Playing to the Gods

by Melanie Rawn

  He didn’t know if he could bear that. To lose either of them was unthinkable. It implied that whatever they did with their lives, they didn’t need him. He wasn’t important. He didn’t count.

  The blockweed combination that Brishen Staindrop had finally hit upon as an effective sleeping aid for him began to stir sluggishly through his mind. About bloody damned time. It was getting on for morning. If he had nothing to do today, he might as well sleep as long as he liked.

  Nothing to do … all week. He couldn’t think what to do with himself if he wasn’t getting ready for a performance, or onstage, or coming home from a gigging. Write? He had yet to finish—after two solid years—the two plays that told the whole tale of the Treasure. He’d put together new versions of some older plays referred to in Lost Withies, and it had been so long since anybody had seen or heard of them that they’d been greeted as originals. This made him squirm inside. He really ought to get back to work on “Treasure.” Or mayhap Window Wall, which had been languishing unfinished almost as long. That as well was a two-play piece. He saw the structure of each in his mind, there and waiting to be written.…

  No. He would find something to do that had nothing at all to do with the theater. He needed a rest. A week with nothing to do …

  He could find out where Megs was these days and go see her. After that night at her father’s manor house almost a year ago, she’d never come to him again. Not that he’d noticed, except at odd intervals. He’d been too busy. Was she with Princess Miriuzca at the Palace? Had she spent the autumn at one of her father’s many homes? Was she traveling for the fun of it, the way rich people did, and if so, where?

  Whom could he ask without sounding like a complete fool?

  Easier, more convenient, less stressful to spend some time with Derien. As sleep claimed him at last, he smiled. They might go to the racing meet, or to the Tincted Downs for a day or two. Take a little trip on a pleasure barge, hire a couple of horses and ride out into the countryside. There were a dozen things they could do together that would let Cade get to know him again. The smile deepened, then faded slowly as he slept.

  Chapter 2

  Being a naturally inquisitive—some would have said prying—sort of person, Mieka could have enlightened Cade as to why Megs had shown at up Lilyleaf that time, and at her father’s castle. He knew a lot more about her than Cayden had ever bothered to learn.

  He knew, for instance, that the timing of her encounters with Cade was not accidental.

  A few months after Touchstone had performed at Lord Mindrising’s, they were invited to tea at the North Keep just before leaving for Trials. Mieka arrived early and sought out Lady Megueris where she was supervising the arrangement of flowers on the table set in the middle of the lawn. He casually took her aside, away from the ears of the servants, and asked whether or not she would be attending Trials. She said no.

  He looked her straight in the eyes. “In fact, you won’t be attending anything anywhere for about—oh, I’d say six months?”

  She met his gaze coolly and steadily. “And so?”

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “Why?”

  “He deserves to know he’s going to be a father.”

  “He could be a father a hundred times over by now,” she pointed out, “and he doesn’t know about any of them.” Her green eyes were sharp as broken bottle-glass. Then, hearing the chatter of servants behind them, she laughed an obvious laugh, took his arm, and guided him to a side garden. It was as much privacy as a member of the Court ever knew—except if she had the Princess’s personal connivance late at night.

  “I think it’s disgusting,” Megs said as they walked amid flowering trees just coming into bud. “All that bilge about romance and true love and a girl saving herself for marriage—all so a man can boast that he’s had a virgin, and he won’t be faced with other men who’ve been with his wife. You men can go out and bed whomever you like, and all anybody does is wink and say, oh, he’s a bit of a lad!”

  Mieka shrugged. “It’s different for the upper classes. When there’s titles and lots of money floating about, I mean.”

  “And that’s good enough reason to get married?” She snorted. “Any child of mine will inherit the money and the lands, everything but the title. And who cares about a title, anyway?”

  “Lots of people.” He supposed, but didn’t say aloud, that Miriuzca would oblige by persuading King Meredan to grant a Lordship or Ladyship.

