Thornlost (Book 3)

by Melanie Rawn

  She gave him a glance from bottle-green eyes flecked with gold. “Not half stupid, are you?” Tossing the braid of dark-blond hair over her shoulder, she looked up at Rafe again. “Anyways, if I hadn’t put up a bit of a guard between her and that mad little glisker of yours, and done it before your magic even began, what her screaming would’ve done to your concentration I don’t like to think.”

  Amused, Cade watched Rafe’s face as insult competed with outrage. Cade could guess what was running through his mind—Hells, it was clear enough in his face. Bad enough was the implication that a fettler of Rafe’s talent and experience wouldn’t sense a vulnerable child in the audience. Worse: that he in fact hadn’t sensed it, because this girl had established a buffer before the first magic swept through the Keymarker—and he hadn’t sensed that, either, until the very end. (Neither had Cayden, not until that little hitch.) Worse still was her insufferable cheek in thinking he not only wouldn’t recognize frailty but couldn’t adjust for it. But worst of all, she was a girl.

  Rafe was drawing breath to express himself on any or all of these points when a barman yelled, “Megs!” and the girl flinched.

  “Rafe,” Cade said mildly, “we’re keeping her from her work.”

  Finger in her face again, Rafe snapped, “Just don’t you interfere in mine anymore, understand me?” He pivoted on one heel and made for the tiring room.

  “Ale, please,” Cade said swiftly, seeing she was about to escape. “Four, actually. Could you bring them backstage? Beholden.” As he watched her go, he gave in to the smile that had been twitching his mouth. Though it was Mieka’s opinion that there were seven sorts of female, Rafe recognized only two: Crisiant and everybody else. Each might have her individual place—mother, shopkeeper, glasscrafter, princess—but those places were to be kept to and no arguments about it. This barmaid who appeared to have the skills of a fettler… this wasn’t something to which Rafe would raise an approving toast.

  In the tiring room, Rafe had sprawled in a low chair as Mieka and Jeska finished packing up the glass baskets and spent withies. Cade saw the questions on the faces of his glisker and masquer, and wondered why neither had felt that little hiccup in the magic. He had no chance to say anything, because Megs was right behind him, expertly lofting a tray of four ales and a bowl of the Keymarker’s special baked pompkin squash, a delicacy from the Islands provided at great trouble and expense, according to the owner, but in reality available at several dockside markets, according to Mistress Mirdley.

  Rafe glared at the girl. Mieka looked more bewildered than ever. Jeska polished off his charm, as usual when around a girl whether she was pretty or not. Cade watched, fighting another smile, as he helped distribute the glasses and serve little plates of food.

  “Beholden,” she muttered.

  “And what might your name be, darlin’?” Jeska asked.

  She kept her gaze on the empty tray in her hands. “Megs.”

  “Megs what?”

  With a long-suffering sigh: “Knolltender.”

  Jeska smiled. “And are you?”

  She gave him a broad, toothy smile. “Congratulations! You’re the five thousandth person who’s tried to make that pun!”

  “So what have I won?”

  “A vocabulary lesson,” Cade said. “It’s tender as in ‘minder,’ not ‘affectionate.’ ”

  “I said he tried,” Megs reminded him. “I didn’t say he succeeded.” Tucking the tray beneath her arm, she bobbed a mocking curtsy and strode out.

  “Nice exit line,” Jeska remarked.

  Cade said, “Let’s finish our drinks and get out of here. If I know you lot—and I know you very well indeed—you still have packing to do, and we leave tomorrow early.”

  “On the Royal Circuit,” Mieka said with a contented sigh. “Y’know, I don’t think I’ll ever tire of saying that!”

  * * *

  It occurred to Cayden on their fifth day out that he’d seen the Continent bedecked in summer, but not his own homeland. He’d never gone traveling like this before. That first Winterly, in the King’s Coach, had been at times a sheer cold-clotted misery; the second, in the Shadowshapers’ wagon, had been much more comfortable, but still… the Winterly. Landscape swathed in snow, roads knee-deep in mud, skies shrouded in dismal gray, and not much scenery even on the better days.

