by Melanie Rawn
“I care nothing for tales told to children at bedtime,” the Archduke snapped. “What else did Goldbraider say?”
“He asked if Silversun has any books dealing with your part of the world, Your Grace. He meant, of course, the lands your ancestor came from. Silversun replied that he might have better luck at the Royal Archives. It was mention of Your Grace’s name that alerted my daughter, you see, and she paid attention, but nothing else of interest was said.”
“I have told you before, everything Silversun says and does is of interest to me.”
“And I have reported what I have been able to discover, Your Grace—”
“All of it?”
“All of it, Your Grace.”
“Goldbraider,” he murmured then. “Pity he’s so stubborn. So volatile. He would have been useful.”
“But the Shadowshapers refused Your Grace’s offer—”
“How did you hear of that?” he demanded sharply.
“The Elf.”
“Of course. The Elf. Always the Elf.” He pulled from his coat pocket a folded piece of parchment, extending it to her as a wary kennel-master extends food to a bitch known to bite.}
“Cade? I asked what you think, and you haven’t said a word.” He looked over at Vered: the white-blond hair, the dark skin, the combination of Elf and Wizard and Goblin and who knew what all else—except that Black Lightning with their magic could have touched whatever was in him and he would feel it, sense it, know what exactly he was, just as Cayden had felt and sensed and known the Fae and Troll and Goblin blood in himself—
“Sorry,” he managed. “Just thinking it over.”
—the dirty blood, just as Piksey and Sprite and Gnome were dirty, children of the Lord and Lady yet banished as unworthy in Black Lightning’s version of the story—
“Sounds interesting,” he said at random.
—Black Lightning, who either had been or soon would be approached by the Archduke, Cade felt certain, even though he’d never seen it in an Elsewhen—the Archduke who wanted to know everything Cade said and did, and had Mistress Caitiffer in her hooded cloak of thin black velvet that kept out the cold with warming spells to spy on him through her daughter, the way her daughter had told of Mieka’s drunken rant that revealed Cade’s foreseeing—
“Of course. The Elf. Always the Elf.”
“How—how would you go about it?” he asked, abjectly grateful that the question seemed to have some meaning for Vered, who started talking again. Not that Cade really heard him.
—and did this all mean that the Archduke actually believed? Cade had reassured himself for months now that the notion was too outrageous to evoke aught but laughter. But what if the Archduke did believe?
With an effort he collected his scattered thoughts and concentrated on what Vered was saying. The night breeze had freshened, tinkling the crystal drops with a noise that hurt his ears.
“—mainly through the eyes of the Wizard who gives one of the knights a silver hand.”
“I thought it was made of wood.”
“Rotten stage effect. Can’t think yet what a silver hand might do, but it’s a much better visual than wood. And the knight—”
“The Knights of Balaur Tsepesh,” Cade heard himself say.
“Of what?”
“I–I heard it someplace. Vered, I’m sorry, but I’m too paved right now to remember. I need some sleep.”
Eyeing him, Vered nodded agreement. “Might be an idea to follow my example, y’know, about the drinking,” he suggested. “You’re not so luffed that you’ll forget about the books?”
Cade shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll remember. Come see me at Redpebble when we’re back in Gallybanks. And lend us a shoulder, eh? There’s too many stairs between me and my bed.”
* * *
Had this been the Winterly, Mieka would most likely have been in the throes of his annual head cold and spent their time off recovering. This year—healthy and ready to have some fun—he was relentless. Rising at noon, he ran through the gardens, the castle, the nearby village, and the serving girls until well after midnight, and he did this for five solid days.
