Glasswrights' Master (16 page)

Kella's own breath quickened. The Royal Pilgrim. Just as the Sisters had reported years ago. Who might join together people as diverse as all those around the world? Who might pull together northerners with folk from across the sea? Who could bring the prayerful Briantans into a group of godless Liantines?

Kella could well remember the gatherings of her own little coven, the endless nights when the Sisters had discussed the Fellowship, even as they worried about the best poultices and teas and healing herbs. The Sisters had decided that the Royal Pilgrim was only a dream, a wish, the Fellowship's fantasy.

If so, though, the fantasy had lasted for long years. The Sisters had tired of the Fellowship long ago, but the cabal's obsession clearly continued.

The northerner continued in a cultured, well-educated tone. “The kingdom of Morenia is in chaos. The gates of its capital are broken, and its king is fled. Its king, of course, was one of us.”

Kella felt the soldier beside her grow even tenser at that statement. There was some bond, then, between him and the northern king. Was he a loyal fighting man, sworn to protect his liege lord against murderous attackers? Kella could not believe that. She could not believe that the brute who had assaulted her belonged by any king's side.

What, then? Why did his heartbeat pound down his arm and into his gripping fingers? Why did his blood boil at mention of the Morenian monarch?

“Tell us, then,” the soldier said, and he might have been involved in a private conversation with the northerner. “What steps have been taken to bring Morenia under our control?”

The visitor looked about the room, pinning the soldier with a gaze that managed to be steely despite the intervening silk. “Morenia's army has been broken. Its men have been tamed by public execution–one out of every ten soldiers was selected by lot and staked out on the high road leading from the city gates to the palace. Any citizen caught aiding such a soldier was executed on the spot as a traitor. Traitors were then drawn and quartered, and their heads were placed on pikes beside the public wells. Legs, arms, those were posted at the intersections of the city's greater roads. So far, only seven wells have been marked. Fewer than thirty roads are posted.”

Kella's belly turned at the grim recitation. She was not so disturbed by the words; she knew that men were harsh in times of war. Rather, she rebelled against the northerner's cold tone, his utter dismissiveness for the people his accent proclaimed to be his own. Did he not care that his countrymen had been routed? Did he not care that his homeland was crushed?

“And the Liantines?” a woman called from the group. “Have they taken back their spiders?”

“They liberated the Morenian octolaris, at least the ones within the palace. Some nobles had spiders in their own courts; we work to regain those. The Liantine silk monopoly has not regained its perfection, but it is stronger than it was before the breaking of Moren.”

Again, Kella was appalled by the man's tone. Did he not realize that he spoke of men and women and children, suffering in times of war? Did he not recognize that a city was more than stone and wood, more than trade goods, that it was the people who lived within it?

And yet, Kella could sense the assembly's overwhelming satisfaction with his response; she heard approval in their sighs and muttered prayers. They were pleased that this northern city, this Moren, was broken. They clearly desired it to be destroyed, no matter what the cost to any individual people.

Then Kella realized the true import of the story she was hearing. The northerner was willing to break his own homeland; he was willing to murder soldiers, to execute citizens, to put into danger the lives of innocent children and women. For his own goals, for the goals of the Fellowship, he was willing to hand over an entire kingdom to the invading Liantines.

And if he would aid them, there was nothing to keep him from helping the Briantans, the fervent worshipers who–at least according to the green-robed priest who had come to her cottage the day before–put witches to death.

Witches like Kella. Witches like all the Sisters.

Kella must do something. She must keep the northern conflict from spilling over into the Sarmonian forest. She must do anything in her power to keep the Fellowship from opening the gates to Sarmonia, from letting Briantans come to her. Briantans who would kill her, kill her Sisters. She must save the herb witches, whatever the cost.

She scarcely remembered to shutter her own excitement. The soldier beside her must not realize that she now had a plan, that she had recognized at last the full threat that he represented, him and his assembly. If he detected that she was more interested in the Fellowship than she had been, that she cared more, then he would cut her down on the spot.

