by Melanie Rawn
“Write to Fairwalk, then,” he said. “Let him know the trouble. I’m sure he’ll fix it.”
“Hmm.” Mieka folded the letter and sat back in his chair. “Yeh, all right. But this isn’t the first oddity, y’know. In Lilyleaf earlier this year, I ran short on cash and went to the bank there that acts for our own bank, and they made me wait two whole days.”
“Maybe they’re not theatergoers, and didn’t know Who You Are,” Rafe said, his voice supplying the capital letters.
Mieka made a face at him. “Everybody knows Who We Are,” he retorted.
It was, perhaps, an indication of how seriously Mieka took his self-assumed obligation to Ginnel House that it was not the incident in Lilyleaf but the difficulty in Gallantrybanks that had made him broach the subject. He was growing up. Some, anyway.
Cade had every reason to doubt that two days into their stay at Scatterseed.
An interesting and often gratifying (personally as well as professionally) result of women’s attendance at the theater was that no longer was the admiration of young ladies confined to the placards advertising a group’s performance. There was always a collection of them at the artists entrance, and Touchstone’s wagon was more often than not greeted by a dozen or so girls (if the arrival was anytime before dark). The more mature, and presumably more dignified, ladies contented themselves with sending notes, bottles of wine, and occasionally an invitation to sup (at home, with their husbands, for the less adventurous; at a discreet local tavern, alone, for the daring). The young and giggly thought themselves frightfully bold by gathering in groups to invade the tiring room after the show. Mostly they were intercepted by the chucker-out before they could outrage their modesty and infuriate their parents by consorting with theater players. Cade and Mieka were known to take a personal interest that often led to a private encounter. Rafe smiled and flirted and went to his own bed alone. It was Jeska who was in demand, and in agonies, for his popularity among females had only increased with the years, and dalliances in haylofts were definitely a thing of the past—dalliances anywhere, in fact, for as much as he appreciated girls, he loved his wife more.
Every so often the after-performance drinks and relaxation got interrupted by a respectable young woman with her father or elder brother in tow. So it happened that second night in Scatterseed.
It was clear from the first moment of the pair’s arrival that Darling Papa hadn’t the least wish to be there. His daughter, aged about twenty-two and dressed in the more ridiculous excesses of the current fashion, had obviously pestered him into escorting her to Touchstone’s performance. Darling Papa was a big, broad, bluff country gentleman, uncomfortable in his velvet jacket and fine polished shoes, much happier in a homespun woolen shirt and stout boots. He suffered through introductions and then addressed Cayden with a scowl.
“Don’t know what I’m doin’ here, but for the nagging of this filly.” He nodded at his daughter, who had fixed her large brown eyes on Mieka. “Good show, I s’pose. Not my glass of ale.”
“I quite understand,” Cade soothed. Ordinarily he would have curled his lip and left the tiring room, or told someone to get these people out, but the look in the girl’s eyes amused him as she slowly backed Mieka towards a corner. “Not really a profession for grown men,” he went on, correctly judging the man’s views on theater. “But the pay’s decent, and one gets to travel.”
“Load of poofters,” growled Himself, then coughed and colored up, and blustered on, “Not but what you don’t get a good experience of the whole country, what? Interesting, all the travel. Glad to have you here, in fact. My girl’s Namingday present, you see. Hasn’t clapped her trap shut about it since you placed First Flight and not those others. What’s their names? Shifty-shins?”
“Shadowshapers,” Rafe supplied. “I hope your very charming daughter had a very charming evening. Won’t you have a drink, sir?”
“I wouldn’t mind one. Decent of you, boy.” He winked, perking up. “Need it in this line, do you? All these silly fillies lolloping about.” Rafe led him over to the table where wine, ale, and beer were on offer. Jeska wandered after them, keeping an eye on Mieka and the girl, and Cade heard him ask, in his best Lord Currycomb voice (the one he used when the rain washed the black horse gray), “And shall we see you at the races down in Gallybanks this year, sir?”
