by Melanie Rawn
“They didn’t write about that first show, I hope.” It still troubled him, that muffling of their magic. They were no closer to learning who had done it or exactly why. At least it had not happened again. They were scheduled for one more performance in Lilyleaf, and then tomorrow would be off to the Castle Biding Summer Fair, then the seaside town of Frimham, and finally the University at Stiddolfe, and home.
“No, last night’s.” Rafe sat with him at a corner table and beckoned Mieka to join them. There was a gleeful glint in the fettler’s blue-gray eyes that alerted Cade at once. But he held his tongue, because the sparkle wasn’t directed at him.
Mieka slid into a chair and distributed cold beers. “Say on, old son,” he invited with a smile.
Gleeful became positively evil. “ ‘Yestere’en at the Baths, the gentlemen of Lilyleaf were treated to a fine performance by Touchstone,’ ” he read aloud. “Let’s see—we were superb, blither blither, we were brilliant, more blither, we put a stimulating new twist on—ah, here it is.” He folded the broadsheet, cleared his throat impressively, and read, “ ‘As regards the glisker, Mieka Windthistle—’ ”
“They got your name right, anyhow,” Cade observed.
Mieka scowled at him. “Shut it! I want to hear what it says!”
“ ‘As regards the glisker, Mieka Windthistle, the superiority of the work must be experienced personally, for she handles the withies with such delicacy and assurance—’ ”
“She?”
Rafe nodded, a little smile twitching his lips beneath his beard. “I’m sure they don’t really think you’re a girl. But there it is for all the Kingdom to read.”
Mieka snatched the page from Rafe’s hand. “She?”
{Mieka stormed into the dim wood-walled offices of the Lilyleaves and bellowed for the broadsheet’s editor. “Get him! I don’t care if he’s making love to his wife or his sister-in-law or his favorite whore or all three at once! I want to see that miscreated crambazzle and I want to see him now!”
Within moments a crowd had piled up in the reception room. A balding, middle-aged man pushed through and demanded, “What’s all this, then? I’m the editor. Who’re you?”
“Mieka Windthistle!” He tore off his shirt, buttons pinging off desks, chairs, windows, and the eyeglasses of one startled scrivener. “Master Glisker for Touchstone!” He started in on his trousers, yelling all the while. “And your stupid rag of wastepaper not fit for wrapping rotted fish called me a girl!” Shirt discarded, trousers tangled at his ankles, horrified workers shrieking all round him, he yanked down his underdrawers and roared, “Does this look like something that belongs on a girl?”}
Cade was laughing as the Elsewhen faded, and Mieka turned on him in a fury. “What’s so bleedin’ funny?”
“You!”
“And what if it’d been you they called a girl?”
“It was just a printing error, Mieka, don’t be so touchy!”
“Two printing errors,” Rafe pointed out helpfully.
“What?” He scanned the rest of the article. “ ‘In a style not often seen, Windthistle practically dances her way through—’ Her! Gods’ bollocks!”
“I dunno,” Rafe mused. “You might look right fetching in a skirt and one of those frilly blouses.”
Cade pretended to consider. “You may be right about that. Something in pink, p’rhaps.”
{Mieka swanned into the broadsheet’s offices, flicking a lace fan here and there by way of greeting. And it was Mieka. Despite the full purple skirt, matching tight-laced bodice, and ruffled pink blouse; despite the padding that filled out that blouse; and even despite the long black curls cascading down his back and the globs of makeup on his face, it was indeed Mieka. Those eyes were unmistakable. He trilled a request to be directed to the editor. Some hapless functionary in a brown jacket led him to the far corner of the building. A door was opened, the functionary made a jerky little half bow, and a balding, middle-aged man rose from behind the desk.
“Who’s this, then?” he demanded after gaping at this apparition in pink and purple.
“So tremendously delighted to meet you!” Mieka sang out. “Frightfully grateful, don’t you see—not until your article about Touchstone’s performance last night was I entirely sure. But now you’ve unconfused me—eternally beholden to you!”
