Glasswrights' Apprentice Read online

  “The good times, though, only lasted for a few months,” Bardo continued. “After that, the Council made its decision. Father was denied. He was shamed before his fellows in the marketplace; he could not even go on buying trips. Instead, we needed to trade with other merchants, with the sort who make their deals in the shadows of the City walls. Our costs went up, and we could not pass that on to our customers.” Bardo shook his head in remembered frustration, his fingers curling into fists.

  “We had no funds in reserve, when one of those shadow-merchants cheated us. Father had gone to close the deal at night, when even a soldier would have hesitated to walk in the dark passages beside the City walls, but he had no choice. There was no other way to get goods. If I had gone with him, things might have turned out differently.…”

  As Bardo’s voice trailed off, Rani realized that she remembered the night he spoke of. Her father had come back to the house, pounding on the door, his voice hoarse and his face bleeding. Rani’s sisters had almost refused to open the door to him, thinking he was some madman roaming the streets. When he stumbled into the kitchen where Rani was playing with her rag doll, he tossed a cloth sack onto the floor, hardly noticing when it fell too close to the fire. Rani started to reach for it, to save it from the flames, but her father roared at her, knocking her aside with an open hand that sent her reeling.

  Nursing her own injuries and wounded pride, Rani had watched as her mother sponged blood from her father’s brow. Even now, Rani could hear her mother’s soft crooning, her warning that he must calm down, he must relax, he must sip the willow tea that would dull the ache behind his eyes. Jotham Trader would not be solaced - he had lost six month’s profit when the thieves set upon him, and he still had no goods for the spring season. They would be ruined.

  Her father’s rage that night, though, was nothing compared to his anger when he went to the Council for aid. They told him they had no funds to spare, no goods to make up for those he’d lost. The winter had been rough for every merchant. The Council could not spare anything for a man who sold from his own shop, from outside the marketplace. Rani remembered night after night of thin cabbage soup, of her father speaking in angry whispers with Bardo, with Rani’s mother, with anyone who would listen to his tales of woe.

  He finally swallowed his pride and went beyond the Merchant’s Council, beyond the caste he had honored and served all his life. He appealed to the soldiers, to seek out the thieves and - when he got no satisfactory response - he asked for justice in the King’s Court.

  Bardo’s voice was bitter as he gave Rani the pieces of the story she had never had before. “There was no one in the City to help him, no one at all. His own caste turned against him, and the other castes looked down on him, like he was chaff in a mill. I knew, then, that I would never serve a system that was so broken, so corrupt. And I haven’t.”

  Rani recognized the proud jut of Bardo’s chin as his calloused fingers rose unconsciously to the tattoo about his left bicep. It was the look of the brother she had worshiped all her life. It was the look of a man who would not be beaten.

  “I spoke out before the Merchants’ Council. That was where the Brotherhood first learned about me. I was invited to their secret meetings, in the chambers inside the City walls, where you’ve been. The Brotherhood believes in true Justice, in a Justice separate and apart from the castes that have always plagued the City. Do you see?” Even as Bardo spoke, he spread his hands before her disbelieving eyes. “The Brotherhood believes in the equality of all men. They taught me to fight with the weapons of a soldier, a nobleman, whatever I needed to survive.” Rani stared at his calloused flesh and thought of their father’s smooth merchant hands, punished by nothing more violent than the rub of coins. Bardo nodded as she touched the horny skin. “The Brotherhood trained me, made me all I am today.”

  “But who are they?” Rani finally asked, drawn into the story despite her fear.

  “We come from all the castes. There are nobles, like Larindolian, and soldiers like Garadolo. We have members in the guilds - your Salina, of course. Merchants and Touched - we all work together to build a City that is strong, like Jair meant us to be, like Jair was himself, because he moved from caste to caste. That’s why we use the symbol of a snake - because the serpent grows and grows, shedding its skin, like we will all shed our caste, becoming a new beast, ever more powerful.”

  Rani’s voice was shuttered by the fanatical light she saw in her brother’s eyes; even if she had wanted to ask more, she would not have been able to force words past her awe, her fear. Bardo continued his lesson, explaining the Brotherhood as if he were chanting a prayer, here in the cathedral. “The serpent has fed well, grown long through the years. We are almost at our full strength, almost ready to make our last move, to shed our skin for the final time and unveil our true shape.”