  But Cade discovered, on Touchstone’s first Royal Circuit, that his country was magnificently beautiful. He had seen only its autumnal gold and brown, its wintry gray and white. Sitting up on the coachman’s bench with Yazz, wind gusting through his hair, the boisterous drench of summer colors amazed him.

  Green, for instance. It had only ever been a color of coolness to him before; he learned that it could be warm, drowsy, richly scented. Wheat rippling in endless fields; fruit trees bursting with pears and walnuts, apricots and almonds; dignified oaks quivering slightly with the chase and dance of foraging squirrels. Green was the tart juice of gooseberries picked sun-warm from streamside bushes, and the moist tang of grass crushed underfoot. It was the emerald flash of dragonfly wings, the limp drapery of a woman’s skirt rucked up into her belt as she worked, and waves of tangleskein moss clinging to river stones.

  And there was noise, too, infinitely more noise than in winter. It was the animals, mainly. A Gallybanker, in the usual daily run of things, heard horses, dogs and cats, and the occasional caged songbird trilling in somebody’s open window. Out here in the fields there were horses aplenty, of course, and dogs and cats, and a profusion of birds. But the lowing cattle, bleating sheep, grunting swine, and whatever sound goats made when provoked—for which Cade had no word, and this irked him—these things, although not precisely new to him, were in summer a raucous counterpoint to the flurrying wind and rushing streams.

  There were people sounds, too: Workers calling to each other, laughing, singing. Steady hammering that meant a new house or barn, hacking axes that felled a tree, the clack of bricks being piled into small burnt-red mountains, the clanging of blacksmiths at the forge, the creak and groan of a grinding mill.

  The stillness and silence of winter had its match, though, in the lazy quiet of a country road at late twilight. All the workers were at their dinners; all the day’s outdoor toil was done. Cade envied these people nothing about their lives except the scant hour of twilight hush, when all the world was drowsing.

  Except for the insects. Hum, whine, buzz, click-snick, drone—in winter there were spiders and bedbugs, ground-bound and silent. In summer things flew all over the place, flies and bees and wasps and gnats and other things he didn’t recognize but instinctively didn’t like. Was it better, he wondered, to get bitten by something you never heard coming, or to have the warning of whirring wings so you could make a fool of yourself trying to slap away something you couldn’t hardly see?

  The Royal Circuit was different from the Winterly in other ways. Without snow and mud to slog through, travel time was cut by about a quarter. And because travel was easier for everyone, there were more shows at each venue. Farmers could bring their families into town for a little overnight holiday, leaving the crops to the hired hands, and the next day give their fieldmen a treat in town likewise. The Royal and Ducal Circuits were timed to coincide where possible with local fairs and festivals—from something as simple as a local lord’s Namingday to the annual celebration at New Halt of the Miraculous Mending of the Sails by some Angel or other. (Nobody had ever made a play on the subject, which was odd, so Cade really didn’t know much about it.) There were also more opportunities for private shows, because during the summer the nobility went on progress to their estates or traveled to visit friends and relations. This year, for example, Lord Coldkettle’s nephew was being married; the Shadowshapers would perform on the first day of the festivities, Touchstone on the last.

  There wasn’t much overlap among the three groups on the Royal. A few times the Shadowshapers’ wagon would be rolling out of an innyard just as Touchstone’s wagon was rolling in. They c
rossed paths with the Crystal Sparks only once. Third Flight on each circuit went in the opposite direction from the first two, so rather than heading north on the route from Shollop to Dolven Wold to Sidlowe and so forth, the Crystal Sparks began in Stiddolfe and went to Frimham, Castle Biding, Lilyleaf, and north from there. Cade had to admire the logician who planned this out for all three Circuits. The whole of Albeyn loved a play, but there had to be enough time between performances to whet the appetite again.

  Taken all in all, Cayden was highly satisfied with the Royal. Touchstone was a proficient, creative entity now; each man enjoyed his work more than ever; audiences were large and approving; the wagon was nigh on perfect; Cade had no complaints. There was even a set of Rules, framed and nailed to the inside of the wagon door.

  • Abstinence from liquor is discouraged.

