by Melanie Rawn
Rafe slung a protective arm around his shoulders. They started up the dark street, not quite hurrying. Someone behind them called out “Albeynvolker!” again, and light spilled from opened windows.
“Down this way,” Jeska said.
“No, the turning was two more lanes on,” Cade argued.
There were footsteps behind them now, and angered mutterings, and the occasional shout of that odd word again that had sounded as if it meant more than folk from the Kingdom of Albeyn.
“Wasn’t it a left-hand turn?” Jeska asked.
“Who the fuck cares?” Briuly gasped. “Run!”
“No,” snapped Cayden. He pivoted and strode to the center of the street. Quite the little mob had gathered behind them, heads and shoulders dappled by the light pouring down from opened windows. Cade lifted both hands, and from his fingertips spread a curtain of blue-white Wizardfire.
It took only seconds. The street beyond emptied faster than a whorehouse after a rumor of pox. Cade staggered. Rafe abandoned Mieka and put both big hands around Cade’s bony ribs to support him. The sheen of light flickered and died out, and Cade sagged back against Rafe.
“Idiot!” the fettler accused. “You know what that takes out of you! Well?” he flung over his shoulder at the gaping others. “Help me with him! Let’s get out of here!”
How they found their way back to their assigned lodgings was something Mieka never knew and never troubled himself about. It was enough to be upstairs in their room and hear Jeska lock the door. Rafe hauled Cade over to a bed and dropped him onto it, then grabbed a blanket from another bed. Mieka tugged off Cade’s boots. A blurry, surprisingly sweet smile touched the exhausted face before his cheeks suddenly glistened with sweat and he rolled onto his side and groaned. Mieka grabbed for the piss pot beneath the bed, and just in time, too. Whatever Cade had quaffed that night—and it seemed to be a lot—he parted company with it rather violently.
Rafe sat on the other side of the bed, ready with a wet cloth when Cade finally fell onto his back, breathing hard. “Nice show,” Rafe remarked. “You done?”
A feeble nod, a little shrug of thin shoulders. He closed his eyes as the cloth was draped over his forehead.
“Rafe.” Mieka blinked across at the fettler. “How come—?”
“Later. Let’s put him to bed.”
Fairwalk woke up then—and so did Drevan Wordturner, who was with him in the big bed over in the corner. Mieka smirked as the nobleman blithered witlessly with embarrassment; Rafe told him to go back to sleep, they’d explain it all in the morning.
Jeska doubled up with Briuly, and Mieka slid under the sheets of the other bed with Rafe so that Cade could rest undisturbed. In the darkness, after everyone had settled, Mieka whispered, “Why—?”
“Hits him hard. Always did.”
“But—those torches that time—the inn yard up north, when that man wouldn’t let me under his roof—” The first time Cade had summoned Wizardfire to Mieka’s defense.
“That was different.”
Mieka squirmed impatiently. Rafe sighed, and relented.
“Torches already know fire. And they’re a something to attach it to. Plain old air, it doesn’t much want to burn, does it? And there’s nothing to fasten onto, except what’s nearby, and he didn’t want to burn down the shop signs—or the shops. Takes a fettler’s control, or damned near.”
“I’m not understanding.”
“Well, you stay awake thinking about it, then.”
Sleeping very little, sleeping badly, and sleeping not at all—rotten nights were getting to be a tradition on this trip. Mieka wanted to go home. But he knew better than to say so out loud.
The next morning he pretended to be asleep as the others woke, got up, washed, dressed, mumbled—quietly, so as not to wake Cayden—and left the room. At last Mieka rose from the bed where Rafe had snored in his ear all night and crept over to Cade. He still looked knackered: pale, with dark circles under his eyes and a hollowness about him.
“Idiot,” Mieka murmured, agreeing with Rafe’s indictment of last night, now that he knew what it cost Cade to perform that sort of magic. “We could’ve outrun them, y’know.”
“Not bleedin’ likely,” Cade whispered back, and opened his eyes. “It’s sad, innit? That they’re scared of the light.”
Mieka didn’t know what he meant, and for the moment didn’t much care. “Why’d you do that, eh? You’ll be neither use nor ornament all day long and probably into tomorrow.” Sudden anger nipped at him. “And what if they’d braved all your flash and sparkle, what then?”
