Thornlost (Book 3) (25 page)

“ ‘As regards the glisker, Mieka Windthistle, the superiority of the work must be experienced personally, for she handles the withies with such delicacy and assurance—’ ”

“She?”

Rafe nodded, a little smile twitching his lips beneath his beard. “I’m sure they don’t really think you’re a girl. But there it is for all the Kingdom to read.”

Mieka snatched the page from Rafe’s hand.
“She?”

{Mieka stormed into the dim wood-walled offices of the
Lilyleaves
and bellowed for the broadsheet’s editor. “Get him! I don’t care if he’s making love to his wife or his sister-in-law or his favorite whore or all three at once! I want to see that miscreated crambazzle and I want to see him
now
!”

Within moments a crowd had piled up in the reception room. A balding, middle-aged man pushed through and demanded, “What’s all this, then? I’m the editor. Who’re you?”

“Mieka Windthistle!” He tore off his shirt, buttons pinging off desks, chairs, windows, and the eyeglasses of one startled scrivener. “Master Glisker for Touchstone!” He started in on his trousers, yelling all the while. “And your stupid rag of wastepaper not fit for wrapping rotted fish called
me a
girl
!” Shirt discarded, trousers tangled at his ankles, horrified workers shrieking all round him, he yanked down his underdrawers and roared, “Does
this
look like something that belongs on a
girl
?”}

Cade was laughing as the Elsewhen faded, and Mieka turned on him in a fury. “What’s so bleedin’ funny?”

“You!”

“And what if it’d been
you
they called a girl?”

“It was just a printing error, Mieka, don’t be so touchy!”

“Two printing errors,” Rafe pointed out helpfully.

“What?” He scanned the rest of the article. “ ‘In a style not often seen, Windthistle practically dances her way through—’
Her!
Gods’ bollocks!”

“I dunno,” Rafe mused. “You might look right fetching in a skirt and one of those frilly blouses.”

Cade pretended to consider. “You may be right about that. Something in pink, p’rhaps.”

{Mieka swanned into the broadsheet’s offices, flicking a lace fan here and there by way of greeting. And it
was
Mieka. Despite the full purple skirt, matching tight-laced bodice, and ruffled pink blouse; despite the padding that filled out that blouse; and even despite the long black curls cascading down his back and the globs of makeup on his face, it was indeed Mieka. Those eyes were unmistakable. He trilled a request to be directed to the editor. Some hapless functionary in a brown jacket led him to the far corner of the building. A door was opened, the functionary made a jerky little half bow, and a balding, middle-aged man rose from behind the desk.

“Who’s this, then?” he demanded after gaping at this apparition in pink and purple.

“So tremendously delighted to meet you!” Mieka sang out. “Frightfully grateful, don’t you see—not until your article about
Touchstone’s performance last night was I entirely sure. But now you’ve unconfused me—eternally beholden to you!”

“Sure? Of what?”

All smiles, Mieka flung his arms wide, endangering a shelf and two stacks of books with his fan, and twirled round on his toes. “My friends say it was only a printing error, but it happened twice, so I knew there must be something in it. Fingers of the Gods pointing the way, don’t you see!”

“No, I don’t see!”

“Isn’t it obvious? You called me ‘she,’ and everything finally became clear! I really do believe I’ll just
adore
being a girl!”
}

This time Cade had to brace himself against the table, he was laughing so hard. “Oh Gods—Mieka, I’m sorry—it’s just—”

“What did you see?”

Cade shook his head and tried to catch his breath. “Nothing awful. But you don’t have to give them such a shock, you know. A polite reminder would suffice.”

“What in all Hells are you talking about?” Then he crumpled the page in his hands. “Never mind. I don’t care. Where do I find these—”

“—miscreated crambazzles?” Cade asked, unable to resist. Should he let Mieka go now, and outrage the hired help by stripping off? Or should Cade try to calm him down and wait for Rafe’s teasing to suggest the notion of dressing up as a woman?

{It was a bizarre little group strolling towards the theater: three boys who didn’t move like boys at all, and one gaudily clad woman who didn’t move anything like a woman. She didn’t sound like one either as she—he—chivvied the trio through the crowd and past two constables more concerned with the free show they would soon see than with keeping the uninvited back from the queue. The “boys” slipped past on a signal from the theater’s chucker-out, who was
grinning. The “woman” was about to join them when one of the constables finally paid attention.

