Playing to the Gods

by Melanie Rawn

  Megs frowned. “Do I really sound like that?”

  “Don’t break character!” Jeska cried.

  “Simply not done!” Cade seconded. “If this were my play and you were my masquers, I’d sack you both!”

  “Well,” Rafe said kindly, “you have to make allowances for amateurs.”

  “Oh, shut it,” Mieka complained. “I want to hear the rest!”

  Megs graciously nodded her gratitude to him. Then she looked at Vrennerie. “What did I say next?”

  “Your Lordship has been waiting to call on Her Royal Highness, haven’t you? Waiting until the gift is ready?”

  “G-g-g-gift?” Megs ran her fingers through the hair spilling across her forehead, disordering it into tangled feesks. “Your Ladyships have me at a disadvantage—I—I don’t—”

  “Oh, come now!” Vrennerie said, back in her own voice. “We heard it from one of the mistresses of the wardrobe, who had it from her cousin’s husband’s sister’s niece—” Again she switched voices; Mieka reflected that the stage really had lost two accomplished performers when they’d been born female. As Megs, she said, “No, no, it was her husband’s cousin’s brother’s niece! And she’s walking out of an evening with the grandson of the chief cook of the Goldsmiths Guildhall, who says everybody’s in a positive tizzy over the lavishness of the gift!”

  Megs didn’t repeat the stuttering; Mieka admired her instincts. “Your Ladyships mustn’t demean yourselves by listening to idle gossip from servants, beneath your notice, don’t you see—”

  Vrennerie pulled a mournful face. “Then it’s not true? We haven’t ruined the surprise? It’s only that we just can’t hold back our gratitude and amazement at so wonderful a gift for the Princess!” She paused, but didn’t change voices as she exclaimed, “A bathtub! A solid gold bathtub! It’s simply too good of you!”

  Megs became incoherent.

  “Oh, it must be true—do tell us that it’s true! She’d be so disappointed!”

  Megs flapped her hands and tugged her forelock.

  As Megs again, Vrennerie purred, “But do you know, she also said that as wonderful as such a thing would be, she wanted us to tell you that it’s really the thought that counts most, and she’d be perfectly happy with, for instance, a little golden cup for each of her children, so that they’ll always remember your goodness and generosity.” Another quick shift to her own voice. “And as for the rest of the gold—Lord and Lady save us, there must be an awful lot of it, to make a bathtub!”

  “Not so very much,” Megs mumbled.

  “She says she’d be so pleased if you’d make it the very first contribution to her new sanatorium. She’s very concerned that there are so few facilities for the sick, and many people unable to afford a physicker, and if you present the gold to the Goldsmiths Guild, they can give you the value of it and you can give that as the start for building the sanatorium! Isn’t that a wonderful idea?”

  Megs seemed to make a mighty effort. “Wh-whatever Her Royal Highness wishes is of course m-my command. Honored to obey, don’t you see!”

  By now Touchstone was having a collective seizure from laughing so much. Vrennerie and Megueris rose from their chairs, steadying themselves against the gentle rocking of the wagon, and bowed their appreciation of this tribute to their performance. Jeska slid gracefully out of the hammock and onto his knees, hands clasped before him.

  “Considering well and truly what I have just seen with my very own eyes,” he intoned, “I pray most sincerely to the gracious Lord, the gentle Lady, every single one of the Angels, and all the Old Gods that women are never allowed onto a stage!”

  “Was that a dare?” Megs asked.

  “Sounded like it,” Vrennerie replied.

  “Hmm. Well, give me a year or two—”

  “And a conversation with Princess Miriuzca,” Mieka interrupted slyly. “I’m sure she’ll help.”

  “Oh, Gods,” Rafe moaned. “Lads, we’re done for!”

  “I do hope so,” Megs said sweetly.

  Mieka hopped off the shelf and refilled everyone’s glasses. Toasts were drunk, and at length Vrennerie said with regret that they’d best be getting back into their own coach, or the driver and footman would be telling salacious tales.

  “My husband won’t believe a word of it,” she said with mock chagrin. “But Megs can’t afford any slights to her reputation that a certain attractive young lord might be hearing.”

