by Melanie Rawn
In silken tones, Cade asked, “How much did he offer you to get us involved?”
“Offer me?”
“You know. Money. Coin. Our accounts are pretty much depleted, and you must be frantic for a new source of funding. Come on, Your Lordship, what price does His Grace put on us?”
Slowly, like soft foggy clouds melting from a mountain crag, the real face of Kearney Fairwalk was exposed. The civilized mask gone, the true nature of a Gnomish past glowered on his thick features. Mieka understood at last why long-ago kings had set Gnomes to guard Albeyn’s borders. The frustling, chattering lordship had vanished, and in his place was something fierce and threatening.
“Say it, why don’t you? Say that you believe I stole it all from you! Say it!”
“You did steal it.”
“Money you never would have had if not for me! Who found you, shaped you, taught you, sponsored you? Showed you how to discern the best so that everyone knew you knew it, and never tried to foist third-rate on you ever again? Who hushed up the intolerable offenses of that stupid little Elf before they landed him in quod? Who kept your insufferable excuse for a father out of your way? Not to mention that Harpy who calls herself your mother! Who arranged the journey to the Continent so that the new Princess would look on you with favor above all other players?”
Cade stood up, drawing himself to his full six-foot-four, and glared down at him. “Who did all the work of writing and performing the plays?”
“Who gave you the confidence to write those plays? Who took care of the advertising, and the articles in the broadsheets? Do you think Tobalt Fluter and his ink-stained kind simply heard your name and queued up to interview you? Who created your reputation before you even knew a reputation was necessary? Who paid those first few audiences at the Downstreet to come see you—even after your success at Trials that year, why else would they come to see a group that barely even had a name?”
Mieka felt that one in his guts. He saw Jeska’s fists clench and Rafe’s expression freeze. Cayden had turned white to the lips. Everything else they could shrug away; this got them right where they lived.
Fairwalk was still raving. “Who saw to your bookings and your travel, your wagon, your lodging? Who made certain that you were always dressed in the first word of fashion? Who took care of your families while you were gone for months at a time?”
Cade had recovered by now. “Who stole from us and our families, and took most of my grandfather’s legacy besides?”
“Do you think that ten out of a hundred is adequate compensation for everything I did for you?”
Jeska spoke for the first time since Fairwalk had entered the room. “I’ve been through the books. You left us the ten and took the rest of the hundred for yourself.”
Rafe nodded slowly. “And now,” he murmured with gentle menace, “we want it back.”
The nobleman gestured this away, like casually swatting a fly. “You can’t have it. It’s gone.”
“Fairwalk Manor still stands, doesn’t it?”
He sucked in an outraged breath. “My ancestral home? Are you mad?”
“No. Just poor. I should think the horseflesh alone would bring a tidy sum. And there’s all the decorations, rugs and furniture and all that. As near as I can figure it, you’ll need a bed to sleep on and a pot to piss in,” Rafe concluded, “and that’s about it.”
Fairwalk pushed himself to his feet. “I refuse to listen to any more of this. Whatever grievances you think you might have, you may address them to my lawyers. I can prove that every expenditure was in Touchstone’s behalf, either as a group or individually, regarding your wives and children and parents and all the rest of your greedy tribes who came to me for money while you were traveling on the circuits, and were paid out in cash, and—”
“Gather your so-called evidence,” Jeska said. “I know what we have to hand, which proves what you didn’t pay for. Where did all that money get to?”
“As I said—expenses incurred in your behalf—”
“Get out of this house,” Cade said quietly. “Get out on your own two legs before we throw you out.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Cade smiled. “I believe the appropriate platitude in reply is ‘Try me.’ But I’ve always deplored formulaic writing. So my answer is this: Get out on your own two legs while you still have two legs.”
