Playing to the Gods

by Melanie Rawn

  “You just keep on unpicking all the stitches, Cade,” Jeska told him. “You’re good at that.”

  Later that day—a lovely sunny afternoon with a gentle breeze—Cade suggested that Mieka join him in stretching his legs. It was more like an order, actually. And Mieka knew exactly what he wanted to talk about.

  “Rebuild what, exactly?”

  “The house.”

  “Your house? I mean, Jindra’s house.”

  “Not anymore.” He’d been rehearsing his answer in his mind since he’d done it. “When I walked in, there were all new cushions and sheets and pillows and pretty much anything that could be woven or sewn. One of the neighbor ladies saw me drive up, and came by to say that packages had come the week before, with instructions to put the new things in place, and that I’d pay her for the work when next I came by. I paid, and she left.”

  “Mieka, what did you do?”

  “There were a couple of new shirts as well. I didn’t recognize them. I’ve never worn them. And I’m not fool enough to’ve touched them—or anything else.”

  “If you don’t tell me right now—”

  “I blew it up, all right? I got my stash from under a floorboard and I blew the whole fucking house sky-high!”

  Cade seemed to be speechless.

  Mieka took advantage of it, knowing it wouldn’t last. “Scared the shit out of the hack driver—and his horse—and people came running from all over the village. I said that there was so much rot in the wood and the cracks in the masonry were so bad that my brothers the Master Builders said just to get rid of the whole thing and start from scratch. I don’t know if they believed me, and I don’t care.”

  After a couple of false starts and a throat-clearing, Cade managed, “But—but it was Jindra’s inheritance from you. Her property.”

  Mieka stopped walking and grabbed Cade’s arm, glaring up into his face. “D’you think I’d leave that place standing for Jindra to come to and find who knows what waiting for her in the pillows and counterpanes? They did all of it just on the chance that I’d go there within a month—can you imagine what they’d do if they knew Jindra was going to live there or even visit for a couple of weeks with Jinsie and Mum?”

  “So you blew it up.”

  “Every stick, stitch, and stone of it. Especially the stitches.”

  Cade squinted into the sunshine, then nodded. “Wish I’d been there. Sounds like fun.”

  “Oh, it was, Quill, it really was! Used up every damned bit of my black powder, though.”

  “Well, look at it this way. You started out by obliterating a bathroom. Now you’ve blown up a whole house. How could you ever top that?”

  Mieka laughed. “You don’t really want me to try, do you?”

  Chapter 25

  Scornful, willful, and even gleeful as that act of destruction had been, it turned out to be unnecessary.

  It was full summer, and Touchstone was halfway through the Royal Circuit, and had earned their week at Castle Eyot. Warm days lazing in the sun or swimming in the river; soft beds and good food; nothing to do but let the tension unwind.

  Jinsie was waiting for them. More specifically, for Mieka.

  “Are you sure Yazz isn’t well enough to come be our coachman again?” he was whining as the four of them entered the upstairs drawing room—five hours later than expected—where refreshments awaited while their bags were taken to their rooms. “If we get lost one more time on this trip—”

  He broke off at the sight of his twin, who rose from a chair and started across the room to him. Her pale eyes were solemn in her dark face. She wore a plain brown dress that became her in neither color nor style.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong.”

  “Mieka…”

  He panicked. “Jindra? Something’s happened to Jindra—”

  “No! Oh, Gods no, I’m sorry—I really am sorry, brother.” She stood before him, taking his hands. “It’s not Jindra. She’s fine. It’s—it’s Lord and Lady Ripplewater.”

  For a moment he had no idea whom she was talking about. And then he knew. He knew.

  “A carriage accident,” she went on. “It was a few days ago. They were on their way to his family’s seaside cottage. They—” She gulped and shook her head. “The constable’s messenger said it happened instantly. They didn’t suffer.” Her fingers spasmed in his. Helplessly, she finished, “Mieka, I’m so sorry—”

  He bent his forehead to hers, a gesture from their childhood. “Beholden for coming yourself to tell me,” he whispered.

