Glasswrights' Journeyman (35 page)

The ultimate secret, he explained, was in cooling the chain. He added a powder to the water bath, a powder that came from Zarithia, home of the finest steel blades. He could not tell her what was in the substance, but it cost more than its weight in gold. It set the lead firmly, hardening the tiny links so that they could bear the glass without twisting under the weight.

Rani nodded as she learned. She memorized the heft of the tools, felt how each settled in her palm. She let Tovin adjust her grip on the hammer, shifted her feet for better balance, felt how the power of her muscles rose up through her legs, across her chest, down her arms. She closed her eyes and imagined the panels that she could make – decorative works that turned to capture the sunlight and the breeze.

She imagined the panel that would prove her mastery of the new technique – an emblem for the Order of the Octolaris. She could picture a rounded body crafted from stippled glass, brown glass that had been colored with air-dried silver stain. The head would be attached with lead, the standard soldering that she had mastered long ago. She would make lead chains to attach the legs – long legs, thin legs, legs that she would cut with a diamond knife. Sixteen lead chains. Two for each leg of her octolaris.

When she opened her eyes, Tovin was watching her with an easy grin. “A glasswright's vision, I presume. What did you see?”

“The piece that will test my skill. The piece that would cement my status as a journeyman.”

“And that was?”

“A spider.”

He did not laugh. He did not tell her that she was a fanciful child, and he did not protest that she had never made a single lead chain, much less sixteen. Instead, he said, “You could do that.”

“I've never seen them, though. I mean, the octolaris.”

“None have. None outside the spiderguild.”

“Take me with you.”

“What?” Now he did sound surprised.

“Take me with you when you leave tomorrow. I know you go to complete your bid for patronage. Let me come with you – to see the spiders.” And let me make my own bargain, Rani thought. Let me negotiate for Moren, for octolaris and riberry trees worth a thousand bars of gold.

She might have spoken those last thoughts aloud, for the shrewd gaze he leveled on her. “They won't sell their spiders, you know.”

“So I've heard.”

“Their power is in their monopoly. If any of their breeding stock gets away, they'll lose the value of the entire silk market.”

“I understand.”

“And yet you want to go.”

“Aye. But not alone. Mair would come with me. And Crestman.”

She saw the indecision in his face, his uncertainty as he measured out the value of what she asked. He could not afford to alienate the spiderguild, to anger his patrons.

She reached out a hand, settling her fingers against his wrist, as he had touched her that very morning, when they sealed their bargain. His pulse was steady and strong, and its beat gave her the courage to say. “Go ahead, Tovin Player. Let us Speak. Ask me about the Fellowship, and I'll tell you all I know.” She swallowed hard. “Everything.”

“Every last thing.”

“Aye.” She wondered at that, even as she agreed. She would give him Hal's name. Hal's and Mair's and all her other allies. Nothing of value was ever gained without risk. “Everything,” she repeated. “If you'll take us to the spiderguild.”

“Very well, then,” Tovin said at last. “Come Speak with me, Ranita Glasswright.”

She let herself be led to the pallet, and she forced her breath to slow as Tovin bid her to look into a pane of crimson glass, a pool of color as deep as blood, as deep as the tone of Hal's own livery. She exhaled and drew herself back to the stream where Tovin first had led her. She imagined herself beside the swift flowing water that carried away all duty and responsibility and fear and respect.

And when Tovin asked her questions, she answered, naming names and sharing secrets and buying her passage to the spiderguild.

She would trade everything for the octolaris and the trees, for a thousand bars of gold. She would trade to pay the Fellowship their ransom. She would answer all of Tovin's questions, in hopes of saving Hal and all Morenia.

 

 

 

Chapter 13

 

Mareka glanced at the door of her small chamber, wishing again that it had a lock. She had draped her gowns over the spiderboxes, hiding the occupants from anyone who happened to enter. There was no way, though, to hide the huge basket that she had wrestled from beneath her bed, no way to disguise the yellow riberry leaves that were crumbling to dust or the desiccated grubs that she was plucking away from the healthy ones. She needed to determine how many grubs remained, how much longer she could sustain her octolaris horde.

