Glasswrights' Journeyman (41 page)

Tovin brushed past a kitchen garden, pushing his way through feathery herbs. Beyond the plantings, there was a field of blinding white stone. The player's boots crunched on the surface, the sound echoed by Rani's own feet. Tovin headed toward an unassuming heap of bricks.

A pair of donkeys stood beside the structure, lazily lipping at grass that struggled in the shadows. The draft beasts trailed their harnesses, and Rani saw that two massive yokes had been settled haphazardly against the brick wall. A spider was carved into each frame, the eight legs creeping across the wood like a cancer.

“What is this?” Rani panted as she caught up with Tovin.

For answer, he pushed open a door, revealing a passage barely wide enough for a laden donkey to pass through. When Rani hesitated to enter, the player crossed his arms over his chest. “Come see what you compete against. Come see how the spiderguild prospers.” His words were mocking, condemning, and Rani wanted to explain, wanted to make him understand that she had had no choice but to work for Moren, no choice but to bid for the trees, whatever the cost to the players, to Tovin. To Crestman.

She wanted to explain, and she wanted to turn away, to go back to the front of the guildhall, to the bright morning light. Anything would be better than Tovin's furious superiority. Anything at all.

Swallowing hard, she forced herself to step forward. Over the threshold. Into the darkness.

No. Not darkness. There was no roof overhead. The brick wall was nothing more than a shield to keep the unwary from falling down a steep ramp. Rani looked across the enclosure to a matching hole, another mouthed ramp.

Tovin turned to Rani, half-bowing. “My lady,” he said with a condescending sneer, and Rani bristled as she began to descend.

The passage was carved from stone, after the first few feet of earth. The ramp curved around a central column of excavated space, the shaft of the well itself. Every ten paces, a window broke through from the enclosed ramp to the shaft.

Taking a deep breath, Rani approached the next gap. When she looked up, she could see two rows of windows above her, cut into the stony column that stretched to the sky. Looking down, she found that windows spiraled beneath her, spinning out like a spiderweb to dot the inside of the stone shaft. She leaned out further, further, stretching to see the bottom of the well. “Roan preserve us!” she gasped, calling out to the god of ladders for lack of another protector against the dizzying height. Rani had always liked high places, had always reveled in the power of ladders and scaffolds. This, though, was nearly too much, even for her. She pulled herself back over the window's stony lip.

Tovin snorted and gestured for her to lead the way down. At the bottom of the well, the walls were damp, traced by rivulets that trickled silently into a vast, spreading pool. Thick wooden planks stretched across the water. Rani wondered how deep it was, but before she could ask, Tovin reached into the leather pouch at his waist. He pulled out a misshapen lump of blood-red glass – a scrap from the players' panels, Rani realized. He held his hand over the water for a moment, and then he released the drop. Rani watched the glass sink through the water, fall into the shadows, disappear into the endless depth of the well. She could not see the bottom; she could not imagine how much water pooled beneath her. The well held more water than many rivers. More water than in all of Moren.

Only when the crimson drop was lost in the shadows at the bottom of the well did Rani dare to speak. “This is what they need, then? The riberry trees?”

“This. Or some other way to get them water.”

“Four and twenty buckets a day.”

“For each of your trees. For every one that you bought upon a child's back.” Tovin's fury had faded to spite. “But you can tell your king that you won your bargain. You won your bargain, and you cut the players off from their sponsor.”

“That was not supposed to happen!”

“Of course not.” He was mocking her.

“I only meant to help my king.”

“Without thought for anyone else. For any
thing
else. You used me, Ranita Glasswright. My players will be lost without a patron – all because you had to prove that you were right. You had to prove that you could best the spiderguild.”

“That's not true!” Rani had not bargained for herself at all. She had negotiated on behalf of all of Moren, all the men, women, and children who suffered in the fire's bitter wake. Even now, she could picture the orphans, coughing blood past their sooty lips. She could see the bodies of the dead, stacked like firewood. Like the riberry trees that would also die in Morenia, starved without the water they required. Riberry trees that could only become the faggots to burn the corpses that counted out Rani's failure.

