Window Wall (53 page)

Rather than laugh, Vered looked down, bit his lip, then said, “That’s something else about them, y’know. They have no heartbeat—because they have no hearts.”

Little as he knew of even basic anatomy, Cade was aware that this was impossible. “Anything living has to have a heart to pump blood.”

“Who said they were
alive
?” Vered stepped back and bumped into a wall. “Beholden, mate. Now it’s time to go let Rauel win, like I intended all along.” With a wink, he added, “He’d be
so
disappointed if I didn’t fight!”

Cade watched him thread his way through the crowd to his partner. Yes, Vered would fight. But against the Archduke, how could he win?

Cade had won. He had told Cyed Henick what to do, and what
not
to do, and been …
obeyed
wasn’t the word for it, and it didn’t really feel like winning, but he reckoned that it was probably as close as he’d ever get.

And anyway, he told himself, what was the risk to the Shadowshapers if Vered finished his play and the Archduke didn’t like it? Drevan Wordturner, whose life was under the man’s direct control, was a coward, a quailer, and a quakebuttock. Pleased with the alliteration, he grinned and sipped a glass of bubbly white wine.

Romuald Needler was coming towards Cade, looking both grateful and worried. “Beholden to you for separating them. It’s been a nervous few weeks, I can tell you.”

“Things not going well out on their own?”

“Oh, no, not that. It’s been most gratifying. And I’ve been there to keep them from each other’s throats.” He shook his head. “Ludicrous, that two people who care for each other that much can fight like wyvern and dragon over a sheep carcass. One day, one or the other of them will say something unforgivable, though, and I won’t be there to settle them down, and I don’t know what will happen after.”

“They work together too well to let things get that far,” Cade soothed. “I’ve been hearing all afternoon and evening about the show on the bridge. Through a bower of trees, was it? All of them dripping jewels and filled with songbirds?”

“And bells. Tuned precisely by Alaen Blackpath—and I don’t like to think about what a time Sakary had keeping him sober long enough to do it.” Needler looked more depressed than ever. After a moment, though, he seemed to rouse himself to a cheerier reply. “While everyone applauded, the King was heard to say to the Queen that he hadn’t known people liked him so much.” He looked up as a single warning note sounded from a horn. “That’s the start. You’ll be following Black Lightning, and the Shadowshapers will follow you.” A smile tried to work free of his gloom. “It’s not a position they relish, having come so very close to it at the last Trials.”

“What?”

“You didn’t know? A few scant points separated you. Next year I feel it might well have been a tie, or perhaps you would have won outright. I’m not saying that simply because there won’t be any more Trials performances for them, and my surmise can’t be tested. It’s the truth.”

“Beholden,” Cade managed.

Needler glanced out over the packed tiring room—easy enough for him, topping every man there, even Cade, by a head. “There’s Chattim waving at me. I’d best go. Luck to Touchstone.”

“And to the Shadowshapers.”

Black Lightning performed their “Open Things” or whatever it was called, with the naughty bits excised. No opening a virgin girl’s legs, for instance. Cade hadn’t really thought they’d have the balls to do “The Lost Ones.” He’d heard they were working on something new, something to do with a staircase, with every step an advancement towards knowledge and righteousness. He presumed it involved kicking Gnomes and Trolls and Pikseys and Goblins out of the way during the climb.

Touchstone worked free of the tiring room and into a side hall, dodging a sudden influx of servants bearing fresh food and drinks, then stepped onto the stage behind the curtains to set up while Black Lightning was still packing their gear. Cade helped Mieka with the glass baskets and frames, then lugged his lectern to its proper place onstage. They would do the good old “Dragon” tonight because the flunky who’d brought the formal command, sealed and beribboned like a Trials invitation, had said flat-out that the King wanted to see it. By now they could have done it in their sleep.

