Glasswrights' Journeyman Page 6

  Usury, clear and simple.

  But Hal had no other option. He needed to save his people, his kingdom. All the time that he had bargained, he refused to look at Dartulamino’s smug smile. Both men knew that Hal needed the gold, and he needed it immediately. If Hal abandoned the church’s cruel negotiations, he would need to turn elsewhere. He would need to admit his need to the Fellowship of Jair.

  Now, Hal forbade himself to dwell on how he might have brokered a better deal if not for Rani. If she had not fled his apartments just when he needed her most. … All the time that Hal grappled with Dartulamino and the Holy Father, he had yearned to have the merchant at his side. She would have bargained down the price; she would have argued successfully for a longer period of time to pay back the debt, for more time between interest payments.

  Nevertheless, Hal had closed the deal, and the church had conveyed its riches immediately. A covered wain had brought the first installment of heavy gold to the palace courtyard the morning after negotiations were concluded. Hal had overseen the unloading himself, immediately dispatching crown riders to procure herbs and lumber, to hire skilled workers who could begin the hard labor of remaking Moren.

  And now, all he had to do was find a way to repay the Holy Father. He met Puladarati’s scowl with his own serious gaze. The man’s brows were still dark against his high forehead, the shadows beneath his silvery hair lending him a penetrating gaze. “I made the only bargain I could for Morenia.”

  “There is never a single bargain, my lord.”

  Hal flushed. Was Puladarati condemning him for not forcing Rani to rejoin the negotiations? Could the former regent possibly know about the Fellowship, about the terms that they might have offered? Or was Puladarati merely enforcing a lifetime of lessons – look for options, look for escape, look for a dozen open ways and choose the best?

  “Aye,” Hal agreed. “There is never only one bargain, but some are too costly ever to consider. Besides, the church has lived up to its commitment. The final transport arrived this morning, with the last of the gold that we negotiated. My fastest messengers are riding for Brianta to secure their leading architects.”

  “From Brianta?” Puladarati seemed surprised. “I had understood that there would be no, er, commerce with Brianta.”

  “There will be no nuptials with Brianta,” Hal clarified, and his cheeks blazed. Why should he be flustered at remembering his last exchange with the princess? She had been the one to call him names. Even now, he clenched his fists, remembering the tightening snare of chivalry, the almost-overpowering longing to make retorts that would have driven his childhood nurses to wash his mouth with wormwood. “Other negotiations are conducted with the guildsmen of that land, and its merchants. They’re willing to take Morenian coin.”

  He would be a fool to endanger the trade that came from Brianta, even if the princess was no treasure. Her tongue was sharper than any builder’s adze, and she knew words that would make Hal’s own soldiers blush; he could not subject Morenia to such a queen. Hal continued, brushing away the bitter recollection: “Tomorrow, we will begin to cart away the ruins in the Merchants’ Quarter. It will take weeks, but we’ll rebuild there first. We might be able to hold a small fair, come spring.”

  “You have the men to labor, then? To get construction under way?”

  “We have some. Enough, if the firelung does not spread.” Hal swallowed hard, trying to push away the gnawing rat of fear about the disease.

  “And how many are infected?”

  “Nearly four hundred, now. More each day. Mostly Touched. They were the ones who put Davin’s engines into place, who made sure that the fire was stopped.”

  “You need to get them decent housing, let them heal.”

  “I know that!” Hal caught the tremor in his voice and forced his voice to a lower register. “I know that they must heal, that they may not work, that they must have fresh food and clear water. I know all that. I’m doing the best I can, my lord.”

  “None of us doubts that.” Puladarati eyed him steadily. “None of us doubts that at all.”

  Hal retreated into reciting known facts. “Mair is overseeing the workmen as they build the Touched hospital. They’re putting it up fast, backing it against the curtain wall of the old castle so that they don’t have to build as much. She says that the Touched will heal better in long dormitories, anyway, rather than individual rooms.”

