Playing to the Gods

by Melanie Rawn

  “Actually,” Mieka said, “he might be just lonely. He had to slink out of town after what happened at the King’s Namingday. Nobody will go near him. So he has to advertise for somebody to come keep him company.”

  “Hmm. You’re probably right.” He squinted at another article. “Tobalt is at it again.”

  “Another review of us? Jinsie and Kazie will have to put him on our payroll. Not but that some people think he’s there already.” A thought hit him, and he asked quickly, “It isn’t Window Wall, is it? He couldn’t have been at the Palace that night, could he?”

  “No, it’s not Window Wall. It’s not even of Touchstone. Just you.”

  “Me?” He set down his teacup.

  Cade’s turn to read aloud. “‘The wild, barely controlled energy of those first few years has given way to a crisper, more professional style. Whereas at the beginning, he was eager to share everything he had, he has learned to modulate and discipline the shadings of his performance. Subtlety, hitherto unknown to him, has become a hallmark. Easing delicately from one aspect to another, in complete control of everything the withies can give, Windthistle has lost none of his enthusiasm but has gained insight that makes his style the most compelling and polished on the Kingdom’s stages.’”

  “‘Discipline’?” Mieka exclaimed. “What a frightful word! Discipline is forcing yourself to do what you don’t want to do. Doesn’t take any discipline to be doing what you love!”

  “And we even get paid for it!” Cade laughed. “Maybe even enough to pay for replacing that bit of wall upstairs that you used for knife-throwing practice.”

  Mieka shrugged. “So get me a proper target. The Archduke’s about the right size.”

  Cade wasn’t listening. He was reading. And if his expression was any indication, he wasn’t much liking what he read.

  Mieka leaned over and snatched the broadsheet from his hands. Ignoring Cade’s protest, he skimmed over the headlines until he saw what had put the glistening fury into those gray eyes.

  DOES WINDOW WALL EVEN EXIST?

  Silversun has teased us for what now seems like years about this two-play work. Many people are beginning to believe that it doesn’t in fact exist. Touchstone has been doing the same old standards for a very long time now, and word has it from informed sources that Silversun has simply written himself out. Other sources indicate that he never actually intended to finish the plays. Chaverish about them has, after all, kept his name and Touchstone’s before the public eye. It’s not outrageous to assert that he owes the public these plays—or a really good explanation for why nobody has seen them yet.

  “Don’t do it, Quill.”

  “How do you know what I want to do?”

  He waved that question away as the absurd irrelevancy it was. “You can’t write a reply.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Don’t put yourself on this cogger’s level. He didn’t even sign the article—that tells you what kind of balls he’s got: none. You don’t owe anybody anything but the best work you can give. If they don’t or can’t or won’t understand that, there’s not a damned thing you can say otherwise.” Pausing for a sip of tea, and to judge how successful he was at tamping down Cade’s temper, he finished, “Besides, once you get down in the dirt and roll about in their shit, it’s gonna be really, really hard for me to drag you back out and rinse you off. And even after I do, you’ll still stink for days.”

  There followed a few tense moments while Cade visibly decided whether or not to start shouting. At last, with a very sour smile, he said, “I’m sure Mistress Mirdley has a bespellment that would help. Pass the peach preserves.”

  Chapter 35

  Never less than vigilant about the workings of his own or anyone else’s plays, Cayden had spent the last ten years or so picking up various tricks of his trade. For instance, he’d learned long since to speak dialogue out loud before presenting it to Jeska. It wasn’t that the masquer’s glib and nimble tongue couldn’t render comprehensible even the most impenetrable speeches. It was just that Cade didn’t like to see a particular look on Jeska’s face—and on Rafe’s and Mieka’s as well—that clearly said, You don’t seriously think that anybody talks like that, do you? or, worse: You can write this shit, Cayden, but you sure as Hells can’t say it.

  On their first night at Seekhaven, alone in the bedchamber of the Shadowstone Inn that he always shared with Mieka, he was reading aloud to himself when the Elf strode in, bored. Cade knew he was bored because he said as much, as if it were Cade’s fault.

  In no mood to indulge him, Cade snapped, “Gods, you’re in a foul temper tonight. Why don’t you go out and find something to fuck?”

