Touchstone (33 page)

In his favorite and most private little nook of the vast house on Waterknot Street—a hideaway he was fairly sure not even his eldest brothers had ever discovered—Mieka could escape the noisy commotion of everyday life with his family. Cayden and Rafcadion had their personal eyries on the top floors of their parents’ homes; Jeschenar had hollowed himself out a warm, dry cave of a place in a corner of his mother’s leaky cellar, where he could memorize his lines or enjoy his latest girlfriend. Mieka’s refuge was halfway between these extremes. A deeply eccentric ancestor had tacked onto the house a series of triangular turrets overlooking the river, jutting like spines on the back of a recumbent dragon. His excuse had been that he wanted a clear view of whatever fleet of foreign Wizards came sailing up from the across the Flood or down from the wild hills of the Westercountry to attack and pillage Gallantrybanks. The last time either of these things had happened had been about a thousand years ago. Mieka knew that much history, at any rate. But whatever his great-great-whatever-grandsir’s quirks, and however dodgy the continued acquaintance of some of those turrets with the walls had become, he was grateful to the old fool. One of those six turrets, the one with the best view of the Plume, had a little chamber at its base that nobody except Mieka knew about, accessed by a trapdoor in the room above. In winter it was cold; in summer it was stifling hot. A stolen firepocket alleviated the chill; if the summer breeze was right, the chinks in the wooden floor above drew air from the two square windows overlooking the river. If the space became more cramped as he grew older and grew up, he didn’t mind. It was quiet here, and solitary, and these were two things rarely to be had at Wistly Hall.

Over the years since he’d found it—quite by accident, playing Seek-Me-Find-Me with his twin sister—he had embellished the little room with blankets, pillows, the firepocket, and stolen placards of famous theater groups. Very soon now he expected to take all the latter down and stick up a placard advertising Touchstone instead. But he would keep the big parchment sign he’d made shortly after seeing his first playlet:
Mieka Windthistle, Master Glisker
.

He had spent many long hours in this lair: dreaming, practicing with imaginary and then real withies, watching tall-masted ships sail to and from the merchants’ docks, wondering what famous or infamous persons might be in the pleasure barges plying the river below the Plume. But he never wished himself onto any of the boats, for he was as useless on water as he was on horseback—indeed, his few experiments in either activity had had similar endings: abrupt and uncomfortable. He remained unconvinced that landing in the water, which at least was a bit cushiony, was better than landing on his bum on the hard ground. He had no desire to repeat either experience.

Six days after Touchstone’s return to Gallantrybanks, he sat cross-legged on a pile of pillows purloined from various parts of Wistly Hall and stared at the two groups of withies arrayed on a threadbare counterpane nicked from the refuse bin in back of a draper’s shop. A pile of used buffing papers and glossing cloths lay nearby, and he surveyed the gleaming results of last night’s hard work with satisfaction. Persuading Cayden that he was perfectly capable of the maintenance required on older withies (tiny scratches and scuffs left unattended could become problems) and the polishing necessary for new ones hadn’t been easy, and he’d had to pretend to lose his temper. Two dozen of the withies were of Blye’s making even though—most illegally—they bore her father’s hallmark at the crimp. These were the last that ever would; the Guilds were always prompt, whenever a master crafter died, in seizing and destroying his coveted stamp. A living of sorts could be made in glassware, ceramics, metalwork, weaving, and so forth without an official chop, but exportation was illegal and there was excellent money in the Kingdom of Albeyn’s ever-growing trade.

Mieka ran a fingertip lightly down one of the slender glass twigs. He was used to these in performances now, accustomed to the sensitivity of Blye’s magic and the way it so knowingly created the structure for Cade’s. Last week, though, snagging up a just-made unpolished withie to use surreptitiously on her, was the first time he’d realized how well she knew him, too. He had no idea how she did what she did, and didn’t want to know. Finding things out, learning the why of them, usually took away just one more bit of mystery from life. He was grateful for her giftedness, and impressed, and that was sufficient.

Six more withies lay to his left. These were the ones Cade had fashioned even more illegally. He’d been told that these were the ones he’d have to use as the shatterings. But he didn’t want to destroy them. They were … different. Special. And, fully aware that this was unlike him, he wanted to understand why.

