Touchstone (34 page)

Jinsie’s eyes rounded. Tavier wandered off, presumably to find more worms, and she whispered, “You don’t think he’s—oh Gods, Miek, he couldn’t be
eating
the awful things, could he?”

“Not big enough,” Cade said, placing the handful of forlorn little worms onto the grass. “But I’m sure he’ll keep looking.” Then he glanced at Mieka and laughed. “And there’s us humbled, right enough! ‘Just pretend’!”

“Where’s Fa going?” Jinsie asked, shading her eyes with one hand as she squinted towards the house.

“I think I heard something about a customer.” Mieka shrugged. “Could be a good sign, him coming round at teatime. Nothing more suggestive of a real artist than bad manners.”

“What’s
your
excuse, then?” his sister demanded. “You’re the rudest person I know!” Pushing herself to her feet, she said, “I think I’ll go have a look. I’ll come find you later, Blye, about the clothes.”

And then it was just the three of them, and Mieka knew exactly what they were about to discuss.

He had told Cade about the man in the Archduke’s livery coming round twice to Criddow Close, asking about the glassworks. Cade had discussed it with Dery, then spoken with Lord Fairwalk, who had promised to look into the matter. Blye had received formal notice from the Guild that there was a buyer—not Touchstone, someone else—and been informed that it was understood that after the search had been made and no male heirs found, she would be selling up. She took the greatest pleasure in informing them that there was another offer and she would be taking it. The Guild had had no opportunity to be offended, for it was Lord Kearney Fairwalk who had formally presented the petition for the proposed sale.

To get the subject started, Mieka asked, “Any word from the Guild?”

“They’ve signed off on our deal,” Cade said. “They couldn’t not sign off on it, not with His Lordship staring them in the face.”

“He thinks it’s madness.” Blye began toying with the ragged fringe on a pillow. “I’m not sure I don’t agree with him. No group owns their own glassworks.”

“My grandsir did,” Cade reminded her with a weary patience that told Mieka this must be roughly the hundredth time he’d done so.

“I know!” she snapped, her tone causing Mieka to adjust his estimate upwards by about a thousand. “It was
my
great-grandsir as was his glasscrafter, wasn’t it?”

“A fine thing, family tradition,” Mieka announced before they could really start sniping at each other. “The Windthistles have several, not all of them illegal, and it looks as if Jed and Jez are about to carry on with one of them.” He pointed to the little wooden pavilion down by the water, where the two tall redheads had finally yanked open the door that
would
stick no matter how they tried to mend it. “Anybody else for a swim?”

Cade shook his head regretfully. “I’ve nothing to wear.”

“Wear? Swimming?” Mieka laughed. “Although now I think on it, there’s company present so they might be polite and at least pretend they’re mannerly, refined, modest—”

“And therefore completely unrelated to
you,
” Cade remarked. “Your parents are wonderful, Mieka. Cilka and Petrinka seem nice, civilized girls, and so does Jorie—and aside from a partiality for slimy little things best left wriggling underground, Tavier’s a good lad.” With a narrow, pensive look: “Are you sure you weren’t adopted?”

Mieka yawned.

Jeska had followed the eldest Windthistle twins into the pavilion. The trio emerged wearing nothing at all and plunged into the water, yelling at the chill. Mieka waited for Blye’s attention to return from the view, and finally snapped his fingers in front of her face, laughing when she blinked in surprise.

Cade was grinning. “It’s wearing a skirt what does it, I’m convinced. Reminds her she’s a girl.”

She gave him a withering glare. “The Guild doesn’t seem to require reminding. Even though it bowed its collective head and tugged its collective forelock before the noble Lord Fairwalk.”

“What about the other buyer?” Mieka asked.

Cade spread his thin hands and grimaced. “Whatever Dery saw in Criddow Close, Kearney says there was no trace of the Archduke or any of his people. If he was really interested, he’d’ve had somebody show up to present his own petition, wouldn’t he?”

“I wasn’t there to see this man,” Blye said slowly, “so I don’t know. But Dery had to’ve been mistook. I mean, what would the Archduke want with a glassworks?”

“What would he want with a theater group of his very own?” Mieka challenged. “I know what
I
saw, and it was that gray and orange livery on the lackey Vered Goldbraider sent streaking off like a scalded cat. Oh, and I keep forgetting to tell you, Blye—Chat would like to know when he and the others can come by for a consultation.” He smiled as she caught her breath. Turning to Cade, he went on, “Just look at her! For us, she shrugs. For them, she goes all fluttery!”

