Glasswrights' Journeyman (18 page)

The servants paraded their trophy around the entire hall, accepting salutes from noblemen and squeals from ladies with equal aplomb. Mareka raised her cup as the platter passed, drinking to salute the Horned Hind.

Rani Trader, sitting at Mareka's side, raised her cup as well. The girl swallowed only once and stared at her cup before setting it back on the table. She must be unused to Liantine drink, to the acidic touch of the greenwine. Well enough. Perhaps she would quaff too much, unaware of the greenwine's alcoholic bite. Perhaps Mareka would learn more about the Morenians, more that would help her ultimate mission.

The servants had clearly been instructed to avoid carrying the stag's head past Princess Berylina. Instead, they circled behind the high table, edging around the most honored nobles until they came to rest at King Teheboth's side. The king raised a heavy goblet in salute to the slain beast, and then he drank deeply. Only when the cup was drained did he climb to his feet.

“My lords! My ladies!” A restless silence fell over the hall. “We have ridden in search of the Horned Hind this first day of spring. Our horses were swift and our dogs were sure – the day was merciful to us. Let us feast on the first fruits of the season and offer up our thanks for another winter survived! To Liantine!”

“To Liantine!” shouted the assembly, and Mareka joined them all by sipping at her greenwine. Rani Trader drank as well.

“And we welcome visitors to our court, nobles who have traveled far across the springtime ocean. To King Halaravilli ben-Jair!”

The Liantines had trouble with the visiting monarch's name, and Mareka had to hide a smile behind her cup as Rani Trader's voice rang a little too clearly in the hall. Another sip of greenwine, and then King Teheboth gestured again to Lord Shalindor. At the chamberlain's command, more servants streamed into the hall, this time carrying platters groaning with venison and new-harvested roots, braces of partridges and loaves of braided bread, all seasoned with expensive eastern spices.

As the food was passed around tables and piled onto trenchers, Mareka continued to concentrate on the high table. King Halaravilli sampled each dish that was placed before him, but he concentrated on addressing Princess Berylina.

He had more grace than Mareka had expected – he managed to look at the princess directly. He avoided staring at her teeth, a rudeness that was known to send the shy child into catatonia. He even avoided the greater danger of speaking to one of her roving eyes or the other – he managed to direct his quiet comments to the middle of her brow. In fact, King Halaravilli actually succeeded in extracting responses from the princess, illustrating the full extent of the Horned Hind's power this spring day.

From across the room, Mareka could not be certain what the child said, but Halaravilli nodded gravely and leaned closer to catch her words. The king raised the flagon of greenwine between them, smiling as he poured more into the princess's goblet.

The meal wore on, and entertainers began to pass among the crowd. Mareka turned away from the jugglers – their work was boring. She had no interest in riddles told by King Teheboth's jester. She could solve most of his tricksy puzzles easily enough, and the more obscure ones were inevitably crude jokes. A madrigal chorus sang sweetly, but their song was poorly chosen, an overly intricate ode to spring that was far better suited to a lady's chamber than to the echoing Great Hall.

At last, the kitchen servants carried in sweetmeats to conclude the meal. In addition to honeyed fruits, there was a monstrous marzipan confection, shaped and tinted to resemble the Morenian lion. King Halaravilli delivered lavish praise for the gilded construction, and then he proffered the tip of the crimson tail to Princess Berylina. The girl was delighted – she even managed a radiant smile before her nerves overcame her and she hid her rabbit-teeth behind her palms.

With the marzipan, the players appeared.

The first sign of the troop was a flourish of silk at the Great Hall's double doors. The green and silver hangings were pulled to either side, and the doors flung open. Two stout men carried in iron staffs, the poles wrapped with spidersilk banners. Mareka felt a physical pain in her chest as she saw the pennants – these players were sponsored by her own guild.

Players throughout the land found their sponsors among the guilds and merchant houses, patrons who paid for the troops' passage on the high road, who offered protection and funding. Despite the spiderguild's investment, Mareka had only watched the players a handful of times. As a mere apprentice she had rarely been permitted to observe the players' handiwork when they journeyed to the guildhall.

