Glasswrights' Apprentice Read online

  “Maybe my friends ’n’ me, we wanted t’ steal yer scrip so we c’n chew on a few extra apples winter nights.” Mair laughed as Rani backed away, casting about a furtive eye for Rabe’s shadowy presence. “’N’ maybe we wanted t’ warn ye o’ other dangers. Keep yer eyes peeled in th’ close. It’ll likely be yer only chance t’ learn what ’appened t’ yer Instruct’r friend.”

  “She wasn’t my -” Rani began to argue by habit, but modified her response. “What do you mean, ‘what happened’ to Morada? I thought that was clear enough.” Shifting the casket once again, Rani set aside the memory of Morada’s gelling head.

  “Then think on why it ’appened. Cor! If I’d caught a traitor, ye can be sure I’d torture ’er a good long time before I let ’er die. Someone killed ’er outright, before she could say too much. I’d want t’ know ’oo that person was.”

  “Maybe someone took pity on Morada, and executed her to spare her pain.”

  Mair chortled, a heartless sound that scraped Rani’s nerves. “Aye, that mun be it! A woman kills th’ Defender o’ th’ Faith, a city searches fer a fortnight, ’n’ when she’s found, the king takes pity on ’er and ’as ’er executed like a noble gone astray.”

  “You don’t have to make me sound stupid!”

  “Sound stupid! That wasna my intention, Rai.”

  Before Rani could grouse about Mair’s choice of words, the girls emerged into the cathedral courtyard. The sun was setting behind bloody bandages of cloud, its last rays reflecting off the near-opaque windows. As Rani looked pridefully at the work of her former guild, the entire side of the building was coated with a viscous crimson light. Unbidden, Morada’s specter gazed down at Rani from the splay-legged scaffolding. The apprentice froze, grasping Mair’s arm as her vision flooded with the memory of Tuvashanoran’s bloody death.

  Mair continued on a few steps before realizing that she had lost Rani, and urgency spiced her words as she turned back to the apprentice. “Ye’d best get back t’ work, Rai. Ye wouldna want Borin’s councilors t’ come lookin’ fer ye ’n’ callin’ ye thief.”

  “Aye,” Rani agreed, nodding and shifting the Council’s casket closer to her narrow chest. With a nervous glance to the shadows, she followed the path past the scaffold, making her way to the pilgrims’ compound at the back of the close. Only when a priest stepped forward to challenge her did she realize that Mair had melted into the shadows, disappearing like the Touched wraith that she was.

  “Well at last!” huffed the overweight religious who stood at the gate. “Father Aldaniosin’s been expecting you for over an hour - it doesn’t do to keep him waiting.” The man hustled Rani through the gates, wheezing as he locked the stronghold behind her. The Pilgrims’ Bell tolled ahead of them, sending out its first steady summons against the rising fog.

  “I’m sorry,” Rani managed. “Borin only gave me -”

  “Save your excuses, child. I’m merely the gatekeeper. I’m just the brother assigned to stand in the rising mist, with all manner of mischief lurking around me, threatening in the dark…” The man’s grievances were deep-carved with a familiar blade, and Rani stifled a sigh of impatience. It was hardly her fault she had been late - the Council should have summoned her earlier.

  Before she could complete her justification in her own mind, the gatekeeper ushered her toward a low building, well set off from the other structures in the quiet compound. “Here you are,” he huffed. “Don’t waste any more of Father Aldaniosin’s time, child.” Just before Rani ducked through the doorway, she heard a swell of prayer rise from a building across the green. The pilgrims must be sitting down to their dinner, breaking the long day’s fast with simple fare.

  The comforting chant spread like warm balm, all the more soothing for the sad memories stirred by the words. Somewhere in the dining hall were men like the mythical father she had created to fool the soldier, the loving, caring Thomas Pilgrim who had searched frantically for his daughter. Not for the first time, Rani wondered what she would do if she never saw her father again, if she never felt her mother’s strong arms about her, if she never teased with her brothers and sisters, about silly things like who got the last sweet cake during a hurried breakfast. Her family had not managed to get word to her when she was easy to find in the marketplace. How could they find her if she retreated to the life of a skulking spy, trying to find Tuvashanoran’s real murderer? Could they find her at all, imprisoned as they were in King Shanoranvilli’s dungeons?

