Thornlost (Book 3) (37 page)

The door didn’t slam as loudly as he would have liked, but it would do.

N
o winter of Mieka’s life had ever seemed to last as long as this one. There was work enough to keep him busy, shows at the Keymarker and the Kiral Kellari and Gallantrybanks’ few small theaters and many private mansions; when he wasn’t working, he was either at Wistly Hall with his family or at Hilldrop Crescent with his wife and daughter and mother-in-law, though these were more like visits than being in residence. More often than not, Touchstone had a week of performances in a row and it was impossible to go back to Hilldrop every night. So he stayed at Wistly, and life was just as it had always been before his marriage. But life at Hilldrop was just as it had always been, too.

There, he was husband and father and son-in-law, but only for a few days at a time. It took at least half a day to return to the rhythms of life in that house, and on the nights before he returned to Gallantrybanks, part of him had already left. He spent a lot of time with Yazz and Robel in their huge warm loft in the barn that combined bedchamber and sitting room and kitchen and, by spring of next year, a little sectioned-off space for their expected child. Sometimes, feeling nostalgic—which was ridiculous at the ripe old age of twenty—he even slept in Touchstone’s wagon, with a bottle of Auntie Brishen’s finest and a thorn-roll at his side.

At Wistly, he was son and brother and designated jester. In addition to his parents and siblings there were cousins, aunts, uncles, and complete strangers milling about the place, and no one ever knew who was going to show up or move out on any given day. His mother ran the house as best she could manage, while his father made lutes. The real changes were in his brothers and sisters. Jez had a new girlfriend (and seemed serious about her). Jinsie had become their mother’s chief deputy around the house and was seeing five different young men (and professed to be bored with them all). Cilka was experimenting with encouraging small shrubs to grow into shapes Petrinka designed (both had been intrigued by Mieka’s descriptions of what he’d seen on the Continent, and Grandsir Staindrop envisioned new and profitable ventures for his gardening enterprise; it wasn’t just Derien Silversun who’d latched on to a possible career as a result of that trip). Nearly five years old now, Tavier and Jorie were attending the local littleschool and bringing home friends who added to Wistly’s anarchy. He didn’t want to
be
a dragon anymore, just keep a few as pets, and she ignored everyone in favor of books, now that she had learned to read.

It seemed to Mieka sometimes that he had two distinct lives—three, if he counted the time rehearsing and onstage with Touchstone. Occasionally these lives intersected. His mother and Jinsie would come to stay at Hilldrop, or he would bring his wife and the baby for a week at Wistly, and once in a while various Silversuns and Threadchasers and Jeska would come by for dinner. It was confusing at times, when he bothered to think about it. Mostly he lived as he had always done: moment to moment, on his instincts.

What made the winter so long was that there was no renewal of friendly relations with Cayden. The
don’t talk to me
interlude lasted only a few days. Well, it would’ve been impossible to maintain it much longer. They worked together, after all. And it
was easier to start speaking to each other again than to explain to Rafe and Jeska why they had stopped.

But the quiet talks, the late evening drinking, the sharing of interesting thorn, the laughter—Gods, how he missed laughing with Quill.

There was laughter enough in other places, but it wasn’t the same. It was Mieka’s nature to create merry mayhem wherever he went. He wondered sometimes if his restraint from even the mildest mischief at the races that day hadn’t been his own sort of Elsewhen, a foreshadowing of misery-soon-to-come. He seemed to be lacking in ideas these days. That, too, was an odd reflection of Cade, who was having trouble with his latest creation. For all the busyness of that winter, things felt suspended, frozen in time, like they were all posing for an imaging that took forever to be finished.

