Glasswrights' Journeyman Read online

  She did not want to desire Tovin. He was acting as her guildmaster; he was providing her with glasswrights’ lore. Anything else would be confusing, would be frightening, would be wrong.

  Tovin must have read her indecision, for he took a step away. “I need to consult with the players, learn what else they intend for me to purchase at the spiderguild. Come find me when you are finished, and we’ll complete our work together.”

  She mumbled some appropriate reply and bent quickly over the glass before her, determined not to watch him walk away. Her intense concentration, though, was broken by someone blocking her light. She looked up to see Crestman looming over her.

  “Mair says you’re going to bargain for spiders.”

  “Aye.” She recognized the determination in his set jaw, remembered the driven power she had first seen as he commanded his platoon of boys in Amanthia. “We spoke about it while the players had their Meet. We wondered where you’d gone to.”

  “I was speaking with my soldiers.”

  “Your soldiers?”

  “The slaves within the players’ camp.”

  Rani glanced about her. On the far side of the compound, a dozen players gathered around a low stage, laughing as a juggler attempted to toss five silk-wrapped balls at once. The performer dared to spin about, completing his turn and keeping all the balls in full rotation. He clapped once, twice, three times, all the while juggling well. But when he tried to jump down from the stage, he lost his concentration and bright silk spheres went flying.

  A child whooped with laughter and collected three of the balls, jumping onto the platform to try his own hand at the game. Across the courtyard, Rani could just make out a scar glinting on the boy’s cheek. She looked back at Crestman. “I’d hardly call them slaves here.”

  “They seem to be accepted. I’ve spoken with all of them now – nearly three dozen men, all told. Each once fought for Sin Hazar, and each was sold on reaching Liantine. They’ve found their way here from other masters. The players are given slaves sometimes in payment for their presentations.”

  “And? Do your men want to rise up against the troop?”

  Crestman shook his head, and she wondered what the admission must cost him. “They do not want to leave the players. They do not want to overturn their lives.”

  Rani reached out, setting her hand upon his rock-hard arm. “You must honor their decision.”

  He pulled back, as if she had cut him. “I know that!” He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “I know that, Rani. I thought that they would follow me. I thought that all the Little Army longed to be free.”

  “Three years is a long time, Crestman. Three years at least. Some of them were in the earliest shipments from Amanthia – they’ve been here even longer. They were children when they arrived. They have no family, no home back in Amanthia. Let them be.”

  “I would, Rani. I would sail for home tomorrow, but there is still one thing that troubles me.”

  “What?”

  “The tale my scout delivered. The story of the spiderguild. The slave that he described was not like the children here. She was frightened. She was used. She died in service, against her will. I must see my soldiers who are held at the spiderguild. Take me with you.”

  She wanted to deny him. She wanted to say that Tovin would not do it, would not bring Crestman along. After all, she had yet to secure her own passage. But when she looked into his eyes, when she saw the fierce longing written there, she did not have the heart. “Whatever you find, you will not be content.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you find the Little Army happy, you will think that you have failed them. You will believe that you should have rescued them before, brought them home before they could settle here in Liantine. And if you find that they are abused by the spiderguild, you will rage against their fate.”

  “I’ll do more than rage,” he said.

  “No.” Rani shook her head. “You cannot do that. We are guests in Liantine, and there are some things you cannot do. We need the spiderguild’s cooperation, Crestman. We need spiders and riberry trees.”

  “For what, Rani? What is more important than the lives of innocent enslaved children?”

  The lives in all Morenia, she wanted to say. The lives in Amanthia. The lives in every kingdom touched by the Fellowship. Hal must have the spiders; he must have the riberries, for he must buy new power in the Fellowship.

  “You must trust me, Crestman.”

  “I’ve had three years of trusting you. Three years of working alone in Amanthia, trying to heal a land without children.”

  “You must not fight the spiderguild. You must not breach the peace. If you cannot promise me that, I will not ask Tovin to take you with us.”

