Glasswrights' Journeyman (24 page)

“Please! Let me see it.”

“No, my lord. It was only a drawing that did not work.”

“I can't imagine that. All of your drawings work quite well. Better than anything I could ever try.”

“Please, my lord!” She was upset enough that she put her hands on his, wrestling with him to take away the parchment. “It was just something I started sketching on the day that you arrived. Before Kel spoke to me. Before I realized that I needed to draw the god of the sea.”

“My lady, let me see it!”

His tone was harsher than he intended, and Berylina caught her breath. Her fingers froze into pebbles on the back of the parchment, and then she folded them, one by one, until her hand was a heavy, hopeless fist.

Hal regretted frightening her; he regretted making her cringe from him. Now, though, he had to see what was on the parchment; he had to see the drawing that she would fight to keep from him, when she had shared the others so generously. He moved his hand to cover hers, but she withdrew before he could actually touch her. In fact, she backed away from the table entirely, edging back to hover beside her silent, disapproving nurses. She crossed her arms over her chest, tucking in her hands as if they had become unclean.

Hal took a deep breath and turned over the drawing.

At first, he could not decipher what he saw. An angry hand had slashed red chalk across the parchment, leaving behind rusty streaks that looked like flaking blood. Beneath the red, though, beneath the efforts to deface the work, Hal could make out unsteady charcoal lines.

The ruined drawing had not been made by the same strong hand that had limned the gods. Rather, these marks were tentative, hesitant, barely visible beneath the chalk. Hal turned the parchment a bit to catch the light, and he made out a tangle of hash marks that might have been antlers. He turned the drawing more, and he could see an animal's body, a distorted flank that might belong to a deer.

Recognition dawned. “The Horned Hind.”

“Aye, my lord,” Berylina whispered, barely audible across the chamber.

“But why did you ruin her?”

For a long moment, he thought that Berylina would not respond, that words would prove too much for her. Her lips trembled, and one tear welled up from her right eye, slipping down her cheek like a silken bead. “I tried, my lord,” she gasped at last. “I tried to make her right, but I could not. I could not draw her. I wanted to give her to my father, to make him a gift for the Spring Hunt. The Horned Hind, though, she doesn't speak to me, not like the Thousand Gods. She would not let me draw her.”

Hal recovered from the torrent of words, and then he prodded gently, “Would not let you?”

“The Horned Hind grows ever stronger in Liantine, but she has no mercy for one like me.”

“Like you?”

Berylina raised her twisted face, made even homelier by the pull of her lips as she tried to restrain her sobs. “The Horned Hind teaches that my eyes mark me, Your Majesty, mark me as one who cannot look on truth. The Horned Hind says that my … my teeth are the struggle of good in my body, always fighting to escape. The Horned Hind says that I am evil!”

“You are not evil, my lady!”

“The Horned Hind says I am! My father says I am! He says the Thousand Gods are for slaves and weaklings, and that only the Horned Hind is true!” The girl lunged for the parchment that Hal still held, tugging it away from his unsuspecting grasp and crumpling it into a tortured ball. She clutched the ruined drawing to her belly, stumbling away from the table. One of the nurses folded the sobbing child into her arms, smoothing her hair and crooning helpless words of comfort. The other nurse pursed her lips in silent disapproval, glaring at Hal as if he were the source of the princess's distress.

Hal stared in shocked silence, wondering at the agony of a scorned child. Even as his heart went out to Berylina, he plummeted into his own memories, into his own recollections of a father who could not be pleased, a court that believed him an idiot, flawed.

He knew Berylina's anguish. He understood her pain.

Before he could decide what to say, how to act, there was a commotion on the stairs that led to the solar. “Your Majesty!” Hal recognized his page's voice, even as Farsobalinti stepped toward the door to the chamber. When Berylina's sobs grew louder at the newcomer's shout, Hal stepped in front of her, blocking her from Calaratino's sight.

“Your Majesty!” the boy called again.

“King Halaravilli is here, boy,” Farso said, reaching out a hand to steady the gasping page. “What message do you bear for him?”

