Glasswrights' Apprentice Page 31

  “My lord,” Felicianda began, ignoring the cold-eyed prince. She spoke only to her husband, to the king she had wed fifteen years before. “You cannot listen to this child -”

  “Silence!” Shanoranvilli’s voice echoed in the hall. Rani’s ears rang, and she wondered how the king’s ancient lungs had produced such volume. It seemed as if another man spoke when the king said to his son, “But what about the Brotherhood? What about the members we do not know?”

  “Your Majesty,” Hal responded, and Rani could hear that he had already planned his words. “If you cut off a snake’s head, it dies. The Brotherhood will be powerless without its brain, without its eyes, without its fangs.”

  For a long minute, Shanoranvilli looked at the traitors. At his wife, who had brought him love and children late in his life, and no small amount of riches with her dowry from the North. At his chamberlain, who had stood beside him through the years of ruling a kingdom. At the strangers who had brought such sorrow to his court - the guildmistress and the merchant, now trembling before his royal might. Rani watched the king, and she knew his decision before he did. She saw the pattern, knew there was only one way for order to be restored.

  “So be it,” the king said at last, and his words were almost lost in his beard. Sighing, he repeated, “So be it. In the name of all the Thousand Gods, and in the name of Jair himself, I declare that the lives of these four traitors shall be forfeit.”

  “My lord -” Felicianda exclaimed, and she would have fallen to the stone floor if Jair’s Watchers had not held her upright.

  “The Lord Chief Inquisitor is right, for time out of mind, there has been no other sentence.”

  “Have mercy, my lord!” Felicianda’s voice clogged with tears. “In honor of our son, Prince Bashanorandi, have mercy!”

  “Mercy you shall have,” replied the king, after a long, painful silence. “On two counts, mercy. First, you will all meet the headman’s axe, and not the gallows-rope. Second, your son … our son … will be spared, for he knew not what you did for him. That is one soul’s blood you need not explain to all the Thousand Gods.”

  “Your Majesty,” began Larindolian, who had paled to a sickly shade of white at the king’s pronouncement. Now, the serpents on his chest stood out like great bruises on his flesh, cast into death spasms by the nobleman’s panting.

  “No word from you, Traitor,” snapped the king. “You have cost me two who were most dear to my heart - my firstborn son, and my queen.”

  “But my lord -”

  “Silence!” At a quick hand gesture, the nearest black-robed Watcher leveled steel against Larindolian’s throat, and the chamberlain gave up his plea. Shanoranvilli waited one interminable moment and then nodded to the captain of the palace guard. “Let it be done now, before they can work more evil. Let the sentence be carried out in the central courtyard, before the sun reaches noon.”

  Rani watched in shock as the prisoners were escorted into the courtyard. She was horrified at the machine Hal had created, at the engine she had set in motion with her testimony. Hal spoke quiet words to the captain of the guard, and the soldier freed Rani from her iron bonds, leaving chains and locks in an ugly pile on the flagstones. Rubbing her wrists, Rani followed the royal party to the courtyard, surrounded by black-robed Watchers.

  She should not have spoken. She should not have given Hal the fuel to feed his fire. She should have found another way to save the king, to tell the truth, to protect the crown from the Brotherhood.

  When they reached the courtyard, Shanoranvilli’s soldiers moved with great efficiency. Loops of rough hemp were cast around each of the prisoners, binding their arms to their sides. Rani imagined the rope against her own flesh, felt the fibers burrowing into her skin. She was snared by the expressions on the traitors’ faces.

  Felicianda, gazing at the king in utter disbelief.

  Larindolian, false confidence returning, looking out at the growing crowd with vulpine superiority, as if he still scented escape.

  Salina, glaring at Rani as if she had broken yet another piece of cobalt glass, as if she had upset a crucible of solder and was confirming yet again that she was a failure, a mistake, a miscreant who never should have been admitted to the glasswrights’ guild.

