Glasswrights' Master (27 page)

Fools. They should learn from the soldiers around them. They should realize there were dark forces afoot. There was danger in the forest, danger that could silence their easy laughter forever.

Kella strode across the clearing, lengthening her stride so that her young guard needed to trot to keep up with her. When she reached the players, she marched to the largest, most gaudy tent. She did not clap a warning, did not call out any greeting. Instead, she ducked inside as if she had every right to be there.

“My lady,” the page gasped, comically lifting the flap and peering after her.

“That's not a lady,” Tovin said, looking up from his work table. “That's an herb witch.” He smiled lazily as the boy's eyes goggled. “Go ahead, Calindramino. You may leave us.”

The page looked uncertain, but he complied with Tovin's easy command. As the tent flap fell into place, Tovin stood and walked around his work table. “And I suppose you're here to complain about Rani?”

“Rani?” Kella had planned her answer to the question, and she managed to sound as if she'd never met the interfering little merchant in her life.

“Aye.” Tovin sounded a shade uncertain. “She said that she was going to see you this afternoon.”

“No one has come to my cottage.” She forced herself to meet his eyes, to drop the words with casual ease.

He started to protest but turned the words into a shrug. “To what do I owe this pleasure, then?”

“I've come to try your Speaking.”

If he were surprised, he did not betray the emotion. “Now? You want to Speak?”

“Aye. I think that I did not apply myself before. I've taken some euphrasia, to heighten my memories.”

“Speaking does not require herbs, Kella. You should be able to do it by focusing your thoughts alone.”

“And you should be able to remember your dreams, traveling man! Are you going to help me in this?”

Tovin shrugged and smiled easily. “I'll help you. But you know the players charge for their services.”

“I've three silver Flowers. They're yours. Let's do this now!”

The first flicker of concern crossed his brow. “Kella, I can help you to Speak, but first tell me what is wrong. Why are you in such a hurry?”

“I cannot tell you.” She read the concern on his face, wondered how his expression would change if he knew that Rani Trader was bound inside her cottage. “Traveling man, you do not want to hear my tale, I assure you.” She put all of her energy into the lie, harnessed every lesson she had ever learned about human nature.

He must help her. Now. Here. Without asking more questions, without pressuring her to say what had happened that afternoon. Without alerting the northern troops around them.

And by whatever miracle, he yielded. He nodded toward the low camp chair in the center of the tent, beside his well-tended fire. “Sit, then, Kella. Sit and stare into the flames. Tell me where you wish to go with your Speaking, and I will try to lead you there.”

She had thought hard about how to phrase her search. “There is a handsel that came to me at the height of spring. She promised payment if I would help her, but she has not yielded up her gold. I need to remember what she said, determine where she lives. I need the gold she owes me.”

Tovin's lips crooked in a smile that did not quite reach his copper eyes. “You'll fight for the Speaking, then, when your purse is on the line. It was not enough that I wanted to bring you there myself?”

“I'm too old for your games, traveling man,” Kella said, and anxiety sharpened her voice. “I need this! I thought that you would help me!”

“I'll help,” he soothed. “We players collect our tales where we can. I'll listen to the story of your handsel, and I'll be content.”

“I can't tell you that!” Panic tightened her chest. “I can't share information about her!”

Tovin shook his head. “I do not Speak for free. Not even for you. You must pay for the Speaking.”

“Three silver Flowers.”

“Coins alone never pay for Speaking. The telling is part of the bargain.”

“No!” Her desperation honed her voice until it was as sharp as the blade that Crestman had traced across her throat. “I cannot tell. Not if I expect to remain an herb witch one more day of my life.”

For a moment, they merely stood there, gazing at each other without compromise. Kella read more strength in the traveling man than she had ever seen in her cottage, more determination than he had ever let on. She pleaded, “Let me do this, traveling man. Let me work the Speaking. If I can find this tale in my own mind, I'll Speak another for you tomorrow night.”

