Glasswrights' Test Page 30

  “I did!” Her protest was sharp, and then she swallowed and looked away. “I did. Once. But I swore an oath to Master Parion that I would not correspond with you.”

  “An oath? To ignore your king?”

  “An oath to be true to my guild, Sire. An oath to live like any other glasswright.”

  “Then you also refused to read my letters?”

  “I never saw them.” Her protest was curiously flat, as if she were drained of passion.

  “I wrote to you repeatedly. My riders left each message with your Parion Glasswright.”

  He watched the battleground of her face, saw that she did not know whether she should believe him. Her sovereign or her guildmaster—whom should she trust? Where did her true loyalties lie? He decided to push her. “How did you let Berylina die?”

  “Let her die!” Rani might have looked exhausted, but she poured vitriol into her exclamation. “My lord, you might think that I stood idly by while all the forces of the Briantan church were set against us, but I assure you that I did not, for one moment, let Berylina Thunderspear die.”

  “You do realize that Teheboth will see the princess’s death as the perfect opportunity to attack Morenia? He can gather together an army now, strike by the middle of fall. He’ll say that he wants to avenge his daughter, but his goal will be to take our octolaris.”

  Rani nodded, and he could see that she had figured out that pattern on her own. Her calm acceptance was damning. How long ago had she worked out Teheboth’s revenge? How long had she known the war that Morenia would face if Berylina died under her protection? Who had urged her to set the calamity in motion or—worse—had she acted alone? “Aye, my lord. He might do that.”

  “Might! Wouldn’t you, if you were in his place?”

  “The entire world knows that Teheboth had little love for his rebel daughter. Other lands might not look kindly on Thunderspear doing battle in her name. They might recognize the fight as blatant opportunism.”

  “Do you truly believe that? Do you truly think that anyone will side with us in the battle to come?”

  “They will if they understand the market reasons to do so.” Rani sighed, and the sound was as deep as the ocean between Morenia and Liantine. “You must gather them to your side, Sire. You must make certain that they understand the cost of a silk monopoly. If they truly believe that Liantine will regain exclusivity in the cloth market, then they will support you.” She raised her eyes as if her next words were the most important thing she had ever told him. “Let them know the value of the silk, my lord. Let them know that they fight for their own treasuries as well as yours. Let them know that Liantine is the enemy of us all.”

  Hal heard the wisdom in her words, but he was reluctant to listen. What if this was part of her plan? What if she thought to lure him into battle, and then leave him vulnerable? He said, “We have no choice but to try. Our spidersilk is our only hope of repaying the Fellowship.”

  Something flickered across her face, some secret message or protest. What? He wanted to shout. What do you have to tell me about the Fellowship? Her throat worked, and she said, “We always knew that it would be difficult to satisfy that body.”

  He decided to accuse her directly. “What do they plan, Rani? What do they mean to do with me?”

  “You know as much as I.” She took a deep breath, and then she met his eyes, as if she would convince him with the power of her gaze alone.

  “Rani, tell me what happened in Brianta.”

  “They took Laranifarso.”

  “But why? They’ve never been in the business of stealing children before! Was Mair troubling them? Did she speak out against them?”

  “No!” Rani’s voice was sharp, the word edgier than anyone else would have dared to utter in his presence. “Mair did nothing! This is not her fault!”

  He shoved down his automatic disapproval at her vehemence. “What, then? Why has the Fellowship changed its ways? What can they think to gain with that child?”

  “I cannot tell you that.” She swallowed hard. “Who can ever know the full intention of the Fellowship of Jair?”

  He heard the bitterness in her words, the despair that she did not completely enunciate. “But why Laranifarso?” he insisted. “Why would they hold him without making a single demand? That makes no sense!”

  “Few things in this world make sense, Sire.” Her words fell like stones. “Why should the Fellowship be logical? Why should they act reasonably?”

  “What is it, Rani? What are you not telling me?”

  For just a moment, she struggled. He saw the voices inside her, battling across her face. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, but her pallor remained. He wanted to pour her a glass of wine. He wanted to close his hands about her arms and shake her. As if she heard the debate inside his own skull, she nodded her head. Once. Twice. Three times. When she opened her eyes, her face was smooth.

  “Grant me a boon, Sire.”

  “What are you asking of me?”

  “Say that you will do this thing, before I tell you. Know that I would only ask for your health and for the health of all Morenia. I’ve earned that much from you in the past, I should think.”

  He tried but could not keep his eyes from the crumpled parchment. Is this how she would work her mission? Bind him by his own word, then strike?

  Earned, she said. Of course, he owed her. He never would have kept his throne without her. Not with Bashanorandi plotting against him so long ago. Not with the fire that had rampaged through Moren, with the church and the Fellowship battling to tie him up in debt. Rani Trader had brought riches to Morenia. She had brought hope.

  And yet, only a fool would offer up a pledge without more knowledge of the cost. The simplest child learned that lesson in tales told at his nurse’s knee. Hal could picture himself back in his old nursery, crouching in the window embrasure, playing with tin soldiers. He had learned his lessons of strategy then. He had learned how to organize men, to order resources. He had learned how to win battles.