  And Bardo. “Rani,” he whispered, and she imagined she could hear her name across the cobblestones. She heard the confession behind the two syllables: “I never meant for you to be caught up in all of this. I never meant to harm you, to harm the king, to harm Tuvashanoran. I never meant to destroy our family. I never meant for Salina’s men to take you in the cathedral.” All that he told her, and more, in the silence of his gaze across the courtyard. “Ranikaleka …”

  The end was fast. The executioner appeared from nowhere, his chest bare in the freezing winter air. He carried the largest axe that Rani had ever seen. Shanoranvilli gave the commands, his voice bleak and hopeless. First, Felicianda, in recognition of her status. “Hail, Jair, and all the Thousand Gods, take this traitor from our midst.” The actual command was a wordless cry, answered by the wet crash of axe on wooden block.

  Then Salina, in deference to her gender. Then Larindolian, in honor of his caste. Then, last of all, Bardo.

  Rani watched as her brother looked out on the assemblage, his eyes empty, his chest heaving in terror. He caught her gaze as he knelt, managed to hold her in his sight as the axe was raised. Shanoranvilli proclaimed the formula, and Rani cried out, almost as if she were giving the executioner his command.

  She lurched forward, and Jair’s Watchers swarmed around her, catching her as she plummeted to the cobblestones. As Rani collapsed under the stagnant waters of consciousness she thought that she saw the old Touched crone wreathed in a Watcher’s black cowl. And Mair.… And Borin, the aged tradesman who controlled the Merchant’s Council, who had sat in judgment of her so long before.… All so long ago, all in another life.… The Fellowship of Jair that Bardo had warned her about, had tried to save her from. The Fellowship of Jair in new robes, a dozen blackest garments. Absurdly, Rani remembered crouching in the marketplace, giving Mair a golden slip of paper, giving the Fellowship of Jair the power they now held over her, over Bardo.

  Then, Rani was reeling, spinning, sinking under the tide as the headman’s axe bit one last time into the block.

  Chapter 16

  Rani stood in the windowed embrasure of the royal nursery, looking out at the snow-blown landscape through her scavenged piece of cobalt glass. Yet another winter blizzard had whistled through the City the night before, and the central courtyard was knee-deep in snow. Icy paths had been tromped across the cobble-stones.

  “You won’t change anything by catching cold there.”

  “Your Majesty,” Rani managed dully, not bothering to drop a curtsey as she turned from the unglazed window. Hal was clad from head to toe in black, the mourning attire he had worn for the past month, since Shanoranvilli slipped into the Heavenly Fields, giving in to the depthless sorrow of betrayal.

  “Must I command you to call me by my name?” Hal kept his voice light, but his hands were firm on Rani’s shoulders as he guided her away from the window. He closed the wooden shutters, pointedly not noticing the pool of blue glass in her palm.

  “I’m sorry, Hal,” she mumbled. “I’m tired this morning - the Pilgrims’ Bell rang all night, through the storm, and it kept me awake.”

  He eyed her thoughtfully, obviously making a conscious decision not to challenge her truthfulness. Instead, he leaned back on one of the two facing stone benches, stretching out his legs to rest against the opposing bench. Rani could not help but notice that he had grown inches in the few months since her trial. Small surprise - she had grown as well. The nurses were constantly clucking about the need to find her new clothes, mature clothes. She sighed. Hal’s motion, more than showing off his new-found height, had effectively cut off any escape from the alcove.

  “Sit, Rani.” He nodded, as if he read the realization in her mind. In this past month, he
had taken to calling her by her birth name. “The nurses tell me that you cry out in your sleep. You’re disturbing the princesses.”

  “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to do that!” Her words were hot, despite her resolution to stay in the good graces of the king of all Morenia. “We can’t have children disturbed by nightmares, not when they live in a world so free of treachery and murder and lies.” Hal did not react to her bitter words, and she forced herself to take a deep breath. “I can be out of here this afternoon, Your Majesty. If you’ll just let me by -”

  “What is it that you see, Rani? Why do you scream in your sleep?”

  She stared at him as if he were mad, and it took her a moment to find incredulous words. “Can you truly ask me that, after all that has happened? Not three months ago, we watched four people executed in the courtyard below!”