Jeska occupied himself most days with riding, professing himself sick to the eyeballs of any company but his own—but of course he found congenial female company by night. Jeska, Cade was convinced, could find congenial female company in the middle of a desert. Rafe explored the castle between penning a long letter to Crisiant, appearing each evening at dinner to detail newly discovered amazements. Lord Rolon Piercehand’s ships traveled all over the world, and constantly brought back the latest in beauties and oddities to amuse him and his guests. Rafe (and Mieka) devoutly avoided the room with all the stuffed animal heads; these had a tendency to roar. In his meanderings he found an upstairs chamber full of glass cases containing lidded baskets of all sizes made of all sorts of things: reeds, rope, beads, bones, spun silver, and something he swore looked like hair. Another room was devoted to rock specimens, some of them as large as a horse trough. There was a collection of weird white marble figures, all of them with folded arms and blank faces, in the same chamber as about a hundred little black metal figurines with elongated spidery limbs. A smallish chamber contained an assortment of human skulls, some of them painted or decorated with beads. The display of clocks had been added to, as had the roomful of musical instruments.
“And somebody’s bespelled it,” Rafe concluded, “so that when the door opens, everything there plays the same note. As for the room with the skulls—”
Mieka shuddered. “They open their jaws and yell. Been there. Not going anyplace near it again!”
Most interesting to Cayden was the library, which somehow he had missed entirely on his previous two visits. The reason for this turned out to be simple: Lord Piercehand had only this spring ordered the transfer of all the books from his Gallantrybanks residence here to Castle Eyot.
“Quite a lot of work for you, I’d imagine,” Cade remarked to the servant who was cleaning the windows.
“We’re used to it, Your Honor. Every time His Lordship’s fleet sails in from the Lord and Lady alone know where, crates and crates and more crates arrive once the fortyer is over, and places to be found for it all. This chamber, for an example to Your Honor, used to hold His Lordship’s array of bowls. Clay, glass, silver, gold, and I’ve no notion what all else. So the shelves were already here.”
Looking around at the thousands of volumes now on those shelves, Cade said, “That’s a lot of bowls.”
“There’s a lot of practically everything here at Castle Eyot, Your Honor. And it’s been a puzzle to us, finding a new place for them all. But as it’s books that’s fancied, let me fetch my son. He had the arranging of them. Managed it in a fortnight, he did,” he finished proudly.
And managed it very badly, Cade didn’t say. It appeared that “arranging” meant putting all books with similarly colored bindings together regardless of subject or language. It would take a real librarian to sort all this out.
Aware that the lack of organization made it futile, still he spent three afternoons searching for any reference to the Knights of Balaur Tsepesh. He found nothing, of course. Several volumes about Vampires, all written in the last fifty or so years, including a book of stories that quite obviously built on what little was demonstrably true. He found these surpassingly silly, not vivid enough to give him even the smallest of nightmares, but he read them to make sure there mightn’t be something useful tucked away. There wasn’t.
There were hundreds of books in languages he didn’t know, and while trying to convince himself that some of the titles stamped in gold or silver on the spines looked familiar from the months on the Continent last year, he suddenly thought of Drevan Wordturner, the librarian who wanted to be a cavalryman. Drevan had made a prize fool of himself at the marriage-by-proxy ceremonies, and not even Kearney Fairwalk’s interest in him had saved him from banishment to the Archduke’s remotest estate, presumably to cont
inue studies he hated in books only his family could now read. Perhaps he might be appealed to for information about the Knights.
The instant this absurdity occurred to Cade, he laughed aloud. But the more he considered it, the better the idea seemed. Who would ever think that anyone could be stupid enough to ask the Archduke’s own librarian for information the Archduke did not want known?
Cade was sure that whoever and whatever the Knights had been, they meant something to the Archduke. He had been—would be—rattled good and proper when told that Vered Goldbraider was researching them. Perhaps Cade could drop a casual word to Kearney, who would most likely be thrilled at the chance of seeing Drevan Wordturner again. It probably should have disgusted Cade that he was about to use Kearney Fairwalk’s bedroom preferences to his own purposes. It put him on a level with the Archduke—who, if Mieka was right, had brought Drevan Wordturner along because he looked enough like Cade so Kearney could do some pretending when the lights were low. The Archduke had tried to use Drevan to get to Kearney to get to Touchstone; Cade planned to use Kearney to get to Drevan to get to the Archduke, or at least get to some information the Archduke wanted kept secret. There was an agreeable symmetry about it that pleased Cade, and far from being ashamed of himself, the scheme amused him.