  “Being a woman who wants to be a Steward is difficult enough. I have this damned ‘Lady’ in front of my name to wrestle with as well. Why would I want to burden my child the same way?”

  “And Quill doesn’t have anything to say about it?”

  “I’ve met his mother.”

  He had to concede the point. Lady Jaspiela was annoying enough about Derien’s future. What would she be capable of with a grandson or granddaughter?

  “Mieka, if you breathe a word of this—”

  He held up a placating hand. “Anything you could think up to do to me wouldn’t be half as awful as some of the things Cade has threatened me with.”

  “Want to bet?” A sudden grin faded rapidly. “If you must know, I’m going to one of my father’s houses up north. I won’t be at Trials, obviously—I’m planning on a return to Court sometime next spring. This has to be a complete secret, even from Cade. Especially from Cade.”

  They walked on in silence for a time, towards the river.

  At length he pursed his lips and shook his head. “I have to tell him.”

  “You can’t.” She gripped his arm with long, strong fingers. Any protest he might have made died on his lips when he looked into her fierce green eyes. “My child, my choices, Mieka.”

  “Cade’s child, and he has no choices at all?” he countered.

  “In this instance, no.”

  And that, Mieka realized all at once, was why Cayden would never know about the child through an Elsewhen. None of the choices were his to make.

  Megueris made him promise, and he did, and knew he’d regret it. He was romantic enough to believe that Megs and Cayden would eventually face what had been obvious to Mieka almost from the start: They ought to be together.

  Cayden could be romantic, but only if he thought nobody was looking. Mieka had had glimpses of it, how he could be caring, even loving, and gentle and kind. He remembered everybody else’s Namingday, though he was deliberately forgetful about his own. Every so often it emerged in his writing—not in a candlelight-and-roses sort of way, but through a defiant belief in happy-ever-always. When he rewrote one of the classics—“The Princess and the Snowdrop,” for instance, which he’d worked up about a year ago to appeal to their female audiences—he turned the cloyingly sentimental bits into real poetry, charming and, almost in spite of himself, romantic. He’d deny it, of course, uphill and down dale. That was just Cayden being Cayden.

  But Megs wasn’t a roses-round-the-porch sort of girl anyhow, Mieka reflected as he escorted her in silence back to the North Keep. What she did want wasn’t entirely clear to him. She wanted a child, and she wanted to become a Steward. How could she do both? Realistically speaking, she wouldn’t get the chance to try. Women in theater audiences was one thing. Women onstage as players, women as part of theater officialdom … Mieka felt sorry for her, because her ambition was doomed. Men—obviously—could have careers in anything they chose, and families as well. A woman’s place was within that family. For certes, there were exceptions like Blye, but then she didn’t have children, did she?

  It was all too annoying to think about. The one thing he knew for sure was that she and Cade would work it out eventually. He simply couldn’t believe that having chosen Cade to father her child, she’d turn to anyone else for another try if this one wasn’t a son to inherit her father’s lands and title. But mayhap he was a trifle prejudiced.

  When they were nearly at the garden door of the North Keep, he turned suddenly and said, “You’ll let me know a
bout the baby?” When Megs shrugged, he added, “I want to know that you’re all right. And you’ll need somebody to back up whatever tale you end up telling. Come to think on it, Cade would be the perfect person to include on this—he’s a tregetour, he could spin you a great story—”

  “I already have one,” she snapped.

  “I s’pose so,” he said musingly. “After all, you can’t have seen as many shows as you have without picking up a trick or two about constructing a plot.”

  She frowned sideways at him, as if trying to make up her mind whether to laugh at him or smack him a good one. Mieka was lucky; she grinned.

  But she didn’t tell him what her plot was. He was left to wonder for months whether she’d concoct a brief marriage to explain the appearance of a child, or simply brazen it out with not the slightest hint of who the father might be, or … or what?

