by Melanie Rawn
“Have a care,” Cade said, no longer smiling. “You’re speaking of the next Queen of Albeyn, mother of the Heir to the Throne.”
Mieka slid a hand into the velvet bag of withies, and even though there was no more of Cade’s magic in them, there was enough of magic in their making that he had what he needed. For him, a withie was a focus, a tool, even when emptied of his tregetour’s priming. As he had done for Blye after her father’s death, gentling her grief and easing her despair, now he worked with exquisite subtlety on Lady Jaspiela to soften her fury and sweeten her temper.
Or he tried to.
She rounded on him in midsentence. “Stop that this instant! How dare you?”
He was so startled that he dropped the velvet bag. Panicking, terrified that even one of the withies might have broken or cracked, he went down on his knees and scrabbled inside the bag. These were of Cade’s crafting, the only ones he’d ever made, and if they had been damaged—
“You outrageous creature! You despicable Elf! Don’t you know who I am?”
“Mother!” Cade shouted.
“Be silent! I will not have that repulsive Elf trying to—”
“One more word,” Cade snarled, rising to his full height, “just one more, and—”
“And what? You’ll leave my house for ever and for good? I’ve been anticipating that day for almost twenty-two years!”
She left the room in a skirring of silk just as Mistress Threadchaser came in from the kitchen with a heaping platter of pastries. Mieka pushed himself to his feet and went to take another platter from his bewildered wife. Jinsie stood there, a stack of plates in her hands, looking around the shockingly silent room.
“Oh my,” she said at length. “One less for tea, I suppose.”
Another moment passed, and another. Before anyone could say anything else, Vered Goldbraider poked his head round the doorway.
“The footman at Redpebble said you were here, Cade. But I didn’t think I’d be almost colliding with your lady mother!” He came into the parlor, a stack of books in his arms.
Mieka watched Cade’s gaze dart towards him—no, towards the trembling girl beside him. She inched closer and he wished he had a hand free to soothe her. Cade’s pale eyelids slid closed in an expression of numb submission that Mieka didn’t understand at all.
“Well, then!” Mistress Threadchaser suddenly said. “Girls, help me pour out, please?”
* * *
Nobody ate much. Mieka wished very sincerely for something stronger than tea. The conversation was stilted at worst and aimless at best. Vered took Cade over into a corner to talk about the books he was returning and those he thought he might still need. Mieka heard bits of their exchange when he helped his wife take the teapot and platter round in a vain attempt to coax them into doing justice to Threadchaser baked goods. Balaurin and red dragon shields surely didn’t have enough weighty meaning to have put that expression of weary acceptance into Cade’s eyes. Mieka was less concerned with that, however, than with hoping that Jinsie wouldn’t let anything slip about their plans for the Shadowshapers’ next show at the Downstreet.
Although considering what had just happened, it might be best if he delayed that particular plot for a while.
No. Lady Jaspiela, the Archduchess, and anybody else in Albeyn who didn’t approve could go seethe in their own bile. What he planned to do was right. Every instinct told him it was right.
Vered finally betook himself off after compliments to Mistress Threadchaser that were so prettily expressed that she gave him a box of pastries to take with him. Lord Fairwalk charmingly, if somewhat incoherently, begged the ladies from Wistly to allow him the privilege of driving them home. When they had gone, Rafe helped his wife and his mother clear up, then came back into the parlor and said, “Well? What’re you all doing sitting about for? We’re off to Redpebble Square.”
“Why?” Jeska asked.
“To collect Cade’s things, of course. Just enough for tonight, I think. We can make up the spare room upstairs. Tomorrow we help him pack and move.”
All at once it hit Mieka. Cade would no longer be living with his family. He would have to find a place of his own right quick, and somehow tell Derien, and Mistress Mirdley, and Blye and Jed—
—and it was mostly Mieka’s fault.
“Quill, I’m sorry!” he blurted.
Cade shook his head. “You heard her. It’s been coming for years.”
