by Melanie Rawn
“Before what happened? If you don’t mind me asking, of course.”
“Dunno,” he replied cheerfully. “To hear Mum tell it, one morning Fa just looked at her across breakfast and they both knew neither of them would ever look at anybody else ever again.”
Cade laughed his skepticism. “Don’t even try to tell me that before that morning either of your parents had ever—”
“Everybody looks, Quill,” he said sagely. “Doing something about it is another question, o’ course. That’s choice, or good manners—or sheer terror of getting caught!” He laughed and kicked at a snowbank. “But not even looking at anybody else, not ever again—”
“Can’t imagine it, personally.”
It was an invitation to describe the state of his own marriage. Not that Cade had much doubt; Mieka’s conquests weren’t quite so numerous as Jeska’s, but conquests there had been on the Winterly this year just as there had been on the last. It was tempting to think that perhaps Jinsie had been right, and there was magic at work on Mieka that relied on proximity. Then again, he’d never known the Elf to deny himself.
Mieka said, “Fa says he knows full well when a girl’s pretty—he ain’t blind!—but he ain’t interested, either. I think it’s—it’s knowing that nothing anybody else could offer could ever compare.”
Cade thought that over. It didn’t exactly harmonize with what the Fae had said. But it reassured him that he was right: It was supposed to mean something.
Mieka had darted off to climb a hillock and yell for Rafe and Jeska. Cade scrubbed his fingers with snow again. His palms still felt sticky.
“Your hands aren’t cold enough?”
Glancing up at the bemused face, he admitted, “It’ll take some explaining.”
Chapter 23
Looking a right fool, Jeska showed up on one of the gigantic white mares. Cade gratefully climbed up behind him, escaping Mieka’s excited questions, while Mieka backed away so fast that he slipped and landed in a snowbank. He walked along at a respectful distance from the horse, still demanding that Cade tell him everything. Rafe came upon them about a half mile later, and—merely for the sake of the mockery, for he wasn’t terribly fond of horses either—clambered up behind Cade. The horse didn’t seem to notice, and there was plenty of room. The final insult came when Jeska persuaded the animal into a trot.
“Fuck-wits!” Mieka yelled after them. He arrived back at their inn a whole pint behind, and by the time he’d shed his furs and settled in their corner of the taproom, they were another half a pint ahead.
“Letters,” Jeska told him, tossing two across the table, neatly missing the steaming cauldron of soup but not the platter of fresh bread.
“How’d they know to send here?” Mieka brushed crumbs from his letters. “We’re s’posed to be at least halfway to New Halt by now, ain’t we?”
“My wife,” Rafe announced, “is a brilliant woman who can read a map.”
“And predict a sickly coachman who’s kept us in one place for three days?”
“Instructions to the Royal Post in Dolven Wold to keep an eye on the weather and the mountain passes, and forward the packet accordingly.” Rafe raised his glass. “Gentlemen, to my wife.”
“Crisiant,” Cade toasted, and drained his glass, and went back to his own letter.
Mieka tore into the one from his wife and ignored their teasing—something about how no one and nothing but her could make him neglect his first drink of the evening, and that the scent applied to it had seeped into all their letters as well. He read through it once, hiding his smiles, and tucked it into his pocket to savor later on. Then he opened the one from his father.
Everyone is well. There is, however, a difficulty with the bank over payments on your new home. The first, second, and third installments were paid timely, but it seems there are no funds for the next and will not be until Touchstone is paid for the Continental journey.
“Did we get paid?” he demanded of Cayden.
“Paid for what?”
“Months of misery! My father says I’m skint.”
“Kearney’s negotiating, or so his clerk told me,” Jeska said. “After all, wasn’t our fault they went into a snit and canceled us at the last instant. They engaged us to perform, and we performed. They owe us the money.”
Cade was frowning at Mieka. “You didn’t spend that much on the house. I was there when the price was agreed on, and the payments scheduled.”
“There should’ve been enough, even after paying Jed and Jez. Listen.” He read aloud from his father’s letter.