  “When?” Rani forced out the word, dreading the answer.

  “Before the new year.” Bardo replied with a devotion normally saved for a prayer to all the Thousand Gods. “We have all our players in place. Our strongest ally is ready to shed her skin, ready to take up her place in the Brotherhood and lead us to a new age.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Haven’t you guessed?” Bardo looked at Rani with a patient smile, and she caught a glimmer of the loving brother who had been her idol. She shook her head, a little ashamed at her slow grasp. “Larindolian’s lady. Queen Felicianda.”

  “The queen!” Rani gasped, but even as the words escaped her, she remembered the message that Mair had brought her, a lifetime ago, in the marketplace - “The doe runs faster than the buck, and she doesn’t tangle her antlers in the brush.”

  Was it only a month ago that Rani had thought those words applied to Guildmistress Salina? Even now, she had trouble remembering the certainty she had felt in the crowded square in front of the cathedral, the absolute faith that the guildmistress was the one prophesied by the Core. Of course, she realized now. The queen was the doe; she was the fleetest, the fastest, the best. Queen Felicianda had set the wheels in motion to place her own son upon the throne, and she had manipulated the world around her so that there was no risk that her own name or reputation would be sullied by the struggle.

  Even as Rani recognized the truth, she realized that Bardo was still talking, still confessing the history of the dark circle he had joined. “Queen Felicianda was our founder. She was the one who brought us the Brotherhood, who showed us the error in our ways, here in Morenia. In her land, in distant Amanthia, there are no castes to bind people. They do not even have a hereditary king; the strongest men in all the land fight for the title when it is time.”

  “And that is better?” Rani imagined the battles and the bloodshed - she had heard the bards’ tales of warfare.

  Bardo laughed and ruffled her hair. “Of course it’s better. The best man wins! We will never again be forced to beg food from the Merchants’ Council. We will never again need to pray for a shred of justice from castes who could care less, who hate us.”

  “But what if we’re not the best?”

  Bardo’s laughter filled the cathedral. “Not the best! Such doubts, and in one so young!”

  “What if the king is better? What if Tuvashanoran was the best?”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying. The king is an old man, Rani. I know he’s been kind to you, and I know that you feel you owe him, but he is an evil man. He is the reason the rest of the castes survive. He is the reason our father was so unhappy. Must I remind you that he killed our family?”

  “But that was because he thought that we killed Tuvashanoran! The prince was all his hope! He would have been a very good king.”

  “Tuvashanoran would have continued the old caste system all his life,” Bardo snapped. “He would have ruled supreme until he ran the castes, and himself, and all of us into the ground! Tuvashanoran was a liar and a cheat. He promised himself to the Brotherhood; he even bore our mark. But he strayed from our mission and forgot our goals.
He did not want to compete to lead us; he thought the title of ‘king’ should come to him because of his birth status. When his father decided to name him Defender of the Faith, Tuvashanoran forgot all he ever knew of Brotherhood and equality.”

  Rani began to see the Brotherhood’s twisted logic. She could find the pattern behind Bardo’s words; she reconciled his thoughts and his actions. “So,” she began slowly, “with Tuvashanoran gone, you can change the old system. If you can put your own king on the throne, you’ll succeed in bringing the Brotherhood to power.”

  “Precisely!” Bardo congratulated her. “And that’s where you come in. It is very important that the initial change look like happenstance. We know that the people aren’t ready for the Brotherhood yet. The castes are still too strong. We need to put the right man on the throne, and then we’ll have a lifetime, his entire rule, to consolidate our power. We know the Brotherhood won’t lead the way in one year, or in two, or maybe even in ten, but with time on our side.…”

  “And the right man is -”

  “Bashanorandi,” Bardo completed her sentence. “He is liked by the people, and his mother has taught him all the ways of her folk. And when, in years to come, certain records come to light, showing that King Bashanorandi is not truly descended from the line of Jair, the people will come to realize that their old hierarchies, their old castes, are completely without meaning. The Brotherhood will win, without costing a life.”

