Window Wall (23 page)

He told himself he’d keep his eyes and ears open for signs of it from now on. Though it was true that even in Gallybanks there were people who turned their faces away when a weathering witch passed by, and shopkeepers who were obviously relieved when a Gnome paid for his purchases and departed, intolerance was considered by most people to be dishonorable.

Suddenly he tried to sit up, forgetting that he was in a hammock. Swaying dangerously close to one of the witching spheres that had been a gift from Rafe’s parents (handed down in the family for generations, or they would of course have gone to Blye to craft them), he managed to turn onto his side. The others glanced over.

“Mieka,” he said, “that night in Gowerion, when we did ‘Silver Mine’—how did you know they’d react the way they did? We were on the Archduke’s old lands, and everybody’d either been in the war or knew someone who had, but how—damn it!” An incautious movement of emphasis set him to swinging again. Rafe unfolded himself from his chair and helped put him right.

“Go on,” the fettler said. “But I think I can guess what you’re getting at. Why was it, with all the damage that magic had done in the war and with all the people who died, especially there on the Archduke’s former lands, whyfor didn’t those people treat magical folk as badly as Prickspur and his ilk do? After all, this whole area is near to Dolven Wold, and was once owned by the Henick family, right? So why is there such a difference in attitude?”

Mieka looked from one to the other of them, sighed his exasperation, and returned his attention to his cards. “How the bloody Hells should I know?” he said, and played a double pair atop Jeska’s single.

Rafe sat down again. “I’d be willing to bet that the chirurgeons around here do a brisk business in kagging ears too obviously Elfen, and even though we’ve full houses at all our shows, there’s a significant portion of the population that steers clear of theater because of the magic.”

“Is it only because Gowerion is so much closer to Gallybanks?” Jeska asked. “I mean,
here
, they can get away with being intolerant.”

“Could be,” Cade mused. “Could be. Or mayhap there really are fewer of us in the north than in the south.”

“Or it might be,” Mieka said, “that they like the Archduke less here, or there’s more of the sort like Jeska’s grandsire—brought over from the Continent to fight, like Prickspur’s father or whatever it was. Rafcadion, old thing, are you going to play that set of roses in your hand, or wait for them to take root?”

That was the end of the conversation and the speculation as far as they were concerned, but Cade worried it over in his mind until at length he went to sleep.

The next day they left the extra horse behind, and by the next morning they were at Sidlowe. Cade didn’t remember a thing about those few days. But on the last, just as they were packing up to leave the inn and get a good start for Scatterseed, Mieka received a letter.

He said nothing about it until they were in the wagon. Clouds were threatening, and Yazz’s consultation with a local weathering witch informed him that the weather wouldn’t hold beyond tomorrow afternoon. Cade was just sorting through the books he’d brought along, wishing he’d made a few selections that were guaranteed to send him to sleep rather than perk up his ever-overactive brain, when Mieka settled himself at the table with a decided air and said, “Somebody has to write to Fairwalk.”

The letter was from Jinsie. In it, she wrote that Jez was healing very nicely and was determined that the cane would become more of an elegant accessory, as Mieka’s wife had suggested, than a needed prop for his bad leg. All the children were thriving. Jindra and her mother had returned to Hilldrop Crescent, but not before Jindra had sewn another little pillow for her uncle’s leg, all on her own, without sticking herself with the needle even once. Tavier had taken up the lute, Jorie had made off with a ream of the best paper to fold into houses and castles for a school project, and Cilka and Petrinka were being pursued by the same boy. (Neither of them liked him.) King Meredan and Queen Roshien had started off on their progress to the acclaim of most of Gallantrybanks, who had turned up to see them off. Prince Ashgar was now said to be in charge, but rumor had it that Princess Miriuzca was present at more meetings of ministers and the like than her husband was. The Archduke and Archduchess were at Threne, presumably cuddling their new little son. The weather was brutally hot, the Gally River was sluggish and stinky, and the bank had turned down Jinsie’s request for money.

Here Mieka paused in his reading aloud to say, “I don’t understand it. We do this all the time. I leave a note, she takes it to the bank, and the money goes to Ginnel House. But the bank won’t honor the note. And what’s more, they won’t say why.”

