Glasswrights' Journeyman (5 page)

She had executed the morning prayer as long as she could remember, even when she was a little girl, still living with her parents in their dyers' hut beside the wall that enclosed all the spiderguild. Her mother had chanted the prayer aloud each morning, turning the words into a laughing song, and her father had grunted them under his breath. They must have already offered up their prayer that morning. She wondered if they were excited for their daughter, for the child who had been taken into the apprentices' hall so long ago.

Eight years. Eight years of rising with all the other apprentices, washing with them, eating with them, working with them, sleeping with them.

It was time to be done. It was time to become a journeyman.

“That's no way to impress the masters, you know, reciting the morning prayer.” Jerusha should speak! Her own pallet was lumpy, and her spidersilk sheet bunched up as if she had just sat on her bed. “They hardly care about how you pray. It's the octolaris they'll focus on, our skills with the spiders. That's how they'll choose who advances. They're only going to choose one today, you know. One journeyman. Me.”

“You don't know that,” Mareka snapped. Immediately, she regretted being goaded into speech. She had promised herself that she would not be drawn out, made a sacred vow to the Horned Hind herself. She would not let Jerusha anger her. Not today. Not when so much hung in the balance.

“You've heard the stories, same as I. You know the masters think they've been too lenient in the past.”

Mareka held her tongue, all the while that she braided her hair into the apprentices' distinctive double braids, all the time that she shed her rough sleeping gown and donned her simple white tunic.

She did not care for Jerusha watching her, did not like the way the other girl ran an appraising eye over her body. Yes, Mareka wanted to shout. I know that I'm small. I know that I'm scarcely the height of a ten-year-old girl. “A spiderling,” her father used to call her, and the endearment was charming on his ruddy lips. He was a short man himself, stretching to reach across his enormous vats of dye, working with his wife, with Mareka's mother, to lift the water-logged silk from its colored pools.

At least Jerusha chose to keep her counsel as Mareka tugged her tunic over her hips. The older girl did not taunt Mareka about her height, about her narrow shoulders, about her flat chest.

Jerusha did, though, take a moment to dust some crimson powder on her lips. Mareka started to protest. Apprentices must be clean. They must be presentable to the octolaris. They must not distract the spiders with scent, or sight, or sound.

Of course, Jerusha knew the rules. She knew them as well as Mareka did. And she knew that a panel of five masters would quiz the apprentices that afternoon – Mareka, Jerusha, and the four others who were ready to rise to journeyman status. Jerusha wanted to be noticed – and if that endangered her scores for purity, perhaps the risk was worthwhile. Jerusha rubbed the powder into her cheeks and glared at Mareka defiantly. “I'll see you at the guildhall.”

“Aye.” At the guildhall. Where their testing would begin in a few hours.

Mareka waited for Jerusha to close the door behind her, taking the extra moment to focus her thoughts. One, she was a Liantine. Two, she was a daughter to her parents. Three, she was a sister to her brother, and to her two sisters. Four, she was a cousin to all her far-flung family. Five, she was a worshiper of the Horned Hind. Six, she was a spiderguild apprentice. Seven, she was a student of her masters. Eight, she was a servant to the octolaris.

One, two, three, four. Five, six, seven, eight. The counting calmed her. There was order in the world. There was rightness in the world. She had studied. She knew the rules. She would rise to journeyman, and then continue along the trail to power and glory within the octolaris guild.

The sunlight was bright as Mareka stepped out of the apprentices' quarters, and she raised a slim hand to shield her eyes. It was late – too late for her to go to the dining hall, to join the other members of the spiderguild. Besides, she was supposed to be fasting, preparing her body along with her mind, for her encounter with the masters. She was relieved of all apprentice duties for the day so that she might be well-rested for the examination.

Nevertheless, her belly growled, reminding her of the second leg of the morning prayer. She always ate in the morning. That was habit. That was custom. It would hardly do for her to faint from hunger half-way through her examination.

Her dilemma was solved when she saw a slave girl huddling at the corner of the apprentices' quarters. The wench was probably waiting to sweep out the room.

