Glasswrights' Journeyman Page 5

  Jerusha took them past a team of eight apprentices who were harvesting the webs from the day before, apprentices who were hard at work because they were not going to be tested that afternoon. The octolaris were spinning heavily now – many of the mothers carried egg sacs on their backs, and they instinctively cushioned their boxes with extra silk, providing a lush carpet for new-hatched spiderlings to hide in.

  Mareka knew that some wild octolaris spun their webs in unsightly clumps, leaving balls of sticky silk attached to riberry trees, to stones, even to the bare ground. The guild’s spiders, though, had been bred for centuries for their spinning habits – they made clean silken sheets, covering the floors of their wooden boxes as if they still needed the webs to capture their markin grub meals.

  Without consciously noticing, Mareka passed the brooding females, and then the males. She followed Jerusha beyond the unbred females’ boxes, and past the yearlings, who would be differentiated by sex when they molted for the final time, in the fall. She passed the spiderboxes that were set aside for the afternoon’s testing – all of the apprentices who hoped to pass to journeyman would have to transfer three octolaris from box to box. Three spiders – a yearling, a male, and – most dangerous of all – a brooding mother.

  Mareka realized that her head was buzzing with suppressed excitement. She was ready for her test. She was ready to prove herself a journeyman. Proximity to the spiders only heightened her confidence.

  She forced herself to take a deep breath, to run through the eight rules of handling spiders. One, bind your sleeves, gathering up the extra silk that might frighten the spiders. Two, cover your wrists with spidersilk strips, wrapping the bands to protect against bites from leaping octolaris. Three, block the direct sunlight, approaching the box without glare and with full view of the spider’s every movement. Four, sing the hymn, the soothing song that lulled most octolaris into complacence. Five, bow four times, giving the spider a chance to recognize you. Six, rattle the riberry branch, forcing the spider from its rocky cave. Seven, complete the Homing, weaving your fingers in the complicated pattern that signaled dominance, not prey. Eight, for brooding females, consume the nectar.

  Mareka had only tasted octolaris nectar twice before, both times under the strict supervision of a master guildsman. Even now, she could remember the powerful draught, feel it tingle against the back of her throat, sweeter than the berries she had eaten. She could remember how the nectar made her aware of every breath she took, of every sound around her. Under the influence of the nectar, she could smell the very octolaris, she knew where the spider was even with her eyes closed. The whisper of silk against her flesh was temptation itself, and she had used all her willpower to focus her attention on the octolaris before her, to sate the brooding female with a wriggling markin grub, to lift the poisonous spider from her box.

  Mareka was jolted from her memories when Jerusha came to a halt in front of a cluster of twenty-four spiderboxes. This was the section of the nursery where the masters bred new lines, where the guild experimented with greater wealth and power. Mareka did not know these particular spiders. Looking into the nearest box, she saw a thick carpet of silk spread across the reed platform.

  “Jerusha!” she said. “You should harvest the silk every day! You don’t want your spiders to stop spinning.”

  The other apprentice turned to her with a gloating grin. “I do collect the silk daily. These are the new spiders that Master Amrida and I have bred. They spin more than twice the silk of other beasts.”

  Mareka swallowed hard against her jealousy. Master Amrida had always favored Jerusha. He was friendly with Jerusha’s parents, had served as an apprentice with them decades before. He always let Jerusha work on special projects. It wasn’t fair. Masters were supposed to treat all apprentices equally.

  “There’s only one problem,” Jerusha was saying, and Mareka forced herself to pay attention. “These spiders need markin grubs four times a day.”

  “Four!” No other spider ate more than twice a day.

  “Aye, four. And I am going to be too busy to feed them, after I’m made journeyman this afternoon.” Jerusha seized the slave girl’s arm. “And that’s why you are going to learn how to feed octolaris.”

  “Jerusha, you can’t!” Mareka protested. “You can’t have some stupid slave feed spiders. You know the octolaris require careful attention.”

  “Master Amrida will never know, unless you tell him. As far as he’s concerned, I’ll go on doing an apprentice’s duties, at least with regard to this line of spiders.”