Kella forced herself to draw three calming breaths, exhaling her tension as she emptied her lungs. She would listen to the Fellowship with new ears. She would learn all that she could, and then she would share her knowledge with the Sisters. Together, the herb witches would figure out a way to protect themselves, to keep Sarmonia clean of the Briantan scourge.

Listening sharply now, Kella heard how the Sarmonian fellows deferred to the northerner, how they asked tentative questions, how they nodded obsequiously at his answers. All of the discussion centered around the Royal Pilgrim. The entire assembly agreed that the time for the Royal Pilgrim was drawing nigh; each had a vision of who that person might be, of what they might discover.

Kella could not care one root or petal about the Royal Pilgrim. She must speak with the northerner, collect other information. She must learn what the Briantans planned, if they intended to move south. She must ingratiate herself with the Fellowship to secure her safety and the safety of those she loved and honored.

Her teeth were grating by the time the Fellowship bowed its head in a final prayer. She barely made herself whisper with the congregation as First Pilgrim Jair was invoked. She waited, silent, as the group began to disperse, as first one, then groups of two or three drifted out the door. Kella heard their horses whinny in the night; she knew that all too soon, she must mount the mare that the soldier had brought for her.

And, sure enough, the cottage emptied out until there was only the soldier and the northerner, standing with her, listening to the last of their colleagues ride away. Kella was surprised as the soldier limped a step closer to his companion and then raised a hand to tug away his own dark hood.

“Ah, Crestman.” Crestman! The soldier had a name at last! In fact, he–
Crestman
– turned to glare at her, as if
she
had somehow disclosed his identity. The northerner glanced quickly in her direction; she could see hawk's eyes darting behind his black mask. He declined to reveal himself, though.

“Well met, Dartulamino.” Crestman delivered the name coldly, precisely. He knew full well that he was endangering his fellow, that he was violating a confidence. Well, then. Crestman would risk angering his companion, if only to even the score. Kella nearly shook her head. Like blackbirds squabbling over territory, they were. Likely to damage their own plumage, just to save a spot of earth they thought their own.

Dartulamino sighed and cast back his own hood, peeling his mask from his face. The man's hair was rumpled, as if he had just risen from bed. His skin was sallow; if Kella had not heard the strength of his voice, she might have recommended a healthy dose of ginger tea as a tonic. His lips were steady, though, thin and dry within his sparse black beard. She could make out the hint of a green robe about the neck of his black outer garment, and it reminded her of the other priest she had met, the fragile man who had come to her the day before. The woods were full of mysterious newcomers, and she was losing her capacity to be surprised.

Crestman was speaking. She'd best pay attention, if she was going to turn anything about this situation to her own advantage, to hers and her Sisters. “I tell you, Dartulamino, we can trust her. She knew about us already. She knew about the Fellowship before I said anything.”

“Aye, good lord,” Kella said, dipping into as much of a curtsey as her tired legs and Crestman's clutching hand would allow.

The visiting priest pinned her with a gaze that seemed too dark, too intense for his face. “And how do you know of us?”

“I have many ways of learning, good lord.” The soldier's fingers dug deep, and she realized that she must elaborate. Elaborate, or risk her muscle being pulled from her bone. “I serve many people in the forest. My handsels are grateful for what I give them. They pay me with coin when they can, with goods when they must. And always, they pay me with news of what goes on in this land of Sarmonia.”

There. She would not reveal the Sisters' existence. She would let the men believe that some desperate soul had divulged the existence of their cabal, trading it for herbal cures.

Dartulamino's eyes were shrewd, as if he were accustomed to prying apart men's souls and studying the dark spaces inside their thoughts. “So. One of your … handsels decided to tell you about the Fellowship.”

“Aye. The Fellowship of Jair.” She paused before deciding to cast her last die. “And the Royal Pilgrim that you wait for, the one who will rule over all the kingdoms and place the Fellowship in true power.”