  She saw his indecision. She knew that he wanted to rage against her; he wanted to force her to understand, make her agree to liberate the spiderguild slaves, no matter what the consequences. She watched the arguments rise in his throat, shift into words, then die on his lips. His fingers twitched on the hilt of his Amanthian sword until he clenched them into a fist.

  “I have to know,” he said at last. “I promise you. No violence at the spiderguild.”

  “I’ll speak to Tovin, then.”

  She started to reach out to him, started to touch the scar that shone across his cheek. He flinched away, though, and then he turned on his heel, striding fast across the players’ camp.

  Rani shook her head and reached out for her rags, sifting through the pile of cloth to find the cleanest one. She dipped a corner of the fraying silk into her cleaning compound and turned her attention back to the panels. How ironic that she was working on the Boy. The glass figure was the consummate male child, holding a toy horse in one hand and a miniature bow in another. Rani rubbed accumulated dust from the child’s face and felt her heart falter as she imagined real flesh beneath her fingers, a real cheek scarred from service in the Little Army.

  She finished that one and turned to the Rosebush, a panel from an ancient fable about a blood-red vine that grew upon the graves of tragically denied lovers. Rani knew the story; she had heard her own mother sing it, years ago in the Traders’ shop. The rosebush grew from the pierced hearts of the maid and her swain, once they were separated by their families’ hatred. The pungent fumes of the cleaning compound raised tears in Rani’s eyes, and she rubbed her palms across her cheeks in annoyance.

  The petals of the roses were a study in flashed glass, she forced herself to realize. They were doubled over in careful layers, soldered into shape so that the deepest, darkest colors held all the mystery of heartblood. Rani never would have thought to layer the glass petals that way. She never would have thought to link the leading in just that fashion. A master had crafted that panel. Tovin.

  As Rani reached for the next panel, the Stargazer, she let her thoughts linger on the master craftsman. How would he respond to her request? Would he take them to the spiderguild – Rani, Mair, and Crestman?

  He must. She would do whatever was necessary to convince him.

  She scrubbed the Stargazer panel clean, taking special care over the intricate painting that set off the tools in his lead-lined hands. Rani had never been a great draftsman; she found it difficult to paint on glass and create recognizable designs. She could learn, though. With a master to instruct her, a master who was not poisoned by her history with her guild, by the glasswrights’ destruction because of Rani’s childhood mistakes. …

  She folded the Stargazer into his spidersilk wrappings and wiped the excess cleaning compound from her hands. Her fingers smarted from the stuff, and she knew that they would be rough in the morning. Small price to pay, of course. Small price for a lifetime lesson. She smoothed her skirts and went in search of Tovin.

  She did not have far to wander. Several players were gathered around the stage in the center of the main square. A canopy had been stretched above the planks that formed the platform, shielding the actors from the bright afternoon sun. Ir
on posts were planted in the stage, indicating where panels would hang, but the players did not bother with the delicate glasswork for their rehearsals. Instead, they relied on all of their acting skills to bring out the nature of the characters they portrayed. Tovin was sprawled on a bench, watching his mother emote from the stage.

  “A girl’s the thing you likely need, a girl to do the job,” Flarissa proclaimed. The watching players laughed as she lifted one arch eyebrow and waggled her hand suggestively. Rani had not seen the play before; she did not know the story, but it was apparent that Flarissa was trying to convince a nervous young man to approach a maid.

  “A girl, you say!” the youthful actor cried, making his voice crack comically. “You speak in jest! I daren’t attract a mob!”

  “Attract a mob? How can that be? Who cares about this feat?”

  “This feat is not just any hunt, not any hunt at all. This feat is trav’ling after gold, through to Bramble Hall.”

  Flarissa’s surprise was exaggerated. “The Bramble Hall? Now there’s a catch! You’ll need to strip to pass those thorns, bare flesh they will not scratch.”