  “Except,” Rani corrected, “Tuvashanoran, who would have been the king. And Halaravilli - he’s the Crown Prince, not Bashi.”

  “And, for that matter, King Shanoranvilli himself,” Bardo agreed. “But now is the time. The Brotherhood is at its greatest strength, and we have you - you - in the Palace every day. You can weave the last threads into our pattern and make the end of the castes more than just a bard’s tale. You can guarantee that Bashanorandi is our next king.”

  Rani stared at Bardo in disbelief. She must have misunderstood him. She must have misheard his words. Bardo could not be telling her to murder Hal. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bardo.”

  “I think you do, Rani. I think you understand the Brotherhood’s mission. We are so close… You can join us, dearest sister. You can be a full member of the Brotherhood, if only you do this one thing. Kill the pretender. Dispatch Prince Halaravilli and join the Brotherhood.”

  “No!” Rani cried, protesting the suggestion, protesting the Brotherhood, protesting the fanatical light in Bardo’s eyes. “You don’t know what you’re saying! Hal is the hope of Morenia. He can grow to fill Tuvashanoran’s shoes.”

  “ Prince Halaravilli is a babbling idiot! He can barely string together ten words in a coherent sentence!”

  “That’s all an act,” Rani pleaded. “He chants and rhymes to protect himself, to save himself from …” she swallowed hard, but forced herself to complete the sentence, “from those who wish him dead.”

  Bardo’s hands closed over her arms, hunching her shoulders close about her ears. “Listen to yourself, Rani. He is a liar, a cheat. Does such a man deserve to be king? With one quick thrust of a blade, with one draught of poison, you can change all that. You can save the kingdom!”

  “She’s already said no.”

  The voice rang out in the cathedral, deadly cold against the passion of Bardo’s plea. Rani whirled toward the sound, grateful for an ally in this mad battle, but her heart froze as she saw the speaker.

  “Let her go, Bardo. She’s made her choice.” Guildmistress Salina stepped into the pool of flickering light beside Roat’s altar.

  “Salina!” Bardo started guiltily, as if he and his sister had been caught in some immoral tryst. “What are you doing here?”

  “Larindolian sent me. He did not think you had the power to bring this one into our ranks.” Salina sniffed and leveled her agate eyes on her former apprentice. “We’ve waited long enough for her to come around. We’ll end that all tonight.”

  “What do you mean?” Even as Rani choked on the chill pronouncement, Bardo maneuvered himself so that he stood between his sister and her guildmistress.

  “She’s had her chance, Bardo. You’ve told her all about us - more than any outsider has heard in all the existence of the Brotherhood - and still she hesitates. We can’t take the risk. We can’t endanger the lives of a hundred faithful followers for one mewling apprentice who refuses to listen to reason.”

  “She’ll listen, Salina!” Rani had never heard Bardo plead before. “I had not finished explaining.”

  “You’ve told her more than any true follower of Justice should need to hear. Step aside, Bardo.” Salina raised one arm, and a troop of armor-clad men stepped from the cathedral shadows, coalescing like a deadly midnight fog.

  “Guildmistress Salina,” Rani began.

  “Silence!” snapped the old woman, and Rani was obedient enough to her former caste that she held her tongue. Bardo, though, was not so constrained.

  “We need Rani, Salina. You argued for her recruitment yourself. You said that we needed to get a pilgrim into the Palace, that we needed to plant an agent who was above suspicion.”

  “Ahhhh,” sighed Salina. “I feared as much.” Her words were heavy, like iron, like death. “You are willing to set aside the bonds of Brotherhood for her.”

  “I’m not doing any such thing!” Bardo protested, pulling Rani close to his chest. She felt hardened leather beneath his tunic, as if he had feared this ambush in the cathedral.

  “Enough of this foolishness!” Salina clapped her hands, and the ring of soldiers tightened around Bardo and Rani. Long steel knives glinted in the flickering candle-light, poisonous tongues darting back and forth like serpents. “Make your choice, Bardo. The Brotherhood, or that treacherous rat!”

