Glasswrights' Master (26 page)

“To save all of us! The Fellowship will destroy us, Sisters! They will let Briantan priests roam our land. Briantan priests hate all witches–they would gladly see every one of us killed! But if I give this one over, they would leave us all alone, forever. They will take her, and all the witches would be safe!”

“They said that? And you believed them?” Zama's voice stung with scorn sharper than Yor's nettles. “What would keep them from demanding another of your handsels? What would keep them from coming back and forcing you to deliver the northerner called Mareka? Mareka, and her son Marekanoran?”

“I thought to help us all. We must be safe, if we are to practice our craft. We must be secure.”

“You thought to trade their lives for the hard touch of gold.”

“That's a lie! If I had wanted to give them up to the Fellowship, I could have done so long ago. The soldier man came to me at the height of summer.”

Zama's eyes narrowed. “Aye. You waited. You spared your handsels' lives in hopes that the bounty would grow.”

Rani could see that Zama had struck the truth: Kella's blood drained from her face. “No,” she started to protest, but there was no vehemence behind the word.

Zama went on as if the old woman had not spoken. “You waited, and you watched. You knew the price would rise, if the Fellowship did not find its prey. You knew that your ‘soldier man' would be back, and he would carry with him more gold. You worked for your own good, not for the good of any handsel. Not for the good of the Sisters.”

Zama stepped forward until she stood so close to the kneeling woman that Rani thought Kella would topple backwards. “Mareka Octolaris ben-Jair. Marekanoran ben-Jair. Rani Trader. You would have paid them all over to the Fellowship. Three innocent people. Three people who would be safe if you did nothing, who would remain invisible to the Fellowship. Three people who would be unharmed, if you simply stood by your vows as an herb witch. As a Sister.”

And then Rani realized that she needed to act. The Sisters would banish Kella. They would strip her of her rank, cast her from their midst. They would send her out into the woods, alone, with no money, no herbs, nothing to support her. Or they would banish her from all of Sarmonia. Or they would make her brew her own bitter herbs, drink some deadly tea. Whatever they did, they would remove Kella from the forest. They would sever the one fragile link that still connected Rani to the Fellowship, that gave her access to Crestman and Dartulamino and all the evil that they planned to work.

“No!” Rani cried, and she was startled to find every witch staring at her. “Kella must not be punished. Not yet.” Even the old woman looked surprised.

Zama's lips tightened. “You must not understand, Rani Trader. Mordana would have frozen all your limbs. It would have left you helpless, if Kella had succeeded in getting it in your mouth. This woman meant to poison you.”

Rani's response was hot on our lips, as if Gol, the god of liars, were warming her with his sunny rays. “Poison seems the favorite trick of herb witches.”

Zama scarcely acknowledged the jibe. “Kella had no antidote sitting at the ready.”

“And yet I stand here. Safe. Unharmed.” Rani took a deep breath, and the smell of lilacs washed over her. Hin. The god of rhetoric. What did he want with her here? Why did the Thousand want her to speak? Compelled in ways that she did not fully understand, Rani said, “Whatever you think you interrupted, Kella did
not
paralyze me, and I know why.”

“Why?” Zama's voice was cold.

The answer was starkly apparent, laid out in Rani's mind like words on parchment. “The Thousand Gods are with me. The Thousand Gods wanted me to live.”

“That is all well and good,” Zama began.

Rani cut her off. “The Thousand Gods wanted me to live so that I can follow through on Kella's plan.” Shad rolled thunder through her mind. Rani raised her voice, making her words sound strong, making the god of truth proud. “The Thousand Gods want me to submit to the Fellowship.” Shad thundered approval. “They want Kella to offer me up to the Fellowship. They want my mission to be completed!” Shad crashed against her ears, so loud that she was certain the Sisters must hear; they must acknowledge the truth.

However, Zama could not hear Shad. She merely looked at Rani as if the glasswright had taken leave of her senses. “This one plotted to bind you over to your sworn enemies, and you agree with what she planned?”

“I recognize the necessity of what she did.” Sorn, the god of obedience, coated Rani's tongue with honey, filled her with strength. “I submit to her intention. I give myself to the Fellowship.”

Zama shook her head. “Once you are in their hands, we cannot aid you in any way. Our Sisters have been unable to rejoin the Fellowship. We have tried for a fortnight, but those meetings are now closed to us.”

“I understand,” Rani said. The rustle of the gods let her know that she was making the correct decision. “I understand and I accept. By all the Thousand, I absolve you from any wrong.”

Zama looked around the room, clearly asking her Sisters for guidance. Rani could not read the looks that passed between the herb witches, but she had no trouble translating the resignation on the leader's face. “Very well, then,” Zama said. “You will do what you must do.”

“There is one more thing,” Rani said, and she braced herself for a final protest. “You must not seize Kella. Not yet. She must go to them. She must tell them that I am taken prisoner, than I am here for them to find. Give me time to do my work, and then you may do whatever you must to your sister.”

Shaking her head, Zama took another silent poll of her sisters. When she finished, she pursed her lips and met Rani's eyes. “Very well, Rani Trader. This too we grant you. We will let Kella go for now. But she must present herself at the Blue Rose by no later than noon tomorrow.”

