Window Wall (36 page)

Dery shot a glance at Jeska, then at Mistress Mirdley. “Um—yeh, I do. I’ll just go upstairs, then.”

Cade sat beside Jeska at the kitchen worktable. Pages were spread neatly across most of the surface. Many of them bore the remains of Lord Kearney Fairwalk’s ribbons and seal: deep blue ribbons, outlines of oak leaves pressed into broken plum-colored wax. Mistress Mirdley set fresh glasses of wine and a decanter within their reach and departed for her stillroom. She hadn’t yet said a single word. Jeska handed him a glass of wine.

“I s’pose,” Cade said with a pathetic attempt at casualness, “I’m going to need this. You’re about to tell me why my rent wasn’t paid.”

“And my rent, and my daughter Airilie’s support, and debts belonging to Touchstone as a whole and each of us personally.” He paused, then forced out the words, “And Derien’s school fees.”

School fees … from an account that only he and Kearney Fairwalk could access … all his grandfather’s legacy, gone. He knew it even before Jeska said it. Emptiness spread through his body as Jeska explained what the figures and notations on all those pages meant. When the masquer finally stopped talking, Cade felt as hollow as the rooms that were no longer his home. His brain went slack, like loosened reins just before a horse surged to a gallop. It wasn’t possible. It just simply wasn’t possible that all the money was gone.

Not just gone. Owed.

The wainwright. The wainwright’s painter. The wheelwright. Imagers, engravers, paper-makers, printers. Tailors, shoemakers, glovers, hatters, drapers, mercers, and lacemakers. Goldsmiths and silversmiths and coppersmiths and jewelers. Wine merchants and greengrocers, butchers and fishmongers, fruiterers and florists. Blacksmiths, ironmongers, cutlers, coopers, stonemasons, brickmasons, glaziers, wallers, joiners, carpenters—he had the wild thought that the only profession that seemed to be missing was grave-digger.

His mind skittered about, trying to avoid the disaster of it by finding something else to think about. Who had bought so many knives from the cutler? Whose walls had the wallers walled? Blye made panes of window glass, but it wanted a glazier to install them—and whose windows? Where? And talking of windows, what about the windows Touchstone had shattered in the Princess’s father’s palace—was there a bill here for those, too? Were carrots and lettuce and beans and celery really that expensive? Who had bought so much jewelry? How many placards had been ordered, that they owed so much to printers and engravers and papermakers? The only bills he accepted without question were from the wine merchants. They’d done a lot of drinking, these last few years ….

The list was endless and terrifying, for all their creditors been paid just enough to keep them from seeking redress in the law courts. Individually, the bills weren’t much. Cumulatively, they were crippling.

It would take Touchstone at least two years to pay them all off, and that was if every other expense was cut at least by half.

A cold, sick panic began in his guts, replacing the hollowness, feeding off the hard lump of meat and pastry in his stomach. His mind scurried in every direction, desperate for a source of funds. What could he sell, where could he borrow, who could lend him money, how could he keep Derien in school—when would any or several or all of the creditors demand final and complete settlement of their accounts?

He was no nobleman, like Kearney Fairwalk, to wave a lazy hand as he strolled out of any shop in Gallantrybanks with the assurance that his custom was worth more to the proprietor than actual payment of the bill.

He owned nothing of sufficient value to sell.

He had no wealthy relations.

What he had was a thick folio of plays, and a beautiful lectern inlaid with dragonbone, and his Trials medals, and his books, and a little brother whose education would be calamitously curtailed if the school fees couldn’t be found.

The fear spread all through his veins, thick and ice-cold, clogging his thoughts and stuttering his heart. What was he to do? How could he find his way out of this? A trapped rat at least had teeth to savage the cat that had cornered him. He had nothing.

“Cade,” Jeska said quietly, “we have to do something.”

A weakening wave of gratitude flooded him. At least he wasn’t alone in this: “We
have to do something
—” They were, Gods help them, in this together.

Performances. Private performances that paid well. All this autumn and winter, when he’d hoped to work on
Window Wall
, they’d have to go wherever they must for whatever money people were willing to pay them.

But they’d just come off the Royal Circuit—what if people had seen enough of them for one year? There’d been intimations and more of disappointment that the Shadowshapers hadn’t won First Flight on the Royal, and never mind that the Shadowshapers
had
won and rejected the circuit. Touchstone had felt the need to prove themselves time and time again. What if they’d failed to convince people that they deserved their position on the Royal?