Meantime, the girl’s acquaintance with Mieka was progressing famously. The Elf had his back to the wall, a chair on one side of him, a table on the other, and the girl right in front of him. He was still smiling, but something a trifle desperate had seized up his face. Cade ambled towards them, sipping at a glass of ale.
“—the very first time I ever saw a placard,” the girl was breathing huskily. “All my friends are wild for Jeska or Rafe, but I—”
“What about me?” Cade interrupted, making a face of piteous hurt.
Without looking over her shoulder at him, she said, “Sindalee thinks you’re splendid. She’ll be here tomorrow night. But right now—” Her fingers approached, darted back, stole like little white snakes towards Mieka’s face. “—I’m here right now,” she whispered.
“Your father—” Mieka began.
“Give him enough to drink and he won’t notice we’ve gone.” She leaned in, head tilting up, lips parting. “I bribed the manager to let us have his private room. Just the two of us.”
Cade smiled pleasantly at Mieka. Mieka gulped. Then, with fresh and awful cunning lighting those eyes, he reached around the girl and hauled Cade to him, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him full on the mouth.
The girl giggled. “The three of us, then? It hadn’t occurred to me, but—sounds wonderful!”
Mieka was saucer-eyed. Another joke that hadn’t worked out as planned. Cade shook his brains loose and said, “I’m sorry, truly I am, but—Mieka and I—well, I’m sure you understand.” He put an arm around Mieka’s shoulders and felt him snuggle close. “Isn’t he just the most adorable little thing?” Cade went on. “I feel for you, my dear girl, I really do. Irresistible, that’s what he certainly is.”
“You can pretend I’m your wife,” she coaxed. “The way you must do at home in Gallantrybanks or Hilldrop Crescent.”
Cade almost choked.
“Oh, nothing of the kind,” Mieka piped up. “At home, I’m all hers. But when we’re out on the road …” He wriggled closer.
Cade took his cue. “Away from home, he’s all mine. Aren’t you, lumpling?”
“Oh.” She sighed, disappointed. “Well, all right, then. I must say, you are terribly cute together.” Another giggle. “I’ll have to warn Sindalee!”
Once she and her father were gone, Mieka fell into the nearby chair, laughing himself silly. Rafe was right beside Cayden with a drink, which he tossed back in three long swallows.
“The things I do for you,” he accused the Elf.
“Regretting the delicious Sindalee?” Jeska asked.
“Poor Quill!” Mieka accepted the ale Jeska proffered, drank, then smacked his lips and grinned up at Cade.
“You’ve ruined his bed-sport for tomorrow night,” Rafe observed. “I trust you’re willing to provide proper consolation.”
Mieka looked startled for just an instant, then pretended to inspect Cade, head to toes. “Nah,” he said at last. “He’d never survive me.”
Cade arched his brows. Then he said, “Your pardon, old friend,” and took Rafe’s glass. More satisfying if full, but there was quite enough in it to leave Mieka nicely soaked, hairline to collar.
12
Making Prickspur finally pay for refusing to allow Touchstone—or, more accurately, Mieka—into his establishment that first Winterly Circuit was a deeply satisfying thing. But the delights of retribution reminded Mieka that further retributions were certainly in the offing. Rafe had yet to retaliate for the incident with the beard. The incident with the beard had been retaliation for the incident of the missing clothes in Lilyleaf. Farther back than that, Mieka could not follow the back-an
d-forth of the pranks. Whoever had started it (most likely himself, he had to admit), it was by no means finished. It was, after all, a matter of honor—and of Rafe’s insufferable pride in his beard.