  Mareka glared at her fellow apprentice. Mareka might dislike Jerusha. She might compete with her. But apprentices were apprentices, after all. There was a code. Mareka would tell no tales. Jerusha nodded after a moment, and said, “Here. Give me your markin basket.”

  “Collect your own grubs!”

  “Four times a day,” Jerusha said. “And if they don’t eat, they’ll die. You would not want to be responsible for an octolaris’s death, would you?”

  What sort of question was that? By the Hind’s eight horns, Mareka could not be responsible for a spider’s death! Even the thought made her belly twist. She handed over her basket.

  Jerusha reached inside, then pulled out her hand as if she’d been bitten. “What’s this!”

  Blushing, Mareka remembered the seedcake that she had stashed inside the container. Before she could come up with an excuse, Jerusha whirled on the slave girl. “So you did carry cake to Mareka Octolaris, when I told you to spy on her? You’re stupider than I thought!”

  “She ordered me to, spidermistress. I had no choice!” The swangirl seemed to shrink beneath the beating sun. Her face twisted as if she were going to cry.

  “Who commanded you first, slave?” Jerusha reached out and pulled the girl’s hair, yanking hard enough that the slave’s neck cracked with the force. “If you’re going to serve the spiderguild, you’re going to learn obedience.”

  “Y – yes, spidermistress.”

  “And you can start showing that obedience by feeding these spiders. Now. One grub in each box. There are twenty-four of them. Take the basket, girl.”

  The slave lifted the basket with both hands, her sobs shaking her arms enough that the grubs would be bruised.

  “Jerusha, at least let her bind her sleeves.”

  Jerusha sighed and snatched back the basket of grubs, setting it on the ground. She grabbed at the slave girl’s sleeves, wrapping them close about her pitiful wrists and securing them with the apprentice silk wraps that she produced from the pouch at her own waist. “There,” she snapped at the slave girl. “Step up to the box. Directly in front of me, so that you block the sunlight.”

  The girl’s entire body was trembling now, as if she had already been bitten by the octolaris. “P – Please,” she said. “I can’t! I don’t know how to handle the spiders! My master said I must not touch them!”

  “Well, I’m your mistress for the moment. Apprentice Mareka and me. You’re bound to all the spiderguild, and you’ll do as we say. Listen, now, so that you can learn the hymn.”

  Jerusha sang the sacred words hurriedly, brushing over the long descant. Mareka watched with a sickened fascination, wanting to tell her fellow apprentice to slow down, to take her time, to make sure that the octolaris were comforted by the hymn, by the words. Jerusha, though, completed the traditional song and then bowed toward the spiders – one, two, three, four.

  The slave only repeated the action when Jerusha pinched her arm, hard. The child bobbed three times, raising her head at each motion to look at her tormentor. Three times, not four. Jerusha muttered an oath under her breath, and said, “Now, reach out and shake the riberry branch. Let them know you’re here, with their prey.”

  The child glanced in the box, then turned to Mareka with a pitiful stare. “Please, my lady! You mustn’t make me feed the spiders!”

  Mareka stepped forward. “Jerusha –”

  The other apprentice would hear no arguments,
though. She addressed her scornful words to the slave. “Don’t be stupid. There’s nothing to fear. I have fed these spiders every day for months. I would not even bother to show you how, if I were not going to be so busy with my new duties. Now. Shake the branch.”

  The slave’s fingers trembled so hard that she barely needed to touch her hand to the riberry wood, to make the branch shake. The girl leaped backward, as if she were chased by hordes of hungry octolaris.

  Jerusha nodded. “Then all you have to do is complete the Homing.” She waggled her fingers in illustration. The slave girl gaped, clearly not catching the nuances of the traditional pattern. Jerusha swore and repeated the Homing, impatiently waiting for the slave to mimic the motion. The girl let two huge tears fall down her cheeks, but she managed a vague semblance of the traditional protection.

  Jerusha said, “And then you feed them grubs. Reach inside the basket.”

  Mareka watched in fascination as the slave girl did as she was told. Mareka had let grubs run across her fingers every day for eight years, but she had never been so attuned to the scrabble of their legs, to their tiny clawing feet as they struggled for a purchase. She watched the slave girl grimace at the slimy creature, saw the rigid determination as she caught her lower lip between her teeth.

