon and another length of plum, snipped them even, and poked through the basket of ferns. “I must really, really like you,” he said darkly, “to be doin’ all this lot.”
“It’s not so much that you like me,” she scoffed, “it’s that you’re scared of your mother!”
“So is three-fourths of Wistly Hall, else everybody’d be coming to this wedding and I’d be tying bows all night!” He eyed the glasscrafter sidelong. “It’s quite the tribe you’re marrying into, y’know. Might be a good notion to search Jed’s luggage when he moves into Criddow Close—you never know, there might be a cousin or three stowed away.”
Most of the relations living under Wistly’s capacious roof had been strongly encouraged by Mishia Windthistle to give polite regrets when invited to the wedding. Blye had insisted on the inviting; Jedris had pointed out that she hadn’t even met most of them; she retorted that they were his family; he rolled his eyes and replied, “Only at dinnertime.”
So it was to be a small wedding in the garden, and Mieka was making copious mental notes.
Not that he’d asked her yet. He’d come very near it, when time came to put her and her mother onto the public coach for Frimham. He’d wanted her to stay for the wedding, but her mother had insisted that they must return home. They still had work to do, finishing up garments for sale to the throngs who descended on the resort town during the summer. Mieka had come very, very close to saying chuck all of it and start on a wedding gown, but something had held him back. Only later did he understand that their absence was not just mannerly, it was kindly—for who would look at any other girl, even the bride, when she was around to look at? Much as he loved Blye, and as pretty as he knew she’d be tomorrow, no girl wanted to be outshone on her wedding day.
“Mieka! Aren’t you finished yet?” His mother strode in, trailing white and purple streamers from the overflowing box in her arms. “Cade’s here, and with him His Lordship, and you’re already late.”
He reached for the scissors. “I’m almost done, Mum, honest.”
“A likely tale,” Cade remarked from the doorway. “Come on, we’re off to get a polish on.”
“Lord Fairwalk is here?” Blye jumped up from the floor and smoothed her tunic. “I didn’t know he’d be coming—I must tell him how beholden we are—”
Cade grinned and pretended to cower to one side as she hurtled past. “Not fluttery, exactly, d’you think?”
“More a flurry,” Mieka replied. “You know, like snow going everywhere at once.” To his mother, frowning over him: “I’m nearly through, Mum, really!”
“Oh, go on with you,” she said. “I can get it done faster meself. And if you see Jinsie on your way out,” she called after him as he sprinted gratefully for the door, “tell her I’m wanting those stickpins for the gentlemen polished up now!”
“Stickpins?” Cade asked as he and Mieka headed for the front hall.
“Rikka Ashbottle’s great-uncle gave us a bargain—well, he would, wouldn’t he, considering the business Jed gives him, and Rikka working for Blye now. Little pewter thistles for a neckband or lapel,” he explained. “And you don’t want to hear the tale of whether the paint on the flower ought to be plum, grape, violet, wine, amethyst, or just plain ordinary serviceable purple. Gods, I thought Jinsie would never shut up. Then Fa wandered in and said, ‘A thistle’s the color of a thistle, innit?’ They rounded on him like starving sparrows on stray bread. What do people do, I wonder, when they haven’t anything in their names to use as a theme for wedding keepsakes?”
“Clan, I s’pose,” Cade mused. “Though I could have done without the spiderweb tea-tray mat. But with Rafe’s sense of humor, I’m surprised it wasn’t actual spiders.”
So Quill was back in a good mood, Mieka told himself. Looking forwards to the wedding tomorro
w, he decided, slanting an upward glance at him. But an instant later he revised his opinion. Cade wasn’t just in a fine humor; he was practically quivering with excitement.
“—don’t know how I’ll ever bring myself to use them, they’re so beautiful—”
“—instant I learned of the marriage, don’t you see, I thought you might like them—”
“I love them—”
Blye was still trying to express her gratitude for the silver plate, and His Lordship was still stammering that it was nothing, really, nothing at all, when Mieka and Cade arrived in the front hallway.
