Window Wall

by Melanie Rawn

  Cade felt his lips pull into a smile. “Please elaborate, Your Grace.”

  “I will, because it is so seldom that I meet with anyone who has the wits to comprehend.” He matched fingertip to fingertip, then laced the fingers together and held both hands under his chin. “Only consider. You stand there onstage while your masquer prances about and your glisker waves his withies and your fettler—Gods only know what a fettler does, but let’s assume it’s necessary. And yet there you stand, doing nothing. Everything you have to contribute is done long before you stand on a stage. Although you stand with them on a stage, it’s all done for you.

  “And in this, we are indeed much alike. We plan what will happen, set things in motion, and let others do the work for us. The difficulty both of us encounter is doubt. Can we fully trust those we have chosen to carry out our work? You seem to have solved this problem—and yet I venture to guess that even now, after years of working with them, you don’t absolutely trust those you work with.”

  He leaned forward to take the cup from the table. He poured more wine, looked at Cayden with arching brows asking a question. “No? Pity. It’s a very good vintage from a rather exclusive Frannitch maker. Wordturner knows wine, as well as books.” After an appreciative sip, he went on, “Trust is a problem for us both, and one of the reasons I’m here at all is that I trust no one. My father trusted. Look what it got him. No, it’s better to select tools for use that put their own interests first in carrying out a plan. The trick, of course, is to find out each person’s wants and needs and ambitions, and present your own plans accordingly—so that it is understood that by advancing my cause, they advance their own.”

  “And that makes you and me alike?” Cade smiled again. “Not to my way of thinking.”

  “No? Did you select the Elf for his talents, or because what he wanted and what you wanted were essentially the same thing? In brief, do you use him to get what you want, or does he use you? Or is it mutual? Ah, of course. It must be. As for the thing you want—I take it that present triumphs and everlasting glory factor into your desires. I don’t think either matters much to the Elf. Glisking is the only thing at which he is supremely competent. In all other respects, he’s rather a failure, wouldn’t you agree? But he serves your purposes onstage, and thus it is in your interests to keep him out of too much trouble offstage.”

  “You seem improbably interested in Mieka Windthistle.”

  “Only as he provides insight into yourself. And what I’ve found out through him is indeed rather interesting. There you are, with your magical shapes and shadows and feelings and sensations, all of it lies, and yet you are content. You might have worked with real people, real emotions, learned the exquisite satisfaction of knowing that you and you alone have caused a particular sensation—for pain or for pleasure—in another person. You are a coward, Cayden Silversun. You settle for the imaginary, the unreal.”

  “The thoughts and emotions of imagination are just as real as any other.” But it was rude to quote oneself, so Cade asked, “While you are ambitious for … what, exactly? The power your father tried to grasp? Is that your idea of what’s real? I’ve never understood people whose motivation is power. With all the plays I’ve read, and all those I’ve performed, and everything I’ve ever written myself—it just doesn’t make sense to me. Mayhap you can enlighten me.”

  “If, after all that study, you still don’t know, then nothing I could say would ever make you understand.”

  “No, I’m curious, truly I am. What is it that you’d do with power if you got it? Order people to go here or there, to do this or that, buy what you please, live as you like? All anyone has to have in order to do any of those things is enough money. Rather vulgar, don’t you think?”

  “Power is desirable for its own sake.”

  “But what does it get you? That’s what I don’t understand. I suppose the Tregrefin would like the power to tell everyone precisely what to believe and how to honor the Lord and the Lady, and never to use magic again. But he could never be absolutely sure that people aren’t thinking and believing things he doesn’t approve of, and as for not doing magic … if it’s there, people use it. They do on the Continent, despite their official line.”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “I still don’t understand what it is that you want.”

  The Archduke laced his fingers beneath his chin again. “What do you think power means?”

