Glasswrights' Journeyman (15 page)

Hal watched Rani set a hand on the giant's stirrup, watched words form in her throat. She glanced across at Hal, and he could read her intention as clearly as a story in her precious stained glass. Hal shook his head once more, emphatically, like a stern father. He imagined that he could hear Rani suck in a rebellious breath, but she obeyed. She held up the golden goblet, bowing her head as Teheboth said something that made her flush prettily. The king drank deeply, swallowing once, twice, three times, four, and then he handed the empty goblet back to Rani. She bowed her head and retreated to the shadowed corner of the courtyard, Mair trailing like a ghost.

Hal did not look back as he rode out behind Teheboth Thunderspear.

For nearly an hour, they galloped across the broad Liantine plain, following the course of the Liant River inland. The delta land was rich, and the road was smooth, despite large rocky outcroppings that appeared to either side. Spring had come out in full force across the land, and Hal's eyes feasted on more shades of green than he could count. The horses trod on new-sprung wildflowers, little stars of white and pink. The hunters made good time.

Thinking of Rani's silent submission, Hal avoided the subject uppermost in his mind – Princess Berylina. Even as he cast about for some safe topic, some appropriate opening discussion, the riders slowed their horses, giving the beasts a chance to rest. A groom rode forward, proffering a tooled leather flask to King Teheboth. The Liantine took the container and offered it to Hal. “Brandywine,” he said. “It will warm your heart.”

Hal took an appreciative swallow, opening his eyes wide at the streak of heat that flowed through his chest. Teheboth acknowledged the compliment with a toothy grin, and then he drank deeply himself, his broad throat convulsing with swallow after swallow. Only after he had passed a hairy hand across his lips did he return the flask to his servant. As the boy dropped back in the ranks, Hal glanced at his face and was surprised to see a livid scar stretched tight across his cheekbone.

An Amanthian. A former soldier in the Little Army, whose birth tattoo had been carved away from his face.

Hal cleared his throat. He'd known that he'd have to address the issue some time, and, frankly, it was the easiest of the topics he'd brought to Liantine. “Are there many of my people serving in your court?”

“Your people?” A quick twitch in Teheboth's cheek showed that he understood the question.

“Amanthians.”

Teheboth feigned puzzlement for a moment, and then he pretended to untangle Hal's allusion. “You mean the boy! I'd hardly know he was Amanthian. He seems quite settled into Liantine.”

“Nevertheless, the Amanthians are easy enough to find.” Hal brushed a hand across his own cheek, indicating a non-existent scar.

“They serve in Liantine like any of their caste.” Teheboth shrugged.

Hal resisted the urge to sigh. He wasn't certain why the Liantine king was pretending to misunderstand, but he knew that it would not be wise to rush matters. Only a fool would directly challenge a king while sitting on that man's own mount, riding in his own hunt, prior to discussing an infinitely more delicate matter of state.

Hal prodded delicately, nodding toward the servant with the flask, who had fallen into a group of grooms. “That boy seems to have learned his way about your court well enough. How long has he been in your service?”

Teheboth laughed, the explosive sound coming from deep in his belly. His braided beard danced as he said, “Do you honestly think I know? Could you tell me when each of
your
servants came to your court? The boy pours wine at my table, my lord. I've never paid him any attention before. And I'm not likely to again, unless it's to punish him roundly for distracting my guest from the hunt. After all, my lord, that
is
why you rode out with us, is it not?”

Hal heard the warning, but he was reluctant to let the matter rest, not now, not knowing how difficult it would be to reopen the discussion if he backed away. “I wonder,” he mused, as if the thought had just come to him. “I wonder what caste he was before they carved the tattoo from his face.”

“What difference does it make?” Teheboth had turned to stare at Hal.

“Not much at all.” Hal rode on a for a while, willing to let his words float in the noontime sun. After several peaceful minutes, though, Hal cleared his throat to speak again. “My lord, I'll be honest with you.” Teheboth raised one eyebrow and reined his horse in, falling back from the rowdy group of hunters. Hal matched the Liantine's pace until the two men were out of earshot from the others. Hal saw Farso notice, and the former squire started to pull up on his own reins. Hal shook his head, though, waving one hand in an easy gesture. Farso shrugged and caught up with the Liantine escort.