“—never even use them, really truly—”
“—to think you’d give up a family heirloom, it’s so kind of Your Lordship—”
“—ought to go to someone who’ll enjoy them, and the initial was the same, and all that sort of thing, so—”
Cade grinned down at Mieka, then stuck his fingers between his teeth and gave a shrill whistle. The pair spun round, startled. “Blye, you’re beholden to Kearney. Kearney, your gift is a grand success. Agreed? All right, then.” He bent to kiss Blye’s cheek. “Go worry about stickpins and streamers, won’t you? There’s a good girl.”
She smacked him a good one on the shoulder.
He was still pretending to rub the soreness away as they rode in His Lordship’s sprightly little rig towards the center of town. “I hope Jed’s a fast runner. She’s got a good reach and one hell of a clout on her, for a little slip of a thing.”
Mieka surveyed him sidelong, then said, “Tell me what’s got you grinning like a giddiot or I’ll give you a matching one on the other shoulder.”
“Not the writing arm, not the writing arm!” he pleaded, laughing. “Kearney, why don’t you do the honors?”
“Well.” His Lordship folded his well-tended hands on his precisely placed silk-clad knees. “You’ll know, of course, that Prince Ashgar has been waiting for a lady to accept him. Inquiries went out across the Continent last year—and oh, the delicacy of the negotiations, the subtleties involved—”
“Somebody finally accepted,” Cade cut in.
“Poor girl,” Mieka sighed. “Who is she?”
Fairwalk intoned, “Her Serenity Tregrefina Miriuzca of—” He broke off, clucking his tongue. “Lord and Lady witness it, I can’t pronounce the name of her homeland, no matter how I try or who gives me lessons. But she’s to become Ashgar’s Princess, don’t you see, and eventually our Queen, and—”
“And we’re to go over and help escort her home!” Cade blurted. “Us! Touchstone!”
Mieka could do nothing but stare.
“It’s the first time any theater group from the Kingdom has played on the Continent since the Firemongers—”
“The who?”
“About a century ago. But nobody’s been over since then, and it’s gonna be us, Mieka! Oh, and Kearney doesn’t think he can arrange it but what I’m thinking is that Alaen would be a good person to bring along as well, because they’re all mad for music in Gref Jyziero—”
“Is that how it’s pronounced?” Fairwalk asked earnestly. “Say it again, please, Cade?”
He obliged, then took another deep breath and rushed on, “If the idea is to show everybody how cultured and civilized we really are, and promote goodwill and all that sort of thing, then Alaen is essential, don’t you see? I’m already working on a list of which of our pieces would play well over there—considering the language differences and so forth—but we’re the ones who’ll change the whole way they look at theater, Mieka. They’ll find out that magical folk are worth having around after all, and there won’t be any more Escapings necessary, and—”
“He’s going to change the world,” Fairwalk said with an indulgent smile.
“And all that sort of thing,” Mieka heard himself say.
“I’ll have a good go at it!” Cade retorted. “It means a lot of work, of course, but we can use the shows we’ve already booked to refine things—” He turned to Fairwalk, frowning. “Have you seen to that? Canceling the summer shows with our apologies?”
“I only found out two days ago, Cayden,” he protested. “Hurried at once back to Gallantrybanks, don’t you see, to tell you and start planning. It’s not only clothes you’ll be needing, it’s new imagings, which remembers me you’ve an appointment next week with one of the Court imagers. And—”
“We should go round to all the taverns and say sorry in person,” Mieka interrupted.
“There’s hardly time for that,” Fairwalk said. “There’ll be letters from the Master of His Majesty’s Revelries, and the Prince’s Private Secretary as well, I shouldn’t wonder—”
“In person,” Mieka insisted. “And promise a return engagement when we get back, to make it up to them.”
Cade patted him on the head. “How very courteous and respectful of you, Mieka.”
“I can do it if I try very, very hard,” he replied with judicious use of The Eyes. Then all at once it really hit him: Touchstone had been chosen for this, not the Shorelines nor Black fucking Lightning nor even the Shadowshapers. Touchstone.
Cade laughed again, knowing what he was thinking. “Yeh—us!”
“And here we are,” said Fairwalk as the rig clattered to a decorous halt outside a small arcade of shops. “We shan’t be above four hours or so,” he added to the driver as he stepped round to pat the horse’s neck. “Take the old girl back home.”