  • No unsanctioned plays are permitted. This includes unfunny farces, mawkish melodramas, pointless poetry, and anything featuring the deflowering of a giggling moronic virgin.

  • At all stops, refrain from the use of rough fingernails in the presence of ladies and children.

  • Hammocks are provided for your comfort. Do not abuse the privilege by hogging all the pillows. The offender will be tied up inside his hammock for the duration of the journey.

  • Do not snore at all. Do not accuse your Master Glisker of snoring. He never snores. Never.

  • In the event of runaway horses, remain calm. Leaping from the wagon in panic will result in being laughed at by your fellow passengers.

  • Should the driver (who is taller than you by half a mile and outweighs you by half a ton) judge a passenger guilty of any of the following offenses, that person shall receive chastisement as the driver determines.

  1. Foul farting

  2. Sobriety

  3. Good manners

  4. Inaccuracy in aiming at the pisspot

  5. Unwarranted celibacy

  6. Endangering the sanity of fellow passengers

  • The Rules are brought to you by Mieka Windthistle. Obey them or suffer.

  “Suffer what?” Rafe wanted to know when first he read through them.

  “Dire things,” Mieka promised.

  “Such as?”

  “Dire, dreadful things.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “Dire, dreadful, disgusting, damaging—”

  “Good Gods!” Cade exclaimed. “He swallowed a dictionary!”

  “—distasteful, deplorable, despicable—”

  “And is yarking it up out of order,” Cade went on. “—damnable, despoiling—”

  “Enough!” Rafe begged.

  Mieka cocked an eyebrow at him. “Am I to understand that the Rules will be obeyed?”

  Rafe drew himself to his full six feet two inches and stared down at the Elf. “Or what?”

  “Hideous, horrible—”

  “All right, all right!”

  “Especially the part about snoring.”

  8

  Looking back, Cade found it extraordinary that no one had asked Mieka how he would amuse himself now that he’d rewritten all the Rules for his own convenience.

  They really ought to have known.

  He behaved himself, more or less, from Shollop all the way to Scatterseed. But on the road up the Pennynines, either boredom or the unwonted burden of being good became too much for him.

  They really truly ought to have known.

  The first thing he did was to complain that everyone was getting a bit whiff, so he suggested they take advantage of the brook running alongside the road. The water was chilly, but the sun was out and the air was warm, and he further suggested that it might be a good idea to rinse out some of their clothes. He even darted back to the wagon—twice—to gather armfuls of laundry. Yazz was enlisted to rig up drying lines inside the wagon. Negotiating the flapping criss-cross of shirts and underthings was a bit tricky for the rest of the day, but Mieka solved that problem by hanging all their damp underclothes out the windows. Though daytime in the mountains was pleasantly warm, nights could grow very cold indeed until high summer, and by morning they had the choice of wearing what they’d been wearing for three days or waiting for their linen to unfreeze.

  Taken to task for this, Mieka seized a blanket and went to sit up on the coachman’s bench with Yazz. After a few desultory games of cards, Cade, Jeska, and Rafe climbed back into their hammocks for a nap, listening as the Giant and the Elf sang a series of intricate roundelays. The sound of Yazz’s deep, gravelly voice paired with Mieka’s light and surprisingly sweet singing was no stranger than the friendship between them, and Cade smiled.

  And then the firepocket began to smoke.

  Putridly.

  Windows were opened. Fragrant candles were lighted. It was discovered that just beneath the steel bracings of the firepocket, where it could be heated to a nice smoky glow, was a lump of pasture coal—otherwise known as cow shit.

  Even when the smoke had cleared, the interior of the wagon stank. With the windows open to the breezes in hopes of airing the place out, the three of them huddled in their hammocks, wrapped in blankets. Cade buried his nose in a sachet of herbs Mistress Mirdley had packed in with his clothes, and cursed the mad little Elf for a full hour.

  The following afternoon they happened upon a long, narrow lake tucked prettily into a fold of the mountains. The Master of the King’s Roads and Byways had been inspired by the scenery to build a little projecting platform halfway across the bridge so travelers could pause to admire the view. At Cade’s request, Yazz halted the wagon at this convenient balcony. They used it to introduce Mieka to the lake, kicking and yelling and fully clothed. While he spluttered and shivered and flailed back to shore, they debated whether or not to leave him there.