  “Well … let’s say I want you to do something that you don’t want to do, and I have a sword or a knife, and that’s a kind of power. But I can’t really force you to do whatever that thing is. The most I can do is to make sure, with my blade, that you never do anything again. Where’s the power in that? It’s just killing. Anybody can do that.”

  “The power of death,” he mused. “Is that not what you have just given me?” The Archduke chuckled softly, ruefully, and shook his head. “It seems that I owe you a debt of gratitude. I do have enough power to stop that silly boy from blowing up the North Keep—with his sister in it, I presume? Yes, if he could manage it, I think he would. How much worse it would be, in what passes for his mind, for her to live her life in religious error than it would be for her to die. And her children with her?”

  Cade looked him straight in the eyes. “No. Princess Miriuzca, yes. But not the children. I didn’t see the children.”

  “Ah. Well, then, I shall arrange for him to be caught with black powder, and give him a choice between going home or going to Culch Minster. Will that suit?”

  “He has to stay alive,” Cade said. “His death would bring questions, no matter how cleverly it was devised. Beyond keeping him alive, I don’t care what happens to him.”

  “Neither do I.”

  So they were in accord again. Cade felt soiled.

  “I’ll know if the Tregrefin gets any closer to his goal,” he said suddenly. “I’ll know if nothing has been done.”

  It was, of course, a bluff. The Archduke couldn’t know that, any more than he could know that Cade had lied about not seeing the children.

  “I quite understand,” was the reply. “What we were saying about trust—in this, you’re relying on my belief that this will be to my advantage. Neither of us cares about the Tregrefin. He is of no use to us.”

  “If he’s arrested,” Cade pointed out, “his sister will fight for him, and not believe the evidence if it’s brought to her on a golden plate.”

  “So it must be done with … subtlety.” Another smile, another brief twitching of his brows. “Call up your visions in, say, two days. No more than that, I think.”

  Cade got to his feet. “Your Grace may trust that I will.” He used the word trust deliberately, and saw brief appreciation flicker in the man’s eyes.

  Pushing himself out of his chair, his cheeks flushing with the effort, the Archduke clapped his hands together once. The library door opened with a distant scratch of wood on stone. Somebody ought to plane down the door, Cade thought, then realized that the sound was not carelessness in construction. It was notice of entry. Glancing the length of the room, he saw the gray-suited man who had led him here—when? It seemed like hours ago.

  “Lauxen will show you back to your Elf. I have enjoyed our talk, Master Silversun.”

  Cade decided to make it absolutely clear one more time. “I would say that I am beholden to Your Grace, but that wouldn’t be accurate.”

  “No, it would not.” Irony glittered in the pale eyes. How crudely amusing it must be, to be reminded that he was now indebted to a common player. “Mayhap you ought to thank me instead? I’m told that’s becoming popular. Why is that, do you think?”

  Cayden shrugged. “It’s all a question of who’s indebted to whom, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed. I’ll look forward to seeing Touchstone perform at the Royal celebrations.”

  Cade nodded but didn’t bow, and turned for the door. Then the Archduke spoke again, in a very soft voice that would carry no farther than the place where Cade st
ood.

  “I forgot to compliment you on that exquisite little falcon at your collar. A gift, as I understand it. Tell me, purely as a matter of intellectual curiosity, do you ever see your young brother in any of your visions? Does he inhabit any future you’ve ever seen?”

  He kept his back turned to the Archduke, aware that fear was all over his face. He had never seen Derien in any Elsewhen, ever. The realization terrified him, because he understood very well the implied threat. Controlling his expression with an effort, aware that he could do nothing about the telltale pallor of his face, he turned and said, “I doubt that Your Grace would find my brother very interesting.”

  “That’s very likely true, Master Silversun. Good afternoon.”

  He was taken back to the room where he’d left Mieka. He opened the door on the Elf’s scared and startled face, and saw a thousand questions in those eyes. Shaking his head, he took Mieka’s elbow and pulled him along behind Lauxen, down stairs and across the vast entry stuffed with garish ornaments, and finally out into the warm summer sun. The rig waited at the side of the house, and as it was brought to them, Cade whispered, “Not until we get home. I’ll tell you everything there.”

