Glass Swallow (9 page)

‘Get back here, girl, or I’ll beat you within an inch of your life!’ he yelled, making a lunge for her but coming away with a fistful of shawl.

Peri had to think fast. He did not fancy his chances in a fight with Krital; he had to distract him.

‘Go!’ He released Rogue, directing him towards the stallion. Smelling the blood on the ambassador’s saddle, the falcon swooped, claws extended. Spooked, the horse reared and bolted, heading back down the path.

Krital caught the girl in the middle of the bridge and shook her till her teeth rattled. The bridge groaned, a plank dropped into the stream and was quickly swept away by the current. The structure shuddered and slumped, water now running over the centre.

‘Krital—look to your horse!’ called Peri.

The bandit spun round to see his prize disappearing down the road. He swore, having to choose between the girl and the stallion.

‘I’ll get you for this, scavenger!’ he shouted. With another curse, he released the girl and ran off in pursuit, leaping the broken section of bridge. The prisoner crumpled to her knees, hugging a post as if fearing he would return to drag her away.

‘It’s all right now. He’s gone,’ Peri called, holding out a hand to her. He didn’t want to step on the bridge in case his weight caused it to collapse but he had to get her off before the whole thing ended up floating downstream.

She raised a pair of shocked blue eyes to him, round with fear. The words Peri meant to speak froze on his tongue. He’d never seen anything like her. In Magharna, everyone had straight black hair and dark eyes; she looked like one of the fey people from children’s tales, hardly human, with her wild curls and strange-coloured irises.

He swallowed. ‘Really, it’s all right.’ He dropped his arm, suddenly doubting himself in front of such a perfect creature. Perhaps she did not want to talk to a scavenger, maybe she thought he’d make her unclean? Annoyed by the thought, he strode to the river and salvaged her bundle which was caught on a fallen branch. ‘Here. We’ve got to go. Krital might be back any moment.’

She still didn’t react.

He could feel his anger building but he refused to let it show. The foolish girl was going to drown if she stayed where she was. He pointed in the direction Krital had gone. ‘Do you want him to catch you again?’ He made his tone neutral.

She shook her head. So at least she understood him.

‘Then come on.’ With a whistle, Peri summoned Rogue from a nearby tree and crooned praise to the falcon as he replaced the hood.

Rain made herself let go of the wooden post. She had passed beyond terror and was now numb. She’d fallen out of the clutches of one bandit and into the power of this strange young man with his cruel hunting falcon. What was he going to do with her? At least with Krital she had understood the man’s moods and intentions; this stranger’s calmness, even facing down a bandit twice his size, disguised his emotions from her. His face was made up of angles and planes like cut glass crystal: high cheek bones, hawkish nose, stubborn jaw. He seemed as hard and polished as the bird he carried. Perhaps it would be better not to know what he was going to do.

Gathering her courage, she stood up and walked off the bridge, her slight weight making no impression on the creaking structure. The falconer did not try and take her hand again, just beckoned her to follow him, speaking too quickly for her to understand his rapid Magharnan. Knowing she didn’t really have a choice, she trailed after him down the road to where a stocky chestnut horse grazed under a tree. The young man busied himself placing the falcon in a travelling basket while she huddled against the trunk, shivering from cold and shock. She felt very far away from what was happening, as if watching herself from a great height. He was talking to her now, opening the canvas bundle and pulling out the first change of clothes he came across. He threw it towards her and gestured to her to put it on.

‘W-why?’ she stuttered through chattering teeth, wishing she had learnt more than very basic Magharnan.

‘You’ll catch your death of cold if you don’t get out of those wet things,’ he explained, his tone a touch impatient. ‘But hurry, mistress, your admirer will be back at any moment and we must be gone.’

She couldn’t follow half of what he said: something about death and a threat that she’d be caught again. Feeling horribly powerless, she picked up the dry clothes. He turned his back while she changed. She only realized as her fingers caught on the slashed material that he had handed her the jettana’s robe. She was going to be sick: the woman was dead, lying on the road not a mile away with her cousin, left for the scavenging crows.

Rain rushed behind a tree and retched until her stomach hurt. Tears poured down her face; her nose was running. She felt so miserable, she wanted to die.

‘Easy now, fey lady.’ The young man’s voice was strangely soothing, even if his words were unfamiliar. His hand rested lightly on her shoulder blades, rubbing in a circular motion.

Rain swiped her wrist across her mouth and stood up straight. Wordlessly, he took a step back and handed her a waterskin to rinse the taste away.

‘Thank you,’ she said huskily, tears still sliding down her face.

‘Come now. We’d best get you to the capital. At least you’ll be safe there.’

She nodded, understanding most of what he had just said.

He boosted her up to sit on the horse’s back, then took a seat in front of her so she could hold on to his waist.

‘I’m sorry you have to touch me,’ he said.

Rain didn’t care: just then it felt wonderful to cling on to someone warm and kind.

‘You can take a ritual bath at the main gate so that you’ll be purified.’

Rain didn’t follow what he was saying, something about baths. She did feel dirty after the attack, but was now worried that she must smell really bad to him.

‘I want a bath,’ she replied in her stilted Magharnan.

‘I expect you do, being forced to share a saddle with an outlaw and now me.’

Again, he was speaking too quickly for her to follow. She decided not to say anything.

‘You must belong to one of the jettan households,’ he continued, gesturing to her robe. ‘What are you? A drummer? A wealer’s daughter?’

He appeared to be asking about her identity.

‘I am Rain Glassmaker.’

‘Ah, an artificer. I wouldn’t have guessed: your robe is too fine for that. Or perhaps your family is one of the very wealthy ones? I’ve been told they live like the jettans. They won’t like the fact that you’ve been in contact with a scavenger, will they?’