So Mieka kept a wary eye on him, when he remembered to. Generally he was occupied on this, their very first Royal Circuit as First Flight, with tending his withies, performing, getting some sleep, liberally sampling the best liquors that the inns and taverns could offer (and Auntie Brishen’s barrel of whiskey while on the road), and making sure his thorn-roll was replenished at convenient intervals. Auntie Brishen had obliged in this, too; packages had been waiting for him at Sidlowe and Scatterseed, the latter with a note saying she’d send the next on to Bexmarket. Dear Auntie Brishen; she didn’t even question the increase in his use of bluethorn. In any event, it wasn’t really his own use of it, it was Cade’s and Rafe’s and even Jeska’s. Though the masquer usually shook his head when offered a thornful, he had recently taken to not shaking his head. And who could blame him? Because King Meredan wanted all his best players back in Gallantrybanks to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ascending to the throne, the schedule of performances and travel was punishing, sleep was a precious commodity, and Touchstone was determined that no audience would suffer through a lackluster show because Touchstone had the bad taste to be exhausted.
The problem was that with such determination came tension. Cade might deplore his constant clowning, but Mieka felt he had no choice other than to do his best to relax everyone before a performance with jokes and capers. Clever and mad was even more necessary now. Still, the only thing that reliably worked was reenacting his grand entrance into the Downstreet of two years ago. With Jinsie’s help he had gathered up a motley assemblage of ladies’ clothing from Wistly Hall, and from time to time scorned the artists entrance in favor of flouncing in by the main doors.
Swanning down the aisle, he would call out, “Open the curtains! Start the show! I have arrived!” Jeska would peek out from between the swagged curtains, snort a laugh, and haul the heavy velvet aside himself to reveal Cade on one side of the stage and Rafe on the other, glass baskets snug in their wooden frames at the back. Cade would roll his eyes and they’d go into the routine of You’re late! and What is that awful thing you’ve got on? and Play nice, Cayden—I borrowed it from me mother-in-law! and You just try and start without me sometime! Cade always went along with it, but after the first few times he tended to get a look on his face as if wishing Mieka would behave like every other glisker and just do his job. What he would never understand was that such things were part of Mieka’s job—as he saw it, anyway. And when had he ever been anything like every other glisker?
It was also part of his job to do what he’d done all his life for family and friends and schoolmates: keep everybody entertained, lighten the mood, ease the tension with laughter. To that end, he’d invented a game. Each player had to come up with a clue to the name of a tavern or inn, and the others had to guess which was meant. They’d all been in so many such places by now that there was a practically endless list to work with. Points were scored for and against, the winner of each round had to begin the next, and the ultimate loser had to buy the drinks at the next stop.
Two days out of Scatterseed, on an afternoon of broiling heat remarkable in the Pennynines, Mieka judged that it was time to begin the entertainment or they’d all be snapping at each other. After explaining the rules, he started it off with, “Top of me mother-in-law.”
Various increasingly obscene suggestions led them to guess Nag’s Head, and Jeska won the point. In between guessing, there was a great deal of silence while brains worked furiously, but as little as Mieka admired quiet, this part of the exercise was his gift to Yazz. There was nothing the Giant liked better than a nice, quiet spell of guiding the horses and appreciating the scenery.
It took Jeska a while, but he finally came up with, “One for the bonce, one for the bum.” This time it was Rafe who eventually got Crown and Cushion. He was ready for the next round, promptly offering, “Three-and-a-half cold men.” Then he sat back in his chair, folded his arms, and to all appearances composed himself for a nap.
After a long silence, many frowns, and no guesses at all, they yielded. Rafe refused to tell, claiming the point and the right to use the clue again in future. After some grumbling, Cade volunteered the next round.
“Where a married man should never be again after his wedding night.”
Mieka stuck out his tongue at him, then replied, “Maiden’s Arms. You’d think a great whirring powerful brain like yours could think up something better!”
“I’m saving my best efforts for later,” Cade said haughtily, gray eyes dancing. “Your point, and back to you.”
“That’s hardly fair,” Jeska complained. “He’s the one who thought this up. For all we know, he’s been inventing them for weeks.”
Cade snorted. “You’re assuming he has the mental capacity to remember anything other than a play. Come on, Mieka. Your turn.”
“Mine,” he announced, “needs a very big mouth.”
After a time, Jeska asked, “We’ve been to all these places, right? You’re not tossing in some tavern we’ve never seen?”
