Thornlost (Book 3) (48 page)

Not that there was any specific script for this show. He was trusting to luck and instinct, which had rarely failed him. Of course, none of his previous escapades had had anywhere near the potential this one did for total disaster, but he didn’t let that bother him.

The small crowd assembled in the front hall was an impressive one. Chat’s wife, Deshenanda, was there, as were several of her gowns. Vered’s friend Bexan Quickstride would meet the party at the Downstreet, where Lady Megs would also be waiting. Jinsie and Blye were in their prettiest dresses. Crisiant, lovely in blue almost the same color as the velvet gown Mieka had worn two summers ago, was present at her own insistence and over Rafe’s objections. Very stylish, she was, and very tall, but not so tall as some of the other “ladies.”

“My hem’s too short,” complained Briuly Blackpath.

“It’s perfectly all right for the petticoat to peek out below it,” soothed Mieka’s mother. “Most fashionable, in fact.”

“I don’t know what you’re griping about,” muttered Jezael. “My ankles are showing!”

“And very well-turned ankles they are, too,” his twin assured him sweetly, “almost as attractive as my own.”

“What about this bodice?” asked Alaen as he tugged and twitched.

“If you’d stop fidgeting,” scolded Jinsie, “you wouldn’t come unstuffed. Just stand still!”

Jeska, a poised and accomplished masquer, might have been expected not to squirm. “I’m used to me
own
clothes under
magic
!”

Mieka bounded up to the fifth step of the staircase to survey the gathering. Everyone was arrayed in their—or someone else’s—best. Colorful silks and delicate embroideries, cunning hats and lacy gloves, fake jewels, some swan’s down here and there, and even a luscious orange velvet cloak that clashed gloriously with Jez’s red hair… the only difficulty had been shoes, which had been Mieka’s despair until his mother suggested that they wear their own carpet slippers.

“Well, Fa?” he asked. “Will they suit?”

Hadden considered for a moment, then said, “I think Tobalt needs more up top. He’s a bit saggy. And more than a bit hairy.”

“We’ll give him a shawl to cover up,” Mieka decided. Then, clapping his hands loudly, he called out, “Splendid! You’re all gorgeous! Into the hacks now, and try not to get too wrinkled!”

“How I let Mieka talk me into this, I’ll never know,” said Tobalt.

“I’ve been wondering that meself for the last twenty or so years,” Jez told him.

Mieka gave a snort. “As if you’d miss the chance to write all this up for
The Nayword
!”

“Well, I won’t be mentioning my own participation. What would my wife and daughter think?”

“But you look so delectable in yellow!”

Tobalt regarded him sourly. “I’d smack you right in the nose, I would, but you’d bleed onto my gloves.”

Outside, they divvied up according to prearranged plan. Jez rode with Blye and Jed; Alaen and Briuly were escorted by Jinsie and Jeska; Rafe had charge of Crisiant and Tobalt. By Chat’s specific request Hadden and Mieka accompanied Deshenada. Keen to see her husband perform in a theater, she had, to Chat’s astonishment, absolutely insisted on joining in once she found out what her gowns were wanted for, but she was ever so nervous about it as well, poor sweeting.

Missing was Mieka’s own wife, who knew nothing about any of it and was at Hilldrop with her mother and the baby. Mieka felt a little guilty about that, but she was just too shy and fragile for such risky mischief. And he could concentrate more fully on the fun if he didn’t have to worry about her.

As for Cade… Rauel had taken care of that, by telling him that in apology for not attending his twenty-first Namingday celebrations last year—Gods in Glory, had it really been a whole year?—he and Sakary would treat him to a free Shadowshapers show with a party after in the tiring room. Cade, innocent of any knowledge of tonight’s festivities, would be waiting at the Downstreet.

Mishia had fretted that the drivers of the hire-hacks would be scandalized by the appearance of some of their passengers. Mieka had only laughed and said that they were Gallybankers, accustomed to seeing much stranger things. What he didn’t tell his mother, because he was still keeping the secret, was that thanks to Lady Megs, the drivers were being extremely well paid.

“Your mother,” said Hadden on the way to the Downstreet, “is not at all happy to be left behind.”

“But she won’t ever have to be again,” Deshenanda said softly. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it, Mieka?”