“Sure? Of what?”
All smiles, Mieka flung his arms wide, endangering a shelf and two stacks of books with his fan, and twirled round on his toes. “My friends say it was only a printing error, but it happened twice, so I knew there must be something in it. Fingers of the Gods pointing the way, don’t you see!”
“No, I don’t see!”
“Isn’t it obvious? You called me ‘she,’ and everything finally became clear! I really do believe I’ll just adore being a girl!”}
This time Cade had to brace himself against the table, he was laughing so hard. “Oh Gods—Mieka, I’m sorry—it’s just—”
“What did you see?”
Cade shook his head and tried to catch his breath. “Nothing awful. But you don’t have to give them such a shock, you know. A polite reminder would suffice.”
“What in all Hells are you talking about?” Then he crumpled the page in his hands. “Never mind. I don’t care. Where do I find these—”
“—miscreated crambazzles?” Cade asked, unable to resist. Should he let Mieka go now, and outrage the hired help by stripping off? Or should Cade try to calm him down and wait for Rafe’s teasing to suggest the notion of dressing up as a woman?
{It was a bizarre little group strolling towards the theater: three boys who didn’t move like boys at all, and one gaudily clad woman who didn’t move anything like a woman. She didn’t sound like one either as she—he—chivvied the trio through the crowd and past two constables more concerned with the free show they would soon see than with keeping the uninvited back from the queue. The “boys” slipped past on a signal from the theater’s chucker-out, who was grinning. The “woman” was about to join them when one of the constables finally paid attention.
“Here, now, Mistress!” he bawled, reaching out to grab at a sleeve. “What’re you thinkin’ of doin’?”
“You’d best leave your hands off, my good man, or you’ll be answering to someone more important than you ever dreamed you’d meet in your whole miserable life!”}
Mieka was still ranting about the printer’s error, but at a lower volume. Mieka. Of course it had been Mieka in that Elsewhen of more than two years ago—how could he not have realized it? As for the three “boys”—Blye, Jinsie, and—Megs—
Megs?
Cade reached reflexively for his ale and took a big swallow.
There were differences between that Elsewhen and this. He brought out the earlier one to examine it, and found that not only didn’t he know who the third girl was in the other one, but Mieka’s outfit had changed from bright green with beet-red lace to turquoise with pink ruffles and so many gold chains that he clinked when he walked. And the three girls (Megs? his astonished brain kept nattering) actually made it into the theater before just one constable, not both, accosted Mieka.
Yet how any of it could have changed because of something Cade himself had done or not done was a complete mystery. For that matter, how he might influence Mieka in this ridiculous affair of the mistaken pronouns was likewise baffling.
He really ought to be used to this by now.
“Cade?” Rafe rapped his knuckles on the table.
“What is it, Quill? You saw something more, didn’t you?”
They were looking at him, knowing that another Elsewhen had just surprised him. For once, none of what he’d seen was horrible or threatening—unless one counted the possibility of Mieka’s spending a night or two in quod for attempting to get into a theater dressed as a woman—
—but he wasn’t a woman, and therefore what he wore had nothing to do with whether or not he was allowed inside a theater.
Cade began to laugh agai
n. He could see it now, or at least as much as would get Blye, Jinsie, and Megs (Megs?) into a performance, and Mieka as well in all his flashy finery. What would happen next, he didn’t yet know. But oh, it would be a grand and glorious lark finding out.
* * *
Cade had been working on a new play. Well, he was always working on a new play—he couldn’t seem to help himself—but he did want to have something definite to show Kearney Fairwalk when His Lordship met them in Frimham. But dedication to the work couldn’t compete with the prospect of watching Mieka descend on the offices of the Lilyleaves.
The Elf had abandoned his grumbles and withdrawn to Croodle’s chambers upstairs. Between the two of them, possibly with help from Kazie, they’d decked him out very prettily in a butter-yellow skirt and a rose-pink blouse. This intrigued Cade; in the Elsewhen, Mieka had been in purple. Something had changed, something Cade had said or done had altered the future. He was at a loss to think what it might be, but fascinated to see how it would all turn out. He’d had no subsequent Elsewhen to let him know, which must mean that whatever happened from now on was Mieka’s choice.