Cayden, he told himself with a rueful grimace, was gifted, too: at messing up Mieka’s hitherto predictably chaotic life.

He’d spent his first two months with Touchstone alternating between a burning curiosity about the brilliant, grumpy tregetour and a total terror of misjudging just how far he could go in making him laugh. A pair of big puppy-dog eyes and a large collection of cheeky wisecracks disarmed most people’s annoyance if he sneaked a toe across the line (well, leaped right over it, mostly), but he hadn’t been sure about Cade.

He still wasn’t. He knew he was now an irreplaceable part of something worth being part of, but there were times Cayden flummoxed him. He thought he had several good ideas about why—that Harpy of a mother, for one thing, and his morbid sensitivity about his looks. This last was ridiculous as far as Mieka was concerned: Hadn’t Cade any idea how beautiful his eyes were, or that he’d grow into that face as he got older? Mieka’s own looks, he was well aware, were of the pleasing, pretty sort—quite nice while they lasted, but ultimately a bit insipid. Cade’s face, for all his beak of a nose and long jaw and sharp chin, would never ever be boring.

There was something about these withies of Cayden’s making that perplexed him just as much as their maker did. He sensed their power even now, even drained of the magic Cade had primed them with for Trials. They had nothing of Blye within them. They felt of Cade because he had created them, not just because he had enhanced them after they were made. His emotions were inside the glass. What bothered Mieka wasn’t the stubbornness or the ambition or even the trace of reckless defiance lingering from the night he’d made these. It was the fear. He hadn’t sensed any of it after Cade had primed them for his use, but now that they were empty again the feel of them worried Mieka. He supposed it might be echoes of Cade’s concern that he might get caught. Lady What’s-her-name’s grandson fashioning his own withies, never mind how harmlessly, would have the authorities apoplectic. But Mieka knew the fear wasn’t because of that.

Minster chimes up and down the river added their reminder to the sudden growling of his stomach: time for tea. He stowed the withies into their velvet bag and hauled them and himself up into the overhead room, smiling as he remembered all the years when he’d needed a stepladder to reach the floorboards for a good grip. He shut the trapdoor and pushed concealing boxes and broken planks across it. The turret was no looser in its moorings than usual, but he frowned to see that the iron pegs showed another winter’s wear in rust. He’d miss his cubbyhole, once he had coin enough for lodgings of his own. Jumping the foot-wide gap between the turret’s wooden floor and the stone stairs, he shut the rickety old door—habit, really, because nobody came up here—and started down the steps. A detour to his own room for a quick wash and a fresh shirt was followed by a stop in Jinsie’s bedchamber so he could scrutinize his reflection in the only uncracked, unspotted, untarnished full-length mirror in the house. Judging by the design of the giltwood frame, it belonged to about the same period as the mirror over the fireplace in Lady Jaspiela’s drawing room—lots of carved swirls and curlicues, and a single undecorated fingerspan of space at the bottom where the owner’s name or badge or symbol or something was supposed to go. Lady Jaspiela’s had a black swan painted in, and a very grouchy-looking bird it was, too. This mirror was unmarked, though Mieka assumed it had come down in the Windthistle family for a few generations. As he snatched up his sister’s comb to run through his hair, he wondered briefly how this looking-glass had survived the periodic spasms of
What else can we sell?
that sent everyone exploring the house yet again for hitherto overlooked treasures. He couldn’t help a little bounce of excitement at the thought that soon now, very soon, nobody in his family would ever again have to ransack the premises for salable objects. He was a Master Glisker now, and Touchstone was going to be rich. Well, after they settled everything with Blye and the glassworks, anyway. Angling the mirror towards the window for better light, he grimaced at the beginnings of a blemish on his chin, and poked through his sister’s dressing table for Auntie Brishen’s secret-recipe skin salve.

“Mieka! Hurry it up, they’re here!”

Jezael had always been the loudest of the family, but bellowing orders to workmen thirty or forty feet overhead had taught him whole new levels of thunderous. “Coming!” Mieka yelled back, scowled again at the spot, and ran out of the room, the velvet bag of withies cradled carefully in his arms.

