by Melanie Rawn
Cade shook his head regretfully. “I’ve nothing to wear.”
“Wear? Swimming?” Mieka laughed. “Although now I think on it, there’s company present so they might be polite and at least pretend they’re mannerly, refined, modest—”
“And therefore completely unrelated to you,” Cade remarked. “Your parents are wonderful, Mieka. Cilka and Petrinka seem nice, civilized girls, and so does Jorie—and aside from a partiality for slimy little things best left wriggling underground, Tavier’s a good lad.” With a narrow, pensive look: “Are you sure you weren’t adopted?”
Mieka yawned.
Jeska had followed the eldest Windthistle twins into the pavilion. The trio emerged wearing nothing at all and plunged into the water, yelling at the chill. Mieka waited for Blye’s attention to return from the view, and finally snapped his fingers in front of her face, laughing when she blinked in surprise.
Cade was grinning. “It’s wearing a skirt what does it, I’m convinced. Reminds her she’s a girl.”
She gave him a withering glare. “The Guild doesn’t seem to require reminding. Even though it bowed its collective head and tugged its collective forelock before the noble Lord Fairwalk.”
“What about the other buyer?” Mieka asked.
Cade spread his thin hands and grimaced. “Whatever Dery saw in Criddow Close, Kearney says there was no trace of the Archduke or any of his people. If he was really interested, he’d’ve had somebody show up to present his own petition, wouldn’t he?”
“I wasn’t there to see this man,” Blye said slowly, “so I don’t know. But Dery had to’ve been mistook. I mean, what would the Archduke want with a glassworks?”
“What would he want with a theater group of his very own?” Mieka challenged. “I know what I saw, and it was that gray and orange livery on the lackey Vered Goldbraider sent streaking off like a scalded cat. Oh, and I keep forgetting to tell you, Blye—Chat would like to know when he and the others can come by for a consultation.” He smiled as she caught her breath. Turning to Cade, he went on, “Just look at her! For us, she shrugs. For them, she goes all fluttery!”
“I’ve never ‘fluttered’ in my life!” she exclaimed.
Cade, eyeing her sidelong with a wicked glint in his gray eyes, said, “I think you’re right, Mieka. A definite flutter. Though that, too, might be just the natural result of wearing a dress for a change.”
Blye looked murderous. Mieka hastened to say, “And right lovely she looks in it, too. Shut up, Quill.”
But Cade kept teasing her. “You’ll be wearing it for the Shadowshapers when they visit, won’t you?”
Mieka realized that whereas Cade had been amused when he caught her staring at Mieka’s brothers and Jeska, he was jealous that she was indeed impressed by the prospect of such illustrious new clients. An instant later—remembering that not two hours ago he’d been telling himself how well she knew both him and Cade —Mieka wasn’t entirely sure he didn’t feel the same. She’d have to learn a lot about the Shadowshapers, wouldn’t she, to make their withies just as good as the ones she fashioned for him and Cade. This would quite probably make the Shadowshapers even better in performances than they already were. And this would make them just that much more difficult to beat at Trials. That Touchstone would one day triumph over all comers and gain First Flight on the Royal Circuit was something Mieka had never doubted, not since that first night in Gowerion. But it only now occurred to him that in helping a friend, they would also be quite literally placing an advantage in the hands of rivals.
He decided that the challenge would be fun. Almost as fun as teasing Cade. “Oh, Blye and Jinsie will find something stunning at the Narbacy Street tailor just for the occasion, the Shadowshapers bein’ not just anybody, y’know. And before I forget again, Chat says at your convenience, Blye, and do you like toffee—he lives just over a confectioner’s.”
“He need only bring his friends and his custom,” she replied. “And a nice disregard for a hallmark, of course.”
“And an ability to keep their mouths shut,” Cade added.