  “Fine. Me, too. One thing, though. Can we stop at a swordsmith’s on the way?”

  “What do you want with a swordsmith?”

  Fiercely, he muttered, “Because the next time I’m in a place like this, I’m coming armed.”

  Cade didn’t know whether to laugh or scoff or take him seriously. “You don’t know how to use a sword.”

  “I’ll learn.”

  “You’re not joking.”

  “Once that withie was spent, I was helpless. I didn’t like it. Especially not in that ballroom. I’m buying meself a goodly length of sharp steel, I am, and lessons in how to use it. I don’t ever want to go helpless into a place like that again.”

  24

  Scarcely a day passed before another Elsewhen showed Cayden what the Archduke was planning. It was nothing so simple and direct as a view of guards catching the Tregrefin with black powder, or the boy’s departure from Albeyn on a ship taking him across the Flood. For the first little while after this Elsewhen was over, Cade had no idea what was going on.

  { “… a worthy life, if a brief one.” A tall, plump, bewrinkled man in the robes of a Good Brother poured wine for the woman seated opposite him. She wore similar robes, and a white woolen scarf draped across her shoulders.

  “Such a shame,” she said. “So devout. But I heard he was never quite the same after his return. Of course, the permanent loss of his hearing must have been a trauma, but other things have been said.”

  “Our friends on the Continent were rather sparing with information,” the man admitted. “I’m surprised he recovered as much as he did.”

  “A terrible thing.” She shivered and pulled the scarf more closely around her. “And one did hear rumors at the time.”

  “A friend of mine was the Brother Physicker who tended him. The loss of his hearing upset him dreadfully, you’re right. But something also happened to his mind, for he could not remember a single thing about that night. He went back upstairs to his chambers after dinner and dancing, and a servant was just leaving his room after delivering a flagon and some cakes. He found a copy of the Consecreations on a tall lectern such as tregetours and fettlers use, only with a candle on either side. Such a beautiful cover, he said, tooled leather with his family crest in gold.”

  “Such a thoughtful gift,” she said acidly. “Such a cunning method of murder!”

  “Yet he lived. Not for very long, and crippled, but he did live.”

  “He lit the candles, the better to read by, opened the book that was no book at all—”

  “But he had no memory of whatever happened next.”

  “He didn’t even recall what livery the servant wore?”

  “Even if he could, it would mean nothing. Who would be stupid enough to send that gift by someone wearing telltale colors? If he didn’t notice at the time that the livery was different from that worn by his sister’s servants, then it probably was one of his sister’s servants.”

  “Had the person been truly cunning, the bearer would have worn our robes.”

  “Which proves, to my way of thinking, that it was not the Archduke, no matter what anyone said after. The Lord and the Lady witness that he is clever enough to have thought of that, to cast suspicion on us. And who but those of the True Chapel would gift the Tregrefin with a copy of the Consecreations?” He scowled and tucked his many chins into his collar like a disgruntled turtle. “No, it could not have been the Archduke. Probably, as was judged at the time, it was an enemy from his homeland.”

  “Well, it couldn’t have been any of those close to the Princess who feared his influence on her. After all, his rooms were very close to hers, and when people came to rescue him, the ceiling fell down and made Lady Eastkeeping a widow. Although that might have been an accident, something unforeseen—”}

  He came back to himself to find that his partners were all watching him. Jeska thoughtfully refilled Cade’s glass with ale, and he drank gratefully before saying, “I’m not sure what was going on. Give me a minute, all right?”

  They went back to discussing Rafe’s play. Cade heard snatches of their conversation, but most of his mind was engaged in sorting out that Elsewhen. It took some effort: the shock of learning that Lady Vrennerie could become a widow kept demanding that he rush to the North Keep right now and warn her.