“And you think Fairwalk has something to do with it?” Jeska asked.

“He handles the money, doesn’t he? Whatever we get paid goes to him, and he divvies it up. It’s the same bank he uses—same one we’ve all used for years now.”

“You must’ve worded the note wrong or something.”

“I wrote for a third time what I’ve been writing for two years,” Mieka said flatly.

Cade was surprised, and suspected he oughtn’t to have been. That little rainy-day outing to Ginnel House had evidently made an even deeper impression on Mieka than Cade had dared to hope. He could still see the Elf, curled into a corner of the hire-hack, weeping helplessly for those battered women and bruised children and, it must be admitted, for himself. For shame.

“Write to Fairwalk, then,” he said. “Let him know the trouble. I’m sure he’ll fix it.”

“Hmm.” Mieka folded the letter and sat back in his chair. “Yeh, all right. But this isn’t the first oddity, y’know. In Lilyleaf earlier this year, I ran short on cash and went to the bank there that acts for our own bank, and they made me wait two whole days.”

“Maybe they’re not theatergoers, and didn’t know Who You Are,” Rafe said, his voice supplying the capital letters.

Mieka made a face at him. “
Everybody
knows Who We Are,” he retorted.

It was, perhaps, an indication of how seriously Mieka took his self-assumed obligation to Ginnel House that it was not the incident in Lilyleaf but the difficulty in Gallantrybanks that had made him broach the subject. He was growing up. Some, anyway.

Cade had every reason to doubt that two days into their stay at Scatterseed.

An interesting and often gratifying (personally as well as professionally) result of women’s attendance at the theater was that no longer was the admiration of young ladies confined to the placards advertising a group’s performance. There was always a collection of them at the artists entrance, and Touchstone’s wagon was more often than not greeted by a dozen or so girls (if the arrival was anytime before dark). The more mature, and presumably more dignified, ladies contented themselves with sending notes, bottles of wine, and occasionally an invitation to sup (at home, with their husbands, for the less adventurous; at a discreet local tavern, alone, for the daring). The young and giggly thought themselves frightfully bold by gathering in groups to invade the tiring room after the show. Mostly they were intercepted by the chucker-out before they could outrage their modesty and infuriate their parents by consorting with theater players. Cade and Mieka were known to take a personal interest that often led to a private encounter. Rafe smiled and flirted and went to his own bed alone. It was Jeska who was in demand, and in agonies, for his popularity among females had only increased with the years, and dalliances in haylofts were definitely a thing of the past—dalliances anywhere, in fact, for as much as he appreciated girls, he loved his wife more.

Every so often the after-performance drinks and relaxation got interrupted by a respectable young woman with her father or elder brother in tow. So it happened that second night in Scatterseed.

It was clear from the first moment of the pair’s arrival that Darling Papa hadn’t the least wish to be there. His daughter, aged about twenty-two and dressed in the more ridiculous excesses of the current fashion, had obviously pestered him into escorting her to Touchstone’s performance. Darling Papa was a big, broad, bluff country gentleman, uncomfortable in his velvet jacket and fine polished shoes, much happier in a homespun woolen shirt and stout boots. He suffered through introductions and then addressed Cayden with a scowl.

“Don’t know what I’m doin’ here, but for the nagging of this filly.” He nodded at his daughter, who had fixed her large brown eyes on Mieka. “Good show, I s’pose. Not my glass of ale.”

“I quite understand,” Cade soothed. Ordinarily he would have curled his lip and left the tiring room, or told someone to get these people out, but the look in the girl’s eyes amused him as she slowly backed Mieka towards a corner. “Not really a profession for grown men,” he went on, correctly judging the man’s views on theater. “But the pay’s decent, and one gets to travel.”

“Load of poofters,” growled Himself, then coughed and colored up, and blustered on, “Not but what you don’t get a good experience of the whole country, what? Interesting, all the travel. Glad to have you here, in fact. My girl’s Namingday present, you see. Hasn’t clapped her trap shut about it since you placed First Flight and not those others. What’s their names? Shifty-shins?”