He paused, and she wondered if he were remembering other nights with her. Did he recall lying on her pallet? Did he think of the pleasures she had shown him, the lessons that she'd taught after a lifetime of enhancing senses with her herbs?

“Very well,” he said at last. “I'll lead you in the Speaking tonight, and you will return tomorrow night. You'll share another tale as payment.”

She forced her voice to be even, forced herself to believe in tomorrow, if only for a broken heartbeat. “I'll share another tale.”

He gestured again toward the chair, and she seated herself, grateful for the support as relief rushed over her. He said, “You remember how to begin?” He brushed his hands over her shoulders, and she let his touch carry away some of her tension. He must have realized the calming effect the contact had, for he returned his hands, settled them lightly so that she was just aware of his physical presence behind her. “All right, then,” he said. “Breathe deeply. Inhale. Exhale. Again. Again.”

She forced herself to listen to him, to lean back against his chest. He was a traveling man, a young man, a man who could never be trusted with a foolish old woman's heart. But he had never lied to her, not in all the time that he had come to her cottage. He had never harmed her. She could trust him, trust him to stand behind her, trust him to guide her along his mysterious Speaking path.

“Picture a stream that wanders through the woods. You are walking beside the stream, watching the water. Watch the water, Kella. Let it flow. Let it go by you. Let it take your thoughts. Let it take your worries.”

She could see the stream; she had wandered through the forest countless times. She gave herself over to his words, let them wash over her like the flow of water over silt and sand.

As if he saw the images in her mind, he said, “There are stones in the river, stepping stones. You can reach the first by stepping out from shore. Your footing is sure. You are steady and confident. The water flows around your feet easily, gently. As you step to the first stone, count out loud. One,” he prompted.

“One,” she whispered. And she
could
feel the stone beneath her foot. She could feel the water. This was different from all the other times that she had tried the Speaking. She was not trying this for him. She was Speaking for herself, for her own need, her own growing, demanding–

“Easy,” he said, and his voice soothed her back toward the river. “Breathe easily. Stay at the stream. Stay at the stones. You're on the first one. Picture the second. Picture the second, and when you're ready, take the step. When you're ready, count the stone. Count two.”

“Two,” she breathed, and she felt the second stone.

“And when you're ready, take the next. You can count them. You don't need me to count them for you.”

“Three,” she said, and the third stone was there. “Four.” Surprise welled up inside her, but she offered it to the stream, let it wash downriver before it could topple her from the stepping stone. “Five.”

She thought about counting the other stones, thought about saying their numbers out loud, but that was not necessary. Tovin would understand. He would stay behind her; he would continue to guide her. She felt his voice more than heard it, felt the words whisper inside her mind. “Very good, Kella. The next stone is a large one. You can move to it now. Take the step. Very good. You can sit on this stone. You can let the water flow around you. You can stretch out on the stone, lie flat upon its surface. Let the water flow past. Feel it in your hair. Feel it against your body. Let the water take you farther away. Farther. Farther.”

With a part of her mind, she knew that she was leaning against his chest, sitting upright on a stool in the middle of the northerners' camp. She could open her eyes whenever she wished, come back to the camp and its dangers and its threats.

With more of her mind, though, she was suspended in the river of her memory, deep within her own recollections. She was safe there. She was secure. Tovin spun out more words. “You can see the water flow beside you. Shapes form in the water. You can see them without opening your eyes. You can watch the shapes, watch them like a dream playing out before your eyes. One of the shapes is your handsel. Do you see her?”

Jalina materialized from the water, appeared before Kella as if she had stepped from a bank of fog. Tovin was waiting for an answer, waiting patiently, and she took her time replying. “Yes.”

“You can hear your handsel speak. She is saying the words that she said on the night that you first met. You have greeted her at your cottage, and she is responding to your greeting. Do you hear her?”