She crossed to the door and placed her ear against its oaken planks, determining that she could hear no one on the other side. This wing of the palace was usually deserted during the day, but she could not be too cautious.

Mareka wondered what she had been thinking when she spirited the virulent octolaris away from the guildhall. They were growing more difficult to handle as hatching time approached. The brooding females repeatedly wrapped their egg sacs in fresh silk, depositing new layers for the hungry new-hatched spiderlings to eat.

At least the impending hatching had reduced the females' appetite. Otherwise, Mareka's stash of grubs would have been long-depleted.

Amazingly, even with their reduced diet and their care for the egg sacs, the octolaris continued to spin sheets of lustrous silk, twice as much as normal spiders produced. Even that bounty was becoming a liability, though. Mareka had never planned on hoarding huge quantities. She could not bring herself to burn the spiders' work, to destroy the product of their hard labor, even though that would have been safer. She had filled her trunk with the stuff, stacked it beneath her bed. She was running out of room.

“There we go,” she muttered under her breath, reaching out two strong fingers to pluck sightless grubs from their large container. “Let's see how many of you live.”

She shook the creatures into an iron vessel, a pot that she had scrounged from the kitchens when the cook was preoccupied. It would not do to let the grubs escape, to let them writhe blindly through King Teheboth's palace. As she transferred them, she kept a silent tally. One, two, three, four. Five, six, seven, eight. Eight grubs.

The creatures had survived surprisingly well. Nevertheless, they would not spin cocoons in the basket; no markin moths would mature to breed. What would Mareka do when this stash was depleted? The spiderlings would have hatched by then.

Sixteen grubs.

The brooding females were already rotating their egg sacs several times a day, a sure sign that the young would come soon. The hard-working mothers were growing moody from their exertion, though. Mareka had considered dosing herself with nectar just to feed them.

Twenty-four.

What would she do when the spiderlings hatched? How would she contain them, without the guild's spiderboxes? How would she keep them from escaping into Liantine?

Thirty-two, she made herself count. Thirty-two grubs.

She had been raised in the spiderguild; she knew that the power of her people was directly dependent on their silk monopoly. If anyone else obtained octolaris, harvested their own spidersilk, they could set their prices at any level, undercutting the guild. They could topple the guild's supremacy, which had been centuries in the making.

Forty.

Even more troubling, though, was the chance that her spiderlings would threaten innocent people with their venom. Outside of the guild, no one was trained to handle the delicate creatures. No one knew the hymn, no one knew the Homing. No one had nectar to provide protection.

Forty-eight.

By the Hind's eight horns, she never should have taken the octolaris. She never should have brought them outside the enclave. Having realized her mistake, she should have returned to the guild. She could have brought the spiders home, handed them over to the masters. She would be punished for her disobedience, of course, but she would have one thing in her favor – sheet after sheet of perfect spidersilk.

Fifty-six.

It was all King Halaravilli's fault. She was loathe to return until she was certain that she could buy her way to journeyman. Certainty, though, would only come with money, with power, with prestige. She could not return until she
knew
that she had the backing of a king. And she was not yet certain that Halaravilli was hers.

Sixty-four.

She had tried to see him. She had lain in wait outside his apartments. She had tracked him through the gardens. She had even taken to attending Father Siritalanu's daily services in celebration of the Thousand Gods. Each time that she approached the king, though, he was surrounded by his colleagues – the priest, Farsobalinti, even the captain of his ship.

Seventy-two.

He was avoiding her. He was afraid of her. He was afraid of how he had responded to the nectar, of the things that he had said and done. He thought that he had acted like a madman, never dreaming that she had planned it all, that she had come to him, all knowing. Darting her tongue over her lips, Mareka shifted a large cluster of leaves, digging out another clutch of grubs.

Eighty.

If she needed to, she was certain that she could seduce him once again.