Crafters of all kinds had spent a long time getting control over their own professions. Mieka had heard his father complain about it more than once. In the old days, before the upheavals of the Archduke’s War had unsettled everything from Albeyn’s magic to Albeyn’s trade, the highborns owned all the tools of production, charged a skilled craftsman for their use, and claimed a portion of the products. This system still prevailed in parts of the land, in things such as blacksmithing and flour milling, but the City of Gallantrybanks had a royal charter stating that only the Guilds could decide who owned a workshop, who made the goods, and who could sell them. Only the Guilds could authorize a hallmark, and anything without a hallmark sold so cheaply that it was scarcely worth making. Blye, of course, would receive no hallmark from the Glasscrafters Guild.
“Jeska helped me do some totting up,” she went on, “and I think I can make basic expenses with what I’ve always done—plates and utensils, things that don’t require a Master’s hallmark. Even if the Shadowshapers like my work, it’ll take me some time to learn their style, so there won’t be much coming in from them for a while, not until I can make their withies as easily as I do yours.” She folded her burn-scarred hands in her lap, and stared at them for a few moments. “This is assuming, of course, that no male heir can be found.”
“Stop fretting,” Cade told her. “I never heard your father mention anybody else by way of family—”
“Be glad you’re not stuck with this lot,” Mieka interrupted, gesturing expansively from wall to crumbling wall of the garden. “Just look at all this herd roaming the pasture—horrifying, innit? With us, it’d take a hundred clerks a hundred years to figure out whose claim comes first. There’s all the marriages to consider, for one thing—who brought the Greenseed or Flickflame or whichever pretentious prehistoric line back into the Windthistle fold. Of course, there being not much to claim, there wouldn’t be much competition,” he reflected.
“I can’t imagine growing up in a family like this,” Blye said. “It was always just me and my father.”
“There’s times,” Mieka confided, “I’m not sure which of ’em I’m actually related to, which ones married in, and which ones just showed up one day and nobody ever bothered to ask!”
“Can’t tell just by looking, can you?” Cade remarked. “Nobody’d ever believe you’re brothers with those two great hulking redheads.”
“Jedris asked about windows,” Blye said suddenly. “You didn’t put him up to it, did you, Mieka?”
“Windows? No. What about them?”
“They’ve a project going, I gather, and can’t find someone to make the windows at a reasonable price.”
Mieka looked at her for a long moment, then said quite seriously, “If that’s what he said, that’s what he meant. Something you have to understand about my brothers, Blye—neither of them could lie if his own life hung in the balance. I used to think it was because Mum used her truth-tell hex on them a bit too powerful when they were little—oh, she has one, and it’s vicious!” he added when Cade’s brows shot up. “You don’t ever want it directed at you, believe me! But it’s not that, with Jed and Jez. It’s that they’ve neither of them imagination enough. They’re the kind who hear pattering on the roof and look outside to be sure it’s raining—but it would never occur to them that possibly it’s mice.”
“Or Tavier, the baby dragon?” Cade asked, smiling. “It’s not charity, Blye. They need someone to do the work.”
She shrugged. Whatever she might have said was lost when a short, stocky, extravagantly Elfen personage stumped across the grass towards them, snarling Mieka’s name.
“Oh Gods,” he muttered. “Brace yourselves, it’s Great-Uncle Breedbate.”
A nickname, of course, one that was never used in his presence. One of the eleven affronts to great-great-grandmother’s pride, Barsabian Windthistle had spent his life determined to prove himself
more Elf than any Elf ever born. He wore ridiculous clothes, the kind always seen in centuries-old depictions of Elves: dagged-hem tunics, wide-collared shirts, trousers that bloused at the knee over pointy-toed boots. He used the most archaic words he could dig up out of musty old books—which he read not for their literary or scholarly value but solely to find such antiques. He cast nasty spells whenever the mood struck him, confirming the worst that was ever said of Elfen mischief. And it was the great tragedy of his life that somehow, even though his ears and feet were classics of Elfen perfection, he had a lovely set of straight white teeth.
“You there, boy!” bawled Uncle Barsabian. “What’re you doin’, collifobbling with the likes of him?”
“And a good afternoon this beautiful day to you, too, Uncle,” Mieka returned with a wide and, he hoped, beguiling smile. “Did you enjoy your tea? Permit me to introduce you—”
“To a Wizard? Not bleedin’ damn likely, boy!” Glaring down at Cade, he shouted, “Why they let scroyley things like you walk free is past my understanding! Swanning round as if you owned the world and all the stars besides!”