“But—”
“You weren’t listening to the rest of it,” Cade told him with a sort of ghastly wryness. “She was there when the Archduchess complained. She’s chosen a side, don’t you see? Although why the side she’d choose would be in any doubt, considering who her mother was—”
“But at the races—she called the Archduke ‘insufferable.’ ”
Cayden shrugged. “Either she’s had a change of heart since, or she likes his wife but not him, or she was shamming for reasons of her own. With my mother, who can tell? Good Gods, I can see it as if I’d written the script. Somehow she got invited to something, it doesn’t matter what, and snaked her way to the Archduchess, and made discreet mention of her mother—and don’t think Panshilara isn’t current with her husband’s past! Right and wrong don’t matter, nor public disgrace. It’s the power, Mieka. My mother thought she’d get a share of it when her husband joined Prince Ashgar’s household, but it didn’t happen. She never really thought any would come through me, but she gave it a try a few times. She sees a path through Dery—but he’s still so young, not even come into his magic yet. She’s impatient. She isn’t old, but she’s not young, either. Panshilara is exactly her kind of person. And I’ve no doubt that my mother suits Panshilara down to the ground.”
“It’s more than that,” Jeska said softly. “It’s worse.”
Rafe nodded, but it was Crisiant who spoke. “D’you think it’s just because they enjoy sitting around sipping tea and commiserating with each other? You talk of ‘power,’ Cayden, but which of them is likely ever to wield any? Who’s the important person in this—the only important person?”
Cade was smiling and shaking his head. “I see what you’re saying, Crisiant, but the Archduke gave up on Touchstone almost two years ago. He’s got Black Lightning now. He doesn’t need us.”
“He settled on Black Lightning through lack of any other candidates.” Rafe tapped a finger against the arm of his chair. “You’ve noticed, I’m sure, that this grand new theater he tried to tempt us with hasn’t even had a foundation stone laid?”
“But look what they’ve already done for him,” Cade argued. “They can direct specific magic at specific people—they can use it to make a man writhe inside if he’s not an Elf or a Wizard, if he’s anything Goblin or Gnome or—”
“Why?” Mieka asked. “Why would they want to do that?”
“You mean why would the Archduke want people to know exactly what they are,” Jeska corrected. “I’ve no clue, but I’m certain sure it’s for more than making those of us with other than Elf or Wizard in us uncomfortable with ourselves.”
“The clean children,” Rafe murmured. “The blessed children.”
Mistress Threadchaser smacked her hands together and they all jumped. “That’s enough of that! I won’t have any such talk in my house. You boys have a little more than an hour to get ready for your show. And there’ll be no moving out of Redpebble Square, Cayden, much as you might like to and much as I might agree with your reasons.”
“I can’t stay there.”
“You must,” she said, firmly but kindly. “For your little brother’s sake. And besides, there’s only one way to find out if Crisiant is right, even though we all know she is. If your mother says nothing when next she sees you in the house, or if she goes so far as to tell you that you needn’t leave, you can be sure she’s under orders to keep an eye on you.”
“I–I hadn’t thought of that,” Cade admitted.
“You’ll be gone at Trials soon, and then on the Royal Circ
uit. Leave it until after you return in the autumn. Leave it, Cayden. Derien needs to know that even if you’re not in the house with him all those months, you’ll be coming back. He’ll be ten this summer. You were more resilient at that age, of course, but he’s got a sensible head on his shoulders. He’ll be better able to accept things in the autumn.”
Cade nodded, and excused himself to a quiet chamber to prime the night’s withies. Mieka was left to wonder why, if Lady Jaspiela had had a hindering put on her as Cade had said, she had nonetheless sensed his magic. He’d ask his father about it soon; the notion of discussing it with Cade made him cringe.
But on the walk up Beekbacks to find a hire-hack, Cade told Jeska and Rafe to go flag down a driver and took Mieka by the elbow and said, “You tried to use magic on my mother.”
“Well… umm… yeh. How come she felt it?”
“What did you do?”
“Just a little something to calm her down.” He shifted nervously and tried to reclaim his arm.
The gray eyes turned falcon-sharp, predator-cold. “And just how often do you perform this charming trick?”
“Never on you!” Mieka protested.
“If you’re lying to me—”
“Quill, no! I wouldn’t ever do that to you! And why did she feel it?”