And what if no one wanted Touchstone’s particular kind of theater? If they’d been Black Lightning, patrons would be lined up the length of the Gally River from the Flood to the Westercountry, eager for the chance to experience over and over the dangerous turbulence of emotion, the blunt force of sensation—what had he said once? That Black Lightning was a group for addicts?

Touchstone could outdo Black Lightning. Easy. It wouldn’t take long to establish a reputation for that kind of shocking performance. Touchstone could—

—could betray everything they were. Could sell themselves. Could whore their art and their craft.

“We know enough people now,” Jeska was saying, “to organize our own schedule. Kazie and Jinsie will keep track of it all for us. I’ve already spoken to them. I’ll have to give up my lodgings, of course, to provide for Airilie, but Kazie says she’ll be glad to live at Wistly, especially now that she’s pregnant, and Mishia says they’ll be glad to have her. Crisiant and Bram will go on staying with the Threadchasers. Crisiant runs the bakery now, anyways.”

And Cade would have to live at Number Eight, Redpebble Square.

And Mieka …

“Mieka’s house is paid for—his father made sure of it—so his family will be all right at Hilldrop. Not that he’ll be there much, of course. We’ll either be traveling or in Gallybanks doing the rounds of all the theaters and taverns.”

Of course. The Windthistles would adore having Jindra at Wistly, but as for the wife and mother-in-law …

“What we have to decide, Cayden, is whether or not to bring suit against Fairwalk.”

“He’s a nobleman,” Cade rasped, the first thing he’d said since Jeska had shown him the books. “D’you think we’d get a fair hearing in the courts?”

“We might.” The cleft chin set stubbornly.

“We’re nothing and nobody. We signed a contract. What he ended up doing with the money we earned—it’s our own bloody fault. That’s how the law court will see it, and I’m not sure but that’s the truth.”

“We trusted the wrong person.” Jeska sighed. “We were young, yeh, and inexperienced—and he, as you say, is a nobleman. Well, we can decide later.” He gulped wine and set the glass down. “I haven’t yet sussed out exactly where all this went—but I’m guessing that a goodly clump of it went to Fairwalk Manor, and his own house here in town.”

“How did you get hold of all this in the first place?”

Strong shoulders shrugged. “I went to our bank.”

“Did they say—? I mean, do they know—”

“They had a stack of papers authorizing withdrawals, signed by each of us with Fairwalk as witness, and Fairwalk’s signature with one of the bank officers as witness.”

And who would question the word of a nobleman, and a distant relation of King Meredan’s into the bargain? How could they have been so stupid?

“He did best with that scrawl of Mieka’s,” Jeska went on. “Mine wasn’t very good. Rafe’s was all right. Yours was perfect.”

And he could hear Mieka’s scathing explanation for that:
“Writing your name over again and over again like a lovesick thirteen-year-old girl! Didn’t I always tell you he was looking for more from you than a smile and a handclasp?”

Cade had never really seen it. Just as he’d never seen that Fairwalk wasn’t truly rich. He only behaved as if he were. Reputation alone would keep most creditors from hounding him, for the bragging rights of having Lord Fairwalk’s custom were worth more than what he bought and never paid for.

No wonder Kearney was always telling him not to bother his head about so vulgar a thing as money.
“It’s your job to be brilliant and create masterworks, Cayden. Let me take care of everything else.”

Oh, he’d taken care of it, all right.

“If I’m hearing this correctly,” he said with an attempt at practical reasoning, “Kearney took out cash for whatever he was supposed to be buying for us, and used it for himself. The bills—
our
bills—went unpaid.”

Jeska nodded, and raked the limp blond curls from his face. It was hot in the kitchen, Cade realized with a start. Yet he felt so cold, shivering-cold. “There’s something else,” the masquer said reluctantly.

Of course there was something else. Of course. Cade cocked an eyebrow at him and he cleared his throat.

“When Blye paid off her debt to Touchstone and bought back the last few shares we owned, Kearney had her write the bank draft out to him. He told her he’d break it up into equal shares and deposit it in our separate accounts.”

“Instead, he used it all himself.”

“Yes. And Blye can’t ever find out, Cade. She’d want to pay us a second time. I told you only because it shows how long all this has been going on.”

Had it all been just to steal from them? All the encouragement, the praise, the introductions to important highborns and merchants and officials, the private performances he’d arranged—the commission from Lord Oakapple to write the real story of “The Treasure”? They’d all four received fat purses from the grateful nobleman afterwards, but where had the advance got to? Their accounts, or so Cade had assumed.

