Thornlost (Book 3) (47 page)

“Your exploit at the Downstreet performance was offensive enough,” Lady Jaspiela continued, and now Mieka knew why she had developed an immunity to him. “The Archduchess is in a very delicate condition and she was scandalized beyond words. I heard her say so myself.”

“We read about it in the
Court Circular
,” Cade said. “We’d been wondering who tipped off the reporters.”

The implication that it had been Her Ladyship who had spoken to something so low and vulgar as a reporter was a thrown gauntlet she refused to pick up. “What Her Grace and the rest of the Court will think of this is past imagining. Of course, the King will not allow it to happen—”

“Then I wonder why Your Ladyship has exercised herself in the matter,” Crisiant said smoothly.

Lady Jaspiela was so taken aback that she simply stared at this
nobody
who had the cheek to say such a thing to her.

“Oh, I think it’s rather obvious,” Cade told Crisiant. “She took the trouble to come all the way over here so she could be seen to order us not to accept, and in front of witnesses. But tell me, Mother, which would be worse? To go along with the Princess’s affront to protocol and tradition, or to refuse a Royal command?”

“Refuse—?” Fairwalk somehow managed not to swallow his own tongue and teeth. “There’s surely no question of—I mean to say, don’t you know, it’s not
done
to refuse—”

“And why not?” Lady Jaspiela snapped, thoroughly goaded now. “To decline—politely but firmly—would be to show
yourselves decent, morally minded young men—”

“In spite of our sordid profession,” Rafe murmured.

“—who know better than to overset all propriety—”

“Mother!” Cade exclaimed, gray eyes glinting merrily. “Surely not
all
propriety! We’re good, verging on great, but that would be beyond even our talents!”

“—by acceding to the whims of this little nobody—”

“Have a care,” Cade said, no longer smiling. “You’re speaking of the next Queen of Albeyn, mother of the Heir to the Throne.”

Mieka slid a hand into the velvet bag of withies, and even though there was no more of Cade’s magic in them, there was enough of magic in their making that he had what he needed. For him, a withie was a focus, a tool, even when emptied of his tregetour’s priming. As he had done for Blye after her father’s death, gentling her grief and easing her despair, now he worked with exquisite subtlety on Lady Jaspiela to soften her fury and sweeten her temper.

Or he tried to.

She rounded on him in midsentence. “Stop that this instant! How dare you?”

He was so startled that he dropped the velvet bag. Panicking, terrified that even one of the withies might have broken or cracked, he went down on his knees and scrabbled inside the bag. These were of Cade’s crafting, the only ones he’d ever made, and if they had been damaged—

“You outrageous creature! You despicable
Elf
! Don’t you know who I am?”

“Mother!” Cade shouted.

“Be silent! I will not have that repulsive
Elf
trying to—”

“One more word,” Cade snarled, rising to his full height, “just one more, and—”

“And what? You’ll leave my house for ever and for good? I’ve been anticipating that day for almost twenty-two years!”

She left the room in a skirring of silk just as Mistress Threadchaser came in from the kitchen with a heaping platter of pastries. Mieka pushed himself to his feet and went to take another platter from his bewildered wife. Jinsie stood there, a stack of plates in her hands, looking around the shockingly silent room.

“Oh my,” she said at length. “One less for tea, I suppose.”

Another moment passed, and another. Before anyone could say anything else, Vered Goldbraider poked his head round the doorway.

“The footman at Redpebble said you were here, Cade. But I didn’t think I’d be almost colliding with your lady mother!” He came into the parlor, a stack of books in his arms.

Mieka watched Cade’s gaze dart towards him—no, towards the trembling girl beside him. She inched closer and he wished he had a hand free to soothe her. Cade’s pale eyelids slid closed in an expression of numb submission that Mieka didn’t understand at all.

“Well, then!” Mistress Threadchaser suddenly said. “Girls, help me pour out, please?”