  Mieka glanced sidelong at Cade to see if this had struck home. No such luck. In fact, he joined with Jeska in trying to tease the name out of Vrennerie. They had no luck, either, and soon enough they’d called up to Rist on the coachman’s bench for a halt and were escorting the ladies to their own coach.

  Managing to slow Megs down enough for a brief whisper in her ear, he said, “I hear your father married again, and has a son.”

  “Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” She turned and looked him straight in the eyes.

  This really was a dare.

  “It’s why I’ve been away from Court for so long. A first baby at thirty-six can be dangerous, and I couldn’t bear to leave Lady Tomlyn or my father until everything was quite all right.”

  “They must be very happy,” Mieka said, signaling that she needn’t do any more persuading. He would keep her secret. “What did they name the boy?”

  “Guerys,” she replied, smiling her pleasure at his interest—or mayhap her relief. “It was sweet of her to name him after me, wasn’t it?”

  If he’d expected some subtle tribute to Cayden, he didn’t show it. “So now your father has a male heir, and you can do as you like—well, even more as you like, I mean! You can become a Steward.”

  “I mean to,” she told him.

  “Megs!” Vrennerie called. “Hurry up! We have to reach the first stopping before nightfall!”

  Mieka had one more quiet question as he walked with her to the coach. “Will we be seeing your father and his wife and son in Gallantrybanks?”

  “Of course! Just as soon as Guerys is old enough to travel.”

  He understood this to mean that the boy had inherited nothing readily recognizable from Cayden—not the gray eyes, nor the wide mouth, nor the distinctive nose. Pity. As for the other things he might have got from his father … well, they’d all have to wait and see.

  As he handed her onto the coach’s bottom step, she murmured, “You’ve never asked ‘Why him?’”

  Startled, he looked up to find her frowning down at him. For an intelligent girl, she asked some very silly questions. “Why not him?”

  Megs settled in the coach beside Vrennerie. Mieka shut the half-door and made sure the latch was secure.

  “Beholden to you, Mieka,” said Megs.

  “Yes,” he replied softly. “You are.”

  Chapter 22

  “The Shadowstone,” announced Rist, and there they were, greeted with pride and pleasure by Mistress Luta. Upstairs they discovered signs—not slips of paper, but etched brass plates—on the chamber doors that read VERED GOLDBRAIDER, JESCHENAR BOWBENDER, CHATTIM CZILLAG, and so forth. After bidding farewell to Rist for the next fortnight, Touchstone settled in. Cayden, who had not inhabited a room with his name on the door since leaving Sagemaster Emmot’s Academy, was alone in it for less than an hour before Mieka came in with all his gear.

  “Makes me feel a right fool, it does,” he announced, dumping his belongings on the second bed. “Sleeping someplace with me name on the door, as if they’re worried I’ll get so drunk, I won’t remember where the bed is!”

  Cade knew instantly that drunk was the key word here. Mieka needed to be near him. At Redpebble Square, a corridor away was good enough. Here, with a well-stocked bar only one flight downstairs …

  “A nice tribute, though,” Cade said. “D’you think anybody really thinks that by sleeping in the same bed where Rauel slept, some of his talent will transfer to them—like fleas?”

  Mieka laughed and walked over to the window, where the trees were ru
stling in a gentle wind. “It was nice, seeing Vren and Megs again. And I’m thinking that some of our talents as players must’ve rubbed off on them. A solid gold bathtub, forsooth!”

  Cade stretched out on his bed. He’d long since grown used to the wagon hammock, but there was nothing like the luxury of a good, wide-armed sprawl. “Shame I can’t work that one up into a nice little ten-minute farce.”

  “One day. One day. Only, the thing of it is, Quill…” He turned, and his voice deepened to seriousness. “None of it is a farce. It’s real. We know bits and pieces, but we don’t know enough. Are you sure that what you heard from the other Elsewhen didn’t have anything to do with it?”