It went well. Mieka’s dragon wasn’t the biggest he’d ever done, but it was big enough in the high-ceilinged theater, snarling and growling and breathing fire. Rafe was the master of subtlety, as ever. Jeska’s Prince, wearing the Royal colors tonight, was elegantly weary as he said, “Let them sing not that I was mindlessly brave, but that I was frightened and overcame my fear.
That
is the legacy I leave them, the same, I see now, that my fathers left to me. The overcoming is what fashions a man into a prince, and a prince into a king.” And because he was playing to a king, he paused at this point and bowed deeply to the man in the center of the front row.

When it was over, and the magic had faded, Mieka and Rafe shattered a couple of withies (well out of range of the audience). Touchstone met center stage to bow. Evidently it
was
the King’s favorite play; he actually got to his feet to applaud. Cade wondered idly what fears Meredan had had to overcome—a renewal of the war, perhaps, that his father had fought? Or maybe, he thought, maybe the peace after a brutal war presented difficulties all its own. A war was, after all, fairly direct, and with a sure ending: You won or you lost. But what to do after, even if you won? Politics and governance bored Cayden witless, but he began to think that there was something courageous that he’d never before considered in the management and preservation of something so delicate and complex as peace.

He was still thinking about it as he carried nested glass baskets into the crowded little hallway leading to the tiring room. He smiled at the Shadowshapers as they went past, a bit tardy in setting up their own equipment. Mieka was just ahead of him, counting withies because he hadn’t had time when gathering them up onstage. All at once he stopped, and Cade bumped into him.

“What the fuck is this?” Mieka exclaimed, pulling a withie from the velvet pouch. “This isn’t one of ours, Quill—”

Cade set the crate on a side table, pushing aside a huge ceramic bowl of roses, and took the withie in his hand. No, not one of theirs—it was of a pale apple-green color Blye didn’t use. He squinted at the crimp end, but it was blank.

“It was Pirro, it had to be,” Mieka spat. “We were all together out there, them gathering their things and us setting up—stupid git! Can’t even keep track of his own withies! And twice with the same fucking trick!”

“This isn’t one of theirs, Mieka. No hallmark. They use Splithook.”

He looked at Mieka, and Mieka looked at him, and in that instant, they both knew the danger they were in.

Cade’s eye lit on the bowl of roses. Still holding the withie in one hand, he dumped the bowl over, spilling flowers and water. He was about to put the withie on the table and cover it with the bowl—it was all he could think of to contain a nasty spell, realizing the stupidity of it all along—when the sound of breaking glass made him flinch. Mieka had upended a crate. The largest of Blye’s beautiful glass baskets had cracked onto the floor.

“In here!” Mieka cried.

He almost made it. The withie was inside the magically cushioned crate and his hand was almost clear when the glass twig shattered to splinters.

“
… only if he wakes and there’s pain,” someone said. The low, masculine voice had a ring of authority. “The salve on his hand should take care of most of it, but a little more of this won’t hurt him.”

“I understand.”

What was Miriuzca doing here?

Where was
here
?

“Are you quite, quite certain there’s no other damage?”

And—Megs?

“His hand is still attached to the rest of him,” the physicker said. “I’ll know more in a few days. But mostly it’s cuts and burns, nothing very deep. All the splinters have been removed. No, I’d say he’ll be just fine, Your Ladyship.”

“But it was done with magic.”

Well, of course it had been done with magic. He could have told her that. Pirro’s magic, Thierin’s magic—they’d finally got him, the grimy bastards—pretending admiration, pretending to be Mieka’s friend—

“Mieka!”

“Hush now, Cayden, it’s all right.” Miriuzca again, a rustle of silk and a scent of lilies. She’d changed her perfume. “Mieka is just fine. No glass touched him at all.”

He managed to get his eyes open. To his right were two elegantly gowned women—the Princess and Lady Megs—and down at the foot of the bed was a green-robed physicker packing up his case. The bedchamber had blue forget-me-nevers painted on the white windowframes, and for a single shocked moment he thought he was lying on Princess Miriuzca’s own bed. But then he saw the hangings, turquoise silk decorated with quiverfuls of black arrows, and realized he was in the bedchamber and the bed belonging to Lady Megs.

