Glasswrights' Apprentice Read online

  “Aye, Rai, at least ye know that.” Mair jutted her chin toward a sleeping shape, some distance down the alley. “Ye’ve surely noticed that Rabe isn’t th’ easiest among th’ Touched.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Rani said wryly, unable to resist flexing her fingers inside her hard-won gloves.

  Mair noticed the movement and restrained a grim smile. “’E ’asn’t always been wi’ us. Not all th’ Touched children roam in troops like us, ye know.”

  “Of course,” Rani snorted reflexively. Until she managed the two words, it had not occurred to her that she knew next to nothing about how the Touched lived - other than Mair’s little group of followers and the adults who were fortunate enough to find work as servants. For Rani’s entire life, the Touched had been merely the most lively of countless wonders scattered about the City quarters. They were the lowest of the castes; technically, they had no caste. In Rani’s closed mind, the ragged folk were no more citizens of King Shanoranvilli’s realm than the carving on Noble houses and the fine signs outside merchant shops. The Touched simply were, and for all Rani knew, always had been.

  Mair was no fool, and she apparently read Rani’s two words as a confession of ignorance. “There’re ’ole Touched families, just like ye ’ave among th’ merchants ’n whatnot. A mother ’n’ father ’n’ a passel o’ kids.” The leader waved a hand to take in all her charges. “We’re t’gether because we chose t’ leave our families, or because they left us. One way ’r another.”

  Rani could hear a surprising ripple of sorrow beneath Mair’s words, but she did not want to interrupt the lesson to pry into Mair’s own story. “Well, Rabe,” Mair continued, apparently unaware of Rani’s curiosity, “’e came from one o’ those families. ’Is mother was always plottin’, always schemin’. She was good enough t’ mint coins in th’ alley, she was.” Mair’s voice was quiet, respectful, and Rani realized that Mair had dreams of being the best Touched thief and beggar in all the City - just as Rani had once been certain she would be the best merchant and, later, the best glasswright. “One day, Rabe’s ma came up wi’ her riskiest plan.”

  Mair’s whisper fogged the night air, and Rani had to lean close to catch the scarce-breathed words. The leader might have chosen Rani over Rabe where the gloves were concerned, but she clearly had no intention of hurting her lieutenant with overheard tales of his family’s past. Rani’s breath froze in her throat as she tried to capture the whispered story. “Rabe’s mother was goin’ t’ steal from a merchant - rare goods that weren’t likely t’ be found elsewhere i’ th’ City - ’n’ then she was goin’ t’ sell back th’ treasures, later, when th’ merchant realized how much ’e needed th’ goods. She’d worked out th’ ’ole thing, stealin’ while an apprentice was i’ th’ shop, sellin’ back to th’ merchant ’imself. She figured she’d make a finer penny if she worked over a merchant in th’ Quarter instead o’ th’ Market - th’ Council’s too strong there, keeps too sharp an eye on th’ likes o’ us. No, she worked out ’er plan well. I’ll not bore ye wi’ th’ details; suffice t’ say she stood t’ make a tidy profit.”

  Rani nodded; she had firsthand knowledge of such a scam. “Someone did that to my father.” She shuddered, remembering her family’s rage, remembering her own horrified guilt. “A ragged old woman came in at the end of the day and managed to steal a set of pewter spoons. Spoons and a pair of shoe buckles.”

  What Rani neglected to tell Mair was that she was the one responsible for the theft. It had been the first day her father had ever left her alone in the stall. He had been gone for scarcely half an hour. For some long-forgotten reason, Rani’s mother and siblings had been occupied elsewhere. Even now, Rani could remember watching the grubby Touched woman enter the shop. Rani knew that no Touched woman had any legitimate reason to be in her father’s stall. Nevertheless, Rani was a young child at the time, and a respectful one, and she could hardly order an elder out into the street.