  “I’m sure.” It had, in fact, been a part of the Elsewhen he’d rejected on the night before Wintering. In that one, Bexan had been screaming; Elf-light shone on her blood-covered hands; Minster chimes struck the hour close by. Was this second Elsewhen even related to the first? Instinct told him it was. Yet this time he’d not heard Bexan, and it had been so dark, he’d seen nothing and heard only one man’s rough voice talk about drinking, and the other man say “Do it.” No chimes, no screaming. Something had changed because of something he’d done. Or not done. He would never know. The scene might return, and it might not. But he had no regrets about not following it. Had he done so at Vered’s house, Yazz would be dead and Mieka would be in prison waiting to be executed for murder. In the second instance, the Archduke’s plans for Lord Fairwalk’s gold would be progressing apace and the whole of Albeyn would be at risk. Which it still was, he reminded himself, solid gold bathtub or not.

  He couldn’t help but smile and shake his head at the thought of it. “If anybody had ever told me that Vren and Megs were capable of what we saw on the road here—Mieka, we are a terrible influence on those ladies.”

  “Princess Iamina and the fanatic crowd were right all along,” the Elf agreed. “Theater is dangerous.”

  “Subversive. A threat to the good order of society.”

  “Don’t forget salacious—but only if you do it right!”

  The Crystal Sparks and Hawk’s Claw joined them at the Shadowstone Inn for dinner in the back garden. To the surprise of everyone except Touchstone, Chattim Czillag and Sakary Grainer strolled in the gate after the table had been cleared.

  Trenal Longbranch widened his eyes. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Missing the old days?” asked Mirko Challender.

  “Bored out of our skulls,” Chat responded, and called for another round of ale. “Gallybanks with nary a player in it for a fortnight and more—nobody to talk to or drink with or heckle from the cheap seats.”

  The excuse, though plausible, wasn’t the real reason for the presence of half the Shadowshapers. Touchstone knew it; the others didn’t. Cade had absolutely forbidden any sly glances, mysterious smiles, meaningfully arched brows, or any other silent hints that they knew something nobody else did. As for talking about it—the secret was no ordinary secret, and much too scrumptious to be shared.

  Before their withdrawal from the Circuits, the Shadowshapers had accomplished something for which all the other established groups were abjectly grateful. For them, there was no more draw for the Thirteen. The younger and less experienced players were still assigned a Peril for the competition, but those with a few Royal or Ducal Circuits behind them could do whatever piece they wished. This year Cade intended for Touchstone to perform Window Wall. Both plays were finished. Teasing the audiences with the first play would bring them in droves later on to see the whole of it. On their third day at Seekhaven, they did a run-through in the rehearsal hall, then proceeded to relax and enjoy themselves as they’d never been able to do in the days when the Shadowshapers were still in competition.

  These days there was actually a Duke for whom the Ducal Circuit was named. Prince Roshlin, five years old, had been created Duke of Overbourne. (“Ovenburn?” Mieka had asked, bewildered. “No, Overbourne,” Cade had replied. “It means a ‘bridge.’ Bourne is a Northern word for a ‘stream.’ So if something is over a bourne, it’s a bridge.” “Why couldn’t they just say so, then?” “It’s a very old—” “It’s a stupid word, a stupid name, a stupid title, and I bet when the little mite grows up, he’ll think it’s stupid, too.” “Think if he’d been the son of somebody named Prickwell. He’d be stuck with it.” “You made that up.” “Did not. I went to school with—” “Even if that’s true, it’s not stupid, Quill. It’s just tragic.”) The dukedom had been in abeyance since Meredan’s great-uncle died childless about sixty years ago, and, with its accompanying revenues, had been granted to Roshlin now that he had a small household of his own. Miriuzca was bringing him to Seekhaven this year—not to attend any performances, for he was much too young even for “Bewilderland,” but to meet the three groups who won places on the Ducal Circuit.

  Lederris Daggering of the Crystal Sparks, thin and jittery and with a look about him of too much thorn, asked after Vered and his family. He addressed the question to everybody in general, for it was anybody’s guess which of the former Shadowshapers were actually speaking to each other again. The members of Touchstone, of course, didn’t have to guess.

  Sakary answered, smiling slightly. “The twins are thriving. So are the other twins.”

  “Bexan is so little!” Mieka said. “How did she ever manage to carry four babies?”