  “Dunno,” Rafe mused. “Gliskers might be pretty thin on the ground at New Halt.”

  “Cade can do the work until we send to one of the Gallybanks agencies for somebody else,” Jeska pointed out.

  Rafe was looking over the bridge’s low parapet at the infuriated Elf. “Not much of a swimmer, is he?”

  “Puppy-paddler,” was Jeska’s scorning verdict. “Not much use, taken all in all. Can’t swim, can’t ride, can’t drive a carriage—”

  Mieka had reached shallow water and was slogging through reeds and muck, cussing the whole while.

  “Now we know why he changed the Rules,” Rafe remarked. “That one about foul language—fluent little bugger.”

  “Done yet?” Yazz rumbled from his bench.

  “Almost,” Cade called back. “I don’t think we can sack him, Jeska. What would we tell his mother?”

  “All she’d say is that it’s a wonder we didn’t do it sooner.”

  “I—hate—you—all!” Mieka bellowed. “Forever!”

  Every so often on the rest of the drive to New Halt he rather ostentatiously unfurled a white silk pocket square, with which he gently and tenderly dried his ears.

  The weird old place outside New Halt was a different experience than it had been on the Winterly. Reassuring, to have their own safe and snug wagon waiting for them in the courtyard rather than someone else’s carriage; bizarre, to find it was just as cold in the cellar as it had been in winter; startling, to see that there was a second member of the audience this time, also wrapped head to boots in furs and woolen blankets. Seated side by side in cushiony chairs placed in the exact center of the vaulted undercroft, they said nothing and reacted not at all as Touchstone set up glass baskets and lecterns. They didn’t even move. It was like playing to corpses. Cade had raised the subject of this yearly engagement with Vered at Trials and found out that the Shadowshapers dreaded it just as much as Touchstone was learning to. It paid magnificently, but to Vered’s mind it wasn’t worth it—and he was just as glad that he and Rauel and Chat and Sakary could charge enough for their other private shows that they’d be returning a polite regret to this year’s invitation.

  It was with real perplexity that Cade had found out in a gloating let
ter from Kearney Fairwalk that the Shadowshapers had not received an invitation this year at all. Crystal Sparks, Black Lightning, and Touchstone would be playing here, but not the best group in the Kingdom. Most curious, and completely unexplained.

  As they set up, Cade wished that Touchstone could afford to turn down this performance and say they were busy—polishing their withies, trimming their toenails, anything to avoid this. The chill, damp cellar with its gloomy stone vaulting was eerie enough, especially after driving through a bright summer afternoon, but their audience of two, shrouded and muffled and absolutely silent, was downright unsettling when one was accustomed to playing to hundreds. Still, the money was necessary, and it would come to them personally in little bags full of coin, rather than being deposited in their bank accounts. So here they were.

  “Treasure” had been requested, and thus “Treasure” they would perform, but scaled back and toned down. For one thing, they were coming off five exhausting shows in New Halt. Two of those audiences had been composed of sailors off fortyered ships, rowdy and drunk and contentious. Tomorrow night they would appear before at least four hundred men from ships belonging to the new Duchess of Downymede—Princess Miriuzca—who had specially arranged this treat for her sailors. A kindness, Rafe observed when Kearney sent them notice of the engagement, and a very smart move on her part; perhaps, he suggested, she wasn’t so ingenuous as she seemed. Mieka had given a snort and replied, “Marriage to Prince Ashgar would make for rather a swift growing-up, don’t you think?”

  On this night, which should have been their time off to rest and relax, they were instead playing yet another show. The magic would be narrowly focused, and not so powerful as needed for a large audience. Jeska wouldn’t have to work his voice so hard. Rafe wouldn’t have to monitor the distribution of magic through a vast hall. Cade had primed the withies with just enough and no more. Mieka had to produce only minimal effects. Still, when the Elf offered bluethorn all round, they took him up on it.