Requiem for the Sun (27 page)
Read Requiem for the Sun Online
Authors: Elizabeth Haydon
“Perhaps they have a few dray horses and an elephant on the upper floor to help,” Ashe suggested, curling his shoulder in to avoid the continuous abrasion he was suffering from the wall.
“If there is more than another full rotation, I'm turning back,” the Bolg king declared, climbing with a deliberate gait. “For all I know this staircase could lead all the way to the top of one the peaks inâ
Ashe heard Achmed's voice choke off abruptly.
“What is it?” he asked as the Bolg king stopped.
Achmed never answered him. Instead, he took a few halting steps forward, staring all around him.
Stepping into the upper burial chapel of Terreanfor, which housed the individual mausoleums of the monarchs of Sorbold, was like stepping into a living rainbow.
The chapel was small in girth, but tall in height. Thin supports of stone that connected with the ceiling and were decorated with statues of men, most likely legendary figures from Sorbold history, judging by their heavy facial features. The statues demarked sections of the tomb, almost invisible in the rest of the walls.
Which were made entirely of exquisite stained glass.
The Bolg king took another step into a gleaming patch of rosy light adjacent to a glimmering blue that pulsed gently as a cloud passed overhead in the sky beyond the window walls.
His mismatched eyes scanned the panorama of glorious color around and above him, drinking in the beauty, the artisanship, of a thousand years' time and scores of generations of craftsmen's labor which had combined to produce a paradise doused by the afternoon sun, facing west.
“A lovely final view.”
Ashe's voice was muted to his ear. Achmed shook off the words almost without effort, lost in the majesty of the rainbows which had solidified into place along the mausoleum's walls and in the domed ceiling.
His conscious mind, a distant second to the workings of his aesthetic senses, made note of two things.
First, he could see that each of the individual sepulchers of Sorbold's royals had its own window, flawlessly rendered, depicting a stylized representation of that monarch's life. Leitha was immortalized, a beautiful, rotund woman in rich garments, one hand scattering bread to the nation's poor, the other stalwartly bearing a sword. Clearly the windows had been commissioned and all but completed many years before; they were probably begun at the time of her birth. The sheer artistry of it and the others that commemorated the lives of her ancestors took his breath away.
Second, from within the burial chapel he could see outside the windows that would seal the tombs of the empress and her son several shaded outlines, moving back and forth in front of the windows, bending down, then contacting the other side of the glass, carefully applying the final touches, the death
weights, the last historical record for posterity, immortalized in sand and ash heated with minerals until it formed shiny shards of magnificent color for history to remember when all who knew them in life had joined them in death.
weights, the last historical record for posterity, immortalized in sand and ash heated with minerals until it formed shiny shards of magnificent color for history to remember when all who knew them in life had joined them in death.
Glass artisans.
22
A
s he scrambled up the side of the western mountain that contained the windows of the tomb, Achmed rethought his position on retinues. While it was true that coming alone to the funeral, and the fray that would undoubtedly erupt afterward, had already conveyed the message he had intended, he made note that the presence of one aide would have saved him from needing to attend to all his errands himself, and spared him from being late to the colloquium.
s he scrambled up the side of the western mountain that contained the windows of the tomb, Achmed rethought his position on retinues. While it was true that coming alone to the funeral, and the fray that would undoubtedly erupt afterward, had already conveyed the message he had intended, he made note that the presence of one aide would have saved him from needing to attend to all his errands himself, and spared him from being late to the colloquium.
By the time he crested the mountaintop the sun was hanging low in the sky, turning the land around him the color of blood. He shielded his eyes, looking for the glassworkers who he had seen as shadows outside the windows while in the crypt.
Most of them were gone.
Those that remained were, for the most part, packing up their tools and their materials, packing brightly painted wagons, preparing to descend from the mountaintop before nightfall. Achmed noted that this cadre was composed of both men and women, dark of hair, eye, and countenance, all dressed in the garb of nomads, each wearing a multihued sash or belt as a sign of whatever clan they belonged to, though they did not all seem to share the same ethnic background. Most of them were slight, wiry, of a similar build to his own. The men were uniformly clean-shaven and shorn. Like the men, the women wore their hair short, so at first it was hard to distinguish them. They called to each other in a tongue unknown to him as they tied their equipment onto their pack animals and loaded the three wagons that were with them.
He broke into a loping run toward the place where the artisans were putting the last coats of glaze on the newly inscribed windows, and cleaning some of the other, older panes, only to be stopped by a quartet of Sorbold soldiers who were guarding the glassworkers.
“What are you doing up here?” a heavyset column leader demanded as the others readied their pikes. “Turn back.”
Achmed came to an abrupt halt, his hands at his sides. His mismatched eyes locked with those of the commander; after a moment of stony silence, one guard whispered something to another behind the column leader's back.
