by Melanie Rawn
That future—how could it have anything to do with him? How could it be his fault that Jindra ended up hating her father? And—twenty-five years since the King took the throne? Took it? Not inherited—not Ashgar, then? The girl—woman, really—she’d looked to be about thirty, but Elves didn’t show age the way most people did, so she could have been half again that old. The scene whirled in his head, Jindra and her daughter—good Gods, Mieka’s granddaughter!—and a King who’d taken the throne and a celebration of when he’d done it and Jindra loathing her father and—
“Cade!”
He swallowed hard, lifted his own lectern—which seemed unreasonably heavy all of a sudden—and called out, “Yeh, coming!”
* * *
He stopped using thorn after that. He didn’t want to dream. He didn’t want to see. He went back to his old standby: enough alcohol to put him to sleep without giving him a hellacious hangover the next morning.
From Sir Kyler Crushberry’s house outside Lilyleaf they traveled to Castle Biding. He avoided all the echoes there, especially the top of the tower where he and Mieka had watched the moonglade, though in truth there wasn’t much else to remind him of last year. There was no Fair spreading bright booths and awnings across the fields, no encampment of tents. The place looked naked and forsaken without them. And with naught but the castle and town to provide audiences, they played only two shows and moved on.
Their original driver had gladly deserted them at New Halt. Yazz was the perfect coachman, so good with the horses that Mieka teased him that he couldn’t possibly have any Giant’s blood in him, and did Robel know she was bespoken to a fraud? Yazz only growled affectionately. He was perfect, too, in the unspecified but necessary duty of carrying the Elf upstairs some nights and downstairs some mornings, for Mieka had combined a renewed dedication to drink and thorn with his yearly head cold. He mostly slept through his misery between Castle Biding and Frimham.
Now—and quite suddenly, too—the Winterly was over. In less than a month they’d perform at the wedding celebrations, and Cade had spent all this time avoiding the actual writing of “Treasure.” When he finally sat down in his usual room at Fairwalk Manor to work, he felt as if his brain had been prised out through one ear, put through a meat grinder, and spooned back in not quite its original configuration.
The usual five-shows-and-a-day-off had not applied on this whirlwind Winterly. Travel, arrive, set up, play, drink, sleep, play, drink, sleep in the wagon while traveling, drink in the wagon while traveling, arrive, set up, play … only twice, at Shollop and New Halt, had they done five consecutive shows and then been allowed a day to rest. Their last few performances had got sloppy, and they all knew it. Now the Circuit was over, and they were taking a few days at Fairwalk Manor to collapse. There was plenty of money in their pockets after their bookings at Sir Kyler’s and a repeat of last year’s one-person-audience at that strange mansion outside New Halt, another night that had given them all a lingering case of the weirds. Mieka had enough for the spring and summer payments on his house, and not only had Jeska bought the seaside cottage for his mother, but he was no longer in arrears in supporting his daughter. Rafe and Cade intended to bank the lot. Kearney was reassuring about the remainder of the fee for the trip to the Continent, due any moment now. They would be paid lavishly for the Court performance, and there was the money promised by Lord Oakapple for “Treasure”—if only Cade could finish the poxy thing.
He stayed at Fairwalk Manor a few days after the others left, so frustrated that he risked thorn again. It gave him the same sequence as last spring: a race to find the Rights, the suddenness of summer, the tumbled wall, the belling hounds, the thundering hoofbeats, and capture. His ears were still the pointed ears of a Fae, and the tips were still numb in the cold. But he learned nothing new.
He was still unable to decide whether it was a foreseeing, a product of his imagination, or a backseeing, as it were. Never in his life had he experienced something out of the past. Thus it had to be all the reading he’d done, and all the pondering, added to his writer’s mind, producing this blending that had, after all, turned out to be true.
Or as true as he could trust a Fae to be.
What she had revealed to him had been shocking enough. Very different from his Elsewhen, prodded out of her when she discovered he knew what the Rights looked like—Mieka was right, and there’d be a real shit-storm when Touchstone performed “Treasure.” Probably not the wisest choice of plays for the whole Court, and at wedding celebrations into the bargain, but Cade didn’t even have to think about whether or not they’d do it.