  “There. Now, lean over the box. Farther. Farther.” Jerusha leaned too, reaching for the end of the riberry branch. “A little more. The grub must be close enough that the spider can leap for it.”

  Another crystal tear trembled at the edge of the slave’s eye, brimming over to shimmer down her swan tattoo. Mareka watched the sunlight glint on the tear, shine on the tattooed wing, and then Jerusha said, “Move up!”

  Jerusha seized the girl’s neck with one hand, shoving her up against the very edge of the box. The movement sent the woven basket flying, arcing into the air, and grubs tumbled onto the ground and into nearby boxes. The slave girl cried out, a wordless wail of terror.

  Afterwards, Mareka could remember everything with perfect clarity. She saw the giant octolaris – nearly twice the size of any ordinary guild-spider. She saw each of the beast’s eight legs, crooked and glinting with hairs. She saw the swollen body, the cruel head with its pincer jaws and protruding eyes. She saw the spinnerets, small projections beneath the spider’s body, curving out from its hairy underside. The organs looked like deformed legs, like fingerless hands, and even in her amazement, Mareka wondered that they could craft the silk that made the guild so rich.

  And then, Mareka saw the octolaris’s mouth, the two slender fangs that sank into the slave girl’s wrist. She saw the spider open and close her jaws, knew that the beast was pumping venom into the wound. She saw the spider scramble for another hold, bite again, pump again, once, twice, three times, four.

  The slave girl screamed. High and thin, she wailed at the pain. Swearing, Jerusha leaped forward, snatching the riberry branch from the cage to brush the octolaris from the slave’s forearm. The spider landed in her box and tried to scurry beneath her stone, but there was no longer any cave, no longer any escape.

  Footsteps crashed along the gravel paths as other people came running, apprentices, and journeymen, and masters too. Mareka was absurdly aware that the gathering spiderguild avoided the markin grubs that were strewn upon the walkway; they reflexively did not step on the food for their beloved spiders.

  Master Amrida pushed to the front of the crowd, his barrel chest accentuated by the heavy neckpiece that he wore. Embroidered knots stood out like drops of blood as he towered over the slave girl. “What happened here?” he demanded of Jerusha.

  Jerusha had no answer. She looked down at the twitching slave, shaking her head in disbelief. She still grasped the riberry branch, a forlorn stick now that looked like a child’s plaything. Amrida swore a horrible oath in the name of the Horned Hind and pushed Jerusha aside.

  The slave’s eyes had rolled back into her head. Even as Mareka watched, her lips swelled, dark and purple, as if they were filled with sour wine. Her body began to convulse, her head slamming against the gravel of the walkway, and Master Amrida tore at his spidersilk cloak, wadding up the fine garment to try to cushion the child’s skull.

  Mareka could hear the girl struggling for breath, hear the chatter of her teeth as her jaws clenched and unclenched repeatedly. She was moaning, keening, forcing an eerie, high-pitched sound past her teeth. The tone of the single word changed, tightened, and Mareka knew that the girl’s throat was swelling closed.

  The bites on her arm already festered, great bubbles of pus gathering at each puncture wound. Mareka saw the child reach with her good hand, stretch across her agonized body to rip at the bloody fang-marks. Her convulsions were too strong, though, and she could not reach her own flesh, could not rip out the spreading poison.

  Master Amrida called for a knife, ordering someone, anyone to get him a blade. Mareka knew that she should move, she should run to the kitchens, she should do what she could to save the child. She could not tear her gaze away, though, could not abandon the slave girl, Serena.

  Three times, she wanted to cry. She only bowed three times, not four! That had been enough to precipitate the virulent octolaris’s attack. That had been enough to bring about this bloody, violent death.

  Before Mareka could think of speaking, the child gathered her breath, sucking in air in a frightening, devastating whoop. Mareka reached forward, her hands trembling as if she were moving in her own Homing, her own arcane ritual to ward off the virulent power of the octolaris. As if Serena were responding to Mareka’s silent command, the child arched her back, every muscle in her body tightening in one final spasm. The crack of breaking bone was audible to every stunned listener, and Mareka watched in horror as Serena fell back to the gravel.