  “D’you think I’d send a stranger, or a letter?” She freed her hands and wrapped her arms around him.

  He didn’t quite know how he ended up in a bedchamber upstairs, seated in a soft chair with a half-empty glass of whiskey in his hand. Considerable time had gone by; afternoon shadows spread across the bright flowered rugs.

  “More?”

  Cayden. Of course. He shook his head and looked up. Cade sat across from him, the bottle by his feet, holding an empty glass. There was a faraway look in his gray eyes that Mieka had never seen there before. In the years since instinct and brash confidence and a fair measure of terror had sent him to Gowerion to claim a place in a group that didn’t even have a name, he’d seen Cade’s eyes somber, infuriated, contemptuous, frightened; glazed with pain, dancing with laughter, blazing with creative fire, soft with tenderness—but he’d never seen this aloof, meditative sadness.

  “His family will make the arrangements, of course,” Cade said. “Their ancestral manor and … and burying ground—it’s about a day and a half from here. Will you go? Should I come with you?”

  “Yes. And no.”

  “I think I ought to.”

  “Beholden, but no. Jinsie and I will be there.” He shifted his gaze to the dark golden liquid in his glass, not even tempted to finish the drink. The taste in his mouth told him he’d had a few swallows. He didn’t want any more. “That’ll be quite enough hypocrisy, don’t you think?”

  “Mieka—”

  “I hope he made her happy. I never really did. I never could have.”

  “Touchstone was in the way.”

  “You were in the way,” Mieka corrected. How clear it all was now. The life he shared with Cayden—and Rafe and Jeska—was the life he needed and wanted. His life with her had always been an afterthought, an accessory—like a neck-cloth or an earring or a pair of gloves to put on and admire, then take off again and abandon when it was time to get back to his real life. He remembered how heavy those silver bracelets had been, purposely heavy, so that he could never quite forget her even while performing. Especially while performing.

  “Mieka…”

  “All I can remember is that last night. I can’t see her like she was when we got married, nor when we went to Hilldrop the first time, nor even the very first time I ever saw her. It’s that last night, Quill. When I left her. I never told you about it, did I?”

  “You don’t have to, Mieka.”

  “I wasn’t going to. It’s just … I saw her, as if I’d never seen her before. She was so beautiful … the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.…” Lifting the glass, he stared at it for a moment and then set it on the table beside him. “Gods, how I wish I wanted to get drunk.”

  There was a silence while the shadows crawled an inch or so across the rug.

  “Don’t start blaming yourself.”

  “Start?” Mieka echoed incredulously. “Are you serious?”

  “Never more so. Most of it was false from the beginning. You know that. I told you what her mother said. Her grandmother, I mean.” He paused to pour himself more whiskey. “And then with Touchstone pulling you in one direction and her in the other—and all the lies—”

  “I wanted all of it, Quill. I wanted everything.”

  “You had no idea what the fuck you wanted.”

  “But I did know. Exactly what every man is supposed to want. I wanted Touchstone and her and for everything to be perfect.” H
e heard the bitterness in his voice and couldn’t stop it. “I’m Mieka Windthistle of Touchstone, right? Rich and famous and funny and clever and gorgeous and—and—I thought I could take what I wanted and have everything, and it would all be just like it’s s’posed to be.”

  Cade gulped down his drink and bent to put the glass onto the floor. Mieka suspected this movement was to hide his face, but he didn’t speak until he straightened up, and when he did, he looked Mieka directly in the eyes.

  “I know you’ll never see it the way I do—and I never claimed to be impartial when it came to her. But she was trying to change everything about you that didn’t fit her idea—hers and that old woman’s—of who and what you ought to be. I know, I know, you went along with it so it was partly your fault, and it was my fault, too, because I let them get away with it for so long. But you never saw her clear, Mieka—not until that night, I guess. I never blamed her for wanting you. What I can’t forgive her for is not understanding the first thing about you, for trying to make you different and—and less than you are.”