If only he could get the bleeding thing finished.
Everyone else was in Gallantrybanks. And everyone else who’d been invited to play the celebrations was rehearsing, whether strictly in private (the Shadowshapers) or noisily in public (Black fucking Lightning). With every worthwhile group now resident in town, there were no bookings to be had, not even for Touchstone.
He heard from Crisiant, a dry little missive expressing her gratitude that her husband had returned to her in the appropriate number of pieces and reasonably sane. She mentioned how well Derien was doing in school, that Jeska’s mother was delighted with her new seaside home, that Mishia and Hadden Windthistle were thrilled to have their only grandchild living in the big old house, and Jinsie and Petrinka adored taking care of the baby. This was Crisiant’s way of saying that neither Mieka nor his wife spent much time with their daughter. Crisiant quite clearly didn’t approve; Cade didn’t have an opinion one way or the other. In his experience, admittedly limited to his little brother, a baby didn’t get interesting until it started learning how to talk, at which point one could teach it all sorts of words guaranteed to shock the adults. He wrote Crisiant back with the observation that as long as Tavier didn’t decide to experiment with feeding worms to the child in hopes it might transform into a baby dragon, everything would be fine.
He knew where he was going with “Treasure.” He just couldn’t quite figure out how to get there. He saw the ending scene in his head: the shadow of a man on a wall, hanged by the neck, dead. He knew that this man was Fae, and that he’d just barely managed to hide the Rights beneath the wall. He knew the shape of the throne, the rough-hewn rock that nobody would ever guess was so hallowed a place, and now he even knew where it all was. His original guess had been confirmed: the “Regal bells” had belonged not to a Royal residence but to a small Chapel established by a long-ago Queen. A Chapel beside a lake. With the Oakapples’ disgrace, the Chapel had lost patronage, and eventually been unconsecrated and sold, converted to a private home. The bells were long gone by then, of course. But it was more proof that he was right.
Yet he had no theme for the piece, no overarching idea, to weave through the story and make it eloquent.
“They had it in mind to claim the Fae Rights as well as the Human, as they’d done with the Elves and Wizards and all other inferior folk. But it didn’t really happen that way at all.”
He could still hear her spiteful little laugh, the satisfied rustle of her wings. He reminded himself to give Mieka magic to make wings with, made a note, stared at the otherwise empty page, and went to bed with a bottle of Kearney Fairwalk’s best Colvado brandy.
With Crisiant’s letter had come a note from Derien. Why wasn’t he home, what was he doing, didn’t he understand that everyone was trying out their new pieces and perfecting their best old ones in the competition for the top place on the schedule? It was worse than Trials, or so Jeska had mentioned when he came to tea at Redpebble Square, and Dery had cozened Mistress Mirdley into giving him a huge meal because what with selling the old house and buying the cottage for his mother and supporting his daughter he was living Lord and Lady only knew how. Cade stifled laughter, admiring his brother’s innocence—Jeska had a long, long list of ladies who did more than make sure he got a good meal. He wrote back to say that Touchstone would be just fine with whatever placement they received at the celebrations, and
he was working, and he’d be home soon.
Kearney showed up eventually. He showed admirable restraint in waiting a whole day before presenting to Cade a whole inventory of reasons why it would be a frightfully marvelous idea to agree to the Archduke’s proposals about a new theater. Cade heard him out, and when he finally reached the end of his arguments said, “No.”
“But—”
“He won’t be owning us. We can’t be bought. Anybody else, if they’re stupid enough or venal enough, but not us.”
And then he had it.
People who thought they could buy other people—own them—possess and rule them—
He knew.