“Girl!” The slave jumped at Mareka's bark. She could not have been more than eight years old – young, even for the child-soldiers that the guild had acquired from Amanthia.

She seemed to be a bit slow in the head, too. It took the brat long moments to find her voice, to ask, “Spidermistress?”

The fool had not even learned proper titles in the guild. Mareka was not allowed to be called mistress until she was elevated to journeyman. Until that afternoon, after her testing. Well, if the slave were that foolish, then she should not question Mareka's command. “Girl, go to the kitchens and get me some seedcake. Meet me at the fourth canal, among the riberry trees.”

“Spidermistress, I may not!”

“What!” Mareka took a step toward the child, sudden anger spiking her thoughts. How dare a slave defy her?

“Apprentice Jerusha said I was to follow you. She said I was to walk behind you all morning, and report to her all that you do.”

Jerusha! Spying on her! As if she hoped to learn some secret from Mareka, gain some edge in the questioning that both apprentices would face that afternoon. How dare she! Just because she was the daughter of two weavers! Just because she was the favored apprentice in the guild! Knowing the answer to her question, Mareka asked the slave, “And is Apprentice Jerusha your owner?”

“No! The spiderguild owns me!” The slave rushed to shout her reply; she had clearly had it beaten into her skull some time in the past. No individual owned the slaves; King Teheboth would not permit such trade in human flesh. Rather, guilds owned slaves. Guilds, and merchant trading companies, and platoons of soldiers. Slaves were like mercenaries, purchased by organizations to achieve a purpose. The cowering girl was bound to all the spiderguild at once, subject to Mareka's command just as much as to Jerusha's.

The wench huddled against the wall of the apprentices' hall, as if she wanted to limit the target that she presented. Mareka took a step closer, her shadow blocking out the brilliant sunlight across the slave's face. In the depth of the shadow, Mareka could just make out the glint of a tattoo beneath the girl's eye, the silvery spray of a swan's wing across her cheek. Odd, that swan. The boys all had their tattoos carved from their faces, scarred before they were sold to their Liantine masters. Only the girls had kept their marks. Only the girls – and this was the first swan that Mareka had ever seen.

“What's your name, slave?”

“S – Serena, spidermistress.”

“Why haven't I seen you here before?”

“I was purchased in Liantine, spidermistress, in King Teheboth's courtyard. I have served the honorable spiderguild in the city for the two years that I have been in Liantine. I only came to the guildhall last night, with my spidermaster.”

Serving in the city. … The girl must have been bought by one of the guild's experts charged with selling spidersilk in the world beyond the guild enclosure. No wonder she called Mareka spidermistress, then. The fool knew no better. She thought to honor all of her owners, never realizing that she would anger some with her impertinence.

Still, even a free child should have understood the simple order Mareka had given. A slave should certainly know to follow straightforward commands. “Slave, do not make me order you again. Seedcake. Riberry groves. You can see them, there.” Mareka gestured across the courtyard. “I'll be waiting at the fourth canal.”

“Y – yes, spidermistress.”

The child did not move.

“Serena! Now!”

“But spidermistress, will you tell Apprentice Jerusha that you sent me? Will you explain to her?”

I'll explain to her, Mareka thought. I'll explain that she had no business setting a Hind-cursed spy on me. “Aye, but only if you get me my cake without anyone seeing. Without anyone knowing that you are fetching it for me.” Without another word, the slave girl bolted out of the shadow of the building, her red-slashed tunic fluttering about her knees.

Jerusha might be conniving. She might be manipulative. But she was brilliant as well. Mareka would never have though to track her own rival, on this, the day of testing. Who knows what Jerusha might have learned, to further her own mastery? Who knows what secrets Mareka might have shared, all unknowing, that would have resulted in Jerusha being chosen over her. Jerusha's only mistake had been in ordering about a slow child, a slave too new to do her cursed job properly.

As Mareka strode to the riberry grove, she drilled herself on her lessons, on all the things the masters might ask of her that afternoon. She ran through the eight gifts of the riberries: seed, pith, bark, wood, shade, fruit, green leaves, markin leaves.