  She had said more than that. Mair had sniffed at his suggestion that the sick could be nursed in his palace. She had said that too many had fallen ill – men, women, and children. Besides, the roaming Touched would never be comfortable in fine halls, in well-appointed chambers. They would grow restless, and their minds would not heal with their bodies. The firelung might continue to rage through their ranks; they might become a reservoir of illness that would spill over into the other castes, into all the rest of Moren. Mair had disdained Hal’s wealth and royal presumption.

  “It’s easier to tend to them that way.” Puladarati shrugged. “No reason to keep them separate from each other, if they’ve already fallen ill.”

  At first, Mair’s arguments had made no sense – invalids should have rest, peace, quiet. They should not be awakened by the desperate coughing of other firelung victims, by the screaming nightmares of mothers who had lost their children, of orphans who faced their desperate illness alone.

  Then, he had watched the Touched girl, watched the easy way that she traveled down the rows of stark cots. She talked to one woman there, told a ribald tale to a man. Children who were well enough followed behind, ranging among the patients as if they were searching for hidden wealth. Everywhere that Mair passed, everywhere that the children roamed, the patients rested easier. They relaxed against their stained sheets, and they breathed more easily, comforted by familiarity.

  Hal had to trust that Mair would make it right. She would see that the people who had given the most to save Moren were not destroyed in the city’s rebuilding.

  Hal understood that much about the Touched, but he could not think of a way to tell his former regent what he had learned. The man was a noble; he’d lived all his life in his birth caste. Puladarati wasn’t about to start changing his ideas about the Touched now – he wasn’t going to forget about roving hordes of children who needed to be turned out of the city streets on a regular basis. Puladarati was a great man, a strong general and a devoted friend, but the foundations of such men could rarely be shifted.

  Hal reached out to clap the man on his velvet-clad shoulder. “Aye, no reason at all. They’ll be grateful for the company. As will our fellow councilors, when we begin our meeting on time.”

  “One moment, my lord,” Puladarati said. The old man ran his three-fingered hand through his hair, squinting as he avoided Hal’s gaze. “I’ve brought with me –”

  Before Puladarati could continue, a bell began to toll, announcing the new hour and the supposed start to the council meeting. Hal looked up at the page who stood on the threshold of the council chamber. The boy smiled eagerly at him.

  “Later, my lord,” Hal said. “We’ll have time enough to talk after our business here is done.” Before Puladarati could protest, Hal nodded to the boy. The page looked from Hal to the regent and back again, and then he thrust open the heavy oak panels.

  As Hal stepped over the threshold, his advisors scrambled to their feet, pushing back chairs in a cacophonous shriek of oak against stone. “My lords!” he exclaimed, doing his best to imitate a man who had slept well the night before, a man who was looking forward to the coming hours and the determination of policy, plans, administration.

  He took a moment to seek out Farsobalinti, his former squire. Farso had been Hal’s most recent appointment to the council; the young nobleman had been elevated just one year before. Hal had come to value Farso’s steady good temper, his calm acceptance of council machinations.

  Today, though, Farso did not meet his gaze. Hal was annoyed that the man was distracted, fully engaged in lis
tening to Count Edpulaminbi. There would not be much of interest there, Hal was sure – Edpulaminbi would be discussing the new soldiers’ barracks that he hoped to build. The count had had little else to speak about for the past fortnight – barracks, and wells, and other details of civil construction.

  Shrugging off Farso’s inattentiveness, Hal nodded to the scribe, who rapidly swore in the council meeting in the name of the day’s deity, Nome, asking for the blessing of the god of children. When the formalities were completed, Hal granted Puladarati the honor of making the first report.

  The former regent glanced over his shoulder at his cloaked and hooded secretary, as if he would require assistance from the man. Nevertheless, he stood and bowed to Hal, addressing his first words to his liege lord before he included the rest of the council with an expansive three-fingered gesture. “Amanthia is healing well, Your Majesty. Whatever flaws Sin Hazar might have had, he organized his country well. His administrative officers have continued to maintain taxing rolls, and the priests still record births and deaths, tracking all the people by the northern castes of sun, lion, owl, and swan.”