  For just a moment, Mieka looked as if he might rearrange Cade’s teeth with his fist. Then he suddenly roared with laughter and flung himself flat on his bed.

  “I knew it! I knew it! You’re as skittish about this as the rest of us!”

  He didn’t like having to admit it. Two rehearsals at Hilldrop, in as strict a secrecy as they could manage, had smoothed out most of the problems of performance, though everyone was shocked by the changes to the final play. Cade’s reassurances that his own research had produced the new emphasis were accepted by Rafe and Jeska. They knew about the Elsewhens, and rightly assumed this was the “research” to which he referred. Rauel, Chat, and Sakary were more difficult to convince. But everybody had to admit that it was even more powerful his way.

  Mieka sprang off the bed, bouncing to his feet. “All in all, that was an excellent suggestion just now. Care to join me? Or are you too enchanted by the sound of your own voice?”

  “Oh, get out,” Cade said irritably. Mieka laughed again, and went.

  Cayden had scarcely read through two sentences of the next speech and made an alteration when, after a perfunctory knock on the door, Rauel came in.

  “Worried, I take it,” Cade said tiredly.

  “We need more rehearsal.”

  “Everybody’s got their work down cold.”

  “I’d like to run through it one more time.”

  “Fine. Go out and find us a venue where we won’t attract any attention, staffed by people who won’t say a word.”

  “I just want it to be perfect.” Rauel used his big, soulful eyes in much the same way Mieka often did. Cade was impervious to it by now. Besides, Mieka was much better at it; something to do with the eyelashes.

  Still, his voice was softer as he said, “I know. For Vered’s sake.”

  Rauel nodded miserably. “Months now, and I still can’t believe he’s gone. Bexan’s coming, did I tell you?”

  Cade frowned. The instant she walked into Fliting Hall, everyone would know that this would be the performance of Vered’s last plays. Hells, the instant somebody recognized her on the streets of Seekhaven, they’d know. He’d been counting on the audience’s ignorance until the seven of them stepped onstage.

  “We can’t let her miss the one and only time this will ever be played,” Rauel went on.

  Well, no. They couldn’t rightly do that. “Can you ask her to arrive that same afternoon, or at least not advertise her presence in town, and not come into the hall until just before we start?”

  Rauel shrugged. “Nobody tells her what to do. I don’t know but that Vered ever bothered to try.”

  “She’ll have plenty of time to enjoy her bereavement afterwards. I’m sorry, that was a shitty thing to say.”

  “Ever noticed how the shittiest things people say are sometimes the truest?” With a sigh, he turned for the door. “I’ll let you be getting on with it, then. Can I send up some tea, or a pitcher?”

  “Beholden. Some of Mistress Luta’s special blend tea wouldn’t go amiss.”

  Another six sentences, and Chat arrived with teapot and mug. Three down, three to go, Cade told himself, wishing mightily for his library at home, where everybody knew not to bother him unless, say, the Gally River had risen to the front steps and, moreover, caught fire.

  “I know y
ou know what you’re doing,” Chat said. “I’d like to know why you’re so determined to do it.”

  He could have given a million answers, starting with owing it to Vered, and most of them would be true. The real reason? That was vague in his mind, manifesting itself only as a gut-certain knowledge unsupported by much evidence that the Archduke had to be exposed for what he was, and soon, or it would be too late. Not even an Elsewhen to bolster this feeling, no real facts to point to—but he knew it.

  “The final last-night performance at Fliting Hall,” Chat mused, pacing idly about the room from desk to bed, window to door, and back towards the desk again. “We shoulda been the ones to do it. Everybody knows that.”

  “And the first to initiate the new theater,” Cade agreed amiably. “Do they have the order for the program yet?”

  He spread his hands wide, then tucked them into his trousers pockets. “Five groups, short plays from each. That’s all I know.”

  “It should have been Black Lightning, Hawk’s Claw, Crystal Sparks, us, and then you.”

  “Yeh. Been to look at the place yet?”

  “Somebody showed me a plan. The biggest open-air theater ever constructed. Not quite in-the-round, but as close to as makes it tough on everybody.”

