by Melanie Rawn
“But that’s—you don’t—the problem—”
“The problem,” Cade told him, “is Mieka. And we’re about to mend it. Better call a physicker, though, because he’ll soon be needing somebody to mend him.”
“You don’t understand!”
“Don’t I?” He turned, four steps above Kearney, towering even more than usual over the Gnomish little man. “He wears Rafe out trying to control him, changes up everything—takes my magic and does with it as he bloody well pleases! The only reason every person in that hall isn’t blithering right now is that nothing gets past Rafe.”
Kearney looked a beseeking up at him, then blurted, “The Archduke!”
Taken aback, Cade asked, “What about him?”
Wordless again, Kearney simply pointed up towards their chambers. There was a footman stationed outside the door, not one of the Tregrefin’s servants but one of the Archduke’s, dressed in gray-and-orange livery. Cade shoved the door open before the man could do it for him, and strode into the room.
Jeska was posed by the empty hearth, leaning a casual elbow on the mantel. Rafe and a large glass of whiskey occupied a low chair. Mieka had perched on the windowsill, heels drumming lightly against the wall, a glass in one hand and a spent withie in the other; this he tapped at intervals against his thigh. This was unusual, for when he wasn’t behind his glisker’s bench he was rather muted, physically. It might have been the bluethorn making him restless; Cade hoped it was a justified fear of retaliation for what he’d done tonight.
“Ah, Master Silversun!” exclaimed the Archduke, who rose from his chair in welcome as if Cade were a fellow nobleman. “I see Fairwalk found you. Excellent. A brilliant performance tonight. Exceedingly powerful.”
Mieka simpered.
“Most affecting,” the Archduke continued. “And exceptionally skilled. We were just discussing—”
Mieka interrupted with a rudeness that would have made his mother faint. “We already have a manager.”
“Beholden all the same,” Jeska put in hastily.
For a split instant the Archduke’s upper lip twisted with insult. A minor aristocrat such as Kearney Fairwalk, no matter his distant connections to the Royals, could amuse himself as he liked; Cyed Henick was the Archduke. He smoothed his expression swiftly and said, “What I propose is more on the order of a partnership.” He looked down at his hands, hesitating, the very picture of diffidence, then glanced up with a half-smile. “What I had in mind is … well, I propose to build a theater.”
A real theater, the Archduke went on, constructed specifically for the purpose, not just an overhauled tavern or a barn or warehouse or guild hall fitted out with a stage and seats. Not even like Fliting Hall at Seekhaven. A place of perfect proportions, with no odd bits of stone or steel to rebound the magic, no awkward roof timbers to muffle it. A real stage with real room to work in. Everything built to a player’s most exacting specifications, so that all one need think about was the play itself. A theater designed by theater folk.
Designed by Touchstone.
“Under my sponsorship, and with my financial backing, we could build a theater in Gallantrybanks that would stun the entire Kingdom.”
Kearney finally found words sufficient, and sufficiently coherent, to make his point. “And Touchstone would be the featured players. Your theater, don’t you see, your work—whatever you want to write, Cayden, whatever you want to present—”
“Complete artistic control,” confirmed the Archduke. “My estimation is that it would take approximately two years to build—I already have my eye on a tract of land.” He paused, looking directly at Mieka. “And Fairwalk tells me your brothers would be the perfect choice for the construction contract.”
Cade asked, “And Blye Windthistle makes all the windows, I take it?”
“And lampshades. Don’t forget the lampshades,” Rafe drawled.
“Which you can shatter to your hearts’ delight,” said Kearney, smiling.
“Allow me to summarize.” The Archduke gestured, and Kearney began pouring more of the whiskey into everyone’s glasses, preparing to toast an agreement. “I provide the theater, you provide the performances.”
“And the plans for the theater,” Jeska said. “Anything we want?”
Kearney beamed at him. “Anything.”
It was no oddity, Cade reflected, that he’d seen nothing of this particular future. He saw only things where a decision of his affected the outcome. Here, there was no decision to be made at all.
“Much beholden, Your Grace,” he said. “But I’m afraid we’ll have to decline your generous offer.”
