by Melanie Rawn
“I did!” Mieka reminded him. “And I can tell you something else, too! Wherever it is, it’ll be on lands the Oakapple family once owned!” He grasped Cade’s shoulders from behind and shook him gently. “Where are we scheduled to be on Wintering Night?”
* * *
“We can’t go on a Treasure hunt.”
Mieka propped himself on an elbow, watching as Cade got ready for bed. Honest to all the Gods, the man was just ridiculously skinny—exactly what Jeska had once called him (though not in Cayden’s hearing): a nose on legs. “We don’t have to tell anybody when we find it. Let’s just go make sure it’s there, Quill.”
“We won’t be anywhere near any of the former Oakapple lands on Wintering Night. And it’s s’posed to be someplace near Sidlowe, remember?”
“You are no fun.”
“And besides, if we did find it, we’d have to admit how we worked it out.”
“Like Rafe said—scholarship. Think of your bettered reputation! You can give Tobalt Fluter an exclusive interview and tell the tale the way you want it told, and not have to admit a thing.”
“If you say so.” After a few moments of silent washing, Cade slipped into his nightshirt and climbed into bed. He hesitated before putting out the candle. “Mieka…”
“What’s got you anguishing now?”
“You don’t seem worried. About renting out the house, and—and everything.”
“What can I do about it? Not a damned thing. And anyways, Mum will make sure she’s cosseted. That’s what mums are for.”
“A disappointment to her, though,” he suggested, “having to leave her new house so soon after moving into it.”
“We’ll go back in the spring, and it’ll be ours outright. I’m wondering why Sakary, though. It’s not as if he likes me, or would go out of his way to do me any favors. Jinsie must know something we don’t.”
“Oh, we all know it, I think.” Cade eyed him sidelong. “At Blye and Jed’s wedding. Alaen came over all agroof in Chirene’s exquisite presence.”
“So that’s why he sent Briuly in his place!”
“How did you—? Oh, never mind.” He paused. “Clever of Jinsie, though, to think of Sakary and Chirene.”
“Mmm. I may actually forgive her one of these years.”
Cade smiled and leaned over to pinch out the candle flame. A bellow from outside in the stable yard startled him so much that he nearly knocked the candle over.
Mieka sighed and reached for his trousers. “Yazz,” he explained. “He said he might come by later. Absolutely no sense of time, that one. Give him a shout down, won’t you, before he wakes the whole village!”
A couple of hours and more than a couple of pints later, Mieka saw Yazz stashed in a corner of the kitchen. He was still smiling as he climbed the stairs. His friend was elated at the immediate prospect of a job, and Mieka had the bruised ribs to prove it. The emphatic hug of a part-Giant would snap Cayden right in two; he’d have to remember to tell Yazz to take it easy with the gratitude tomorrow.
Everything would work out; he knew it would. Mum and Fa would take care of her and the baby, Yazz would be able to marry Robel sooner than planned, they’d get the house back in the spring—and there was that barn, he told himself, it might make a nice home for Yazz and Robel—and, of course, Cade would find some obscure reference somewhere to Nackerty Close, and—
He knew an instant before he opened the door that something was wrong. Cursing in the darkness as he stumbled over a chair, he lunged for the candle and lit it. Cade was turning fretfully in bed, mumbling, and there were tears on his cheeks.
“Cayden!” Mieka sat beside him, took the long-jawed face between his hands. “Quill! Wake up!”
He did, gray eyes wide and staring. “Mieka?” he whispered.
“The one and onliest. Want a drink? You look like you need one.”
Cade shook his head. “I’m all right.”
“Another one about me, eh?” At least Cade had learned not to lie to him. As he nodded slowly, Mieka tapped his nose with a chiding finger. “I think what you ought to do is choose not to pay attention to suchlike anymore. Don’t tell me it doesn’t work like that, you’ve brain enough to make whatever work that you want it to work.”
“I’m sorry,” Cade said. “It’s just—sometimes I can’t tell what’s real. I can’t tell what’s the dream—Gods, the nightmare—”
“Quill, look at me. This is real. You and me. I’m here, I’m real, and whatever you saw, it won’t happen. I promise.”
