by Melanie Rawn
They parted from Lord Eastkeeping’s party at dusk. Camp was set up and dinner was set to cook, but Touchstone’s wagon rolled on to the night. Farewells were warm and promises were made to meet again in Gallantrybanks this winter. Cade got back into the wagon and found a glass of ale already poured for him, and Rafe frowning across it.
“What’s all this about that story Chat told us? Mieka says you asked Vrennerie all about it. You’re not thinking of making us do a full-stage battle and all that goes with it, are you?”
“No.” He watched an apple orchard go by outside the window, heard the sounds of Lord Eastkeeping’s camp fade into the distance.
Mieka slouched in the opposite chair and poured more ale. “We should’ve stayed for dinner.”
“Lilyleaf tomorrow,” Cade reminded him. “Mistress Ringdove will have fresh trout in lemon sauce and those mocah candies you like.”
“Stop tormenting me!” Mieka scowled at the leftovers of bread, cheese, and vegetables that would be their evening meal. “Croodle’s cooking—the very mention of it in the same breath as such chankings as this just isn’t decent—”
All at once Jeska began burbling where he lay in his hammock, swinging gently back and forth. “Croodle, Croodle,” he sang, a sweetly silly grin on his face. “Croodle cooking cooing cuckoos—”
Cade stared. “What’s wrong with him? Swallow the same dictionary Mieka did?”
Rafe said, “A little something of Auntie Brishen’s finest in his ale. So he’d stop carrying on about his sore bum.”
“Don’t worry,” Mieka assured them as Jeska went on crooning. “It’ll really hit him in a few minutes and then he’ll shut up. Thorn’s different when you drink it—not like sliding down a hill, more like falling off a cliff.”
“Croodley, crudely, rudely, lewdly, cutely, toodley-dum-de-doodley—”
“Oh Gods,” Cade moaned. “How many minutes is a few minutes?”
“—lumpety-thump, clumpety-rump, teedley-wheedley-boo!”
Cade pointed a finger at Mieka. “Make it stop. Now.”
“Dumpety-crumpush, Duchess on crutches, luscious, mush… m-m-m-mushes…”
Silence.
Cade peered at his slumbering masquer. “Will he be all right in the morning?”
“No reason why not.” Mieka plunged his fork into a hunk of cheese and regarded it resentfully. “We’ll throw him into the baths, shall we, first thing after lunching?”
11
Early to rise, early to bed only made a man bored out of his head, as far as Mieka was concerned. Whilst he’d still lived at Wistly Hall, his bedchamber had been far enough away from everyone else’s in the vast barracks of a place that he wasn’t bothered by other people rising at repulsive hours of the morning. In his new home, his wife had thoughtfully arranged the baby’s cradle in her mother’s room at the opposite corner of the house from their bedchamber. When his daughter squalled for her morning feed, Mieka heard her, but only at a distance.
His partners in Touchstone weren’t so obliging regarding his comfort. Rafe, the baker’s son, still woke early, noisily, and inconsiderately: banging about the wagon, opening or closing windows, muttering to himself, searching with an unjustified amount of racket for this or that or something to eat. Cade, bless him, usually sprawled silently in his hammock, thinking Great Thoughts or reading, for an hour or so after waking. Sometimes, though, he was as rude as Rafe, especially when he couldn’t find the book he’d been reading the night before. Jeska would slide quietly enough from his bed, but the splashing of his morning wash, the cursing that always came with negotiating the cleft in his chin on a shaving day, and the debating he did with himself about which of his score of equally gorgeous outfits he would wear that day invariably interrupted Mieka’s sleep. A discreet application of redthorn at night didn’t last until dawn.
So Mieka never minded that much when Yazz got them to their next stop while they were all still abed. He could wake up enough to climb stairs to their allotted rooms, or elect to stay in the wagon while the others went into the inn, and then cuddle back to sleep with little or no memory of ever having woken up at all.
