Playing to the Gods

by Melanie Rawn

  “Negligence,” said Master Burningcrag. “That’s the best we can hope for. A deliberate disturbance of the King’s Peace—”

  “Mieka didn’t start it!” Mishia objected.

  “No, I didn’t,” Mieka told her. “Actually that damned fox was what set everything off.” He explained what had happened, leaving out Knottinger’s insults, and how Mieka had threatened him with his knife, and everything about the fox being a Witch’s familiar. Thierin had been following the Archduchess’s orders, Mieka was certain of it. But he had strayed from the arranged script when the fox appeared. “This wasn’t supposed to happen—”

  “I suppose the poor thing ran off into the grounds at Great Welkin,” Hadden mused. “But am I right in believing that this has nothing to do with it?”

  “Very much you are right,” said Burningcrag.

  No, Mieka couldn’t blame her for being afraid.

  What he blamed her for was lying.

  “What do the witnesses say, again?” he asked. “And who are these witnesses, anyhow?”

  Burningcrag consulted his notes. “There are four. Sir Nouel Elkbottom’s coachman, Lady Quarryhold’s maid—”

  “What was she there for?” Mishia looked bewildered.

  “Evidently Her Ladyship was wearing a gown that required the services of her maid to put right after the drive from Gallantrybanks.”

  And all these women who couldn’t even dress themselves were the ones his wife wanted as her intimate friends.

  “Who else?” Hadden asked.

  “A vendor of mocahs and hot teas, who was doing a brisk business amongst the coachmen and other servants on that cold night. And a footman in the employ of the Archduke.” He paused. “You’ll have perceived, I’m sure, that all these people are simple working folk. With a jury of similar backgrounds, their word as to what they saw will be the more readily believed.”

  “Meaning,” Hadden said, “that Windthistle is an old Elfen name, Mieka is famous, and it would be their chance to stick it to the upper classes?”

  “I merely point out the facts,” said Master Burningcrag.

  Mieka gestured impatiently. “How close were they? What else did they see? Was the teaman wearing a yellow vest? Did he have a torn earlobe?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean by asking—”

  “The man who did this—” He waved a hand at his own ear. “—was returning the favor. It was a thick silver hoop, and I pulled it right off him. Hells, it might still be on the floor of the rig!”

  “I am uninformed as to the apparel of the witnesses. Though I would imagine the coachman and the footman were both in livery.”

  “I’d bet damned near anything it’s the same man.”

  “I’ll have my clerks ask around.” Burningcrag didn’t sound all that enthused.

  “If someone can recall what he was wearing,” Mishia said, “then there’s someone else who could be responsible for what happened, and that would cast doubt on those who said it was Mieka. Mayhap he was the one holding the reins!” Then she shook her head. “But so many people saying that whoever held the reins was wearing a furred cloak…”

  “What was it Cayden said?” Hadden looked at his wife, frowning. “Something about the Archduchess. Something she said.”

  Mieka knew what it was. He’d told Cayden, and now he told his father. “Once the fox got loose and we were leaving, she said that this wasn’t supposed to happen. Like she’d intended one thing, but this happened instead.”

  Mishia asked, “Mieka, did you smell anything on the man in the yellow vest?”

  “Like cinnamon tea or spiced mocah?” He shook his head. “Sorry, Mum.”

  “That would be too easy, wouldn’t it,” she sighed.

  Burningcrag readied pen and paper. “Again, I’ll set my clerks to asking. What we must do right now, however, is record the whole of what happened that night as you experienced it.” He cocked an expectant eyebrow at Mieka.

  “Mum,” he said, wanting just a little more time to get his story straight—not what he would tell, but how much of it would be believed, “could we maybe get some tea? This sounds like thirsty work.”

  Chapter 15

  Giving him no chance to refuse, Jinsie had told Cayden to stay until her parents had finished talking with Master Burningcrag. He found his way to the river lawn and stood on the terrace, shivering in the icy wind off the river. Tonight everyone else in Albeyn would celebrate Wintering. Staying at Wistly for Jindra’s sake competed with a deep need to go back to Redpebble Square, to get out of the way of all this trouble for a day or two. Coward.