They
were Touchstone, invited to tea at Wistly Hall. Mishia and Hadden Windthistle had decided it was time and long past time they met their son’s partners. It was a glorious summer’s day and tea was set up on the back lawn that sloped down to the river. Away from much-mended upholstery, scarred tables and wobbly chairs, worm-eaten rafters, and the occasional crumbling bit of stonework, Mieka could almost believe that his old pus-blister of a great-great grandmother wasn’t really hanging on to every pence with the iron fist she didn’t bother to put inside a silk glove. If the cups didn’t match the plates, let alone the saucers, who would even notice when the view of the river was so fine? If the teapots were chipped, who would care once they were lounging on blankets and pillows on the sun-flooded grass? And if it took Mistress Threadchaser’s mocah cakes and walnut muffins to fill out a somewhat sketchy selection of teatime treats, who could possibly be embarrassed once Rafe explained that the Windthistles would be doing his parents a favor by giving their opinion of these new recipes?

And besides all the other distractions that made one forget the decaying splendors of Wistly Hall, Blye was wearing a skirt.

Mieka was so astonished by this when he saw her that he simply gaped for a moment before recovering his manners and sweeping her a bow. A wry smile crossed her tired face as she acknowledged the salute with a mocking little curtsy.

“It was very kind of your mother to invite me,” she told him later as they lazed on the grass, plates and cups empty at last. “I wasn’t going to come, but…”

“I’m glad you did. Can I get you anything else? More tea?”

She shook her head. “I’m fine. I’m here because you haven’t been round to Criddow Close lately and I want to say how beholden I am to you for—”

He held up a warning finger. “Not a word. Not one word. It’s purely selfish of me, Blye. There’s no one else as could make the withies for Cade and me. Your work is what got us to Trials and onto the Winterly, so I’ll hear no more about it.”

“But, Mieka—”

“Did I tell you or did I not?” He gave her his best glare, with knitted brows and jutting chin, and at last she smiled.

“Good show the other night at the Downstreet,” she said. “Meaning it’s one that will keep me making glassware for days!”

“I do love to know someone else is working even harder than me!”

“Work? You?” Jinsie plopped herself down beside them, munching on an apple. “Blye, we’re off to Narbacy Street tomorrow for something to wear to the Kiral Kellari. You’ll come, of course?”

Blye gasped. “You got the booking? Why didn’t you tell me you got the booking?” Half-turning, she yelled, “Cade!”

He looked round from talking with Hadden Windthistle—whom he topped by head and shoulders. “What?” he called back.

“Kiral Kellari?”

A smug grin spread across his face. Pausing to excuse himself to Mieka’s father, he ambled over. “Rauel commended us to the owners, but ’twas Kearney who settled the deal. Nice, not to have to talk me throat dry negotiating.”

Jinsie pulled a face. “‘Kearney’ now, is it? Haven’t
we
got grand!”

“‘Lord Fairwalk’ to you, child,” Mieka admonished. She stuck out her tongue at him; he pretended to snatch it out of her mouth; she howled in imitation agony—and quite unexpectedly a child’s voice rose in a wail. Mieka turned to see his youngest sister standing nearby, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, Jorie, sweeting, ’twas only foolery!” He scooted across the grass towards her. “Jinsie’s just fine—look!”

The child insisted on an inspection. Satisfied, she forgave Mieka with a pat on the arm and toddled off. When he returned to the blanket where Blye, Jinsie, and Cade waited, he found Jorie’s twin, Tavier, earnestly presenting Cade with a seemingly endless collection of worms. He kept reaching into his pockets and giving over squirmy black or gray things of varying lengths; Cade kept accepting them, solemn-faced.

“So is that what you want to do when you grow up, then?” Jinsie was asking. “Gather bugs and such and help Auntie Brishen in her brewing?”

Mieka hid a grin as Cade’s gray eyes widened; he knew Quill was suddenly wondering just exactly what might be in various thorns.

“No,” Tavier informed her. “I want to be a dragon.”

“Hmm. That’s interesting. What sort of dragon?”

The boy gave the question due consideration. “A
bad
dragon.”

“With lots of teeth,” Blye agreed as Mieka fell over laughing.

“And breathing fire, don’t forget the breathing fire part,” Cade reminded her. “Pity none of these are primed,” he went on, gesturing to the velvet bag on the blanket. “Your brother could show you the dragon he made for the King.”

“That’s just pretend,” Tavier scoffed. “I want to be a
real
dragon. They grow from worms.”