The Royal Circuit continued with shows in Bexmarket and a long, tiring drive to Clackerly Minster through ripening fields under a sultry sky constantly threatening rain. A large parcel was waiting for them at their inn just outside Clackerly Minster. In addition to the usual family letters, there were gifts for all four of them as well. Mieka, recognizing his wife’s handwriting on the individual packages, tossed them in each recipient’s general direction before ripping the muslin wrapping off his own. With a glad cry, he flourished a new shirt made of forest-green silk, with laces up the front of thin golden braid.
“Ah, me darlin’ girl’s been missing me!” he crowed. “Where’s her letter?” After a rapid perusal, he said, “For the wedding performance at Coldkettle. What’s she sent you lot, then?”
The gifts were shortvests of the same material for Cade and Rafe, an embroidered neck cloth for Jeska, all with gold embroidery. Jeska was already swirling the silk around his neck, stroking the lush folds.
“That’s very thoughtful of her,” Rafe said, fingering the subtle embroidery on the vest. “Beholden to your lady, Mieka.”
“Yes, much beholden,” Cade said. He wrapped the muslin carefully around the garment—which he had not actually touched—and retied the string. And all the while he was thinking that it really was a beautiful vest, and it was going to be a real shame to shove it down the garderobe and pretend he’d lost it.
10
Rafe was seriously peeved, and Cayden didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if Touchstone hadn’t been welcomed with flattering attention, and by Lord Coldkettle himself. The stage had been specially built for the wedding festivities, out in the main courtyard with a whole castle wall as a backdrop—and wasn’t Rafe always delighted when they had an outdoor venue, with no stray support beams or odd walls to deal with, and a freedom that let him and Mieka stretch their strength? Jeska was the one who always worried that his voice and gestures might not project well enough to the back rows. They had one performance on the last night of the celebrations, and one the night after, and would be spectacularly well paid. Cade simply didn’t understand what Rafe’s problem might be, and a few hours before their show he finally confronted his fettler.
“Didn’t see her, did you?” Rafe growled.
“See whom?”
“The little blond who thinks she’s a fettler.”
“She’s here? Whatever for?”
“One can only speculate,” he snapped, and refused to say anything more.
Not being entirely stupid, Cayden could guess. The girl—what was her name? Tegs? Kegs?—was likely here to provide protection for guests who might be too sensitive to magic. Who had hired her? Lord Coldkettle himself? One of his friends? A guest? Keymarker barmaids didn’t invite themselves to noble weddings.
This would be the first time Touchstone would perform outdoors at Coldkettle, and mayhap someone was nervous about whether or not they were up to the challenge. The Stewards took such things into consideration when awarding points that would put a group on the Ducal or Royal—all the Winterly shows were performed indoors—but until a group proved itself, there must be doubt. Touchstone had already played several outdoor shows on the Royal with no problems whatever. Whoever had hired this girl, the implication was enough to exasperate Rafe, and Cade couldn’t blame him.
Touchstone would perform to a crowd consisting of the nobility and Coldkettle’s general population from miles around. Special arrangements had been made for women to watch. Viewing stands holding a few dozen seats each had been constructed here and there, fitted with thin gauzy curtains that fooled nobody. As Cade stood with his partners offstage, waiting for the huge assembly to quiet down, he bit back renewed impatience with this silliness about not allowing women to witness theater performances. Surely by now, after all these years, someone ought to have acknowledged that theater didn’t shatter their poor fragile little minds. Barmaids had been witnessing performances for years. Mayhap they were considered to possess a lower-class gristle that rendered them insensitive. Ridiculous notion, but who knew what the Stewards were thinking? Somebody ought to have made the official decision that permitted women to attend openly, rather than sneak behind veils or dress up as boys or huddle behind curtaining wisps of material. Perhaps it was more fun for them, the way the ladies of the Court enjoyed the pretense regarding performances at the Pavilion, but it annoyed Cade.