Lord Fairwalk is trying his best, but there’s no saying when the money will be available. Not wishing you to lose the house, I’ve made the following arrangement and I hope you won’t mind too much but it’s the only way to continue regular payments to the former owner. I have let the place to Sakary Grainer until the spring.
“Spring!” exclaimed Jeska.
“Chirene’s pregnant, hadn’t you heard?” Cade folded his letter, looking secretive.
As you may know, his wife is expecting their first child, and they desire a quiet location away from the bustle and noise of Gallantrybanks until her confinement and for a few weeks after. The Shadowshapers have arranged their bookings so that he may be with her for a fortnight or two, then stay in town for a week, and so on. He can of course afford servants to care for her during his absences.
Mieka winced.
Your mother and I will be delighted to have our new daughter-in-law back at Wistly. We’ll take the very best care of her, please don’t worry. Her mother has been engaged by the new Archduchess—
“New what?” demanded Jeska. “When did this happen? Who’d he marry?”
“Lady Panshilara,” Rafe said. “Crisiant mentions it.”
Cade nodded. “It was a few days before the official wedding on the Princess’s eighteenth Namingday, so she could strut about being called ‘Archduchess’ and being extremely important.”
“And how do you know this?” Mieka asked, then answered his own question. “Lady Vrennerie! Your letter was from her! How did she know to send a letter to you through Crisiant?”
“She didn’t. She had it delivered to Redpebble, and Derien passed it on.”
“Letters from unmarried ladies,” Rafe said, shaking his head. “It’s a shocking flirt you are, Cayden Silversun.”
“Shut it and let Mieka get on with what his father says.”
Her mother has been engaged by the new Archduchess as a dressmaker, and so will be living at the Archduke’s house upriver starting next month, but will come to Wistly as often as she can. Again, I hope you approve of these arrangements. Your mother and I were at wit’s end trying to think what to do before Jinsie had the idea to let the house and contacted Master Grainer.
Jinsie’s idea? And why had she thought of Sakary? Mieka kept on reading.
The rent is enough to cover the payments until spring, at which time I trust that you’ll be able to reclaim the house for your own. All the family send their best love, and your mother reminds me to tell you to keep an eye out for Yazz, who, Brishen says, is traveling in the area of Homage Knoll and will find you if he can.
Mieka put down the letter and took a long pull at his ale. “Why haven’t we been paid?”
“I’ll write to Kearney and ask.” Cade glanced around the taproom, filling up now with regulars, and lowered his voice. “I’ve things to tell you, and it has to be in private. Let’s head upstairs after we’ve eaten, right?”
Mieka caught Jeska’s regretful glance at the barmaid—a very pretty girl indeed, and the one Mieka had had his own eye on for the evening’s entertainment. It seemed neither of them would be enjoying her tonight. It sounded to be one of Cade’s talk-until-dawns.
An hour later they took the discussion upstairs, threading their way through the crowded tavern and up to Cade and Mieka’s room. Their coachman, just down the hall, shouted for them, and when Rafe opened his door informed them from his bed that
even if the pass had cleared by tomorrow, they’d be staying at least another day. The very thought of reining in those horses made him tired and sore all over again.
“We’ve bookings—” Cade began.
“Yazz can start early,” Mieka said at the same time. He gave the coachman his most endearing smile. “Friend of ours. Part Giant, drives for me auntie. We’ve ordered up a wagon even bigger and better than this one for next year—”
“Suits me,” the young man said. “If you’ve got somebody to take my place, I’m done.”
“You can’t,” Jeska told him. “You’ve been hired—”
“—to drive a coach, not that bloody great ship on wheels!” He pushed himself up in bed, groaned, and sank back down. “My uncle got me the job, and he can damn well have it back!”
“Just stay on until we’re across the mountains,” Cade coaxed. “We’ll double your fee—”
Mieka whined his distress.
“Over the pass, then,” the coachman grumbled. “But there’s no amount of money or threats from the Stewards will make me go all the way back to Gallybanks the way I’ve come. Those aren’t horses, they’re dragons with their wings chopped off!”