Eighty-eight.

If she needed to. She was already three weeks past her time. Her body felt no different, but her mother had always boasted that
she
had caught on her first try. One nectar-spiked encounter for her mother and father to bring Mareka Octolaris into being. By the Hind, she came from strong guild stock.

Ninety-six grubs.

Without warning, the door to the room slammed back on its hinges. “Mareka!” called Jerusha, stepping in as if she belonged there, as if she had the right to walk into the chamber.

“Jerusha!” Reflexively, Mareka stepped in front of the large basket, pushed her iron bowl beneath the bed. “What are you doing here?”

“Prince Olric has asked me –” The princess cut off her own imperious words. “What do have there?”

“Nothing!” Mareka could not keep herself from answering too quickly.

“You have Cook's pot! I heard her screaming at the scullery maid this morning, accusing her of misplacing it. What are you hiding?”

“Nothing!” Mareka repeated, but Jerusha had already stepped closer, was already shoving past Mareka to reach beneath the bed.

The princess froze when she saw the contents. “Grubs! Where are the spiders?”

Mareka set her jaw. “You know that spiders are not allowed outside the spiderguild enclave.”

Jerusha's hand flashed before Mareka could measure the danger, and the slap reported in the small room like a clap of thunder. “Don't play games with me!” Mareka shook her head, dazed, raising a palm to her burning cheekbone. “How many spiders did you steal?”

“I am not a thief!” Mareka forced her body between Jerusha and the grubs. “The guild had no interest in those octolaris! They intended to kill them!”

“Intended –” Jerusha started to repeat, and then she seemed to understand the full import of the words. “You took my spiders!”

“They weren't yours!”

“They were the ones I was supposed to care for, the ones I was supposed to feed.”

“And a fine job you did of that.” Mareka tried not to see the convulsing slave girl, but she could not forget Serena's swollen lips, her broken back.

Jerusha ignored the taunt. “But why would you bring them
here
? To Liantine?”

“Once I saved them from the pyre, how could I leave them back at the guild? They eat more than normal spiders. They eat more so they produce more. Surely you haven't forgotten already?”

“I've forgotten nothing! Let me see them!”

Mareka improvised. “It would be too dangerous. The females cannot be handled without a full dose of nectar. The spiderlings are close to hatching.”

“Hatching! You have to get them home!”

“I have one more piece of business first.”

“Business? In Liantine?”

Mareka was not about to tell Jerusha about her body's secret. The news was still too precious to her, too important to share with a rival, even as a boast. Instead, she opted to attack. “Who are you to tell me to bring these home? You're jealous, aren't you? You don't want me raised to Journeyman at the Convocation.” Anger flashed in Jerusha's eyes, and Mareka rushed in to exploit the raw place. “Have you even explained that to the prince? Have you told him that you'll have to travel from court, return to the guild enclave for midwinter?” No. And from Jerusha's flush of rage, she was afraid to. “Perhaps you cannot tell him. Perhaps you realize that he'll set you aside, decide that you aren't worth the trouble of juggling royal obligations with common guildhall needs.”

Jerusha's cry was pure fury – Mareka had not realized just how much her gibe would sting. She scarcely had a moment to brace herself, and then Jerusha lunged toward her, reaching out with rigid fingers to scratch her eyes, to claw her face. Mareka side-stepped the first attack, but Jerusha turned back and toppled her with a heavy blow to her chest.

Jerusha straddled her rival, beating at Mareka's face with closed fists. She swung hard, and it took all of Mareka's strength to roll onto one side, to set Jerusha off balance. Mareka curled into a ball, fighting to protect her womb.

A quick glance showed Jerusha's face twisted by fury. The journeyman's nose ran as she sobbed, tears mixing with slime and sweat. Her mouth was curved into a painful grin, and all the time she keened like a desperate animal.

Mareka could not keep fighting. She could not lay upon the wooden floor, waiting for Jerusha to strike a single, perfect blow, waiting for the princess to harm the child that Mareka thought was safe within her.