Glasswrights' Test (37 page)

And she had abandoned him here in Brianta. She had set him aside at the guild's first order. She had thrown him into the arms of the tavern-wench.

Tovin must understand, though. He knew what the glass meant to her; he knew how she longed to advance within the guild. That was why he had come to Brianta with her, after all. That was why he had accompanied her. He wanted her to succeed. He wanted her to become a master.

Rani turned away from her brazier and filled her lungs, breathing as deeply as she was able. When she exhaled, she did so slowly, edging her chin toward her chest, emptying her body.

Berylina had been emptied. Berylina had been crushed.

No. Concentrate.

She remembered the flowing river, remembered the power of Speaking. Tovin had given her that. It was a tool, like the diamond knife, like the fine jeweler's tongs that he used to fashion lead chain. She needed to find her core. She needed to find her strength. She needed to reach into her Speaking and find the power of her past.

She inhaled again, remembering all the lessons that Tovin had ever taught her. She exhaled, and she released her guilt, her fear, her memories of Tovin and Berylina and Mair and Laranifarso. She breathed in again, filling her lungs, raising her chest, breathing, breathing, breathing.

When she opened her eyes, the black spots were gone. The ache behind her brow had receded to an echo. She picked up her tongs, and she soldered the lead joins for the god of silk, using the foil to anchor the joining compound.

Each seam was unique. Each required her attention, as she discovered imperfections in the foil, limits in the glass. Each demanded that she check her work, that she smooth it completely, that she let it cool, hoping, praying that nothing went wrong. She completed the first join, and the second. The third, the fourth, the fifth.

She stopped counting, reaching for the glass as if she were one of Davin's machines back in Moren. She understood what she was creating; she knew what she must do next. She dropped a piece of glass and retrieved it unbroken, settled back immediately into her rhythm. She ran out of lead stripping, and she retrieved more from across the room, gliding past her colleagues as if she were invisible.

Then, the leading was done, and she had completed the body of the window. One more step remained—painting on the design. She ground the lead black pigment with instinctive fingers. Gone were the days when she needed to test the powder, to sample its fineness. She knew when she had ground enough, when the particles were small enough to soak up water. She mixed the paint on a jagged pane of extra glass, and then she selected a brush.

Her wrist was steady as she filled the bristles, rolling them about on the glass so that they absorbed an even amount of pigment. She squeezed out the extra, pressing the bristles between fingers that were beyond aching, beyond exhaustion.

She did the fine work first, the lines of Lor's face, the ray of wrinkles beside his eyes. She drew in gullies on either side of his mouth, deep troughs carved from his habitual frown. She added texture to the bolt of cloth, making it clear to any viewer that the fabric curved about its wooden form.

And then, she drew the octolaris. She remembered the great glasswork spider that she had seen in Liantine, the delicate design that had taken her breath away in the spiderguild. Crestman had stood beside her then, before she had approached the master of the guildhall, before she had bartered for Morenia's salvation.

Crestman had stood beside her before she betrayed him.

Even that thought was not enough to shake her hand. She knew the design that she must complete, she knew it with the certainty of all the Speaking she had ever done. One line there, another, another. The silk web stood out against the clear glass, called into being by the steady pigment.

And still Rani was not through. One last thing. … She turned her head to the side, catching the panel at an angle. What was wrong? What was missing? She had not drawn anything else in all her preparatory sketches.

And then she knew. She dipped the brush, filled the bristles, squeezed them almost dry. She levered her wrist against the table, steadying her hand. She stretched the brush toward the pane of glass, barely touching. There. In the distance. Beyond Lor's vision, over his shoulder, away from his conscious thought.

A single riberry tree.

Rani hinted at the smooth silver bark, at the intricate branches. She ghosted in the leaves. She imagined the markin grubs that would feed the octolaris, that would fuel the growth of silk.

And then, Parion called, “Time, journeymen!”

Rani was pushed back to the guildhall, tugged from the depths of her trance. She had not intended to use her Speaking powers; after Berylina, she had vowed that she would never harness that strange art again. Nevertheless, in the heat of the contest, she had drawn on Tovin's lessons, relied on the player's strength.

