Window Wall (54 page)

Miriuzca stared and giggled. Lady Megs grinned. Cade was rather put out. Wasn’t there a single woman in the world who cared about him enough to keep on worrying even when worry was deemed unnecessary?

When the Trollwife had gone, escorted by Mieka, Miriuzca stayed a few minutes longer before trading glances with Megs and saying, “I’d best return to the banquet. You’re in excellent care here, Cayden. Sleep well.”

“But—” He squinted up at Megs. “You don’t have to stay.” This struck him as silly; it was her room. “I mean, you stay, I can go home—”

“Not a bit of it,” she said briskly. “Lie back, close your eyes, and sleep.”

He did.

The next thing he knew, someone was groaning softly. Him. His head hurt and his hand felt as if it were on fire.

“Hush,” she said.

She had lit a candle, and by its light was very competently preparing a glass thorn.

“Works funny … on me,” he slurred. “Auntie Brishen says so.”

“Whoever she is, she’s not here. And this will work just fine. Both the physicker and your Mistress Mirdley said so.”

She set the glass aside. She pulled back the counterpane but didn’t roll up his sleeve. Instead, she unbuttoned his collar and then his shirt and slid it off his shoulders. He had no strength to protest or to push her away, and he blushed, but she was so matter-of-fact about it that he was ashamed of himself for thinking what he wasn’t even really certain he’d been thinking. He was naught but a player on a stage, despite some noble names in his ancestry, and she was rich and important, and Mindrising was a
very
old name, one of the oldest, like Eastkeeping, indicating someone trusted to hold secure the borders of the Kingdom, and she was undoubtedly destined for some rich and handsome and wellborn man, not the likes of him—naught but a skint, scrawny-chested, big-nosed, thorn-pricking tregetour—

As he felt the little sting of thorn on his neck, he heard himself ask, “D’you still wanna be Steward?”

She smiled and rubbed some sort of cream into his neck, and then into the marks on his arms. “Of course. I’ve been working at it. Not lessons, exactly, but advice and a tip here and there from the ones who’re so old that they’re grateful for any attention from a young woman, pretty or not.”

“You’re pretty,” he said dreamily. This was truly excellent thorn. He’d have to find out exactly what it was. “It’d help if you’d stop wearing turquoise. Not your color.”

“No? Mayhap not.” She sat back, looking him over. “You’re feeling that, I take it.”

“Mmm. Good thorn.” He wriggled luxuriously into the pillows. “Glad you’re not dead. You an’ Rosish … Roshlish …”

“Oh, yes, it’s good thorn, all right.” There was laughter in her voice. “And I’m glad I’m not dead, too. Whatever you’re talking about. Go back to sleep.”

“Mmm … not yet.”

Auntie Brishen was right. Thorn didn’t do to him what it did for other people. All at once he was wide awake. Neither his hand nor his head hurt. He was very glad she was alive, and very glad he was alive, too.

Yes, alive in a pretty girl’s bed, and the girl herself was sitting next to him on that bed, and it was late at night in the soft glow of a candle that put flashes of gold into her deep green eyes, and he wouldn’t have been mortal if he hadn’t coaxed her into his arms and kissed her.

Oh yes, very much alive, and very grateful that one hand was still in perfect working order. Within a very few minutes, she was grateful, too.

* * *

“
W
hat joy you must feel, to have kept Cayden Silversun happy!”

“Am I to understand that you don’t approve?”

“Your Grace will, or perhaps will not, forgive me for saying that this was an opportunity that was … how shall I phrase it?
Bungled.
”

“You appear to be drunk.”

“I have been toasting His Majesty’s twenty-five years on the throne. It’s the duty of everyone in Albeyn over the age of twelve to get at least a little drunk tonight. How could you have allowed Cayden to—?”

“To what? Tell me, great Sagemaster! Should I have said I didn’t believe him? We know what he is—”

“Yes, and now that’s out in the open. We know, and it is acknowledged that we know—and he will be a thousand times more alert to any hint of interference. Speaking of which, those imbecilic young men await us at Great Welkin.”

“Let them wait.”