  Of course, that was precisely what she should have done, as her father had told her in no uncertain terms. He’d realized the spoons and buckles were missing immediately, and he had berated Rani for not keeping a closer eye on his goods. Late that night, she had finally fallen asleep, exhausted after sobbing through supper and evening prayers and all her household chores. Her father had not even permitted her the dignity of paying back the stall from her small store of hoarded coins; even though the lost goods were only made out of pewter, they were worth more than all of Rani’s meager accumulation. Rani could still remember the confused hope that had tightened her chest when the Touched woman re-entered the shop a fortnight later. The crafty old witch had taken care to scrub the pewter wares, doing her best to mar their smooth surfaces, and Rani’s unschooled eye actually did not recognize the treasures. Even as Rani’s pulse quickened, Bardo had stood beside her, and he lost no time establishing that the goods were those that had been stolen. There was something about the buckles - they came from a distant corner of the realm, and they had a special clasp on the back, a unique twist that no other merchant could boast.

  Looking back, Rani could still remember the angry fire that had burned in Bardo’s eyes. He had hidden his knowledge, though, that he was buying back his own wares. Bardo had bargained with the Touched woman, striking the deal as if his heart was not truly in the negotiations. He paid out precious silver, counting it into the thief’s filthy palm without seeming to realize that he was paying at least three more coins than Rani knew the goods were worth.

  That night, Rani wrestled with terrifying dreams as she slept beneath the rafters, tossing and turning on the sea of her sisters’ snores. She imagined that she heard the shop door open and close at least twice, and many times she woke from a fitful doze, expecting to find a lawless band of Touched plundering the store.

  Bardo was late coming to breakfast the next morning. Rani’s mother clucked her tongue over her hard-working son, shaking her head when Rani’s father suggested that Bardo had gone down to the docks to review the most recent shipments of goods. Only when the porridge was reduced to sodden lumps and the tea was cool enough for Rani’s childish lips did Bardo return to the house.

  Even as he swung open the door, she could see the savage glint of victory in his eyes. He smiled broadly as he set a sack on the kitchen table, reaching in like Wair, the god of gifts, distributing treasures to all the family. For his mother, he had the sweetest honey, and for his father, the flower-scented balm that eased the shopkeeper’s persistent lumbago. Each of the girls received a delicate flower crafted of metal, intended to clasp her cloak, and each of the boys crowed over a sharp-bladed knife.

  And Bardo brought Rani a special gift, in addition to her flower clasp. As she turned her grateful face toward him, he tousled her hair. It seemed an afterthought that brought him down to kneel beside her, digging deep in his pouch for the last of his treasures.

  At first, Rani did not recognize the gift. Then, as Bardo settled it into her lap, she realized she held a drawing slate and a chalk stylus. “For you,” Bardo had said simply. “So you can practice those drawings that take all your time.”

  Rani had flung her arms around Bardo’s barrel chest. He understood! He knew the trembling excitement that beat in her fingertips, the compulsion that forced her to arrange and rearrange the goods in her father’s stall.

  “Bardo,” her mother scolded, even as Rani grasped the generosity of the gift, “You shouldn’t tempt the child! How is she to learn that her place is with the merchants? Such a toy is better suited to a guild-child!”

  Rani felt tears prickle at the corners of her eyes. “Now, Mother,” Bardo chided, settling a protective arm around Rani’s shoulders, “I find my way into a little profit, and you do everything in your power to take away the fun of my gifts. You’re working against the Thousand Gods, you are.” He drove away his mother’s scowl with a wicked grin. “In any case, who’s to say a merchant child doesn’t need to learn her figures? This slate is perfect for that. Come now, Mother. You wou
ldn’t want me to think my night’s labors were for no good cause, would you?”

  As he asked his question, Rani felt the tension in his muscles, communicated through the wiry fingers that still rested on her shoulder. Wondering what labors Bardo could have undertaken in the dark of night, Rani waited through a painfully long pause, watching as her mother and father stared at their son. Either might question his comings and goings, might demand to know the source of the wealth he spread throughout the warm little room. The answers might not be pretty, and all the little treasures might be rejected. After a century of panicked heartbeats, Jotham Trader extended his hand to his eldest son. The dangerous moment was past, and Rani had nothing to mark it but the confusing memory of the tempered steel she had glimpsed in her brother.

  No one else questioned their good fortune, and Rani was soon excused to store away her most valuable possession. In the following days, she had made a great show of working out sums on the slate, using at least half of her precious chalk for calculations befitting a merchant. Only in the quiet corner of the room that she shared with her sisters did Rani exploit the slate for her own desires, sketching out the delicate tracery of stained glass windows, working out her own elaborate shorthand to indicate the stunning colors for her guildish drawings. Ultimately, her work with the slate had proven instrumental in convincing her mother to let Rani go to the glasswrights’ guild.

