Window Wall (41 page)

“And so was I,” Jez put in. “And you weren’t. Hush up.”

Mieka and Jinsie traded glances, and Jinsie said to the Princess, “We wouldn’t accord them half so much deference, being our oldest brothers, if they weren’t so uncouthly tall.”

“Your house must have been lively!” Miriuzca looked as if she would ask more about growing up at Wistly Hall, but something or someone coming into the garden caught her attention. Her soft mouth thinned for an instant before she stretched her lips into a smile; she couldn’t hide the mingled worry and annoyance in her blue eyes.

Mieka looked round. Tregrefin Ilesko and, of all people, Archduchess Panshilara were approaching the lunching table.

“Oh, splendid,” Cade muttered so quietly that only Mieka and Blye, seated on either side of him, heard.

All the men got to their feet and bowed to the Archduchess. Servants leaped forward to offer chairs. It was difficult to tell which it gave her more pleasure to ignore—the men of the working class or the men of the servant class—in favor of greeting Miriuzca almost as a sister, with a clasping of hands that she continued even when the Princess began to pull away. Mieka smirked inwardly, wondering if she would officially notice that none of the women had stood in her presence, just exactly as if they were all
ladies.

“So lovely to see you enjoying yourself, and with all these nice people, also,” said Panshilara. “I was seeing and speaking with a Good Brother and on my way back home when I saw His Highness the Tregrefin in a carriage riding to the North Keep here, and now I shall not be interrupting you, because he has a book to show me from our own land, that I am thinking to give to Her Royal Highness the Princess Iamina.”

“How kind,” Miriuzca murmured.

“There is much talk all over the city,” the Archduchess went on, still gripping Miriuzca’s hands in her own bony fingers, “about the celebratings, and I know everyone would be glad to know that Your Royal Highness is taking some time for yourself, and for pleasure, also, considering all your duties.”

“Just a few friends who’ve come to join me at lunching,” said the Princess, and if there was a gentle emphasis on
friends
, Panshilara didn’t hear it—or chose not to.

“Her Grace and I,” said the Tregrefin, “have been discussing the sad plight of unbelievers.”

“A thing that is concerning Princess Iamina, also,” added the Archduchess.

Mieka stared resolutely down at his hands. He ought to have guessed that this self-righteous little ferret would get on with the newly pious Iamina. Add Panshilara, who was from the same country as Ilesko, and married to the highest-ranking nobleman in Albeyn, and one had a charming threesome indeed.

Panshilara was still talking. Mieka wondered how the Archduke ever shut her up, or if he even bothered trying to untangle her sentences that never actually worked themselves into sentences. One thing was for certes: She was rude. All the men were on their feet, unable to sit down again because Panshilara was still standing.

“What has emboldened so many disbelievers and unbelievers is that with the doubling of the cost of everything in the last years and months, putting the celebratings on a path towards so much debt, then Chapel, High Chapel and Low Chapel and all, where so much good is done and lifting spirits towards the Lord and the Lady also, which is the fundamental transformation of Albeyn.”

Mieka looked round the table. Everyone wore expressions of polite interest, though a corner of Derien’s mouth was twitching towards distaste. Jed and Jez were trying to hide bewilderment; Crisiant suddenly seemed to find her empty plate fascinating. It was perfectly clear that no one had understood a word this woman had said, and frankly didn’t care to make the effort.

Cayden had not only not understood, he hadn’t even heard. He swayed slightly, and when Mieka looked up at him, he saw that the cloud-gray eyes had gone out of focus. He was in the middle of an Elsewhen. Somehow his knees had locked, and this kept him upright, but there was no conscious mind to steady him. Mieka got his arm around Cade’s back and hoped he didn’t unbalance them both right onto the grass.

Rafe, directly across from them, had seen it, too, and looked at Mieka with a worried frown. Everyone else was still attending courteously to the Princess, who was murmuring well-bred nothings. Her brother said something in their language, and just as he finished and Miriuzca frowned, Cade gave a start. He was back.

Mieka sent heartfelt praises to whichever deity was watching over them.