Calaratino staggered forward a step, still gulping for air, and he looked about the solar as if he were in a strange new land. Farso rested a hand on the boy's shoulder, shaking him slightly, as if that would summon a speedier reply.

The page remembered himself enough to sketch a bow toward Hal, and he cast a glance at the sobbing princess. Hal narrowed his eyes, and Farso acted on the implicit order. “Come, Calaratino,” the knight said. “What message was so important that you ran to find us here?”

The page extended an oiled tube, with lead caps sealed tight on either end. “A ship just arrived in port, Your Majesty, from Morenia. This missive was entrusted to the captain, with orders that he should deliver it to you directly.”

Hal bent closer to study the tube. Beads of water had collected on its side, remnants of the storm that blew against the solar's windows. Hal rubbed his palm over the raindrops, smoothing the oiled surface, then wiped his moist fingers against his thigh. There was no sign of who had made the urgent dispatch – no seal, no ribbons, no indication whatsoever.

Farso seemed to recognize his uneasiness. “Sire, would you like me to … escort the ladies downstairs?”

Hal thought about the panic that such attentions were likely to engender, at least for the poor princess, and he sighed. “No, my lord. We are guests in Princess Berylina's solar. I've intruded enough to bring my business here, no reason to force the ladies to leave.”

Nevertheless, the message was urgent; it required his immediate attention. He strode to the rain-slicked windows at the far side of the chamber, snatching one of the lit tapers as he distanced himself from the Liantines. He set the candle on a table and took a deep breath before he opened the tube.

The parchment that slipped into his hand seemed harmless enough. There was a single sheet, curled into a roll that was narrower than his wrist. Again, there were no identifying features, not a wax seal, not a ribbon, not even a distinctive hand. He glanced for a signature, but there was none.

Muttering a prayer to all the Thousand Gods, he unrolled the parchment, turning it toward the taper to make the most of the dim light. He began to read.

“In the name of Jair.”

Hal glanced up hurriedly, scanning the oiled tube one last time for any sign of the document's provenance. Nothing. Anonymity cloaked the message, as if it wore a hood, as if it skulked about in the darkest hours of the night.

“In the name of Jair. Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall, all for want of gold. The First Pilgrim offered up his riches, one thousand bars of gold, upon the feast of First God Ait. Jair guides us in all things, blessing body and soul forever. Let all who would be true to their fellow men offer up one thousand bars, gold to serve Jair's cause. The man who strays from the First Pilgrim risks life and limb and peace everlasting but the man who honors Jair finds glory and fame. May Jair protect and keep us, forever and ever.”

A cold knife of excitement slid down Hal's spine.

The Fellowship. No one else would call on Jair so explicitly, to the exclusion of all
the gods but Ait. No one else would demand one thousand bars of gold – one thousand! –
to be true to “fellow” men.

But why? What could the Fellowship intend? Were they raising an army, purchasing Yrathi mercenaries? Were they testing Hal's dedication, ratcheting up their demands because he had produced donations before? Because he had hoped for advancement before? Was this the next test, the next measurement of his devotion, so that he might ascend to a position of authority and leadership in the Fellowship? Why now, when Hal's own treasury was nearly empty?

Hal read the message three times over, hoping that the glimmer of a promise might outweigh the veiled threat. He could not be certain, though. He could not be sure that the letter was anything more than extortion.

He could summon the ship's captain. He could demand to know who had given the man the message, how he had come to bear the scroll. He could rant. He could rave. He could threaten to torture the seaman. The answer would stay the same, though. Some Touched child, some merchant brat, some anonymous guildsman or acolyte or noble boy had brought the sealed tube to the dock. The captain had received a bag of gold for his troubles.

Or he had received a new ship, fresh-caulked against the spring-time storms.

Or his family had been threatened, his children held hostage against the scroll's safe delivery.

No. That would call attention to deeds better left obscure. Perhaps the captain was a member of the Fellowship himself.