“I’ve never ‘fluttered’ in my life!” she exclaimed.

Cade, eyeing her sidelong with a wicked glint in his gray eyes, said, “I think you’re right, Mieka. A definite flutter. Though that, too, might be just the natural result of wearing a dress for a change.”

Blye looked murderous. Mieka hastened to say, “And right lovely she looks in it, too. Shut up, Quill.”

But Cade kept teasing her. “You’ll be wearing it for the Shadowshapers when they visit, won’t you?”

Mieka realized that whereas Cade had been amused when he caught her staring at Mieka’s brothers and Jeska, he was jealous that she was indeed impressed by the prospect of such illustrious new clients. An instant later—remembering that not two hours ago he’d been telling himself how well she knew both him and Cade —Mieka wasn’t entirely sure he didn’t feel the same. She’d have to learn a lot about the Shadowshapers, wouldn’t she, to make their withies just as good as the ones she fashioned for him and Cade. This would quite probably make the Shadowshapers even better in performances than they already were. And
this
would make them just that much more difficult to beat at Trials. That Touchstone would one day triumph over all comers and gain First Flight on the Royal Circuit was something Mieka had never doubted, not since that first night in Gowerion. But it only now occurred to him that in helping a friend, they would also be quite literally placing an advantage in the hands of rivals.

He decided that the challenge would be fun. Almost as fun as teasing Cade. “Oh, Blye and Jinsie will find something stunning at the Narbacy Street tailor just for the occasion, the Shadowshapers bein’ not just
anybody,
y’know. And before I forget again, Chat says at your convenience, Blye, and do you like toffee—he lives just over a confectioner’s.”

“He need only bring his friends and his custom,” she replied. “And a nice disregard for a hallmark, of course.”

“
And
an ability to keep their mouths shut,” Cade added.

Crafters of all kinds had spent a long time getting control over their own professions. Mieka had heard his father complain about it more than once. In the old days, before the upheavals of the Archduke’s War had unsettled everything from Albeyn’s magic to Albeyn’s trade, the highborns owned all the tools of production, charged a skilled craftsman for their use, and claimed a portion of the products. This system still prevailed in parts of the land, in things such as blacksmithing and flour milling, but the City of Gallantrybanks had a royal charter stating that only the Guilds could decide who owned a workshop, who made the goods, and who could sell them. Only the Guilds could authorize a hallmark, and anything without a hallmark sold so cheaply that it was scarcely worth making. Blye, of course, would receive no hallmark from the Glasscrafters Guild.

“Jeska helped me do some totting up,” she went on, “and I think I can make basic expenses with what I’ve always done—plates and utensils, things that don’t require a Master’s hallmark. Even if the Shadowshapers like my work, it’ll take me some time to learn their style, so there won’t be much coming in from them for a while, not until I can make their withies as easily as I do yours.” She folded her burn-scarred hands in her lap, and stared at them for a few moments. “This is assuming, of course, that no male heir can be found.”

“Stop fretting,” Cade told her. “I never heard your father mention anybody else by way of family—”

“Be glad you’re not stuck with this lot,” Mieka interrupted, gesturing expansively from wall to crumbling wall of the garden. “Just look at all this herd roaming the pasture—horrifying, innit? With us, it’d take a hundred clerks a hundred years to figure out whose claim comes first. There’s all the marriages to consider, for one thing—who brought the Greenseed or Flickflame or whichever pretentious prehistoric line back into the Windthistle fold. Of course, there being not much to claim, there wouldn’t be much competition,” he reflected.

“I can’t imagine growing up in a family like this,” Blye said. “It was always just me and my father.”

“There’s times,” Mieka confided, “I’m not sure which of ’em I’m actually related to, which ones married in, and which ones just showed up one day and nobody ever bothered to ask!”

“Can’t tell just by looking, can you?” Cade remarked. “Nobody’d ever believe you’re brothers with those two great hulking redheads.”

“Jedris asked about windows,” Blye said suddenly. “You didn’t put him up to it, did you, Mieka?”

“Windows? No. What about them?”

“They’ve a project going, I gather, and can’t find someone to make the windows at a reasonable price.”