  All these thoughts - and more self-pitying words - rolled over Rani as the distant pilgrims ended their chant and, presumably, settled down to their meal of hearty bread and thick soup. A breeze skirled across the courtyard, reminding Rani she was not only orphaned, but hungry as well. Her life as Narda’s well-fed servant glimmered more appealing every moment. The thought forced a heavy sigh from her lungs.

  “At last!” boomed a voice from the shadows of the nearest building, thunderous in the darkness, and Rani was so startled, she almost dropped her carved box.

  “F-father Aldaniosin?”

  “Of course.” The man’s voice was sharp with annoyance. “Who else would be fool enough to stand here in the dark, waiting for a tardy child? Come in, girl. If the incense seeps out, we’ll just be here further into the night.”

  As Rani stepped over the threshold into the small outbuilding, she was buffeted by the sound and the smell and the sight of death.

  The sound came from a black-robed trio kneeling at the far end of the room. Their voices rose and fell over familiar syllables, chanting the Summoning of the Gods over and over, including in each repetition the name of another one of the Thousand Gods. The words jumbled together in Rani’s ears, the hasty formula marked off only by the click of beads as each decade of prayers was completed, each round of appeals measured and clipped in a neat skein of ten.

  The smell reminded Rani of her last visit to her father’s ancient mother, before the old merchant-woman found her own way to the Summoning of the Gods. A heavy perfume of rose oil and smoky incense failed to mask an underlying sickly sweetness, and after an explosive sneeze, Rani sneaked shallow breaths through her mouth.

  Even as she huddled on the doorstep, reluctant to step into the smoky chamber, she translated the scene before her. Three stone tables rose out of the earthen floor, solid and steady, like misshapen tree trunks. The right-most table was mercifully empty, its smooth surface reflecting the flicker of torchlight and the steady notes of the three chanting worshipers. The other two, however, bore grisly burdens.

  On the middle platform, atop the highest surface, lay Tuvashanoran’s body. Even with a bandage wrapped about his brow, even with his right eye obscured by herb-steeped linen, Rani recognized the royal figure. Unconsciously, she sank to her knees, bowing her head and sketching a holy sign before the man who would have been Defender of the Faith.

  And in that motion, Rani caught a glimpse of the third table, to her left. For just an instant, her mind refused to register the horrific sight. If she had stood at the foot of the platform, she might not even have recognized what confronted her, but there was no mistaking the rotting robe, the filthy hands with their broken nails and criss-crossed scars, the bruised arms. The third table held the mortal, headless remains of Instructor Morada.

  “Enough of that!” snapped Father Aldaniosin, drawing her attention back to Tuvashanoran. “There will be ample time to honor the Prince at his pyre. We’ve still got to bury this one tonight.” The priest spat on Morada’s ragged cloak, and Rani’s head jerked upright.

  “B-buried, Father?” Certainly, she had expected retribution against a woman accused as traitor, but condemning her flesh to worms! “There’s been a mistake -” Rani started to choke out.

  Father Aldaniosin hardly heard her; he was already moving to the prince’s alabaster body. “A mistake? Certainly there was a mistake. I don’t know what Brother Hospitaller was thinking, binding His Highness’ mouth with comfrey. Still, there should be no harm done if we
place your ladanum on his tongue now. After all, it’s the voice he speaks through the fire that matters, the words that reach the Thousand Gods when he’s released from this earthly shell.” The priest signed himself piously.

  “Ladanum?” Rani repeated.

  “Certainly. That’s the formal name for the herb in your casket. I suppose Brother Herbalist called it by its common name when he sent you - myrrh. It would poison a living man, but to the dead.…”

  At that moment, the trio of worshipers completed a century of their chant, concluding the sequence of the Gods of Nature. Rani almost recoiled as they began to chant to the guilds’ gods, and she caught herself listening for mention of the glaziers’ special protector, Clain. Perhaps King Shanoranvilli’s eradication of the glasswrights had not yet penetrated to the Cathedral’s lists. Perhaps the glasswrights’ guild lived on in some form. Before Rani gave over all of her attention to the chanters, Aldaniosin smoothed down the snowy linen covering the Prince.