Before Mieka could reply, Cade teased, “Oh, just look at those big innocent eyes! Would anybody with those eyes cheat?”
Rafe answered, “Every chance he gets. And it’s Cock in the Bottle, by the way.”
“How did you guess?” Mieka complained.
“As well as being exceedingly handsome, I’m exceedingly brilliant. Hadn’t you noticed?”
Cade smiled his sweetest. “Seven Blue Balls.”
“Huh?” Jeska looked from one to the other of them, confused.
“Three-and-a-half cold men. Seven Blue Balls. My point, I think.”
And so it went until they arrived at a place they’d never been before and never even heard of. Just outside Scatterseed they’d been compelled to take a detour by a ferocious spring storm that had loosened a hillside onto a section of the usual road through the Pennynine Mountains. The obstacle had not yet been removed. The alternate route was longer and more difficult for the horses. Thus it was necessary to rest them for a full day at an inn on the outskirts of Wooldridge—the sources of its name evident in the living fleeces covering the hills. It was a town of perhaps a thousand souls, most of whom had never seen theater performed. To show their gratitude for the hospitality of the Fleece and Froth tavern, Jeska proposed an outdoor gigging, for free. Polite interest was expressed, but the general attitude was a collective shrug. There was nothing much else to do in Wooldridge of a summer night, so why not see a play?
The general attitude changed to wild applause once they’d seen “Dragon.” After a swift consultation among themselves, and some quick replenishment of the withies, Touchstone then gave them one of the oldest and silliest of the Master Fondlewife comedies. It wasn’t their fault that someone in the audience had been suspecting his own wife of being fondled by someone who was not himself this past fortnight and longer. Neither could they be blamed for the fight that broke out in the middle of the throng and spread in all directions. And it certainly wasn’t their fault that the local physicker was up to his hairline in bruised jaws, black eyes, and cracked ribs for the next two days.
The sooner Touchstone got out of town, the better. The wagon rolled out a little past midnight. At midmorning, after a rotten night’s sleep jouncing over rutted roads—Mieka had forgotten to renew the spell his mother taught him that smoothed the road—they mumbled awake when Yazz stopped the wagon.
“Where the fuck are we?” Rafe demanded.
“How the fuck should I know?” Mieka countered, and then forgot that rolling over to go back to sleep was a much trickier maneuver in a hammock than in a bed. By the time he had uncocooned himself, swearing, from netting and mattress and sheets, Yazz had opened the back door and was smiling with each and every one of his large white teeth.
Mieka, still upside down but
no longer strangling, squinted at him and moaned. He knew that smile. It was the one Yazz wore when a visit with his kin was in the offing. Mieka had never been able to understand it; liberally supplied, and one might say oversupplied, with relatives himself, the prospect of seeing more did not thrill him. He supposed it was different for Giants and part-Giants, there being so recognizably few of them these days. Look at what Prickspur had said about Cade’s height arguing for Giant blood. Well, yes, he was indeed tall, but how anybody could mistake those long bones and narrow ribs for anything but Wizard was beyond Mieka’s comprehension. Still, Prickspur hadn’t exactly proved himself the shiniest withie in the basket.
“Who is it this time?” he asked, extricating himself from the hammock.
“Cousin on Mam’s side,” Yazz said happily. “Only an afternoon, Miek.”
“Yeh, yeh, all right.” He explained to his partners that Yazz rarely ran across his kin, and surely they could spare a few hours for a reunion.
“You had only to say so,” Cade told Yazz. “Take the afternoon, and the evening as well, if you like.”
Yazz shook his head. “Back before sundown toasting. Beholden!” He slammed the back door shut and went away whistling happily.
“What happens at sundown toasting?” Jeska asked Mieka.
“More Giant-brewed mead than you could drink in a year. More than even I could drink in a year. It’s a real sacrifice, believe me, and shows his devotion to us, for him to miss it. So what’ll we do for the afternoon?”
“If we are where I think we are,” Cade said, a slow smile on his lips, “then this ought to be fun.”
“So where are we?”
“Boggering.”