Glasswrights' Test (4 page)

“The gods have spoken,” Berylina announced with a child's simple confidence, rising out of her shy whirlpool for long enough to flash a trusting smile at Rani.

“Your Highness,” Rani said, barely managing to keep her tone even, her words patient. “You do not understand. I have other work here.”

“Alas, my lady,” the princess said, and her soft voice conveyed a true sorrow that was older than her years. “I fear that
you
do not understand. Clain has spoken to me. If you do not travel to Brianta now, you will never achieve mastery in your guild. You will never bring your glasswrights back to Morenia.”

Rani turned to Hal, pinning him with a heated gaze. Surely, he could have made time in his busy schedule to tell her of his command. He must have known that Rani would rebel against the princess's vision. If he had wanted to, he could have spared her this unsettling public display. “Sire?”

“Rani.” He closed the distance between them once again, coming near enough that he could rest a hand on her shoulder. “Ranita. We all have obligations.”

“Yes, Sire. And all of my time is spoken for!”

“You will find time. You will travel to Brianta to watch over Berylina, as steadily as I would myself if I could go.”

“Sire—” she began, but she let the word trail off. Could she upset Hal's balance? Should she disrupt the power that he was exercising the success he was at last enjoying? He was her king, after all. She was his vassal.

She bowed her head. “Aye, Sire. I will go with Berylina to Brianta.”

Tovin stepped up beside her as she spoke, returned from harvesting his new commissions. She felt the warmth of his body through her crimson gown.

“I will travel with you, Ranita,” Tovin said as easily as if they spoke of an afternoon's outing beyond the city walls.

Hal said, “Player, you are not required to accompany Ranita Glasswright in this task.”

“Nevertheless, I feel the call,” Tovin responded immediately, moving his hand across his chest in a fluid holy sign. If Rani did not know the player's skill, she would have thought him struck with sudden religious fervor, with a stunning insight into the Thousand Gods and all that they intended to work in the lives of men. Tovin pressed: “Your Majesty, the players came to Morenia to serve you. Do not hamper our work. Do not order me from the side of our patron.”

“Sold!” rang out the silk master, crashing his baton against the wooden podium. Another lot of spidersilk. More gold for the royal coffers.

Rani watched Hal make up his mind. She saw him nod at Tovin, absorb the player's untold promises. She saw him glance at Berylina, note the princess's whispered prayer of gratitude to Lor, gratitude for another lot of successfully auctioned silk. She saw Hal turn to her, to Rani, take her measurement to determine what she desired.

Of course, Rani wanted Tovin's companionship. She wanted the player beside her, sharing with her, teaching her. She wanted his devotion. His dry humor. His glasswright's knowledge. If she were bound to travel to Brianta, better to work with Tovin than without. She nodded her head, ducking her chin in barely perceptible agreement.

“It is settled, then. Tovin Player, you shall go.” Hal started to reach for Tovin's hand, to seal the bargain with a royal clasp, but before he could move, the door to the silk hall crashed open. Sunlight streamed into the building, spilling across the floor like golden milk.

The silk master stopped his bidding, cutting off his recitation of the glories of the cobalt silk now on the dais. All eyes turned to the doorway, to the frantic palace messenger who sprinted into the hall.

“Your Majesty!” the boy gasped. “Come quick! Queen Mareka has fallen! The midwives stand ready—your child is about to be born!”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

Parion Glasswright touched his head to the altar in the corner of his study, automatically muttering a prayer for forgiveness from all the Thousand Gods. Forgiveness, for all the mistakes that he had made in his life, for all the wrong words he had said, the ones that he had failed to say. …

Why were the unspoken words the ones that he remembered most clearly? Why was his silence the thing that haunted him most often? Not his rage, not his ranting. Rather, the times when he could have said something, could have done something to change the world around him, but had waited too long.

Years had passed in stasis, but Parion was ready to act now. He was ready to speak his mind, to take mastery over his fate and the fate of all the Morenian glasswrights under his control. Parion rested his fingers on the glass medallion that was centered on his altar—glass for Clain, the glasswrights' god. Glass for Morada, the lost love of Parion's life.