“Here, now, Mistress!” he bawled, reaching out to grab at a sleeve. “What’re you thinkin’ of doin’?”

“You’d best leave your hands off, my good man, or you’ll be answering to someone more important than you ever dreamed you’d meet in your whole miserable life!”}

Mieka was still ranting about the printer’s error, but at a lower volume.
Mieka
. Of course it had been Mieka in that Elsewhen of more than two years ago—how could he not have realized it? As for the three “boys”—Blye, Jinsie, and—Megs—

Megs?

Cade reached reflexively for his ale and took a big swallow.

There were differences between that Elsewhen and this. He brought out the earlier one to examine it, and found that not only didn’t he know who the third girl was in the other one, but Mieka’s outfit had changed from bright green with beet-red lace to turquoise with pink ruffles and so many gold chains that he clinked when he walked. And the three girls (
Megs?
his astonished brain kept nattering) actually made it into the theater before just one constable, not both, accosted Mieka.

Yet how any of it could have changed because of something Cade himself had done or not done was a complete mystery. For that matter, how he might influence Mieka in this ridiculous affair of the mistaken pronouns was likewise baffling.

He really ought to be used to this by now.

“Cade?” Rafe rapped his knuckles on the table.

“What is it, Quill? You saw something more, didn’t you?”

They were looking at him, knowing that another Elsewhen had just surprised him. For once, none of what he’d seen was horrible or threatening—unless one counted the possibility of Mieka’s spending a night or two in quod for attempting to get
into a theater dressed as a woman—

—but he
wasn’t
a woman, and therefore what he wore had nothing to do with whether or not he was allowed inside a theater.

Cade began to laugh again. He could see it now, or at least as much as would get Blye, Jinsie, and Megs (
Megs?
) into a performance, and Mieka as well in all his flashy finery. What would happen next, he didn’t yet know. But oh, it would be a grand and glorious lark finding out.

* * *

C
ade had been working on a new play. Well, he was always working on a new play—he couldn’t seem to help himself—but he did want to have something definite to show Kearney Fairwalk when His Lordship met them in Frimham. But dedication to the work couldn’t compete with the prospect of watching Mieka descend on the offices of the
Lilyleaves
.

The Elf had abandoned his grumbles and withdrawn to Croodle’s chambers upstairs. Between the two of them, possibly with help from Kazie, they’d decked him out very prettily in a butter-yellow skirt and a rose-pink blouse. This intrigued Cade; in the Elsewhen, Mieka had been in purple. Something had changed, something Cade had said or done had altered the future. He was at a loss to think what it might be, but fascinated to see how it would all turn out. He’d had no subsequent Elsewhen to let him know, which must mean that whatever happened from now on was Mieka’s choice.

When Mieka came downstairs, festively clothed, with Croodle and Kazie laughing behind him, Cade bowed and offered escort. It occurred to him as they walked towards the
Lilyleaves
offices that it was a good thing the old rule about improper attire no longer applied. A few days ago, it had been towels. Today, mercifully, he himself was fully dressed in trousers, shirt, and jacket. As for Mieka—it wasn’t just the skirt and frilly
blouse and feathery fan and huge straw hat decorated with a trailing green silk scarf. There was a glisten of magic in the air that grew stronger as they approached the address gleaned from the broadsheet. Cade recognized it as Mieka’s own magic.

As long black curls began to appear below the hat and the blouse filled out in front, Cade asked, “All right, where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“The withie.”

“Pocket.” He patted his thigh. “Something left over from ‘Sweetheart’ last night.” Spinning round on his toes, he demanded, “Well? What d’you think?”

“Lip rouge. And not so much with the eyelashes.”

“I didn’t do anything to me eyelashes.” The smiling mouth turned bright pink. “Darker? To match the blouse?”

Cade sighed. “You are entirely, thoroughly, completely, utterly, absolutely, appallingly mad, you know.”

“Ah, but fiendishly clever with it!” A laugh, and a few more steps, and: “We’re here. I’ll do the talking. You just stand there and look worried, eh?”