  “So you’re still here.”

  He turned to find Mistress Caitiffer a few paces away, wrapped in a gorgeous woolen cloak woven, no doubt, by her own hand in patterns of white birds flying on a blue background.

  “Why him?” he asked all at once. “Why Mieka Windthistle?”

  The woman shrugged. “Why not?” Then, as if the casual lie were poison on her tongue, she went on fiercely, “Stupid girl! She could have had anybody! Anybody! Any man she fancied—but she fancied that foul-mouthed, useless little Elf! She had to choose him! All ready I was, and her fifteen and ripe as a peach—”

  “Ready? For what?”

  “A man worthy of her.” She calmed again, explaining as if to a none-too-bright child. “Any man with two eyes could have been hers, up to and including the Prince himself. Ready? She was to take my place, where I ought to have been all along. Years I spent sewing frustles for rich women’s backs, waiting for my girl to get her full beauty, waiting for the right time—”

  “And that year, at Castle Biding, you were ready.”

  “Never pay attention to anything that doesn’t directly concern you, do you, boy? Never considered how many lords come to that fair, swanning about with their bags of coin, looking to cheat honest folk—but I was ready for to be cheating them. Gowns and bodices for sisters and mothers, wives and mistresses—but woven to bring them to my girl, none other.”

  He pondered for a moment. “Frimham … ladies go there for seaside pampering. All that was needed was to send her out walking in the best part of town, and—”

  “And looking more of a lady born than any of the noblest blood. And why shouldn’t she? Isn’t her blood both noble and old? Better than yours, Silversun! Back to the First Escaping we trace our line, and farther back even than that. And when those women saw men watch her because of her beauty and her gowns and her shawls, they came to me for the same.”

  “But the ladies weren’t enough,” he said. “They came to your shop, but they didn’t bring their menfolk, did they?”

  “Oh, and it’s a right bright lad, isn’t it? At Castle Biding, I was ready. Waiting for the right lord to come by. And then she saw that bedamned placard! He seemed all the prettier, didn’t he, imaged next to that ugly face of yours. She went out at night and stole one of the fool things, and cried when I burned it in our cook fire the next morning.”

  “That wasn’t very smart,” he remarked mildly. “A girl that young … they tend to be stubborn.”

  “Found that out with her mother, didn’t I? I ought to have learned then.”

  Cade felt the stones beneath him shift a little—or maybe it was the muscles of his legs automatically keeping his balance. “Her mother?”

  “Didn’t you ever do the sums?” she jeered. “Her fifteen, and me past sixty and looking it, what with all I’ve had to do in my life to survive! I made sure my girls didn’t overuse their magics—I taught them our craftings, but made them save themselves for the man they chose. And who did they choose?”

  “Her mother fixed on an Elf as well?”

  “Aye. But she bore the child alone, with only me to help her through it, and send to her lover to tell him. He came, I’ll give him that. He came to have a look at the child. And when he saw that her ears were round and small and perfect, he turned his back and left.”

  “More Elf than the First Elf,” Cade murmured, thinking of
Mieka’s description of Uncle Barsabian and Granny Tightfist.

  “He was that prideful,” she agreed. “And my daughter died of it. She set her face to the wall and died.”

  “Did you ever find him again?”

  “I had better things to do. I had my granddaughter to raise.”

  “But you failed there, too. She wanted Mieka.”

  “He had an old name, at least. Not the heir, but the prospect of money. If only he could be turned from prancing about the theater—” She clutched the cloak more tightly around her. “I tried, at the Threadchaser wedding, to show her and warn her. But him she’d have and none other. Every rich and titled lordship at Castle Biding came by our booth for a look at her, and that spring at Frimham there were dozens more. Ah, what she could have been, if only she’d never seen his face!”

  Well, Cade thought cynically, at least they’d fallen in love on equal terms. Wasn’t Mieka always saying that she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen?