He thought he caught the words
Bolg king
; apparently he was correct, because the column leader stepped aside, glaring at him silently.
He thought he caught the words
Bolg king
; apparently he was correct, because the column leader stepped aside, glaring at him silently.
Rank had its benefits, as did renowned ugliness.
“I want to speak to the artisans,” he said evenly, moving closer to the soldiers in as nonthreatening a manner as he could muster.
The soldiers looked at each other, then back at the column leader.
“Most of them don't speak the common tongue,” the column leader said; “Majesty,” he added reticently after a heartbeat.
“Who are they?”
The soldier shook his head. “Itinerants. Traveling craftsmen from the southeast. They call themselves the Panjeri. The empress must have hired them; they have come at times over the years to attend to her glasswork. One of the women says they will be leaving soon.” An unpleasant note crept into his voice at the word
women.
women.
“Which woman?” Achmed asked, looking past the soldiers at the artisans and seeing four of them.
The column leader shrugged, then turned and watched them for a moment.
“They all look the same,” he said finally. “I commend you to that one, Majesty.” He pointed past a rocky rise to the scaffolding that braced against the circular cliff face which held the crypt windows.
Atop the scaffold a single artisan remained while the others packed. She was crouched in a squatting position, intently polishing a small area of the newly installed portion of the Crown Prince's glass memorial, oblivious of the setting sun and the occasional shouts of her comrades.
Achmed nodded curtly; his head was throbbing with an unpleasant hum mixed with the annoyance of knowing the colloquium was either waiting for him or, worse, carrying on in his absence. He climbed the remains of the embankment and quickly crossed the rest of the rocky ledge, coming to a halt beneath the scaffold. Several of the Panjeri stopped in their transport of materials to stare at him.
“Who is your leader?” he asked three men and a woman who were watching him sharply.
The men exchanged a glance, then returned to staring.
“Do any of you understand me?” Achmed said, trying to contain his frustration.
The silence answered him.
Finally he moved away from them, feeling their eyes locked on him, and approached the scaffold.
The woman atop it was still intent on her work. She was edging the window
with a small, crude tool, buffing the glass as she checked the seam once more. One of the other craftsmen shouted up to her impatiently in a language Achmed did not recognize, and she acidly called something back to him. As she turned to answer, her eye caught the Bolg king for a split second, but she did not favor him with a longer glance before returning to her work.
with a small, crude tool, buffing the glass as she checked the seam once more. One of the other craftsmen shouted up to her impatiently in a language Achmed did not recognize, and she acidly called something back to him. As she turned to answer, her eye caught the Bolg king for a split second, but she did not favor him with a longer glance before returning to her work.
Finally, as the rest of the Panjeri began to descend with the crates and animals, two men came over to the scaffold. One grabbed the supports impatiently and shook it.
The woman atop it swayed slightly at the motion, then caught herself with a lightening-quick act of balance. She seized a small brass pot from which she had been dipping and hurled it at the man's head, missing it deliberately by a hairsbreadth, but splattering him with glaze. Then she tossed her tools down to the other man and descended the scaffold, her dark eyes flashing at the one who had shaken it.
Achmed stood by, trying to catch her notice, as she exchanged a few pointed words with her fellow craftsman, then stooped to pick up the pot. The men seized the scaffold and broke it down, carrying the pieces quickly to the remaining wagon. The woman, having retrieved her pot, turned to follow them. Achmed interposed himself quickly between her and the wagon.
“Hello,” he said awkwardly, grinding his teeth and wishing Rhapsody were here to make the approach for him; he hated conversation in general, hated initiating it even more, and hated initiating with people with whom he could not communicate past the point of being rational about it. “Do you speak the common tongue of the continent?”
The woman's eyes narrowed. “No, I do not, my apologies,” she said curtly, then attempted to step past him.
Achmed jumped to the side to block her again. “Wait, please.” He looked down at her, a sense of guarded excitement coming over him.
The woman was not much taller than Rhapsody, if that. Like Rhapsody, she clad herself in practical clothing, trousers and a stained cambric shirt. She was breathing heavily from the exertion, so her cheeks were ruddy; short, dark locks of hair framed her facial features, which, while hidden beneath a layer of grimy sand and streaked with dried sweat from her work atop the scaffold, were delicate, her dark eyes large and interestingly shaped. Those eyes held a gleam of contempt that he couldn't help but recognize; he had seen it in his own reflection.
She shared his attitude; she did not brook fools, or anyone who interposed himself in her way.
“Are you finished here?” he asked.
The woman tossed the pot to one of the men who was waiting near the wagon. “Have you been sent to pay us?”
“No,” Achmed said quickly.