  “Aye, good dame, you’ve heard the tales. The Bramble Hall will skin a man, unless he dares its grasp, with naked flesh and naked hands, his, er, covers all unhasped.”

  The naive young man gestured before him, pointing to the “covers” of his trews and his comically burgeoning “hasp.” All the players laughed. The young man tried to keep his expression earnest, even as his hands moved at his waist, mimicking substantial endowment. Flarissa quirked one eyebrow, comically abandoning the play’s planned lines. She appraised the boy as if she were suddenly, insatiably curious, and he improvised, responding to her attention with a mocking leer, throwing his arms wide in pretended lechery. Flarissa tried to look shocked and desiring all at once, but she succeeded only in making the troop call out jeers and suggestions.

  “Aye, Dame, check out the boy’s covers,” one man called.

  “Who cares about his covers?” a woman cried. “I’d check what’s underneath the sheets.”

  “No doubt what’s there,” a second man jeered, as the boy-actor strutted before his companions.

  “Not much,” a pretty girl called, looking up from a costume she was stitching. “Not much my husband has.” She held up a length of limp braid that was shorter than her thumb. Her ribaldry was belied by the swelling of her belly beneath her full skirts.

  The company collapsed in good-natured laughter as the actor spluttered a rejoinder. When his protests were ignored, he leaped down from the stage and gathered up the pretty seamstress, bending her back in a swooping kiss, even as he spread a protective hand across their unborn child. The girl feigned indifference to her lover’s attentions until he swirled an imaginary cape about them and bent to nibble down her neck, to the ruffle of lace that lined the top of her chemise.

  “I give!” the girl squealed. “I give!”

  “Aye,” growled the actor. “That you have! And will again!” The girl’s mock shrieks turned to laughter as the boy tossed away her stitchery.

  Flarissa laughed and crossed to Rani and Tovin. “Well, there’ll be no bringing him back to his lines for a bit. Not with a wife to distract him from poor Dame Love. And how have you fared this morning, Ranita? Have you made progress on the panels?”

  “Aye,” Rani said distractedly, staring as the boy threw his arm around his lady’s shoulders and coaxed her away from the stage. The company hooted after the couple as they ducked into one of the tents on the edge of the common ground. A clutch of children started to follow the lovers into their retreat, but they were called back by their mothers.

  Flarissa pinned Rani with suddenly sharp eyes. “Aye? Then you’re finished?”

  “Not exactly, lady.”

  Flarissa started to frown, but the crease in her brow was eased as Tovin said, “I interrupted Rani Trader’s work, Mother. We spoke of glasswork and construction, and I kept her from her task.”

  The player-woman tried to direct her dissatisfaction toward her son, but she only succeeded in a self-mocking scowl. “You can help her then, Tovin. Help her finish the cleaning before you leave for the spiderguild. We’ll need those panels for Princess Berylina’s nuptials. Midsummer Eve is little more than three weeks away.”

  “Aye, Mother,” Tovin said obediently, and Rani would have marveled at his contrition if she were not stunned by Flarissa’s words.

  “Princess Berylina’s nuptials?” Rani repeated.

  “Aye. A messenger rode in this morning from the capital. The princess and your king will wed on Midsummer Eve, and we have been invited to perform at the feast.”

  “So soon!” Rani said, afraid to trust herself to more.

  “Aye. King Teheboth wanted to honor the Horned Hind, and midsummer is the most auspicious time for that. Oh! I am forgetting. The messenger carried this for you.”

  Flarissa handed over a folded letter, and Rani recognized Farsobalinti’s hand, sprawling her name across the parchment. She took the missive numbly, sliding her finger under the wax to break the seal. She glanced at the words, scarcely needing to read them, now that Flarissa had told her the important news from the capital.

  It was done then. Hal had made his bargain. He was pledged to Berylina.