He’d lost her again. She expected him to reply with his name in response to hers, not this long speech full of words she didn’t understand. She tried again.

‘I am Rain Glassmaker. Who are you?’

‘Peri Falconer.’ He made a slight dip of a bow in the saddle. ‘Pleased to meet you, my lady.’

This she did comprehend as it had been in Shadow’s first lesson.

‘Please to meet you, Peri Falconer.’

Peri smiled at her carefully spoken polite words. Of course her kind manner would only last as long as she needed him; as soon as they were back in Rolvint she wouldn’t even look at him. Then he remembered something Krital had said.

‘You are not Magharnan? You certainly don’t look it.’

‘No. I origin from Holt. My betrothed glassmaker for summer palace.’

He grimaced: another useless craftsman being paid extortionate amounts to decorate one of the Master’s many houses while ordinary people went hungry. But he’d never even heard of Holt, let alone met people from there.

Wait a moment: what was that about a betrothed?

‘Your man: where is he?’

Rain shuddered. ‘Dead on road. With the ambassador and his wife.’

It was worse than Peri feared. He had suspected that the cavalcade had been a particularly rich one, but he hadn’t thought it belonged to a member of the government. This would be terrible news for the people of the capital, proving how little control the Master now had over lands beyond the city gates if even ambassadors were cut down within a few hours of home. Peri spurred Nutmeg on.

‘You must ask for the artificers to protect you when you get to Rolvint,’ he said. ‘They’ll take you in for your betrothed’s sake.’

Having passed through so many shocks today, Rain felt reluctant to leave the safety she had found with this birdman for an even more uncertain future.

‘Can I no stay with you until go home?’

He gave a bitter laugh. ‘You have a funny sense of humour, artificer. There’s no place for the likes of you in the graveyard district.’

Rain loosened her arms from his waist. He was rejecting her, didn’t want anything to do with her now he had done his duty and rescued her.

‘You are right. No place for me here.’

It sunk in for the first time that she truly was on her own. Her mind reeled with the enormity of her situation. She had no money and no Shadow to pretend to be the designer while she worked. How would she be able to afford the journey back to Holt? Had the ambassador even had time to tell the Master he had engaged a foreign glassmaker’s services? The people who had brought her here were dead; it seemed likely that no one still alive in Magharna would take any responsibility to see to her welfare.

Rain closed her eyes, resting her forehead on Peri’s stiff back. Then again, at least she had her life. How could she be so selfish, worrying about the future when her cousin went unburied? She would survive and find a way back to Holt; she had to, for her father’s sake if for no other reason.

‘Here we are, my lady, the gates of Rolvint.’ Peri slowed Nutmeg to a stop. ‘The baths are on your left, though I expect you know that.’ He felt the girl slide off from behind him and drop to the ground. He’d forgotten how tiny she was; her head barely reached his knee as he remained in the saddle.

‘No, I do not know,’ she said, not looking at him but at the imposing gateway. ‘Not been here before.’

‘But I thought … ’ Peri quickly reviewed their conversation. He’d assumed she was travelling with a Magharnan craftsman as part of the ambassador’s entourage but another possibility struck him. ‘When did you arrive in my country?’

‘Yesterday.’ She gave a little hiccup of laughter that sounded more like a sob. ‘I do not like it very much.’

What bad luck: to tie herself to a Magharnan visiting her country, travel back to his home, only to lose him. Still, she wore jettan clothes and had been under the protection of the ambassador—an extraordinary honour for a foreigner. Her betrothed must have been one of the jettan’s most valued men to allow a non-Magharnan wife in his party. The city would look after her. She would only be at a disadvantage if it were known she had any link to a scavenger. Peri tried to ignore a niggling feeling that all was not right with the little stranger.

He felt in his pocket and flipped her a brass coin. ‘Here: this will pay for the bath. Then ask for your betrothed’s family: I’m sure they’ll take you in when they hear what has happened to him.’

Rain shook her head hopelessly. He was talking too fast again. She looked at the strange disc in her palm: it had a hole in the centre.

‘What is it?’

‘Money,’ Peri repeated slowly, frowning. ‘For bath.’ He pointed to the building.

‘You want me to have bath now?’

‘Yes.’

She must reek really badly if he thought that she had to bathe before doing anything else. Surely she should be reporting the bandit attack to someone?

‘Go on. That way.’ Peri passed her bundle.

‘All right. Thank you.’ Rain walked in a daze to the bath-house door and handed over her coin. She did not have to say anything. The woman on duty took one look at her escort and ushered her in. Half an hour later, scrubbed raw and shivering with cold, Rain emerged on to the street. Her falconer had gone.

Peri rode back to the barracks with a deep-seated sense of unease. It wasn’t only that he’d witnessed the bloody aftermath of the bandits’ attack, shocking as it had been, nor the fact that he had made an enemy of Krital, dangerous though that may prove in the future. The root of his discomfort was his doubt over leaving the girl alone. He told himself that she would be all right, that the city had special measures to look after people such as her, but part of him felt as if he’d just led a lamb into a wolf den and abandoned her. Something about her guileless blue eyes made him fear for her in the tough streets of the capital.

Helgis bobbed up in the stable to help him unsaddle Nutmeg.

‘Goldie’s doing much better, thanks to you,’ his brother chattered away, brushing the lower reaches of the horse.

‘Good.’

‘Much happen today?’

‘Some.’

Helgis threw the currycomb back in the bucket. ‘What?’

‘I met a girl—’

Helgis sniggered.

Peri gave him a quelling look. ‘She survived a bandit attack.’

‘Oh. Was she hurt?’

‘Not hurt. In shock I think.’

‘What did you do with her?’

‘Took her to the city.’

Helgis shrugged. ‘Well, that’s that then. You did what you could.’