Jalina made a curious bow, far too formal for a rustic woman. The strange greeting was made more bizarre by the careful hand she held over her just-swollen belly. “Greetings, madam,” Jalina said. “I have asked along the road, and they tell me that you are a wise woman with herbs.”

Again, Tovin was waiting. Kella pulled away from the memory just enough to say, “Yes.”

“Look through the water, then,” Tovin said. “Look at your handsel and listen to her. Remember what she told you–with her words and her actions and her very appearance. Remember all that you need to recall, so that you can settle your debts.”

Kella heard the words as a suggestion, realized that she had the power to do whatever she wished. If she desired, she could end the Speaking then and there, open her eyes, stand straight on her feet, leave the player, leave the tent, leave the Great Clearing. But she chose to stay. She chose to linger in the stream, to contemplate her vision of Jalina.

The woman had clearly walked to Kella's cottage. She was flushed, and perspiration dampened her brow, but she was not exhausted. She could not have come very far, then. Not in her delicate condition.

Kella looked at Jalina more closely, checking for more evidence of her hiding place. There was fresh earth upon the hem of her gown, a deep red clay that glinted almost black in the moonlight. Kella recognized the stuff; beds lay all along the Greenbank Creek.

There. On the sleeve of Jalina's robe. Bright yellow pollen stood out in the moonlight, glinting like the gold that the woman promised to pay her. Pollen from the otria plant; Kella knew it well. It grew up the Greenbank's left fork, just beyond a giant clump of ferns.

And there. Sap glistened in sticky beads against Jalina's hair. She had brushed against a tree. Kella took a deep breath. A spruce tree. Spruce grew above the crook in the left branch, the tiny tributary of the Greenbank that flowed back to the north.

And then, Tovin was speaking to her again. “When you are ready, let the images flow down the stream. Let your handsel leave you.” Kella closed her mind's eye, let Jalina spread out over the surface of the water. “When you are ready, you can sit up on the stone. You can stand and turn back toward the river bank. You can walk back to shore, where you will awaken from our Speaking, feeling rested and at peace. You will remember all that you learned about your handsel. You can cross back over the stones whenever you choose. Count them as you go. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

Kella's eyes flew open. Speaking. She had done it. She had reached inside her memory.… She stood up, astonished by the energy that beat through her veins. Her first step, though, left her swaying.

“Easy!” Tovin said, and his voice hid a laugh. “Take a moment to center yourself. Tell me what you saw.”

“I can't!” She heard the power in her voice, remembered all of her reasons for rushing, for hurrying. “I mean, I will. But I have to go now. I'll talk to you tomorrow night.”

She wouldn't, though. She could hear the knowledge in her own voice, she could hear her acceptance. If by some miracle she was alive tomorrow night, she would be far from the Great Clearing. Far from the Sisters, and the Fellowship, and the forest she had known all her life.

“Kella–”

“I have to go. I'll come back to the camp, though. I promise. As soon as I am able.”

He let her go, of course. There wasn't anything else that he could do. There wasn't any way to keep her, short of tying her to his camp stool, and she knew that he would not do that.

He was a young man. He would forget her soon enough. She smothered the pang of loss that shot through her chest. She had never harvested his dreams. She had never learned the strange things that drifted through his mind while he slept.

And now, she never would.

It was dusk outside the tent. Shadows melted into dim evening light, and Kella would have missed the page if he had not asked, “Will you come to the cooking fires, then?”

“No. Just back to the path.” She drew her cloak high over her shoulders, settling the hood so that it hid her face. It would not do to encounter anyone she knew in the camp. Not now. Not when she had a solid path beneath her feet for the first time in weeks.

And, for once, her luck held. She left the Great Clearing and made her way along the wide forest path. She found the narrower trail she needed. She arrived at the Greenbank, and she followed the stream until full darkness had settled over the forest.

Her own hem became stained with red clay. Twice, she slipped, and only the strength in her hands, her strength and her speed at reaching out for strong grasses and spindly trees, kept her from splashing into the stream.