Glasswrights' Master (7 page)

The loudest sound, though, the clearest voice, was Mair's–Mair's mad chatter as she narrated events to the square of black silk around her wrist. So many lives gone, so much traded for so little.…

In the end, only Rani had been able to persuade him to leave the railing. She had turned his head away forcibly, guiding him down the steep, narrow stairs to the hold. She had handed him over to his squire and told him that he must shed his royal robes, that he must burn those clothes, now, before they could incriminate him. She had told him to be strong.

And he had listened to her. He had begun to plan, even before the sun had set on that first dark day of banishment. He had gathered up the ship's charts and its maps. He had led his puny army in long strategy sessions as the boat rocked back and forth, as he forbade himself from imagining the ruins of his capital.

Hal had balanced safety and speed, calculated security and strength. Ultimately, he convinced them that they should head for Sarmonia, for the southern kingdom that had so far stayed uninvolved in Moren's brutal politics.

Sarmonia was a risk, of course. It was no accident that King Hamid had removed himself from the fights among his northern neighbors. He plied trade with Liantine, but he had almost no connections to the distant Briantans. In the past few years, he had begun to purchase spidersilk from Hal, gladly undermining his own costly bonds to the original spiderguild. But would he take up arms against Liantine's bellicose house of Thunderspear? Would he set his own kingdom on the line?

Amid the uncertainty, Hal convinced his followers that they could not approach Hamid directly. They should avoid the great Sarmonian coastal cities altogether, put in at some village on the shore, or better yet, an unprotected natural port. They should make their way across the land slowly, carefully, sending out their own messengers to gather information, to sense Hamid's will before they forced his hand.

And so it had been done. The soldiers who had rescued Hal in the Morenian cathedral proved competent seamen, purposely beaching their shallow boat along a stretch of deserted coastline. Reluctantly, Hal had helped to stave in the bottom, had watched water seep up between the well-caulked planks. Retreat by sea became impossible.

Hal had led his men into the great forest that spread across the northern third of Sarmonia. He tried to make a game of it, keeping up his followers' spirits by acting as if they were on an extended hunt, making merry in the woods as a sort of late summer play. He used his maps to measure out paths through the forest, to trace the ancient roads that passed beneath the wooded canopy.

All the time, he maneuvered his men closer to his true destination, knowing that he was creating a new danger even as he sought to ease the fear deepest in his heart. Mareka hid inside the Sarmonian woods. His wife and son were safe within the forest. That much Hal knew from a lone messenger who had made his way back to Morenia during brighter days, in a more hopeful time.

If Hal's men wondered at his familiarity with the maps, if they questioned how he knew the woodland paths, they did not speak of their suspicions. Instead, they followed his lead, acting for all the world as if they were celebrating a prolonged feast day of the gods. They managed to ignore the fact that they set a guard at night, that Mair prowled about the camp like a mad ghost, that Rani Trader watched and waited, silently assessing their progress.

And Hal listened to the voices growing inside his mind, the despairing voices that he thought he had silenced, once in Amanthia, then again in Liantine. He knew the seductive power of their rhymes, understood the sing-song power of their chants. They pulled him deeper into himself, into his sorrow, into his fear. They made him less a king and more a mortal man. They cut him off and left him lonely and afraid.

Afraid for his life. Afraid for his wife. Afraid of a knife.

A knife, or a sword, or a vial of poison. The Fellowship could find him here, or Briantans could, or Liantines, even the good loyal men of King Hamid. All could bear death.

Hal ran his palms down the rough clothes that he had donned on the ship, that he had worn every day since arriving in Sarmonia. The doeskin was well-tanned, for which he was grateful. The breeches were neatly cut, as if the hunter who had worn them before him had been his twin. The jerkin was loose enough that he could move with ease, and yet it felt protective. It had not saved the deer that gave it, of course, but it might keep him secure a while longer.

“Sire!”

Hal knew the voice before he even turned around. “Rani.”

“The men are gathered for their mid-day meal, Sire.”

