Glasswrights' Progress Page 4

  If only Serena were already grown.… If only Serena could take charge and issue orders to lions and owls and suns, all alike. If only Serena could save the skychildren.…

  The next afternoon, Shea spread out her ragged blanket in the clearing, easing herself to the hard ground and calling the sunchildren to her. The boys and girls left their tattered baskets on the edges of the blanket and scrambled over each other, tumbling like puppies to be near the woman.

  “Hush,” Shea smiled. “We must rest now, while the sun is highest in the sky.”

  The children settled down quickly, exhausted by their search for berries, for roots, for anything edible in the picked-over woods. Dor, the youngest boy, climbed into Shea’s lap, and she rested a soothing hand on his head. The child turned about to trample her skirts flat, and then he sighed deeply, wriggling toward his dreams.

  Bees buzzed in the afternoon air, exploring the sweet autumn fruit in the baskets. Shea’s eyelids grew heavy, and her head bobbed forward. She started awake twice, automatically noting both times that the lionchildren stood on the edge of the clearing. Of course, in these straitened times, the three young soldiers had no true weapons, but they gripped stout sticks, and they looked watchful.

  Some time later, Shea woke from a deeper sleep, startled by a rustling noise. She knew immediately that something was very wrong. A young man stood before her, dressed in ragged azure clothes. Blue. The color of King Sin Hazar’s army.

  When the youth saw that Shea was awake, he leaped forward, settling his cold dagger against her throat, where the skin sagged. His long hair was pulled back in a tight braid that stretched the skin around his eyes, twisting his face into a grimace. A vicious scar burned above his left cheek.

  For a single dream-instant, Shea thought that she was looking at her own son. “Pom.” Shea spoke softly, as if she feared to wake the sleeping children. This child had the same straight hair, the same nut-brown eyes. He had the same gawky frame of youth, of bones grown long before his body could fill out. Fifteen years old, she thought. Fifteen at most.

  “Quiet, hag!” The boy swallowed his words in a growl, and Shea came fully awake, remembering that she was alone in a field with her orphans. Remembering that her Pom was grown. Grown and gone and dead.

  Dor stirred in Shea’s lap, shaking himself awake like a puppy. When he opened his eyes, he saw the dagger at Shea’s throat and he cried out, waking the other suns.

  “Hush, little ones,” Shea soothed. “This visitor doesn’t mean us any harm.”

  “I’ll show you harm!” the youth menaced, stepping back so that he could wave his blade. “I’ll show all of you the meaning of the word!”

  “Nonsense.” Shea set Dor aside and clambered to her feet. She longed to look about for the lions, for her protectors. What could have happened to the guards? Had Hartley let them fall asleep? Well, all she could do was try to buy the lions time to recognize the danger, to save the skychildren. Shea stretched a soothing hand toward the warrior-child’s scarred cheek.

  Her heart twisted as she saw that his birthright tattoo had been scraped from his face. She ached for the skychild he once had been. She had heard tales of the king’s Little Army. She knew that King Sin Hazar took all sorts of skychildren and turned them into fighters. Scraped away their tattoos, trained them in the camps. The Little Army was an abomination, a twisting of the sky-signs and the fates that men were meant to live by.

  “What were you before the war came, lad?”

  “I’m a soldier now, a soldier in the troops of King Sin Hazar.”

  “Aye,” Shea answered gravely, as she had answered Pom’s own brave declarations when he went off to join the king. “I can see that. But what mark did the king carve from your face?” The youth glared at her with hatred, and she had to fight to keep her voice even against her own fear, her own disgust for a king who could mutilate a child, for a child who would fight within such a system. “It can’t have been a swan’s wing – you’re too harsh for that. I don’t see you with the owl-sign, either, no deep thoughts for you. Perhaps the sun, but then you’d know better than to fight a lonely woman and her children. I’m betting on the lion, then. I’ll wager you’re a lionchild.”