He shook his head again, biting both lips between his teeth.
“Damn it all, will you stop? My word’s not enough for you?”
“It’s—it’s me,” he managed. “I keep telling you—it’s what I choose, what I do or don’t do—”
“So you’re in charge of the whole sodding world and everything in it? Gods, Cade, I knew you were conceited, but this is the outside of enough! Look at me! Whenever something like this gets into your bloody brilliant stubborn stupid head, just look at me. I’m here. We’re real. Ain’t nothin’ more real than us.”
He hesitated, then admitted, “I keep telling myself it’s not my responsibility. Not my fault. Like with the Princess. If we hadn’t done ‘Hidden Cottage’—but then Ashgar didn’t have to pretend to cry, did he? And she didn’t have to decide on the basis of that alone that he’s a wonderful man.”
Mieka regarded him thoughtfully. “That’s one of the few sensible things I’ve heard you say about the Elsewhens, ever. Whatever anybody else does, it’s not your fault because it’s not your decision to make. And anyway, look at what’s happening with Yazz. Perfect, right? He’s dead chuffed, by the bye, and wanted to run all the way back to his uncle’s place and wake everyone up to tell them he’s a job as of tomorrow!” He laughed softly. “The time it took me to persuade him elsewise! He’s curled up on the kitchen floor next the fire, and won’t the cook have a shock in the morning!” There: he’d got Cade to smile a little. To encourage it, he added, “Of course, she’ll hear him long before she opens the door—snores like a whole pack of hounds belling on the hunt, he does. Poor Robel!”
“I’m glad we can help him—glad it worked out.”
“It’ll always work out—that’s what I’m here for, innit? Since that first night in Gowerion. Now, get back under the blankets, you’re frozen.” He tucked Cade up to the chin and fussed with the covers, and sure enough, there was another smile. “Back to sleep with you. No more nasty dreams tonight.”
“I wish I could be sure of that.”
“Haven’t you learned yet, Quill? You don’t hardly ever have really awful dreams when you’re sleeping near me. And if you do, I’m always here to talk you out of them.”
He looked thoughtful, then relieved. “You may be right.”
“Of course I’m right. I’m Mieka Windthistle. Sweet dreaming, Quill.”
Chapter 24
“Lads,” Mieka said as he packed the glass baskets, “d’you know how long we been at this? Seventy-nine days.”
“My felicitations,” Rafe said. “You can count.”
“Only another fifty left,” Jeska reminded them, then called out to the servants, “Oy! You missed a spot, over that way!”
Cade leaned on his lectern, watching brooms hurry glass shards into dustpans. Mieka had been rather more enthusiastic than usual tonight in shattering withies. That meant he was getting bored. He’d solemnly sworn to Cade when they started the Winterly Circuit that he’d brought along not a single grain of black powder (though Cade had gone through his satchel anyway, just to make sure), so at least that manner of mayhem was denied him. But a bored glisker was a dangerous glisker.
Not to mention a glisker who wouldn’t shut up.
“There’s a reason they call it playing, right? It’s s’posed to be fun, innit?” He finished shutting the crates and sat on the velvet bench. “This is a slog and a drudging and I’m tired.”
Rafe seated himself on the edge of the
stage and inspected his fingernails. “Your pardon, gentlemen, I’m about to weep.”
“I mean it! I used to be young! Any day now I’ll be plucking gray hairs out me head!”
“And then you’ll go bald,” Jeska said sweetly, “and have to wear a wig, like Sir Kyler.”
“Does he?”
Rafe snorted. “You didn’t notice that furry thing perched at the top of his face?”
“I thought it was a hat.” Mieka considered. “Or maybe that his beard got confused about where to put itself.”
Sir Kyler Crushberry had engaged them for three nights at his new and lavish country home for the entertainment of guests who’d lingered for a week or so after Wintering. Having been part of the delegation sent to fetch the Princess, Touchstone had been besieged from all quarters since their arrival at Bramblings; everyone from the titled lords and ladies to the kitchen maids seemed indecently eager for any gossip they could get. The pay was almost worth the constant harassment.