Tavier and Jorie’s Namingday provided a nice distraction—but only for one day. Mieka gave his littlest sister a pretty new dress that his wife had sewn. For Tavier there was a pair of silk-and-wire wings (their mother moaned softly at the sight until Mieka made Tavier promise on his hope of ever seeing a real dragon that he would never, ever,
ever
try to use them to fly). The boy seemed to get taller by the day, and once or twice suffered the same sort of pains Cade had described. Mieka rubbed liniment into his legs and assured him that the aches meant he would be as tall as Jed and Jez, not a runt like Mieka himself. But as he soothed his brother, he wondered how the pain of losing Quill’s confidence and friendship could translate into growth.

There were means of easing that pain, of course, and Mieka availed himself liberally of them all. Thorn and liquor, and pretty girls after the shows, and going out with Rafe to various taverns, supposedly to have a look at new players but really to ask about unemployed fettlers. That last was a cover for their shared need to get drunk, for Crisiant had again miscarried. Mieka would
have bet his own magic that Rafe would find no growth in that kind of pain.

Some of the groups weren’t bad. Some were plain awful. They never did run across anybody who knew of a roving fettler. Mieka loved the attention and the flattery when he and Rafe were recognized. Kearney Fairwalk’s placards served them well, for they were invariably greeted by name within minutes of walking in the door. They’d have a few drinks, watch the show, and afterwards invite the group to join them for a few more drinks. He loved, too, the respect verging on worship offered Touchstone. And when one or another of the lads made a joke about whether they were looking for a new fettler to replace Rafe, Mieka laughed uproariously and said yeh, but not like you’re thinking, because me ’n’ Rafe, we’re lookin’ to go out on our own with another masquer and tregetour but we’re not likin’ to leave Cade and Jeska stranded, right?

But they never did hear of a roving fettler, so Megs must have been wrong after all.

Cade got to hear about the imaginary breakup. One afternoon at the Kiral Kellari for rehearsal, he presented Rafe with a list of tregetours and masquers, saying that he and Mieka might find somebody to suit them better from amongst those names. Rafe glanced down the list, then handed it to Mieka and said, “All these men are dead.”

Cade nodded amiably. “So they are.”

The implication being that so would Rafe and Mieka be if they kept on telling that particular story.

It was necessary to rehearse at the Kiral Kellari, even though they knew the place very well, because the owner was in the process of turning it into a real theater and the alterations perforce altered the way magic here had to be done. Besides the structural differences, the huge painting on the side wall had changed. More to the point, its magic had changed. The old mural of the
Mer King (who closely resembled Prince Ashgar) and the ladies of his court (who closely resembled some of his many mistresses) had been taken down. It was considered disrespectful, now that Prince Ashgar was married and everyone adored his Princess. But it had taken time to organize a new mural, for the proprietor of the Kiral Kellari had had some trouble finding commercial sponsors. Master Honeycoil the wine merchant, Franion’s Finest Bottled Ale, and Bellchime Keggery had all been perfectly happy with the old one, saw no reason to finance anything different. It was Master Honeycoil’s opinion that giving the Mer King more hair and a different chin would solve any problems of delicacy. The owner of the Kiral Kellari disagreed, and he was tired of the old mural anyhow. So he commissioned a new one.

Yet it kept undergoing alterations. He couldn’t decide which court he wished to see. The basic theme of a royal wine cellar must be retained, for that was what
kiral kellari
meant, although in what language Mieka never did find out. The naked breasts had to stay—this establishment’s customers were men, and men enjoyed looking at naked breasts—but nobody wanted to look at, for instance, half-naked Trolls except other Trolls. For himself, Mieka didn’t much care what was decided on, as long as nothing about the cellar looked anything like that cellar they’d played three times at that mansion outside New Halt. He hadn’t yet discussed it with Cade and Rafe and Jeska, but he was determined never to set foot in that building again, no matter how much money was offered.

Touchstone finished setting up—glass baskets, withies, lecterns—then took a look at the newest additions to the mural. For the last month or two a great burlap curtain was drawn across it after opening time; magic would have done as good a job at concealment, but that much magic would have interfered with performances. Nobody was working on the thing this afternoon, and Mieka could sense only a few new spells applied since their last
engagement here. It was more Rafe’s responsibility than his, anyway, figuring out how Touchstone’s magic might bounce or slide.