Yet when the wagon pulled into Mistress Ringdove’s establishment in Lilyleaf at dawn, Mieka was wide awake and had been for quite some time. This annoyed him. If he didn’t get some decent sleep, he’d be nigh on useless at their first show tonight—or would be, without some of Auntie Brishen’s bluethorn. The reasons why the night had been fitful and fretful were only partially clear to him, but he was sure all of them were Cayden’s fault. The man’s habit of thinking too much was, unfortunately, contagious.
Mieka wasn’t quite sure how they’d come to be traveling with Lady Vrennerie and her husband—he hadn’t even known she was at Coldkettle for the wedding—so her presence in the wagon yesterday had been a shock. Not the shock that had twisted him up in his hammock; that maneuver had been deliberate, an example of the clever and mad Blye had recommended years ago. He’d actually been awake for some time, listening to the conversation. And grisly talk it had been, too. He’d decided when they got to the dead animals part that it was time to put a stop to it before he lost his appetite.
There had been a second shock when he was handing her down the steps. “Just to be letting you know,” she’d whispered, “that green shirt from last night suits you much better than all that velvet last summer—such a difficult shade of blue, don’t you agree?” He’d nearly collapsed with the knowing that she had recognized him last summer behind the blue gown and heavy veil. How had she managed it? He hadn’t a clue. But if he ever did such a thing again, he’d make sure to keep a withie up his sleeve and use the magic inside to create an appearance for himself that would keep him mysterious. And all at once he resolved that he would indeed do such a thing again, just to see if he could.
Thus decided, he’d settled himself for sleep. But his brain was too engaged in poking around various other things, all of them to do with Cade and Vrennerie.
He still didn’t understand why Quill hadn’t pursued the girl. She was attractive and he’d been attracted. She laughed in all the right places, they were compatible—what was Cade’s problem? Mieka had thought, for a time, that Vrennerie would become a presence in Cade’s life, and therefore in his own. But it seemed she was naught but a passing digression.
Had this been a play, he thought suddenly, one thing would follow another in nice, logical, and even predictable order, all of it leading to culmination and resolution. Happily ever after wasn’t a strict requirement, but nothing in the script would have anything to do with aught other than the stated plot.
But this wasn’t a play. Life was messy, illogical, unpredictable, and things and people happened that had nothing to do with each other, leave alone the basic plot. How did you apply a plot to life? You couldn’t, not without warping things out of their proper proportions. Events that ought to be significant turned out to be trifles; people one met seemingly at random turned out to be central to one’s life. People came and went, things that had once been vitally important became trivial, what you thought would come of something—or someone—never happened the way you thought it might. Mayhap by the end of one’s years, one could look back and make sense of everything. But not necessarily—and certainly not while it was all happening. There was no predictable plot to the events of a life.
Lady Vrennerie, for instance. Had this been a play, Cade would be sighing right now at losing her to Lord Eastkeeping, who would of course have been infinitely less agreeable and perhaps even sinister, as befitted the standard story of a hero’s heartbreak (casting Cade as the Hero, naturally).
In a romance, something would happen to His Lordship to make Vrennerie available again, and she would come running to Cade for a scene of tearful, joyful reunion. Applause, take the proper number of bows, curtain down. In a tragedy, Vrennerie would be very unhappily wedded and stay that way, and Cade would keep sighing for the rest of his life—but nobly sighing, for as the Hero, he mus
t do the honorable thing and not tempt her away from her marriage vows.
Cade evidently did not feel inclined to sigh. Why should he? Vrennerie was clearly happy in her marriage and he was clearly happy for her—which automatically disqualified him from the role of Hero, because even the noblest of that breed must needs sigh. Lord Singleheart, for instance; in a rather stupid little playlet, upon realizing the superior suitability of his lady’s husband, he became so depressed that he rode off to fight wyverns and, needless to say, managed to get himself killed.
Nowhere in any play or poem or tale Mieka had ever heard of—and in his profession, he’d encountered most of them—not in romance or tragedy or anything in between, did the Hero stay friends with the lady who married another man. This was life, not a play, and Mieka concluded that it was much better that Cade was happy for Vrennerie and remained her friend rather than sighing (nobly) or riding off to get himself killed.