A moment later, he was cursing whichever of them had seen fit to abandon them. For Cade spoke, interrupting the Archduchess.

“Don’t,” he rasped. “Don’t do it.”

Anger, surprise, confusion—and abrupt frightened comprehension on the faces of those who had seen Cayden return from an Elsewhen before. Rafe opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Mieka found himself equally at a loss. It was Jeska, the masquer, who improvised at will, who smiled and wagged an admonishing finger at Derien.

“You heard your brother. Don’t steal all the cakes before the rest of us have had a chance at them!” He turned to the Princess. “We most humbly beg Your Royal Highness’s pardon. I daresay you’ll find out in a few years that boys of Derien’s age grow an inch between one dinner and the next, and eat like starving dragons in between!”

“And your pardon, again, Your Royal Highness,” said Crisiant, “for we have not yet asked about the Prince and Princess. They are well and strong, yes?”

“Oh, very. And I understand about boys and food,” she told Derien kindly. “It isn’t so long since this one was eating our father out of house and home!” She freed one of her hands—Panshilara had held on to her this whole time, Mieka noted with amazement—and tapped her brother’s nose. He looked as if he would have slapped her hand away if there hadn’t been people around. “Ilesko, on your way to see Her Grace to her carriage, could you have them send out another plate of cakes, and more berries? Oh, just more of everything! Beholden. So nice to have seen you today, Your Grace. Please, gentlemen, do sit down, and we’ll continue our lunching after we’ve been resupplied by the kitchens.”

The Tregrefin escorted the Archduchess none too gracefully from the garden. The men sat back down—Cayden almost collapsing into his chair—and Crisiant engaged the Princess in chat about little boys. Derien had learned a lot at the King’s College, Mieka reflected; he had every right to be miffed at being singled out as the excuse for Cade’s words, but the only emotion in his eyes was worry when he looked at his brother.

At last Jed spoke up, saying, “Please forgive me, Princess, but … what was the Archduchess talking about?”

Miriuzca laughed rather ruefully. Mieka glanced from her to Megs, who was staring at Cade, not even trying to hide her confusion.

“It’s been suggested,” Miriuzca said, “that the Good Brothers and Good Sisters hold special services all over Albeyn on the appointed day, High Chapel and Low, so that everyone can have a chance to celebrate King Meredan’s rule. But they are wanting to be paid for this. Oh, your pardon—not
paid for
but
donated to.
”

Blye snorted inelegantly at the cynical correction and tapped a burn-scarred finger on the table. “They balk at showing their loyalty, and at giving everyone else the chance to do the same?”

Miriuzca waited to reply until the servants had placed more platters and bowls on the table and departed. “They say it’s the cost of refreshments—cakes and ale only—they’re wanting. I believe that it’s the opinion of His Majesty that—how did he put it? Oh yes. ‘They can bloody well cough up.’” Laughter danced in her eyes.

“His Majesty is bloody well right,” Mieka said. “But let’s go back to talking about children, because that’s what we came here to tell you.” He stuck his fork into a succession of berries—red, black, blue, and yellow. “Well, that and the food, of course.” He grinned across the table at her, and she grinned back.

Crisiant rose to her feet. “I think we’ll leave you to it, if Your Royal Highness doesn’t mind. I hear quite enough about Touchstone as it is, and I’ve a hankering to see the gardens. Mayhap you’ll be our guide, Lady Megueris?” She curtsied, collected everyone else with her gaze, and they set off across the lawn to the river, leaving Mieka, Rafe, Cade, and Jeska to beguile the Princess with their plans.

A scant hour later, she was suitably beguiled and they were in hire-hacks returning home. Mieka rode with Cade and Derien, and was impressed when the boy didn’t instantly demand to know why he’d been singled out as a conversational distraction. He really was learning how to be a courtier, Mieka thought. But he’d compliment him later. Right now he had something he wanted to say to Cayden.

“So,” he said, leaning back, arms folded. “Lady Megs. She looked rather well, didn’t she?”

“Did she? I didn’t notice.”