“Have them eat, then.”

“They will not. Not until you join them.”

It was some blasted conspiracy, he knew, some plot to save him from the whispering creatures inside his own mind. Whether the cabal was led by Rani or by Farso, or most likely of all, by Puladarati, it had worked so far. He was responsible for his men. They demanded leadership of him; they dragged him out from the dark places deep in his own thoughts. After all, how could a good king let his loyal men go hungry?

I'm not a good king, Hal wanted to say. I can't be that leader. I can't be that man.

Instead, he turned to Rani and forced a smile, hoping that she would understand if it was somewhat wan. “Let us go, then.”

The men were gathered in the center of the small clearing. They had built rough sheds on the edges of the woods, using fallen limbs for walls and woven leaves for ceilings. The shelters would never suffice in the winter, but for the summer, they were good enough.

Immediately upon arriving in Sarmonia, Father Siritalanu had assumed responsibility for cooking for the party–on their first day in the clearing, he had pulled the grass free from a circle in the precise center of the field. He tended his fire with the devotion of a fanatic, managing a pair of tripods and their matching cauldrons. The man was a fair hand at stews, and he had managed to grill a string of river trout the night before without losing a single one to the flames.

“My lord!” called out one of his soldiers. The men were not calling him “Sire” here,
and certainly not “Your Majesty,” not while they were assuming the guise of mere hunting companions.
Nevertheless, the informality reminded Hal of all that he had lost, all that he had left behind. Not
that he had ever craved being called king, not that he had ever wished for the title.…

He started to grimace a reply, but Rani stepped closer to him. She spoke in a low voice: “They need you, my lord. Be their leader.”

She was right. He knew that. He must be the man that they could respect. He must be the one that they could look up to, that they could honor with their lives. Only if he remained worthy were the deaths of their comrades justified. Only if he were a great king did the lost Morenian lives have meaning.

Hal forced a smile and gestured about the clearing, making sure that his motion was expansive enough to include all the men. “What have we here? Some sort of broth, by the smell of it. There looks to be enough for me, but what will the rest of you eat?”

The feeble jest was appreciated. Puladarati nodded once from across the clearing, and Hal felt a rebellious flare of pleasure. Of course he knew how to lead his men. Of course he knew what was right.

He filled his wooden bowl from the cauldron, consciously striking a jaunty pose in his doeskin breeches. “Thank you, Father,” he said. “This smells as good as any fare I've eaten from the royal kitchens.” Siritalanu's face was flushed from the fire, and his color deepened at the compliment.

As had become his custom during their stay, Hal stalked across the clearing and settled on a fallen log. The unusually smooth trunk did double duty as both table and chair. He was not surprised when Puladarati came to join him, balancing his own bowl in his three-fingered hand. “The men were worried about you, my lord.”

“I was not far. I went down the path to find some quiet, some space to think. They could have heard me, if I'd called for help.”

“They're more comfortable if they can see you.”

“They're afraid I might disappear, stolen away by wood-sprites? That would make this entire adventure unnecessary, wouldn't it? They'd all be free to return home.”

Puladarati did not laugh at the grim joke. Instead, he set down his bowl and leaned closer to his king. “They don't want to go home, my lord. Not without you. Not without a crown upon your head and an army at your back.”

Hal tried to look away from the old general's commanding gaze. “I know that.”

“I don't think you do. I don't think you realize what you mean to these men. They chose to do this. Back in Moren, when things grew grim, they came to me. They volunteered for service, based only on the growing rumor of threats against you. When we first learned that the Liantines and Briantans planned to attack together, those men purchased a boat. They obtained the charts. They paid off the harbor master to escape Morenia. They love you, Halaravilli ben-Jair, and they will fight to see you returned to your rightful home. With them. Not without.”

“I know that!” Hal said again, and he looked away in desperate hope that Puladarati would not see what the admission cost him. Of course he knew that men would die for him. He also knew that he was not worthy of that sacrifice. He was not worthy of that price, not worthy of the lives that had already been spilled out on the cathedral floor, in the Moren streets, at the city gates and in the waters of its harbor.