“They’d have strung me up right next to you, Elfling.” He smiled and stretched. “I didn’t much fancy either, now that you mention it. And it worked out. You’re safe.”
“For now.” He could have bitten off his own tongue for the words. Cade’s smile vanished. With an effort, he shrugged and said lightly, “I’ll wear a cap from now on, that’s what I’ll do. But don’t you ever again—”
“I’ll do what I have to. No one touches you, Mieka. Not while I’m around.”
He watched the fierce gray eyes for a time, then snorted as much of a laugh as he could manage. “My hero! C’mon, then, I can hear your stomach flapping against your spine, you’re that empty. Let’s get some food into you.”
Mieka hadn’t much hope that they’d come down late enough for breakfast to escape the You did what last night? and the Oh good Lord and Lady preserve us! and especially the Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I? that he figured were inevitable from Kearney Fairwalk. So he was astounded when no such exclamations were forthcoming. No scolding. No demands to be told Fairwalk had been right about using magic outside a theater setting. Mieka let his eyebrows ask a silent question of Rafe, who shrugged innocently and passed the porridge.
Later, when they were dividing up into coaches one more time, he sidled up to Rafe and hissed, “What’s with His Lordship?”
“He knows we went out drinking. He doesn’t know about the other. Shall we keep it like that? Good.”
Their route out of the town took them past the tavern. Mieka didn’t really recognize the place, but he would never forget the face of the man who’d stared at him so ferociously last night. That face looked up from where the man was shaking out a small blue rug, and for just an instant Mieka cringed.
Even that one instant was too much.
“Stop! Stop the coach!” He grabbed for the door handle and jumped out before anyone could do more than speak his name. He stumbled a bit on landing, caught his balance, and stepped up from the cobbled street to the pavement. More rugs, none larger than a counterpane for a single bed, were draped over wooden hurdles; two barmaids, including the girl who’d sat on his lap last night, were slapping dust from them with woven cane beaters.
“Mieka! What in all hells—”
“Won’t be a moment!” he called back over his shoulder as he sauntered towards the girl, who shrank back against the tavern windows. “G’mornin’, darlin’!” He smiled at her as he unbuttoned his trousers.
“Mieka!” Cade yelled again.
He was pleased that the rug hadn’t been washed; the dry wool, woven in an interlocking pattern of green ferns round a plain yellow field, soaked up moisture nicely. His aim was, moreover, excellent. He managed to monogram it with a large MW before he ran out of piss.
Behind him, he could hear cries of outrage—and howls of laughter. The barkeep finally found his voice as Mieka was stuffing himself back into his trousers, and Drevan Wordturner was kind enough to translate between guffaws.
“Mieka—he—he says you’ll pay for that—”
“Delighted!” Digging into a pocket, he flung some coins onto the sidewalk. Then he grabbed the rug, admired his work, rolled it up, and heaved it atop the coach with the rest of their baggage. He gifted his audience with his most adorable smile before hopping back in, slamming the door, and calling out, “Oh, and by the bye—fuck you!”
He could hear the driver laughi
ng as the horses were encouraged to step lively. Rafe and Jeska and Briuly were still chortling; Fairwalk looked ready to faint; Drevan seemed torn between admiration and disbelief.
Cade eyed Mieka sidelong, gray eyes glinting wickedly. “I’d been wondering what you’d bring home as a keepsake.”
* * *
The next night they stayed strictly inside the immediate precincts of the inn they were assigned. Not that anybody suggested going anyplace else—they were too tired and too scared. Mieka went up to bed early, and this time went straight for the redthorn. He had just tucked it all away as Cayden trudged into the room.
“Want some?”
“Gods—please.”
Mieka gestured to his satchel, turned onto his side, and went instantly to sleep.
The last night of the journey was spent beside the shore of a long, narrow lake. They’d been informed that now they were on the Tregrefin’s land, and this was his family’s favorite summer holiday spot. Not that they stayed in his lodge; that was reserved for the Archduke. The rest of the delegation was distributed amongst the inns on either side of the big timbered house. By night, sitting outside in the warm soft air, they could see the lamps of the other inns and a few cottages shining off the water. Pretty, Mieka thought, but nowhere near as lovely as a moonglade. The lights of a score of glass-shielded candles cast shadows on the benches and tables set out on the grass, and on the rug recently washed and left to dry on the pebbled shingle.