  The youth’s knife wavered as he listened, and she saw the acknowledgment spread across his face. She remembered assuring her own Pom, when he first learned about his place in the world, when he first learned that it was his lot to fight, to make war. Pom had been reluctant to go to the village, to work with the few ancient warriors who stayed at home during the Uprising, who stayed to teach children the ways of the lion. “Aye, son, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. We need lions, to be strong and brave and true. Lions protect old women and their babes. There’s no shame in being a lionboy.”

  “I’m not ashamed!” His face darkened around his puckered scar.

  “Aye, aye! That’s good and proper.” She hastened to reassure him. She wanted him to set down his knife, to stop waving the weapon about. “Why should you be ashamed, fighting for good King Sin Hazar?”

  As Shea spoke, the boy’s lower lip began to quiver. Shea looked at his torn and filthy uniform, short in the sleeves, well above his ankles. A ratty dragon was frayed across his chest. The child’s face was pinched; he looked hungrier than her own orphans.

  She realized that this child-soldier was too far from any army to be a loyal scout. What had made the boy flee the king’s troops? What had made him run away, after he’d been taken in, after he’d submitted to the loss of his birthright, to the scraping away of his skychild fate? Having survived such an attack, such a brutal uprooting, how much did the lionboy now hate and fear his king?

  With a scarce-thought prayer to Wain, the god of fate, Shea plunged ahead: “You don’t need to stay with King Sin Hazar, son. You can join my children and me. We’ve all sorts of creatures with us. Swans and owls and suns. And plenty from the Lion.”

  The youth snarled and lunged forward, leveling his knife against Shea’s throat. “I’ve captured you! You’re just trying to confuse me!”

  “Not at all, young man. I never try to confuse my children.” Shea raised her chin, drawing on an impossible stock of bravery. A lion threatening a sun.… There was nothing in all of Shea’s experience to explain a world gone so mad. “Toss away that knife, son, and have some of our food. Tain, bring this boy our berries.” The lionboy’s eyes darted to the baskets beside the oldest sungirl, and he swallowed audibly. The tendons in his neck stood out like blades of grass. The sunny fragrance of the fruit hung in the clearing, like a ribbon in a flirting girl’s hair. “They’re ripe,” Shea crooned. “Full of juice. Sweet.”

  The youth lunged for the baskets. As he thrust his hands amid the berries, Shea’s three lionchildren finally appeared from the edge of the woods, sticks and stones at the ready. “Drop our berries!” Hartley cried.

  The soldier boy complied, but not before he’d been hit hard across the shoulders and the back of his legs. Hartley turned to Shea, his face blazing red with more than the afternoon sun. “My lions and I.… We saw a boar, at the edge of the woods. We were going to bring back fresh meat.” The lion swallowed hard and refused to meet Shea’s eyes. “It got away.”

  Before Shea could decide whether to offer comfort or remonstration, Hartley whirled on his prisoner. “What’s your name, boy?”

  Berry juice ran over the enemy boy’s fingers like blood. Hartley had to raise his stick, brandishing it like a bludgeon, before the youth spat, “Crestman.” Before he could say more, Hartley snarled a command, and the lions secured him with their own ragged clothes, gagging him with harsh bonds.

  That night, Shea waited until the sunchildren were asleep, until Serena was walking her restless swanwalk on the roof, before she summoned together the lions and the owls. Crestman sat across the room, lashed to a chair. He had managed to fall into a fitful sleep, obviously exhausted by his days of travel. Shea cast a glance toward the boy, and then she addressed her children. “The king is getting cl
oser. Crestman must be a deserter, but King Sin Hazar’s recruiters are probably not far behind. We ... we have to decide what to do.” She swallowed hard. Decision wasn’t her job. She was a sun, after all.

  “Can there be any real question?” Hartley demanded. “If you give that Crestman to my lions, we’ll make sure his trackers never find us. We can leave his body far from here. The king’s men won’t be able to ask us difficult questions about one of their deserters, even if they do find us.”

  “He’s still a child,” argued Torino, the eldest owl. “You know the teachings of the Thousand Gods. We cannot kill a child.”

  “Who says he’s a child?” Hartley replied. “He’s old enough to travel across the countryside on his own. He’s old enough to join King Sin Hazar.”

