Window Wall (52 page)

Mieka tugged at his sleeve. “I’ve had an idea.”

“You know how I feel about your ideas.”

“No, really. Listen, Quill. Why don’t we include people along with the animals?”

Cade sighed. “I assume you’re not talking about fishermen, farmers, and farriers.”

“Of course not. Wizards and Goblins and Elves and Trolls—it would be wonderful!”

“It would be provocative. Princess Iamina and the Archduchess are riding in this procession, you know. And who can say, of all the Good Brothers and Good Sisters trailing along, which of them aren’t—?”

“Do you really care?”

“For myself? Not at all. But we said we’d do the animals from ‘Bewilderland,’ and that’s what we’re going to do. And don’t be thinking I’ll give you enough stray bits of magic to work the thing yourself,” he warned. “In fact, we’d best get ready. Hand me those withies.”

Mieka sulked, then did as told. He was flushed with more than excitement; whitethorn or bluethorn, Cade couldn’t tell which and it didn’t matter anyway. Still, it was rather early in the day for Mieka, and they had a performance tonight at the new theater at the Palace. Cade wondered briefly if the Elf would require a second or mayhap a third pricking of thorn, and if he did, whether Cade himself would have to adjust the magic in the withies to account for all that surplus energy—and then the worry fled his mind as a bellowing noise announced the arrival of the procession.

Mieka and Rafe were doing the work of this, once Cade had supplied magic in the withies. He looked across to the Kiral Kellari’s window, smiling to recall that once he’d stood there and wondered why all those girls were down in the square, eager to see the players even though, or perhaps because, they weren’t allowed to see a play. Today people were hanging off the streetlamps and packed ten and twelve deep along the streets and in the central square behind stiffly watchful King’s Guards. A score of trumpeters in tabards of sea green over brown trousers stepped smartly from the side street into the square, blasting away. Their instruments were no less bright than the gilding on the open carriages that followed. King Meredan and Queen Roshien, wearing golden crowns studded with twinkling gems, smiled and waved. Behind them rode the city dignitaries of Gallantrybanks: the Lord Mayor and his wife, the Lord Director of All Guilds and his wife. Next came Miriuzca and Ashgar, holding their children. Beside each carriage were boys dressed in the colors of every guild, connected by chains of flowers.

“Just another tick,” Rafe murmured to Mieka, and Cade turned to look at his fettler and glisker. “Not yet … they’re not quite there … ready … now!”

Everyone in the square gasped and cheered to see the wall of the Kiral Kellari come alive with dancing animals and soaring birds and leaping fish. A minute or two of this rioting movement and noise—Mieka was gripping each successive withie tightly, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead—and then, just as the King came round the corner of the central square and was on the street right in front of the building, all the creatures would stop and bow. Just exactly how Mieka planned to make a fish bow was something Cade had wisely not asked.

A further gasp and a few startled shrieks told him the moment had come. Perfect timing; he saw the King down below, half-rising from his seat in the carriage to gape at the display. The Queen, tiny beneath a towering crown of diamonds and sea green beryls, was madly clapping her plump little hands. Two carriages behind them, Miriuzca was pointing out the wonder to her son, laughing. Ashgar seemed not to notice what was going on at all.

And then the procession passed, and it was all over. Mieka tossed the last withie aside and ran both hands over his face, then looked up at Cade with a grin. Rafe, carefully letting the magic fade, turned at last from the window and gave a tired, satisfied sigh.

Master Warringheath was first up the stairs. He burst in, wreathed in smiles and calling for drinks all round—until he realized that this was a lawyer’s office, not a bar, at which point he abandoned the idea of refreshment in favor of expressing his ecstasies.

“Brilliant!” he cried. “Gorgeous! No one else will have anything like it! Not even the Shadowshapers will do so well!”

Jeska was close behind him, a more professional assessment evident in his broadsmile. “Absolutely perfect. Nary a hitch nor a twitch all the way to the roof.”

Behind Jeska were the lawyer, his family, everybody who worked in his office and their families, a random selection of admiring citizenry—all in their go-to-Chapel best—and, interestingly enough, Pirro Spangler and Thierin Knottinger of Black Lightning.

“It was wonderful, Miek,” said one glisker to the other. “I brought all my little brothers. However did you manage it?”