“Of all the monumental stupidities—slipping that charged withie into Touchstone’s—may I ask why Your Grace is laughing?”

“There were two withies. One at their display for the King, and one tonight. Neither had anything to do with Black Lightning.”

“And this amuses you?”

“You don’t honestly think they’d disobey my orders about interfering with Touchstone again? They have too much to gain tonight to indulge in such foolishness. Knottinger and Seamark are far from being fools. Oh, they’re greedy, and very young, but Spangler is a thorn-thrall who does what they tell him, and the fettler—I can never recall his name—”

“Crowkeeper.”

“He knows where his advantage lies. No, it wasn’t Black Lightning.”

“Then who?”

“My dear Master Emmot, I cannot describe how gratifying it is to know something that you do not. Great crushes of people in both locations, yes? No telling who might be there, sliding a withie into an unguarded velvet pouch. The first was of the sort that garbles magic. Had it gone undetected, the other withies would have produced effects that were not exactly intended.”

“Which would be blamed on the Elf and his drink and his thorn. Yes, I see. But there was never any chance that Cayden wouldn’t recognize something not of Blye Windthistle’s making.”

“And that ought to tell you something about the intellectual powers of the person who arranged it.”

“What of the second withie? The one that shattered in Cayden’s hand tonight?”

“Ah. Now we get to the amusing part. Deeply as she now despises magic, or purports to, my cousin the Princess Iamina is not above using it. And—”

“Iamina?”

“She really
is
quite monumentally stupid, you know. Never notices the faces around her unless they belong to handsome young men. A boy dressed in her livery could be anyone in Albeyn, employed by anyone in Albeyn.”

“I know that you have her watched, but I never thought—I mean, her connection with Tregrefin Ilesko was obvious, but—”

“Who do you think told him about the Good Brother who bespelled the withie tossed into Piercehand’s Gallery? I don’t know why she chose Touchstone for another little demonstration of how dangerous magic is. Perhaps there’s a private grievance. It was a puny spell, the Good Brother having little talent to begin with and, it seems, no desire to slaughter everyone in the King’s Play house.”

“So it harmed nothing but Cayden’s hand.”

“The Brother lacks the true spirit of the thing—which reminds me it might be that Iamina targeted Touchstone because it was Silversun’s grandmother who first proposed using withies in that way. Now,
there
was a woman who understood magic.”

“How did you know that neither withie would be any real danger?”

“I counted on them to discover it as they discovered the first. But, as I say—little talent, and undoubtedly a rather shaky command of what he does know. But all that is beside the point. I want to know what you think I ought to have done about Silversun’s vision. Allowed things to go forward to the deaths of Miriuzca and her children? He lied to me about the children. When a man looks you straight in the eyes, it is because he is confident that he can control the expression in his eyes and doesn’t want you to notice the rest of his face.”

“A lesson of mine that you learned and he evidently did not.”

“And what lesson of yours would have taught me how to take the best advantage of what he told me that was true? For one thing, it offends me greatly that this strutting little Tregrefin sought to bring his notions of proper religious devotion to Albeyn in the first place. Let him preach in his own country. This one is mine.”

“Not yet. Your Grace will forgive me for pointing that out.”

“You’re lucky I’m in a forgiving mood. No, I could do nothing but what I did. We both know what it must have cost Silversun to conclude that I was the only person he could go to. The only person with access and power who would believe what he had to say. He no more wanted to admit that he knows that I know than I wanted to admit it to him myself. I tested him, you know. Setting up a plan, commissioning the lectern—and damned if he didn’t know within a day!”

“It happens like that sometimes. Where’s that wine bottle? Ah. He was probably surprised that you didn’t think up something that would devolve all credit onto yourself.”

“Probably.”

“Did you cause things to happen as they did to earn credit with
him
? If so, you will be disappointed.”

“In gathering power, it is best to persuade others that those who are their enemies are also your enemies, for the simple fact that they are
other.
Killing these enemies is not murder but merely ridding the world of vermin. If your enemies are seen as not quite Human, then they may be slaughtered in the way men slaughter deer or elk or any other prey.”