“Then act as if you know it!” Puladarati insisted, sounding for all the world as if he were once again Hal's regent, once again a strict disciplinarian bent on bringing his rebellious young charge into line. “Talk to them! Guide them! Give them some assurance that you have a plan, that all will be well in the end!”

“And if I don't? If I don't have the least idea of how I'm going to get us out of this forest and back home?”

Puladarati gazed at him steadily. “Act as if you do, Sire.” Sire. Father. Leader of all these men, all of Moren, all of Morenia. “Act as if you do. You might begin now.”

With that, Puladarati glanced up, seeming to discover by chance a newcomer on the edge of their conversation. “Ah! Davin! Come and join us!”

Hal did not have an opportunity to gainsay his advisor, did not have the chance to escape from Davin. Instead, the old man hobbled over to the trunk. Hal stood instinctively, reaching out to steady the ancient retainer's arm, to ease him down to sit. As always, Hal was captivated by the wrinkles on Davin's face, by the gulleys etched deep beside his eyes, flowing into his long, tangled beard.

There was a tattoo carved high upon his cheekbone, a mark that had been given him when he was born in the distant kingdom of Amanthia. No one could read that symbol now, could decipher it from the deep lines of age. Not for the first time, Hal wondered if Davin had been marked as a worker, a sun, or if he had been labeled a thinker, an owl. He might have been a soldier, a lion, or even a leader, a swan–status and history were long lost on the ancient man's face, in the years and years and nearly endless years of his life.

“Come, Davin. Eat with us and tell us what you've learned today in strange Sarmonia.”

“I've learned that an old man's food will grow cold if he shares all his knowledge with the young.”

Well, thought Hal. Here's another man who does not hold me in awe. “Drink your broth, then. Drink, and listen to me while you chew whatever roots our good father has added to the pot.”

Davin grunted and raised a spoon to his lips.

Hal said, “Here's the problem, as I see it. You've spent the past six years strengthening my capital, securing Moren's walls, protecting her against invasion. You forged a chain to block her port, and you belted her gates with iron. You increased the guards upon her walls, and the stations where they could shelter. You had my soldiers dig a moat on the landward plain, and you diverted seawater to fill it. You created stone spikes and sank them in the harbor, and you crafted the machinery to raise them up again, to pen enemy ships at will.”

Davin shoved a partly-chewed bit of food into his cheek and nodded. His eyes were midnight dark, but a shadow of pride lurked in the downward curve of his lips as he said, “Aye, I've done all that.”

“And now you must undo it. Now you must devise a way for us to break past those defenses and regain our homeland.”

“Your enemies now hold all that I built.”

Hal fought against his immediate angry reply–those enemies would not have succeeded if Davin had done his job well enough. “
Our
enemies,” he gave strong emphasis to the first word, “have broken through some of those strengths. Now we must defeat the others. Now we must find our way back to fair Moren, liberate her.”

Davin downed another spoonful of broth, acting for all the world as if he had not heard his king. He stared across the clearing, blinking hard. He grimaced at two of the younger soldiers, snorting at their horseplay as they fought for extra rations.

“Did you hear your king, man?” Puladarati prompted at last.

“Aye, I heard him.” Davin swallowed. “I heard him, but he has no idea what he's saying. I built those defenses to keep all men out.”

“Then you failed!” Hal said, before Puladarati could stop him. “Or maybe you did not notice the Briantans who stormed our gate? Maybe you forgot about the Liantines who blockaded our harbor?”

“No defenses are perfect. I told you at the time that men enough and time enough would break the iron gates.”

“The city was taken by soldier priests from Brianta! Not hardened warriors! Not trained fighting men!”

Davin pinned Hal with shadowed eyes, with a gaze so dark that Hal could not distinguish pupil from iris. “The city was conquered by traitors, and you know it. The city was conquered by your Holy Father Dartulamino, who opened the gates, or had them opened. The city was conquered by fools.”