Touchstone (31 page)

“No, you won’t!” he replied fervently.

The coachman was chewing his lip as he scrutinized Cade’s face. “I can’t deny I’d like an hour’s rest. And you wouldn’t be putting yourself or your friends in danger just for the fun of whipping the horses to full gallop—you’re not that sort. Oh, I know the look,” he added. “Saw it often enough in His Lordship’s father, didn’t I?” He leaned in close, sniffing. “How much did you drink tonight?”

“Glass with supper, about sundown,” Cade replied promptly. “Nothing since.”

Mieka thought of the other bottle of peach brandy, now empty, and kept his mouth shut—a thing neither he nor Cade had done while the bottle was still full.

“Well … come up on the box for a bit, and I’ll see if you know what you’re about.”

It took the coachman ten minutes to assure himself that Cade did indeed know what he was doing. They stopped to allow him to climb down and settle himself in Mieka’s corner of the carriage—which Mieka vacated in favor of joining Cade up top.

“But don’t you let that Elf touch those reins,” the man warned.

Mieka’s best big-eyed-innocent look was lost in the dimness. He perched happily beside Cayden as the rig moved off again, throwing his head back to enjoy the breeze in his hair.

A few uneventful miles later, Cade said, “It’s good of you, Mieka, offering to help Blye.”

“It’s more than an offer. It’s a promise.” He paused. “How d’you know she wouldn’t have you? Bespoken, I mean, and married.”

“Because I asked.” There was a soft chuckle. “We were eight years old at the time.”

Mieka nodded. That was all right. As long as it was nothing more recent.

“I wish she would,” Cade fretted. “She’ll be all alone now, and—”

“—and if there’s any woman in Gallantrybanks who can take care of herself, it’s our Blye,” Mieka finished for him. “You were about to say something silly about protecting and providing for her, Quill, and you’d best not say anything like that to
her
.”

“She’d only laugh at me. Or slug me a good one.”

“Or both!”

“You’re right, though—we have to look out for her the only way she’ll accept, and getting her to accept it will be a misery.”

They were quiet for a while, and Mieka peered out into the darkness beyond the carriage lamps. Forest now, though soon enough they’d come out onto the Tincted Downs, so called because with almost every month in spring and summer a different sort of flower bloomed and painted the rolling grassy hills yellow or pink or blue. One day, he told himself, he’d have to come see them in the daytime, and not go rattling through by night.

All at once Cayden said, “I can’t help wondering…”

He glanced over, wishing the side lamps directed more light in Cade’s direction than onto the road. “Yes?”

“Forgive me for being blunt, but—why don’t you just ask your father for the money and buy the glassworks outright?”

Slumping back against the seat, he nodded to himself and took a pull from the brandy bottle. “Been wonderin’ when you’d get round to that.”

“You knew I’d take note of the address you gave the hack driver that night. Waterknot isn’t what anybody would call a slum, now, is it?”

“Might’s well be, for all the coin we’ve got. You want to know all of it, don’t you?”

“Doesn’t it fall under the category of ‘entertainment’? Tell me a story, Mieka.”

“I owe you one, I s’pose, for all the tales you think up for me to play. The short of it is that my grandfather married somebody
his
grandmother didn’t much like. The Waterknot house is entailed to the eldest son, but the money she could do with as she pleased, and it pleased her to make Grandsir into a man with a bleedin’ great barracks by the river and not a single penny of the Windthistle money. Still pleases her, in fact,” he added thoughtfully.

“Your great-great-grandmother’s still alive?”

“Well, that’s the thing, innit.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She’s Elfenblood in six of her eight great-grandparents. That’s about as pureblood as anybody gets nowadays. Likes to pretend it’s eight of eight, the rotten old horror. And considering she’s past a hundred, it might’s well be eight of eight and she’ll live for-fuckin’-ever. Her only son died young, and left only my grandsir. When he married a girl with barely enough Elf to give her the right sort of ears—” He waved a hand lazily. “—there went the money.”

“So your father’s the eldest son, and he inherited the house. But your elder brothers—they’re all Human to look at, you said?”