  “He can’t be any older than you are!” Torino retorted.

  “And perhaps I’m not a child,” Hartley countered. “Besides, that Crestman was ready to kill Shea.” Hartley raised a hand to the tattoo on his cheek, using his blunt fingertip to emphasize his lion-power.

  “He didn’t kill her, though.” Torino did not back down.

  “You owls are supposed to be the thinkers!” Hartley rounded on the owlchildren, and Shea heard the boy’s anger at himself, anger that his lions had let Crestman creep into the clearing. Hartley and his lions had failed the skychildren, and the breach could have been deadly for them all. “You’re supposed to be the ones who find answers!”

  One of the youngest owls climbed to her feet. “We’re owls, Lion. Don’t you doubt that.” She turned to her fellows. “Come on, then. Like Father Nariom taught us, down in the village. Premise: We may kill to protect our safety.”

  “Counter-premise,” another owl responded immediately. “No child may be killed.”

  “Premise,” hooted a third child. “Children who fight for King Sin Hazar threaten our safety.”

  “You don’t know that he was fighting for the king!” squawked one of the youngest owls. “Shea says he was deserting!” The debate disintegrated into childish argument.

  Shea raised a hand to her aching eyes, shaking her head as she stumbled to the doorway of the small house. The night was flooded with light. The moon was full, so brilliant that it nearly drowned out the Lion.

  As Shea listened to the wind in the trees at the edge of her clearing, she was carried back to a time when all the skychildren had known their places. Back when Bram and Pom and Larina had still been alive, when she had not been responsible for this motley crew, for this tangle of right and wrong and maybe. Long ago, the king had been a good man, a man who provided for his people, even if he did sit on his throne, leagues and leagues away. No one had feared the king in those days, before the Uprising.

  Shea closed her eyes, and she remembered Larina’s childish laughter, her joy at the world around her. The little girl had thrown her arms around Shea’s neck each morning, her silver-marked cheek smooth against Shea’s sun-starred one. Even now, the woman could feel Larina inside her breath, inside her bones, and for just an instant, Shea heard her daughter whisper in her ear. “I love you, Mummy. I know you’ll always be here for me.”

  Before Shea could answer, she was jerked back to her cottage. For an instant, she thought it was her own dreams that had pulled her, but then she heard the muffled cry again. She was at Crestman’s side before the other children could reach him.

  The young soldier was lashed to the one sturdy chair in the hut, his arms pulled tight behind him. A rag was bound across his eyes, and a gag slashed his parched lips. He moaned and rocked his chair back and forth, dreaming.

  “Hush,” she crooned, resting her chapped hand against his cheek. “Hush, little lion. It’s all right. You’re in my hut, here with your brothers and sisters. You’ll be fine. You’ll be safe.”

  Crestman quieted beneath her soothing touch, never fully waking. Shea sat by his chair long into the night, rocking back and forth and thinking of Pom. Thinking of her lost son, who had been among the first wave of children sucked into the whirlwind of King Sin Hazar’s schemes, after the Uprising had been put down. Shea thought of the wise men in the village who had first decided to rebel against their king because of taxes, because of cold, hard money. She thought of starvation and honor and helpless, hopeless children.

  The next morning, Hartley confronted Shea as Tain served up bowls of acorn porridge. Shea knew the gruel was bitter, but at least she could put something in each of the small bellies beneath her roof. She scavenged an extra bowl and started to carry it to Crestman.

  “The prisoner may not eat.” Hartley’s voice was flat.

  “Nonsense! He’s a growing boy!”

  “He’s a growing boy who would have killed you. You risk our safety and your own if you feed him.”

  “Hartley, I can’t let him starve to death. I’d be no better than King Sin Hazar.”

  “Torino,” Hartley appealed.

  The owl chimed in immediately. “The lion speaks the truth, Sunwoman. That soldier intended to kill us. To kill us and steal our food.”

  “But what –” Shea almost stopped, overwhelmed by the notion that she – a sunwoman – was debating an owl. “What if he wasn’t deserting? I thought he was. It looked like he was. But what if he was just gathering troops to bring to King Sin Hazar?”