  More important was something else she’d said. “Not the heir”—were Jed and Jez in danger? Jez had been injured in the accident that was no accident while building Lord Piercehand’s Gallery—but that had been nothing to do with Mistress Caitiffer, Cade reminded himself, nothing at all. Still … was this woman’s magic the reason Blye remained childless? He wanted to run home and beat down the door at Criddow Close and tell Blye to throw out every stitch of clothing she and Jed owned, and their sheets and counterpanes and towels and dishrags, every thread of upholstery and all the carpets and anything that had been woven, no matter how old it was. A Caitiff’s spell lasted only for the turning of the moon, but Jed and Blye were here at Wistly all the time. How simple to switch off a shirt or a neck-cloth, how easy to tuck something into their satchel on the occasions when they stayed all night.

  As calmly as he could, he said, “So you resigned yourself to the inevitable, and helped her.”

  “You were there for most of it,” she said bluntly. “You know what it took. I kept telling her that if she wanted a faithful husband, he was the wrong one. All those months traipsing round Albeyn, and on the Continent—and that interfering bitch of a sister, hiding her letters to him and his to her! Without that meddling slut, there would have been a proper wedding, and no sniggering chaverish about how quick the baby came!”

  The baby. Jindra. What would her life become, if this appalling woman continued to be part of it?

  “And last night?” he asked as something occurred to him. “Was the invitation your doing? You still make clothes for the Archduchess, don’t you?”

  “That was naught of mine. She’s a silly cow who must have overheard her husband say as he was always saying—that to ruin you, he had only to ruin Mieka.” She laughed when he reacted with a flinch. “Neither of them saw that he’s got his ruin in his own blood. Drink, thorn, any woman he sets eyes on—destroying himself comes natural. He can’t help himself, and there’s no help as can be given him. Not even yours, Silversun. Not even yours!”

  All too true, unless Mieka saw for himself. As Cade hoped he would see for himself the girl’s hands. And that reminded him, and he smiled. “Well, Mistress, you’ll be packing up your things soon enough, and you and she can go live at Hilldrop—or back to the Durkah Isle where you came from.”

  She smiled back. “Are you so certain of that?”

  “You know, I really am. But before you go, just for curiosity’s sake—my Trollwife would like to know—how did you leave in the first place? And why did you take the name Caitiffer?”

  “My own mother was the greatest of her generation. She wove for me a cloak so powerful that it lasted the whole of the journey here and twenty-five days of the fortyer.”

  “I suppose it could be done. But what did they think, when the person they’d let on board simply vanished?”

  She laughed low in her throat. “What makes you think anyone ever saw me at all?”

  Invisibility? Preposterous. Nobody could—

  Nobody in Albeyn could. She was a Caitiff, a Witch.

  “It was the provisions they began to wonder about. As for the name…” She shrugged her shoulders. “If you thought about it, you could work it out. It’s only our women who inherit the magic. It’s not unknown for our men to leave the Isle. It’s permitted, now and then, so long as the name is used as a reminder. And as a woman takes her husband’s name—” She broke off, and looked at him as would a teacher expecting a passably bright student to take up the lesson.

  Cade saw no reason not to oblige her. “You passed yourself off as the completely ordinary wife of a Caitiff male who had lived in Albeyn, a whole long line of them as far as anybody could guess. There’d be no prohibition about a Caitiff man living here, because only your women have magic. I see. Very elegant.” He inclined his head slightly, grateful for the information. “I suggest that you make arrangements to return to Hilldrop Crescent. Mayhap they’ll let you stay here tonight, but tomorrow you and she will be gone.”

  “Is that how it seems to you? And what of Jindra, in this little fantasy of yours?”

  “She stays,” he said curtly. “Jindra stays.”

  She laughed again. “There’s laws, boy. And magic. I have both on my side.”

  “How do you reckon that? Men always retain custody of the children in a divorce—” But Vered hadn’t, he remembered suddenly. “And anyways, I doubt Lord Ripplewater’s son would agree to raising another man’s child.”