—people who thought to put you in debt to them so that one day you were compelled to pay back in coin of their choosing—
“Mine he is, and mine he stays.” He’d said that himself, hadn’t he? But the reason Mieka was his—their—glisker was because Mieka knew just as well as he did, as Rafe and Jeska did, that with no one else would any of them ever find the fusion that made Touchstone truly great. If Mieka was his, theirs, then Cade belonged to Mieka and Rafe and Jeska just as surely, for just the same reason. They’d chosen one another, all four of them. They’d made the decision to belong to Touchstone, to create of their four disparate talents and personalities this one singular thing, the first group in theater that wasn’t named by a plural.
But everyone had the right to decide for himself. Nobody had the right to coerce, threaten, bribe, entice, suborn—or make rebellious war. The Rights might belong only to the Fae, but rights belonged to everyone, the right to decide. To choose.
And so he had it, and he knew.
He left Kearney spluttering with despair and indignation in the drawing room and returned to his chamber and wrote. Someone brought him food, tea, brandy; he assumed he ate and drank at some point during the day, because by nightfall he became aware of an urgent need for the garderobe. He changed into a nightshirt and one of Kearney’s brocade dressing gowns, much too short for him, and continued to write. Long past midnight he collapsed across the bed with a smile on his face.
And the next morning he drove with Kearney back to Gallantrybanks.
His Lordship spent the first few hours of the long drive trying to worm information out of Cade, who kept changing the subject, which Kearney would change back again.
At last the nobleman flounced in his seat with frustration. “How am I to prepare Oakapple for what he’ll see if I don’t know what’s to be seen?”
“He can be amazed along with everyone else,” Cade replied carelessly.
“He’s paying for it!”
“Talking of that, has the Palace sent along the rest of our money yet?”
“Let me worry about that. Can’t you give me the slightest clue? I really do have to know, don’t you see, Cayden. I have to know at least who the real villain is!”
Leaning forward to get a better view from the window, he remarked, “Nice day for it, this drive. Spring’s come early this year. What’s the old saying? ‘The sooner the winter, the sweeter the spring’?”
“Cayden, please!”
“And plenty of flowers about, had you noticed? That remembers me—where can I buy some flowers to take to Wistly tomorrow?”
“Cayden!”
It was approximately the same whining tone that Mieka often used, but it didn’t make him laugh.
They arrived very late at Redpebble Square. Cade sneaked silently up to his fifth-floor room and slept without dreaming until Derien pounced at about noon the next day.
“You’re home! Why didn’t you say you were coming home?”
Cade grunted as the boy sat on his legs. “Get off, or I’ll cancel your surprise for helping me with ‘Treasure.’”
The soft mouth rounded in a silent Ooh.
“You did, y’know.”
“I did?”
“Your map was invaluable.”
“You solved it?”
“I did. With your help. And today I’m going over to Wistly, and we’ll start working out the details.”
“Is that the surprise?”
“You go over to Wistly whenever you like, that’s no treat.”
“Not anymore, it ain’t.”
“Isn’t, and why isn’t it?”
Dery shrugged. “It just isn’t, not anymore. Everybody dotes on the baby. It’s pathetic. She doesn’t do anything, just lies about and sleeps and cries and makes a stink.”
“That’s what babies do, smatchet. That’s what you did!”
He responded to the teasing with a frown. “But—you liked me anyways, didn’t you?”
Cade wanted to wrap his arms around the boy. Instead, he drawled, “You weren’t too bad, I s’pose.”
“What’s the surprise?”
“Then again, you did get rather stinky at times.…”
“Cayden!”
Preposterous, the way everybody seemed to be saying his name in that tone of voice these days. “I’m not telling. Except p’rhaps to say that you might keep an evening free about a fortnight from now.”
Derien frowned, making the calculation, then gave a shriek of delight. “The Palace, you’re taking me to the Palace to see Touchstone!”
Chapter 25
On the whole, taking everything into consideration, opening the front door of Number Eight, Redpebble Square, was a bit more than Mieka felt up to doing. Within waited the rest of Touchstone, Lord Kearney Fairwalk, and one of the Trials Stewards. They were gathered to decide where Touchstone would be placed in the order of performances. That the Shadowshapers would come last on the final night was a given; that Black fucking Lightning had the advantage in the competition to immediately precede them was also a given. The unfairness of last year’s Trials could still roil Mieka’s guts, and he was fully aware that in his present state nothing good could come of his appearance at the meeting.