“Do you remember when he told us that there’d be nothing more for the journey to the Continent? Because of the windows we broke and had to pay for?”

Cade knew what was coming. “We didn’t have to pay for the windows, we did get the rest of the money, and he pocketed it. Jeska, is there anything left?”

“We can pay down most of these.” He waved a hand at the bills. “Some here, some there, just so they don’t haul us before a justiciar. But from now until Trials next year, we have to play as many shows as we can.”

It would take years of shows to replace his grandfather’s legacy—which was supposed to pay for Dery’s schooling until he reached the age of eighteen, by which time Cade had intended to be so rich that his brother could attend a university. “I was thinking about Derien’s school fees.”

Jeska didn’t look at him as he said, “You seem to have more in your personal account than the rest of us. But the other account, the one that needs your signature and Fairwalk’s … that’s almost all gone. And you’ll have to settle with the King’s College quick. Derien hasn’t been allowed to attend since the term began about a week ago. Your mother put it about that he’s unwell.”

Lady Jaspiela must be livid. But why hadn’t she paid the fees herself? She cared fervently about her younger son’s education and prospects. Couldn’t she have forgone the regular autumn refurbishments to her wardrobe, or sold a few jewels? Neither, Cade realized, would even have occurred to her. After all, such things would be
noticed
by the society she so avidly cultivated.

The school term was only a week old; an “illness” could be stretched another fortnight or so, and if Derien had trouble catching up with the work, that was his problem. No, she would much rather have this disaster to berate Cayden about once he returned home. It was Cayden’s responsibility to pay the fees, and pay them he would. Lady Jaspiela would have no interest in how.

Jeska was smiling slightly. “You can imagine how much Dery’s liking it, having to stay inside every hour of every day.”

So that was the meaning of that glance they’d exchanged. Dery hadn’t any schoolwork to do, because he hadn’t been in school.

“The first thing we have to do,” Jeska was saying, “is confront Kearney and empty whatever’s in his accounts into our own.”

Cade thought of Fairwalk Manor, and the town house here in Gallybanks, crammed with books and decorations and rugs and tapestries and the family silver. “He can sell off whatever he’s got and hand over the proceeds. Highborn or raised in a gutter, he won’t much like seeing his reputation crushed.”

“Well, there’s that, of course. But they tend to stick together, all those toffs.” He began gathering up papers into five tidy stacks. “These are yours, this one’s mine, there’s Rafe, and Mieka, and this one’s Touchstone. Do you want me to leave them with you, or should I take charge of all of it?”

“You take it. You understand it.”

“Most of it.”

“You can add and subtract, which is more than the rest of us ever managed to learn.” He helped Jeska load everything into a flat leather case and watched as he folded the flap over and snicked the little brass lock shut. “Go home to your wife. We can all meet here tomorrow—around noon?”

“Noon,” Jeska agreed. He went to the kitchen door, then turned. “Cade … I know how hard this is for you. But nobody blames you. We all trusted him. Hells, we were thrilled when he took an interest. We’re none of us businessmen, to know or even suspect—” He ended with a final shrug of his shoulders.

Cade made no reply. Jeska wrapped his arms round the leather satchel and left. The door shut with a familiar clack behind him. Cade poured himself more wine and slumped at the kitchen worktable. Despite what Jeska had said, he ought to have seen it. He ought to have known. He was supposed to be the smart one, wasn’t he? The cautious, perceptive, rational one? A tregetour owed it to his group to look out for them, not just onstage but in matters of payment and bookings as well. He’d left all that to Kearney for five years now.

Touchstone would have to make a huge splash—or shatter—at the celebrations of King Meredan’s accession in order to attract enough giggings to begin paying their debts. They wouldn’t be paid for that performance; loyal congratulations and all that, happy to demonstrate their gratitude and esteem. If they worked it right, half a dozen noble lords and wealthy merchants would bid for their appearance at Wintering parties. The Downstreet, the Kiral Kellari, the Keymarker … where else, where else? his mind nattered at him. Lady Megueris’s father had paid very handsomely. How many properties did he own that Touchstone could perform at? And Vrennerie’s husband, Lord Kelinn Eastkeeping—he’d hire them if she asked. Did he have more than one castle? Cade knew he ought to cringe at using his friends that way, but he was past humiliation.