  “I cannot do that Rani.”

  “Sire, I have asked nothing else from you, ever!”

  The desperation behind her words confirmed that he was making the right decision. If she longed for his blind pledge so badly, she must be certain that he would deny her once he had full knowledge. For the sake of their past, he tried to force his voice to be gentle, but his words froze as he said, “Tell me first, Rani, and I will decide what I will do.”

  She turned away from him, plunging her hands back into her pockets. Her eyes drifted toward the windows, and he wondered if she looked for wisdom, or courage, or confidence. Or something even more rare, something he could not divine. “Tell me, Rani. I command you.”

  She raised her chin and said, “Set aside Queen Mareka. Return her to the spiderguild.”

  “What?” He gaped in astonishment, but his shouted exclamation only seemed to stiffen her resolve.

  “Send her back to Liantine. Or to the spiderguild itself. Or leave her here in Morenia, in one of your homes in the countryside. Just set her aside. Have the priests declare her not your wife.”

  “Have you gone mad?” What was she thinking? Was this their past, come back to haunt them? Was this the power that he had felt between them before, the draw, the desire for something more than any king should offer any of his subjects? Look to your wife, the queen.

  Hal had once been so certain that Rani understood, that she realized a king could not make his own decisions of the heart. Certainly, things would be different if he had not possessed a kingdom, if he had not had a dynasty to establish. …

  A dynasty, that was the catch.

  Hal had bred no dynasty. How long had Rani counted out the days, before she could make her move? Had she measured each tiny royal corpse, counting herself closer to her goal with every funeral pyre? He looked at her and realized that he had no idea what thoughts ran inside her mind.

  Surely, she had flaunted her men before him in the past—first C
restman, now Tovin. She had brought them into his court, pretending that they would serve him as loyally as they seemed to serve her. Had she exploited those others ruthlessly, using them only to advance her own twisted cause?

  It was no secret that Crestman had considered himself betrayed—the soldier had cursed Rani, cursed Hal, cursed all of Morenia as he committed himself to the spiderguild’s shackles. Rani had always argued tearfully that she never intended for Crestman to be taken; she had never meant for his life to be forfeit.

  But what if she had lied? What if she had worked out her revenge years before, a revenge for a family and a guild and a life all ruined?

  After all, she had lived with the players gladly enough. Was she every bit the actor that they trained themselves to be? What else had she learned from Tovin Player when she mastered his witchy art of Speaking? What other mysterious powers had Rani Trader leveled against Hal, against his family, his court?

  Mysterious power. Here in the tower. How late is the hour.

  He edged behind his desk, pushing aside parchment scrolls until he could see his iron dagger. He took no comfort from its sharp edge, though; he breathed no easier with it in sight. “You too, then,” he said. “You have turned against me.”

  “No, Sire! Not as you are thinking!”

  “I took Mareka Octolaris as my wife, before all of my people, beneath the eyes of the Thousand Gods. Even if I chose to do so, I could not set her aside now.”

  “You could if the church supported you! You could if the Holy Father himself declared your vows null and void!”

  “Holy Father Dartulamino! Why would you suggest that I turn to him? You’ve never trusted him before!” By Jair, she never had.

  By Jair. In the lair. Have a care.

  “Exactly, my lord! I would not suggest this lightly! I would not tell you to set aside Mareka if it were not absolutely necessary. Your kingdom needs you to act!” Her words were strangled, and a strange flame burned high on her cheekbones.

  He closed his hand about the hilt of his knife, and he moved carefully to place the desk between them. “I can imagine taking on allies, Rani. I can imagine trusting others. But Dartulamino? When you know that the Fellowship has always had a greater plan for

  Morenia. …”

  A greater plan. They think they can. Another man.

  “Sire, don’t look at me that way! This is all part of their plot, all part of what they want to happen. They want you to mistrust me. They want you to move against me. Don’t do that. Don’t yield to them.” She fell to her knees, collapsing as if the strength had been punched out of her.

  “Them? Who are they? Are you saying that the Fellowship intends to move against me? Do you bring an explicit threat from our so-called brethren? Did they send you to kill me and be done with me?”

  She cried out as if he had plunged his dagger into her chest, a single desperate denial. “No!” Tears streamed down her face, blotching her cheeks, reddening her eyes. Madness. Rani Trader had gone mad. “Please, Sire, you can’t believe that! I am not a threat to you. I am not against you; I have never been against you.”

  “Then why would you ask me to set aside Mareka? Why would you ask me to abandon my lady, my queen?”

  “I have no other choice!” Rani’s voice broke on the words. “Sire, I have nothing else I can do!”

  He stared at her, stared at the longing, the horror, the spite that twisted her face. All these years, then. All these years he had harbored her inside the palace. All these years, he had thought that she understood their alliance, that she understood what could and could not be. “You too, then,” he said. “You too have turned against me. After this summer, I expected Puladarati to advise me to set aside my bride. Jerumalashi and Edpulaminbi too. But you! You think that I have no more honor than a strumpet in the streets.”

  “No, Sire—”

  “Say no more! I will not listen to the lies upon your tongue!”

