Touchstone (28 page)

A brief vision of his mother’s expression on being introduced to Lord Fairwalk danced gleefully in Cade’s mind. But there’d be no business done once she got him into the drawing room, only gossip and gamesmanship. So he said, “If you’re not busy tomorrow afternoon…”

“Splendid! Excellent! I’ll come by your lodgings right after lunching, shall I? I know where you’re staying—” He broke off, flushing even redder. “That’s to say, I asked about, just to know, you understand, in case you—”

“It’s fine,” Cade assured him, amused.

“Until tomorrow, then—much beholden, and frightfully chuffed, don’t you see,” said His Lordship, and effaced himself.

Judging by the applause, the Shorelines had finished. The four of them entered the tiring-room a few moments later, and Cade grinned to himself on seeing Mieka trailing along behind their glisker like a frolicsome puppy. He supposed he’d have much the same expression on his own face if he ever met up with the players he’d first seen, who had made so fierce an impression on him that he’d known instantly what he wanted to be when he grew up. Odd, he mused, how almost every player he’d ever met said the same thing: that they’d known right away, no questions, no second thoughts. Awareness of the theater wasn’t enough; one had to experience it for oneself, that kick in the backside that changed the direction of one’s life forever.

But he’d never again encounter the young men who’d shown him the path he wanted to take. The Mazetown Players were all dead now. The very day after Master Emmot had taken Cade to see them, they had chosen to shorten the journey to Gallantrybanks by hiring a boat instead of a coach. The trawler had been lost at sea. Cade still remembered the pieces they’d done: the old standard “Shamblesong” and an original playlet meant for children, a work of charm and whimsy that the tavern audience hadn’t understood. But Cade had known what the tregetour had been aiming at, and hadn’t cared that he’d drawn attention to himself by applauding madly when almost no one else did. The masquer had pointed him out to the tregetour, and they’d smiled at him. Even as Cade smiled back, though, he promised himself he’d never give an audience any cause to sit on their hands the way those people had. No work of his would be presented until it was perfect.

The wonder of it was that he’d more or less kept to that vow. Not his fault if their gliskers had been substandard. The pieces themselves had been as good as they could get. And now that he had Mieka—

He was briefly startled to realize that with the probable addition of Lord Fairwalk, he had it all. A brilliant masquer. A solid fettler. The best glisker in the kingdom. A reputation. First Flight on the Winterly. And now a likely manager.

The real money wasn’t on the Circuits. It was in the private performances. Nobility, wealthy merchants, the various guilds—all would pay for an evening of theater, and pay very well indeed. Add to those performances the bookings in Gallantrybanks while not on a Circuit—not just at taverns or the few small theaters, but in private homes—and a group could make the sort of money that had allowed the Shadowshapers to buy their very own luxurious wagon with their name scrawled across the side.

Cayden refused to trade on his father’s name. As a major official of Prince Ashgar’s household, Zekien Silversun knew everyone. The trouble was that everyone knew him, too. As for Lady Jaspiela—her connections would be useless, even if Cade was of a mind to try using them. They would blanch with shock should anyone even suggest that they acknowledge a traveling player as kin. The ancestor who’d been a poet, he was marginally respectable. At least he’d done his scribblings in decent privacy. They would admit to him, but only if bluntly asked. The hopes that had come with Lady Jaspiela’s marriage to a wealthy Master Fettler’s son had died long since, vanished with the money Zekien Silversun quiddled away. They would never acknowledge Cade, let alone help him. And anyhow, they were all much too busy making sure nobody remembered anything about Lady Kiritin to want any name associated with that of Highcollar or Blackswan put into the public consciousness.

No, Touchstone needed Lord Fairwalk or someone like him. The Shadowshapers had Romuald Needler, and he’d done very well for them. But although he had a vast network of relationships with the guilds in each city and town, he wasn’t directly linked to any of the noble families, let alone one with the ancient name of Fairwalk. If His Lordship was efficient about organizing private bookings, if he could get them paid on time and in full, if he could arrange their travel and lodgings and equipment and so forth, then he would be worth the ten of every hundred pence they’d have to pay him.