“Just because she can’t get at her own magic doesn’t mean she’s insensitive to it in others.” He let go of Mieka’s arm as the hire-hack neared. “Don’t you ever try anything like that on me. Ever.”
“I just told you I wouldn’t.” He rubbed his elbow; Cade’s long, thin fingers were brutally strong.
“Well” was played much as usual, but “Dragon” was different that night. The Prince’s doubts that he could live up to his forefathers’ deeds became defiance of a daunting legacy and a burning need to prove himself better than his ancestors; the speech at the end, about passing along to his own sons the knowledge that it was the striving that counted, and overcoming fear rather than pretending one was never afraid, had particular resonance tonight. Mieka felt the difference in what Cade had used of himself to prime the withies, and played it accordingly. So did Jeska.
Mieka offered Cade a bed at Wistly, knowing in advance that he’d refuse. Rafe’s mother had the right of it: Dery wasn’t old enough yet not to be grimly hurt by his older brother’s permanent departure. Mieka perceived the need to find out if Lady Jaspiela really would either ignore Cade’s continued presence in the house or grant him permission to stay (nobody thought she’d apologize or actually ask him to remain at Redpebble Square), but he shared Cade’s doubts. At best, Her Ladyship paid as little attention to him as she possibly could; how could she be said to keep an eye on him and on Touchstone? After all, as far as the Archduke knew, Cade was naught but a tregetour. They didn’t know about the Elsewhens.
The Elsewhens, to ambitious people close to the Throne, would make Cayden Silversun very valuable indeed.
23
The participants in Mieka’s little spectacle assembled at Wistly Hall at seven by the Minster chimes on Cade’s twenty-second Namingday. It would take the better part of an hour to get everyone organized into hire-hacks and over to the Downstreet for the performances (one offstage, one onstage), but Mieka’s thinking was that the less time everyone had to be nervous, the better for all concerned. It was always that way, he wisely considered, with any group of amateur players.
Not that there was any specific script for this show. He was trusting to luck and instinct, which had rarely failed him. Of course, none of his previous escapades had had anywhere near the potential this one did for total disaster, but he didn’t let that bother him.
The small crowd assembled in the front hall was an impressive one. Chat’s wife, Deshenanda, was there, as were several of her gowns. Vered’s friend Bexan Quickstride would meet the party at the Downstreet, where Lady Megs would also be waiting. Jinsie and Blye were in their prettiest dresses. Crisiant, lovely in blue almost the same color as the velvet gown Mieka had worn two summers ago, was present at her own insistence and over Rafe’s objections. Very stylish, she was, and very tall, but not so tall as some of the other “ladies.”
“My hem’s too short,” complained Briuly Blackpath.
“It’s perfectly all right for the petticoat to peek out below it,” soothed Mieka’s mother. “Most fashionable, in fact.”
“I don’t know what you’re griping about,” muttered Jezael. “My ankles are showing!”
“And very well-turned ankles they are, too,” his twin assured him sweetly, “almost as attractive as my own.”
“What about this bodice?” asked Alaen as he tugged and twitched.
“If you’d stop fidgeting,” scolded Jinsie, “you wouldn’t come unstuffed. Just stand still!”
Jeska, a poised and accomplished masquer, might have been expected not to squirm. “I’m used to me own clothes under magic!”
Mieka bounded up to the fifth step of the staircase to survey the gathering. Everyone was arrayed in their—or someone else’s—best. Colorful silks and delicate embroideries, cunning hats and lacy gloves, fake jewels, some swan’s down here and there, and even a luscious orange velvet cloak that clashed gloriously with Jez’s red hair… the only difficulty had been shoes, which had been Mieka’s despair until his mother suggested that they wear their own carpet slippers.
“Well, Fa?” he asked. “Will they suit?”
Hadden considered for a moment, then said, “I think Tobalt needs more up top. He’s a bit saggy. And more than a bit hairy.”
“We’ll give him a shawl to cover up,” Mieka decided. Then, clapping his hands loudly, he called out, “Splendid! You’re all gorgeous! Into the hacks now, and try not to get too wrinkled!”
“How I let Mieka talk me into this, I’ll never know,” said Tobalt.