“Now, don’t you dare try to get up, you silly man.”

This woman’s voice came from his left, and he turned his head to find Lady Vrennerie standing there, and her husband right beside her.

Lord Eastkeeping smiled at him. “I had a singularly hellish time getting you up here—whoever gave you permission to grow your legs so long?—so do us all a favor and stay here a while, won’t you?”

“Sorry,” Cade mumbled.

“Well, you were in shock, I should think. But I really do wish you hadn’t fought me quite so hard.” He rubbed his chin.

“Don’t be such a baby,” his wife chided. “You should learn to duck faster, like Rafe did. Now, Cade, I know you’re full of thorn right now, but do try to listen and understand. Everyone else is just fine. The physicker says that your hand is scratched and scraped, but none of the cuts were deep enough to damage the muscles or anything. You’ll be all wrapped up for a fortnight or so, but you’ll heal very nicely.”

“Jeska,” said Kellin Eastkeeping, “commanded a carriage from the Royal stables. He should be back soon with your Mistress Mirdley. She’ll tell you exactly what Vren just told you, so don’t worry.”

He nodded because it seemed the thing to do. Whatever thorn he was full of, it wasn’t the few drops of bluethorn he’d used before the performance. This was something floaty and misty that made his eyes want to cross. But there was no pain, and considering the state his hand must be in, he was very grateful.

“Hells,” he muttered. “That’s two Shabbyshappers—I mean, Shadowshapies—shows I’ve missed in one day.”

Megs laughed and patted his good hand. “I’ll tell them you said so.”

“Are you sure he’ll be all right?” Miriuzca asked the physicker.

“Perfectly sure, and perfectly all right. Some scarring. But nothing that will impede the use of his hand.”

His right hand. The one he wrote with. Should it be damaged after all … should the physicker be wrong, or lying to make him feel better before somebody broke the bad news in a day or two … He turned his face away and closed his eyes, wishing that this thorn, whatever it was, would have the decency to do something about his fear. The others present in the room had the decency to withdraw a little and leave him to what they must be assuming was sleep. Only Megs was still beside him. He could smell her perfume, something that made him picture a forest glen full of flowers and berry bushes.

When Mistress Mirdley arrived, she reassured him that the physicker had been right. With her came Mieka, Rafe, and Jeska, none of them reassured about his condition until they saw him for themselves. Cade wondered idly how they’d been kept out of the room thus far, then reflected that command of the Palace Guard might be useful. Rafe searched his eyes, then nodded curtly before his expression settled into seething rage; Jeska’s worry became simple relief. But Mieka came in looking both angry and guilty, and stayed that way, and Cade knew why.

“Wasn’t your fault,” he managed to say. The thorn was well and truly in his veins by now, and it was difficult to stay awake. “Don’t even think it.”

“I shoulda known, Quill.”

“Me, too.” Rousing himself once more, he said, “Who knew they’d try the same thing twice on the same day?”

“Who tried what?” Miriuzca asked.

“Nothing. Nobody,” Mieka said, and from what Cade could see of her face as his eyes tried to cross again, she knew the Elf was lying.

“All right, then,” Mistress Mirdley said as she rewrapped Cade’s hand after applying a salve of her own. “That’s enough. Out, all of you.” Spoken as peremptorily as if they were all in her kitchen at Redpebble. “It’s time for this clumsy idiot to get some sleep.”

The physicker was already gone, ushered out earlier by Lady Megs. Clever girl; he would only have bristled at Mistress Mirdley’s presence, and she would have bristled right back, and they would have argued over him just for the sake of asserting authority. Jeska left, and then Rafe, with Lord and Lady Eastkeeping. Mistress Mirdley inspected the paper twist of thorn left by the physicker, grunted reluctant agreement with the choice, and ended by saying, “A fine lot of trouble you’ll go to, only to skive off helping with the dishes.”