Glasswrights' Test (26 page)

But Tovin was not there, and Rani was left to help Father Siritalanu, to assist Berylina. On the way to the prison, Rani made the priest repeat his tale. She slowed his torrent of words this time, forcing him to reiterate bits of the story. Rani realized that Berylina had actually saved a boy's life, that she had somehow called upon the Thousand to rescue a child. If the princess had that sort of power at her disposal, then what help could Rani possibly be?

Arriving at the Midden, she repeated the question to herself. The prison was located against one dark edge of a city square. Dust puffed up in the street, swirling into vicious devils that clutched at Rani's cloak and dried her throat. The dark blocks of stone that formed the Midden walls were red-tinged, as if they had been shaped from the blood of the prisoners inside.

Rani shook her head. Surely, she was being overly dramatic. The prison was a prison, like any other. Less dangerous than most. After all, the vast majority of the inhabitants were pilgrims who had proffered too many coins to the gods to pay their hostelry bills. Or they were worshipers who had grown drunk on wine and the words of their special gods.

The Midden was not the worst prison that Rani had ever seen.

Nevertheless, as she looked up at its brooding silhouette against the afternoon sky, she realized that she had rushed here headlong. Tovin would be furious to learn that she had not summoned him. Even if she had not dragged the player along, she should at least have called Mair.

But Mair was sleeping with Laranifarso, recovering after a night made sleepless by the babe's teething. And Tovin. . .. Tovin would merely tell her that she had no place in this dusty square. He might laugh and say that the princess's problems would resolve by daylight. He might offer to solve the problem for her, to clarify the mistake on his own. He might make light of Berylina's plight, even as he had jested about Rani's own problems, even as he had laughed when she told him that she was finally through with grinding colors and had at last been permitted to sharpen a grozing iron.

She did not need Tovin to set things right after all. She did not need him to look after Berylina, to fulfill Rani's own promise to Hal. Setting her lips into a firm line, she said to Father Siritalanu, “Very well. Let's speak to the guards. Let's explain their error.”

Rani knew that she was in no true danger as she approached the Midden walls. She was not the prisoner. She was not the accused, not the one trapped behind dank stone. And yet her heart beat faster, and her breathing came sharp. Her headache reclaimed the pounding space behind her eyes. She wiped suddenly clammy palms against her skirts, wished again that she could warm herself in the sultry summer streets.

“My lady,” Father Siritalanu said, but Rani shook her head. She could hear the despairing concern in his voice, and the emotion angered her. She was fine. She could confront some upstart guards in a city prison where the people did not even bother to appoint a true king.

“Halt!”

Rani's heart clenched so tightly, she thought that she must cry out. Instead, she swallowed hard and ordered herself to remember the lessons she had learned with Tovin, the players' tricks for performing power. She stood up straight, and she swallowed once, reminding herself to pitch her words low. “I am here to see Berylina, Princess of Liantine and ward of King Halaravilli ben-Jair of Morenia.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Rani could see Father Siritalanu's nervous glance of surprise, and he took one step away, clearly trying to separate himself from her determined tone. The guard continued to stare straight ahead, as if she had said nothing. “No prisoners may receive visitors after the hour of Charn.”

Charn. Rani ran through a quick recitation of the gods. The god of knives. When did his bells ring in the city? Some time in the morning, most likely. At least that was what the guard's attitude suggested.

“The princess was only just brought here to the Mid—” Rani stopped herself in time. No reason to insult the guard. No reason to imply that he was merely a fly buzzing about a dung heap. “To the Thousand Gods' Hall of Justice. I could not see her before Charn's bells, because she was not here then.”

“Then you will see her before Charn on the morrow.”

“She is a princess, man!” Rani's voice was suddenly shrill, and she swallowed again, forcing her tone back toward the players' rich register.

She might have been reciting children's tales for all the impact her words had on the guard. “Princess or pauper, we make no distinction here. All men and women are equal in the eyes of the Thousand Gods.”

The matter-of-fact tone pricked Rani's anger, even as she wondered what it meant for Berylina in practical terms. If all prisoners were equal, then the princess would be sleeping on straw. She'd be filling her belly with greasy water and cold gruel, if she even got that.