“Very good, Y’r Lordship.”
Shopping with Kearney Fairwalk was quite the experience. They weren’t just picking up Cade’s and Mieka’s new jackets for the wedding tomorrow. They were also being kitted out for the trip to the Continent. The names discreetly painted on the shop windows were always followed by someone’s coat of arms to indicate the patronage of one noble house or another, and once or twice were accompanied by the simple RW that meant Royal Warrant. Mieka had never been in such expensive establishments in his life. The finest stock was brought out for their perusal and the service was so unctuous that for the first four shops, Mieka was sure they were all being mocked. This was not the case, as he discovered as they exited the hattery, where the owner held the door open, one clerk bowed as if to the King, and a second committed an appalling breach of manners by saying, “So grateful that Your Lordship thought of us, much beholden for your custom.”
Kearney Fairwalk fixed him with a look to freeze molten glass. The other clerk gulped audibly. The owner, one hand full of doorknob and the other holding a large beribboned box with their choices inside, looked for a moment as if he’d rather have his fingers around the clerk’s throat before a sort of frantic professionalism took over.
“Craving Your Lordship’s pardon,” he begged, flinging a glance of pure rage at the poor clerk, who had turned a remarkable shade of red. “And hoping Your Lordship can forgive my sister’s lackwit son for addressing Your Lordship.”
Mieka was fascinated to watch as Fairwalk unfroze and waved a careless hand. “No harm done, not a bit of it. Wouldn’t dream of setting foot anyplace else, don’t you see. Good day to you.”
They proceeded grandly outside into the arcade, and Mieka asked, “What was all that, then?”
“First,” Cade explained, “he actually spoke. Second, he expressed gratitude to a titled nobleman—which implies that now he owes that nobleman a favor, which is of course absurd and even insulting, because what service could a miserable lowly clerk in a hat shop possibly do for a lordship? Third—”
“There’s a ‘third’?”
“Certainly there is! It’s the further implication that there might be another hattery with goods either as fine or—horror of horrors—even finer, which suggests that His Lordship doesn’t know the best place to buy a hat.”
“Or that I didn’t know my own mind when it comes to choosing which shop to buy from,” Kearney put in. “Where did you learn all that?”
“Kearney,” he said patiently, “you’ve met my mother.”
“Rot, ain’t it, though?”
Mieka asked. “I mean, implications of this and suggestions of that—fine for a farce onstage, but I never knew people really behaved that way.”
“Take notes,” Cade encouraged, smiling again. “You’ll have to be on your snootiest best behavior when we’re representing the Kingdom.”
“Do I have to?” he whined, just to make Cade laugh.
Fairwalk wasn’t laughing. “Yes, Mieka, you really truly do. Not behave snootily, I mean to say, but all your larking about, it won’t do. Please pay attention when the Court Protocol Officer lessons you while we’re on board ship. You understand, don’t you?”
“Oh, he understands right enough,” Cade said. “He’s not quite as thick as he looks. You mustn’t worry, Kearney. All we need do is threaten him with his mum.”
Shop after shop after shop received them with honors. There were places with sample garments on display, where one pointed to one’s preferences and clerks swarmed like ferrets over shelves that went to the ceiling. There were places with no windows, just an unobtrusive sign on the door, where one entered a room closely resembling a gentleman’s private library but without the books, all brown leather chairs and dark wood, and while sipping freshly brewed tea perused sketchbooks and swatches. Not one of the shops was remotely like the warehouses Mieka was used to, where clerks bellowed to one another across bolts of cloth strewn everywhere and piled to the rafters, and there were boxes and boxes of shiny buttons and bright ribbons and rainbow spools of thread to rummage through. One establishment in the arcade sold only buttons, in fact, each sample in its own little compartment in wide glass cases.
Mieka had assumed that Rafe and Jeska would be joining them at some point; that this was a mistaken impression became clear when Fairwalk pronounced himself satisfied with the cut of a longvest.
“We’ll want four, all in this material,” he told the proprietor, “but of different colors. The wine-red, that sand shade over there, the sea-blue, and the pearl-gray. We’ll send round the measurements. And for the shirts and trousers as well.”