It didn’t even occur to Cayden until late that night to consult the others about Fairwalk. He was sitting out in the back garden having a final drink with Mieka and Rafe—Jeska having found a local lovely without murderous males lurking nearby—when Rafe asked idly if Fairwalk had said anything interesting. Cade wasn’t abashed that he’d forgotten to mention it. He had always made all the decisions. He mentioned tomorrow’s proposed visit, and Mieka sat bolt upright so fast, he nearly splashed his drink onto the lawn.

“What did you sign?” he demanded.

“Nothing. And what d’you care, anyway? As long as you get paid—”

“What do I
care
?” He rounded on Rafe. “Did you hear that? What the fuck do I
care
?”

“Rein up, Mieka,” the fettler advised. “We’ll all be there tomorrow to listen in—” He broke off with a smirk. “Well, all of us, if Jeska gets bored with the girl.”

“So we get to ‘listen in,’ do we? Lovely! Perfect!” He sprang to his feet and snarled down at Cade, “Listen to this, then:
Fuck off!
”

The garden gate had clanged shut before Cade could find his voice again. “What just happened?”

“Bit too much tonight, I think,” Rafe assumed with a shrug. “His head’s made of solid iron, but it’s an Elf’s body attached to it, innit?”

“What’s
that
mean?”

“Ever take a look at his arms? Right inside the elbows. He spikes quite a bit of bluethorn, Cade. More than you ever guessed, I think,” he added as Cade’s jaw dropped. “Usually he’s pretty careful to balance the liquor, but—oh, for the love of the Angels, mate, have you never noticed? There’s nights I can barely keep my hands round the magic, he gets so wild. Jeska and I, we feel it more than you do, but I would’ve thought…” He peered at Cade’s stricken face, then shrugged. “It doesn’t happen that often. He’s excited. Success like this … I think maybe he thinks with part of him that it can’t really be real, y’know?”

“How often?”

“Not very. He’ll be fine by tomorrow. Not that he’ll remember any of it—and won’t believe you if you tell him.” Rafe pushed himself to his feet and stretched, then gathered up the empty glasses. “I’ll just put these in the sink for Mistress Luta. Dream sweet, Cade—if you dream at all, that is.”

He sat there long into the night, shock and anger gradually resolving into worry, and then a snort of disgust at himself. He’d no right to judge Mieka. It had taken him quite a few months of experimentation to discover the exact amount of alcohol it took to mute his dreamings. And before he’d discovered blockweed, he’d started to need more and more to drink. About a month before that booking in Gowerion, in fact, he’d got so drunk after a very bad show with a very bad glisker that Rafe had practically carried him back to Redpebble Square and he’d woken in the stillroom, his cheek cradled on the stiff straw of a broom. He hadn’t dreamed that night—or if he had, he remembered none of it.

Master Emmot had had a lot to say about the effects of drink on a gift like his, mostly to caution against overuse. But if Cade had learned anything in the years he’d spent at the Sagemaster’s academy, it was that Emmot’s experience of Longseeing was a fingertap on the cheek compared to the kick in the face foreseeing was for Cade. Or perhaps age made one tougher, more resilient. Cade didn’t know. There had been times he’d almost hoped he wouldn’t live long enough to find out.

“Poor Wizardling!”
the familiar voice jeered in his head.
“Such a trial and such a penalty to be you!”

It remained that if Mieka sometimes misjudged the proportion of liquor to bluethorn, so too Cade knew what it was like to overestimate how much he could drink. This was his first encounter with the Elf in that state; it took no prescience to know it wouldn’t be the last.

Rafe was right: the next morning, Mieka behaved as if the scene in the garden had never happened. As far as he was concerned, it hadn’t. When Cade cautiously mentioned that Lord Fairwalk would be coming by to discuss a possible contract, he nodded his interest and continued shoveling eggs and toasted cheese into his mouth. Evidently an overindulgence in bluethorn and liquor gave him quite an appetite.

They were just finishing the meal when Mistress Luta sloped down the kitchen steps into the garden, a sealed and much-folded piece of parchment in her broad hands.

“For you,” she said, handing Cade the letter.

No ribbons. A thumbprint served for a seal in the wax. He smiled, knowing who had sent this. The smile died as he scanned the opening sentence. “Oh no—poor Blye!”

“What’s wrong?” Mieka demanded—rather indistinctly, around the last mouthful of egg.

“Master Cindercliff died last week.”

