Glasswrights' Test (3 page)

“Of course, my lord,” Tovin said. “I would be most honored.”

“And when you've played for Count Jerumalashi, you can present your work for us,” Farsobalinti said, muscling his way through the crowd and offering a hand to Tovin. “You're a good man, Tovin Player.”

“Aye,” Rani heard at her elbow, and she turned to meet Mair's amused glance. “A grand man, that Tovin Player is.”

Rani stepped to the side, the better to converse with her friend. As she moved away from the nobles, she heard the silk master declare another bolt of silk sold, realized that he was beginning the auction of yet another lot. “What do you mean by that?”

Mair shifted the burden of her son to her left shoulder, taking care not to wake the now-sleeping babe. “Only that Tovin Player is a shrewd bargainer. You must have taught him a thing or two about driving a deal.”

“I hardly needed to do that!” Rani said, automatically springing to the man's defense, as if he needed it.

“I meant no insult, Rai! I only meant that the man made a good bargain. Twenty-five bars he'll pay, and the story will be all through the city by the end of the day. Every person in Moren will pay a gold crown to see the next players' show, and when the troop announces that it has made costumes with the king's silk. … He's no fool, your Tovin.”

The excited buzz of merchants bidding on silk rose higher as Rani thought, he's not my Tovin. She glanced at the man's copper eyes, at his unkempt curls, and a flash of longing curled through her belly—longing for the Speaking that they had shared, for the quiet days when they had first returned to Moren. Days without Tovin pressuring her to wed. Days without the obligations of studying glasswrights' lore, of plotting to rebuild her guild. Even as Tovin darted a smile to her across the hall, she thought of the argument they'd had the night before.

“Ranita, it should be enough!” he had said. “You have studied the books. You have learned new techniques. Announce that you're re-opening the guild and be done with it.”

“It isn't enough.” She had pulled away from him, even as she was reluctant to leave the warmth of his palms across her back. She had settled her silk dressing gown around her shoulders, jerking the sash tight as she crossed to the window. The Pilgrims' Bell had tolled across the city, steady and secure in the moonlit night. “It isn't enough at all.”

She'd heard him sigh from the bed, realized that he was biting back a dozen arguments. He had come to stand behind her, folding his arms around her and pulling her to his chest. She could make out the criss-cross of glass scars on his fingers, perfect white in the moonlight. “Tell me, then. Tell me why. Tell me why you cannot declare the guild rebuilt and your obligation paid.”

Tears had welled up in her eyes. If she leaned forward, she could see the executioner's block in the courtyard. She could see the stone that had cradled her brother's neck before he paid for his treason, before he yielded up all that he had to give. She could see the iron grate that led to the dungeons, to the dank stone corridors where prisoners awaited their fate. Where glasswrights huddled in terror and rage, masters and journeymen and apprentices imprisoned for their imagined crimes against the crown.

She forced words past her tightened throat, forced a confession from her choked misery. “The obligation is not paid. I don't know if it ever can be.” She swallowed hard. “After Prince Tuvashanoran was slain, I hid. I did not come forward, even to explain my innocence, even to say that it was all a terrible mistake. I did not say that I never meant to call the prince into range for the arrow that took his life. The glasswrights bled for me, Tovin. They paid a blood debt each time they were interrogated, the masters and the journeymen. The apprentices were maimed, for me.” Maimed. That word was not enough. That single sound could not capture the horror, the brutality. The apprentices had been culled methodically, one each day—for the entire time that Rani had remained loose in the city streets. Every sunrise, a child was torn from the pack, dragged to the courtyard, forced to the block.

Was it the executioner who did the job? Or was there another master, a butcher who specialized in hands?

Each apprentice had been forced to kneel, forced to splay trembling hands on the thirsty, frozen stone. Each was asked to confess, ordered to divulge secrets. Each was commanded to disclose Rani's whereabouts, Rani's allies, Rani's plans. And each remained silent, unable to craft a reply that satisfied old King Shanoranvilli.