Not that Quill would ever do anything that idiotic, or that vulgar. Mieka could see Alaen doing it, though—a much deeper streak of the romantic than Cade had Alaen Blackpath, pining after Chirene. His wife had mentioned in her latest letter that the poor fool had shown up again at the house. Thorned, of course. Her mother had had the fright of her life when she came upon him, sleeping curled up like a child with tears still on his face, in a corner of the bedchamber Chirene occupied whilst she and Sakary had rented the place. When he woke, humbly apologetic and meek as a lamb, they bundled him into a hire-hack back to Gallantrybanks, but in Mieka’s opinion the man really ought to pull himself back into one piece.
He simply couldn’t imagine Cayden doing something that silly. He had better taste.
Still… was there no feeling that the man would surrender to? Not love, obviously. Nor rage, neither. Mieka couldn’t have counted the times he’d seen fury flare in those gray eyes, only to be doused almost immediately. Sometimes he deliberately provoked that anger, just to see if Cade would succumb. He never did.
It wasn’t that Cade was heartless. His love for his little brother, for Mistress Mirdley, for Blye—he could feel. He wouldn’t be capable of priming a withie if he couldn’t feel. Mieka’s job was to take those feelings and use his own to build on them, focus them, accentuate them, use them to beguile their audiences. But with Cade there was always the caution, always the control. Not even Black Lightning’s disgusting play had shaken him, though it had shaken everyone else who’d seen it. But not Cayden, not he.
Well, Mieka told himself as he trudged up Croodle’s back stairs and fell onto a bed, at least Cade had learned how to laugh. On first meeting him, Mieka hadn’t been entirely sure Cade knew what laughter was, leave alone how to do it. Took me awhile, though, he mused. Clever and mad… that’s the ticket. And on this thought he finally drifted off to sleep.
Late that afternoon, Cade, Rafe, and Jeska yielded to Mieka’s persuasions and accompanied him to the nearest baths. There were a dozen or so of these scattered throughout the city. Some were just ranks of wooden tubs, but some boasted marble pools and three different temperatures of water. One could loll in water cloudy with minerals, herbs, or, in the really expensive places, milk. In some places the rubdown girls were for hire; in others, they provided a massage but nothing else—though Mieka had found on previous visits that a bit of cajoling usually overcame their professional scruples. Not that he’d ever had to pay for that sort of thing ever in his life, of course, or ever would.
It was a glorious summer day as they walked the two blocks to the baths. Neither the most exclusive nor the least, decorated with a few fallen columns nicked from elsewhere to give it an impression of age and dignity, there were two mineral pools for bathing (one cool and one hot) and rooms with individual tubs where a patron could select the type and temperature of the water. On Croodle’s advice, Mieka had chosen the hour when most of the bath attendants took their break, before everything was cleaned up following the men’s afternoon hours and just before the time allotted to women. Whether it was Touchstone’s name or Croodle’s that got them special treatment—or the simple fact that the girl on duty was young and responded with giggles to mild flirtation—they were escorted at once into the changing room. Rafe chose a private bath; Mieka, Cade, and Jeska plunged into the hot pool. The masquer immediately began swimming lazy laps.
“Nice,” Mieka remarked as he floated on his back within easy reach of the side railings; he could swim, but not very well. His voice echoed up to the arched ceiling, painted deep blue with silver and golden stars. “All to ourselves! Makes me feel a right prince, it does, with half the world to command.”
“I’ll take the other half,” said Cade, who sat on a step, waist-deep in hot water. He waved a languid hand. “And an age of marvels shall ensue!”
“Free whiskey,” Mieka said at once, “and a real theater in every town!”
“At reasonable prices. Women will be allowed to craft whatever they like, as professionals with a hallmark.”
“And attend the theater openly.” He gave the matter due consideration, then added, “No more anguishing over having to do any of The Thirteen at Trials.”
“Vered’s got you thinking about that, has he?” Cade grinned. “What grand ideas you and he have got! I’d settle for hot cinnamon mocah every morning for everyone as wants it—”
“And whatever the Archduke wants, by law he’ll never have it!”