  Now, huddled in a dilapidated doorway in an abandoned City street, Rani forbade herself to dwell on the family she had lost, on the parents who would never scold her again. Instead, she forced herself to think about Bardo’s gift, about her slate and chalk. She had put them in her satchel to take to the glasswrights’ guild, but then she had removed them, worried that the nub of chalk would not be fine enough for her newfound companions, ashamed that she would question Bardo’s gift. She had slipped the slate between the cornshuck-filled mattresses in her attic room. Now, its sooty remains must lie in the unraked ashes that drifted over the ruins of her home. She would never see Bardo’s gift again.

  “’N’ ’ee never saw ’er again,” Mair concluded, her voice grave with her ominous news. “One day, she was th’ center o’ ’is world, ’n’ th’ next she was gone, not even ’er bones lyin’ i’ an alley. All because th’ goods she chose t’ work ’er grift were rare i’ th’ eyes o’ a merchant-man.”

  Rani shuddered, coming back to her grim present with the sheepish realization that she had heard nothing about Rabe’s mother. Already knowing the unwelcome news she would confirm, Rani fished for more information, trying to hide the fact that her attention had wandered. “And did he ever find out what happened to her?”

  “That’s just it!” Mair hissed, and Rani was grateful the Touched leader felt constrained by her sleeping companions. “Th’ last person t’ see ’er alive said she was goin’ t’ meet wi’ th’ merchant she ’ad stolen from, goin’ t’ set things right. A bloody meetin’ it was, i’ th’ eyes o’ all th’ Thousand Gods.”

  Rani’s stomach turned a queasy flip as she realized that Mair’s story and her own recollections might tell one tale. Excuses began to tumble from her lips. “But you can’t be certain that he killed her! Anything could have happened - the merchant might have had her tossed out of the City, for theft. That might have been kinder than branding her a thief. You’ve said yourself these streets aren’t safe.”

  “But there’s one more thing t’ th’ story, Rai. Rabe’s mother’s belongings were returned t’ ’er family, left outside their doss. ’Er shift ’n’ ’er cloak, both stained wi’ more blood than any child should see. ’N’ th’ ’ole was wrapped ’round wi’ a belt, a belt wi’ a pewter buckle, a buckle wi’ an odd little twist, like th’ ones that were taken. But th’ belt, it ’ad been changed. Some one took a knife and cut into th’ leather. They made th’ design deep. Four snakes, all twisted ’round themselves. ’N’ their eyes were painted i’ blood.”

  Perversely, Rani could not picture the bloody snakes. Rather, she could only see Bardo, standing tall and straight in her memory, proud and protective of her family. She shuddered as she thought of the gifts that her brother had borne that morning long ago, the slate that she had boastfully enjoyed.

  She felt sick, aching in the pit of her stomach.

  There was a long silence before Rani could speak. “So what are you saying, Mair? Are you saying I should tell Rabe that Bardo is my brother?”

  “Oh no, Rai, I’m not sayin’ that at all!” For the first time, Rani heard a note of alarm in the Touched leader’s voice. “I’m not certain I could control Rabe, if ’e thought ’e ’ad to fight ye t’ preserve ’is mother’s memory, ’n’ ’is father’s.”

  “His father, too?” Rani swallowed the question that leaped to her lips: “What did Bardo do to his father?” Just in time, she rephrased her question. “What happened to his father?”

  “Th’ man ne’er recovered from findin’ ’is wife’s belongings. From findin’ ’er things, ’n’ ne’er findin’ ’er, that is. ’E still wanders around th’ streets, sleepin’ in whate’er doorway’ll give ’im shelter. Rabe goes t’ find ’im whene’er ’e can, t’ bring ’im food ’n’ put a blanket around ’is shoulders.”

  Rani thought she might be sick, right there in front of Mair. Certainly she knew that children grew up to care for their aged parents; she had fully expected to bear responsibility for her kerchiefed mother and father when they were too old to run their store. She had even envisioned little plays of revenge, determining when her parents could spend a copper on sweets, or when they could shirk their work as she ran her merchant stall with their assistance.