  “Come along now. We haven’t got all night. Bring the herbs closer.”

  “But Father, -”

  “No more excuses!” The priest towered over her quaking form. Rani had planned on being a good child; she had planned on confessing that she had only come to deliver the merchants’ tithes. Nevertheless, she was drawn by Father Aldaniosin’s firm command, by the imposition of solid, adult direction on her life of disarray.

  Her fate was sealed when the priest softened his tone to paternal guidance. “Come along, child. The first body you care for is always the hardest. This is a crucial part of your training, if you wish to be a priest. You should be honored to serve the Prince in this last glory.”

  Serve the Prince. So far, Rani had failed miserably in that regard, despite her best attempts to heed the order of the City’s castes. Far from serving the nobility, as a good merchant should, she had caused Tuvashanoran’s death. Still, Father Aldaniosin proffered some meager way to atone for her sin; he offered deliverance from the guilt that stalked her conscience. If she could ease Tuvashanoran into the world of the Thousand Gods.… If she could guide his footsteps to the path carved by Pilgrim Jair, then she might begin to atone for her own role in the Prince’s demise - however unwitting her cathedral outcry had been.

  At least she had handled the dead before - the little babe her mother had borne when Rani herself was six years old - the nameless little brother who did not live out his first night breathing the City’s cold air. But the office the Priest demanded was one reserved to those under holy vows, at least the preliminary ties of acolyte. Rani hesitated beyond the circle of Father Aldaniosin’s lantern, afraid to commit the sin of handling the dead, afraid to confess that she was not a member of the priestly caste.

  Father Aldaniosin, misreading her hesitation, clicked his tongue in exasperation. “I don’t know where we get our postulants these days.” Without warning, he grasped her arm with claw-like fingers, pulling her toward the altar. Plucking the wooden casket from her hands and setting it on the edge of Prince Tuvashanoran’s bier, Father Aldaniosin seized her wrists and planted her stiffened fingers on the prince’s dead flesh.

  “There!” he exclaimed. “Was that so terrible?”

  After the initial shock, the form on the table was not as frightening as Rani had imagined. The Prince’s skin was so cold, he might have been made of wax. Nothing of the man remained. Surely, the Thousand Gods would not punish her for attempting atonement, when that action merely required her to handle this shell of a former man. After a surprised pause, even the chorus of worshipers resumed their chanting. Rani resisted the urge to make a holy sign as Clain’s name tumbled from their lips. So, the glasswrights were not completely eradicated from the City.

  Rani realized Father Aldaniosin was waiting for an answer. “No, Father,” she managed. “Forgive my foolishness.”

  “Forgive, forgive, forgive - that’s all you postulants say. Now, let’s get to work - we’ll finish using the myrrh in that box there, before we shift to the herbs you were sent for. We certainly won’t be wasting any on that.” Father Aldaniosin glanced daggers at Morada’s body, and Rani’s confidence in her new-found vocation wavered. “Here. I’ll hold him while you wind the sheet. Sprinkle the ladanum evenly - you’ll need more there.”

  Rani swallowed a burning taste in the back of her mouth and began to unroll the fine-woven linen, taking care to avoid touching the Prince directly. Father Aldaniosin waited until she had made her first few passes around the royal feet, and then he observed, “It would not be amiss for you to recite with the worshipers.”

  Rani nodded and waited for the trio to complete their antiphon. She joined them with her treble voice on the next pass, only hesitating for a moment as she realized they had completed reciting the guilds and were moving on to the merchant gods. “Hail Hern, god of merchants, guide of Jair the Pilgrim. Look upon this pilgrim with mercy in your heart and justice in your soul. Guide the feet of this pilgrim on righteous paths of glory that all may be done to honor you and yours among the Thousand Gods. This pilgrim asks for the grace of your blessing, Hern, god of merchants.”

  The formula was an ancient one, repeated for centuries in and around the cathedral. They were the first words Rani remembered hearing, for her mother prayed to Nome, the god of children, every morning and every evening, paradoxically invoking prayers for the passing of a life in her quest to preserve the little ones she loved.