Fairwalk was crimson by now, every stubby inch of him trembling with fury. “You,” he grated, “all you damned superior Wizards—Elves—you think your magic and your heritage put you so high above the rest of us that the only direction you can possibly look is down! I know who your grandmother was, boy!” he shouted at Cade. “I know what she did! I know how many she killed! Oh, but not with her own delicate Wizardly hands, oh no! It was the rest of us, all of us lowly Gnomes and Goblins and simple unmagical Humans, we’re the ones who did her killing for her! And as for you,” he spat at Mistress Mirdley, “you Troll, knowing so much and living so long and keeping more secrets than even the Fae! You none of you have any idea how much the rest of us hate you—all of you! Money’s the least of what you owe us!”
Rafe unfolded himself from his chair and stood beside Cayden. The two tall Wizards didn’t bother to menace the Gnome with fists. They merely looked down at him. He turned on his heel and stalked out.
Rafe was the first to speak when Fairwalk had gone. “Well, that was fun. Cade, is there anything in this house stronger than lemonade?”
When the brandy bottle had made the rounds, Jeska sighed back into his chair. “I went to see my little girl this morning,” he said. “She’s beautiful, and growing apace, and I’m thinking that we’ll be working so hard for the next few years that the next time I see Airilie, she’ll be in long skirts and giggling about boys.”
Mieka was momentarily distracted by application of this thought to Jindra. He was unsure whether he was more amazed or appalled.
Cade had an odd expression on his face. Not the Elsewhen sort of look, but as if an idea had come to him from he knew not where. “Rafe,” he said, turning to their fettler, “is your children’s play done?”
“In basic form, yeh. It wants you lot to fill it in and plan the changes and things, but—”
“How soon could we get it ready?”
Rafe considered. “Mayhap a week. Less, if we really work at it.”
“Then let’s really work at it. Because if we’re to be hired more often than anyone else, including the Shadowshapers, we have to have something that nobody else can give.”
“Children,” Rafe reminded him, “are notoriously short of spendable cash.”
“But their parents aren’t. An afternoon show—one adult ticket at a smaller price, accompanying two or three children at half-price—you can get more small bottoms onto a bench than grown-up asses—and then the adults come back at night for our regular show—theater owners will be filling the seats twice in one day, they’ll love that—”
“And how exhausted will we be by the end of it?” Jeska asked.
“Not you,” Mieka retorted. “All you need do is remember your lines. It’s me and Rafe will be doing all the work, with the animals and noises and things. And who’s going to bring little ones to a theater?”
“They’ll queue up a mile long,” Cade said with a shrewd smile, “if Princess Miriuzca does it first.”
20
Leaving the specifics of their troubles with Lord Fairwalk to Cade and Jeska was both easy and justifiable. Mieka and Rafe had enough to do with planning out how the new play would go. For the first time in their experience, Cade was not involved in the writing or the staging. Once they were done, they’d tell him what was needed by way of magic, which he would prime into the withies, but in truth, the production rested almost entirely on Mieka and Rafe.
It felt weird, but it was working.
For one thing, they didn’t have to contend with Cayden’s griping and grimacing at every other thing anybody said. His voice yelling (often), “No!
Not like that, like this!” and (less often but more forcefully), “Are you fucking kidding me?” were things they had become used to, especially this past year. It was odd not hearing them, but more than that, it was a relief. Both of them knew that once they presented the nearly finished product to their partners, Jeska would study the piece, make a suggestion or two, and learn his part—but Cade would have quite a bit to say. He always did. At least they weren’t hearing it from the first run-through.
As for contacting Princess Miriuzca, they had several methods of approach. First was Cayden himself. He refused, and refused as well to let them use Lady Megueris Mindrising, who was one of the Princess’s ladies-in-waiting. So they ended up going to Blye, who obliged them by making, in record time, two small round plaques, one for each of the Royal children, with real forget-me-nevers pressed between two panes of glass. Wooden frames were made by Jed, painted in thin concentric circles of all the Royal colors: blue and buff for Prince Ashgar, brown and sea green for the King and Queen, and blue and more brown for the Princess herself. Blye fretted for hours about the placement of the colors—a combination that didn’t please her artistic eye in the first place—but because they had to have the pieces as soon as possible, she shrugged away her qualms and let her husband get on with it.