Hal was going to be furious with Rani. He was going to be disappointed in her. He was going to look at her with condemnation, and then he would sigh that sigh that made him sound as if he were a hundred years old. . ..

A crimson curtain fell across Rani's eyes, and she stepped toward the guard with a new determination. “You don't understand, you miserable, dust-sucking dog. You've got a woman in there by mistake. She doesn't belong in your stinking Midden, and when she is released, you are going to be held personally responsible. King Halaravilli will see that you spend the rest of your days mucking out garderobes in his own castle walls! He'll see—”

Father Siritalanu closed his fingers around Rani's arm, his grip betraying more strength than Rani ever expected the man possessed. He cleared his throat and said, “I am the princess's spiritual guide, good soldier. I would like to pray with her, to help her find the path of right and wrong through all that she is accused of.”

The guard stared at the priest suspiciously, his eyes as shrewd as a hawk's. Rani caught her breath and waited, belatedly realizing that she and Father Siritalanu were entirely at the man's mercy. The Thousand Gods, however, must have smiled upon their mission, because the bells in a nearby temple began to ring. The clamor was picked up by bells across the courtyard, and by a more distant, deeper claxon. Rani resisted the temptation to cover her ears against the noise.

Instead, she watched the Briantan soldier relax into the sound. It seemed as if he gathered confidence from the bells, breathing in their peace as easily as Rani breathed air. For just an instant, his angry glare faded, and Rani was reminded of the old Holy Father of her youth, of the ancient man who had recited his words of prayer with a passion and a confidence that even now echoed across the years.

“Very well,” the soldier said, as the bells started to fade away. “You may pray with the prisoner. But we must search you first, to ascertain that you do not bring any contraband into the cells.”

“By all means,” Father Siritalanu said, bowing his head in a humility that Rani could not imitate. Nevertheless, she submitted to the guard's brisk touch, allowing him to verify that she did not carry weapon or tool, no means of liberating Berylina from her unjust cell.

The soldier's touch reminded Rani of other times that she had been searched—nearly a decade ago in Morenia, when she was cast into the old king's dungeons, two years ago in Liantine, when she'd approached the Spiderguild at their desert stronghold. She had emerged alive—if not unscathed—from each of those encounters, and she tried to comfort herself that this soldier's impersonal touch would result in no lasting harm.

She was grateful that she had followed the precepts of pilgrimage and walked the streets of Brianta with no weapon on her person.

At last, the guard was satisfied, and he summoned a fellow who stood inside the prison gates. That soldier looked Father Siritalanu and Rani up and down with bright-eyed skepticism, but he complied with a direct order from his fellow and led the pair through a small antechamber, into a warren of hallways.

Rani had trouble catching her breath inside the prison. Each time that she filled her lungs, she was tempted to cough, to force out the evil aura that pressed upon her. Her heart pounded fast beneath her hastily donned robe, and the tips of her fingers tingled. Her belly clenched with hunger, but she wondered if she could have kept food down in her nervous state.

She wanted to turn about and run; she wanted to go back to her workroom at the guild, to the chamber that she shared with Mair. How had she been foolish enough to come here, without even letting her Touched friend know her destination? Without telling Tovin, without bringing him along for protection and for his wry wisdom? What fool choice had she made? How could she go on?

Father Siritalanu must have sensed the panic that was growing inside her. He glanced at her as she held back at one particularly shadowy juncture, and for just an instant a ghost of compassion haunted his eyes. Rani thought that he was about to speak, that he was about to offer her some words of solace, but then the guard drew up sharply in front of an iron-barred cell.

“My lady!” Father Siritalanu exclaimed, and Rani's attention was dragged to the tiny chamber.

Berylina sat on a stone bench against the far side of the cell, stark beneath a single slit of a window. Her back was pushed up against the wall, and it seemed that the stone was the only force that kept her upright. Her knees were tucked beneath her chin, and her fingers clasped about her shins, as if she were trying to lock in some boundless passion.

Or as if she were freezing.