A knock on the door pulled the master to his feet. Three sharp raps. Of course the priest had come. The priest came every morning.

“Father,” Parion said, as he opened the door.

The young man hovered on the threshold, clad in the spring green robes that marked him as devoted to all the Thousand Gods. Not that such robes made him anything special in

Brianta. … Half the people in the streets wore the green garments—if not the priests, then the women who served them, the caloyas who made certain that the religious colonies were provided for, wanting neither food nor clothing nor any other material thing. Elsewhere in the world, one needed to be born into the priestly caste, but here in Brianta, converts were accepted freely. Converts with money, that was—gold could pave a thousand roads.

The priest intoned, “May the Thousand Gods bless all of your endeavors.”

“And yours, Father,” Parion replied automatically. “May First Pilgrim Jair watch over you with favor.” Every single morning, he exchanged benisons with a representative of the church; he was awakened by their cries in the street: “Blessings of the Gods! Praise be the Gods! All sing praise to the Thousand Gods!”

Shrugging, Parion crossed to his broad worktable, automatically fumbling for the gold coin he had set aside for the guild's daily offering. He placed it in the priest's outstretched hand, making a holy sign across his own chest. “Pray for us, Father. Pray for Clain to bless our glasswrights' guild.”

“In the name of Clain,” the priest replied promptly. “May your day bring you joy and prosperity.” The priest aped the sign that Parion had made, and then he bowed his way out the door.

The master glasswright shrugged as the latch snicked closed beneath his hand. At first, the priests' constant begging had annoyed him, but he had grown accustomed to the Briantan tradition. After all, if he had been back in Morenia, he would have delivered gold once a week, when he gathered with all the other guildsmen for a service in the cathedral. He would have bundled up several coins, traded them for tapers to place on Clain's altar. What difference did it make if the priest came to him, here in Brianta? What difference did it make if Parion worked his business away from the church?

At least here, the guild owed no taxes to a king. Briantan royalty understood that it was second in importance to the church; the king did not attempt to fill his treasury from the glasswrights' tattered pockets. No, Briantan royalty was . . . restrained. Weak.

Things might have been different if the Briantan princess had successfully married Halaravilli—what was it?—three years before? The royal house here might have grown in prestige. But ben-Jair had scorned the woman, sent her away without ceremony before he went and found himself his spiderguild queen.

Yet another reason for the glasswrights to stay in exile, then. There was no love lost between the ostensible rulers of Brianta and cruel Morenia. The weak Briantan king would not mind if Parion's guild grew to power, used that power against the house of ben-Jair. Parion had watched the Briantan nobility fade in the past three years, as if the return of their princess was the final plucking of fading petals.

As the king had weakened, religious factions had gained power throughout the city, throughout all of Brianta. Priests issued decrees as if they were nobles. Religious fraternities had begun to demand stricter rules—pilgrims were forbidden to walk through the streets without long robes and cloaks. Preachers had begun to cry out from street corners, expounding on the actions of loyal worshipers, dedicated pilgrims. People had begun to whisper of witches, of travelers who masqueraded as people of faith only to undermine the true foundation of Brianta.

Parion could ignore all of that religious claptrap. He had brought the glasswrights to Brianta for one simple reason: here, he was safe from rendering any payment to the house of ben-Jair. He did not need to fund royal soldiers, beasts who would trample through a guild's gardens, tear down kilns, maim and murder innocents. …

“Clain preserve us,” Parion muttered out of habit, and then he recited the Guildsman's Prayer, the familiar words that had begun each day of his craftsmanship since he was a child. “May all the gods look upon my craft with favor, and may they take pleasure in the humble art created by my hands. May Jair Himself be pleased with the humble offering I make, and may the least of my works bring glory to the world. May my works guide me to the Heavenly Fields in my proper time, as the gods do favor. All glory to the Thousand Gods.”