It was Jinsie who composed the note that went with them. In fact, the whole was quite the Windthistle production. Cilka and Petrinka supplied the flowers, and the bedding of ferns and moss cradling the plaques in their box, which was made by Jez with wood contributed by Hadden. Mishia found some very old and very beautiful embroidered ribbon to tie the box with. All that Mieka, Cade, Rafe, and Jeska had to do was sign the note and send it off to the North Keep, which Miriuzca had made her own. Away from the Palace with all its noise and traffic, with a garden and plenty of lawn for children to run about on, the North Keep was as close as she could get to a real country home. Ashgar had been promising that very thing for several years now, but it was said that he couldn’t decide which of his father’s many properties to ask for. Gossip had it that he’d simply wait until he inherited the lot and then let her choose for herself. Gossip also said that he resisted making a choice because the North Keep was only a half hour’s ride from the Palace. He could present himself as both a good husband and father who visited almost every other day, and a conscientious prince who assisted his father in running the Kingdom. A country home, many hours or even days away from Gallantrybanks, would demand that he be one or the other place because at that distance he couldn’t be at both. Staying with his family in the country would open him to criticism regarding his duties; staying at the Palace would incite charges of neglect. When Rafe remarked that the poor silly git couldn’t win for losing, Cade pointed out that the Palace was also much more convenient for indulging in amusements that living all the time in the same place as his wife—city or country—would make impossible. He didn’t look at Mieka as he said it.
Whatever, Mieka thought. The note was signed, the plaques were sent, and within a day there was a return note from Princess Miriuzca’s own hand saying how delighted she was with the gift, and wouldn’t they please do her the favor of taking lunching with her very soon? Cade’s smile was one of deep satisfaction as he penned his reply, reading it to his partners as he wrote.
“‘Touchstone individually and collectively would be honored to attend upon Your Royal Highness at whatever time and place is desired. We have, in fact, an idea we would very much appreciate your opinion on—’ No,” he said, taking a fresh piece of paper and recopying the first sentence. “That’s not quite right. More like this. ‘And we would very much appreciate Your Royal Highness’s opinion of an idea we’ve been working on. With all gratitude, and as always beholden to Your Royal Highness—’” He passed the page around for all of them to sign. “How’s it coming along?” he asked as they scrawled their signatures. “Will we have something definite to tell her?”
“If she wants us there next week, we can show her the whole play,” Rafe said, “if we bring along a withie or two. Though I’m thinking that the invitation included Blye and Jed as well, don’t you?”
Mieka had the unworthy, if accurate, thought that his wife would be in tears of sheer frustration that Jindra’s illness kept her from claiming a seat at the Princess’s lunching table. The child was on the mend, but not yet well enough to do without her mother’s care. He had hired a messenger—finances be damned—to deliver the stuffed animal he’d bought for Jindra in … well, wherever he’d bought it; he wasn’t terribly clear on a lot of where he’d been the past month or two. Or, rather, he knew where he’d been, but wasn’t entirely sure when he’d been there. At any rate, he had included a note to his wife, saying he missed her, would see her soon, and please don’t let the fuzzy brown velvet doggie anywhere near the pet fox. Something regrettable had happened last winter to a stuffed toy Cade gave Jindra, and she’d been inconsolable for days.
They were all at Wistly on the afternoon the Princess’s note arrived, taking tea out on the river lawn before resuming rehearsal, when Cade brought up a new idea. It had to do with making money, of course.
“You’re wanting to do a picture book to go along with this play, right?” he asked Rafe, who nodded. “Are the drawings done? Have you talked to a publisher?”
“No to the drawings. I thought it’d be best to wait until we know what we’ll be doing onstage, and then get some artwork done to match it. As for publishers—just Tobalt. He’s the only person I know who knows anything about printing and suchlike.”