  It had never occurred to her, though, that she would need to nurture her father gone soft in his brain. She had never imagined either of her parents alone and adrift in a city that offered little solace to the poor and broken members of each caste. Again, the nagging guilt that Bardo could have caused such injury made Rani shift beneath Mair’s thin blanket.

  “There must be all sorts of folk bearing any number of tattoos,” she managed at last. An image of Prince Tuvashanoran’s strong arm leaped to mind, the snakes twined across his frozen, death-hard muscles. She thought of Instructor Morada as well, and when she spoke, she was unconscious of the admission she was making, the confession that Bardo was branded. “Almost anyone could bear the sign of the Snake, not just my brother.”

  Mair stared at her, eyes penetrating even in the midnight gloom. “Th’ only ones that bear that sign keep it t’ themselves, Rai. We don’t know much about ’em. We know they don’t show their symbol in th’ City streets. We Touched never find ’em in our passageways, ’n’ th’ other castes would never let ’em settle i’ th’ finer quarters of th’ City, at least not openly. We Touched don’t want t’ start somethin’ th’ other castes are smart enough t’ steer clear of, not when we already ’ave t’ worry about th’ soldiers runnin’ us out o’ th’ City. That’s part of what makes us so leery of th’ Brotherhood.”

  “The Brotherhood,” Rani repeated, and she remembered Larindolian sneering at Morada in the dilapidated shack, tangled in the City streets. The Brotherhood… The Brotherhood of Justice.

  “Aye, they call themselves th’ Brotherhood of Justice, but we know ’em by another name. We call ’em th’ Brotherhood o’ th’ Snake.”

  Rani heard the title, and a gulf of despair opened beneath her heart. She might deny that Bardo had beaten her. She might deny that Bardo had anything to do with Rabe’s tragic tale. There was no way, though, for Rani to ignore the tattoo she had seen on her brother’s muscled arm. Bardo had proven “brother” to more than Rani.

  “But who are they?” Rani pushed for more information. “What does the Brotherhood do?”

  “We canna be certain, but we ’ear rumors. They say they want t’ do away wi’ th’ castes; they say they want a life i’ th’ City where all men stand b’fore th’ Thousand Gods like equal brothers.”

  “And you don’t believe them?” Rani asked before s
he could even process the notion, before she could imagine what it would be like to live in the City without the comfort, the stability of knowing her station in life. Before Mair answered, Rani recalled Instructor Morada taunting Larindolian in the hut, asking the nobleman if he’d abandoned his belief in equality.

  “We Touched dinna believe anyone wi’ a caste sayin’ he’d gi’ it up. Ye dinna exactly see folks flocking’ t’ join us, now, do ye?”

  Rani heard the question like an accusation. But who would want to be Touched, to be without a caste? Of course, Mair had been born Touched; she’d had no choice. And Rabe, too - Rabe, who had lost so much to the Brotherhood, to Bardo.

  Rani realized she had no right to huddle with Mair beneath the Touched girl’s blankets. Rani’s family had stolen from Rabe all of his world; she could hardly complete the theft by taking the boy’s place with the only family left him. Sighing, she began to push back the blanket.

  “Where’re ye goin’?” Mair asked sleepily, clenching her teeth against the sudden draft.

  “I’m leaving, Mair. I didn’t come to steal Rabe’s place with you.”

  “Ye think ye could steal anything from me?” Mair managed a prideful chortle, even as she settled her head more firmly against her satchel pillow. “Ye’re not that good, Rai. Not yet, anyway. Lay yer ’ead down, ’n’ get some sleep. Rabe’ll be after ye in the mornin’, pokin’ t’ see if ye’re ready t’ part wi’ those gloves. Ye’d best outfox ’im on a full night’s sleep.”

  Rani shook her head, determined not to shame her family any farther than Bardo had already managed. “I can’t -”

  “Ye can’t make me freeze t’ death, Cabbage Brain. Lay down, or leave my blanket, but dinna be invitin’ th’ night air in!”

  “Fine, Mair. But I promise you this. I’m going to find the Brotherhood, and when I do, I’ll learn the truth of what happened to Rabe’s mother. I’ll get the Brotherhood’s wergild for her, the price that Rabe deserves for his loss.”