  Rani squirmed, fighting against Bardo’s sinewy arm to look into his face. His breath came harsh, as if he had raced the wolves outside the City, as if he had rung the Pilgrims’ Bell with all his might. He did not look at her; instead, his eyes stared into the cathedral’s dark heart, as if he were seeking advice from First God Ait and all the Thousand Gods.

  Rani felt the pulse in his arm, felt the desperation in his breath. She longed to speak, but she was afraid to topple the balance, afraid to unravel the pattern she could only hope was forming. As she glared daggers at Salina, the guildmistress measured Bardo’s response with her own narrowed eyes. “Choose, Bardo, or I’ll take the choice from you.”

  The soldiers shifted restlessly, and Rani saw the fire lick their knives. There was no choice. There was no decision. Bardo could hand her over to the Brotherhood, or he could accept her fate for both of them. The Brotherhood’s soldiers would not be content until they had sheathed their blades in blood.

  Bardo read the same message in the eyes of his erstwhile allies. His fingers were icy tongs as he turned Rani to face him. “Go with them, Ranikaleka. They’ll keep you until we have finished our work. When the Brotherhood is done, you’ll be free to join me.”

  Salina rolled her eyes in exasperation, and the soldiers shifted nearer, using their long knives to herd Rani from her brother’s side. “Go, Rani!” The command was spoken with the power that Bardo had had over her entire life - the power of a favorite brother. “Go with them, Rani, and all will be fine!”

  “Bardo!”

  Her anguished cry was cut off by a new clatter of mail-clad soldiers, by countless boots on stone. “Halt!” The command rang out in the cathedral, and the space was suddenly filled with torches. A company of guards, all dressed in the king’s livery, streamed down the aisle. “Halt in the name of King Shanoranvilli!”

  Rani was so relieved that she nearly collapsed by Roat’s altar. Before she could speak her gratitude, the captain of the guard signaled for his men to surround the Brotherhood’s soldiers, to close ranks around Guildmistress Salina and Bardo. Only when the Brotherhood’s threat had been quelled did the captain pay attention to the quaking apprentice in the middle of the cathedral aisle.

  �
�Ranita Glasswright!” he announced, leveling his own heavy sword at her throat. “Stand forth and submit to the justice of the rightful king of all Morenia. Answer to King Shanoranvilli for the death of Prince Tuvashanoran!”

  Chapter 15

  “Eat, girl. Build your strength for the questions you’ll be asked today.” The soldier laughed harshly as he flung a bowl of thin gruel through the iron bars of Rani’s cell. A tin cup of water followed, sloshing as the guard made his hurried way along the dungeon’s dank corridor.

  Rani barely looked up at the voice. In the - how long had it been? three days? - that she had been imprisoned in King Shanoranvilli’s dungeons, she had not been able to swallow more than a bite of the poor fare that passed as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In her fitful sleep, she remembered fine meals she had enjoyed, even the riches that Narda had shared with her so long ago in the marketplace, but she could not force her belly to accept the watery porridge.

  “Aye,” came a sarcastic voice from the cell across the cramped corridor. “There’s a good girl. Your family would be proud of you.”

  Her family. The guards had made no secret of Rani’s identity as they dragged her into the dungeons. The other prisoners had reacted with the patriotism of the bored; Rani had been spat at and called foul names. More than one wit made a two handed fist, waggling a single thumb in her direction as an obscene reminder of the glasswrights who had been methodically tortured while Rani roamed the city streets.

  The prisoners knew that she had murdered Prince Tuvashanoran; they needed no silly formality like a trial. Rani had not tried to defend herself as she walked along the stinking, damp corridor. She hoped there would be time for that later, time to tell the truth before King Shanoranvilli passed sentence on her.

  Of course, the other glasswrights had had no trial. The prisoners made sure she learned the details. The apprentice glasswrights had been dragged from their cells, screaming, and returned to the cold stone rooms with bloody stumps where their thumbs had been. It had taken weeks, but finally all the glasswrights were maimed - the apprentices butchered, the Instructors questioned and bled until they were little more than ghosts. Some had died and been buried in the criminals’ graveyard outside the City walls, forever denied the purification of a funeral pyre. Others had at last been set free, to forage whatever life they could in the hostile City streets. Not a glasswright remained in the dungeons.