“Unquestionably,” he agreed. “And I must say, Desha, that you coming along is the best possible thing. Everybody will be stunned silent by the most beautiful girl they’ve ever seen, and that’ll give me enough time to talk us all free and clear.”

“Mieka!” his father chided. “How dare you tell a woman this lovely that her presence is merely a distraction for your pranking?”

Desha was giggling now, more relaxed. “Oh, nobody will look at me, once they catch sight of Jezael. He looks better in my pink gown than I ever did!”

“It terrifies me,” Mieka said, “that you might be right.”

“You have the ticket?” his father asked.

“Safely and soundly, Fa.” He patted his jacket pocket, then made an alarmed face. “It was here just a minute ago—” But it really
wasn’t
there. He felt genuine panic. “I put it there last night, I know I did—”

From an inner pocket of his own plain brown coat Hadden pulled a heavy parchment card. “I beat Jinsie to it this morning. She doesn’t trust you, either.”

“Me own Fa!” He made a grab for it, but it was held out of his reach. Deshenanda laughed, nerves completely calmed. “Desha,” Mieka said solemnly, “I hope you hold your own dear children in higher regard than he holds me. A scandal, it is, the slanders and slurs cast upon me—”

“Mieka,” Hadden said, “do shut up. We’re here.” He paused. “One other thing, my son. If the worst happens, you’re sure your friend from the Court has money enough to buy us all out after a few hours?”

“Fa, she has money enough to buy the jail.”

Mieka flung open the hack’s door and leaped out. The patrons of the Downstreet were tidily queued up, moving slowly inside. The arrival of four more hire-hacks caused no stir until
their occupants began to alight. In the gathering dusk with the Elf-light streetlamps not yet glowing, it was difficult to see. But as the hacks moved off and Mieka made a show of himself rallying his players around him, there were gasps and titters, then open guffaws—and at last a ripple of delighted comprehending laughter. Bexan was waiting for them, bravely alone until now—no one could fault the girl for brass—but looked relieved to no longer be the only person in skirts standing outside the Downstreet. It had taken all Mieka’s persuasive talents to make Vered and Chat promise to stay in the tiring room backstage rather than come outside to protect their women.

“Everyone here?” Jed asked.

“Not yet,” Mieka said, glancing about for Megs.

“This lace is itchy,” Tobalt muttered. Then, remembering his role, he cleared his throat and in a high whine repeated, “This lace is
itchy
!”

“Pull your shawl tighter,” Jinsie giggled. “You’re drooping again.”

Mieka felt a tapping finger on his shoulder and turned to find Cayden smiling down at him. “You really do take my Namingday celebrations seriously, don’t you?”

“Oh,
very
special this year, not a doubt be about it!”

“Why’d you keep it secret? The girls and… the not-exactly-girls, I mean.”

“Because I knew you’d have six fits.”

“Mmm. One or two, mayhap, but not the full six. Here comes a constable. Start talking.”

Mieka turned. “Fine evening, innit?”

“Wot’s all this, then?” Seeing and recognizing Mieka—for he was one of the constables from the grand reopening of the Downstreet—he moaned. “Lord and Lady and all the Angels save me, it’s you again!”

“Me my very own self, and properly dressed as a man this time,”
Mieka replied cheerily. “How’ve you been keeping, Constable?”

“Look, I know what you’re about, and I can’t say as I have personal problems with it, like. But it’s as much as me place is worth to let you do what I’m mortal certain sure you’re scheming to do. Have a heart, won’t ya?”

Mieka frowned worriedly. “I don’t understand. What could possibly be amiss with a group of gentlemen wishing to attend the theater?”

Cade put in, “As we’ve already established, what a man wears is his own business—well, except when he has absolutely no taste in clothes and offends the sensibilities, like that big redheaded one over there. Pink, with an orange cloak?” He shuddered.

“It do catch the eye,” the constable agreed dryly. “But what’m I to say to me chief, that’s wot I’d like t’know.” He cast a despairing eye over the group. “Some of these as is wearing ladies’ dresses, it’s certain sure to me that they really
are
ladies.”

Mieka gave the unfortunate man his most ravishing smile. “Would you really truly care to investigate in order to make sure?”

The constable sighed. “I’m tellin’ you again, it’s as much as me place is worth to let this happen. Oughta take every one of you in, I ought.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll be doing that,” Cade murmured, and nodded over the constable’s shoulder to where the queue had come unraveled.