Picking out by sight one small girl with dark-blond hair, possibly disguised in boy’s clothing and wearing a cap of some kind, was hopeless. Using magic, however, would be easier; he had only to supervise Mieka’s and Rafe’s efforts a little more closely than usual, and find out where the resistance or protection was. If any.
There was none. “Dragon”—truly dazzling when performed outdoors under the stars—was a smashing success. “Hidden Cottage” had been specially requested (the funny version, complete with near-sighted lordling and squealing pig), and had the audience in whoops of laughter. But no sooner had the glittering motes of Mieka’s high-flung shattered withie drifted to the stage than the glisker leaped over the glass baskets and grabbed Cade’s arm as they took their bows.
Smiling all over his face for the cheering crowd, Mieka demanded, “What in unholy Hells was that?”
“What was what?” Cade parried, trying not to wince at the grip on his arm. The slight little Elf was stronger than he looked.
“Is it me you don’t trust, or Rafe?” Mieka smiled and waved, and kept hold of Cade as they left the stage. “Keeping watch over everything like that, putting yourself betwixt the magic and the audience more than you’ve ever done since that very first night in Gowerion—”
“Mieka—”
“It can’t be Rafe you were worried on, so it has to be me.” They had reached the guards’ room built into the walls that had been set aside for their private comfort before and after the show. Mieka dropped the smiling mask and confronted Cade furiously. “After all this time, you don’t—”
“It wasn’t either of you, I swear. And let me go, damn it!” He wrenched his arm free. “You remember that girl at the Keymarker?”
Rafe handed each of them a cup of ale. “I appreciate your caution, but it wasn’t necessary. She didn’t do anything.”
“I know.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Mieka demanded.
Rafe explained; Mieka became mollified.
“Are you absolutely sure you saw her?” Jeska asked.
“Down in the village yestere’en, wearing go-to-Chapel best, trying to look as if she can afford to do more than gape at the goods in the windows.”
“I keep wondering who hired her,” Cade mused. “I mean, it’s not as if a Keymarker barmaid gets invited to�
��but, come to that,” he interrupted himself, “how could anybody know she has the skills and could be hired at all?”
No longer interested now that his pride had been soothed, Mieka said, “You puzzle it out as you like. I’m for the party. Good drinking, this,” he finished, and emptied his glass, and went in search of another.
It might have been the new green silk shirt, and it might have been the ale, but Mieka was in his own bed that night on the opposite side of the chamber from Cade’s.
The disappearance of the shortvest stitched for him had provoked jeers about how he couldn’t be trusted to remember to pack anything but the glass baskets and withies. Jeska fretted a bit about visual harmony gone all to Hells because of Cade’s carelessness, but then recalled that he had a velvet scarf almost the same shade of green—it was indeed his color—and lent it for the show. Cade promised to look for similar silk at the Castle Biding Fair, but told Mieka he’d have somebody else do the sewing. Mistress Windthistle couldn’t be expected to do all that work again just because Cade was too much the dizzard to treat the garment with the respect it deserved. He was very careful to say all this while pretending to search through his things one more time, not looking at Mieka; he wasn’t exactly lying, but the Elf could always tell if what he said wasn’t exactly the truth.
The next morning the happy couple—Cade hoped they’d be happy, at any rate—departed on their wedding trip. Touchstone would play one more show, inside the castle this time, for Lord Coldkettle’s lingering guests, then leave the next day, bound for Lilyleaf, Castle Biding, Frimham, Stiddolfe, and home. Cade was helping Rafe pace out the dimensions of the vast entry hall, calculating the height of the ceiling and the distance from the makeshift stage to the grand staircase and balcony where the guests would sit, when a familiar voice spoke his name just behind him.