Thornlost (Book 3) (18 page)

“Rafe has the right of it,” Cade said reluctantly. “It’s not onstage that matters, it’s what happens before.”

“Where did he get me that I didn’t feel it?” Mieka wanted to know.

“In the neck. But if you’re planning on a collar that reaches to the tips of your ears, I remind you that there’s lots of other bits of exposed skin—”

“I could wear a full suit of armor. Just until we got onstage.” He slid out of his chair and struck a pose in the middle of the wagon. “Always fancied meself with a sword and shield, clanking about like a walking steelworks!”

They’d manage to think of something, Cade knew—preferably something that didn’t involve a hundred pounds of plate armor. But something else had occurred to him. He had actually refused to see an Elsewhen.

Sagemaster Emmot had told him—and how long ago it
seemed—that the foreseeings might change as he got older. That he might even be able to control them. That they might increase or decrease in frequency, that the content might be more detailed or less—all of which only meant that Emmot had as little idea about what exactly this “gift” of his would do as Cade himself did.

But this Elsewhen he had refused to see. Refused to give in. Refused, because his presence in the
now
was vital.

When it came back, as insistent as that hunger last night in the cellar, he’d learned something about a possible future. The blood chilled in his veins when he thought of what might have happened in that future if he’d resisted again.

What if he’d refused to watch, that second time, and they’d gone to the opening of the Downstreet Theater ignorant of Thierin Knottinger’s intent? Professional disaster, emotional danger—

If Knottinger would dare some kind of disruption, and stand there bragging about it with his little green bag and his glass thorn, then what else might he try?

Why not just kill Mieka? So simple, so final. No more Touchstone at all, not without Mieka.

“When Touchstone lost their Elf, they lost their soul.”

Think it through, he ordered himself. If he was right about Black Lightning, then the Archduke was even now courting them to become his own pet theater group. They’d agree; of course they would. A theater built to their specifications—but what would the Archduke receive in return? Chat had told Mieka about great lords and princes on the Continent who owned performers for the reputation it gave them. The Archduke was known to be theater-mad, but—what else would he gain?

No way of knowing.

Very well, then, what else about Black Lightning? The odd and eerie trick of identifying each man’s bloodlines—how did that work? How had they targeted specific magic to specific races? Mieka had sensed everything else he was besides Elfen; Rafe had sensed nothing at all, being nothing other than Human and Wizard. And that made sense, didn’t it—the subject of the play itself was how all the various races had come to be, a twisting of the old story, making Elf and Wizard the only clean blood, the only pure children of the Lord and Lady—

The answer was there someplace; he knew it was. But he was just too tired. Abandoning his breakfast and his puzzlings, he crawled back into his hammock and slept.

T
ouchstone’s performance before the Princess’s sailors in New Halt went very well, even considering a lingering collective exhaustion. Bluethorn all round, enhanced by the cheers of an enthusiastic, roisterous crowd—they were so pleased with themselves that after “Dragon” they decided to give the men a rousing version of “Sailor’s Sweetheart.” Even better, after the show, an official wearing Princess Miriuzca’s new badge (a blue forget-me-never on a silver ground, with a three-pronged coronet above) appeared and handed Cayden a little purse of gold coins.

“Lovely!” Mieka exclaimed when handed his split. “Something to spend at the Castle Biding Fair!”

“Are you sure you’ll be able to hang on to it that long?”

“Well… you’re right. You’d best keep it for me, Quill. And my mother’s letter as well—she sent a list, and I know I’ll mislay it and buy all the wrong colors and such.”

Cade wanted to say,
Why not keep your mother’s letter with your wife’s?
But he didn’t. Mieka had a small wallet of iris-blue leather in which he carefully folded his wife’s few letters. It never left his pocket except when he was onstage.

Neither did Mieka wear anything she’d sewn for him while he was working. Bearing in mind what Mistress Mirdley had told him about Caitiff spellcastings, Cade wondered whether this was why Mieka could so unthinkingly bed whichever girl took his fancy after a show. Hadn’t there been something, though, about such spells lasting only a month? Thinking back, he recalled that Mieka had taken to coming in well after midnight only after the first few weeks on the road. If there had indeed been magic, it had worn off by now, and young Mistress Windthistle must be anguishing herself something to behold. She must know at this point that Mieka had no more been born to be faithful to one woman than to become Royal Librarian. It simply wasn’t in his nature—and if she was trying to change him, as in the smaller matter of correcting his speech, she was destined to fail. Evidently
knowing
wasn’t the same thing as
understanding
. Mayhap Blye had been right about what constituted a happy marriage.

He thought about the marriages he had observed at close view. Rafe and Crisiant; Hadden and Mishia; Jed and Blye. Yes, there was both knowing and understanding between the partners in each, and acceptance of dreams and desires, and all of them were happy unions. Then there were his own parents. Lady Jaspiela knew and understood very well what her husband did at Court. As far as Cade had ever been able to tell, she was neither happy nor unhappy about it; she simply ignored it. Was that
acceptance
? Presumably Zekien Silversun was contented in his life as Prince Ashgar’s First Gentleman of the Bedchamber—although Cade supposed he was more circumspect now that the Prince was a married man. Still, the Palace was a big place, and aristocratic couples always had separate bedchambers. Now that Miriuzca was pregnant, Ashgar could use this as an excuse to absent himself from her bed and return to his bachelor habits. Which meant that Zekien would be consulting with the Finchery and suchlike places to supply the Prince’s bedwarmers.

Cade hoped that Miriuzca didn’t know. If she knew, would she understand? And even if she could understand it, would she
accept it? Perhaps she was the kind of woman who found her happiness in her children. And possibly her friends, he thought, remembering Lady Vrennerie, now married to Lord Eastkeeping. Perhaps
they
were happy. He hoped so. He hoped so very much.