* * *

N
obody ate much. Mieka wished very sincerely for something stronger than tea. The conversation was stilted at worst and aimless at best. Vered took Cade over into a corner to talk about the books he was returning and those he thought he might still need. Mieka heard bits of their exchange when he helped his wife take the teapot and platter round in a vain attempt to coax them into doing justice to Threadchaser baked goods.
Balaurin
and
red dragon shields
surely didn’t have enough weighty meaning to have put that expression of weary acceptance into Cade’s eyes. Mieka was less concerned with that, however, than with hoping that Jinsie wouldn’t let anything slip about their plans for the Shadowshapers’ next show at the Downstreet.

Although considering what had just happened, it might be
best if he delayed that particular plot for a while.

No. Lady Jaspiela, the Archduchess, and anybody else in Albeyn who didn’t approve could go seethe in their own bile. What he planned to do was right. Every instinct told him it was right.

Vered finally betook himself off after compliments to Mistress Threadchaser that were so prettily expressed that she gave him a box of pastries to take with him. Lord Fairwalk charmingly, if somewhat incoherently, begged the ladies from Wistly to allow him the privilege of driving them home. When they had gone, Rafe helped his wife and his mother clear up, then came back into the parlor and said, “Well? What’re you all doing sitting about for? We’re off to Redpebble Square.”

“Why?” Jeska asked.

“To collect Cade’s things, of course. Just enough for tonight, I think. We can make up the spare room upstairs. Tomorrow we help him pack and move.”

All at once it hit Mieka. Cade would no longer be living with his family. He would have to find a place of his own right quick, and somehow tell Derien, and Mistress Mirdley, and Blye and Jed—

—and it was mostly Mieka’s fault.

“Quill, I’m sorry!” he blurted.

Cade shook his head. “You heard her. It’s been coming for years.”

“But—”

“You weren’t listening to the rest of it,” Cade told him with a sort of ghastly wryness. “She was there when the Archduchess complained. She’s chosen a side, don’t you see? Although why the side she’d choose would be in any doubt, considering who her mother was—”

“But at the races—she called the Archduke ‘insufferable.’ ”

Cayden shrugged. “Either she’s had a change of heart since, or she likes his wife but not him, or she was shamming for
reasons of her own. With my mother, who can tell? Good Gods, I can see it as if I’d written the script. Somehow she got invited to something, it doesn’t matter what, and snaked her way to the Archduchess, and made discreet mention of her mother—and don’t think Panshilara isn’t current with her husband’s past! Right and wrong don’t matter, nor public disgrace. It’s the
power
, Mieka. My mother thought she’d get a share of it when her husband joined Prince Ashgar’s household, but it didn’t happen. She never really thought any would come through me, but she gave it a try a few times. She sees a path through Dery—but he’s still so young, not even come into his magic yet. She’s impatient. She isn’t old, but she’s not young, either. Panshilara is exactly her kind of person. And I’ve no doubt that my mother suits Panshilara down to the ground.”

“It’s more than that,” Jeska said softly. “It’s worse.”

Rafe nodded, but it was Crisiant who spoke. “D’you think it’s just because they enjoy sitting around sipping tea and commiserating with each other? You talk of ‘power,’ Cayden, but which of them is likely ever to wield any? Who’s the important person in this—the
only
important person?”

Cade was smiling and shaking his head. “I see what you’re saying, Crisiant, but the Archduke gave up on Touchstone almost two years ago. He’s got Black Lightning now. He doesn’t need us.”

“He settled on Black Lightning through lack of any other candidates.” Rafe tapped a finger against the arm of his chair. “You’ve noticed, I’m sure, that this grand new theater he tried to tempt us with hasn’t even had a foundation stone laid?”

“But look what they’ve already done for him,” Cade argued. “They can direct specific magic at specific people—they can use it to make a man writhe inside if he’s not an Elf or a Wizard, if he’s anything Goblin or Gnome or—”

“Why?” Mieka asked. “Why would they want to do that?”

“You mean why would the Archduke want people to
know
exactly what they are,” Jeska corrected. “I’ve no clue, but I’m certain sure it’s for more than making those of us with other than Elf or Wizard in us uncomfortable with ourselves.”