Even in the dim light of the soldier's flickering torch, Rani could see that the princess was shivering. Her lips were tinged blue, and her face was ashen against the green of her caloya robes. The dark green of her caloya robes. The sodden green—the robes were clearly soaked through.

“You did not even let her dry herself before you cast her in here?” Father Siritalanu's voice echoed off the low ceiling, and his face flushed purple with rage. “She worked Mip's own mission, and yet you leave her to catch a chill and die?”

“She's a prisoner, Father.” The guard answered immediately, but then he swallowed uneasily. He was clearly accustomed to yielding to religious men, to giving way before the power of the Thousand Gods and all their earthly representatives. “She is accused of witchcraft, Father. Surely, if she were uncomfortable in her cell, she would call upon her ungodly powers to warm her.”

“If she
were
a witch, she might do just such a thing,” Rani snapped.

Father Siritalanu said, “She's a child! A blessed, far-seeing child, who saved the life of another child this morning.” The priest sighed, as if he realized further argument would be fruitless. “Let me go in there.”

The guard shook his head. “You may speak with her. You may not enter the cell.”

Rani argued, remembering to move her arm in an expansive gesture, as if she were performing on the players' stage. “Look at her! She can't even come to the door! Let us go in!”

The guard merely shook his head, one curt motion, and then he crossed his arms on his chest and looked away. Rani glanced at Berylina, saw that she was not even following the guard's refusal. The girl was looking off to her right, not trying to see with her good eye, not trying to crane her neck to bring the trio of free people into focus.

“Do you realize what you're doing, soldier?” Rani forgot any semblance of players' art as anger overtook her. Her voice rang shrilly against the stone walls. “That girl is a princess of the land of Liantine, heir to the house of Thunderspear. She is a protected member of the court of Halaravilli ben-Jair. When her father. . .. When my king. . .. When they find out that you have treated Princess Berylina Thunderspear like a common harlot, armies will be raised! The princess is a pilgrim, in the name of all the Thousand Gods! She came to Brianta as a worshiper! She has a cavalcade and a Thousand Pointed Star!”

Rani only stopped her tirade because she needed to draw breath, because she needed to fill her lungs and think of some argument that could persuade this soldier, this stupid, mind-closed guard, this idiot—

Father Siritalanu stepped forward and clapped his hand on the man's shoulder. The priest leaned close and said, “I understand, my man. I understand your predicament.” And when the father stepped back, the guard moved to the door, opening it with a quick jerk of one of the keys that jangled at his waist.

Rani stared in amazement as Father Siritalanu stepped over the threshold. It was not until the guard eased to the side for her to pass that she saw the glint of gold in his palm, the edge of a coin that he tucked into a pouch beside the ring of keys. He turned slowly and walked down the corridor with apparent nonchalance. Rani shook her head and stifled an oath before she stepped into the cell and crossed to Berylina in two quick strides.

“My lady,” Father Siritalanu was saying as he eased an arm around his charge. “You must be freezing! Don't worry, now. We're with you.”

“I do not worry, Father.” The princess's breath was high and wispy, like clouds on the hottest summer day. Rani could see tiny drops of blood on her lips, where her teeth had pierced her flesh as she shivered.

“We're here now, my lady,” the priest continued to say, filling the deadly silence with soothing chatter. He swept his cloak off his shoulders, eased it behind the princess. The ends of her hair were still wet, but the roots had dried so that her wiry strands stood out from her head. “You're not alone any longer,” the priest crooned.

“I was never alone, Father.” The princess had to pause to muster more breath, to form more words. “I have not been alone here.”

“Your Highness,” Rani said, swallowing the coppery flavor of fear at Berylina's strange words. “We will get you out by morning. We'll demand in King Halaravilli's name that you be released.”

Berylina shook her head weakly, finally turning her neck to pin Rani with one wandering eye. “I am not here as the king's woman. I am a pilgrim.” For the first time since Rani and Father Siritalanu had entered the cell, Berylina showed a hint of emotion: her lower lip trembled with more than a chill, and tears welled up in her eyes. “I am a pilgrim, seeking the guidance and the blessing of all the Thousand Gods.”