  Hal nodded. He still did not understand the northern system, could not comprehend how a man’s entire life could be ordained by the stars that shone in the sky at his birth. Nevertheless, the Amanthians had operated under that system for generations. Hal knew that, at one point, Puladarati had considered tattooing his cheek with a swan – the northerners’ hereditary caste of leaders – but he had rejected the notion as unnecessary for a conquering governor.

  And Amanthia was well and truly conquered. Sin Hazar may have been a shrewd administrator, but he had not fully contemplated the end result of his plan to sell off the children of his land. He had not imagined what it would be like to rule a country bereft of an entire generation of boys, of men. Even in its absence, the Little Army continued to harrow Amanthia. The lost children constantly reminded the northerners of how much they had lost. Mothers, sisters, ancient grandfathers – all were daunted by their visions of what the proud Amanthia had been, what it no longer was. Without the children, Amanthia had faced famine and riot, utter political disorganization.

  Puladarati concluded his summary: “We have seed corn in the barns for the first time since Your Majesty took control over Amanthia. It should be planted within the next month, and we have every reason to expect that it will mature into bountiful rations for animals and men. In addition, we have high hopes for the wheat crop. The trade fairs, which were stopped entirely after Sin Hazar’s execution, are now prepared to begin again, at least the one in Amanth itself. Your northern territory, Your Majesty, is well on the way to recovery.”

  “We thank you, Puladarati,” Hal said. Mention of the trade fairs, of course, called Rani back to mind. Hal’s pulse quickened, and he curled his fingers into involuntary fists. Even if he had been wrong in fighting with her about the Holy Father’s loan, even if their dispute were his fault, she should have acknowledged his apology. It had not been easy to find anemones this early in the year, especially ones the color of her precious blue Zarithian glass.

  Hal realized that his thoughts were wandering, and he forced his attention back to the council. Before he could broach the next topic, though – the construction of Mair’s hospitals for the Touched – Puladarati cleared his throat. “Your Majesty, if I may beg your indulgence?”

  “My lord?” Hal answered easily, trying to ignore his stomach’s sudden, queasy turn. It was unusual for Puladarati to stray from the expected path of a meeting.

  “There is another matter that I must raise, one that we’ve discussed often in the past. I know that the timing is poor now, with Moren’s current plight, but I cannot return to the north without having broached the subject.”

  “Go ahead, my lord.” Hal tried to keep a chill from his voice. He did not care for surprises, particularly surprises originating in the northern territories. Amanthia had taught him enough about surprise for a lifetime.

  “Your Majesty, as you know, your predecessor in Amanthia sold thousands of children over the sea, bartering their bodies to feed his own desire for power. When you assumed the crown of Amanthia, you assumed responsibility for all her people, including those children, including the Little Army.”

  Hal understood Puladarati now; he knew where this discussion would lead. He gestured to cut off the nobleman. “Enough, my lord. I have said that I will seek out the Little Army, but I can scarcely do that now. Moren needs me.”

  “Your people need you, lord! All your people!” The shout came from behind Puladarati, loud and defiant, starkly angry in the council chamber.

  Hal jerked back in his chair, his hand reflexively twitching to the dagger at his waist. The other council lords reacted as well – Edpulaminbi, sitting closest to Puladarati, stood and drew his sword in one fluid motion, toppling his chair. The sharp blade came to rest against the robed chest of Puladarati’s secretary, the point snagging on the heavy wool.

  At the man’s first word, Farso had drawn his sword kicking aside Edpulaminbi’s chair and adding his blade to the throat of the robed intruder. Even across the room, even with the thud of adrenaline pounding in his veins, Hal could see the taut rage in Farso’s arm, the quivering fury that anyone would dare invade the council chamber of Morenia’s king, would dare to raise his voice in rebellious anger.