Hal knew his own family history, understood it even better than he did his inclination to court the Fellowship with gold. He knew the legends that surrounded his forefather Jair, the First Pilgrim, the first king of Morenia. Jair was born a Touched child and journeyed through all his kingdom's castes. He discovered the power and the glory of all the Thousand Gods, building the first house in their honor. He took the title, Defender of the Faith, and he offered up a thousand bars of gold to show his dedication to the gods. A thousand bars the first year. Jair prospered as he embraced his faith; his treasury overflowed. And every year, on the feast of First God Ait, Jair had offered up another thousand bars of gold.

A thousand bars. … That was more than Hal could have spared before the fire. Even for the power that he craved within the Fellowship.

What should he do? He could tell the Fellowship that he would not pay their extortion, could not take the money from needy Moren. After all, the Fellowship had not rewarded him for any of his earlier donations. There was no certainty they would do so now.

But there was a possibility that they might
penalize
him now. The letter contained a threat. The Fellowship might spread rumors of their secret meetings, hints and whispers, enough to rock Hal's sovereignty, if not so much as to expose the actual Fellowship. He would need to explain, then. Justify.

And if the Fellowship spoke, Hal's people would conclude that he was all that they had feared. They would believe that he was weak, that he was manipulated. They would question the secrets he'd told others, the shadows that lurked behind the throne of Morenia. They would wonder if he worked for Liantine, for Brianta, for other lands that hoped to take Morenia for their own.

If Hal wanted to keep his throne, he must pay the Fellowship, regardless of any possible advancement that payment might afford him in the shadowy ranks.

One thousand bars of gold, by the feast of First God Ait. That left him some time – six months. Six months to raise a fortune, when he already owed the church, when he already was committed to paying carpenters and merchants, guildsmen and leeches.

He looked across the room to Berylina, to the disheveled child who was only beginning to recover from her shock at a boisterous page's unexpected entrance. Her eyes were red from crying, and her hair was in disarray. Her rabbit teeth stood out in the dim light, a beacon to her strangeness. Hal looked at her crumpled drawing, the ruined Horned Hind, and he glanced at the stack of parchment, the eerily well-drawn portraits of the gods.

He needed Berylina's dowry. Now. He needed her to stand beside him, to secure his line, to grant him an heir. Only so secured could he imagine taking any stand against the Fellowship. Only so buttressed could he demand the status that he craved within their ranks, the status that would – paradoxically – protect him from scandal. For he
would
advance within the Fellowship. If not this year, then the next, or the year after that. When his own house was in order. When his own line was established. Secure.

He rolled the cryptic parchment tight and shoved it back inside its tube. “My lord Farsobalinti?”

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Let us leave these good ladies to their diversions. I am returning to my apartments. Please see that Lady Rani and Lady Mair attend me immediately. If you will excuse me, Princess Berylina.”

Another girl might have resented his departure. Another princess might have demanded that he speak with her, that he while away a gloomy afternoon in courtly jest and play. Another bride might have refused to let him leave, to let him meet with ladies of his court.

Berylina, though, looked at him with exhaustion, and a hint of relief. “Of course, Your Majesty.” She crossed to her easel and picked up her blood-red chalk, beginning to draw before Hal had left the room.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 9

 

Mareka Octolaris leaned her head against the cool window. Rain streaked down the panes, pulling the heat of her flushed face through the glass. She closed her eyes against the silver brightness and reminded herself to take a deep breath, to exhale some of the fire that burned in her blood. The octolaris nectar that she had just consumed was strong, almost too strong.

She had brewed the potion to be more potent than she ever would have dared back at the spiderguild. There, masters would have reminded her that she was only an apprentice, that she did not have the skill to handle the largest doses of dilute octolaris poison. But here, in Liantine, she needed to manipulate the strongest spiders the guild had ever known.

Mareka lifted her head, and the blood in her cheeks flamed hotter. The delicate embroidery of her arm-band seared into her flesh. She had decided to don the symbol of a spiderguild journeyman, if only in secrecy beneath her formal gown. After all, it had not been
her
fault that she had been kept from her examination. Jerusha had ordered the slave girl to her death. Serena's poisoning was not Mareka's doing.