Now, unfettered by the traditional roles of her guild, Mareka stared in amazement as a giant wrought-iron ball rolled into the room. The structure was easily the height of two men; it barely fit beneath the doorframe. The sphere was a bare framework, bars that had been carefully twisted so that all could see within the core. Segments cut across the interior, presenting ever-changing perches and poles.

Two women crouched inside the sphere, clad in the traditional leggings and tight tunics of players. One wore an elaborate head-dress, glimmering horns that collected all the light of torches and of candles, snaring the flames and casting them back to the watchers. The other woman was dressed as a hunter, and the tip of her spear was coated in the same reflective gleam.

Mareka's breath caught in her throat as she watched the players' show. The women worked together, rolling the sphere about the floor of the Great Hall. They used their weight to keep the iron ball constantly in motion, moving down the flagstones, stopping just short of the tables. And all the time that the sphere turned, the women executed a careful dance of death inside its iron bounds.

The hunter stalked the Horned Hind, following her from top to bottom, from side to side. The goddess stretched and folded, tossing her glinting antlers each time that she escaped. The ball rolled and stopped, retreated and advanced, and still the hunter sought her prey. Once, she stabbed with her shining spear. Twice. Three times, four.

The sphere now rested in front of the high table. The Horned Hind and the hunter twisted their bodies, set the metal spinning. For the fifth time, the hunter tried to slay the holy beast. Six times. Seven. The women found themselves directly in front of King Teheboth. The Horned Hind spread within the ball, arms and legs stretched for iron handholds. The hunter paused for perfect timing, then thrust her spear upward, leaning with all of her apparent weight.

The Horned Hind's antlers snagged the iron struts and she died a perfect agony. The sphere stopped dead. The player hunter's arm was frozen, her spear a flawless line.

And then the women moved. They tumbled from their poses and stepped outside their iron cage. They stood before an amazed court, grinning as they brandished their glittering antlers and spears. King Teheboth roared his pleasure as the women bowed like courtiers, and then the players turned about, palming the iron cage to set it rolling. They abandoned the hall as the guests took to their feet, roaring for more.

The spiderguild would be proud.

Mareka sat back on her bench, draining her cup of greenwine, remembering to breathe. Her guild had made the vision possible. Her guild had had the wisdom and foresight to patronize such a brilliant performance.

The players, though, were far from through. While the women had snared the attention of every person in the hall, other members of the troop had quietly set the stage for a more traditional presentation. A jackhand, the all-purpose players' servant, stepped to the front of the dais that ran the length of the Great Hall. With silent efficiency, he lit the row of lanterns at the foot of the platform. The light was immediately captured by the carefully positioned mirrors, throwing the brilliance back toward the stage.

The lanterns called into focus six metal croziers that were scattered across the dais. The players must have brought them in while everyone was focused on the mimed hunt. Each metal crook was centered in a pool of mirror-light. Each supported a glasswork frame, a stained glass panel that defined a character in the production that was about to begin.

Mareka immediately identified the Prince. Of course, Prince Olric would figure prominently in the players' piece – the recent marriage would be celebrated for months to come. With a fortnight since the nuptials, the players had had ample time to Speak with Olric, to prepare their presentation. As if to draw the crowd's attention, the jackhand tumbled to the intricate glass panel, turning it slightly on its iron hook so that every person present could make out the traditional design of the prince's light-blue cloak, his lead-framed glass sword, the gleaming fillet about his head.

The jackhand stepped back, striking a pose and cocking his head toward the panel. The audience applauded their approval, and the jackhand mimed deafness. The assembled courtiers shouted, then, praising the fine workmanship, and at last the jackhand appeared satisfied. He clapped his hands once, twice, three times, and on the fourth crash, an actor leaped from behind the players' spidersilk curtains. Spinning through a series of fighting forms, the nimble young man came to rest beside the glass panel, frozen into position as he placed his hand on his own sword, raising his chin and gazing nobly at the crowd.