There was more in this vein; much more. Everyone had learned ages ago simply to let the old man talk himself done. Arguing was pointless, and any protests that he might consider the feelings of those he screamed at were countered with the entire list—and it was lengthy—of incidents proving that Wizards had no feelings. The best that could be hoped for was that someone would come to the rescue—which Jedris and Jezael did, fresh from their swim and wrapped in sheets too threadbare to be used on the beds anymore.
“Uncle! There you are!”
They each took an elbow, preparing to haul the old man off. But, though interrupted in his usual tirade against Wizards, Uncle Barsabian pointed a gnarled and knobby finger at Blye. “And a Goblin flyndrig besides! Who let you out of your cave to associate with decent folk?”
Mieka scrambled to his feet, shaking with rage. “That’s beyond enough, you scabby old horror! Get him out of here!”
“Gladly,” said Jedris, and together the twins lifted Uncle Barsabian off his feet and carted him away, with the old man yelling all the while, “Put me down! Unhand me! Gleets, the pair of you!”
“I’m so sorry, Blye,” Mieka said, dropping down to the grass again, fists still clenched. “He’s addled, of course—always was, so I’m told—but that’s no excuse. I don’t know how he got out. Usually Mum’s careful to see that he keeps to his room when there’s guests.”
Blye shook her head. “Plenty of Elfenkind his age hold a grudge.”
“He oughta keep it to himself. Bleedin’ old pillock.”
Cade was frowning. “What in all hells is a ‘gleet’?”
“I don’t like to say, not around a lady. He’s always been a one for what he thinks are the old ways and the old words, and bein’ more Elf than the first Elf that taught all the other Elves how to be Elves.” He paused, then decided they deserved to know why Uncle Barsabian was the way he was. “There’s just the one exception to his Elfenness, and that’s how he went peculiar. He refused to show fear, y’see. Five days he was in a black cellar before he gave them the satisfaction of—well, you know.” He shrugged. “Not that they broke him. He just made them wait for it. When he finally got out, he claimed there was a family of Goblins down there, and making all sorts of light with their iron-forge, ’cept that whenever the Wizards came to see if he’d finally conjured the fearing fire, they’d shut their rock wall and hide. So you see he doesn’t much like Goblins, neither.”
“Five days?” Cade looked appalled.
“Somebody at the time sneered at him that he must be more Human than he looked, not to react the way a real Elf would. So he set out to be the most Elfenly Elf who ever lived.”
“Poor old man,” Blye murmured.
“The bulk of the family isn’t quite that mad,” Mieka promised, then added, “the family I’m sure I’m related to anyway. Gods, how I wish that didn’t include Uncle Breedbate.” Who, he didn’t say, had a nose for finding previously unnoticed valuables, which was probably why Mum kept him around.
Blye rose to her feet. “I think I’m for another cup of tea. You?” When they shook their heads, she smiled and went up the sloping lawn to the terrace.
After she was out of earshot, Cade said, “The Archduke talked to Rafe at Seekhaven, right after our show.”
Mieka felt his eyes widen almost out of his head. “What? Rafe never said anything about—I didn’t even see him!”
“All sorts of charming compliments, deeply impressed, hopes to see us on the Winterly—shoveled it on, according to Rafe.” Cade pleated a corner of the blanket. “Irked me some, that he went to Rafe ’stead of me. But after I heard what he said, and how much Rafe disliked him…”
“But why would he talk to—?” It hit him like a cudgel to the head. “He was shopping! Ha! Vered and Chat both said we’d be next, after them—I can’t wait to tell them we were first!”
“Don’t say anything to anybody, Mieka. I’ve been thinking about what Chattim told you, and trying to fit it into this offer for the glassworks, and until I understand it, I don’t think we ought to let on that we even know he was interested in buying it.”
He chewed his lip, then nodded. “All right. I’ll keep quiet. Oh, stop lookin’ at me in that tone of voice! I can keep a secret!”