  “The nurses say you never call out the names of the dead. You never name my brother or your own, or even Dalarati.” Out of habit, the prince made a holy sign, and Rani impatiently followed suit. “They say you speak other names - Mair and Borin.”

  Rani’s eyes filled at the quiet compassion in Hal’s voice. “You’ll never understand,” she sighed.

  “Try, Rani. You’ve made me understand much in the past. Tell me.”

  She shuddered and forced herself to meet his grey eyes. “I grew up in a family, Hal, a large family. I was surrounded by brothers and sisters, and we all made and broke our alliances, every day and every night. But throughout all that, I always thought that Bardo was true. I always thought that Bardo was good.”

  Drawing strength from Hal’s silence, Rani continued. “When I learned of the Brotherhood of Justice, I still believed Bardo. When I heard of the Fellowship of Jair, I still believed Bardo. No matter what evidence I was given, what truth I was shown, I still found a way for Bardo to be good and true.”

  Hal started to speak, but Rani hushed him with a curt shake of her head. “No. That last day, that last terrible day.… When I saw Jair’s Watchers in the black robes that I had given them, the black robes that I took from the merchants’ tithes.… Mair and Borin and the others - that was the moment that I fully realized that I had made a choice. Surrounded by the Fellowship of Jair, I betrayed Bardo. I gave up my perfect brother.” Rani sighed and dashed the unwanted tears from her cheeks, steeling herself to say the last bit, the worst words. “I don’t deserve a family. I don’t deserve to belong to any group. And so, I don’t speak the names of the dead. They have no power over me; they had no power, even in the audience chamber. It is the living who torment me, who remind me that I’m alone now and forever.”

  Rani’s silence stretched out until Hal finally asked, “May I speak now?” She nodded, directing her gaze at the cobalt glass, willing her eyes to stop welling up.

  “You’ve lost one family, Rani, and nothing I can say or do will change that. But just as you found other names, other castes for yourself, so you can find other families. You can join us, join the Fellowship of Jair.”

  Foolish hope kindled in Rani’s breast, but she doused it with the thought of all that she had done. Hal must have read her mind, because he continued: “We have an open space, you know. The one that belonged to Dalarati.”

  Familiar guilt twisted through Rani, and she repeated the soldier’s name. “Dalarati.”

  Hal nodded. “Although, it’s not fair of me to phrase our invitation like that. We were already waiting for you, before Dalarati died. We’d been watching you.”

  “Me! Why would you watch me?”

  “Because you were where we needed eyes and ears. You came to our attention after you joined the guild. You were close to Salina; you maintained a link to Bardo. You were our ideal agent. That’s when the Fellowship first spotted you, when we came to believe that you might be one of us.” It was Hal’s turn to cut off Rani’s protest as he continued, “After Tuvashanoran was murdered, when we knew that the soldiers were looking high and low for you in the City, we feared that we would lose you. Mair made direct contact. You were brought before Borin, and he managed to keep you in the marketplace, to keep you safe from harm. Even so, after you served that egg-woman, the soldiers almost found you. Only Mair’s early warning saved you.”

  Rani blinked and could see the Touched girl slipping from Borin’s portico, just before the Councilor sent Rani off to the cathedral. “But she sent me into danger. The Brotherhood attacked the cathedral!”

  “We had no way of knowing they would do that, that they were so desperate to retrieve Morada’s body. Mair arranged with Borin that you would bear the tithes, and then she went on ahead, to the cathedral. She was working with others in the Fellowship to make good your escape from the City. My father’s guards had just come too close.”

  “But why so much effort to save me?”

  Hal was quiet for a long moment, and when he did speak, he chose his words carefully. “You were valuable to us, Rani. Once things quieted down in the City, we hoped to call you back from your refuge. We hoped that we could bring about the plan we’d hatched long ago. We wanted you to go to Bardo and be our agent within the Brotherhood.”

  “You wanted to use me.”

  “We wanted you to join us. We still do, Rani.”

  “Join you! But I killed one of your number!”

  “All unknowing. You reacted to the lies you were told, to the evil you were fed. I am still authorized to invite you to join us.”