Hal proffered his open palms as if he bore a gift for Teheboth. “There is no need for us to joust here. You are older and wiser than I, and you know the sweet waste of honeyed words.” Hal reined his borrowed gelding to a complete stop, swallowing a smile at Teheboth's scarce-masked annoyance. “I must return to my people with news, my lord. I must report to them on the fate of their Little Army.”

“There is no Little Army in Liantine.”

“That will not be sufficient. Thousands of children were sent over here. Thousands of boys, and a handful of girls. Their parents still dream of their safe return. What am I to tell my people?”

“Tell your people that their children were sold at market by their former ruler.”

“For what coin?”

Teheboth looked deep in Hal's eyes, and the older man's hands clenched his reins as if he would wheel his horse about and ride back toward the Liantine capital. Teheboth was no coward, though. He was not trying to flee Hal's questions. Rather, the Liantine king was trying to rein in his temper, trying to restrain a very uncivil rage.

“My lord Halaravilli, I can assure you that this is not a battle you want to fight – not with all the rest that stands between us.” Teheboth lowered his voice; Hal was forced to lean forward to hear him. “The Amanthian bastard, Sin Hazar, sold his own people. My vassals bought them, clean and clear. The Horned Hind has no ban against slavery. My guilds, my armies, my household, we all needed servants, and Sin Hazar offered us a decent price. I'll tell you this, my lord. No one person owns a single slave in Liantine. Slaves are owned by groups – by guilds or societies or by armies. Anything else would be inhuman.”

That made no sense at all, Hal wanted to say. Groups were made of individuals. There was no absolution by saying that a
guild
owned a person, that an
army
had made the purchase. With a clarity that startled him, though, Hal suddenly saw how he could turn Teheboth's prickly stubbornness to his own advantage. In a flash, Hal thought back to lessons he had learned in his nursery, to strategies that he had worked out with his armies of tin soldiers. The pattern was as clear as the ones that Rani Trader crafted in glass. Sometimes one needed to lose, to gain.

Hal lowered his gaze, picking at the fine tooling on his leather saddle. His shoulders sagged, and he looked up through his lashes, as if he were uncertain of his words, of his arguments. “Please, my lord.” He let a little of his stress melt into his words. “I ask but one thing. Tell me if there is any chance that I can return Amanthian children to their homes. Tell me if I can bring glad tidings to any Amanthian mother, to any family that aches for its missing sons and daughters.”

Teheboth stared at him for a long moment, as if he were measuring out the weight of capitulation. When he spoke, he did not bother to coat his words with regret. “Those children are long gone, my lord. They have spread through Liantine, traveled to the far corners of my realm.”

Hal forced himself to meet his rival's gaze, unflinchingly accepting defeat on the issue of the Little Army. “Then you will not help me?”

“I cannot, my lord. It is not in my power to do so. Take heart, though. Some of your people have purchased their freedom through the labor of their hands. Others were granted freedom immediately by kind-hearted Liantines. Your ‘children' have grown, King Halaravilli – some have even fathered their own children, on my Liantine maids. Your Little Army is no more.”

There. It was done. Hal had lost this battle. Perhaps in doing so, though, he was in a better position to win the war. He could only hope.

For just an instant, he remembered Rani coming to him in Amanthia, appearing in his camp outside the northern capital. She had been clad in the rags that passed for a uniform in the Little Army, and she was flanked by two brave soldiers, by two boys who had forfeited their innocence for a king's lie.

Rani would not be pleased when she learned that Hal had bartered the Little Army. She would not be pleased to learn that the soldiers were lost, forever beyond recall. But she would be less pleased if Hal lost his other bargaining point, if he had to forfeit Berylina's dowry. Rani was committed to a strong negotiation for the princess; she had pledged as much when she agreed to travel with him.

After all, wasn't that what Rani always tried to teach him? A shrewd merchant must give and take, must recognize the value of yielding on one point, only to snatch up success on the next. That was the lesson, that Hal attempted to apply with the Fellowship. He had yielded them some gold – when he could afford the loss – and he hoped for advancement. He could only hope that the strategy would yield success more rapidly here in Liantine.