“I’ll do my best.”

Mieka swanned into the office as in the Elsewhen, deploying the fan in a flutter of white feathers, bestowing his sweetest smile all round. There was just enough magic altering his appearance to make the impersonation almost credible. Cade saw confusion, suspicion, apprehension, distaste, and even a bit of alarm in the faces of those who gathered in the reception area. None of them knew quite what to make of this apparition—or even what this apparition might be.

“I give you glad greetings, all and each and every one!” Mieka trilled—a line stolen from one of the Mother Loosebuckle farces. “Such a lovely day outside, such lovely people inside! It would be the pinnacle of my existence to have a long talk with each and every one of you, but I simply must see your editor, the darling
man! Where may I find him?” When a jumpy little personage in a brown jacket glanced involuntarily to the left, Mieka beamed at him. “So very good of you! Infinitely beholden!” With a playful flourish of feathers, he sailed unescorted in the indicated direction, skirts swishing, the fan held aloft like a triumphal banner. Cade followed, and observed that the fan seemed to be molting.

In the back corner—where Cade could have told him to go, if he’d had a mind to it—a door opened and the expected middle-aged, balding man stepped out. “What’s all this, then?” he shouted. “Get back to work, all of you!”

“The
editor
!” Mieka cried, clasping both hands together in raptures. “How exciting!”

“Who in all Hells are you?”

“That’s
exactly
what I wanted to speak with you about.”

Cade had thought there were two different directions this could go: Mieka stripping and demanding to know if the revealed equipment belonged on a girl, or Mieka pretending to be thrilled that his personal confusion had been cleared up at last. He really ought to stop underestimating Mieka.

The Elf pranced uninvited into the office, then whirled round and gestured expectantly at Cade. When all Cade did was stand there, befuddled, he snapped in his own voice, “Oy! Chair!”

Cade pulled a wobbly wooden chair from a corner and handed him into it. The fan lost a few more tuftings that drifted to the floor.

“Beholden,” Mieka said sweetly, and then graciously invited the editor to be seated in his own office. Arranging his skirts, he folded the feather fan and leaned anxiously towards the desk. “Now. Shall we be direct and forthright? I always feel that’s for the best when dealing with the press. Whilst I do realize that I’m quite enchantingly favored in form and feature, even for an Elf—”

“What?” the man asked, sinking into the chair behind his desk.

“He’s pretty,” Cade translated.

“Very,” Mieka agreed. “But whereas I’m sure you didn’t
really
mean to make out that I’m a girl—”

“A printer’s error, I told him,” Cade put in.

“Yes, yes, we’ve been through all that. The fact remains, however, that there are those who will suspect that Touchstone is—that I—that we—oh, how shall I put it?”

“That there really is a female onstage,” said Cade. He began to see where Mieka might be taking this, and set himself to aid and abet.

“Exactly!” Mieka leaned even closer to the desk, and in a confiding tone said, “I’ve found that having a Master Tregetour at one’s beck and call is the most useful thing imaginable when one is attempting to explain oneself. Always looking for the right word, that’s my Quill!” He rapped Cade on the arm with his fan, fondly, leaving behind a few flecks of feather. Then, sitting back again, he frowned his distress. “I can’t disguise that I’m rather worried. The notion that Touchstone has been gulling the whole Kingdom all this time by putting a
girl
onto the stage when such things are just so entirely, thoroughly, completely, totally, and—what was the rest of it, Cayden?”

“Utterly and absolutely,” Cade supplied.

“Utterly and absolutely and
appallingly
forbidden, don’t you see—well, that could get us into some real trouble. What I mean to say is, will they think I’m really my third cousin once removed, whose name is Miekella?” Looking up at Cade: “Stunning girl, by the bye—looks just like me, only even prettier. I must introduce you soon.”

Cade solemnly bowed his gratitude.

“As I was saying—will people think that I’ve been onstage this whole time really as a girl and—what’s worse—traveling about with three young men—three rather attractive young men, I might add, all the ladies say so—staying at inns, all night,
in upstairs rooms—well, I’m sure you understand the potential scandal of it,” he concluded.