Playing to the Gods

by Melanie Rawn

  “They’re incredibly suspicious, though.” About to cross a street, Cade held Vered’s elbow to keep him in place as a carriage passed at reckless speed. “Lady Vrennerie told me that Miriuzca’s mother was stripped naked and inspected before the wedding. Looking for the Caitiff mark, I guess. Did you ever figure out what that is?”

  Vered shrugged. “Just a sop to the common folk, I think. If there’s no way to recognize a Caitiff, then anybody could be one. So they made something up as a comfort and a reassurance.”

  “I think—” Cade paused, turning slightly as somebody yelped up ahead. Cursing ensued, but no shouts for help. “I think you’re wrong. Mistress Mirdley said once that Trolls look for the mark before testing a Caitiff in a river after it’s rained. Pure water is supposed to be poisonous to them.”

  “I thought we settled that.”

  “Yeh. But if a bespellment involving rainwater to wash away the mark and the magic got turned into an antipathy to pure water so that no Caitiff would want to work that spell—oy, I’m getting confused!”

  “Life,” Vered announced, “is so much easier when you leave the research to the Royal Archivists. But that remembers me of something. Did Mieka’s wife—the Lady aid her soul,” he interjected piously, “did she or her mother ever go walking in the rain?”

  “No idea.” Cade hid the annoyance this question caused him. “You could ask Mistress Luta about rainwater in Seekhaven, if you’re touring past there this summer.”

  “I’ll wait and talk to your Mistress Mirdley. She’s the only Trollwife who doesn’t completely terrify me. And I’ll tell you why they scare me silly, and I’ll wager you that your Mistress Mirdley never told you this. Trolls have the watchkeeping of Caitiffs because on the Continent, Trolls didn’t just live under bridges, but in mountain caverns, too. They like to be beneath things like soil and rock, like that. The Knights being what they became, they sought the deepest darknesses they could find during the daylight hours. Caitiffs used their weaving magic to evict Trolls from hundreds of caves.”

  No, he hadn’t heard this before. “Didn’t the Trolls fight back?”

  Vered nodded. “In a small but intense magical war that involved just them and the Caitiffs. Nobody won. But I’m thinking it was one of those happenings that increased fear of magical folk in general over there.”

  “Where’d you learn all this?”

  “Bexan’s great-grandmother. The old woman—and, Gods in Glory, I do mean old! The only thing as has more wrinkles is a ten-pound bag of prunes! She’s descended from some Piksey bloodline or other that keeps the racial records. Not in charge herself, nor anybody she knew personally, but there were family stories. There was one about a Troll having a slight difference of opinion with a dragon over the same cavern, the argument settled by the Pikseys doing something deviously Pikseyish, that would make a great comedy.”

  “You can ask Mistress Mirdley about that, too—if you dare!”

  To Cade’s surprise, Mieka was still awake. Or, rather, he explained he’d been mostly asleep and then something had occurred to him, and he’d been waiting hours for Cade to stop gwicking beer and come upstairs.

  “We didn’t touch a drop when we got back, not even tea,” Cade replied. “You know Vered doesn’t drink much these days. And for your information, I do not gwick, and never have. Neither have I swilled or bloddered, though I may have swigged on occasion and even gulped at times, and I have, perhaps once or twice, guzzled, but only when I was very thirsty.”

  “Yeh, yeh, whatever,” Mieka said impatiently. He sat up in bed, arms crossed atop his knees. “Are you gonna keep your tongue from flapping for a while so I can talk?” When Cade gave him a brief bow and a flourish of the hand that invited him to speak, Mieka made a face at him. “Muchly beholden, O Great Tregetour. When we were doing ‘Dragon’ tonight, did it strike you that the dragon in ‘Dragon’ might not really be a dragon? What I mean is, what if it’s not a dragon, but one of the Knights? Their symbol was a dragon. Drevan told you so, right? Seeing as how they were what they were—and why doesn’t anybody use the word?—anyways, caves would’ve been perfect to spend the daylight in. As for guarding hoards of riches, though this really doesn’t matter much, they’d have to pay the Caitiffs somehow, wouldn’t they, for doing whatever dreadful things they did for them, like bring them living people—a princess, for preference—so the blood is fresh and warm—”

  At this point Mieka was pretty much compelled to take in a good long breath. All Cade could think was that he had to have eavesdropped on the conversation with Vered tonight.