Unless Rani had spoken some version of the truth in Anigo's chamber. If Davin
could
find a way to save Morenia. … If Davin could construct some massive engine, some pump to convey water to the riberry trees. …

“That's not true, Tovin,” she repeated. Her defiance echoed off the stone shaft, but the player set his fists against his hips and strode over the planks, crossing to the other ramp, to the one that led up from the bottom of the well.

Rani hurried across the pool, forbidding herself to think about how much water was beneath her, how much water she would need for the trees. For Hal's trees. For Hal's spiders. For Mareka's spiders. Once again, she ordered her thoughts away from the manipulative spiderguild apprentice, from the currency she suspected Hal must have paid for the octolaris.

“Tovin!” she cried, and the player was pulled around by the force of the single word. “You must believe that I did not plan to hurt the players! I would not betray you! If you do not believe me, then Speak with me! Let me tell you that way.”

“Speak with you.” His voice dripped with scorn. “You should know more than that by now, Ranita Glasswright. Anyone can lie while she Speaks. Anyone can tell stories. Speaking does not bind you in any way.”

It
had
bound her, though. It had bound her to this tall player, to his satin voice. She needed to know that he did not hate her, that the bond between them was not destroyed. Even here, even now, with Crestman carried away and the Little Army soldiers enslaved above her, Rani could remember the lure of Speaking, the cool blue stream that had called to her, soothed her, drawn her to Tovin. She wanted that water to carry her away, past the spiderguild, past riberry trees and octolaris, past all the bargains that she had made. The bargains that she had made, and Hal as well, in Liantine, with Mareka. …

“Tovin,” she whispered, and the sound curved back along the stone ramp.

He paused by the first window, framed in the diffuse light that made its way down the well shaft. Rani could see the stiffness in his shoulders, the hard line of his jaw.

She strode up the ramp.

He was taller than she was; she circled half around so that she did not have to look up at his face. Her fingers on his spidersilk tunic were certain; her palm lay flat against his chest, absorbing the beat of his heart through the fabric.

For just an instant, Rani was catapulted into her past. Years ago, she had stood before a man this way. She had felt her blood stir at his strong, handsome face, her breath come short beneath the power of his gaze. He had given her an almond cake, and she had thought that she might love him. But she had been tricked, driven by forces beyond her control. She had killed that other man.

And Crestman. Crestman who was a slave now, who had forfeited his birthright, and his commission in the Little Army. Crestman who had been the first man to kiss her.

Things were different now. Tovin was no soldier. Rani was not controlled by others. She could make her own choices.

She leaned forward and brushed her lips against the startled player's. He started to draw back, but she closed her hands in his tunic. “You must believe me,” she whispered. “I meant you no harm. Not you or the players. Not back there, with Lord Anigo. And not now.” His mouth was hot beneath hers, and she felt him respond to the urgency of her words.

“Ranita,” he warned, the sound almost lost in the rustle of fabric. He raised a hand to the V of flesh at her throat, and she felt a salty sting when he touched the raw nick from the spiderguild guards.

“Hush.” She enforced the command by lacing her fingers with his. “I am a guildsman, Tovin Player. I can sponsor your players' troop. I can grant you passage on all the roads.”

“Not in Liantine.” His voice was husky. “Not here. Ranita, you don't know what you're doing.”

“I know.” She swallowed hard and met his gaze. “I know precisely what I'm doing. You have taught me, Tovin Player. You taught me how to cut glass, how to set it. I am a glasswright, and I have the power of all Morenia behind me. I can help your players, if you will let me.”

His copper eyes were dark, nearly black in the well's gloom. Still, she understood the questions that he asked her, the answers he demanded. “I will, Tovin Player,” she said, and then she pulled their hands between them, drawing him close, close enough that he knew all of her promises, all of her plans, all of her desires that flowed beside the Speaking stream, just beneath the surface of her thoughts.