  Her arms lay still, their twitching done. Her legs were spraddled on the stony path like an unruly child’s. Her back was twisted in an unnatural, impossible position, and her chin was streaked with pink foam, foam that mimicked an octolaris master’s neckpiece. But Mareka found that she could not look away from Serena’s mouth; she could not tear her gaze away from the swollen, tooth-marked lips, the lips as red as berries, the lips that bloomed beneath the silver wings of a swan tattoo.

  Chapter 3

  “Your Majesty, it is good to see you looking so well, and after all that you have suffered in the past several weeks.”

  Hal waved off the compliment, following through with the gesture to indicate that Duke Puladarati should rise from the cold flagstones in the palace corridor. The former regent may have spent the past three years in the northern kingdom of Amanthia acting as Hal’s most trusted governor, but whenever the lion-maned retainer returned to court, he insisted on making a full obeisance. Such symbolic submission embarrassed Hal, even though he was grateful, pleased to know that he had no reason to fear the man who had once held all the reins of power in Morenia. It was particularly reassuring that Puladarati would take to his knees before his own servants, before the cloaked and hooded secretary that trailed him like a shadow.

  “Walk with me, my lord,” Hal said. “As you taught me long ago, we mustn’t keep the council waiting.” Hal matched his stride to the older man’s.

  “I should hope there were a few more lessons you gleaned from me, Sire.”

  “There were, Puladarati. Of course there were. You heard about the bargain that I struck with the church?”

  “The entire kingdom has heard, Sire.” The older man’s tone was dry.

  “Then you don’t approve.”

  Puladarati stopped abruptly, forcing his secretary to shuffle back a few steps. “The question is not whether I approve, Sire. The question is whether you negotiated the best deal that you could for Morenia. There are no easy answers, not with all the guilds in Moren destroyed, all the richest merchants burned out, the soldiers’ barracks leveled. No easy answers at all.”

  “No. There aren’t.” Hal swallowed hard. In the darkest corner of his heart, he knew that he had not managed the best possible
arrangements with the Holy Father. The ancient prelate had followed Dartulamino’s ironclad lead, raising the stakes so high that Hal was barely able to agree, desperate or no. Hal wondered whether Dartulamino’s hard bargaining was driven by his hidden connection to the Fellowship. How much did the priest know of Hal’s aspirations? How much did he know about Hal’s dream of leading the secret body? And how much was the priest willing to distort Morenian politics as he jostled with Hal for power in the hidden organization?

  For Hal did intend to lead the Fellowship of Jair. It was only natural, only right, for a nobleman to step to the helm of the shadowy cabal. Certainly the current leader, the Touched woman Glair, was superb at her craft; she had manipulated the Fellowship into a better position than Hal could have imagined when he was first spirited into the secret ranks. But Hal could do more. He could use the power of his throne to move the Fellowship forward even further.

  He had watched, these several years. He had studied. Glair could not control the Fellowship forever, and when she sought out her successor, Hal was determined to be the man.

  Only so could he protect his fair Morenia. Only so could he protect himself.

  And so, he had proffered secret payments to the Fellowship for the past three years – ten bars of gold here, twenty there. He had sent his own messengers deep into Brianta to deliver a clandestine missive for Glair. After all, he was the king. He had thought that he had the wealth and power to spare. He had thought to use his riches to cement his claim – even if he did not know the precise manner in which Glair used his gifts.

  He’d know soon enough. When he ascended to true power in the Fellowship’s inmost core.

  In the current crisis, though, Hal had ultimately received five thousand gold ingots from the Holy Father’s treasury. He must repay five hundred bars in three months – on Midsummer Day – as symbol of his honest intentions. A full five thousand bars would then be due in one year – the loan plus the cost of borrowing from the church. And if he were not able to repay the debt, the church would levy additional charges – five hundred and fifty additional bars by the following winter solstice, six hundred fifteen by the spring after that. All in addition to the original five thousand.