So he walked round to Criddow Close to call on his brother and sister-in-law.
“You’re looking prosperous,” he told Jedris as he walked into the shop. “Plenty of work, old son?”
“Miek!”
Jed left off cleaning displays of glassware and hugged him. A hug from Jed or Jez was a bone-crushing experience for almost anyone, but Mieka always rated a lift into the air and a squeeze that forced the breath from his lungs. It had been that way since they were children. So, too, the yelp of protest, the wriggling, and the plea to be set down before he lost consciousness or actually died.
Ritual completed, Mieka made sure of his footing and then rubbed his ribs pointedly. “The very least you could do is offer me a drink.”
“You know where everything is. And don’t use any of the good glasses.”
“I’m still waiting for the invitation to dinner where you bring out all that plate Fairwalk gave you.”
“You’ll wait a while.”
“No great cook, is Blye? I thought you looked a bit thinner. You could hire Mistress Mirdley for the evening.”
“If I’m thinner, it was all that running forth and back to that house of yours. Whatever possessed you to buy something in the middle of nowhere? And have you finally decided what you want to do with the barn? It’s a nice bit of building for all its age.”
“I was thinking mayhap Yazz and Robel might want to live there. Only with a loft up top for me, with an outside stair.”
“Hmm. I’ll have Jez put some designs together.”
Drinks poured, they settled on tall stools behind the main counter and toasted each other. Mieka said, “You’re lucky I didn’t buy the other one. You’d be busy until your grandchildren have grandchildren. Have you work you’re actually being paid for?” Because it had occurred to him, much belatedly, that the Archduke might take out his annoyance at Touchstone’s refusal to be owned by crookeding the dealings of Touchstone’s friends and relations.
“Big new summerhouse at one of the town mansions,” Jed replied, thereby relieving Mieka’s worry. “Jez and I are doing the framework, Bl
ye’s making the panes.”
“And boring me witless it is, too,” came Blye’s voice from the glassworks doorway. “Naught but squares of clear glass. Flat, stale—but decidedly profitable.”
Mieka jumped up for a hug and kiss, but Blye waved him back and began brushing the glitter of glass dust off her clothing with exaggerated care. “Mustn’t spoil your frustling! How can we bear the honor of his condescension, Jed, having the great Master Glisker here in our humble little shop?”
Her husband intoned, “We shall seek to struggle on, regardless of our unworthiness to breathe the same air as the mighty glisker—”
“Oh, shut it!” Mieka growled, and caught her up in his arms much as Jed had done to him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at Cade’s about now?” she asked when he set her down. “Great and weighty talk about the celebrations, and all. Cade was nervous all yestereven about it at dinner.”
“He gets to come to dinner and I don’t?”
“He has better manners,” Jed told him. “Come to talk of it, he has manners.”
“I love you, too, Jed.” He felt a nudge against his feet, and reached down to scratch Bompstable’s silky white ears. “They can yatter on quite charmingly without me, I’m certain sure. Another glass?” He held up the empty one in his hand. “Where’s your ’prentice?”
“Shush! Don’t mention that word!” Jed grinned as he poured out more ale.
“She’s not my apprentice. That would be illegal,” Blye seconded virtuously. “Rikka cleans the shop and glassworks, and waits on customers. And that’s all.” The twinkle in her eyes belied her words. “It’s her half-day, so she’s out interviewing chirurgeons who specialize in teeth.”
Mieka whistled through his own. “Made that much already, has she? So you’ll be losing her soon.”
“Not if I can help it,” Blye said. “But, as I said before, she’s not my apprentice.”
“After her teeth are put together the way she wants them,” Jed added, “nobody will recognize her. She’s done something with her hair, and grown up a bit as well. There’s a young man or three up Beekbacks way who’ll take note, and then we’ll lose her anyways.”