The audience roared and Prince Olric shouted his approval.

The jackhand then repeated the process, twitching the glass frames into place and summoning the other actors, six in all: the Prince and a Princess, a Cat, a Priest, a Nurse, and the Moon. Mareka had never seen the costume for the Cat before, and she surprised herself by laughing at the player's supple arched back, her twitching black tail.

The jackhand surveyed the tableau he had created, making two small adjustments to the lanterns and their mirrors. Then, with a cheery wave of his hand, he collapsed onto the dais, tucking his chin against his chest and rolling away, head over heels. Before the audience could finish laughing, the Moon began to speak.

“Welcome noble good folk, to our little play. We hope you liked your supper, we hope that you will stay. We've come to tell the story of a noble Prince, who saved a Cat and gained a wife, for happ'ness ever since.”

The play was a comedy, then. Mareka far preferred the players' dramas. Comedies quickly became annoying, with their rhymes and their rhythms, their endless, boring patterns. The players found them easier to perform, though. They could quickly Speak to the people who they interpreted; they could craft their stories easily. There was no depth to the comedies.

Dramas, on the other hand. …

Mareka had Spoken for one drama in her life, the day that she ascended to the eighth level of apprenticeship. To reach the eighth, she had learned how to transfer a brooding female from one box to another. She had sampled octolaris nectar for the first time, using its dilute poison to protect her against the bite of any spider she enraged. The nectar had still beat strong in her veins when she met with the players who had been hired to celebrate the apprentices' passage.

She would never forget entering the company's tent, her cheeks glowing from the nectar and her success in handling the octolaris. She had reclined with the players on lush pillows, feeling every fiber of the velvet and spidersilk against her hands, against her bare arms. She remembered watching a perfect golden orb spinning on a chain, a globe that was no larger than the tip of her thumb, spinning, spinning, spinning. A player – a woman scarcely older than a spider journeyman – had told Mareka to count backward, beginning with her age. She had started: sixteen, fifteen, fourteen. … Then the words were too hard to say, the sounds too difficult to make.

Mareka knew that she
could
open her eyes. She
could
stop the Speaking. …

She had not wanted to, though. She had not wanted to resist telling her story. She answered all the players' questions, told them all her truths. And eight days later, when she watched the play that they performed – a play about her hopes to lead the spiderguild, to bring her guild more honor and pride and wealth than it had ever imagined – Mareka fell into that strange well of peace all over again.

She rediscovered a depth and a calm that she never knew in her daily life, a quiet that told her she did not always need to be thinking; she did not always need to scheme. She did not always need to work to make the spiderguild the strongest, the richest, the most successful guild it could be. She could be quiet. She could be at peace. She could be Mareka.

All of that, from Speaking to the players and watching them tell her story.

Tell her drama, that was. These comedies were a different matter entirely.

Mareka fought to keep from yawning as the players rhymed their way through the tale of how Prince Olric had met Princess Jerusha, when the spiderguild journeyman's pet Cat had escaped into the garden. The players added a few twists of fun – the Nurse protected the chastity of the Princess vigilantly, even as the old woman threw herself against the Priest. The Moon watched over all, making wise and witty comments. In the end, Olric bribed the Moon to duck behind a cloud, and he kissed his sweetheart Princess in the darkness. She agreed to wed him, and the Priest sang out the nuptial rites.

The Moon bowed to the roar of applause. “And so we hope you good folk will find it in your hearts to reward us players richly, paying for our parts.”

More applause, more laughter, and all six players scrambled for the coins that were tossed upon the dais. Everyone had enjoyed the silly piece. Some of the nobles were calling out ribald suggestions to the true Prince Olric, giving him ideas of other reasons to bribe the moon. Jerusha blushed prettily, her eyes flashing in triumph as she settled her hand on her husband's arm.

Mareka swallowed a sharp comment, knowing that no one at the table would care that it had been
Mareka's
idea for Jerusha to send her cat out to the king's garden. Mareka had been the one to craft the scheme that had cemented the bond between the spiderguild journeyman and the prince.