  This stunned her, though she made an admirably quick recovery. “Seen it, have you? Then you ought to know that he has influence. What justiciar will say him nay? Especially when the husband she wants to be rid of is serving a term in jail! Oh yes, great tregetour, that’s one point where the law is on a woman’s side!”

  “Does she really want to be rid of Mieka? I wonder.”

  “She’ll do as she’s told.”

  He smiled, because he knew it would irk her. It did.

  “Oh, and have you seen that future, too?” she sneered.

  “What I’ve seen is the welts on her hands where she was holding the reins.”

  “That’s proof of exactly nothing.”

  “I didn’t mean legal proof. I meant that it can be proved to Mieka. He’ll know what she did. He’ll never forgive her for it.”

  “Whether he forgives or doesn’t forgive makes no difference to me. He’ll be a guest of His Majesty for time enough to secure the divorce.” She chuckled. “How long d’you think he’ll last inside a prison—pretty little thing that he is!”

  Cade laughed aloud, and again she twitched with surprise. “What makes you think that Mieka will ever even see the inside of a courtroom?”

  “That disgusting brute he’s so fond of is hurt, crippled for life, most like. Mieka will be held responsible by the law.”

  “Don’t count on it.” Cade wasn’t laughing anymore. “He’s the one who’ll hold himself responsible. And that’s something I won’t forgive. Make no mistake, woman. I know a few things that I’m sure you’d rather remained unknown in certain quarters.”

  “You don’t know a damned thing!”

  “Don’t I? You know what I am. What I can see.”

  She stared up at him, eyes narrowed. “And you’ll offer it to the Archduke in exchange for the Elf.”

  “I don’t have to offer him anything. What will happen … well, I’ve seen it, you know,” he said, lowering his voice to a scheming little whisper. “Just as I saw you write a letter to the Archduke telling him what I am. ‘Something to His Grace’s advantage,’ that’s the way you phrased it. Purple wax to seal it. I saw it all.”

  “And couldn’t prevent it! No more than you could prevent that vulgar little Elf from spilling the whole tale one night, or prevent my girl from telling it all to me!” Then, as if the question had been feeding on her insides all this time: “Why didn’t you kill him? You know what he did, who he told—what I did with the knowledge—”

  “Kill the finest glisker in the Kingdom? Oh, I
don’t think so. He does have his uses.”

  Mieka was the means by which the Archduke had sought to break Cayden. Cold common sense dictated keeping him close, a target to divert the Archduke from Cayden himself. Yet no one with a scrap of sense would abandon the Elf who had triggered Touchstone’s success. They’d been going nowhere fast, before that night in Gowerion.

  Compassion for the Elf required sacking him for his own safety. Yet to exile Mieka from the art and artistry of the theater would be to sign the warrant for his slow, agonizing death.

  Cade contemplated the fierce and angry eyes of this woman he despised. “One more question,” he said. “Just one. Your ambitions for her—it can’t be just money and position. What do you want?”

  Turning her gaze to the rain-drenched lawn and the river, she seemed to be thinking it all over. At length she said, very quietly, “You know the story, so you’ll understand when I tell you that we refused to share our gifts when the Knights were made. For this, we were condemned to serve them. Shunned by all other races, from Wizards to magicless Humans—after a time, they forgot why and hated us out of habit.”

  Nothing she might have said staggered him the way this did. A connection between Caitiffs and the Balaur Tsepesh?

  “Those Knights who survived were outcasts as well,” she went on. “They needed servitors to hide them when necessary, to take care of their needs.”

  “Need for what?” he whispered.

  “What do you think?” she snapped, all the pensive depth gone from her voice. “We were hunted down and sold as slaves. And those brave Knights? What did they do to help us, we who had hidden them and fed them and helped them escape for centuries? Nothing!”

  He could guess what feeding them required. As for the rest—

  “Money and social position would allow you to take your vengeance?” he ventured, feeling his way through it. “But if your grudge is against the Knights, what’s the sense in punishing Albeyn?”