His fingers fumbled for the glass medallion that rested in the center of the altar. Raising it to his eyes, he gazed at the morning light that streamed through his window. The sunshine set the emblem sparkling, dancing through dust motes like the pilgrims' chants that rose from the street on the Briantan breeze.

The medallion was flawed in the middle—a jagged crack ran through its vortex of black and white. Black and white, like Morada's hair. Black and white, like the battle that raged in Parion's heart, the struggle for revenge, for stability. Despite eight years of handling the cracked medallion, it remained unbroken. He muttered a grateful prayer without specifying one of the Thousand, and he laid the glass against his forearm. The cool round drew the fire from the livid scars that laced his flesh, scars from his sworn fealty, from blood oaths strewn with salt in ben-Jair's dungeons.

Even now, after all this time, his veins heated at the memory of the Instructor who had fashioned the glass piece, at the woman who had given him the final token of her undying love.

Undying
love
perhaps, but not an undying body.

Eight years ago, Morada had been executed by Shanoranvilli ben-Jair's torturers. She had been taken by the crown as a pawn in a game that she had not begun to understand. Why hadn't she listened to Parion when he tried to warn her? Why hadn't she protected herself when he told her that no sane glasswright would toy with politics?

He could still remember how Morada had turned from him that night, the first time that she'd lied to him. Even then, she had plotted her escape from the guild's watchful eye, from Parion's arms. She had gone to some secret meeting, some clandestine assignation that had promised her the power that she craved. Desperate to create something beyond test pieces for apprentices, Morada had used her considerable glasswright skills to create a mosaic for some noble faction, to decorate their secret den.

Parion could remember the first time, months later, that he had seen the entwined snakes tattooed across her arm, twisting about themselves viciously. Hungrily. Hopelessly. She had admitted that the design was the same that she had done for the secret cabal, the same that she had set in tile in their hidden meeting place.

And yet, Clain save him, he had not ordered her to abandon the noble power struggles. A master in the glasswrights' guild, he had thought that he understood her connection to those villains. Morada was merely mourning the life that she had lost, the adventures that she was denied because of her promise to stay at the guildhall and teach. After all, Instructors often embraced extreme fashions—clothes or mannerisms or wild, extravagant feasts. They needed something to break up the monotony of their guild-bound days.

Morada! Parion thought as he polished the medallion. If only I had known! If only I had saved you from the political fray, from the vengeance of ben-Jair when he learned of the plots against him!

He had not seen her head on a pike. For that, he was grateful to all the Thousand Gods. If he had witnessed that last indignity, he might have been broken. He might not have managed the journey to Brianta. He might not have set up the new guild, gathering in his apprentices and journeymen and masters. Plotting his revenge.

Of course, many of the Morenian glasswrights never made it to Jair's distant homeland. Madness claimed some, hopelessness others. Sheer distance proved a barrier, and Parion had been loath to advertise his presence, lest misguided royalists continue to measure out revenge for the death of Prince Tuvashanoran, for the murder that had not been the guild's fault.

Nevertheless, Parion had gathered nearly four score glasswrights in his hall. Eighty guildsmen, all dedicated to Clain and craft. Some were Morenians, who had built a new life in this distant land. Others were Briantans, drawn to the fine art of the guildhall. Yet others came from distant lands, drawn by the magic of the First Pilgrim's birthplace. Many pilgrims came to Jair's homeland, but not all left.

A knock sounded at the door, rousing Parion from his bitter memories. “Come!” he called, automatically covering Morada's emblem with a sheet of parchment. He scarcely realized that he was shielding the precious thing, protecting one of the few tangible reminders of his Morenian life.

The door swung open silently, as if the gods themselves controlled the hinges. As Parion watched, a black-hooded figure entered the chamber. One gloved hand—a woman's? A man's?—reached out to the prayer bell that hung beside the door. The fingers brushed against the bronze surface, eliciting a soft jingle. “In the name of the First Pilgrim,” the newcomer whispered, the sound almost lost as the figure glided over the threshold.