“Nice try, Quill! I was watching you both. She watched you not watch her, while at the same time you watched her not watching you, which means you were both watching each other pretend
not
to watch each other. I’m sure it was exhausting, all that effort spent keeping watch on not watching—”

“Enough!” Cade exclaimed.

Derien eyed his crimson-faced brother, then looked at Mieka. “You really will have to teach me how to do that.”

Before Mieka could reply, Cade pointed a finger at him. “Don’t even consider it.”

“You never let me have any fun.”

They were at Redpebble Square, and Dery had jumped out to go tell Mistress Mirdley all about the afternoon, when Mieka stopped Cade in the middle of stepping out of the hack.

“You’ll tell me about that Elsewhen?” he asked softly.

Cade hesitated, then nodded. “Tomorrow at rehearsal.”

Satisfied, Mieka watched him go, then settled back to think during the drive over to Waterknot Street. He didn’t get much work done on his thoughts, though. The bluethorn of late this morning had worn off, and all he really wanted was some privacy and his thorn-roll, replenished by Master Bellgloss—complete with glass thorns—until Auntie Brishen could send him his usual.

E
ach night since the abrupt departure of Lord Kearney Fairwalk from Number Eight, Redpebble Square, Cayden had gone upstairs to his room, opened his thorn-roll and stared at it.

There was a certain gloomy fascination in knowing which little twists of paper contained thorn that brought lunatic energy, or painted ordinary objects with bizarre and throbbing colors, or stimulated dreaming, or tossed his thoughts into a steep spiral like a water-whirl in a draining sink, ending in a mind emptied of all but sleep. The precise meanings of the various markings were a mystery to him, but Brishen Staindrop had been supplying him for so long that she knew what worked on him and how—and that very little worked on him the way it did other people. He knew that blue plus green was one thing, and yellow was another, and three purple lines with a white dot was something else, and blockweed—his first foray into thorn and still his favorite, for its dreamless sleep—was in the paper twists with blue edges. It was rather like the colors of their withies, he mused, and as familiar to him by now. Perhaps Brishen had other codes for other people, the way each group coded its withies; he knew only what she sent to him, and only she knew what it was.

Mieka’s request for thorn hadn’t surprised him. He knew how much he’d been using, and Mieka’s consumption was at least half again as much as his. The difference was that Cade was capable of rationing himself and Mieka was not.

Cade had also remembered, on the way to Frimham, to send a letter to Brishen so that more thorn would be waiting for him in Gallybanks. The package had been sent to his flat, of course. He didn’t want to think too much about Mistress Mirdley’s reaction when she found it. The fleeting hope that she hadn’t known what it was died almost before he hoped it. Mistress Mirdley knew everything.

Yet it had been waiting for him, unopened, in his fifth-floor room at Redpebble Square, ready to be used, and to be shared with Mieka.

Neither did he think too much about what Mieka would be like if completely deprived of thorn.

Now, tonight, after dining with his brother and Mistress Mirdley in the kitchen—Lady Jaspiela had been invited to the Palace, of all places, to dine with her husband, of all people—and helping Derien tell most but not all of what had happened at the North Keep that day, he joined the Trollwife in chivvying Dery up to his room. He would return to the King’s College in two days, the fees having been found (with Mieka’s help), and there were books waiting to be read so that he could catch the other students up without too much difficulty. When Dery was gone, grumbling, Cade relaxed into the deeply padded chair by the empty hearth with a cup of hot tea. Mistress Mirdley bustled about, cleaning up after the meal, wrapping extra food, saying nothing.

Cade pulled out today’s Elsewhen for examination.

{ If they hadn’t been outside, strolling through the gardens, they would have died.

He knew this at the very instant the Keep behind him shattered and the sound of it deafened him and the shock of it knocked him down onto the grass. Dust clotted in his lungs, stung his eyes and throat. He could hear nothing but what seemed an endlessly repeating echo of the explosion, timed to his rapid heartbeats. Pushing himself upright, he turned to where the Princess had been. It was difficult to see through the billows of dust, but the butter-yellow of her gown was a bright splash on the green lawn. She sprawled with her baby daughter beside her.