The green leaves made a stimulant tea, a bitter preparation that helped many an anxious apprentice study through the night. The markin leaves, though, they were the greatest gift of the riberry trees. The yellow leaves that uncurled at the very tips of the branches were the only food fit for the markin grubs, for the fat, white larvae of the markin moths.

And markin grubs were the only food fit for octolaris.

Mareka had seen enough of the white grubs in the past eight years to make her hate the things. Every morning, she worked for the octolaris, collecting the slimy creatures from the yellowing riberry leaves. Every afternoon, she fed them to the spiders, so that every octolaris would grow large, every spider would spin silk, every spider would increase the guild's wealth.

But after today, no more. After today, Mareka would move beyond grubs. After today, she would be a journeyman.

Mareka made her way to the fourth canal without hesitation. She was disappointed as she looked into the green-scummed channels – the night's rain had not been sufficient to fill their thirsty depth. She
would
have to ferry water from the Great Well that evening. She sighed, but then she realized the work would not be hers. An
apprentice
would drive the donkeys. An apprentice would descend into the well and fight to transport the awkward panniers of water.

Mareka would be a journeyman by the end of the afternoon.

Reaching down, Mareka adjusted the climbing pads that were strapped around her knees, part of her apprentice uniform. Some masters thought that the cushioned silk was an abomination, a sign of weakness and lack of dedication. Mareka, though, knew that she could stay in a riberry tree that much longer, that she could harvest that many more markin grubs. After all, her goal was to serve the octolaris. By keeping the spiders healthy and fat, she benefitted all of the guild.

And then, because she knew that she would not be climbing the trees after her examination, because she knew that she would never scramble for markin grubs again, Mareka decided to climb the nearest riberry tree. She would harvest one last meal for the octolaris, provide one final offering, in gratitude for her passing to the spiderguild's next rank.

The riberry bark was smooth beneath her palms. The trees were convenient for climbing; they had been bred for it. They branched often, providing easy hand- and foot-holds. Mareka's roiling thoughts were soothed by the unblemished bark beneath her fingers – she could not remember a time that she had not climbed, that she had not sought out the markin grubs.

As she moved out toward the ends of the branches, she thought about the eight-fold aspects of markin moths: black grub, black cocoon, grey grub, grey cocoon, white grub, white cocoon, moth, cadaver. The black grubs fed on the bodies of their mothers, hatching from eggs still embedded in her flesh. They spun small cocoons within a fortnight and emerged as thin, grey grubs. They feasted on their cracked cocoons, then on anything green and growing. After another fortnight, they climbed to the tops of riberry trees and spun their grey cocoons, attaching the triangular shelters to the undersides of branches. The white grubs hatched within ten days, fat and ravenous. If permitted, the white grubs ate until they tripled their size, becoming awkward, clumsy. They spun a final shelter attached to the trunks of the riberry trees, and then they emerged as moths – dusty grey with streaks of white and two marks like staring black eyes. And the process began again.

Black grubs, black cocoon, grey grubs, grey cocoon, white grubs –

Mareka's clever fingers found a cluster of white grubs, squirming amid the yellow leaves at the end of the riberry branch. She made short work of harvesting the writhing beasts, tucking them into her tight-woven apprentice basket with an expert's disregard for their clinging feet. She found three more knots of grubs on the one branch – someone had not harvested this riberry tree for quite some time. That other apprentice's failure to perform his or her duty worked to Mareka's benefit. She could complete her harvest all the sooner.

She had just finished stripping grubs from a smaller pocket of yellow leaves when she glanced down at the foot of her tree. The slave-girl was staring up, her eyes as wide as octolaris. “Please, spidermistress!” the child called. “Have a care!”

“I'll show you care,” Mareka muttered, disgruntled to think that the child doubted her skills. She placed her feet carefully on the branches as she descended the tree, gripping the smooth wood with her palms and her knees, automatically swinging her collection basket to the safety of her back.

When she reached the ground, she held out a demanding hand. “My cake.”