“Where’d you learn how to do that, anyway?” Cade asked.
“A fine, proud Windthistle family tradition, it is,” he declaimed, “fabled in song and story—”
“Mieka.”
“I think Jed managed his initials and Blye’s in a snowbank last winter—”
“Mieka!”
“—but Jez always runs dry before he can finish the W. Bladder the size of a shriveled almond, that one. Want lessons?”
“Lessons—?”
“Takes a bit of practice, o’ course, to perfect one’s style. And more than a bit of privacy. I mean, one doesn’t just stand about waving it this way and that—”
Cade gave up and laughed.
Their lodgings were at the midpoint of the lake, with a view by day of hills ascending to distant peaks tipped even in summer with snow. They were relaxing after an excellent dinner of rabbit jugged in the local white wine, bread so feather-light it almost floated off the plates, and a pastry filled with five different sorts of berries. Cade looked happy, and not so hollow, and Mieka decided life was good after all.
“You could prob’ly take that cap off now, y’know,” Cade said.
Mieka responded by pulling the thin knitted wool farther down over his ears. It was a ludicrous thing, concentric circles of green, blue, yellow, red, pink, purple, white, and black: the sort of item a girl undertook when she had yarn left over from a dozen other projects and couldn’t think what else to do with it. Jeska had gone out to the shops for something to conceal Mieka’s ears, and he was grateful. He didn’t want to provoke those looks in anyone’s eyes ever again.
“Actually, you might set a new fashion,” Cade went on.
“In hiding what I am?” The flash of defiance after the memory of fear confused him. He stared down into his glass. “Quill … if it had been something I’d done—I mean, I’m used to that, gettin’ meself into trouble, and I take the consequences I set meself up for—”
“No, you don’t,” Cade murmured. “When are there ever any consequences? You use those eyes of yours, and everybody forgives you.”
“Not this time, though. If I’d done something, said something—but it was because of what I am. Why do I have to be forgiven for what I am?”
“And what are you, exactly?” Cade asked, even more softly. Mieka glanced over at him, not understanding. Cade smiled. “Mieka Windthistle. The best glisker in Albeyn—hells, the best in the world! An artist. A good son, a wonderful brother, a fine friend. Nothing that needs forgiving.”
“Let’s not forget Piksey, Sprite, Human, a bit of Wizard and a dash of Fae—and, oh yeh,” he finished bitterly, “Elf. Windthistle, Cloudshaper, Staindrop, Moonbinder, Flickflame, Snowminder, Greenseed, Heartwood—every kind of Elf there is, Air and Water and Fire and Earth, with the ears to prove it. I can’t help any of that, and I wouldn’t if I could, no more than you can help having gray eyes or Kearney Fairwalk can help—” He broke off and glanced away.
“Ah, yes,” Cade said. “Did you really think I didn’t know?”
“But he acts like it’s something he needs to be forgiven,” Mieka argued. “Did you hear him, gibbering away, when we saw he was in bed with Drevan?”
“I didn’t pay much mind.”
“Is it something to be ashamed of?”
“I think it’s complicated,” he said slowly. “The Archduke can’t help the father he was born to, but don’t you think he’d rather not have that always in people’s minds when they look at him or hear his name? I think Kearney’s like that, in a way. He’s not ashamed, exactly. But all that aristocratic arrogance, the way he talks when there’s people about—”
“He talks like that all the time.”
“Not really. He can be entirely sensible and direct. With me, anyway, when we talk about theater. Still, I agree that he tends to give people something to listen to and look at.” Cade sipped wine and drummed his fingers on the table. “If you don’t give people something they have to take note of, they won’t. So it follows that if you shove it in their faces where they can’t look away, they have to notice. And that’s all they see. All they think about.”
“But they don’t think. All they do is react.”
“You do the same thing as Kearney, in your own way. You give people plenty to see, you make them notice you, and you do it on purpose. So they won’t see what’s real about you.”