Well, none of it was his problem, nor was it likely to be. Who would ever marry him? Gone on the Circuit for months at a time, constantly performing while in Gallantrybanks, vanishing to a rehearsal or the Archives or his own library the rest of the time… it would take a rare woman indeed to tolerate that sort of marriage, much less find happiness in it. Chat’s wife, Deshenanda, seemed content with her home and children; the Gods alone knew what Sakary’s wife, Chirene, thought; Cade had never met Vered’s wife, or Rauel’s, but apparently they had worked out their own manner of dealing with their husbands’ long absences. Crisiant, he understood more and more, was a woman in a million and Rafe was a fortunate man. Cade always had in his mind that Elsewhen, about the woman who lived with him and had borne his children and didn’t want to be bothered with anything to do with how he made the money that supported the family. It was warning enough, wasn’t it? Taken together with Blye’s merciless words about his never being able to live an ordinary kind of life, it was certainly warning enough.

Besides, he thought wryly as the wagon rolled towards Castle Eyot and a five-day holiday from the Royal Circuit, he spent more time with these three quats than most wedded couples spent together. Was Touchstone a happy marriage? Onstage, absolutely. They knew and understood each other perfectly. Offstage… they bickered and sniped, took care of head colds and hangovers, yelled at each other for being late or being sulky or just being themselves, discussed and listened and commiserated and accepted (however grudgingly) each other’s foibles. And created. And protected each other.

No, it wouldn’t be his problem, marriage to a woman. This
marriage that was Touchstone was trouble enough.

Well, as long as there were pretty girls around to serve drinks and his other needs, of course. Cade enjoyed that aspect of being a famous player very much, and almost every night.

Castle Eyot was even more beautiful in summer than in winter. Blooded horses frolicked in green velvet pastures, the orchards were heavy with ripening fruit, and on the island mid-river, the castle glistened white as a wolf’s tooth. Their stay overlapped that of the Shadowshapers by a day, and all eight players took full advantage of Lord Rolon Piercehand’s hospitality and especially his wine cellar. The last night of the Shadowshapers’ holiday, they all went up to the top of the tallest castle tower with a dozen bottles of the finest Frannitch brandy, which rendered Cade drunk enough to broach the subject of the mansion outside New Halt.

“Creepiest shows we ever played,” Vered said with a shudder. “Heaps of money for it, of course—”

“And every penny earned twice over,” Mieka put in. “Mayhap thrice.”

“Can’t say as I won’t miss the coin,” mused Rauel. “But we decided after last year that we’d never do it again. It was a relief not to be invited.”

“Good eats,” Sakary offered. “But not worth it.”

The tower room was a hideaway that had nothing in common with Mieka’s little aerie at Wistly Hall. For one thing, it was securely attached to the rest of the building. For another, it was sumptuously furnished with deep couches, velvet pillows, patterned carpets strewn one overlapping another, delicate little tables, and gigantic hanging lanterns lavish with faceted crystal drops the size of a fist. Cade made mental note of these, thinking that perhaps Blye might enjoy making them. They weren’t hollow, so they would be perfectly legal.

“Who really got fed?” Rafe wanted to know. “Thrice now I’ve felt as if the marrow was being sucked out of my bones.”

“Yeh,” Mieka said, “but it’s what all audiences do, though, innit? Not like
that
, I mean, but—” He stopped, frustrated, and appealed to Cade with a glance.

“In a way, you’re right,” Cade allowed. “The difference is that they take what we give, and there’s none of that demand to be fed—”

“But there is, y’know,” Vered interrupted. “More and more and more, and the groups that don’t or can’t provide aren’t booked much, are they?”

“Not everybody’s like that,” Jeska protested. “Not everybody is there just for—for—”

When he seemed unable to find a word, Cade finished for him, “For an hour’s swilling at the trough? I agree.”

“More ‘communal experience,’ is it?” Vered teased, rolling his eyes. “Shared occasions creating a bond, and all that?”

“Have done,” Sakary said with a rare grin, “or I’ll tell ’em all the truth about you.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Wouldn’t I, though?”

Vered made a hideous face at him, then laughed. “He’s got nothing on me—been threatening that for years, just to see if I’ll go all cowardly craven. But that’s what some people in the audiences are, aren’t they? Too spineless to feel things in their real lives, and our job is to do their feeling for them.”

Cade frowned at this characterization, but not because he entirely disagreed with it, not if he was being honest. He simply preferred what Mieka had said to him years ago—that players did the audience’s
dreaming
for them.

“In that cellar,” Rauel said, “that man, whoever he is, wants more and yet more—and knows how to get it. And
that’s
the difference.”

Vered nodded agreement with his partner. “And now you say there were two of them?” he asked Cade.

“Like Vampires, only it’s not blood they’re after.”

“Funny you should mention Vampires,” said Chat, staring into his drink. “Where I come from, there are stories—”

“Quick!” Mieka cried. “Get the garlic!”

“Like I said—
funny
,” Chat growled, blue eyes dancing. But only for a moment, and his face was solemn again as he went on, “There came an invading army from the East—likely you people here never even heard about it, it being that long ago and naught to do with your tidy little Kingdom anyways. It was back when magical folk still lived in the open, and did their work whatever it might be, and nobody thought much of it. Oh, they kept themselves mostly to themselves, but things went along just fine until these
balaurin
swept in with their war chariots and monster-sized horses to pull them. Ancestors of Rommy’s breed, y’know, but with the demons bred out of them by now.”

“Demons?” Jeska asked, startled.

Vered rolled his eyes. “Now you’ve done it. He’s about to tell you all about all those filthy Eastern knights and their filthy Eastern ways.”

“Been nagging at us for years, he has,” Rauel confided, “to write it all up as a play.”