The main mural was still of a cellar, but arched windows framed other scenes supposedly taking place outside. Lacking firm direction about what kind of court to show, the painter had concentrated on these images first.

Standing close enough to see but far enough away for some perspective, Mieka squinted at one of the window views. A road meandered between green fields under a cloudless sky. But in this placid rustic scene an emaciated little man in a bright red hat stood braced by the side of the road, carrying a sharp wooden scythe and looking furiously ready to use it. Confronting him was a Good Brother in traditional robes, hands folded piously, his very Human face pale but determined as his lips moved on the same words over and over again. The magic didn’t include the sound of his voice, but Mieka could guess what was being said. Some quote from
The Consecreations
—for the little man was a Redcap, and the only method of thwarting a Redcap and escaping his sweeping scythe was to recite holy words. If a Redcap caught you without sacred texts to recite from memory, you were dead, for the red of his cap was dyed with blood. If it dried, he would die.

“Forever hunting fresh blood,” Cade murmured at his side. “Charming, isn’t it? Come look at this one over here.”

Uncomplicated, this one. A Human girl slept beneath an apple tree in what ought to have been another pleasing little rural scene. But the fruit was falling from the branches as a hideous little creature in dark clothes and a tall hat laughed and spun something white and cobwebby in thick fingers, and let the resulting threads trickle down into the sleeping girl’s ear. The magic hadn’t yet been fully refined, so the fruit jerked about in all directions and the gossamer kept unraveling.

Mieka frowned. “What’s that s’posed to be?”

“A Goblin.”

“What?” No Goblin or part Goblin he’d ever encountered was as hideous as this creature. True, the teeth were yellow and crooked (easily remedied by a chirurgeon), and the single eyebrow across the forehead was a Goblin trait (even more easily remedied by a pair of tweezers). But there was a menace and a malice to the ugly face that made him want to draw back and shiver. “No,” he protested. “Can’t be.”

“It’s a Goblin.” Cade pointed. “See how his laughter is making the fruit fall from the tree? And that little hand-weaving he’s doing—those are nightmares he’s sending into the girl’s mind as she sleeps.”

“But Goblins can’t do that!”

“Legends say they can. Look over here.”

A Piksey sat on a giant toadstool, hands wrapped round his knees. Dressed all in green, with an impudent pointed hat, he grinned a grin that crinkled the corners of his upslanting eyes as he watched a bewildered farmer try to coax a horse to the plow. The poor animal’s head hung and his sides heaved and every line of him proclaimed total exhaustion—for of course the Piksey had been racing the horse across the fields all night long.

“But that’s just stories,” Mieka protested. “Makes a good playlet, and funny enough in the right hands”—he was thinking of one performed by the Shadowshapers, and another more traditional piece done by the Crystal Sparks—“but nobody actually believes that kind of thing. It’s just silly. And those footprints leading to the toadstool, all gold and silver Piksey dust? That’s naught but tales as well.”

Making a show of looking at Mieka’s feet, Cade said, “Are you sure? The boots hide it, I s’pose, but there’ve been times I could swear—”

“If you ever saw anything like that, you were pricking too much thorn. And I’ve enough Piksey in me to know!” He returned to the Goblin, shaking his head. “That’s just—”

“Disgusting,” Rafe said behind them. “There’s a Harpy over in the other corner, playing cards with a Gorgon. Back turned, of course, but still—”

Mieka felt his hands clench into fists. “Can you imagine what this will be like when it’s finished, and all the magic is working?”

“Finished is one thing this will never be,” declared the establishment’s owner, Master Warringheath. “An offense and a scandal, this is. I won’t have it between my walls. I’ve sacked the painter and all his assistants.”