  “Pikseys are born even smaller than Elves,” Jeska commented. “I agree, though, it’s an amazement that they all lived and that she survived labor. That Wizardly heritage of Vered’s could’ve meant tragedy.”

  Or, Cade reflected, a complete incompatibility of bloodlines that made conceiving a child impossible. Blye and Jed had given up hoping. Jez’s new wife, Eirenn Wooltangle, had declared that Number Eight, Redpebble Square, was plenty big enough for a dozen or more children. If not sons and daughters, then there would be nephews and nieces.

  “To Bexan,” Chat said, raising his glass. “Hearty and heartful, that’s the kind of woman to marry!”

  “To Bexan,” Cade seconded. “And to the nurses who have to keep track of four infants at once!”

  “I think they hired one for each,” Sakary said. “Which doubled their household staff and probably tripled the housekeeping budget. Good thing Wavertree is a big place. They’re gonna need it!”

  Mieka went out walking that night and didn’t return until dawn. Cade suspected that he’d found congenial female company for at least part of the time, but didn’t ask. All that mattered was that he was no longer using thorn, and the drunken revelries of the past were just that: in the past.

  Touchstone treated the fortnight of Trials as more or less of a holiday. Everybody knew they’d be First Flight on the Royal again. Talented and celebrated as the Crystal Sparks, Hawk’s Claw, and Black Lightning were, none of them quite measured up. Touchstone had indeed become the standard by which all others were tested. Occasionally Cayden fretted that they might begin to take things too much for granted. The adoring applause that ended their every performance argued otherwise. He started to wonder, though, if it mightn’t be time for them to do what the Shadowshapers had done, and strike out on their own. He’d abandoned the idea for the two long years of paying off their debts; even though the Crown took a goodly share of the profits, Touchstone had needed the guaranteed income of the Royal Circuit. Maybe next year …

  As he lolled in the sunny garden or strolled the street beside the river, Cade knew he’d needed the relaxation. Worry about Mieka was fading; Rafe had stayed true to his word to Crisiant, and had become as abstemious as Mieka; Jeska was calmly ecstatic in his marriage and fatherhood; Cade had the satisfaction of writing again. Touchstone was everything Cade had ever hoped it would become, and more.

  As for heading out on their own, forsaking the Royal Circuit … he had no concerns that what had happened to the Shadowshapers would happen to them. Touchstone had never had that problem of two competing tregetours. And the thought of being paid what they were really worth,
rather than what the Master of the King’s Revelries could bargain, was tempting. Never worrying about money again … never enduring another sleepless night of wondering where Dery’s school fees would come from … never steeling himself for a visit to the bank to find out how much money he didn’t have. Tempting? Absolutely seductive.

  He managed to resist the seduction of another thorn-stimulated Elsewhen. He still didn’t know how the Archduke meant to seize the throne. He’d never yet seen Derien. And there were those two fragments to tantalize him. The more he thought about them, the more nervous they made him. To whom was the gravel-voiced man talking in the darkness? What did the other man mean by “Do it”? Why had Bexan been screaming?

  By the tenth day at Seekhaven, Hawk’s Claw had entertained the ladies at the Pavilion with a rowdy comedy that Trenal Longbranch had been working on for a couple of years now; the competition had been held, with Touchstone winning First Flight yet again, and the invitation had come to perform on the last night of Trials. Prince Roshlin, Duke of Overbourne, had met the three groups assigned to the Ducal Circuit, distinguishing himself by marching right up to each cluster of tall young men and saying in a high, clear voice, “I’m very pleased to meet you,” just as his mother had taught him. She had not taught him to peer up at the Kindlesmiths’ red-haired glisker and ask, “Can you show me how to do magic?” The young man cast a panicky glance at Princess Miriuzca, then recovered himself and replied, “I’d be glad to, Your Grace, but I haven’t my glass withies at the moment. Perhaps another time?”

  One or two of the courtiers gasped at this presumption. But the Princess smiled; all was well. Still, the incident got several people to wondering whether the scant dollops of Wizardly and Elfen and mayhap other sorts of magical blood in the Albeyni Royal line might just work their way to the surface, and endow the young Prince with abilities that would not please his pious great-aunt Iamina.