“That much I understand, beholden to Your Grace. The Tregrefin was Cayden’s enemy because he was a threat to the Princess and her children. He was your enemy because—why? His religion offended you?”

“He would have overset some very important plans, as you well know, had he succeeded. By not killing him, I have shown Silversun what he will believe is mercy—”

“He will see it for what it is: self-interest.”

“Yet he will also see that whereas he had no power to retaliate against me if I
had
ordered the Tregrefin’s death, I honored our agreement. It is vital to convince the people you will rule that you yourself are a cut above the merely Human. That you have qualities of wisdom and strength, of cunning and leadership, beyond those of the ordinary man.”

“Don’t refer to him as
ordinary.
He’s not. He never could be.”

“That’s one of his weaknesses. He
wants
to be, in many ways, and knows he is not, and the pull of those against each other is a constant torment to him. As for his other weaknesses … you never did tell me how your conversation with the Elf went.”

“Not much of a conversation. I had a little fun with him, that’s all. He was thorned, of course. I gather he is thorned from almost the moment he wakes up until he pricks the red variety so that he can sleep at night. He’s a pretty thing, certainly, with those eyes and that face. But that won’t last.”

“Another far-from-ordinary man. Still, consider all those thousands who
are
ordinary. They have no wish to be ruled by one such as themselves. Every man knows his fellows to be stupid and venal, selfish and vain, lacking intelligence—while at the same time he considers
himself
to be unlike his neighbors, and congratulates himself on how smart he is to recognize their flaws and not share them. Secretly, though, he knows he hasn’t the education, the noble bloodlines, the money—whatever he believes to be necessary in a ruler. His real desire is to look up to a man smarter, braver, stronger, shrewder than he. A superior man.”

“A word of caution, Your Grace. Should anyone present himself as that man, these ordinary men will seek to kill him.”

“But present yourself as
unwillingly
being that man—convince those you wish to rule that you are just like them but for this accident of nature, this random gift of gifts beyond their own that you must use, having seen the suffering all around you—present yourself as better but not superior to these ordinary men, and they will smile and cheer and follow you.”

“And then, because you are indeed superior, you may treat all other men, both your enemies and those you rule, as inferiors. In short, as prey.”

“Exactly.”

“Which doesn’t do anything to negate the fact that now you owe Silversun a debt.”

“Which I will honor. I did try, you know. Touchstone is in financial difficulties. They refused.”

“You should have just paid everything off without telling them. You could have found out to whom they owe what sums, and—”

“Young men have their pride, Emmot. Besides, this way is better. Can you imagine how hard they’ll have to work for the next year? Can you imagine that they will be able to do that work without thorn?”

“Hmm. A good point. Pun intended.”

“So you’re in better humor now?”

“Enough wine, and the prospect of watching the Elf destroy himself, seems to have had a salutary effect. I gather, by the way, that you have utterly given up on bringing Cayden into the fold.”

“Unless someone he cares for is threatened, he will never tell me the truth of his visions. And even when that threat exists, he will
still
attempt to lie. I could never trust him. Not the slightest word he said could be trusted.”

“Forgive my laughter, Your Grace, but do you seriously think you can trust Black Lightning?”

“Of course not. Or, rather, I can trust them to do what benefits them and advances their various adolescent ambitions. Much more reliable, really, and easier to discern than trying to keep track of who Silversun loves and what he’s willing to do for them—and that isn’t even to mention his morality and his scruples.”

“Ah well. He would have been useful.”

“Since he cannot be that, he must be rendered useless.”

“In favor of other, less potent but more reliable tools. Speaking of which, shall we remove to Great Welkin for further festivities? I told them midnight, which annoyed Spangler. He wanted to stay at the celebrations and get as drunk as he possibly could.”

“It’s at least an hour past midnight.”

“The timing was only a sop to their imaginations. It can be done at any hour of the day. But these little details mean so much to the ignorant.”

“True. The ballroom, then.”

“The Archduchess is remaining at the Palace tonight?”

“Yes. Ah, if only she knew the uses to which we’ll put her pretty painted ballroom tonight!”