  “Now, there’s a thing I don’t envy any of you.”

  But Chat did envy them the performing. He knew as well as the rest of Albeyn did that as individuals, the Shadowshapers could never be better than they’d been together. And, having been the best for so many years, working with lesser talents could only emphasize their loss.

  It was one of the reasons Chat and Sakary and Rauel were doing this: It would be their final performance together. One last night of being where they’d been born to be, doing what they’d been born to do. They were all in their thirties now—in fact, Chat must be nearing forty. Cade never thought much about Touchstone’s future. He’d seen his forty-fifth Namingday. But what would the three surviving Shadowshapers do with the rest of their lives?

  There wasn’t much of a pattern for how to age gracefully after having been a player. You could keep on for much too long and become an object of derision. Or you could quit and become an irrelevancy, referred to as history and not very interesting history at that. Or you could set oneself up as a Master and teach, and thereby expose yourself to the constant anguish of remembering how it had been.

  Or you could die.

  How long would Touchstone last, beyond Cade’s forty-fifth year? He hoped they’d all know when to stop. He was terrified of becoming irrelevant. He didn’t think he could find much satisfaction in teaching. And he most certainly didn’t want to die.

  “Gettin’ late,” Chat said at last. “I should let you work.”

  “Beholden for the tea.”

  “Anytime, mate.” A smile, always so funnily endearing but somehow a little sad as well, crossed his slightly lopsided face, and he left.

  Cade returned to the script, making a wager with himself about who would be the next to interrupt him. He was right; it was Jeska; but not for the reason Cade had guessed.

  “A messenger just arrived,” said his masquer, not bothering to knock. He shook the letter in his hand as if it were a squirrel he was trying to strangle, exactly as he would have in a play. “They’re coming, all of them!”

  “All of whom?”

  Jeska didn’t seem to have heard. “Cilka and Petrinka volunteered to watch the children—the Lord and Lady help anyone still at Wistly Hall. They’re coming by barge and post coach, with Derien—Derien!—as escort. He’s only fourteen—”

  “Sixteen this summer.”

  Once more he was ignored. “Kazie waited until I was well away before making the arrangements, and when she found out that Bexan would be here, they all of them got together to rent the barge and make a holiday of it. A holiday!”

  “Oh. I see.” Bexan, Kazie, Jinsie, probably Crisiant … Mishia Windthistle, if the two younger girls would be taking care of the offspring … perhaps Chat’s wife, Deshananda, and Sakary’s wife, Chirene, as well. That was a lot of children to keep track of.

  “And now of course it’s too late to send the messenger back to stop them! They’ll be on the river by now and here in four days!”

  Quite the contingent of ladies they’d be playing to at Trials. Megs and Vrennerie would be here with Princess Miriuzca, and that would almost certainly mean that their annual lunching at the Castle would be completely overrun by women.

  Curious, Cade asked, “Do you really think you or anybody could stop any of them?”

  Jeska deflated like an empty wineskin. “I just—I dunno, Cade, this play … it’s not like anything we’ve ever done. I don’t want our womenfolk anyplace near here, if the Archduke decides to take offense.”

  “He could get to them anywhere. They’d be no safer in Gallybanks. Maybe safer here, in fact, with the Princess nearby and watchful.” He paused a moment. “Do you want to cancel?”

  “Fuck no!” Jeska exclaimed, outraged.

  Cade smiled. “Then tell Mistress Luta that there’ll be more rooms needed, not to mention more baths.”

  “I should do that, shouldn’t I.” Sighing, he waved the letter one more time, but his heart wasn’t in it. “I blame Mieka for this. Women attending theater—damn it!”

  He left, and Cade sat back in his chair, amused by his masquer’s instinct for an exit line. They were all anxious about Blood Plight. Not about the performance, for despite Rauel’s frettings, they had the thing as near to perfect as it would get. Vered would approve. It was what might happen after the play that put them all on edge. And now the women would be there to see it, too.

  Over an hour later—part of it spent waiting for Sakary and Rafe to show up, and puzzled when they didn’t—Cade was tired but satisfied. He’d gone through every line of all three plays and changed a few words here and there, but it really was damned near perfect.

  Then Mieka strolled in, purring.