Mieka laughed. “Makes the old besom grind her last three rotting teeth every time they’re mentioned—because they’re named after her grandfathers. She had high hopes when Fa married, because Mum’s a Staindrop
and
a Greenseed
and
a Moonbinder. Thought it would cribble out the blood, y’see, a proper little sieve. Get rid of the Wizard and Human and Piksey and so forth, make for the appropriate number of sweet Elfen children, all with sharp little teeth and big pointy ears. Me grandmum—the one who started all the trouble by not bein’ the one grandsir should’ve married—she had eleven children.”

Cade whistled softly through his teeth; the horses’ ears pricked up and he cussed under his breath, holding tighter to the reins. “Quite a crowd.”

“Great-great-grandmum thought it was just plain vulgar. But I’m told she was actually thinking of coming to Gallantrybanks for Jed and Jez’s Namingday—until somebody worked up the spittle to tell her that the high and mighty Sharadel Snowminder had two redheaded Humans for great-great-grandsons.”

“So you and your parents and brothers and sisters—”

“—all live in that echoing old pile of rock by the river, with assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins. And all of us who’re old enough either work in the house, not so much to keep it clean as to keep it from fallin’ apart, or go out to earn what we can.” He hesitated, then finished, “Fa makes instruments, y’see. Lutes, mainly, though he’s done a harp or three in his time. Couldn’t play to save his own life, but there’s somethin’ about his fingers and a lovely plank of spruce.…”

“Like your fingers and a withie?”

“The same,” Mieka said, pleased that Cade understood. “Not much money in it, ’specially as he’s picky about who he sells to. Sends packing all the simpering maidens and lovesick swains wanting to learn just that one perfect all-purpose song for wooing. You really have to be able to
play
before he’ll sell you something to play on.”

“Let me guess. There’s magic in them.”

“He can’t help it. It’s not in the strings, it’s in the wood.”

“Like it’s in the glass, what Blye does.”

“Exactly! I knew you’d feel that, when you made those withies.” He paused a moment, then decided it wasn’t the right time to talk about what else was in those glass twigs of Cade’s. “In the hands of somebody who knows what he’s about, a lute of me old Fa’s crafting makes a sound like an Angel come down from the clouds.”

“Your father has no patience for amateurs.”

“Less than none. Nor for deceit, neither. You should see how he treats the ones who come round pretendin’ to be actual musicians!” He paused in uncorking the bottle. “He’ll like you.”

Cade snorted. “You have this idea of me that’s all wrong, y’know. Leaving aside my character or lack of it, look what it is I do. I make up stories. That’s professional deceit.”

“But there’s truth in those stories, Quill.”

“Of a sort.” Cade adjusted his grip on the reins, long fingers suddenly fretful. “I don’t know, Mieka—getting to a truth by way of guile and trickery—”

“Don’t you bloody dare start,” Mieka warned. “You talk that kind of talk with Rafe or whoever’s interested. But not with me. We give an audience things that are unreal, but that doesn’t make them any the less true.”

“Oh, I’d like to set you loose on Master Emmot, I would!”

“Is he the one taught you to grow a garden maze in your own head and then try to puzzle your way out of it without a map?”

“That’s one way of putting it. So your Fa will like me, eh?”

“Of course. You’re making sure I’m doing what I want to do.” All his parents had ever wanted was for their children to be happy. Easy enough to say, but Mishia and Hadden Windthistle really meant it. He knew Cade wouldn’t believe it until he saw it for himself, though.

Cade was still chuckling. “I can’t even begin to guess how many things you found out you
didn’t
want to do. But I know very well how miserable you made everyone while you were doing them!”

“Oh, and I can just see
you
dancin’ happy off to work in a shipping office, with a million pieces of parchment to keep straight and tidy!”

“They wanted
you
to be a clerk?”

Mieka laughed softly in the darkness. “It wasn’t as bad as the whole long horrible week I spent workin’ for me own brothers. Jedris and Jezael, they’ve a good business going, especially after Lord Coldkettle’s house nearly collapsed over in Spillwater. They spent so much time while they were growing up climbing the rafters and crawling the spaces betwixt the walls of our poor old Wistly Hall, by now they know without knowing how they know what’s needed in any building they walk into. They’ll tell you it’s the listen and the smell of a place, but
I
think it’s a bit of magic showing up—odd, for certes, but there it is.” He paused for a swallow or two, then asked, “Anything definite in your little brother yet?”

“He’s only seven this summer. So you worked for your brothers for a whole week?”