The blade fell. The thumbs rolled. The blood flowed and flowed and flowed. …

And Rani could not repay the guild for that. Even though she had been innocent—she had been a victim herself—she could not declare the balance sheet even, the debt paid. Not yet. No matter how much she longed to be free from her past. No matter how much she longed to move into the future. …

She had forced herself to speak to Tovin in the night, to feel her words vibrate against his broad chest even as the doleful Pilgrims' Bell counted through the night. “I cannot mark the bill paid yet. The old guild must do that. The old masters and journeymen. The apprentices. The ones who survived.”

“You do not even know where they are,” Tovin had said reasonably.

“They are not in Morenia,” she agreed. “But I have sent messengers, trackers. Some glasswrights have returned to their homelands, to their villages. Others have gathered in other lands, in courts that are kinder to the glasswrights than Morenia was.” In Brianta, she thought as she listened to the Pilgrims' Bell. In the homeland of Jair, where there was mercy for all.

Tovin had pulled her closer, settling her head against his throat. She could feel the steady pulse that beat there. “You are too harsh on yourself.”

“I am not harsh enough.” She held out her hands in the moonlight, turning them to capture the eldritch glow. A trick of the light made her bones stand out, as if her flesh had melted away.

“You cannot undo the past,” Tovin murmured.

She clenched her hands into fists, and her tears finally slid down her cheeks. I know, she thought. Oh, how I know. She let him fold his fingers around the knots of her own. She let him turn her toward him. She let him guide her back to the shadows of the curtained bed that they shared.

And in the summer light of morning, she had pushed away the despair, the sorrow, the hopeless mourning. She had dressed in her finest crimson and attended the first silk auction in Morenian history.

“Your Tovin will turn a profit on this one, in less than a season,” Mair crowed, completely unaware of Rani's drifting thoughts. “By Jair, he's a wise one!”

“By Jair. …” Rani heard an echo before she could reply, and she looked up to find Princess Berylina standing before them. There was an intensity in the girl's face, as if she listened to voices from afar, voices that whispered above the rising bids from the dais.

“Your Highness,” Rani said, automatically dropping into a polite curtsey. Beside her, Mair ducked as well, simplifying the maneuver in light of her son. She kept her head up, her eyes on the princess. Rani, too, watched the girl warily, as if she were a wild creature trapped in a stable.

“Ranita Glasswright. Lady Mair.” The princess managed to meet Rani's gaze for a moment, a quick dart of her own right eye as her cast left eye roamed. Then, she inclined her head, studying her fingers clasping and unclasping her gown. “I am glad that you could be here today.”

“We would not have missed the first sale of Morenian silk,” Rani said, trying to warm her voice. She had no reason to dislike the princess, no reason to take exception to the girl at all. Nevertheless, she was uncomfortable around Berylina. The princess's roaming eye made it difficult to talk to her directly, and Rani could remember too clearly the child who had stammered and blushed, unable to string together three consecutive words without a fit of shyness.

Of course, three years in Moren had changed that. As had the normal maturation of a young girl. And the attentions of Father Siritalanu.

The priest was never far from the princess, and Rani glanced up to see that he was now a mere two steps away. He kept his gaze on the princess, steady and calm, like a hound awaiting its master's bidding. As Rani always did when she saw the pair, she wondered how the priest could divide his loyalties—how he could maintain his pledge to the church and to the crown and to his adoptive princess. The man's intensity gave no clue to his balance.

“The first silk,” Berylina said, and her voice was shadowed by surprise, as if she had not realized that the auction was under way. “Yes, that is important.”

Rani started to shake her head and turn back to the bidding, but Berylina took a step closer. For the first time that Rani could remember, the princess set a hand upon her arm. The girl's short fingers were stained by charcoal, red chalk, and ink. The palace rumors were true, then. Berylina continued to spell out her devotion to the Thousand Gods, to illustrate the deities as they came to her, as they spoke inside her mind. “I am grateful to you, Ranita Glasswright.”

“Grateful?” Rani repeated the word like one of the players' talking birds, and she cast a quick glance toward Mair. The Touched girl shrugged minutely, clearly as confused as Rani was.