  And drunk.

  All these months—over a year now—of sobriety—or at least of limiting his drinking to a beer with lunching and a glass of wine with dinner and maybe another beer to relax after a gigging—and here he was. Sloshed. Luffed. Paved. Sozzled. Swaying slightly on his feet, a foolish grin distorting his face, a flush on his cheeks. Drunk.

  “You stupid, stupid little fuck,” Cade breathed.

  The Elf tightened his grip on the door handle, steadying himself. The grin faded, leaving him with a big-eyed look of betrayal that infuriated Cade so deeply that he could find no more words.

  “What’s it t’you, then?” he slurred, pushing away from the door, slamming it behind him.

  That he had chosen anger as a defense was the final outrage. Before Cayden knew it, he was on his feet and one hand was bunched in Mieka’s shirt and the other was raised to beat all Hells out of him.

  “Go on! Y’always wanted to! G’on, Cade! Do it!”

  It was what the second man in the shadows had said. “Do it!” he’d said, and Vered had died.

  Cold seeped through his veins like thorn. He shoved Mieka stumbling onto the floor. “Why?” he demanded. “Why now?”

  “Because I’m fuckin’ terrified and if you had the sense the Gods gave a goat, you would be, too!” He propped himself on an elbow, glaring up at Cayden, looking and sounding abruptly sober. “This ain’t some little play we’re doing for shits and giggles! This is as much as accusing that slimy git of being a fucking Vampire!”

  “‘As much as’? I thought we were pointing all our fingers at him outright!”

  “I’ve gone along with it—Hells, I’ve aided and abetted! I’m not saying we should back down. But I’m scared, Quill, we’re all scared—why aren’t you?”

  Because it had to be done. Because they owed it to Vered. Because Blood Plight was too good never to be performed. Because he wanted to show Bexan that no matter what she might think, he and Touchstone and the remaining Shadowshapers could do justice and more to Vered’s work.
Because the Archduke needed to know that even if they didn’t know what his means and methods would be, they knew his goal.

  “Because I saw us,” he said softly. “We’ve just come home from a gigging, and you’re giving me a party for my forty-fifth Namingday.”

  “Ahh … shit.” Mieka sat upright, arms wreathing his knees. “Mighta known. You and your fuckin’ Elsewhens. You’re insane, Quill. You know that, right?”

  “And you’re drunk. Go to bed.”

  When he’d closed the light and they were both beneath sheets and blankets, for there was a chill in the night breeze, Cade turned to look over at Mieka’s bed.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Huh? Oh. Yeh. Me, too.”

  * * *

  The next morning when Mieka woke, Cade was waiting with a pot of hot tea brewed strong enough to strip the hide off a wyvern. The hangover remedy Brishen Staindrop had concocted for him years ago didn’t work for Mieka. And even if there’d been something readily to hand that worked, Cade wouldn’t have given it to him.

  The Elf moaned and squinted, rolled onto his side, and pulled the sheet up around his head. Muffled within this cocoon, he said, “I feel like twelve different Hells—and in ten of them, I’m about to die.”

  “Good.”

  “In the other two, I’m scared I won’t die.”

  “Even better.”

  “Have a heart, Quill.”

  “Have some tea.”

  Cade left for the bathroom and twisted the tub spigot. A short time later, Mieka wandered in—awake enough now to see that no steam rose and the water was icy cold.

  “Quat,” he accused. “Rantallion. Son of a diseased one-horned goat and a five-clawed Harpy.”

  Rantallion? That was a new one. Or else a very old one, something Uncle Breedbate had dug up. The old buzzard had refused to vacate Clinquant House after however-many-greats-grandmother died; the last time Cade heard, he’d barricaded himself with a score of other Windthistle connections in a tower with river access, where Hadden Windthistle was content to let them flourish or rot as they so chose. Ah, yes, that was where he’d heard rantallion before: one of the insults Barsabian had included in a defiant letter that Hadden had read aloud at dinner to the hilarity of all present. But he couldn’t recall just what it meant. In no mood to admit his ignorance, he replied instead to Mieka’s closing observation. “As it happens, that’s a fairly accurate description of my parents. See you downstairs. The draw’s today.”