“Give me a withie, I’m an expert. They’re even callin’ me ‘Master Windthistle’ now, right? But hammer or saw…” He shuddered.

“Is that how you know so much about the way things are constructed, then? At the Downstreet, I mean, with the ceiling timbers. And you didn’t have any trouble at all with that copper roof.”

“Think you’re the only one with peculiar accomplishments, do you?” A moment later, as Cade laughed aloud, Mieka heard himself say, “I wondered if you could do that, you know. When I first met you.”

“Do what?”

“Laugh. I thought it might be something else you only did in private, like the writing.”

There was no answer for a long time, and Mieka began to worry that he might have overstepped again. But then Cade said, “It’s something you do, isn’t it? Make people laugh. I’m no more proof against it than anybody else.”

But he’d been quite the challenge—though Mieka didn’t tell him that. “Doesn’t make for regular work, though, does it—except in doin’ what we do onstage. I helped out Mum’s father, too, for a summer. He’s by way of making everybody’s gardens lovely. That makes it nice when Jed and Jez get a job of work. They find a way to mention him, casual-like, and there’s Grandsir arriving the next week with five cartloads of fresh new soil and a dozen trees to be planted, and everybody makes money.”

“And you not knowing a rose from a daisy!”

“Do so! The daisy’s the one lacks thorns. And speaking of which—”

“Been wonderin’ when you’d get round to that,” Cade said in deliberate echo of Mieka’s earlier words. “There won’t be time when we get back home, y’know. It’ll have to wait.”

“Once we get Blye’s troubles sorted,” he agreed. “And
that
takes us to His Lordship. What did he offer, and what did you make him take instead?”

“You don’t mind that I did the negotiating for all of us?”

“Better you than me, Quill. Oh, and before I forget, I was wanting to tell you I didn’t have the chance to talk to Chat about Blye—he was all full of what the Archduke wanted from the Shadowshapers, which is a story in itself, and led to another story I want to ask you about. With all the books you’ve read, p’rhaps you can clear up a few things for me, about history and—”

Cade suddenly caught his breath, shoulders flinching. Ahead in the road, lit by the side-lamps, was a small, cowering dark shape, its eyes glowing eerily green. Mieka barely had time to identify it as a fox when its luxuriant tail flashed white and the animal streaked across the road to vanish in the underbrush. One horse skipped a stride and the carriage lurched as the other one stumbled. But there was no firm hand on the reins to settle them back down: what Mieka could see of Cade’s face was dead white, eyes staring, lips parted on a gasp. The carriage picked up speed as the horses broke into a gallop.

Mieka hung on with one hand to the ornate railing, hearing Jeska’s startled exclamation, Rafe’s sleepy growl, the coachman’s string of curses. He told himself to reach for the reins—though he hadn’t a single clue what he ought to do with them besides yank as hard as he could—when the tall body beside him gave a sudden jerk. Slack fingers clenched, Cade leaned back, gradually slowing the horses. After a dozen more strides they steadied. But the look on Cade’s face … Mieka realized he’d seen it before.

“Quill? What—?”

“You bloody fool!” bellowed the coachman. “Stop this rig right now! You hear me, boy?
Now
!”

The carriage had scarcely rolled to a halt before the driver was out and ordering them down. Mieka dropped lightly to the road and said, “Sorry—it was me. I’d a fancy to give it a try, and—”

“I
told
you—” the man began furiously as Cade climbed down.

“No, no,” Mieka hurried on, “he’d naught to do with it, I grabbed the reins—it’s my fault, I’m ever so sorry—”

“Shut it, Mieka,” Cade snapped. “I’m sorry, sir, he’s lying, it was me—”

“I don’t give two shits which of you it was! Get in and shut up!”

Within moments the furious driver was back on his bench, and Mieka and Cade were back in the carriage. And Cade, Mieka told himself silently, was
back
. Rafe had conjured a bit of light to the interior lamp, and by the look in Cade’s eyes Mieka knew that this was exactly the same thing that he’d witnessed before. Yet he didn’t ask. He knew none of them would tell him. Angry and frustrated, he curled into his corner, folded his arms, and prepared to pretend to be asleep.

The lamp was doused and in the darkness Cade asked quietly, “Why did you say that, Mieka? Why did you try to tell him it was you, not me?”