  Mieka watched the anger fade from Cade’s face until there was nothing but the sadness. “That time you took me to Ginnel House … you showed me a way to change, but you left it to me to make the choice. I never understood that about you before. The Elsewhens—is that how you figured out that you can’t make people decide what’s right? That it’s their choice to go one way instead of another—but, Quill, when you see the Elsewhens, at least you know that you have to think about the consequences! You should’ve told me what you’d seen.”

  “You never would have believed me.”

  “No,” he admitted. “But it would’ve been there inside my head, and I would’ve had to think about it, and—”

  “I couldn’t. I didn’t want to lose you.”

  He almost laughed. “Quill! How could that ever happen? You’re the only one who looks at me and sees me, just like I am.” When Cade shook his head, Mieka leaned forward in his chair and persisted, “You know me. With you, I never have to be anything but myself.” Gray eyes clouded for a moment, and Mieka knew he was seeing a flash of an Elsewhen. But he didn’t ask. Instead, he smiled slightly, and when it was clear that Cade was back, he said, “O’ course, that means I can’t get away with much. Which is, if I may say so, my dear old Quill, irksome as seventeen different Hells.” He pushed himself to his feet and stretched. “Gods and Angels, I’m tired. Let me have a lie-down for a bit, all right?”

  “All right.”

  He didn’t sleep. He lay on the bed, watching the afternoon become evening, wondering—without much curiosity—why he didn’t feel a deeper and more personal grief. He hurt for Jindra’s sake, and even for the old woman’s. He was angry, in a detached way, that her new life with her new husband had been cut so tragically short; he pitied the Ripplewater family the loss of their son. But for himself … there wasn’t much in him but a feeling of suddenly being rather old.

  And he liked it not at all.

  He was coming up on twenty-six—if he lived as long as most people did who had substantial Elfen ancestry, he had at least thrice that number of years ahead of him.

  What in all Hells was he going to do with them, anyway?

  Theater was, as he had himself arrogantly stated many a time, a young man’s game. Anybody older than thirty was a graybeard, and an object of contempt. Chat Czillag was older than that, of course, but Chat was a special case … or was he? A group as brilliant as the Shadowshapers—or Touchstone, damn it!—didn’t come along all that often. The Shadowshapers could break whatever rules they pleased, especially now that they played only where and when and as they liked. Currently they were meandering throughout Albeyn on a sort of working holiday, with two carriages each for family and servants (except for Vered, who brought only Bexan; the babies, too young for such lengthy travel, were at Wavertree with Bexan’s mother and all those nurses). When they approached a town of any decent size, a rider was sent ahead to ask if the Shadowshapers might have the privilege of playing for them a night or two hence. Some of the shows were outside; some were given inside the local landowner’s biggest barn or whatever hall was used by the magistrate. If there was a castle nearby, its courtyard became the theater. People got their money’s worth and more: three plays were done at each show, something short and light and funny, and then the two parts of Blood Plight. By now, in high summer, a fair portion of the citizens of Albeyn knew the whole story, either by direct experience or through hearing the raptures of their friends and neighbors.

  Even if they never played anything else besides their current folio, the Shadowshapers could go on being the Shadowshapers pretty much until they dropped dead of old age. Why couldn’t Touchstone do the same? Mieka almost laughed, reminding himself of that Elsewhen of Cade’s, the party on his forty-fifth Namingday—they’d just got home from a gigging, so obviously Touchstone was going strong. There was no reason why Mieka wouldn’t be dancing behind Blye’s beautiful glass baskets well into his forties, his fifties …

  She would never see twenty-five.

  She was dead, the woman who had been his wife. Jindra’s mother. A Caitiff, whose powers had been dedicated—or so legend and Vered Goldbraider had it—to the service of the Knights of the Balaur Tsepesh. But why not call them what they were? Everyone in Albeyn must be calling them by their right name by now.