  “I’ve been worryin’ this inside me head, Quill, ever since we first saw Blood Plight, and we just did ‘Dragon’ again tonight and maybe Vered and Chat being here started me puzzling it all out again, but right in the middle, it just sort of hit me that it would kind of fit, wouldn’t it? We could do it that way, now that people have seen Vered’s plays—and we changed ‘Dragon’ the very first time we ever did it, so who cares for the standard scripts and precedents anyways? The prince goes after the princess because one of the Knights with a dragon on his shield is about to have her for dinner and he’s got to save her, and her lines have to be really terrified this time because she knows what’s about to happen to her—it’d be wicked scary, Quill, because we’d have to show the blood-drained corpses in the cavern waiting for the Caitiffs to carry them out and bury them, and we’d also have to do a real Vampire—there, I said it!”

  Again the tumble of words stopped while he drew breath. Cade would never understand how he could talk so much and breathe so seldom.

  “But should we do what Vered does, and have the prince slice its head off, or use one of the other methods? A wooden stake would at least be different from the Shadowshapers, though not half so flashy—no, I think we have to use a sword for the death sequence. What d’you think, Quill?”

  “I think,” he said slowly, tying the laces of his nightshirt, “that we’ll have the Vampire wear orange and gray.”

  Mieka bounced excitedly on the mattress. “Then you don’t hate it? You want to see if we can do it?”

  “Oh, I’m sure we can do it.”

  Vered Goldbraider’s third play to show what the Knights had become would take him months and months to write and even more months to perfect, what with the contentiousness of the Shadowshapers’ rehearsals. Cade felt sure that he could write this variation on “Dragon” in a fortnight, and have it ready to perform this winter in Gallybanks.

  Mieka was watching him narrowly as he got into bed. “Even showing people exactly who the Knight’s family is?”

  He stretched luxuriously under clean, sweet-scented sheets. “Mieka, we’re not just going to show them. We’re going to use the name, spoken right out loud.”

  “And Jeska can kill him?”

  “Oh, yes. As disgustingly as possible. Maybe with a half-blocked sword to the neck, that only gouges him some, and he loses the sword and has to use something made of wood—” Something occurred to him. “Do they bleed, Vampires? There has to be something running through their veins. Do you know?”

  “It’s our play and this one can bleed lemon custard if we want him to! Ha! Glorious! Beholden, Quill! I can’t wait!”

  Mieka flopped back onto his pillows, chuckling. It was good to see him happy, though Cade had to admit that it was also a somewhat ghoulish joy. But one thing was for certain sure: Both of them fell asleep without one single thought for the comforts of whiskey or thorn.

  Chapter 28

  Despite how inspired and even brilliant his idea seemed at the time, Mieka had second thoughts about it first thing the next morning. By the time they were back in Gallybanks, the wagon rolling slowly through the early-morning tangle of traffic towards Wistly Hall, he calculated that he was, roughly speaking, on his thousandth or so thought about it. And every single one of those thoughts indicated that changing “Dragon” was a very bad idea.

  He was grateful that Cayden hadn’t brought it up again.
Probably he had been having the same thoughts. Possibly they were even worse. Satisfying as revenging himself on the Archduke would be, changing the dragon in the cavern to a Knight bearing the name Henick was a thing so dangerous that not even reminding himself that the man was responsible for the death of Jindra’s mother could keep him from the sort of cold, hollow fear that in times past had sent him to the thorn-roll. There were families to think about, and friends. The sight of Jindra running down the stairs to greet him when he walked in the front door at Wistly made his heart cringe so painfully that the wince almost showed on his face.

  After a nap in a bed that didn’t swing or sway, he bounded down Wistly’s stairs to find everybody else ready for lunching on the river lawn. Cade took him aside afterwards and showed him a letter from Drevan Wordturner that had been awaiting him; the essence was a desperate plea to persuade Vered Goldbraider to forget his name and indeed his very existence. The questions Vered had been sending from all over Albeyn were not of the sort that could be answered without personal risk, and Drevan would like his various internal organs to stay right where they belonged.