Besides, Crestman still waited back on Hal's ship. The Amanthian soldier was likely to investigate the Little Army on his own. Who could guess what Crestman might learn, what new facts might change the bargain Hal had just made?

King Teheboth let him sit for a moment, giving him the chance to swallow the acid taste of defeat. Then, before the silence between them could stretch too long, the Liantine lifted one meaty hand to his brow, shielding his eyes from the sun as he scanned the horizon. “We mustn't lose more time, my lord. The winter days haven't grown back to their full summer length yet. You can see the Royal Grove on the horizon there. My master of the hunt is waiting for us, his hounds at the ready. Shall we ride?”

Hal heard the invitation, and he recognized it for what it was – a request to put aside the matter of the Little Army, to declare the dispute completely closed. He nodded grimly. “Aye, my lord. Let us ride.”

The sun had barely moved a handspan higher in the sky when they arrived at the Royal Grove. Hal could see that the master of the hunt was busy, attempting to whip in the frantic pack of staghounds. Four boys held leather leashes for the scent hounds, which had already located the trail of deer in the forest. Excitement was palpable in the air.

There was a long moment of disorganization as the Liantine lords sorted themselves out, and King Teheboth held a rapid conference with the master of the hunt. Hal hurriedly met Teheboth's youngest son, Olric, the boy who had wed his spiderguild bride only two weeks before.

Then, the hounds were loosed, and Hal found his gelding eagerly leaping into the Grove. Hal leaned low across the great beast's neck, even though the position made it difficult for him to catch his breath. The horse pounded beneath him, bunching its massive hind quarters to spring over great blocks of stone that were occasionally strewn across the shadowed path. Once, he sat up straighter, eager to help guide the horse over and around stony obstacles, but his cape was grasped by low-hanging branches. Laughing in the forest gloom, Hal abandoned himself to the roan's good sense. He urged the horse forward, yielding to the excitement of the hunt, to the blood-quest for the Horned Hind.

The hounds' belling echoed in the forest. Occasional shafts of sunlight broke through the canopy of the oak trees, blinding in their brightness. Hal could smell the returning life of spring, the fresh earth churned under hooves, the green crush of first leaves whipped by their passing. Men called to one another, challenges that bounced off the trees with ferocious good cheer.

And then the hounds had found the deer. Their belling changed tone until it was frantic with bloodlust. Hal's senses were heightened in the dark wood. He could see the flash of white and brown and black as the dogs leaped through the forest. He could hear the desperate crashes as the prey plummeted through thicker and thicker undergrowth. He could smell the sweat of his horse and of his own body, acrid and strong in the chilled air.

The hunt party plunged through a clearing, and Hal caught his first glimpse of the frantic deer. The Liantines might ride for the Horned Hind, they might dedicate this Spring Hunt to her glory and her power, but the hounds had managed to find a male deer, a virile stag.

The beast was magnificent, his antlers glinting in shafts of the afternoon light that shot through the trees. His powerful haunches gathered as he sprang away from the dogs, and Hal caught his breath as the animal leaped onto a rocky outcropping. The trapped stag turned to face the snarling pack.

The riders quickly drew up, reining their mounts in beside the stony promontory. The dogs were driven into a frenzy by the nearness of their prey, snapping and howling as they tried to leap onto the stony crag. One particularly long-legged beast gained the high ground, but the stag swept toward it, lowering his antlered head and tossing the dog from the rock. The hound yelped loudly as it hit the ground and then lay still, stunned or dead – Hal could not tell.

Other dogs followed suit, maddened now by the proximity of the great beast. One launched itself directly at the stag's throat, and the dog's teeth closed on the russet pelt. The hound lasted for only a moment, though, before the stag struck out with its hooves, slashing at the beast until the dog released its grip and fell, yelping, from the rock.

The smell of deer's blood enraged the pack, and the dogs took grander risks. They leaped from the forest floor onto the escarpment, one, two, three together. The stag lowered his head and tried to sweep the dogs from the rock, but there were too many. Even as the deer's grand antlers connected with a crunching sound, one of the hounds managed to leap behind the stag, to harry the beast's far flank.