“You know too much, woman!” The northerner's anger was immediate.

“He came to trust me, my handsel did,” Kella said, working hard to make her voice seem simple, to make herself appear as trustworthy as the ever-rising sun. “He came to me for many months, and he was grateful for the treatments I provided. His lumbago was cured, and he walked like a young man. Walked and rode and indulged in … other mannish sport.” She smiled crookedly, shrugging her shoulders as if she were not truly aware of such worldly things.

“And where is this man now?” The northerner's liver-colored lips pursed into a suspicious pout.

“I cannot say.”

Dartulamino gazed at her for several heartbeats before he nodded. “Very well, then. You come to us with knowledge of the Fellowship. You speak of the Royal Pilgrim. You can be permitted to live with this knowledge.”

Kella's relief was swallowed by her astonishment. She had not realized the terms of the test she had just passed; she had not known that she bargained for her life. A great weight descended upon her shoulders, a burden that she had not imagined only a moment before. She thought again of the people who had been executed in the north, of brave soldiers staked out on cold city streets, merely because they had fought for their king. What was she doing here? Why was she playing with fire?

Because fire brews the strongest tinctures. Because fire warms the blood against the winter's ice. Because fire is strength in the woods.

Kella needed the Fellowship. She needed to work with these men to guarantee that she and her Sisters would be free for the future, to guarantee that Briantan fanatics would never march through Sarmonia. She cleared her throat and spoke with a young woman's confidence. “I can serve you.”

Dartulamino nodded as if she had completed some traditional formula. “Oh, that you will. Our fellows all share their knowledge, pouring it into a common pool. You have observed our meeting, and we expect nothing less than your complete devotion.”

She forbade herself to swallow hard, knowing that these men would see that reaction as a sign of weakness. “Aye.”

“Then it is time for you to offer your knowledge. All of it.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Kella thought of the dista bark drying on her rafters. She remembered the sweetvine that she had harvested only a few days before. She thought of her calumus root, and catmint, and sweet euphrasia. But she knew that these men were not interested in her herb knowledge. They did not care about potions and tinctures, poultices and tisanes, no matter the strength of the herb witch who brewed them.

These men wanted to know about Jalina.

After all, that was why the soldier–why Crestman–had come riding through the forest. That was why he had stopped her originally.

Kella could remember her decision that first day, as clearly as if she were making it again. She had determined to lie to the soldier so that he would increase his offer, so that she could gain more from him.

That was before she had felt the fury in his wiry fingers. That was before he had dug his knee into her back. The soldier had no good reason to find Jalina, probably less of a cause to lay eyes upon the boy-child. No, Kella had worked hard enough to bring that boy into the world; she wasn't going to yield him up to the first man with a sword and a temper who came along looking for him.

Besides, Jalina and Mite were protected by the handsel.

“Witch!” She had taken too long to respond. Crestman's face darkened, his rage transparent in the glimmering scar that stood out in the dim cottage. Dartulamino's eyes flickered toward the other man, but the northerner did nothing to calm his colleague. Kella must act. She must give them something, anything, or she might not return to her own home.

“I can tell you where a woman hides in the woods.”

“A woman?” Crestman's greed suffused his features, and he raised the claw of his left hand, as if he would pluck the information from her then and there.

“Aye. A woman.”

“Queen Mareka? The one that I asked you about before?”

“Queen?” She let a little puzzlement seep into her tone, even as the information slipped into place. Jalina. The woman who ordered about her attendants with an air of confident superiority. Queen.… Well, that was a taller bush than Kella had thought to grow.

“Don't play games with me, old woman! I described her to you. I told you she would be with child, or newly delivered.”

“I don't know a Mareka,” Kella said. That much was true. The woman that she knew, the woman who had signed the handsel, had a different name. She doubted that the soldier would appreciate the split of words, but she was required to work with the few tools at her disposal.