  So, the words were familiar on Rani’s lips, but the sequence of the gods was not. Certainly, Rani knew a few of the links, stringing together each of the City’s recognized merchant callings. The goldsmiths came first, then the tinkers, the leatherworkers, the tailors.… There was no reason for the order - no logic other than Jair’s own word, for he was the one who had first recognized the Thousand Gods and recorded their presence in the life of a common man.

  Rani let the worshiping trio carry her along, occasionally lapsing into silence on the second word of the prayer, allowing the professionals to determine who would be the next focus of adoration. All the while, she wrapped the prince’s limbs in the flawless pyre-linen. Father Aldaniosin continued to shift the body, rolling the dead weight from side to side as Rani added purifying herbs to the snowy cloth. She skimped on the ladanum when she could, desperate to avoid opening the casket she’d carried to the cathedral.

  The recitation of merchants lasted for the time it took Rani to work her way up the noble legs. She was relieved to find that Aldaniosin had already covered the Prince in a modest loin cloth, and she scarcely hesitated as she worked the winding cloth over Tuvashanoran’s smooth belly, across the expected scars of a warrior leader. She kept her eyes focused on the narrow field of the marble flesh just beneath her fingers. She did not want to think of that cold body as an entire man; she did not want to be reminded of the living, breathing prince who she had summoned to death. Her conscience panged her as she pretended to add ladanum to the binding, sprinkling the scantest layer of herbs on the snowy cloth. She wiped her green-stained fingers frequently against the linen, adding to the appearance of coverage.

  The worshipers had just shifted to the Dark Gods - the terrible, necessary lords of pestilence and illness and evil - when Father Aldaniosin shifted Tuvashanoran onto his back, reaching beneath the heavy torso to remove the last sheltering drapery so that Rani could perform her function. She had filled her left hand with the fragrant myrrh, and her right was tangled in the winding cloth. The worshipers took a deep breath before they began the next decade of their prayer, and Rani started with them, “Hail Tarn, god of death -” when she looked at the undraped torso before her, letting her eyes take in the next field of her labor.

  Father Aldaniosin had crossed Tuvashanoran’s arms on his marble chest, splaying the fingers in a clammy attitude of prayer. Rani scarcely bothered to register the telltale discoloration around the nail-beds, clear sign that her labors were necessary and almost overdue.

  Rather, Rani looked at the Prince’s muscular arms, at the once
-proud flesh now collapsed in a heap of limp meat. Father Aldaniosin adjusted his grip on the body, and Rani saw that she had not imagined what she first suspected.

  Bound about Tuvashanoran’s right bicep, indigo tattoo gaudy against the pallor of lifeless skin, was a band of four snakes, twined about themselves and glaring at Rani through pin-prick crimson eyes.

  Chapter 7

  Rani completed her tasks mechanically, doling out the precious ladanum as if it were her own lifeblood. She blinked hard to drive away the images that roiled her thoughts. First Bardo, then Morada, now Tuvashanoran … all bearing the twisted snakes. What did the strange tattoo mean? What cause could join together Bardo Trader, Instructor Morada, the wily nobleman Larindolian and, now, the noblest of all men? What had Larindolian called his circle? The Brotherhood of Justice.

  Father Aldaniosin misunderstood Rani’s blinking; he thought his acolyte was exhausted by her trip to the City for myrrh. He clicked his tongue over a child so weak, so unable to uphold the glorious standards of the Thousand Gods. His condemnation distracted him enough that Rani managed to palm the last fistful of myrrh from the priest’s casket, making it appear that she withdrew the precious herb from her own carved wooden box. Rani prayed furiously to all the Thousand Gods that Father Aldaniosin would not hear the rustle of gilded papers as she snapped shut the merchants’ casket.

  The Gods, at least, stood by Rani, and she was able to avoid detection, able to stretch the ladanum to finish wrapping Prince Tuvashanoran’s body. At last, afraid to speak and reluctant to remain silent, Rani gathered up her cedar chest. Finished with her grisly assignment, she was determined to find the Brother Provisioner and be done with the priests.

  Father Aldaniosin, still unaware of the mistaken identity, pointed Rani toward the kitchens and Brother Hospitaller, and she dragged her feet across the courtyard. In moments, Rani found herself inside the low refectory building, drawn forward by rush-light, the aroma of plentiful food, and the harmonious good cheer of the penitent.