  “We players have a great deal of work to do between now and midsummer,” Flarissa said. “Reputations can rise or fall for generations depending on how we play one royal marriage. Of course, we would stand a better chance to impress if we had other opportunities to practice wedding plays.” The player-woman glanced pointedly at her son, then she said, “Don’t disappoint me, Ranita. We’ll need all the panels sparkling.” Flarissa bustled off to another knot of players.

  Tovin grimaced when Rani turned her attention back to him. “Don’t listen to her scolding. She is only grumpy because she thinks I should have a wife by now. She wants to hold a grandchild. Soon enough, she’ll be inviting you to sit beside her hearth, calling you ‘daughter.’”

  “I can’t imagine that!” Rani gasped and stepped away.

  “Aye,” Tovin continued. “My bride will be her daughter, and none too soon. She mentions her lack often enough.”

  “I – ” Rani protested. “Why, I never intended. … I never thought to. … I’m not even from Liantine!”

  “And I’m not asking to wed you,” Tovin said simply, and he grinned at her discomfort. “Besides, your homeland would hardly matter to my mother. We’re players. We don’t count homes as other people do.”

  “I –” Rani stumbled for a reply.

  “Don’t worry, Ranita Glasswright.” He shrugged, as if he meant to put her at her ease. “There are too many wenches on the traveling road to settle down with one. My mother has lived with disappointment lo these many years, and a few more will do her no great harm.”

  How dare he imply that she was not good enough to be a player’s wife! Not good enough, even, to choose over some dalliance on the high road! Especially when she had felt the unspoken offer in his fingertips that very morning, heard his silent bid.

  That was ridiculous, though. Rani had no desire to wed Tovin. She only wanted to learn about glasswork. And to save Moren. She wanted to find Hal the thousand gold bars he needed to answer the Fellowship.

  Aloud, she said, “Mothers learn to live with disappointment.”

  “When did you learn that line?”

  “Line?”

  “It’s from one of the tragedies – Plesandra says it as she watches her son choose the life of a warrior over staying home to farm.”

  “I haven’t seen that play. I haven’t seen any of your tragedies.”

  “They’re a grim lot.” Tovin shrugged. “The horse panel you were working on this morning is from Plesandra’s Lament. The stallion’s return is the only way the mother learns that her son has died.”

  Rani shivered, thinking of the story she had held within her hands. “You were going to teach me how to make the chains.”

 
Tovin eyed her steadily. “You were going to Speak with me again. About the Fellowship.”

  “Aye.”

  “Come along then. If you’re not afraid, that is.” He grinned like a wolf and gestured toward the stage. “If you don’t mind building up my mother’s hopes.”

  Rani followed Tovin’s pointing fingers, only to find Flarissa staring across the platform at them. The player-woman’s face was impassive; her arms hung straight at her side. She nodded once as her copper gaze darted from Tovin and then to Rani, and back again. Rani swallowed hard and said, “I am not afraid.”

  She let him lead her into the storeroom. His hands were steady as he produced the iron key, and he hummed tunelessly as he locked the door behind them. He kindled a lamp with easy grace and led her toward a table in the corner. All the time, Rani was aware of the low bed at the far side of the tent, of the bolsters she had leaned against when she had Spoken with him before.

  Tovin, though, seemed to have forgotten that Speaking was part of their bargain. Instead, he took great care in showing her the tools he used to make the fine lead chain. He displayed his adapted goldsmith’s equipment, pointed out how he merged the jeweler’s delicate art with the brutal skill of a blacksmith. Rani ran her fingers along the handle of improbably curved tongs, and Tovin nodded as she lifted the instrument. His hands cupped hers as he showed her how to manipulate heated lead, how she could use a leather-wrapped hammer to pound the hot links.

  The ultimate secret, he explained, was in cooling the chain. He added a powder to the water bath, a powder that came from Zarithia, home of the finest steel blades. He could not tell her what was in the substance, but it cost more than its weight in gold. It set the lead firmly, hardening the tiny links so that they could bear the glass without twisting under the weight.