Touchstone (53 page)

Another lie. He understood very well what eager anticipation looked like on Mieka’s face. He was waiting for something, expecting it, and it would happen the day Rafe wed Crisiant.

Unless Cade said something. Warned him. Oh, yes, he could just picture it: taking Mieka by the shoulders and telling him that this girl was a poison worse than tainted thorn.
“You’ll end up hating each other, and as for what it’ll do to your son—”

It was the only thing that could make him even think about saying something. The look in that little boy’s eyes.

Yet that brought up an entirely new question, one he’d never encountered before. If Mieka believed his warning, then that little boy would never be born, nor the brother or sister the girl was carrying when Mieka knocked her to the floor. If Cayden spoke, those children would never live. But only if Mieka believed him.

He might; he’d believed what Blye had told him on little if any evidence at all. He might believe this, too—

—only he wouldn’t
believe
it. He’d say it was only a possibility, and now that he knew, he’d make sure it never happened. He’d assure Cade that he’d make a change here and there, decide one way instead of another, ever alert to the possibility that he could end up drunk and thorn-thralled and beating his pregnant wife.

Variations on
How can I change this?
had been torturing Cayden for years. He could cope with it. Barely. But Mieka, creature of impulse and impatience and instinct—it would either drive him mad or make him banish the whole concept from his mind when what he thought he might have to do conflicted too strongly with what he desired.

He desired this girl. Should Cade manage to convince him that it was potential disaster and he gave her up, it would remain between them the rest of their lives. And that would be poisonous, too. Mieka must make his own decisions, choices, even mistakes. His life wasn’t Cade’s to manipulate.

The night Cade decided this, he had the most horrible and most selfish dream of all. Mieka, sad-eyed and scared, not their lively, laughing Elf at all, hands reaching out, pleading with him:
“Don’t let go—please, Quill, don’t ever let go—”
His answer was to shake his head and turn away, feeling nothing. Nothing, for the one who had said to him,
“It’s not in you to be wicked, Cade, nor cruel,”
who had written to him,
Don’t worry about going too lost, Quill, I’ll always come find you.
Feeling nothing, he could become the man who looked at stark cold words on a scrap of paper and say,
“But I’m still here.”

“His mind’s cold, but his heart’s colder.”

And then one morning he was standing in the portico of a High Chapel overlooking the Plume, wearing his finest clothes and his little silver falcon pinning his neckband (dazzlingly white silk, plain and unadorned, unlike the embroidered and pleated extravagance knotted around poor Rafe’s neck). He did his duty and cordially welcomed each guest—Threadchaser and Bramblecotte family and friends, Blye and Derien and Mistress Mirdley, Jeska and his mother, Lord Kearney Fairwalk, the Shadowshapers with their ladies—smiling and bantering with everyone as it was his role as bride’s patron to do. The man who stood beside a future husband wasn’t there for him: he was there on behalf of the future wife, his very presence reminding her bespoken that if he didn’t live up to his promises, there was someone around who’d set him right in a hurry. This was naturally the source of a thousand jokes (and quite a few playlets, most of them obscene) and by the time Rafe and Crisiant arrived, Cade had heard all of them at least twice. Crisiant’s three sisters were Cade’s counterparts, who would advise her if they considered her lax in her duties as a wife. The fate of anyone daring to give Crisiant advice about anything didn’t bear contemplation, but tradition was tradition.

Rafe sauntered over to Cade, who stood at the closed doors leading into the High Chapel. “Everybody here?”

“Almost. We’re waiting on the Windthistles and your mother—they’re probably fretting the last-instant arrangements.”

“Cakes, pies, pastries, and alcohol for all this mob—remind me to have daughters, not sons. That way, all I’ll have to do is show up and when the Good Brother asks, ‘Who gives this maiden?’—”

“—you’ll say, ‘For the sake of my sanity,
take
her!’”

They were still grinning at each other when the outer door swung open and Mieka gamboled through, pausing to bow before Crisiant with a flourish of the peacock-blue cloak that covered him throat to boots. He spoke a few words that actually made her smile and blush. Hurrying over to Rafe and Cayden, he exclaimed, “I’ve never seen her look so lovely! Whatever did you do to deserve her?”

Rafe shrugged. “I’m me.”

The Good Brother approached then, with some question about the loving cups. True to his word, Rafe had chosen Mieka to present them during the ceremony. He would also be true to his word if Mieka dropped them.

“Isn’t that right?” he said, turning to address the Elf—who had vanished. “Where in all hells has he got to?”

Cade looked around.

The girl had her back turned. Mieka plucked the ivory-colored cloak from her shoulders, draped it over his arm with his own. She was a tiny thing; she could fit right beneath Mieka’s chin. Twisted in the bronze-gold hair tumbling down her back was a blue-violet silk scarf, a match for the neckband tied at Mieka’s collar.

“Quill!” he called suddenly, voice high with excitement. “I want you to meet someone!”

The girl turned, and met Cade’s eyes, and smiled. There was no sudden curiosity, no puzzlement or shock or indignation at what he knew must be scrawled all over his face. What he felt didn’t matter.
He
didn’t matter. The smile curved sweetly on her mouth that was soft and innocent as a child’s, and in her eyes was triumph and greedy possession as she looked at Mieka.