A carriage—not a hire-hack, but a beautifully appointed carriage drawn by a prancing white mare—pulled to a stop. The man driving it wore highly recognizable livery. The boy who leaped down from the back to open the carriage door wore the same blue and brown, with lots and lots of shiny silver buttons.

Out stepped a trim and nimble personage. Gleaming brown boots to the knees, loose black trousers, dazzlingly white silk shirt beneath a dark green jacket that matched green eyes, elaborately tied turquoise neck cloth, green peaked-and-billed velvet cap
perched on tightly coiled and pinned blond hair…

Mieka was about to alert Megs with a wave when right behind this personage came another: much taller, much blonder, dressed the same but for the color of the jacket and the cap. Both matched the forget-me-never blue of wide, excited eyes.

Mieka almost lost his footing. After a single stunned moment, he glanced up at Cade, who looked about to lose not just his footing but consciousness.

Formal introductions later
, Mieka decided crisply. He strolled over to stand between the new arrivals, cupping an elbow in each palm. “Delighted you could join us! Shall we go inside?”

The constable stumbled back. Mieka gave him a look of sincere sympathy. It would be as much as his life was worth to arrest Her Royal Highness Princess Miriuzca of Albeyn.

* * *

“
Y
ou knew,” Cayden accused. “How in all Hells did you know?”

Mieka found himself backed into a wall of the tiring room by his half-drunk and entirely exasperated tregetour. The position and the person were things he had been meticulously avoiding all night.

Ah, such a lovely night it had been! Sweeping past the queue outside, distributing smiles all round. Waving the card, signed by Romuald Needler, that allowed them as many seats as they required. Making their scandalous way down the aisle to the very front row. Seeing the consternation on a few faces and knowing that these men were torn between the expression of their outrage by walking out and the consideration of the money they’d paid to get in. (The money won.) Hearing the muffled laughter from behind the stage curtains that meant the Shadowshapers were watching. Making a polite fuss over the comfort of Jez and Jeska, Briuly and Alaen—and the gobsmacked Tobalt finding himself taken solicitously by the arm and assisted to a seat by the tall,
fair-haired young personage in the blue coat. Applauding as the Downstreet owner’s wife and her two daughters decided they wanted in on the fun and marched down the center aisle to seats in the second row. Choking on repressed sniggers when he noticed Cade trying not to look at Megs’s pert backside.

The Shadowshapers had outdone themselves with one of their silliest plays. Any ill-feeling in the audience was demolished by Vered in his most antic mood, strutting about the stage as Sir Bavin Blatherskite, declaiming his own perfections to a series of admiring beauties (all played by Rauel), until a little girl (also played by Rauel, on his knees in a frilly orange dress) waddled up and socked him right in the crotch.

In a high, lisping voice, as Vered rolled and moaned on the stage, Rauel said, “Mummy was right. Men aren’t much, are they, if you get them right where they live!”

Most of the ladies had left hours ago. Megs and Miriuzca had returned to the Palace with Jed and Blye’s escort immediately after the performance. Neither noblewoman had entered the tiring room; a theater was one thing, and shocking enough, but at least it was public. No one but players knew what went on in a tiring room, which at times came close to what rumors described. Hadden Windthistle had taken Jinsie and Crisiant home, too. Deshenanda had, daringly, lingered with Chat; so had Bexan, sitting over there on a couch tucked comfortably under Vered’s arm.

Mieka had considerately arranged to have men’s clothes waiting for Alaen, Jeska, Jez, Briuly, and Tobalt. All of them looked devoutly relieved to be in trousers again (though the carpet slippers rather spoiled their style). The Downstreet’s owner, whose shock at hosting not just women dressed as women but a Princess dressed as a man had been beyond his ability to articulate, had revived enough under the ministrations of his gleeful wife to send out for food to go with the many, many bottles of bubbling Frannitch wine he’d laid on for the Shadowshapers. Everyone was
well fed, mildly tipsy, and utterly jubilant at the night’s triumph.

“Damn it, Mieka, how did you
know
?” Cade demanded again.

“How did I know what?” Mieka parried. Then, hoping without much hope to deflect or at least to postpone Cade’s questions, he asked a passing barmaid if bottles had been delivered to the constables outside, to comfort them and possibly their chief when word of this night got round. She simpered and nodded, and glanced him down and up, and he wondered if he mightn’t escape using the girl as an excuse.