Mieka sat back, stung. “I don’t—”
“Yes, you do.” He took the bottle from the table and shared it out between their glasses. “I’m not sure I have you worked out yet, not completely, but I do know that a lot of what you show the world is—it’s like that cap. It’s bright and noisy and makes people laugh. But it’s hiding something you don’t want people to see.”
“Not because I’m ashamed!”
“Of course not. That’s why this upsets you so much. Back on the Winterly, with that Prickspur snarge—you got a look in those eyes I never thought I’d see. I knew I didn’t ever want to see it again. Yet there it was, the other night. Someone made you feel less than who you are because of what you are.”
For a moment he considered saying something like, Either I’ve had too much to drink or not enough, because I actually understand what you’re saying! But what came out of his mouth was, “It’s how all people like us feel here, innit? Like they ought to be ashamed of what they are. That old man, hiding his magic, talking about rules. And what you said about them being afraid of the light.”
“Exactly. Those people in that tavern—they saw your ears and knew you for different, for magic folk.”
“They hated me.”
“They were afraid of you.”
“Me?”
Cade smiled at him. “If you were talking to anyone except me, you’d use another tone of voice. That harmless little me? tone, and a bit of what your mother calls The Eyes.”
“But it’s you, Quill.” Suddenly Mieka remembered the Elsewhen, and “I think I hated you.” He had to know. He had to ask. “Cayden—?”
But Jeska was coming towards them across the lawn with a fresh bottle in his hand, and the moment was gone.
Chapter 15
Not knowing what to expect, for he’d not bothered to ask, Mieka was frankly astonished by how young their new Princess was. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. A tall girl, blond and long-limbed and with a neck like a swan, to his eye it would take another few years before she outgrew the gangly stage. From what he knew about Prince Ashgar, however, it would take much less time for her to out
grow her innocence. And that was a pity.
What surprised him even more was Cayden’s reaction to their first sight of her. Arrival at her father’s palace had involved a lot of trumpets and bowing, smiling and introductions, and when it came Touchstone’s turn to be presented, and they got close enough for a good look at her, Mieka caught Cade’s fleeting look of dismay.
“All right, then, what was that?” he demanded when they had been left alone in the banqueting hall that would serve as a theater. Huge, draughty old place, it was, with a low ceiling and worm-gnawed roof timbers ready to disintegrate if somebody looked at them wrong. Jedris and Jezael would have been horrified—and a lot richer, after they’d mended it all.
“What was what?” Cade asked warily. Jeska and Rafe were pacing out the dimensions, as usual during their first look at a new location.
“I know you’ve never met the girl, but it was like you recognized her.”
“I did.” Giving up all pretense, Cade dug his hands into his jacket pockets and scowled. “You recall that time we did ‘Hidden Cottage’? At Trials last year. For the Prince. I got a glimpse of her, running across a field—she looked so happy, so excited.…”
“Elsewhen.” Mieka thought about this, then bumped Cade with a shoulder. “You really do have to start mentioning these things, Quill.”
“What I see—it’s what might happen, Mieka, not necessarily what will happen.”
“According to a decision you do or don’t make, and you can’t live other people’s lives for them—yeh, yeh, heard it all before. And I’m not asking you to tell me the ones about me. Just a hint now and then, eh? We could talk it over, like.” He paused, and added more softly, “You don’t have to be completely alone with it, y’know.”
He looked anywhere but at Mieka. “I’ll think about it.”
Aware that this was as good as he would get for now, Mieka ran the length of the hall and jumped up onto the platform where the high table traditionally stood. On the schedule of amusements were several musical performances and a masked ball before the marriage-by-proxy and celebration feast. Though the space was currently empty of everything but themselves and a lot of benches stacked round freshly whitewashed plaster walls, his imagination supplied it with all the flash and laughter of an authentic Royal banquet from the olden days. Jugglers roaming amidst crowded tables; musicians up in the minstrels’ gallery behind the carved wooden screen; ladies in odd pointed headdresses, veils trailing in the soup; banners fluttering from the rafters; torches giving more smoke than light; cats and dogs scrounging for scraps; and in the center of it all a bonfire roasting a boar and a stag or two—