“For agreeing to travel with me to Brianta. I recognize the gesture as a sign of respect for my homeland, for all the Thousand Gods.”

“My lady!” Hal's voice was falsely hearty, and he startled Rani by seeming to appear from nowhere. Even one who did not know him as well as she did would have understood that he was forcing the smile onto his face, pounding bluff good nature into his tone. He waved jeweled fingers toward the dais, toward the excited clutch of merchants who fought to outbid themselves on a particularly fine lot of undyed silk. “We were honored by your prayer before the auction.”

“Anything that I can do in the service of the Thousand Gods, Your Majesty.” Berylina sank into a curtsey, making a holy sign across her chest. “May Lor look upon this day with endless mercy, my lord.”

Hal automatically reached out to raise up the princess, and then he looked about him, clearly wanting to hand her off to another. He avoided Rani's gaze as he maneuvered the girl, avoided the demand she had yet to voice.

Agreeing to travel to Brianta . … Rani had done no such thing. In fact, she could
not
travel now—she was sworn to make a dozen screens for the players. She had obligations, to her players troop, to Tovin, to herself. Besides, there was Mair to assist, Mair and little Laranifarso.

Hal said, “I see that Princess Berylina has managed to speak with you when I could not.”

“My lord?” Rani froze her voice, and she felt Mair stiffen beside her.

“Aye, Rani.” Hal's eyes snared hers, and she read the message there—he was pleading. Asking her not to protest. Asking her to agree meekly, to concede.

Berylina spoke, apparently unaware of the silent conversation that passed between them. “The gods have spoken. They are pleased that you will accompany me to Brianta.”

“They are—” Rani started to say, but Berylina continued.

“I am summoned, you know. The Thousand have ordered me to journey to the homeland of First Pilgrim Jair. I am to undertake the complete pilgrimage, that I might hear the gods' voices uninterrupted.”

Rani's mind reeled. Hal had not spoken to her, had not found the time to issue his orders to her directly, and yet he had shared them with the
princess
. He had listened to the Liantine woman's mysteries and her secret plots, to the truths that the gods whispered to her when she knelt in prayer. Hal was ordering Rani to act, to do something she was not prepared to do, all on the basis of the princess's visions.

Even as Rani's anger rose bitter at the back of her throat, she registered the rest of Berylina's message. The girl was going to undertake a complete pilgrimage. Every Morenian desired to make such a journey in his lifetime, such a grand declaration of faith. Rani's brother, Bardo, had planned to travel to Brianta. The family had saved for his pilgrimage, setting aside silver coins from their shop. But those coins had been traded to the Glasswright Guild instead, buying Rani's advancement.

Rani's entrance to the guild had cut off all of Bardo's hopes. He had rebelled in his own way, seeking out dark counsel, finding sinister allies in the city of his birth. If Bardo had been able to travel to Brianta, he might never have fallen in with the evil Brotherhood. He might have continued to live and work in the Merchants' Quarter. He might have commandeered the family business, led the Traders to wealth and glory within their caste. He might have lived.

And now Berylina proposed taking the trip that had been denied to Bardo, traveling to Brianta with all the wealth and pomp of a princess. …

“I wish you a safe journey, Your Highness,” Rani choked out, raising an angry hand to dash away the tears that had somehow appeared on her cheeks.

Berylina looked at her and glanced away, her eyes as quick as swallows at sunset. She clutched at her simple green robe, the caloya costume that marked her as a devotee of the gods. “I—” she started to say, but she lost herself in her former shyness, unable to bring herself to form coherent words.

Hal stepped closer, coming between Rani and Berylina. The movement brought him too near for comfort; Rani fought the impulse to step back. “Princess Berylina has envisioned herself on the road to Brianta, where she will serve the Thousand Gods with pride. She has also seen you, Rani, honoring Lor and Clain and First Pilgrim Jair himself.”

“Sire—”

“We are honored by your accepting this duty, Ranita Glasswright.” The royal command was unmistakable—Hal used the traditional plural. He called her by her guild name. He spoke to her here, in the silk hall, where she could not express her misgivings. Where she could not refuse.