  “I’ve been thinking about ‘Dragon,’” Cade began.

  Mieka interrupted. “So’ve I. We can’t. It’s lovely to think about, but we really can’t, Quill. Not that way, at least.”

  “I know.” A quiet sigh, a shrug. “I’ll have more than enough to do at the new house, anyways. No time to write anything.”

  It was as good an excuse as any. Mieka knew it was cowardice, but if being a coward kept him and his safe, a coward he’d gladly be. The Archduke had gifted Touchstone with enough attention; they didn’t have to deliberately poke him in the eye with a sharp stick. Let the Shadowshapers occupy him for a while.

  To Cayden he said, “Vered had better find something else to busy himself, too. Drevan sounds frantic. You said Vered really didn’t tell you much, but I can guess what kind of questions he’s asking.”

  “Me, I don’t want to guess.”

  Jindra ran up to them then, demanding to know when they would go home. Mieka swung her up into his arms and traded a look with Cayden as he again realized his mother’s wisdom. Having the child stay at the new house a few nights at a time throughout the summer had not just accustomed her to the idea of living there. She now thought of it as home.

  So, to his surprise, did Mieka.

  They moved in the day after returning from the Royal. Yazz was there to help—his left arm useless, but a one-armed part-Giant was still worth three or four ordinary men. Mishia used her hover-spell to excellent effect and forbade Mieka on pain of pain he couldn’t even imagine not to attempt the same. Almost all the heavier furniture from the house at Redpebble Square had already been distributed throughout the new house (which still didn’t have a name), but there was a lot of rearranging to be done and Mistress Mirdley’s kitchen and stillroom to be organized with things that couldn’t be moved until the last minute. Once Yazz had repositioned beds and standing wardrobes, couches and cabinets, he was detailed to hang herbs from the stillroom ceiling and arrange pots and pans in upper shelves so Mistress Mirdley didn’t have to climb up and down the stepladder a dozen times. She allowed no one else into the kitchen for several hours, in fact, and Mieka was devoured by both hunger and curiosity when Yazz finally emerged, grinning, to announce that lunching would be at the next chime.

  Jindra spent half the morning dragging Mieka and Cayden by the hand through every room at least twice. She gave them the tour as if she not only owned the place but also designed which rooms would be used for what and chosen every piece of furniture and decoration. This was her home. Mieka learned during the explorations that she had been told, and believed, that Mummy had gone to live with the Angels and wouldn’t be able to visit because it was so very far away. This made her sad, she confided, but Mummy must be very happy where she was. This was a good thing, because Mummy used to cry a lot and now she never would again.

  Mieka hid a grimace and avoided Cade’s eyes.

  Back in Cade’s drawing room, pleasantly weary and waiting for someone to direct him to food, Mieka held his daughter in his lap and decided that this afternoon her naptime would be his naptime, too. Their side of the house was on the west, Cade’s and Derien’s on the east. The ground floor of each half of the archway was divided into a drawing room (with small garderobes) fronting the river, and, facing the back garden, the dining room and Mistress Mirdley’s kitchen and stillroom on Cade’s side and her living quarters on Mieka’s. The next floor ran the width of the building above the arch, with bedrooms and sitting rooms and bathrooms. The uppermost story held Cade’s library and writing room, and a long, narrow hall floored in polished oak that puzzled Mieka until his daughter announced that this was his “sword boards”—his practice room for fencing. Jinsie’s idea, Mistress Mirdley later told him, so that he wouldn’t be waving lethal blades about to the detriment of the drawing room curtains. There were windows all along the riverside wall and the opposite wall was decorated with all Touchstone’s placards in frames and Trials medals in glass boxes on shelves. Behind this wall were two long, narrow rooms overlooking the garden. These were for any footmen and maids they decided to hire—which, considering the size of the house, was likely to happen sooner rather than later. On Mieka’s side of the building, a match to Cade’s library but smaller, was a study for Derien and Jindra.

  She was dozing against his shoulder, trusting and comfortable. It gave him a sensation compounded of feeling protective and feeling safe, strange but welcome. He startled himself a little when it occurred to him to be glad that he was sober and clear-headed and could appreciate it.