Cade watched a brief interior battle play out on Mieka’s expressive face. Pirro was a friend from student days, but he was also a member of much-loathed Black Lightning
and
he had once given Mieka some thorn that had had frightening effects. Triumph, however, had put Mieka in an expansive and forgiving mood. He smiled at Pirro and they discussed the execution of the display.

Cade turned his attention to Thierin. He expected some snide observation accompanied by one of Knottinger’s snaky smiles. But the man was all admiration that looked and sounded sincere. Cade accepted the praise with a nod and a few pleasantries, then asked if Black Lightning was ready for tonight—and before Thierin could reply, said, “You’ll have seen the new theater, of course.”

A blank expression was followed by a flash of anger, quickly smothered by a look of startled interest. “New theater?”

“At the Palace. The Princess’s surprise gift to His Majesty. Though I’m hoping there’s a page or a footman to show us where it is, because I’m not at all sure I could find it again!”

“A well-kept secret,” Thierin remarked. “Anything to notice about the construction?”

“Well, Mieka’s brothers did the building of it, so it’s structurally and acoustically excellent. Please excuse me, I ought to be helping pack up.”

It annoyed him that Knottinger followed him to where two glass baskets rested on chairs. Mieka was holding the velvet bag of withies, fingers toying with the tassled ties as he talked to Pirro. Cade noted that however much bluethorn Pirro was pricking, it certainly wasn’t doing anything for his figure. How he ever could have aspired to the kind of quick, limber dance that was Mieka’s way of glisking, Cade couldn’t imagine. He didn’t have the build for it to begin with, and quite frankly he looked as if he’d eaten his way through every town on the circuit.

“Well?” Thierin asked his glisker. “Did you get him to spill his secrets?”

Mieka crowed with laughter. “It’d take more than a few compliments! Are we ready to leave, Cade? Things to do before we head over to the Palace.”

Cade was pleased to note that whereas Pirro might have been forgiven, more or less, Mieka wasn’t falling on his neck and swearing undying friendship. He smiled down at his glisker and opened his mouth to reply.

“Oy!” Mieka exclaimed suddenly. “We’ll take care of those.”

Cade felt a snarl come to his lips as he saw Thierin run a finger round the lip of a glass basket. He damned near slapped the man’s hand away.

“Sorry. Such beautiful work. Blye Cindercliff, yeh? From before she married whichever of you Windthistles?” He looked up, dark eyes shining oddly. “Or did her father make them?”

“His hallmark is on them,” Cade lied. He picked up the basket and cradled it in his arms, the way he used to before he’d made the cushioning crates for them. Rafe was holding the other one as if it were his second child.

“Oh, of course. Of course. Well, see you over at the Palace!” Collecting Pirro with a glance, Thierin waved gaily and departed.

Master Warringheath’s raptures were marred by a slight frown as he watched them descend the stairs. “I
cannot
like that boy,” he muttered.

“You don’t mean to say that you actually
tried
?” asked Mieka, withies wrapped protectively to his chest.

“Huh! Very good, Master Windthistle, very good! No, I’ve had them at my place naught but the one night, and some of my customers complain of it, for it seems they’re very popular—but even though they were warned off, they performed that poisonous piece of theirs about the Lord and the Lady and their children.”

“We’ve seen it,” Cade said tersely. “And
poisonous
is exactly the word.”

“You don’t suppose they’ll do it at the Palace, do you? Plenty of folk there with other than
pure
blood in them.” His broad, amiable face screwed up with disgust.

Rafe shrugged a shoulder. “Who can say?”

“They really wouldn’t, would they?” Jeska asked on the way downstairs. “I mean, if it’s a splash they’re looking to make at Court, that play that could end up drowning them.”

“They performed it at Seekhaven,” Cade reminded him.

“But not tonight. Not before all the officials that will be there. The people who run the country and haven’t time or leisure to attend Trials.” He paused, frowning. “I know for a fact that the Lord High Magistrate is partly Gnome with Piksey and Elf in him as well. His wife must be the same sort of mix, because they had two sets of twins—that’s the Piksey—and one set had Elfen ears.” To Cade’s silent question, he replied, “Mum used to work for him, back before he was on the High Bench. He asked her one morning for the name of the man who’d kagged my ears, and she set down her polishing cloths, closed the door tight, and gave him a lecture on how dreadful it was, to do that to a tiny baby. She hadn’t any say in the matter, you see, when my grandsir was alive.”