Several journeymen protested Parion's announcement, and instructors moved through their ranks, seizing brushes, taking away coils of lead stripping. Rani realized that one of her peers had abandoned his work quite early in the day, leaving shattered glass in the center of his white-washed table. Belita and Cosino had apparently finished before the sun had set; their tables stood empty, with some completed work centered, presented. Three other journeyman had also finished and left.

Parion said, “Thank you, journeymen, for your attempts. You may leave the hall now. We masters will collect your projects, and we will confer upon their merits. Go forth, and eat and drink and sleep. We will tell you, in the coming days, if you have passed the test.”

That was all. There was no fanfare. There was no slam of an executioner's axe. Nothing more.

Rani knew that she was beyond exhaustion. She was half-starved. She was parched like a traveler who had ranged for days in a desert.

She was also freed from her vows to the guild. She could eat what she chose, drink what she desired. She could be with Tovin.

She set her hands against her table, using the sturdy wooden edge to help her rise. Her legs refused to hold her; her knees wobbled as if she were a newborn foal. She acted as if she planned to turn around, as if she actually meant to look at Larinda's table next to her.

The Morenian guildhall.

Rani cried out when she saw it—tall, airy. She remembered the awe that had blinded her when her brother first took her past its gates, when she had first entered the building that was to be her home for far too short a time. Larinda had captured it perfectly, adding just the right amount of delicate tracery on her glass panel.

“It's beautiful,” Rani breathed. “Larinda, it's perfect!”

Larinda, though, ignored Rani completely, as if she had not heard a word. Instead, the other journeyman rested her head against her table. She splayed her Hands to either side, as if she lacked the knowledge to remove them.

Rani saw the creamy white glass, the pane that she had thought to use for silk. It was better in Larinda's work. Better as a stone wall. Better as a reminder of a building that had been leveled, destroyed, so that it now existed only in a handful of tortured memories. “Larinda. …” she said again, but this time she did not expect a response.

She did not realize that she was sobbing until she felt strong hands on her shoulders. She turned about, yielding to the pressure. Tovin's arms folded around her, gathering her in, collecting her as if she were a little child.

“I'm sorry!” she gasped, forcing the words through her tears. She was apologizing to Larinda, to Parion, to all of the glasswrights. She was apologizing to Mair and Laranifarso, to Berylina. “I'm sorry!”

“Hush,” Tovin said. He pulled her away from her table, away from her fragile masterpiece.

I should not have called out to Tuvashanoran, she wanted to say. Long ago, I should have come forward in the guildhall and protected my fellow guild members. I should have spared poor Dalarati. I should have stood up for Berylina before the curia. I should have bartered with Crestman for Laranifarso. I should not have accepted the Fellowship's charge; I should not have taken the poison for Mareka. “I'm sorry. …”

And then Tovin guided her from the guildhall. He walked her past Larinda, past Parion, past all the apprentices, and journeymen, and masters. She felt his firm touch direct her through the streets, back to her room, back to her bed. His hands shone in the lamplight as he placed cheese on bread; his knuckles caught the light as he poured wine into a goblet, mixed it with water. He smoothed her hair as he urged her to swallow. His fingers were deft with her Thousand Pointed Star; he set aside her pilgrim's robe.

She clutched at him then, pulling him toward her, down to the mattress, down to her side. “Sleep, Ranita,” he said, and she started to apologize again. “Close your eyes and sleep. We've work enough in the morning.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Sleep.”

And she did.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 13

 

Halaravilli ben-Jair paced his tower room, staring at the parchment in his hand. He had read the words a dozen times, and they refused to change, refused to become any safer, any gentler, any more bearable. “Beware the serpent in your midst. She let the princess die, and she seeks to harm you further. She once slew your protector; do not let her act again. Look to your wife, the queen.”

The message was absurd. It clearly implicated Rani, but Hal knew that Rani would never harm Mareka. Throughout all of his struggle for peace, for prosperity in Morenia, Rani had been the one person he could count on. She could be trusted amid all of the shaky alliances that he had forged. She was dedicated to him. She was devoted.