  Cade lazed near the windows in a big, comfortable armchair, long legs sprawled, looking with a whimsical bemusement at one corner of the room where a huge standing vase of dark blue ceramic contained the array of peacock feathers Mieka had given him on his twenty-fourth Namingday. Mieka had assumed that when Cade was thrown out of his flat later that year for not paying the rent, the feathers had somehow got lost. But here they were, a malevolent beauty as far as theater folk were concerned: Mieka’s defiant answer to superstition. He was about to make a comment to that effect when he saw Cade’s gray eyes go all unfocused. He waited out the Elsewhen, hoping it would be a good one. And it was. When it ended, Cade was smiling.

  “Well?” Mieka asked softly.

  “I just realized something.”

  “And that might be?”

  His laugh was pure mischief—a sound Mieka had rarely heard before. “The Elsewhens aren’t just a warning to change something or really bad stuff will happen. They’re a warning that I’d better not fuck up, or I’ll miss out on the good stuff!”

  Mieka couldn’t help laughing, which woke Jindra, which turned out to be all right because just then the village Minster chimed the hour. Yazz appeared in the doorway, carrying a large table aloft by its leg, one-handed. Mistress Mirdley was behind him with the lunching tray: bread, cheese, fresh fruit salad, pickles, carrots, mocah-almond cakes, and cinnamon tea over ice. Yazz set up the table, Mieka and Cade pulled chairs around, and they all pounced.

  Later, when they’d taken Jindra up to her room for her nap and Mieka was about to announce himself intent on doing the same, Cade pulled him into the hallway and half-closed Jindra’s door.

  “I saw her,” Cade said, low-voiced. “She was sixteen, maybe seventeen—Mieka, she just whirled into the room downstairs saying that somebody had accepted her—I’m not sure who or for what, but she was completely happy. Probably something to do with school. And she was so beautiful!”

  “Just do me one tiny little favor, eh? You always get all compulsive and worryful about what you might or might not have to do to change the bad things. Please, for the love of anything holy, don’t get the same way about being careful not to fuck it all up!”

  Cade nudged him playfully with an elbow as they headed for the hallway leading to their own bedchambers. “Oh, but that’s just it. I have this feeling that
everything has come right. That being here, in this house—” He stopped, made a sound of frustration. “In stories and plots for plays, just when things are going well, that’s when the wheels come off the wagon. It has to be that way, that the characters are at odds over something or other, so that a crisis brings them back together in spite of themselves, and they learn—the audience learns—that working together is much better than struggling on alone.”

  “But being here doesn’t feel like that?”

  “No. If this were a play, full-blown Elsewhens of total disaster should be giving me nervous fits. Warning me against even the slightest sensation of complacency. But what I saw today—it’s right, Mieka. Doing this is right.”

  “This isn’t a play, old thing,” Mieka reminded him, amused. “This is life. Our life. I’m not stupid enough to think we’re owed this, or we’ve earned it, or even that we deserve it. But I’m not gonna complain about it, either!”

  “I’m not complaining! I’m just trying to say that it seems like my whole life I’ve done the things that felt right at the time, but this—” He waved a hand to indicate everything: the house, Derien, Jindra, Mieka, Mistress Mirdley, himself, everything. “This feels like it’s going to be right for the rest of my life. This is where I’m supposed to be, and I’ve never felt that except when I’m onstage.”

  Mieka surprised himself again. “Me, too. It’s—” He groped for a word, then realized he’d had it all along. “It’s home.” Out of everything that had happened, out of all the hurts and angers and mistakes and misunderstandings, somehow this good thing had come. And Cade was right: they’d be fools to fuck it up.

  “And just so you know,” Cade said as Mieka opened his own bedchamber door, “Mistress Mirdley and Derien and I—not to speak of your parents and Jinsie—have come to a decision. Nobody cares what you do on the Royal or in Gallybanks or when Jindra’s visiting at Wistly Hall. But the first time you bring a woman here while Jindra’s within a mile of this house…” He smiled with devastating charm. “Let’s just say the first time will be your last. Ever.”