  Now, almost a year later, he knew. Not that she’d been the one to tell him. First there’d been an announcement in the Court Circular that Lord Sollin Mindrising had, after some twenty-four years of widowerhood, married again, and would be spending the next few months in happy seclusion at his favorite of many far-flung estates with his new wife, the former Lady Tomlyn Cloverbrook. Then had come a brief article in the Palace News and Views, which Mieka’s wife avidly read, that Lady Megueris Mindrising would not be returning to Gallantrybanks for Wintering, but would most certainly be back at Court in the spring. She had spent the past summer and autumn at several of her father’s more remote properties, learning the special features of administering each, for as His Lordship’s heir, she would one day own it all. Princess Miriuzca was pleased at the prospect of welcoming her back as a lady-in-waiting, and approved of her diligence regarding her duties to the Mindrising lands and people. Finally—and no one connected these bits of information, one with the next with the next, except Mieka—it was announced that the new Lady Mindrising had given birth to a fine, healthy son. If the timing was a little vague, who would notice?

  Five years ago, he might have confronted Megs directly—as gently as possible, of course, because he liked her, but confront her he surely would have done. He’d grown up some since then. Older, wiser …

  But not brave enough to spend his week of free time at Hilldrop Crescent. After Rafe’s edict, he really ought to have jumped in the nearest hire-hack. A whole week with his wife and his daughter … and his mother-in-law. When-oh-when-oh-when would the old bitch leave them alone? He knew it was foolish to wish she’d find herself somewhere else to live, preferably at least ten days distant from Hilldrop. He kept hoping.

  Mieka stayed at Wistly Hall, telling himself it was for family reasons. This was at least partly true. Sharadel Windthistle, she of the acid disposition and colossal age, had finally died. Her great-grandson, Hadden, had been informed of this fully three months after the event; all the other Windthistle relations, led by Uncle Barsabian, had been busy divvying up and departing with whatever was movable at Clinquant House. Hadden was the rightful heir, but by the time he was informed of the ancient’s death, there wasn’t much left to inherit. The vast ancestral barn was now his, but pretty much all that remained inside it was thin air.

  Whether or not to take sundry Windthistles to the law courts was hotly debated each night around the dinner table. Mieka and Jed and Jez were all for it, declaring that they’d stand the expense of hiring the best advocates in Gallybanks, if only for the pure pleasure of thwarting Uncle Breedbate. Mishia, their mother, was against. She had no desire to waste her family’s time and money on recovering the furnishings and garnishings of a house she’d never liked in the first place.

  As for Hadden … Mieka had the strong feeling that his father was simply glad to be rid of the bothersome old bitch. The only thing that nudged him in the direction of a lawsuit was the prospect of Jezael, as the eldest son (by three minutes or so), eventually inheriting a totally empty house.

  On the third night of this ongoing discussion—dinner was the only time the immediate family gathered together—Mishia decreed that until the matter was settled, only ten minutes of the meal would be devoted to arguing back and forth. “It’s either that,” she told her husband and their assembled offspring, “or I join Blye at the glassworks and you can figure out dinner on your own!” Blye, wise woman, had excused herself from the nightly debate after the first ended in a draw.

  Mieka was painfully aware that a few years ago he would have had at his disposal the considerable influence and vast connections of Lord Kearney Fairwalk. When last heard of, His Lordship had taken ship on one of Lord Rolon Piercehand’s voyages. That was almost two years ago, and he hadn’t been seen since. It was a curious feature of the legal system that those unable to appear in person in a courtroom to defend themselves could be sued but not tried. Because Fairwalk was no longer in Albeyn to answer charges of malfeasance regarding Touchstone’s finances, the advocates they’d consulted had advised against bringing suit. There was no point. Neither would it gain anything to accuse any of Fairwalk’s subordinates; they would only claim they had been following His Lordship’s orders. Touchstone’s one satisfaction in the matter was that Fairwalk had exiled himself from his home, and was unlikely ever to return.