“The
clean
children,” Rafe murmured. “The
blessed
children.”

Mistress Threadchaser smacked her hands together and they all jumped. “That’s enough of that! I won’t have any such talk in my house. You boys have a little more than an hour to get ready for your show. And there’ll be no moving out of Redpebble Square, Cayden, much as you might like to and much as I might agree with your reasons.”

“I can’t stay there.”

“You must,” she said, firmly but kindly. “For your little brother’s sake. And besides, there’s only one way to find out if Crisiant is right, even though we all know she is. If your mother says nothing when next she sees you in the house, or if she goes so far as to tell you that you needn’t leave, you can be sure she’s under orders to keep an eye on you.”

“I–I hadn’t thought of that,” Cade admitted.

“You’ll be gone at Trials soon, and then on the Royal Circuit. Leave it until after you return in the autumn. Leave it, Cayden. Derien needs to know that even if you’re not in the house with him all those months, you’ll be coming back. He’ll be ten this summer. You were more resilient at that age, of course, but he’s got a sensible head on his shoulders. He’ll be better able to accept things in the autumn.”

Cade nodded, and excused himself to a quiet chamber to prime the night’s withies. Mieka was left to wonder why, if Lady Jaspiela had had a hindering put on her as Cade had said, she had nonetheless sensed his magic. He’d ask his father about it soon; the notion of discussing it with Cade made him cringe.

But on the walk up Beekbacks to find a hire-hack, Cade told Jeska and Rafe to go flag down a driver and took Mieka by the
elbow and said, “You tried to use magic on my mother.”

“Well… umm… yeh. How come she felt it?”

“What did you do?”

“Just a little something to calm her down.” He shifted nervously and tried to reclaim his arm.

The gray eyes turned falcon-sharp, predator-cold. “And just how often do you perform this charming trick?”

“Never on you!” Mieka protested.

“If you’re lying to me—”

“Quill, no! I wouldn’t ever do that to you! And why did she feel it?”

“Just because she can’t get at her own magic doesn’t mean she’s insensitive to it in others.” He let go of Mieka’s arm as the hire-hack neared. “Don’t you ever try anything like that on me. Ever.”

“I just told you I wouldn’t.” He rubbed his elbow; Cade’s long, thin fingers were brutally strong.

“Well” was played much as usual, but “Dragon” was different that night. The Prince’s doubts that he could live up to his forefathers’ deeds became defiance of a daunting legacy and a burning need to prove himself better than his ancestors; the speech at the end, about passing along to his own sons the knowledge that it was the striving that counted, and overcoming fear rather than pretending one was never afraid, had particular resonance tonight. Mieka felt the difference in what Cade had used of himself to prime the withies, and played it accordingly. So did Jeska.

Mieka offered Cade a bed at Wistly, knowing in advance that he’d refuse. Rafe’s mother had the right of it: Dery wasn’t old enough yet not to be grimly hurt by his older brother’s permanent departure. Mieka perceived the need to find out if Lady Jaspiela really would either ignore Cade’s continued presence in the house or grant him permission to stay (nobody thought she’d apologize or actually
ask
him to remain at Redpebble Square),
but he shared Cade’s doubts. At best, Her Ladyship paid as little attention to him as she possibly could; how could she be said to keep an eye on him and on Touchstone? After all, as far as the Archduke knew, Cade was naught but a tregetour. They didn’t know about the Elsewhens.

The Elsewhens, to ambitious people close to the Throne, would make Cayden Silversun very valuable indeed.

T
he participants in Mieka’s little spectacle assembled at Wistly Hall at seven by the Minster chimes on Cade’s twenty-second Namingday. It would take the better part of an hour to get everyone organized into hire-hacks and over to the Downstreet for the performances (one offstage, one onstage), but Mieka’s thinking was that the less time everyone had to be nervous, the better for all concerned. It was always that way, he wisely considered, with any group of amateur players.