  “‘Authorized’? Who gives orders to the king of all Morenia?”

  “You know our leader - Glair. The wise old woman who watched over you at the beginning of your quest, who kept guard over you in the dungeons.”

  “The Touched crone!”

  “Aye, or so she appears.” Hal nodded respectfully. Rani turned away from the king, questions boiling in her mind. Mechanically, she opened the shutters, stared out at the winter scene below. In the snow-blown courtyard, she could not make out the chopping block, could not see where the executioner’s axe had forever changed her life. After a long minute, Hal spoke, so softly that she almost missed his words. “Will you join the Fellowship? Will you join us, Rani? Ranita? Ranimara? Rai?”

  Rani - the name belonging to her family, the relatives who were executed at the royal command. Ranita - the name belonging to her lost guild, to the glasswrights who were scattered or dead. Ranimara - a soldier’s name, like the soldier she had murdered. Rai - the name belonging to the Touched, the City’s anonymous chaff.

  She had no caste; she had no name; she had nowhere to go in all the City.

  “We need you with us,” Hal whispered. “The Brotherhood may be vanquished, but Jair’s way must still be tended.”

  “I know nothing of Jair’s way. I’ve got blood on my hands.”

  “These are bloody times. The Fellowship will teach you about Jair.”

  “I’m a thirteen-year-old orphan, without a caste.”

  “You’re one of us, if you desire.”

  He took the fragment of blue glass from her reluctant fingers and set it on the bench before enfolding her hands between his own, like a liege recognizing a vassal. “Rani, when I saw you in the guard’s hut, when I knew that you were going alone, to face the worst the Brotherhood could offer, I knew I had to take some action. I had to save you, in any way I could. Even as I issued the orders, I knew that it would not be easy for you, being arrested, submitting to the Defender’s Judgment. I could not let you go, though, could not set you loose in the City streets, to face what the Brotherhood had in store for you.”

  “But I’d been alone since the guild was destroyed.” She sighed, tasting yet again the bitter realization that the glasswrights had been ruined for nothing, all for a grand mistake. “That was a crime, Hal. The guild did nothing wrong; they knew nothing of Salina’s plots.”

  “It was wrong,” he agreed.

  “Sometimes, I dream of rebuilding the guild, of gathering together the glasswrights who are still out there.…”

  “I’ll issue the orders tod
ay.”

  “That’s it? Just issue the orders and gather them in?”

  “That’s only the beginning of the work. But they can start over again, and you can help them.” Rani read the seriousness in his eyes, knew that he would send out the royal proclamation that afternoon.

  “Just like that,” she shook her head, a little dazed. “Command the forces of the kingdom with a snap of your fingers. Just like when you sent the soldiers after me in the cathedral.”

  He nodded seriously, not taking his eyes from her, not shirking from his role in bringing the Brotherhood to justice. “It was all that I could think to do.”

  “So that doesn’t leave me much of a choice now, does it?” A growing smile softened her words. “If I leave the Palace, I won’t get as far as the cathedral close before you’ll send soldiers after me?”

  “Maybe a little farther,” he admitted. “The snow wreaks havoc with their armor.”

  “We couldn’t have that - rusty armor for the king’s crack troops.”

  Silence for a moment, and then Hal asked, “You’ll stay?”

  Rani nodded and spoke her words as solemnly as a vow. “I’ll stay.”

  Hal smiled as he released her hands, and then he reached behind her, closing the wooden shutters on the snow-filled courtyard, the City beyond, and the kingdom of all Morenia.

  A SNEAK PEAK AT THE GLASSWRIGHTS’ PROGRESS

  Volume 2 of the Glasswrights Series

  Rani Trader swung down from her tall bay stallion, taking a moment to pat the animal’s muscled neck and catch her breath. The wind had torn at her lungs as she raced to the top of the rise, and she gasped for air, more than a little surprised that the past two years had given her the skill to ride so wildly. Behind her, several riders were strung out, flung across the tall grass like discarded chessmen. At the distant edge of the long, long plain, Rani could just make out the top of the City’s tallest tower, already flecked with gold in the late afternoon light.