  Sharadel Windthistle had died most inconveniently. A couple of years ago, Mieka could have called on Fairwalk’s influence. Now, even though Touchstone had paid off all debts and was actually beginning to make money for themselves again, their only really important ally was Princess Miriuzca—and she could scarcely be asked to intervene in a private matter of inheritance.

  Considering all this, Mieka slumped discontentedly in his chair and barely listened to the now-familiar argument going on around him. Back and forth across the dinner table the suggestions and objections and calculations flew until Mishia, one eye on the clock, finally called a halt. For the next while there was no conversation at all. Mieka glanced down the table at his twin sister, who was applying herself to dismembering half a roast chicken, a sullen frown creasing her forehead as she distributed pieces to Tavier and Jorie, seated either side of her. Feeling his gaze, Jinsie glanced up, scowled more deeply, and mouthed the word Later.

  Desultory chat began between Jez and Cilka, gradually including most of the rest of the family as well. Mieka had something else to blame on Great-great-granny Tightfist: the destruction of the usual riotous, laughing dinnertime. On any other night he would have taken on his accustomed role of clown, telling wild stories and making everyone forget whatever might be troubling them. He wasn’t in the mood right now, no matter how much it was needed. And that made him resent Sharadel Windthistle even more.

  After dinner he joined Jinsie on a stroll down the river lawn. They walked silently for a few moments before she kicked at an inoffensive rock.

  “We should just sell the damned place and have done with it.”

  “It’s Jez’s inheritance.”

  “Ask him if he wants it. Would you?”

  Mieka snorted. “I’ve better things to do with my time.”

  “Is that why Touchstone is staying idle for a week?”

  At the riverbank, she sat on a weatherworn wooden bench and stared out at the water. The lights from houses and Elf-lit streetlamps danced off the dark river, and Mieka remembered that when they were younger, their mother had told them that these were Fae coming to check up on things, so they’d best be good and go to sleep—now, Mieka!

  “Oughta get Jed and Jez to mend this thing,” he remarked as he sat beside his sister.

  “Or have Fa spell it sealed so it doesn’t constantly come up splinters.”

  Behind them, their father’s mild voice said, “I realize, my children, that I work with wood all day long, but not with magic.”

  They made room for him on the bench between them and lingered in silence for a time.

  Then Hadden gave a soft sigh. “In fact, I’ve never been much interested in magic. Oh, I can do it if I please, but it’s not necessary to my work. So why bother? Whatever magic I
possess seems to sift itself into the lutes and harps of its own accord. I’ve never analyzed why this is so.”

  “Like Blye with her glasswork,” Mieka ventured.

  “So far as I can tell, yes. It’s another reason I was so disgusting an object to Great-grandmother. I mean to say, here I am, a Windthistle, one of the oldest Elfen names in Albeyn, and I don’t use magic to do anything practical by way of making the family fortune.”

  Mieka considered this for a few moments. It was true that his father had instilled in all his children the notion that working at a job one hated, no matter how well paid, was no way to be happy. Even if one’s personal life was a dream come true, the stress of loathing one’s work would be bound to poison everything. For himself, Mieka was grateful that his own calling earned him quite a bit of money (now that Touchstone’s debts were paid off). That glisking involved magic made life all the more satisfying.

  “Enough to live on,” Hadden was saying. “Enough to raise your children. There were times I haven’t been very good at it—”

  Mieka opened his mouth to protest, but Jinsie was quicker than he. “None of us would have you any other way than just exactly as you are, Fa.”

  “We always had enough to eat, and clothes, and the Good Gods know enough places to sleep!” Mieka added, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the vast disorganized bulk of Wistly Hall.

  Hadden smiled and took his children by the hand. “Beholden, my dears. All your mother and I have ever wanted is to see each of you happy. Sometimes that’s meant letting you find your own way through things … which isn’t easy for us or for you.” He paused. “It was simpler when you were little. All we had to worry about then was keeping you physically safe—food, clothing, and a place to sleep. And none of that can be done with magic.”