  “Is that any better?” Torino cocked his head to one side, and he sounded honestly curious about Shea’s thoughts.

  “That means he’s not a bad person. He’s merely trying to do as his king commands. He’s merely trying to recruit the Little Army.”

  “But his king would command him to take all the boys. And Serena too.”

  Of course King Sin Hazar wanted the boys – whatever their skysign. And he wanted Serena. He wanted all the swanchildren in Amanthia, all the potential leaders from Shea’s rebellious province, even though the Uprising was over, had been over for years.

  Poor Serena. The pale, moonstruck child was sleeping even now, huddled in her tiny private room beneath the eaves. The sun’s strong rays were too great for Serena – how could the swangirl possibly survive King Sin Hazar’s military camp?

  “Very well,” Shea acceded after a long minute’s indecision. The words tasted bitter in her mouth. “To save my children.”

  Hartley nodded his approval. “All right, then. Let’s get everyone organized. We’ll head to the stream and try to catch some fish. The trout should finally have begun their run.”

  “Watch your step, Lion!” Shea snapped. “We sunfolk know about gathering food, not you lions. Have you already forgotten what happened when you decided to hunt a boar?”

  Hartley looked abashed, and Shea swallowed the anger that constricted her throat. First she was arguing with an owl, and now she was angry at a lion! What was the world coming to? What evil had King Sin Hazar worked, even in her own house?

  There was no sense in making Hartley look foolish, especially in front of the others. “You’re right, though,” Shea said after an uneasy pause. “Fish would be sweet on the tongue.”

  Only when Hartley had gathered the children together did Shea decide not to accompany them. “You go ahead, Hartley. Take the owls along with the suns. They all need sunlight and fresh air. No, no, Torino. No arguments. Take your owls and play your debates by the brook. Tain, keep an eye on everyone.”

  “But aren’t you coming?” Tain seemed concerned.

  “I have things to do here. This house doesn’t take care of itself.”

  Hartley frowned. “I can’t spare extra lions to guard you.”

  “Nonsense. You need to leave someone to watch over Serena, in any case.”

  “But there’s an additional risk, with the prisoner.”

  “With a fifteen-year-old boy, tied to a chair? I may be a sunwoman, Hartley, but I’m not daft. I can take care of myself.” Hartley grumbled, and he left his two best lions to guard the cottage. He glanced back with every step, but he led the other children toward the distant riverbank.

  Shea made sure that
the lions left behind were busy scanning the horizon before she ducked back inside her cottage. She was moving to the hearth before she knew it, looking down at Crestman.

  Crestman. Such a sturdy name for so young a soldier.

  Hartley had tightened the youth’s gag, and the rough cloth sawed into the corners of the young lion’s mouth. His blindfold had slipped off sometime during the night, and he glared at her, his scarred cheek livid in the gloom beneath the rafters. Shea thought of Pom, of the way her son had raged when she had punished him for stealing boiled sweets in the village. “I had nothing to do with this, child. The lions protect us. You should remember that much, from the days before you cast your lot with King Sin Hazar. Now I’ll feed you, if you swear to stay quiet. If the lions outside hear you, I’ll have Hartley to answer to. Do you promise?”

  She held a bowl of porridge so that he could see the food he was missing. She imagined his belly clenching in hunger. Berries were no meal for a growing boy. Besides, he’d eaten their meager hoard hours before. At last, Crestman nodded. She set the bowl on the floor as she loosened his gag.

  “Let me go!” he whispered as soon as he had worked spit back into his mouth.

  “I can’t do that, boy.”

  “They’ll kill me!”

  “And King Sin Hazar will kill us all, when you lead him here. Kill us or steal my boys for the Little Army.” Shea kept her voice quiet, fighting for reason as if she were an owl.

  “I won’t lead him here. I promise. You were right. I was leaving the king’s army. I don’t want to be a soldier anymore.”

  “He’ll find you, though. He’ll track you down and bring you back to his camp.”