  “Hold!” Puladarati cried above the confusion. “Hold, Count Edpulaminbi, Lord Farsobalinti!” The former regent whirled back to Hal. “Your Majesty, forgive me! I told my companion that he could accompany me here, but I instructed him that he must remain silent while your council met. I thought that the discipline of the northern army would have made him keep his word.”

  “Your companion,” Hal repeated. He suspected now that he knew who stood beneath the “secretary’s” robes. “Have him stand forward.”

  Edpulaminbi edged his sword back, shifting his hand on the weapon so that he could dispatch the intruder if necessary. Farso backed away as well, but he kept his sword conspicuously ready. Puladarati made one curt gesture with his three-fingered hand, enforcing the command with a glare. The robed clerk hesitated only a moment, then stepped up to the table, casting back his hood and glaring defiantly at the assembled noblemen. A scar shone high on his cheekbone, sickly white against his dusky skin.

  “Crestman,” Hal said.

  “Your Majesty.” For a moment, Hal thought that the northerner intended to confront him in the very council chamber, meant to call him out to defend his honor, his actions on behalf of all Morenia. Instead, the former lieutenant in the Little Army bowed his head, stepping back from the council table just enough that he could sink to one knee. He folded his arms across his chest in a stiff military obeisance.

  “Rise, my lord,” Hal said, keeping his words measured. Seeing the other man brought back a flood of memories – visions of the northern city of Amanth, of the pitiful crowd of Little Army soldiers that Hal had been able to save. In addition, he could remember Rani, torn between her obligation to her homeland and to strange Amanthia, her obligation to Hal and her debt to Crestman. Hal had not asked her to explain what had happened with the northern lieutenant, what words – or more – had passed between them. He had his suspicions, though, suspicions fostered by letters that Rani sent regularly to Amanthia, long missives sealed with the waxen symbol of the still-dead glasswrights guild.

  Hal forced his voice to stay even, and he gestured to Farso to right Edpulaminbi’s chair. The former squire complied, but he stood beside his fellow councilor, both men keeping their weapons at the ready. Hal said to Crestman, “You may speak your mind, my lord.”

  Crestman glared at him, strong emotion darkening the soldier’s face, making his scar stand out even more. “You told us you would not abandon us, my lord. You said that you would help Amanthia rebuild. You promised to gather together the Little Army and retrieve your loyal subjects from Liantine.”

  “And I will keep my word.”

  “When?” The dema
nd crashed against the walls of the council chamber with enough vehemence that Hal barely stopped himself from flinching. Farso’s blade twitched.

  Puladarati stepped forward, resting his maimed hand on Crestman’s arm. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. This soldier is excited. He has recently received news from the east, news about the Little Army.”

  Hal forced his voice to stay reasonable. He was determined not to lose his temper in front of his council lords, yet he was bound not to back down before Crestman’s inappropriate, accusatory tone. “What news?”

  Puladarati nodded to Crestman, and the youth took a deep breath. He was clearly fighting to keep his own temper, struggling to maintain respect for the king he had sworn to honor and support. “I have sent out scouts, my lord. One full year ago, I sent a dozen riders to determine where the Little Army rests, to find who bought my soldiers and what work has been required of them. The last of my scouts returned on San’s feast day.”

  San. The god of steel. Four weeks before. “And?” Hal asked.

  “The Little Army is scattered throughout Liantine, my lord. There is no one camp that houses them, no one town. But many have been sold to certain places – to some of the guilds, to some of the courts.”

  “We knew as much before.”

  “Aye, my lord. But now we know that the Little Army is being ill used. The spiderguild is one new owner of your people. They bought many soldiers, many of our youngest recruits, to tend the octolaris spiders that form the base of their wealth.”

  The spiderguild. Hal had heard of them, of course. They were the strongest guild in all of Liantine – they rivaled the foreign king for power and prestige. They held a monopoly on spidersilk, a rare luxury, and they milked their investment for every sou they could harvest. He kept his voice noncommittal. “I’ve heard of the spiderguild.”