Touchstone shared a glance and a shrug, and left the man to his misery. On their way down the hall to their own rooms, Mieka couldn’t help but whisper, “Double?” to Cade, who made a face and no answer.
“So what’s the revelation?” Rafe asked as the door shut and he claimed Mieka’s bed and pillows for his back.
“I—er—I had rather an adventure today.”
Eventually Cade managed to stumble and stutter through the whole tale of his encounter. Mieka watched as Jeska’s eyes widened with each sentence, and Rafe looked frankly skeptical. Mieka believed every word of it. What he didn’t quite believe was that the puzzle of the Treasure was nearly solved. Once it was, mayhap Cade would give over his moods. They were becoming wearisome.
“She could tell me the whys and whens and whatfors, but nothing about the where of it,” Cade finished, elated and frustrated. “I know now what it was, and why it was valuable, and even how it was lost, but—”
“It’ll come to you,” Mieka soothed. With proper use of thorn, it would come to him. He had every faith in Cayden. “But look, we’ve the outline of what really happened—and won’t that cause a fuss!—so you can write it all up for us and we can get started learning it, yeh?”
“We won’t know how to play it until we know where it happened,” he said stubbornly.
“We have the whats of it. Enough to work with. Midwinter, bitter cold, and a lot of rain. A stone wall falling down, setting sun through the chink in the rocks—so not as much rain as I’d thought, or else wind blows most of the clouds away. We can decide later. A hill, open space, a lake, mayhap a few trees for perspective, and there’s the scenery sorted. Wind—”
“You said that already,” Rafe pointed out.
“—and if it’s sunset, there’ll be Minster bells, and people yelling as they give chase, and that’s the sounds. As for the look of the man—he’s Fae, innit he? A lot taller than Jeska—”
“Shit-head,” the masquer replied amiably. “Do I have wings?”
Mieka leaned forward from his lounging pose against bed pillows and poked Cade in the spine. “I’ve never done proper Faerie wings, Quill. Can we give Jeska Faerie wings? Please?”
“Setting, sound, person,” Rafe enumerated. “Some earth and mud smells, but nothing more than that. Keep it fresh, Mieka,” he warned. “None of your authentic shit stinks, like with the pig.”
“But that’s just it!” Cade cried. “Until we know exactly where it all happened, it won’t be authentic! It won’t be real! They won’t believe it!”
“Innit that what we do best—make them believe in it?” Rafe smiled as he poured out more whiskey.
“What he means,” Jeska said with a sigh, “is that they won’t believe he’s solved it.”
“We can hand out a printed guide to your research notes before the performance,” Rafe said with every evidence of sincerity. “Authentication. Scholarship, even.”
“That won’t do!” Cade objected at once. “If they read it beforehand, they’ll know what I—! Oh. You’re trying to be funny.”
“He’s not tryin’ very hard,” Mieka said consolingly. “Face up to it, Quill, you can’t tell people exactly how you learned it all. That’s what they’d never believe.”
“But—” Then he slumped a bit. “All right.”
Mieka listed the points. “Sight, sound, scent, feel—no tastes, I think, unless you want a hint of wine or somesuch just to show we can. Would he have taken a drink or two before going out in the cold? Prob’ly so.”
“There, you see?” Jeska snatched up the pages of Cade’s notes. “Now all you need do is write it, just like the Fae lady said, and we’re done!”
“All I need do is write it,” he echoed in disgust.
“And I need to learn it.” He sorted through to the two versions of the poem. “Chuck the old text right out me head, make sure I don’t remember anything … about … it.…”
Mieka had learned long ago that Jeska had trouble reading. He was brilliant with numbers—though Touchstone was earning enough now that he didn’t have to supplement his income anymore by doing the books for various businesses—but words came to him only with difficulty. At the moment he looked as if he’d never seen a written word before in his life. Just as quickly his expression changed to the sort of righteous enlightenment usually associated with Angels in a Chapel window.
“What?” Cade demanded.