Kearney spluttered and nearly dropped the bottle. The Archduke’s eyebrows elevated a trifle up his forehead; Cade noted that his hairline had receded quite a bit for a man of his years.
“Perhaps a more detailed proposal would—”
Again Rafe interrupted. “If the proposal took up more pages than all the scripts for all the Thirteen Perils, it’d make no difference.”
“The answer’s no,” Mieka added helpfully.
“Beholden all the same,” Jeska repeated, in an entirely different voice this time.
Cade watched him search their faces in turn. Mieka: a half-smile on his lips, heels and hands now still. Jeska, wearing the blandest of masks. Rafe, narrow-eyed and cynical. And finally Cade himself, who greeted the scrutiny with a tiny shrug of his shoulders.
“That is disappointing,” said the Archduke, rising to his feet once more. “No need to see me out, Fairwalk, I can find my own way.” He paused at the door, turned, and with a hard smile said, “Your performance tonight truly was inspiring. An education. Good night.”
Kearney was almost in tears. Cade looked at him, not much liking what he saw, and said, “I think we’ll get some sleep now.”
The dismissal was delivered in Lady Jaspiela’s frostiest accents. Kearney looked dazed, then furious, and finally despairing. Without a word he turned and left, closing the door behind him.
“You might’ve asked us first, y’know,” Mieka said.
Cade spun round. “You disagree? You want to be owned by that man?”
“Hells, no! It just would’ve been nice if you’d asked.”
Rafe said, “Makes us feel all warm and loved inside.”
“Cherished,” seconded Jeska, a grin beginning on his face.
“At least,” Rafe went on, “we know now why Drevan Wordturner is here.”
“What?” Cade said, at the same time Mieka started nodding. “What’s that mean?”
The Elf hopped off the windowsill and headed for the garderobe. “Explain it to him, won’t you? I’m for a bath.”
“Explain what?”
Rafe sipped whiskey. “Why else would the Archduke bring him along?”
“To translate, of course,” said Jeska, as bewildered as Cade.
“But why him in particular? If I remember correctly, you said he doesn’t even like what he does. He’d rather be a cavalry trooper.”
“So?”
With a look of vast patience, Rafe replied, “What better way to get Kearney to take his part than by providing a pleasant playmate?”
Cade laughed. “And that’s why the Archduke brought Drevan instead of some other Wordturner from his collection? Don’t be daft.”
“You have a nice, long think on it, and let me know if it doesn’t make sense.” He finished his drink, stretched, and sighed. “I’m too tired right now to take that obnoxious little Elf apart. Remind me to do it tomorrow.”
Cade turned to Jeska, who was still looking perplexed. “Do you understand what he’s talking about?”
“Not all of it. But he may have a point. I mean, is it really coincidence that of all the people he could’ve brought along, he picked one who’s … well … like that? Like Kearney?”
“You’re as daft as Rafe,” Cade announced, and went into the garderobe to make sure Mieka was informed of this fact, and that he was included in the analysis.
&n
bsp; The garderobe was faced in brick—floor, walls, the long cabinet holding the sink, commode, and tub, though the last three were lined in plain green tile. The room smelled of sage, and Cade felt instantly calmer: it reminded him of Mistress Mirdley’s soap. The Elf was lolling in a steaming tub full of milky white water. He was still working on his glass of whiskey, and his fingers had taken up their tapping again on the rim of the tub.
“You don’t see it, do you?” he asked as Cade sat down in the chair before the shaving stand. “About Drevan.”
“Nothing to see.”
“He looks like you.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
Mieka scowled at him. “Oh, it’s that nobody could possibly be as ugly as you are, is that it? Let’s save that bit of shit for another sweeping. He’s about your height, he’s built long and lanky like you, he has a—well, shall we call it a somewhat conspicuous nose? His hair’s about the same color as yours, though lacking the curl, and I bet that if the light’s low and Fairwalk squints a little, he can fool himself that Drevan is you.”