“Then move out of my way.” She strode past him to the wagon, and prepared to climb aboard; Achmed caught her arm.
The flurry that resulted caught him by surprise even as cursed himself for not expecting it.
Without hesitation the woman slammed her hand into his shoulder and pushed him back, loosing his grip. As she spun, the remaining artisans, men and women, pulled an assortment of small knives and sharp tools. Achmed dropped her arm quickly and held up his hands.
“Apologies,” he said, cursing himself inwardly. “I am not good at this. I want to hire you.”
The woman leveled her gaze at him for a moment, then shook her head at her companions, who went back to loading the wagon.
“Hire us?” she asked disdainfully. “You cannot afford the price.”
“I â I am King Achmed of Ylorc,” Achmed stammered.
“How fortunate for you. You cannot afford the price. Now kindly move out of the way.” The woman turned her back and walked away.
Achmed felt like he was drowning. All of his normal calm had fled, leaving him feeling desperate, anxious beyond reason.
“What is the price?”
The woman turned and regarded him sharply. She considered his question, inhaling slowly to calm her breath, then spoke.
“Each of us is a sealed master. Two hundred thousand gold suns.”
Achmed swallowed heavily. “Done,” he said.
“In gems. We cannot carry that much in coin.”
“As you wish.”
“Today.”
The Bolg king coughed. “Today?”
The woman nodded, her eyes fixed on his face. “Today. Before the setting of the sun.”
“I cannot possibly do that.”
She nodded. “As I told you â you cannot meet the price.” She returned to the wagon and prepared to climb aboard.
Achmed chased after her. “Wait, please. I can have a bill of tender stamped this evening.”
The woman laughed. She stepped off of the wagon's rim and came to stand in front of him.
“You do not know of the Panjeri, do you?”
The Bolg king shook his head, swallowing to keep from misspeaking.
“You know nothing of the craft, of the trade, then. Nor anything of our language. The word means âthe dry leaves.' We are called that because we blow about in the wind, racing along from place to place, never staying anywhere for longer than a fallen leaf would stay in a windy desert. It pains us to remain still for too long. To ask a dozen Panjeri to come to wherever you would need us, would be as to ask a dozen leaves to remain on the ground in a high breeze.”
“I don't need a dozen Panjeri,” Achmed said quickly, struggling to keep his tone from becoming imperious. “I need but oneâthe best one, the most talented, highly trained one. The leaf least likely to skitter in the wind.” He raised his eyebrows and cocked his head to view each of the other assembled workers, a wry smile coming over his face. “Which one would that be?”
The woman's eyes narrowed in response.
“That would be
me,”
she said haughtily.
me,”
she said haughtily.
“And by what name are you called, as the greatest of the Panjeri?”
“Theophila.”
“I see. Since I have no way to ask the other Panjeri,” the Bolg king counttered, continuing to size up the artisans, who stared blankly at him from the wagon, “and would find it difficult to communicate my needs to them, I'll just accept that you are the heaviest leaf.”
The woman crossed her arms. “Well, even if they did not agree, how would you understand what they said?”
Achmed nodded, his lips pressed together in a mock show of agreement. “You do have a point there. Very well, Theophila, assuming you are in fact the best stained-glass artisan of the Panjeri, what would the price be to hire just you?”
She considered for a moment. “For how long?”
“However long the project takes. If you would not commit to finish what you begin, I would not have you anyway.”
The woman scowled. “I never leave any aspect of my work unfinished, even as the others pack to leave,” she snarled. “I believe you have witnessed this.”
“Indeed. So again I ask you, what is your price?”
The woman regarded him again, leaning back against the clapboard of the wagon.
“A reason,” she said.
“A reason?”
“Yes. A reason to divert my travels, to separate from my kinsmen, to remain
in an unknown place for however long you wish me to remain â can you give me a compelling reason to do so?”
in an unknown place for however long you wish me to remain â can you give me a compelling reason to do so?”
Achmed considered for a moment. “Yes,” he said finally, “I can promise you that the glass you will make for me, the project on which you will work, will be unlike any you have ever done before, or will do again.”
Theophila shrugged. “That is not compelling enough,” she said blandly. “That can be said of most projects we undertake. While the challenge of the work is well and good, it does not feed my family; it does not buy my tools.” She put her foot back on the wagon rim once more and started to hoist herself aboard.
The Bolg king smiled slightly. “Tools? Yes. I did notice your nippers are rusty, and your filial files and groziers are awkwardly balanced. If your price is not in gems, perhaps you can be paid in better tools.”
The woman froze on the rim, then looked back at him, a cool look in her dark eyes. One of the men in the wagon gestured impatiently to her and another of the women began to speak, but she waved them both into silence.
“Perhaps you do know a little of the trade,” she said. “But what do you know of balance, of tools?”
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