“What do you think he’d say to publishing pamphlets? Our own original plays in script form. None of our notes on performance or anything,” he went on hastily when Mieka scowled, “so we wouldn’t be giving away any secrets. The idea is that if people can’t go to see a play, at least they can read one.”
“We couldn’t use ‘Dragon’ or ‘Treasure,’ could we?” Jeska asked. “Our versions are very different from the traditional scripts, but the stories themselves aren’t ours to make money from, if you see what I mean.”
“Hadn’t thought about that,” Cade admitted. “But until we can figure it out, we can publish our original stuff.”
“Which is to say your original stuff,” Rafe observed. “You wrote the things. The bulk of the money would go to you.”
Mieka was, quite simply, gobsmacked by Cade’s reply.
“The plays are by Touchstone.”
“Well, yes,” Rafe said. “But—”
Cade interrupted him. “How many days have we spent just like today, thrashing things out, making changes and working in new ideas? Ideas that you three have. Look at ‘Doorways’—every time we do it, it’s different. Glisker’s choice.” He winked at them over his teacup. “There’s times when I stand there knocked all agroof because I actually heard one of my original lines!”
“But ‘Doorways’ is mostly visual,” Jeska argued. “Unless we made it into a picture book as well, it wouldn’t make any sense.”
Mieka paid little attention as they ran through Touchstone’s folio of original plays, trying to find two or three that wouldn’t need illustrations. He was still wrapping his brain around the fact that possessive, snobbishly intellectual, controlling, arrogant, my-work-is-Art Cayden Silversun had actually said that authorship of Touchstone’s plays belonged to all four members of Touchstone.
He thought perhaps this might have something to do with what Fairwalk had said a few days ago. The staggering revelation that their first audiences had been paid to go see them still burned in his gut like a bellyful of stinging nettles. He suspected it always would. Not that anybody had to be paid nowadays; Touchstone was hailed as second only to the Shadowshapers in creativity and skill. And maybe that had something to do with sharing the credit as well, he mused—they were second place, no matter that they’d been First Flight on the Royal this year. They’d earned the position, he knew they had, but they’d got it only by default.
Mieka studied Cade’s face as t
he conversation went on around him. It wasn’t just that he’d voluntarily divided authorship with his partners, it was also that he had tacitly acknowledged that their contributions made his work better. Cade wrote for Jeska’s prodigious abilities; he wrote for Mieka’s distinctive style of glisking; he wrote for Rafe’s steady, unfaltering control of magic. Cade’s words were brilliant (well, with that one mortifying exception, Mieka reminded himself, wondering if Cade would ever go back and tweak “Turn Aback” for performance and rather hoping he would not). Would those plays be as good if someone else performed them? If his glisker or masquer or fettler were different people? Cade had admitted without actually saying it that as fine as his work was, Mieka and Jeska and Rafe made it superlative. Touchstone was greater than the sum of its parts—it was a thing worth being part of.
Mieka felt pleased that Cayden had finally remembered that. All that time spent denying and rejecting his Elsewhens had separated him not only from that crucial portion of his magic but from his partners as well. Nobody had noticed, not because nobody cared, but because they’d been doing quite well (except for “Turn Aback”) and couldn’t be bothered to be better. Now that imperative had awakened again. Fairwalk’s horrid words, and getting First Flight only because the Shadowshapers removed themselves from the scene, had kicked all of them into that need to make the work the best it could possibly be.
Well, those things, plus another overwhelming need: money.
Last night they’d played the Keymarker to huge applause. Tomorrow night they’d be at the Kiral Kellari. And there was a brand-new theater—a real one, with rows of seats instead of tables and chairs, and the bar in the entrance hall—opening soon south of the Plume. Added to whatever private performances they (or, more properly, Jinsie) could schedule, there were venues enough to keep them busy all winter. They would need everything in their folio, including several of their least-loathed Thirteen, to keep people coming back for more. This new play for children, though, that would ignite chavishing from here to Scatterseed, and that would be a very good thing—