  The Tregrefin had been injured, had lost his hearing—which must mean black powder. Cade knew well enough what it was like to be deafened for long minutes after an explosion. But something loud enough to deprive someone permanently of his hearing, and violent enough to cripple him somehow, and bring down the ceiling … a copy of the Consecreations, a gift from someone unknown. The Tregrefin unable to recall anything. And not being the same after his return to his home … could an explosion have damaged his mind?

  Cade worried at it awhile longer, then decided abruptly that sorting it all out didn’t matter. Vrennerie’s husband mattered. He would have to contact the Archduke and tell him that whatever he was planning, his plans would have to change. About the Tregrefin, Cade cared not at all, so long as he wasn’t killed. But Kelinn Eastkeeping … Cade had guested at his castle and played with his children and considered him a friend, and of course he still had a warm place in his heart for Vrennerie. She was not going to be a widow at twenty-three.

  “Hand me a sheet of paper, would you?” he asked Rafe, who obliged and gave him pen and ink as well. Cade thought for a minute, then wrote three words and his family name on the page. Mieka came over to stand at his shoulder and read aloud.

  “‘Change your plan.’ That’s it?”

  Rafe scratched at his beard. “Somewhat … um … is peremptory the word I’m looking for? Or just plain rude?”

  “That works,” Cade replied. He folded the page twice and wrote His Grace the Archduke—urgent and private. Then he glanced round the undercroft of Number Eight, Redpebble Square, where Touchstone was rehearsing, and saw one footman he recognized and two he was fairly sure didn’t work for his mother, pretending to scrub the stairs. Touchstone had used the undercroft so seldom in the last years that it was impossible for anyone who worked here—or, evidently, his friends—to pass up the chance to see as much as they could of the famous First Flight on the Royal Circuit.

  “Here, you!” he called, suddenly ashamed that he didn’t even know the boy’s name. “Come here, please!”

  “How will he get past the layer upon layer of servants?” Jeska wanted to know. “Not to mention the guards.”

  Cade had no ideas. He’d been too busy being grateful that the Archduke was accessible, no longer at Great Welkin. He and his wife and children had moved into the apartments kept for them at the Palace, two days in advance of the colossal celebrations for King Meredan and Queen Roshien.

  Mieka was eyeing the boy. “That’s not your li
very.”

  “No, Y’r Honor, this is me work clothes.”

  Cade began to see what Mieka was after. He assumed what he hoped was a kindly smile. “You have a formal jacket—gray with silver braid, right? For when you serve tea, or go with Her Ladyship to the shops, and carry her purchases, and all that?”

  “Yes, Y’r Honor, but not for nothin’ else, not never, not unless Her Ladyship says it so.”

  “Well, you’re about to go on an errand for me, so go put that jacket on.” When brown eyes widened with alarm, Cade went on, “There’s half a royal in it for you. I want you to go to the Palace and give a note to the Archduke.”

  Alarm became panic.

  “If you’re there and back in good time, my mother will still be out paying calls.”

  “Wait half a tick.” Mieka came round to Cade’s chair and bent down, fingers busily working at his collar to unhook the falcon pin. “He noticed this at Great Welkin. Use this as identification to the Archduke—no, don’t wear it, just keep it in your pocket! And remember to come back with it!”

  It would have to do. The boy listened in tense silence to Cade’s instructions, which now included not just the half royal but also a promise to see to it that he lost his job if he didn’t return the pin and if this note did not go from his hand to the Archduke’s, without anyone else having touched it in between. Cruel but effective.

  “As for you two,” he said to the other boys, still at the steps with pails and brushes, “take that lot back to Mistress Mirdley and scoot on home. You’ve seen enough for one day!”

  When all three of the boys were gone, Mieka asked, “So what was in the Elsewhen?”

  “Does it matter?” Jeska asked with a shrug. “Cade didn’t like it. The Archduke will have to think up something else.” Turning to Cade, he said, “Unless you want to present him with your own plan?”