“That’s—that’s—he’s never—you’re—”
Mieka let him splutter for a moment, then shook his head with mocking sorrow. “And to think you write for a living! He’s never, you’re right, but he’d like to. Rafe is right, too, but not right enough. How better for the Archduke to beguile His Lordship into favoring his cause than to provide not just someone who shares his habits, but who also looks like the man he wishes shared his habits?”
Cade could only stare stupidly at him, and watch him swallow whiskey.
“Oh, Quill! You don’t see the way he looks at you when you’re not looking. Like he’s a drunkard and you’re a bottle of brandy.”
Gathering himself, Cade rose to his full height and looked down his nose at Mieka. “Perhaps you ought to do the writing,” he said coldly. “With original images like that, you’re a natural. And by the bye, when Rafe finishes killing you for what you did tonight, I intend to kill you all over again.”
Mieka waved a lazy hand. “By appointment, I think. Shut the door on your way out, won’t you?”
Chapter 18
Whether it had been the shock of all those barely leashed emotions, or the impertinence of portraying the Tregrefina herself onstage, Touchstone was no longer the toast of Gref Jyziero. Cade had his suspicions that the Archduke had contributed to their disgrace, annoyed that his grand design hadn’t been greeted with instant and effusive gratitude. Whatever the cause, Kearney Fairwalk, still mortified from the night before, arrived at dawn to inform Touchstone that they had been disinvited to play that final performance after the wedding feast. He delivered the information in a dull monotone, saying that the palace had decided everyone would be too intent on celebrating and wouldn’t be disposed to appreciate their artistry. So the show was canceled.
Cade received this news through a throbbing headache, and really couldn’t find it in himself to care that they’d been sacked. He hadn’t slept much. Too many things whirred inside his head, and bluethorn wasn’t the best soporific in the world.
The others simply grunted or growled, rolled over, and went back to sleep. This aggravated Kearney into a brief lecture on professional responsibilities and didn’t they understand and they’d be lucky if they weren’t thrown onto a milk wagon for the journey back home.
“Just like the old days,” Rafe muttered.
“Nah, ’twas me Auntie Brishen’s whiskey wagon,” Mieka corrected drowsily. “An’ we had lots more fun, too.”
Jeska propped himself on an elbow, blinked slowly, and asked, “Can you get us a whiskey wagon, Kearney? Wine would do. That bubbly stuff, for choice.”
His Lordship surrendered the field and departed, slamming the door. Cade almost felt sorry for him. He felt sorrier for himself, and curled up under the sheets to be miserable.
Mieka’s usual grouk didn’t last as long as it normally did. Five minutes after the bells chimed ten, he was dressed and out the door, presumably in search of food and drink. Cade mused that the palace really must not like them anymore; usually their breakfast arrived without their having to send for it. He dozed, and the pounding in his head receded.
“Cade! Cayden, wake up and listen to me! I’ve had the most scathingly brilliant idea!”
Mieka was back. Cade pulled the sheets over his head.
“Go away. I’m still angry at you.”
“Oh, forget all that rot. Remember what Chat and Sakary did when Blye and Jed got married? Let’s do the same for the Princess! C’mon, Quill, it’ll be beautiful!”
“We’re as good as under arrest,” Rafe told him. “And not invited to the wedding itself, neither.”
“Your Lady Vrennerie thinks it’s a splendid idea,” Mieka wheedled, and Cade flung back the covers to see him grinning. “She can get us in through a side door. And she says the Princess loved what we did last night!”
Cade regarded him sourly. “I hate your ideas. I always hate your ideas. Why is that?”
“Just a little magic in a withie, Quill, please?” he whined.
“And she’s not my Lady Vrennerie.”
“Could be if you worked at it a bit. You don’t even have to be there if you want to cower up here until it’s time to leave tomorrow—”
“Go away!”
Still, he gave in eventually. He wondered sometimes why he bothered to resist. He was no more proof against The Eyes than anyone else, it seemed.