She had gone to Brianta to beg admission to a guild that his father had destroyed.

Hal had feared that Rani's journey would test her loyalty, but he had never imagined that she would reach her breaking point. What poison had the glasswrights' guild harbored? What carefully nurtured resentments about being torn apart, all by a royal mistake?

In an attempt to keep Rani in the fold—and because he had missed her—Hal had sent Rani missives while she was away. He had taken time with the long letters, explaining how the kingdom fared, asking for her advice. He had asked what progress she made at the guild, questioned Berylina's pilgrimage. He had his correspondence delivered to the glasswrights' guild so that she would be certain to receive them, certain to know that he honored and respected her work.

And he had heard nothing. Not one letter. Not one single reply.

Even as he cursed the glasswrights' vengeful nature, he thought that he could understand the longing that Rani felt for status in the guild. He knew that she ached to belong to a family, to a mother and father, to brothers and sisters. To all that Hal's father had stolen from her years before.

Had the guild offered her that? Had they set a price for their companionship and told her that the only thing she must do to fit in forever was to strike out at him?

He read the parchment again.
Beware the serpent in your midst
. Whoever had written the note knew of Rani's past. They knew that she had long ago joined up with the Brotherhood of Justice, with the traitors who had plotted to overthrow the house of ben-Jair, to replace its lion sigil with the emblem of a twisted snake.

And they knew that Rani had slain Dalarati, Hal's own guard, in her mistaken zeal. In a moment of crashing self-pity, Hal felt keen regret for that lost soldier. Dalarati had been a good man and true. He had been slain too early, sacrificing his life before he truly knew that the battle was engaged.

Dalarati had brought Hal into the Fellowship, into the cabal, with its endless secrets and disguises, its intricate whorls of power. What would the soldier make of the Fellowship today? What would he make of the ongoing struggles for power? For money? What would he make of the warning that Rani intended to harm Mareka?

Compulsively, Hal read the parchment again, and he swore. Somehow, it all made cruel sense. Even before she fell silent in Brianta, Rani had been distant. She had been cool to him ever since returning from Liantine, ever since he took Mareka to be his wife. … She said that she was kept busy by her responsibilities with the players' troop, by serving as their patron. But she had avoided him, avoided Mareka.

He was no fool. He had watched her swallow her pride and bow before her queen, bow before an elevated guildswoman from a distant land. He had seen the hurt behind Rani's eyes. There was no other way, he had wanted to explain. In a moment of passion, he had played Mareka falsely, and now he must pay. He, and Rani, and all of Morenia.

The heavy summer air drifted into the tower window, cloying as guilt, and Hal caught a whiff of an acrid funeral pyre in the nearby cathedral close. He tensed. Funerals. More bodies committed to the flames, transferred through those gates to the Heavenly Fields. But he must not mourn. Those were not his sons who burned today. Other people, other losses. Other fathers, cursing the gods.

Hal's eyes were dragged back to the parchment.
She let the princess die.

Word had reached Hal five days before about Berylina's death. An unsigned message, from an anonymous Briantan religious tribunal. A bald statement about witchcraft and execution, about a pilgrim who did not repent before her soul was cast out forever from the Heavenly Fields. About a body thrown into a grave, denied ritual purification.

Nothing from Rani, though, even then. Nothing at all.

Had she even been there? Or had her jealousy driven her from Berylina's side? Could she have stood by and watched the princess tried and executed and yet said nothing, so that Hal would suffer? Could Rani hate him that much?

She seeks to harm you further.

When he had returned from Liantine with Mareka as his bride, he had hurt Rani. He knew that. He had been a new husband then, careful and afraid of his pregnant wife. He had watched Rani Trader going about the business of building his silk industry, delivering riberry trees to deserving nobles, counting out precious octolaris spiders. He had seen her command her players' troop, construct a tour for them, send them on their way about the countryside. As always, she worked with fierce independence, with desperate devotion. He had spoken to her only of financial things, only of the money that flowed in and out of his treasury.