“Talking of law,” Jeska said, “while you’re sorting out the world to suit yourselves, do me a favor and put an end to all writ-rats.”
Cade frowned. “Trouble with Airilie’s mother?”
It took Mieka a moment to remember that Jeska, too, was the father of a little girl. Mieka had seen her a few times, but never met the mother, to whom Jeska had not been married.
“I’ve gone through her accounts and my accounts, and they don’t add up straight. She says she’s not received even half what she’s owed. Kearney’s clerk says she must be mistook. But she has lawyers now, y’see.”
“I’d been wondering,” said Cade, “about all those letters you keep getting. The ones with the seals and ribbons.”
Mieka growled low in his throat. “D’you want me to send Jed and Jez to loom over them until they give in?”
Jeska swam towards them, muscular arms taking long, slow strokes. “Beholden, and it’s a lovely image to hold in my head, but no. I won’t have it said that I’ve shorted my daughter of her rights.” He stopped near them and submerged, then surfaced with his hair slicked back from his face. It immediately began to spring up in curls again. “Can’t believe how big Airilie’s getting,” he said wistfully. “And but for a few days every few months, I’ve missed all of it.”
“They grow,” Mieka said. “No stopping it, whether you’re there to watch or not.” He hesitated, because his next question was highly personal and Jeska had never been all that forthcoming about his private life. “Not to be nosy, but—why don’t you and your mother have the raising of the girl? I mean, the law being what it is, with fathers having all the rights to the children and such—”
“That’s only if the parents are wed and then divorced,” Cade told him. “He’s on the document as legal father, and Airilie has his name.”
“Mum saw to that,” Jeska said. “One of her cleaning clients was a justiciar, and she got his advice. Wanted us both to have the right to see her only grandchild.”
Mieka sighed. “But now it’s come back to bite you in the bum. Not that you wouldn’t have supported them anyways, of course,” he added hastily. “And talking of your bum, are you feeling better?”
“You promised girls,” Jeska grumbled, sparkling blue eyes giving the lie to his tone. “Girls with lovely soft hands, rubbing whatever I want them to rub. Where are the girls?”
The girls—well, one girl, petulant at being interrupted during her dinner break until she saw her client—duly produced, Jeska vanished into one of the private rooms. Mieka and Cade lingered for a while in the water, then braced themselves
for the required plunge into the cold pool. Emerging with shivering swiftness, they wrapped themselves in towels and went in search of their clothes.
The wood-paneled changing room was empty. Every shelf, every hook, every bench.
No shirts, no trousers, no stockings, no boots, no nothing.
They had just turned to face each other when Jeska wandered in, went to the shelf where he’d left his clothing, and stood there for a moment staring at it.
“Not him,” Mieka concluded. “Rafe.”
“Rafe,” Cade echoed in a tone that promised grim vengeance.
Not if Mieka found him first. Hitching the towel tighter round his waist, he strolled out to the reception area, smiled sweetly at the blushing giggler, and said, “Whatever the man with the beard paid you, I’ll double it.”
“Nobody p-paid me, Y’r Honor,” she stammered. “I’d be losin’ me place, I would, to take extra from a customer!”
Cade called from the inner doorway, “But you did see a bearded man walk out of here with more clothes than he came in with? Carrying them, I mean?”
She nodded. “I didn’t think much on it.”
If she’d bothered to think at all, Mieka told himself; she didn’t look the sort to have the wherewithal for much thinking.
She cast an anxious glance at the wall clock and said, “Beggin’ Y’r Honor’s pardon, but it’s nigh on time for the ladies—”
Right on cue, the front door opened and a brace of respectable middle-aged women in large, fussily feathered summer hats entered. With another of his most adorable smiles, Mieka dropped his towel.
“Gracious!” one of the women cried, unabashedly looking him down and up and then about halfway down again.
The other didn’t bother with the down-and-up part. “Hired a new bath boy, have you? I quite approve.”