Cade waited, and waited some more, until all the servants had left and the doors were shut. Then he cleared his throat gently, and the three turned to look over their shoulders. “Thought you might be interested,” he said, and used a withie he’d been keeping in his lectern to conjure a map on the back wall. It had been a while since he’d done any glisking, and this was naught but a picture—nothing fancy, no flourishes, though he couldn’t help it if a bit of his triumph seeped in.
The effect was everything he desired.
Rafe spun round on his bum to stare. Jeska caught his breath and reared up like a startled horse. Mieka leaped to his feet and began to dance.
“You found it, you found it! I knew you would, Quill, I knew it!”
For on the map, Cade had placed a single glowing golden dot and two words: NACKERTY CLOSE. He grinned at the jubilant Elf. “Thought you were feeling all elderly and decrepit!”
“You found it!”
He let the magic fade, and tucked the withie into his jacket pocket. “It’s nowhere close to anyplace we’re going, and not even near Sidlowe as the rumors have always had it, but at least now we can drop some hints.”
Mieka stopped midstep and nearly took a tumble. “Hints?” he echoed. “But—we’ll go looking for it, we have to! Don’t you keep saying that unless we find it, nobody will believe—”
“What I said is that finding out exactly where makes it authentic. I never said we had to unearth the Treasure, or let on we know where it is.”
Rafe pushed himself to his feet. “And who’s the lucky sod who’ll be hearing these hints?”
“Alaen and Briuly, of course.” Jeska sat back down and hugged his knees, looking superior. “Not Lord Oakapple,” he explained, “he shits gold coin these days, what with his coal mines and all, and it’s not as if he was any help to us. But Alaen and Briuly, they’re players, like us—sort of, anyways—and need the money—”
“Very much like us!” Mieka put in resentfully. “So why should they have the advantage of us?”
“They’re connected to the family,” Jeska went on. “So they’ve a right to the Rights, as it were. And didn’t you talk long and hard with Briuly on board ship, Cayden?”
“He provided a few ideas. And before we left Gallantrybanks, I bought Alaen a few drinks at the Heel Tap. An outstandingly seedy establishment,” he added with a wince, “but conveniently round the corner from the Archives. The family stories Briuly didn’t recall, Alaen did.”
“So they get the hints, and we don’t?” Mieka glanced at the back wall as if the map would reappear at his whim. “Where exactly is it, Cade? Come on, tell!”
Rafe laughed at him. “Twenty years old this coming summer, and can’t read a map!”
“Cade!” he whined.
“Since I’m confessing,” he said, “it helps that my little brother is a fiend for maps and things. I had him do one up for me of all the old Oakapple lands, from what I could learn at the Archives. Taught me a lot about scale and contouring,” he mused, just to see the frustrated jut of Mieka’s jaw. “Not to mention how words get mangled over the years, and sounds shift about.”
“Cade!”
“Before we left Gallybanks, I begged an afternoon with the High Chapel Chronicler—for a while he thought I was applying for a job—”
“Where is the bleedin’ thing?”
“—but eventually I got a list of all the Chapels sponsored by kings and queens and what-have-you—for the bells, y’know—and then it was a matter of plotting them out on the same map, so I set Dery onto it and—”
“Cayden!”
Jeska shook his head. “You want to go claim it for yourself? Not bleedin’ likely!”
“Why shouldn’t we?”
“Cade did all the work.”
“Helped along by thorn!”
“You’re a one to be talking,” Cade couldn’t help but say. “I’ve seen how little you’ve left in that roll.”
Mieka rounded on him, sneering. “One word from me, and Auntie Brishen won’t remember your name!”
He didn’t know how they’d gone from smiles to snarls so fast. They seemed to be doing that a lot lately, so much so that he was expecting Rafe and Jeska to do the usual, and quietly remove themselves from the skirmishing field. Instead, someone intruded upon it.
“Master Windthistle?” The footman hesitated in the doorway, came forward, hesitated again as Mieka turned a furious scowl on him. “Your pardon, but this just now arrived for you, by special courier.”
“Give it here, then!”
