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of Piercehand’s guards. “Escort Her Royal Highness to the Minster!”
    He bowed to Iamina before hurrying to catch up to the carriage. The driver didn’t look happy. Cade met him stare for stare and eventually the man shrugged.
    There was room on the butter-soft upholstery for Jez, Mistress Mirdley, Blye, and Hadden. Mieka leaped up to sit beside the driver. Jedris stayed behind to make sure the rest of the wounded were taken care of and got home all right. Lord Rolon Piercehand was distributing handfuls of coin to every worker who filed past him. Cade noticed that some were going round twice.
    “Can I stay with you tonight?”
    He looked down at Derien. “What? No. Mother—”
    “She’s at Threne with the Archduchess for a week.”
    “She’s
where
? She never goes anywhere to stay.”
    “I know. But that’s where she is. Mistress Mirdley will want to keep an eye on Jez and it’d be just me at Redpebble. The footmen have the week free as well.”
    It was thus demonstrated to him how little he knew about his own family these days. “Well … all right. But be sure you wake in time for school tomorrow.”
    Lord Piercehand, still bestowing silver coins, called out to Cade—called him by name, in fact. For all that each group on each circuit spent several days of each tour on holiday at Piercehand’s Castle Eyot, Cade hadn’t known that the man had ever seen Touchstone perform. He was always off on some voyage or other, collecting. He was very charming, very rich, and very dissipated. Part Wizard and part Elf, with plenty of Human noble titles in his bloodlines and to spare, in his youth he had been all the craze at Court, where his good looks and merry wit made him the darling of Queen Roshien and her ladies. But that had been twenty years ago. He bore all the signs nowadays of indulgence in every diversion wealth could buy. The advancing ruin of a handsome face and fine body was something Cade had seen before, but he couldn’t quite recall where. An Elsewhen, mayhap.
    “Master Silversun! Yes, yes, over here, if you please!”
    Cade dutifully approached. “Your Lordship?”
    A monologue ensued, one voice meant for Cade and the other voice for the workmen queued up for commiseration in the form of silver coin—as if he were the masquer in a play that called for asides to the audience.
    “A good thing it was that you did with the carriage, Master Silversun.” With a quick, warm smile at a workman as he pressed a coin into his hand: “Here, my good fellow, glad to see you’re unhurt. I don’t know why she insisted on coming here, never any telling what that woman will do. Spend some of this on your wife, eh? Buy her something pretty. Invited her to my town house, gave her tea, asked if she’d part with a few of her better bits and bobs for my Gallery—yes, come back to work tomorrow, have to clear all this up, eh? On gracious loan from the collection of, and all that sort of thing. Then the runner came with word of this—” He waved his free hand aimlessly. “—and damn me if she didn’t offer her own carriage and stepped right in ahead of me. Let’s hope there’s not too much blood on the upholstery. Bright and early tomorrow, my lad! We’ve an opening to make ready for, eh? Where’d she take herself off to, then?”
    “The Minster across the way.”
    “Good place for her,” said Piercehand. “Devout these days—admirable, I’m sure, but a trifle tedious, eh? Not at all the way she was in her young day, I can tell you! Damn, but I’m afraid I’ve run out of coin! Well, lads, there’ll be more tomorrow. Tremendous apologies, and drink to your own good fortune tonight! This is
costing
me a bloody fortune,” he muttered as the line dispersed with grumbles—most of them hypocritical, for most of these men had gone through at least twice, rightly trusting to the usual inability of noblemen to distinguish one member of the working class from another. “But it might have cost me