“I’ve been wondering that meself for the last twenty or so years,” Jez told him.
Mieka gave a snort. “As if you’d miss the chance to write all this up for The Nayword!”
“Well, I won’t be mentioning my own participation. What would my wife and daughter think?”
“But you look so delectable in yellow!”
Tobalt regarded him sourly. “I’d smack you right in the nose, I would, but you’d bleed onto my gloves.”
Outside, they divvied up according to prearranged plan. Jez rode with Blye and Jed; Alaen and Briuly were escorted by Jinsie and Jeska; Rafe had charge of Crisiant and Tobalt. By Chat’s specific request Hadden and Mieka accompanied Deshenada. Keen to see her husband perform in a theater, she had, to Chat’s astonishment, absolutely insisted on joining in once she found out what her gowns were wanted for, but she was ever so nervous about it as well, poor sweeting.
Missing was Mieka’s own wife, who knew nothing about any of it and was at Hilldrop with her mother and the baby. Mieka felt a little guilty about that, but she was just too shy and fragile for such risky mischief. And he could concentrate more fully on the fun if he didn’t have to worry about her.
As for Cade… Rauel had taken care of that, by telling him that in apology for not attending his twenty-first Namingday celebrations last year—Gods in Glory, had it really been a whole year?—he and Sakary would treat him to a free Shadowshapers show with a party after in the tiring room. Cade, innocent of any knowledge of tonight’s festivities, would be waiting at the Downstreet.
Mishia had fretted that the drivers of the hire-hacks would be scandalized by the appearance of some of their passengers. Mieka had only laughed and said that they were Gallybankers, accustomed to seeing much stranger things. What he didn’t tell his mother, because he was still keeping the secret, was that thanks to Lady Megs, the drivers were being extremely well paid.
“Your mother,” said Hadden on the way to the Downstreet, “is not at all happy to be left behind.”
“But she won’t ever have to be again,” Deshenanda said softly. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it, Mieka?”
“Unquestionably,” he agr
eed. “And I must say, Desha, that you coming along is the best possible thing. Everybody will be stunned silent by the most beautiful girl they’ve ever seen, and that’ll give me enough time to talk us all free and clear.”
“Mieka!” his father chided. “How dare you tell a woman this lovely that her presence is merely a distraction for your pranking?”
Desha was giggling now, more relaxed. “Oh, nobody will look at me, once they catch sight of Jezael. He looks better in my pink gown than I ever did!”
“It terrifies me,” Mieka said, “that you might be right.”
“You have the ticket?” his father asked.
“Safely and soundly, Fa.” He patted his jacket pocket, then made an alarmed face. “It was here just a minute ago—” But it really wasn’t there. He felt genuine panic. “I put it there last night, I know I did—”
From an inner pocket of his own plain brown coat Hadden pulled a heavy parchment card. “I beat Jinsie to it this morning. She doesn’t trust you, either.”
“Me own Fa!” He made a grab for it, but it was held out of his reach. Deshenanda laughed, nerves completely calmed. “Desha,” Mieka said solemnly, “I hope you hold your own dear children in higher regard than he holds me. A scandal, it is, the slanders and slurs cast upon me—”
“Mieka,” Hadden said, “do shut up. We’re here.” He paused. “One other thing, my son. If the worst happens, you’re sure your friend from the Court has money enough to buy us all out after a few hours?”
“Fa, she has money enough to buy the jail.”
Mieka flung open the hack’s door and leaped out. The patrons of the Downstreet were tidily queued up, moving slowly inside. The arrival of four more hire-hacks caused no stir until their occupants began to alight. In the gathering dusk with the Elf-light streetlamps not yet glowing, it was difficult to see. But as the hacks moved off and Mieka made a show of himself rallying his players around him, there were gasps and titters, then open guffaws—and at last a ripple of delighted comprehending laughter. Bexan was waiting for them, bravely alone until now—no one could fault the girl for brass—but looked relieved to no longer be the only person in skirts standing outside the Downstreet. It had taken all Mieka’s persuasive talents to make Vered and Chat promise to stay in the tiring room backstage rather than come outside to protect their women.