  “My—”

  “I thought that you would understand the decisions that I made and why I made them! I thought that we knew that much about each other.”

  “Sire—”

  But he did not stay to hear whatever arguments she would make. He did not stay to hear the lies that she would tell. He did not stay to hear her stories about why he was wrong, why she was right, why he must abandon his wife and his honor.

  He looked back at her once, before he slammed the door to the tower chamber. He looked back, and he saw Rani Trader still on her knees. He saw her hand stretched out toward him, grasping like a pilgrim after wisdom. He saw the tear-streaks down her pale, pale cheeks, and he saw the bitter twist of her lips.

  He saw, and he understood that he had invited the enemy into his house. He knew that Rani would stop at nothing to make Mareka leave. He knew that he would have to take action. He would have to stop Rani Trader from whatever evil she had planned. He would have to stop her from destroying Mareka and Morenia and the house of ben-Jair.

  Chapter 14

  Rani Trader stood in the doorway, shaking her head as she looked about the plain room. Her bed-chamber seemed so large. It had been months since she had enjoyed the privacy of her apartments, a suite of rooms set aside solely for her, without interference from anyone else. In Brianta, she had shared a room with Mair and Laranifarso; on the road back, she had huddled in common tavern rooms. Now, the simple space seemed clean and fresh and good.

  And empty.

  Rani swore and turned on her heel. Where could Tovin have gotten to? She had read the threat on his face, the knowledge that he would not gladly submit to her order and leave her alone with Hal. She’d had no choice, though. She had needed to speak to the king alone, needed to try, try, try to convince him to set Mareka aside.

  Without conscious thought, Rani’s hand moved back to her skirts, to the pocket where the glass vial of poison still lay undisturbed. She had thought that she had a perfect solution. If she could convince Hal to send Mareka away, then the Fellowship should free Rani from her obligation. After all, their goal would be accomplished. Mareka would be out of Hal’s life. She would no longer be a factor in the secret organization’s plans. Rani would worry about protecting Hal himself later.

  The Fellowship’s plans. … Rani had carefully avoided letting herself think about those machinations. It was clear that the Fellowship wanted Hal gone; they wanted the end of the house of ben-Jair. Rani’s belly twisted, and she dug out the piece of parchment that she had found on Hal’s writing desk.

  She had not been violating his privacy, she told herself for the hundredth time. He had left her in his study, left her with the papers. She had been obliged to determine what was happening in the kingdom, what crucial events she had missed while she was in Brianta. It was not her fault that she had set her hand directly on the crumpled parchment when she pulled herself to a standing position. It was not her fault that the message was more intriguing than any figures about the sale of spidersilk. It was not her fault that she had been drawn to lies and manipulations more than to an accounting of taxes from scarce-attended summer fairs.

  Crestman. Rani had recognized the man’s hand immediately; she had seen it often enough in the letters they had exchanged years ago, during the sweet years after the liberation of the Little Army. He had a curious way of slanting his writing, as if he held his parchment perpendicular to his body. His letters were always scratched into the surface with more force than any scribe would condone.

  Force. That he had attempted to use against her, to ruin her life, to betray her to Hal.

  Thinking back, Rani could almost understand Hal’s vehemence that morning. He had seen her as a threat. Of course, he had viewed her as a manipulator. Of course, he had seen that she wanted to separate Mareka from the comfort and security of the court, draw her off from the royal herd as if she were a beast to be cut down by wolves.

  Crestman had primed that pump.

  How could he hate her so much? Even as she asked herself that question again, she
pictured his twisted arm, his dragging leg. The octolaris poison had ruined him. Crestman was a soldier, a mercenary, a fighting man who had always lived by the strength of his body. With that body maimed, he was destroyed. He was not the youth that she had met in Amanthia, years ago. He was not the man who had chafed under obligation to the house of ben-Jair. He was a new creature, a wilder being, a desperate animal who would stop at nothing in his quest for vengeance.

  Who had stopped at nothing. Crestman had lied to see her cast into prison, or worse. He would have no delusions about the penalties for traitors; he would know that he had bargained for Rani’s death.

  Rani read the lies one last time, and then she folded the parchment, shoving it deep into a pocket. There would be time enough to deal with it later. Time enough for her to explain to Hal that Crestman had manipulated both of them.

  After she did what she had to do. After Mareka was taken care of. After she found Tovin.

  A quick glance confirmed that the dust on the stairs to her tower glasswright study was undisturbed. Tovin had not gone up there. She had sent him to the stables, ostensibly to retrieve her saddle bags. Could the player actually have followed her orders? Could he still be with the horses?

  She ran down the stairs, ignoring the startled glances of retainers and guards. The hallways were almost empty; many nobles had returned home to supervise harvests in their own lands. Hal would convene an autumn court, but Moren was close to deserted during the sultry days at the end of summer.

  Thus, it was easy for Rani to see that Tovin was not in the stables. His great bay stallion stood in a stall, munching contentedly on hay now that he had borne his owner back from Brianta. Someone had curried the beast and tended to his tack, but there was no indication that Tovin had done those duties. It was unlikely, in fact. One of Hal’s grooms would routinely have tended to the horses, or one of the young players.