  Vampires.

  Half of Jindra’s heritage came from the Caitiffs who had provided the Knights with what they needed. Might as well call that by its right name, too.

  Blood.

  But the other half was his, with all the Dark Elf and Light Elf, Wizard and Piksey and Sprite and Human and Fae—half of her was his. In looks she was almost entirely his: eyes, cheekbones, the shape of her ears, the thick black hair. But especially his were her hands, small and fine-boned, with the ring fingers and little fingers almost the same length. Quick, clever hands. Magic was in them, surely, but of what kind? Would it be the “golden threads and silver needles” of that horrible chanting song?

  Her mother would never know.

  Mieka curled onto his side, squeezing his eyes shut and his hands into fists. He’d lied to Cayden about not wanting to get drunk. There was a whole cellar full of liquor and a cabinet full of thorn here at Lord Piercehand’s pretty castle. Easiest thing in the world to ring for a servant and order up whatever he fancied.

  He told himself he wouldn’t. He swore that he absolutely would not find the bellpull and—

  “Mieka? Are you awake?”

  Jinsie would never know how acutely he loathed her at that moment—or how heart-deep grateful he was.

  She came in, sat in the chair Cade had been in a few hours ago, and regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and determination that made him nervous.

  “What?” he demanded, sitting up on the bed.

  “Are you going to feel guilty about this?”

  “About taking a nap?”

  “Don’t be a quat. You know what I mean. It wasn’t your fault. You two were so wrong for each other that everybody who looked at you saw it. All the while you were married, Mum and Fa worried every single day.”

  “What?”

  “You never could see much that wasn’t the size of a dragon and shoved right under your nose. I used to hear them talking late at night, and it was always the same things. You were too young, both of you. She wasn’t the kind who could be left on her own for half the year—she needed attention and she’d get it wherever she could. You were drinking too much and pricking too much thorn. You didn’t even laugh the same way. They were starting not to recognize their own son. You were turning nasty and mean and you didn’t even realize it.”

  He heard this catalog of his sins and acknowledged them all.

  “I remember watching a show last autumn—you weren’t playing for the joy of it like you used to. It was more like you were shattering the withies because you wanted to hurt them. And that’s not how you were meant to play. You weren’t our Mi
eka anymore. She was trying to make you nothing but hers, and that meant taking you away from the rest of us.”

  Cayden had said much the same thing. Why was it that these two people who loved him and knew him had never said anything to the point? Jinsie’s next words gave him the inevitable, inarguable answer.

  “But you wouldn’t listen.”

  “No,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t listen.”

  “And still, out of all of it, somehow there’s Jindra. And Touchstone, where you’re supposed to be. Two incredible rights out of all that wrongness.”

  “Are you saying you think it balances out? The things that happen are supposed to happen?”

  “You don’t agree?”

  “I can’t agree. I’ve heard about too many of Cade’s Elsewhens.”

  The reminder that the future was in fact unfixed only made her shrug. “They’re just versions of what has to happen. But maybe I used the wrong word. Maybe it’s not balance, but payment for what we take.”

  He’d done a lot of taking. More than his share. He’d reached out and grabbed with both greedy hands. Money, acclaim, girls, thorn, liquor, things that pleased him and a life that excited him … and he had possessed in marriage the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  Lord and Lady and Angels and Gods, how he wanted a drink.

  “Jinsie … how does her being dead pay for what I’ve done?”

  “What you’ve done?” she cried. “Haven’t you been listening? It was her paying up for what she’d done to you!”

  He knew that if he said anything to the contrary, he’d be treated to another hour or so of her emphatic opinions—all of them in his favor. Well, she was his sister. At least Cade could admit that he wasn’t exactly objective and detached. Jinsie knew what she knew, and Gods help anybody who tried to convince her otherwise. Just like Mieka.

  “All right,” he said. “I understand. Not stupid, y’know—just lacking in education. And hungry.”