 

 

 

Chapter 15

 

Hal watched Mareka, measuring the concern that etched her face as she glanced about his apartments. “We still have no word from the spiderguild, my lord?”

“This is the first day that my people
could
return. The first day, if they were not detained by your masters.”

“Not mine,” she said. “Not mine any longer.” He noted her tone, both the resignation and the anger. “They ceased to be my masters the day you took their spiders from me.”

“I did not take them, lady. You gave them of your own free will. You could have brought them back to your guildhall. You could have turned them over to certain death.”

“That is not fair, my lord! Admit that you have used me! You used me for your own gain, after all that passed between us.”

Hal flushed, betrayed by a sudden memory of her flesh hot beneath his hands. “You came to
me
, Mareka. You came to me with your cursed octolaris nectar. You may not pass responsibility for that.”

She clutched at her skirts, gathering up the spidersilk between her fingers and freeing it to fall in crinkled planes. Her temper sparked in her eyes, and once again Hal saw the woman who had manipulated him in Liantine's Great Hall, the schemer who had led him to believe she was a princess, the woman that he meant to court. Her voice was low when she replied, so low that he had to take a step closer to make out her words. “Is that the way King Teheboth would see things? Is that what the house of Thunderspear will think, if they hear that you took another woman beneath their very roof when you were courting the only daughter of the king?”

“You would not dare, Mareka. You would not dare to tell your tales of lying and seduction.”

“Why not, my lord? What have I to lose? Not a crown. Not a dowry.”

“A reputation, though. Mareka Octolaris, to all the world outside these doors, you are a brave apprentice who dared to save your spider brood. You acted to protect a precious treasure that your close-eyed guildmasters would have destroyed. You allied yourself with me – with the enemy – because you had been raised to that duty since birth.”

“You forget, my lord. I am not bound to you in any formal way. I could save my spiders still, by offering them up to Teheboth.”

Hal had not thought of that option. He had believed Mareka to be under his control. Nevertheless, he answered sharply, “And
you
forget, my lady. Teheboth has taken in Jerusha Octolaris as his daughter. He is tied to the spiderguild now. He is their ally. Give him the spiders and they die, as surely as if you returned them directly to the guildhall.”

“Are you truly so naive that you cannot imagine King Teheboth breaking with the spiderguild? It's only Jerusha that he's taken in, after all – a girl rebellious enough to ignore her masters and let a slave girl die! What would the house of Thunderspear do to break the monopoly of the spiderguild? To break that power? Imagine the wealth King Teheboth might gain – and the only thing barring him is Jerusha.” Mareka settled her hands across her belly, as if she enclosed the swollen promise of a child. “What would Prince Olric need to say, my lord? That Jerusha was barren? That she could bear the prince no heir? He'd be within his rights, then. He could set her aside.”

“And what would you do, Mareka? Would you go to Olric to offer up your spiders? Would you dose yourself with octolaris nectar, and take him unawares?”

“I could, my lord. I have the power.”

“Then you're nothing but a whore.”

He did not see her hand move, did not see the flat of her palm before the slap resounded in the chamber. His cheek stung as if she had branded him, and he caught at her wrist before she could land another blow.

“Let me gos' She twisted loose. “Let me feed my spiders!”

“
My
spiders,” he said. “You gave them into my keeping.”

Her eyes were hot as she stalked to the cages that lined the walls of his apartments. “Only because I saw no other course, my lord. Only because I saw no other way to protect my charges.”

“There is no other way, Mareka. I am the only guarantee those octolaris will live until their eggs hatch. Not Teheboth. Not Olric. Only me.”

She turned away, dismissing him with all the arrogance of a princess. He watched her cross to the basket, to the container of markin grubs. She counted out the octolaris' morning meal, transferring her squirming white victims to a silver platter that she kept there for the purpose. It took her only a moment to tie back the sleeves of her gown, to lace up the flowing garment so that the spiders would not be provoked. She bound silk strips about her wrists, providing further protection.