“So the Lord High Magistrate’s children were spared a kagging?”

“Mum always said it didn’t compensate for not standing up to my grandsir when it was done to me, but at least there were two children in the world who’d grow up looking exactly as the Lord and the Lady intended, ears and all.”

“One official out of dozens won’t keep Black fucking Lightning from doing that play,” Mieka remarked glumly. “I wish we could muck about with them the way they did with us!”

“That was never really proved,” Cade reminded him. “But I know what you mean. And talking of that, if Thierin had kept his finger on that basket one more instant, I’d’ve mucked his face to a bloody pulp!”

“We’d best check it, and the withies,” Rafe said.

“Of course,” Mieka agreed. “You know the saying about not trusting anybody as far as you can see ’em? Well, I was looking right at Pirro the whole time, and I
still
don’t trust him!”

As it turned out, Mieka had good cause. Cade found the rogue withie while he was priming magic into the lot for the night’s performance. Had Pirro thought that Cade wouldn’t be able to tell the feel of Blye’s work from this thing? It was a childish and ridiculous attempt to interfere with Touchstone, and it set Cade to wondering what had made Black Lightning so desperate as to try once again to mess with them.

He had the greatest satisfaction at the Palace that evening, in the antechamber being used as a tiring room before the performances, of handing the glass twig to Knottinger with a viciously sweet smile and the words, “Lost one of your withies, I think.”

“Oh, did we?” Thierin glanced at the withie, then snagged a glass of wine from a passing footman.

“You still use Splithook, don’t you? It’s his hallmark on the crimp. Take more care of your equipment, there’s a good lad.” He walked off to the corner where Vered and Rauel were holding their customary argument, and Romuald Needler was, as usual, trying to calm them down.

“Vered,” Cade said, interrupting Rauel without a by-your-leave, “I have to talk to you. Now.” To make sure of it, he took the man’s elbow and almost bodily hauled him off.

“Oy! Have a care to the jacket, mate!”

“Shut up and listen.” The room was small, which was bad, and packed with people, which was good: the chatter of so many players in stage clothes and servants in various liveries crushed into a confined space meant that nobody was really hearing anybody else. Cade leaned close to Vered’s face and said, “Drevan Wordturner works in Lord Piercehand’s library—you know him? Good. He told me to tell you two things. First, there’s a book in translation at the Archives that will tell you everything you need to know about a certain subject.” When black eyes lit with excitement, Cade shook his arm. “I said
listen
! Don’t go for it yourself. Find somebody you trust, who’s not directly connected to you, and have him look into it. The Archduke knows what you’ve been researching. The archivists keep him informed. You’re a tregetour, write yourself a plot where you can get the information in a roundabout way without anyone being suspicious.”

Vered nodded, white-blond hair gleaming in the light of a candle-branch overhead. “And the other thing?”

He hated having to say it. The words went against everything he believed about Art and the artist’s right to create what needed creating. And just look at the trouble he’d caused by writing what he’d felt he had to write: Briuly Blackpath, wandering aimlessly about the Brightlands, nothing to him now but pointless songs…. “What you’re writing is too dangerous to write at all. It shouldn’t be finished, leave alone performed.”

As Cade had known it would, this caution served only to increase Vered’s desire to complete his second play about the Balaur Tsepesh. He’d promised Drevan that he’d deliver both messages, and he’d done so. But now he felt compelled to add something of his own, something Drevan had told him and had perhaps forgotten to warn him to keep secret.

“Vered … there’s one more thing.”

“That’s three.”

“This one’s from me.” He lowered his voice and leaned in closer. “One of the Knights was a Henick. The Archduke’s own family.”

Vered flinched like a startled horse. “For certes?”

“It’s why he doesn’t want anybody looking into—the subject.”

A look of gleeful cunning appeared on the dark face. “Much beholden for the information, Cade. Especially as now I know whose features to put on Rauel when he plays the Knight!”

Not a wary bone in his body, had Vered Goldbraider. Not a single instinct of self-preservation. They had much in common, the pair of them. But at least Vered would be forewarned—and that, too, was something they had in common, Cade reflected sourly, even if his own forewarnings came as Elsewhens. “He doesn’t look like a Knight of anything. He’s too fat, and he’s got heart trouble.”