When Mieka came downstairs, festively clothed, with Croodle and Kazie laughing behind him, Cade bowed and offered escort. It occurred to him as they walked towards the Lilyleaves offices that it was a good thing the old rule about improper attire no longer applied. A few days ago, it had been towels. Today, mercifully, he himself was fully dressed in trousers, shirt, and jacket. As for Mieka—it wasn’t just the skirt and frilly blouse and feathery fan and huge straw hat decorated with a trailing green silk scarf. There was a glisten of magic in the air that grew stronger as they approached the address gleaned from the broadsheet. Cade recognized it as Mieka’s own magic.
As long black curls began to appear below the hat and the blouse filled out in front, Cade asked, “All right, where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“The withie.”
“Pocket.” He patted his thigh. “Something left over from ‘Sweetheart’ last night.” Spinning round on his toes, he demanded, “Well? What d’you think?”
“Lip rouge. And not so much with the eyelashes.”
“I didn’t do anything to me eyelashes.” The smiling mouth turned bright pink. “Darker? To match the blouse?”
Cade sighed. “You are entirely, thoroughly, completely, utterly, absolutely, appallingly mad, you know.”
“Ah, but fiendishly clever with it!” A laugh, and a few more steps, and: “We’re here. I’ll do the talking. You just stand there and look worried, eh?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Mieka swanned into the office as in the Elsewhen, deploying the fan in a flutter of white feathers, bestowing his sweetest smile all round. There was just enough magic altering his appearance to make the impersonation almost credible. Cade saw confusion, suspicion, apprehension, distaste, and even a bit of alarm in the faces of those who gathered in the reception area. None of them knew quite what to make of this apparition—or even what this apparition might be.
“I give you glad greetings, all and each and every one!” Mieka trilled—a line stolen from one of the Mother Loosebuckle farces. “Such a lovely day outside, such lovely people inside! It would be the pinnacle of my existence to have a long talk with each and every one of you, but I simply must see your editor, the darling man! Where may I find him?” When a jumpy little personage in a brown jacket glanced involuntarily to the left, Mieka beamed at him. “So very good of you! Infinitely beholden!” With a playful flourish of feathers, he sailed unescorted in the indicated direction, skirts swishing, the fan held aloft like a triumphal banner. Cade followed, and observed that the fan seemed to be molting.
In the back corner—where Cade could have told him to go, if he’d had a mind to it—a door opened and the expected middle-aged, balding man stepped out. “What’s all this, then?” he shouted. “Get back to work, all of you!”
“The editor!” Mieka cried, clasping both hands together in raptures. “How exciting!”
“Who in all Hells are you?”
“That’s exactly what I wanted to speak with you about.”
Cade had thought there were two different directions this could go: Mieka stripping and demanding to know if the revealed equipment belonged on a girl, or Mieka pretending to be thrilled that his personal confusion had been cleared up at last. He really ought to stop underestimating Mieka.
The Elf pranced uninvited into the office, then whirled round and gestured expectantly at Cade. When all Cade did was stand there, befuddled, he snapped in his own voice, “Oy! Chair!”
Cade pulled a wobbly wooden chair from a corner and handed him into it. The fan lost a few more tuftings that drifted to the floor.
“Beholden,” Mieka said sweetly, and then graciously invited the editor to be seated in his own office. Arranging his skirts, he folded the feather fan and leaned anxiously towards the desk. “Now. Shall we be direct and forthright? I always feel that’s for the best when dealing with the press. Whilst I do realize that I’m quite enchantingly favored in form and feature, even for an Elf—”
“What?” the man asked, sinking into the chair behind his desk.
“He’s pretty,” Cade translated.
“Very,” Mieka agreed. “But whereas I’m sure you didn’t really mean to make out that I’m a girl—”
“A printer’s error, I told him,” Cade put in.