“Beholden,” Jeska said, and the boy made his escape.
Mieka ripped open the letter. Cade saw the purple wax seal, and knew it must be from Wistly Hall. And then he remembered: Mieka’s son was due sometime around Wintering. He’d forgotten—but Mieka hadn’t. Scant wonder the Elf was so nervy these days.
Mieka sat down very suddenly on the stage, as if his legs had turned to porridge.
“Well?” Jeska asked. “Nothing’s wrong?”
He shook his head, stunned. “A girl. A little girl. Born on Wintering Night. Looks like me, Mum says. My ears, anyways. And the hands.” He looked up at Cade, then looked about him as if wondering how he’d ended up on the floor.
A daughter? Cade felt almost as bewildered as Mieka. A swift glance at Rafe revealed not a trace of a flinch, only a broad smile, only genuine pleasure.
“Well done! What’s her name, then? Or can’t you tell us?”
“Hmm?” Mieka sorted through the meaning of the words; it was almost funny to watch him do it. “Oh. Jindra. My sister and I, we agreed back when we were little to name our firstborn after each other—”
So he’d forgiven Jinsie, Cade thought. Or perhaps he’d mentioned it to his wife months ago, before the wrangle, and forgot to unmention it.
And then it really hit him: a girl. Not a little boy who looked through the railings as his parents hit each other. He’d had no glimpse of that Elsewhen for a long time, and felt a fool when he realized why. That future had been possible, but once the baby was conceived, had become impossible. Which meant that Mieka could have bought that house after all, because there would be no little boy to stare down from upstairs. “So you’re in charge of the whole sodding world and everything in it?” Nothing to do with him. Not his responsibility.
“You should find the courier,” Rafe was saying, “and give him a bit for his trouble.”
Jeska nodded. “And we should drink the baby’s health—and her mother’s, too.” He paused, frowning. “Awkward, not having a name to drink to. Is it just you who knows it now, or the rest of the Windthistles, now that she’s family?”
Cade heard the crackle of hearth flames.
Rafe laughed again. “Are you wondering which of them to bribe into telling you?”
Not like the other Elsewhen, in that house—not a large fire for warmth, but a small one, made just for the purpose of burning paper to ashes.
“They don’t know,” Mieka was saying. “And neither
will you! She’s ‘Mistress Windthistle’ to you lot!”
Only one sheet of paper. Not a whole folio. Only one page.
{She was a beautiful woman, beautifully dressed, with black hair cascading in rich waves down her back. Wide ribbons of sea-green and brown fluttered as she crumpled a letter in both hands—her father’s hands, small and slender, the ring and little fingers almost the same length. She crouched beside the hearth, waiting for the flames to build.
A young girl, perhaps fifteen and perhaps not, came into the room. “Mum? I heard a courier come to the door—”
“The King is holding a ceremony.”
“What sort of ceremony?”
“At the Palace. It’s been twenty-five years, and the King wants to remind everyone about the summer he took the throne.”
“And we’re invited? Mum!”
“We’ll not be there,” she snapped, and threw the letter into the fire.
“But—”
Rising, she whirled on the girl. “D’you think I intend to sit and simper while people make speeches about what a wonderful man your grandsir was? How he and Touchstone changed theater, how he was so brilliant and creative—”
Defiantly: “He was!”
“Listen to me, and mark what I tell you. Your grandsir was a selfish, spoiled, heartless bastard who cared about drinking, fucking, and thorn. He never gave a damn about your grandmother nor me. He did whatever he pleased with whomever it pleased him to do it with, without a thought to anyone else—”
Dark eyes the color of irises regarded her with cold cunning. “If you hate him so much, why do we live on his money?”
“My money! He owed it to me—all the Gods know he never gave me anything else!”}
“—and a Namingday gift for the baby, something pretty—”
“Crisiant will see to it,” Rafe said, soothing the anxious father. “Cade? Come on, there’s a bottle waiting upstairs to honor Jindra and her mother with!”
They were over at the door, Rafe with his lectern, Mieka and Jeska with crated glass baskets. How had they got way over there? He was too stunned to understand.