From within the High Chapel came the rippling notes of Alaen Blackpath’s lute. The Windthistles jostled through the entry, and Rafe’s parents rushed to kiss him and Crisiant, and Cade glimpsed Mieka yanking open the doors.

This life, and none other?

Any
life rather than this one.

Places

Gallantrybanks
  capital city, seat of government; sometimes abbreviated as Gallytown; a Gallybanker is a native of the capital

Amberwall Square

Beekbacks Lane

Chaffer Stroll
  section of Beekbacks where the prostitutes walk

Criddow Close
  location of Blye’s glassworks

Downstreet
  tavern

Kiral Kellari
  upscale tavern, with a real stage

Marketty Round

Narbacy Street

The Plume
  waterfall near Waterknot Street

Redpebble Square
  street address of the Silversun house

Spillwater
  district in Gallantrybanks

Tullyhowe Lane

Waterknot Street
  ritzy area of Gallantrybanks

Wistly Hall
  the Windthistle home

The Winterly Circuit

Bexmarket
  rough industrial town

Castle Biding
  site of the major chartered fair

Castle Eyot
  country residence of Lord Rolon Piercehand

Clackerly Minster
  even rougher industrial town

Coldkettle Castle

Dolven Wold

Frimham
  seaside resort town

Lilyleaf
  resort town with mineral baths

New Halt
  roughest industrial town of all, and proud of it

Scatterseed

Seekhaven
  the royal family’s main country residence; site of Trials

Shollop
  university town

Sidlowe

Stiddolfe
  university town

Other Places

Cloffin Crossriver

Cranking Vale

Culch Minster
  combination monastery and prison

The Flood
  strait between the Kingdom and the Continent

Frannitch
  country directly across the Flood

Gowerion
  village outside Gallantrybanks

The Islands

Pennynine Mountains

Spoonshiner River

Tincted Downs

Vasty Moor

Westercountry

Terms

backs
  street behind buildings

bantling
  infant

becast
  bespell

beek
  to bask in the sun or before a fire

beholden
  thank you

bellytimber
  hearty, nourishing food

beseek
  beseech

bespoken
  betrothed

bind
  another word for a spell; also binding

blashed
  weak or watered down

blatteroon
  person who won’t shut up; constant talker

bodge
  to fix something badly

bonding
  the connection between an Elf and his or her beloved

bonelock
  arthritis

bothy
  hut for unmarried workmen; here, university dormitories

breedbate
  someone who likes to start arguments or stir up quarrels

broadsheet
  newspaper

chafferer
  a vendor who enjoys bantering while making a sale

chankings
  food you spit out

chapel
  generic for a church

Chapel
  specific church, or the religion itself

chavish
  the sound of many people chattering at once

cheveril
  kid leather

chirr
  vibrating, high-pitched trilling

chirurgeon
  surgeon

Circuit
  set round of venues for traveling players; includes theaters, castles, town halls, guild halls, etc.; the three levels are Winterly, Ducal, and Royal

cloffin
  to sit idly by the fire

cogger
  a charming trickster

collifobble
  to talk secretly

Colvado
  a type of apple brandy

corn-plaits
  stick figures made of corn stalks

cranking
  winding

cribble
  sort out

criddow
  someone broken or bowed down by age, sickness, poverty, or grief

croodle
  to coo like a dove

culch
  rubbish or refuse of every variety

cullion
  rude, disagreeable, mean-spirited person

downdrins
  an afternoon drinking session

Elf-light
  small flame conjured by persons with Fire Elf ancestry; also the light used in streetlamps

eyot
  a small island, especially one found in a river

fettler
  one who puts things in order

firepocket
  portable brazier, sometimes magically stoked

flirt-gill
  a light woman

flite
  to quarrel or brawl in words

fliting
  an exchange of invective, abuse, or mockery, especially one in verse set forth between two poets

flyndrig
  an impudent or deceiving woman

fribbler
  foolish, fussy man

fritlag
  a worthless, good-for-nothing man

frustle
  shake out and exhibit plumage

gallantry bank
  field where there used to be a gallows

ginnel
  a narrow passage between buildings

gleet
  slimy, sludgy, greasy filth

glisk
  subtle sensation; a slight touch of pleasure or a twinge of pain that penetrates the soul and passes quickly away

grassed
  informed upon; ratted out

grinagog
  stupid, gaping grin

hire-hack
  small carriage for hire

Huszar
  mercenary cavalry from the Continent

kag
  the stump of a broken tooth; in this, mutilated Elfen ears

Longseer
  someone who can view events at great distances

minster
  monastery/nunnery

miscreate
  illegitimate

nayword
  catchphrase, byword

nestcock
  househusband

pillock
  idiot; fool

pingle
  to fiddle with one’s food, showing little interest or appetite

playlet
  sequence of two or three short scenes; usually lasts fifteen minutes to half an hour

Presence Lamps
  lit outside the chapel or minster to signify the presence of the Lord and Lady, and of their priests, within

prickmedainty
  man or woman compulsively fastidious about dress, appearance, and manners

quidam
  an obscure somebody somewhere

quiddle
  to dawdle or procrastinate in carrying out one’s duty

rumbullion
  old word for rum

sapskull
  idiot

scroyle
  a scabby fellow

scuffled
  scrambled

smatchet
  impudent, contemptible child

snarge
  a person no one likes; a total jerk

sparge
  to make moist by sprinkling

stroll
  street where prostitutes parade

strutty
  boastful, conceited