“It’ll be interesting, watching you prove it. I—” He broke off, his attention caught by something or someone up at the house. His gray eyes lost all light; his face lost the flush brought by the sunshine. He looked, in fact, much the way he’d looked those times when—
No. This was different. This wasn’t what Mieka had begun to term the Elsewhere look. This was … recognition?
Mieka turned, and saw his father standing at the tea table with a tall, lean, awkwardly dressed young man who was cradling a lute in his arms as if it were his firstborn son. Heavy reddish-brown curls framed an almost golden face that wore a pathetically grateful expression. Mieka’s initial reaction was delight that Fa had found someone worthy of his work and had made a sale. But then he glanced at Cayden again, and this time he was sure he saw a remembering in his eyes.
“Know him?” he asked as if he had no interest in the matter at all.
“What? Oh—no, he just seemed familiar for a moment, that’s all.”
Mieka wanted very badly to remind Cade of that little lecture he’d had the cheek to give about lying. But Blye was walking towards them, digging into the pockets of her skirt, and as she knelt beside them on the blanket she held out two small boxes made of clear glass, one for each of them.
“I made these for you. I already gave Rafe and Jeska theirs.”
Mieka cradled the sparkling little box in his palm, examining the thistle etched onto the top half. “It’s beautiful,” he whispered.
“They’re for your medals,” she explained. “Rafe’s got a spider on his, of course, and I put a drawn bow on Jeska’s, and Cade’s is a falcon—but turn them over, and there’s a dragon on the bottom. To remind you.”
Most players kept their Trials and Circuit medals in a little bag or a drawer or a wooden box. Chat’s girlfriend had sewn his into a needlework framed on his wall. For some, the medals were all they would ever have to prove what they used to be. Not Touchstone; he knew that with something stronger than magic.
“Beautiful,” he repeated, and on impulse leaned over and kissed her right on the lips.
“Oy!” exclaimed Cade, laughing again. “A flutter, a definite flutter!”
She threw a pillow at him.
Chapter 17
The summer passed in a blur of performances, both in and around Gallantrybanks. Their schedule of shows was both grueling and lucrative. The Downstreet’s owner (more to the point, his wife) was ecstatic to have Touchstone break as many glasses as possible, for as many nights as possible, and agreed to whatever Lord Kearney Fairwalk stipulated by way of payment. Blye’s loan was taken care of for the next thre
e months with just the trimmings. Fairwalk himself was paying for the heir search.
Despite professional success and the personal satisfaction of helping Blye, Cayden was a wreck. He appeared to have misplaced his sense of humor. Mieka began to think that all the times he’d seen Cade laugh were naught but the delusions of a stronger than usual bit of thorn. Vicious during rehearsals; locking himself for days in his fifth-floor room during fits of what Mieka assumed was creative vehemence; ruthless with his criticisms after each and every show—even their triumphant first appearance at the Kiral Kellari (oh, the delights of smashing all those lovely little mirrors!); demanding, dictatorial, he hadn’t even joined them to celebrate the Guild’s reluctant acknowledgment that there was no heir to the glassworks other than Blye. Rafe and Jeska had experienced his moods before, and most of the time simply shrugged when he sulked. But Mieka was rapidly losing what little patience he’d ever had. What in all hells did it take to make the man happy?
In midsummer, on one of Touchstone’s rare days off, Mieka took his twin sister and two eldest brothers on a little expedition to visit Blye. He’d thought to nip up to the fifth floor of Number Eight, Redpebble Square, to ask Cade if he wanted to use up a bit of the previous night’s trimmings on a nice evening out. There was a new tavern over by the Plume that sounded fun: a spectacular view of the waterfall, outdoor tables beneath a canopy of twinkling lanterns, and an exotic bill of fare promising authentic tastes of faraway lands.
But Mistress Mirdley shook her head. “He’s in another of his mopes, and will welcome no company. It’s my thought that he can barely tolerate his own.”
So back Mieka went to the glassworks, annoyed, and busied himself inspecting a dozen new withies while Blye demonstrated how a big glass platter was made.
“Y’see, with flint glass, you work it at a lower temperature, and it’s easier to get rid of trapped air bubbles.…”
Mieka glanced up from the withies. “Did you hear something?”