“Yes, yes, we’ve been through all that. The fact remains, however, that there are those who will suspect that Touchstone is—that I—that we—oh, how shall I put it?”
“That there really is a female onstage,” said Cade. He began to see where Mieka might be taking this, and set himself to aid and abet.
“Exactly!” Mieka leaned even closer to the desk, and in a confiding tone said, “I’ve found that having a Master Tregetour at one’s beck and call is the most useful thing imaginable when one is attempting to explain oneself. Always looking for the right word, that’s my Quill!” He rapped Cade on the arm with his fan, fondly, leaving behind a few flecks of feather. Then, sitting back again, he frowned his distress. “I can’t disguise that I’m rather worried. The notion that Touchstone has been gulling the whole Kingdom all this time by putting a girl onto the stage when such things are just so entirely, thoroughly, completely, totally, and—what was the rest of it, Cayden?”
“Utterly and absolutely,” Cade supplied.
“Utterly and absolutely and appallingly forbidden, don’t you see—well, that could get us into some real trouble. What I mean to say is, will they think I’m really my third cousin once removed, whose name is Miekella?” Looking up at Cade: “Stunning girl, by the bye—looks just like me, only even prettier. I must introduce you soon.”
Cade solemnly bowed his gratitude.
“As I was saying—will people think that I’ve been onstage this whole time really as a girl and—what’s worse—traveling about with three young men—three rather attractive young men, I might add, all the ladies say so—staying at inns, all night, in upstairs rooms—well, I’m sure you understand the potential scandal of it,” he concluded.
The editor’s jaw by this time was slightly open. His fingers scrabbled feebly at some papers on his desk.
“In any case,” Mieka went on, rising to his feet with one hand in the pocket of the skirt where Cade knew the withie had to be, “I’m here to demonstrate as convincingly as I can the truth of the matter.” With an endearing smile, he spread his arms wide and announced, “This is how Miekella Windthistle would look.”
Then he let the magic fade.
Gone were the extravagant curls, the pink lips, the full bosom. Gone as well, Cade saw with a shock, were the clothes. Skirt, blouse, hat, scarf—he stood there stark naked with the feather fan gripped in his fist. The fan lost its garnishings and became a slender glass withie.
Mieka’s smile became truly Angelic. “I,” he announced, “am Mieka Windthistle.”
“Oh dear Gods,�
�� Cade breathed. The mad little Elf really had come out onto the street dressed in nothing but magic and a pair of knitted blue silk socks. Cade had known from that very first night in Gowerion that Mieka was good, but he’d never imagined he was this good.
Or this crazy.
“Any questions?” Mieka prompted. “Doubts?” No response from behind the desk. “Mayhap an admiring adjective here and there? No? Well, much beholden to you for your time and understanding. We’ll leave you to your work. Cayden, old dear, shall we?”
“Get some clothes on!” he hissed.
Mieka glanced down as if only now realizing he wasn’t wearing anything at all. He examined the withie, shook it once or twice, held it to one ear to listen to it. “Oh, my. I seem to have run out of magic.” Turning back to the editor, he asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have a spare pair of trousers hanging about, would you?”
Cade snatched the withie from his hand. It was hard to concentrate enough to prime it, for the editor had recovered his powers of speech.
“Get out of here!” He pushed himself up from his desk, leaning heavily on it, and roared, “This instant, d’you hear me? Right now!”
“Love to,” Mieka told him. “Slight problem.”
“Out! Out!”
Mieka shrugged. “If you insist.”
Cade grabbed his arm before he could stroll through the doorway. “Here—use this—there’s not much, but you can wear my jacket—”
Taking the withie, Mieka favored him with a radiant smile and fluttering eyelashes. “Oh, Quill! You’re so good to me!”
Within moments Cade was following him back through the Lilyleaves main room. If anyone was startled to see that the young woman who had entered wearing a yellow skirt and pink blouse and carrying a hugely feathered fan was now a young man, barefoot, wearing gray trousers and a blue jacket much too long for him, it didn’t make the next day’s edition.
* * *