Mieka looked at her for a long moment, then said quite seriously, “If that’s what he said, that’s what he meant. Something you have to understand about my brothers, Blye—neither of them could lie if his own life hung in the balance. I used to think it was because Mum used her truth-tell hex on them a bit too powerful when they were little—oh, she has one, and it’s vicious!” he added when Cade’s brows shot up. “You don’t ever want it directed at you, believe me! But it’s not that, with Jed and Jez. It’s that they’ve neither of them imagination enough. They’re the kind who hear pattering on the roof and look outside to be sure it’s raining—but it would never occur to them that possibly it’s mice.”

“Or Tavier, the baby dragon?” Cade asked, smiling. “It’s not charity, Blye. They need someone to do the work.”

She shrugged. Whatever she might have said was lost when a short, stocky, extravagantly Elfen personage stumped across the grass towards them, snarling Mieka’s name.

“Oh Gods,” he muttered. “Brace yourselves, it’s Great-Uncle Breedbate.”

A nickname, of course, one that was never used in his presence. One of the eleven affronts to great-great-grandmother’s pride, Barsabian Windthistle had spent his life determined to prove himself more Elf than any Elf ever born. He wore ridiculous clothes, the kind always seen in centuries-old depictions of Elves: dagged-hem tunics, wide-collared shirts, trousers that bloused at the knee over pointy-toed boots. He used the most archaic words he could dig up out of musty old books—which he read not for their literary or scholarly value but solely to find such antiques. He cast nasty spells whenever the mood struck him, confirming the worst that was ever said of Elfen mischief. And it was the great tragedy of his life that somehow, even though his ears and feet were classics of Elfen perfection, he had a lovely set of straight white teeth.

“You there, boy!” bawled Uncle Barsabian. “What’re you doin’, collifobbling with the likes of him?”

“And a good afternoon this beautiful day to you, too, Uncle,” Mieka returned with a wide and, he hoped, beguiling smile. “Did you enjoy your tea? Permit me to introduce you—”

“To a
Wizard
? Not bleedin’ damn likely, boy!” Glaring down at Cade, he shouted, “Why they let scroyley things like you walk free is past my understanding! Swanning round as if you owned the world and all the stars besides!”

There was more in this vein; much more. Everyone had learned ages ago simply to let the old man talk himself done. Arguing was pointless, and any protests that he might consider the feelings of those he screamed at were countered with the entire list—and it was lengthy—of incidents proving that Wizards
had
no feelings. The best that could be hoped for was that someone would come to the rescue—which Jedris and Jezael did, fresh from their swim and wrapped in sheets too threadbare to be used on the beds anymore.

“Uncle! There you are!”

They each took an elbow, preparing to haul the old man off. But, though interrupted in his usual tirade against Wizards, Uncle Barsabian pointed a gnarled and knobby finger at Blye. “And a Goblin flyndrig besides! Who let
you
out of your cave to associate with decent folk?”

Mieka scrambled to his feet, shaking with rage. “That’s beyond enough, you scabby old horror! Get him out of here!”

“Gladly,” said Jedris, and together the twins lifted Uncle Barsabian off his feet and carted him away, with the old man yelling all the while, “Put me down! Unhand me! Gleets, the pair of you!”

“I’m so sorry, Blye,” Mieka said, dropping down to the grass again, fists still clenched. “He’s addled, of course—always was, so I’m told—but that’s no excuse. I don’t know how he got out. Usually Mum’s careful to see that he keeps to his room when there’s guests.”

Blye shook her head. “Plenty of Elfenkind his age hold a grudge.”

“He oughta keep it to himself. Bleedin’ old pillock.”

Cade was frowning. “What in all hells is a ‘gleet’?”

“I don’t like to say, not around a lady. He’s always been a one for what he thinks are the old ways and the old words, and bein’ more Elf than the first Elf that taught all the other Elves how to be Elves.” He paused, then decided they deserved to know why Uncle Barsabian was the way he was. “There’s just the one exception to his Elfenness, and that’s how he went peculiar. He refused to show fear, y’see. Five days he was in a black cellar before he gave them the satisfaction of—well, you know.” He shrugged. “Not that they broke him. He just made them wait for it. When he finally got out, he claimed there was a family of Goblins down there, and making all sorts of light with their iron-forge, ’cept that whenever the Wizards came to see if he’d finally conjured the fearing fire, they’d shut their rock wall and hide. So you see he doesn’t much like Goblins, neither.”