“Oh, nothing much,” he drawled. Rising from the floor with fluid grace, he set the two pages on the bed beside Cade and Mieka. Then he carefully covered almost all of the new poem—or, rather, the old version of the poem that to him was new—with the blank side of the second page. “Try this.”
No night bedarked as soonly
As athwart the crumbling wall
Cold stone a-tumbling fell
Klunshing and climping all
Ere morning brighted the field
Regal bells had pealed
To wrongly doom a thief
Condolement there be none
Long shadows scrape the throne
O’erset and e’er cast down
Spun carkanet and crown
Ever hidden, never found.
Mieka peered over Cade’s shoulder as the words slowly disappeared beneath the blank paper. Rafe came to join them, and read the remaining letters aloud.
“N-a-c-k-e-r-t c-l—‘nackert close’? Nackert? What kind of word is that?”
“Knackered?” Mieka asked.
“No K to start. But it’s very clearly Close—like in Criddow Close, you think?”
Cade snorted. “An ‘exhausted’ street with only one outlet? Do me a favor.”
“Nackert,” Mieka kept mumbling, and spelling it out loud, listening to the sounds. “N-a-c-k-e-r-t—Nackerty! It’s one of Uncle Breedbate’s words, I’ve heard him say it—Quill, find your books, look it up, I don’t remember what it means!”
A wild carouse through every book in or out of the crates he’d insisted on bringing with him on this trip finally yielded a definition.
“‘A field with many corners’!” Cade exclaimed. “Nackerty Close!”
“There’s no Y in it,” Rafe objected. “It’s more likely a wrong spelling of knackered.”
Mieka was biting his tongue between his teeth. Suddenly he burst out, “Didn’t you say that clunsh is always spelled with a C and not a K? Somebody changed it deliberately in that poem, Cade. Jeska’s right—this is deliberate!”
“What was knacker originally?” said Cade, and answered himself, “The man who put down horses.”
“But all these other words,” Mieka reminded him, pointing to the text, “they’re all the same sort Uncle Breedbate uses, so it can’t be knackered, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“The street where the knacker live
s makes more sense than a field with a lot of corners with only one outlet,” Rafe persisted.
“But that doesn’t match the rest of it. It wants a field, and a stone wall. And a lake.” Cade read it aloud, adding after each line the interpretations he and Mieka had worked out months ago.
The shortest night of the year. The sun going down over a wall that tumbled apart, begriming what was below it. At dawn across the field—and here he arched a brow at Rafe—bells rang, somebody was killed for the theft even though he was innocent—
“There’s a line missing,” Mieka interrupted. “Wall—all. Field—pealed. But there’s nothing rhymes with thief. That’s where the Y line ought to be! That would spell nackerty!”
“I couldn’t find any version with a line starting with Y, not even in Lost Withies.” All at once he wore the same dawning-sunlight look as Jeska. “No complete version—” And once more he went scrambling through the books, and then his notes, papers flying. “Here! ‘Y-cladden in his grief’ comes right after the line about the thief, only in this rendering there’s no rhyme—but that’s right where it should be to spell out Nackerty!”
“Nackerty Close,” Rafe mused.
“Y-cladden?” Mieka asked.
“It means—”
He interrupted Cade. “I can figure what it means, beholden all the same!”
Rafe was still frowning. “Why can’t it still be knackerty with a K? That would make more sense.”
“None of this makes much sense,” was Jeska’s opinion.
Cade rounded on him. “Of course it does! You throw all the versions together, pick out the ones that give clues—like the golden light of the hidden Treasure, and from the glimpse I got it was golden, and silver, with diamonds—”
“Hold on a tick! Where does it say anything about diamonds?”
“I–I saw it.”
“How?” When Cade merely looked at him, Jeska chewed his lip. “Oh.”
“Put it together,” Rafe said, “with what the Fae told him, and we’ve got it. We just don’t know exactly where.”
“There can’t be that many places called Nackerty Close, can there?” Jeska asked. “I mean, it’s not a common word, none of us recognized it—”