“Shadowshapers,” Rafe supplied. “I hope your very charming daughter had a very charming evening. Won’t you have a drink, sir?”

“I wouldn’t mind one. Decent of you, boy.” He winked, perking up. “Need it in this line, do you? All these silly fillies lolloping about.” Rafe led him over to the table where wine, ale, and beer were on offer. Jeska wandered after them, keeping an eye on Mieka and the girl, and Cade heard him ask, in his best Lord Currycomb voice (the one he used when the rain washed the black horse gray), “And shall we see you at the races down in Gallybanks this year, sir?”

Meantime, the girl’s acquaintance with Mieka was progressing famously. The Elf had his back to the wall, a chair on one side of him, a table on the other, and the girl right in front of him. He was still smiling, but something a trifle desperate had seized up his face. Cade ambled towards them, sipping at a glass of ale.

“—the very first time I ever saw a placard,” the girl was breathing huskily. “All my friends are wild for Jeska or Rafe, but I—”

“What about me?” Cade interrupted, making a face of piteous hurt.

Without looking over her shoulder at him, she said, “Sindalee thinks you’re splendid. She’ll be here tomorrow night. But right now—” Her fingers approached, darted back, stole like little white snakes towards Mieka’s face. “—
I’m
here right now,” she whispered.

“Your father—” Mieka began.

“Give him enough to drink and he won’t notice we’ve gone.” She leaned in, head tilting up, lips parting. “I bribed the manager to let us have his private room. Just the two of us.”

Cade smiled pleasantly at Mieka. Mieka gulped. Then, with fresh and awful cunning lighting those eyes, he reached around the girl and hauled Cade to him, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him full on the mouth.

The girl giggled. “The
three
of us, then? It hadn’t occurred to me, but—sounds wonderful!”

Mieka was saucer-eyed. Another joke that hadn’t worked out as planned. Cade shook his brains loose and said, “I’m sorry, truly I am, but—Mieka and I—well, I’m sure you understand.” He put an arm around Mieka’s shoulders and felt him snuggle close. “Isn’t he just the most adorable little thing?” Cade went on. “I feel for you, my dear girl, I really do. Irresistible, that’s what he certainly is.”

“You can pretend I’m your wife,” she coaxed. “The way you must do at home in Gallantrybanks or Hilldrop Crescent.”

Cade almost choked.

“Oh, nothing of the kind,” Mieka piped up. “At home, I’m all hers. But when we’re out on the road …” He wriggled closer.

Cade took his cue. “Away from home, he’s all mine. Aren’t you, lumpling?”

“Oh.” She sighed, disappointed. “Well, all right, then. I must say, you
are
terribly cute together.” Another giggle. “I’ll have to warn Sindalee!”

Once she and her father were gone, Mieka fell into the nearby chair, laughing himself silly. Rafe was right beside Cayden with a drink, which he tossed back in three long swallows.

“The things I do for you,” he accused the Elf.

“Regretting the delicious Sindalee?” Jeska asked.

“Poor Quill!” Mieka accepted the ale Jeska proffered, drank, then smacked his lips and grinned up at Cade.

“You’ve ruined his bed-sport for tomorrow night,” Rafe observed. “I trust you’re willing to provide proper consolation.”

Mieka looked startled for just an instant, then pretended to inspect Cade, head to toes. “Nah,” he said at last. “He’d never survive me.”

Cade arched his brows. Then he said, “Your pardon, old friend,” and took Rafe’s glass. More satisfying if full, but there was quite enough in it to leave Mieka nicely soaked, hairline to collar.

M
aking Prickspur finally pay for refusing to allow Touchstone—or, more accurately, Mieka—into his establishment that first Winterly Circuit was a deeply satisfying thing. But the delights of retribution reminded Mieka that further retributions were certainly in the offing. Rafe had yet to retaliate for the incident with the beard. The incident with the beard had been retaliation for the incident of the missing clothes in Lilyleaf. Farther back than that, Mieka could not follow the back-and-forth of the pranks. Whoever had started it (most likely himself, he had to admit), it was by no means finished. It was, after all, a matter of honor—and of Rafe’s insufferable pride in his beard.