After swallowing, Mieka said, “I’m truly sorry to hear it. But he was suffering, wasn’t he? I s’pose it was his time, and no kindness for him to linger.”

Jeska took the letter out of Cade’s hand without a by-your-leave. “Day after we left,” he said, frowning as he worked out the words. “Dery says she didn’t want him to write and tell you before Trials but now he—what’s this word?”

Rafe in his turn grabbed the parchment. “She’ll go to my mother, won’t she? Of course she’ll go stay with my mother.”

“Sure as shit she won’t be staying with mine,” Cade growled. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Her Ladyship is responsible for this.”

Mieka’s eyes blinked wide. “I know your mother’s not exactly the most wonderful woman who ever lived, but—”

“No, you idiot—the offer for the glassworks!” He sprang to his feet, pacing a few steps towards the garden gate. “I knew this would happen, I just knew it!”

“Offer—?” Mieka echoed. “What offer? Rafe, let me see!”

“They won’t do anything for another week at least,” Rafe began.

Cade shook his head. “It’s midmonth for the payment. It’s always midmonth. She won’t be able to get at whatever money he left her for weeks and weeks, you know how the courts are when a woman inherits. They have to make a show of searching all over the kingdom for the next male heir, no matter what it says in a will—”

A piercing whistle startled him into silence.

“Much beholden,” Mieka said rudely. “Now, would you care to explain all this ranting and raving?”

“Her father’s dead. She’s a girl, and by law she can’t inherit until they’ve made a search—which she has to pay for, can you believe it? The money her father’s been borrowing comes due midmonth every month. It doesn’t need saying that she hasn’t got it on hand, nor anywhere near it. Even when it’s all sorted and they let her have legal title, she can’t carry on the glassworks herself. She’ll have to hire a man for appearances’ sake.”

“You mentioned an offer?” asked Jeska.

“Dery’s not sure,” Rafe said, scanning the letter. “But I’d wager Crisiant’s wedding necklet somebody’s been waiting for just this to happen, and the offer will cover the loan and nothing more. Not even half what the business is worth.” He read through to the end, and finally handed the letter to Mieka. “Dery doesn’t say if this buyer has a name.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Cade flung himself back into his chair and began stabbing the wooden table with his fork. “She’ll lose everything. If only he’d been able to hang on, just until I’m twenty-one and—”

“You’re not thinking of
marrying
her?” Mieka exclaimed.

“Of course not! For one thing, she wouldn’t have me. At twenty-one my grandsir’s legacy comes to me, and there’s nothing my mother can do about it. She tried,” he added bitterly. “Right after Dery was born. Father about had a seizure the night she brought it up.”

Rafe reached across the table and plucked the fork from Cade’s restless fingers. “And I’ll wager my own wedding necklet that
she
almost had a seizure about a minute later.”

“Too right,” Cade agreed. When Jeska and Mieka looked puzzled, he explained, “The only way to disinherit me would be for him to express formal doubts about being my father. The legacy comes through his side of the family.”

Mieka gave a crow of derisive laughter. “Now
that’s
something I’d pay to see! Lady Jaspiela, ravaging her own reputation! The Whore of Redpebble Square!”

“But what am I going to do about Blye? She must be frantic.”

Mieka tilted his chair back, folded his hands behind his head, and announced, “Blye is
my
glasscrafter, and mine she stays. I’d marry her meself, but I doubt she’d overlook my sordid past. Pity, too,” he mused. “I think we’d have very pretty children, she and me. But if she won’t take me, at least she’ll take my money.” His eyes found each of them in turn as he said, “And yours, and yours, and even yours, Quill—and her pride be damned.”

Jeska, whose mother depended on his income, and Rafe, who wanted desperately to marry Crisiant, nodded at once. “We’ve enough for the loan payments,” Jeska said. “This month, next month, however long it takes for the court to hand over what’s rightfully hers. There’ll be enough bookings between now and when Winterly starts. And we’ll pay the fees for the searching, too.”

Rafe went on, “Which means we’ll own half the glassworks. She can pay us back by making the withies. The guild won’t let her have a hallmark, and her father’s will be formally destroyed by the time we get back, but her work has always been good. She can get by on plates and such for a bit of a while—”

“Oh, not that long,” Mieka said serenely. “Just until I convince Chat that he needs better than what he’s been using, and Blye’s the one to provide.”