Lady Vrennerie showed up at their door, her hair dressed in ornate braids though her gown was only an everyday sort of linen. She led them through frantically crowded halls and up several flights of stairs to the Chapel. It wasn’t called a Chapel here; it had some unpronounceable name that boiled down to shrine. The architecture was most curious. There was a long aisle, and at its head a half-circular projection off to each side, one for the Lord and one for the Lady. Vrennerie explained that the Archduke would stand in the former, the Tregrefina in the latter, they would be called forward to meet in the middle, and someone equivalent to a Good Brother would speak a blessing. There were no plinths for Flame and Fountain, no statues or paintings or much of anything but a pair of linked circles, one green and one blue, above a wide stone slab that looked like a merchant’s counter. All it lacked was a cash drawer and a little sign warning that sneak thieves would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Not that there was anything to take, not in the whole shrine. No implements of religious service, no candles, no statues, no paintings, no stained-glass windows. There weren’t even any chairs.
“I was thinking those flowers she likes,” Mieka said, “and mayhap some bells.”
“Silver or gold?” Cade asked, fingering the two withies he’d brought along. “A trellis, or clusters floating about?” He turned to their guide. “What’s your opinion, my lady?”
“I think it’s time you stopped calling me that,” she said with a smile.
Cade ignored the snigger that Mieka didn’t bother to swallow. “What will she be wearing, Vrennerie?”
“Green, of course.”
“Green? For a bride?”
“She has white for the ceremony in Gallantrybanks,” she assured him. “Here, the wedding color for women is green. For men, blue.” She walked the length of the aisle, and Cade spent a few moments liking the way her skirts swayed gently with her strides. “Nothing during the actual rites, I think. But as they leave, and she shows herself outside on the balcony—” She pointed to the back of the shrine, where double doors were closed.
“Brilliant!” Mieka sang out. “A trellis, some bells—could you make them ring the way Chat did, Cade, or are you too completely tone-deaf?”
“I’m not tone-deaf.”
“One would never know it, to hear him sing,” Mieka confided to Lady Vrennerie. “Just give me a single nice note for all of them, won’t you?”
So they left the shrine, and parted from Lady Vrennerie, and upstairs in their room he primed the withies to give Mieka and Rafe ma
gic for a woven archway of blue forget-me-nevers and silver bells, though he knew he would be unable to supply the sort of delicate chiming Chat and Sakary had made.
As he worked, he heard Jeska’s troubled questions about the shrine. “Did you note? Why are there no Angels? What exactly do they believe round here?”
“According to the books and the protocol flunky,” Rafe said, “they venerate the Lord and the Lady, and that’s as far as it goes.”
“But what about the Angels?”
“They’re sort of mascots—each town has one for luck.”
“Nothing of the Old Gods at all,” Mieka remarked.
“Well, you’d expect that, wouldn’t you? In a land that chucks out magical folk from time to time.”
“Here,” Cayden said, tossing the withies to Mieka. “Enough to make your pretties. If you still want to, that is.”
“Of course I want to!”
That was the showing-off Mieka, he thought, the one who shattered withies in midair and pissed his initials onto a rug. The one who got bored easily and rebelled just for the distraction of it. The one of whom a wagon driver had said, “You’d do well to keep him, in spite of the trouble he’ll be to you.” The one whose restlessness became recklessness in an eyeblink.
Touchstone was not invited to the marriage ceremony. With the other guests, plus the palace servants and the entire population of three nearby towns and representatives from everyplace else in Gref Jyziero, they crowded outside on the lawn and waited for the new Princess to show herself on the balcony. It was hot, and everyone sweated in their fine clothing, and there would be nothing to drink until the banquet began. Cade eyed Mieka, who had the two withies up his sleeves, and then glanced at the expanse of gardens leading down to the lake. What would it be, he mused, to have all that space to stretch in, to prime glass twig after glass twig with sounds and scents and scenery, to watch as some grand vision spread itself magnificently through the air?
The Archduke hadn’t offered that, exactly. Cade knew what he’d offered, and what he’d left unsaid. He remembered what Derien had told him about the man in gray-and-orange livery outside Blye’s glassworks, and he remembered the two Masters from the Glasscrafters Guild who’d tried to shut Blye down. He remembered what Mieka had told him about the Archduke’s attempt to buy the Shadowshapers. Nobody owned Vered and Rauel and Chat and Sakary; nobody would ever own Touchstone, either.