“Noon tomorrow.” Rani shrugged. She would be with the Fellowship then. Even if Kella fled Sarmonia, even if she escaped the Sisters forever, it would make no difference to Rani. “Done.”

Zama turned to Kella. “Do you understand, then? Do you agree to come to the Blue Rose, without pretext or deceit?”

Rani could see the old woman thinking, twisting her mind around her momentary reprieve. Surely Zama knew that Kella might run away. But such flight might even further the Sisters' goals. Disobedience would give them a pretext for drumming Kella from their corps. Kella could never endanger another soul in the name of the Sisters.

“Aye,” Kella said, and it sounded as if she sucked on lemon rind. “I will come to the Blue Rose as you demand.”

Rani was grateful for the Sisters' protective presence as Kella was freed, as she gathered up her bonds and turned to the glasswright. Rani submitted to the rope with as much grace as she could muster, reminding herself that the Thousand had commanded her submission, that they had singled her out for their mission and their goals.

It was time to see the Fellowship. It was time to confront Crestman and Dartulamino and all the others who had worked to bring her down. It was time to face her enemies, once and for all.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 11

 

It wasn't fair.

This was Kella's forest. She had lived in the woods all her life. She knew all the pathways, all the secret glades. She knew where to find the finest herbs, the shyest flowers. She had planted and cultivated thousands of plants throughout the forest, groomed and harvested them.

And all that would end now. All because of the cursed northerners. Kella's life was ruined, all because she had agreed to tie a white cloth to the triple oak, all because she had agreed to send a signal to the soldier man.

Crestman.

The witch spat. She wished that she had never learned his name, had never thought to spy on his Fellowship meeting, to try to save the Sisters from Briantan fanatics.

Ungrateful Sisters. They had not even listened to her, had never realized their danger. The Briantans could massacre every last one of them, and Kella would shed no tears. Let them all die.

And Rani Trader, too.

Kella pictured the woman lying in her cottage, trussed up like a suckling pig on the lavender-stuffed pallet. Had Crestman reached her already?

It had taken Kella little enough time to gather her white silk banner. She had made her way through the woods quickly, and she'd wasted no time with neat knots as she tied the cloth to the triple oak.

The signal turned out to be unnecessary. Crestman had been waiting in the underbrush. He had rushed Kella and knocked her to the ground. His arm had chafed across her windpipe, and his knee had dug into her belly as he bellowed about the weeks that had passed since he'd commanded her to deliver Rani Trader.

She told him that the woman waited for him in her cottage, helpless and alone. She'd thought that news would calm the beast, but it only excited him more. He'd drawn his knife and hold it against poor Kella's throat.

She had listened to his ranting then. She had agreed to all of his demands. She had promised anything, everything, just to make him leave her alone.

Let the Sisters curse her. Kella was as good as banished anyway.

Why had Rani Trader even come back to Kella's cottage? Why had she knocked on the door, come inside,
asked
to smell the mordana? No one could truly be foolish enough to smell a flower they'd never seen before, could they?

As if she might truly be protected as a “maiden.” Kella remembered the girl's expression when she recognized Tovin's diamond knife. Something had passed between the traveling man and the girl.

Tovin would not be pleased when he learned that Rani lay in Kella's cottage, bound and waiting for the Fellowship's attention.

All the more reason for Kella to move quickly. She must reach the player before Crestman got the girl, before the Fellowship made its victory known. And there was no faster way to reach the traveling man than to stride into his camp.

“Halt!” The witch jumped. She had not expected a soldier at the edge of the clearing. After all, this was King Hamid's forest. However jealously the Sarmonian might guard his hunting, he had never shown love enough for the Clearing to post a permanent guard.

She blinked and realized that the man who stood before her was no Sarmonian. He had the leaner look of a northern soldier; his leather leggings were far more primitive than anything worn in Riadelle. Kella raised her hands, showing her empty palms like a flag of surrender. “Lower your weapon, boy.” She lapsed easily into her role of an angry old woman. “You wouldn't want to stick your grandmother.”

“My grandmother sleeps in a fine feather bed, many leagues north of here,” the youth said. Nevertheless, he lowered his pike a little. “Speak your name and your business in the camp of Halaravilli ben-Jair.”

“I need to talk to one of the players, to one who was here before you soldiers took over the Great Clearing.”

“Name the one you seek.”

“Tovin. Tovin Player.”

The youth blinked, as if he had not expected her actually to know a name. “Very well.” He crooked his pike in his arm and raised both hands to his lips, twisting his fingers in an awkward pose. When he whistled, the sound was a perfect match for the first evening owl. Even watching him make the noise, Kella could not keep from glancing at the treeline, from eyeing the setting sun.

She must hurry, if she were to succeed. If she were to escape Sarmonia with her life.

Another soldier ran across the Clearing. This one was younger yet–he would be nothing but a page in a true king's court. “Yes, sir?” asked the child as he slipped to a halt on the early autumn grass.

“Check this woman to make sure she carries no weapons.”

“Yes, sir!” The boy took his duty seriously, not waiting for Kella's acquiescence. His young hands were steady on her arms as he searched for hidden blades. He swallowed hard as he felt through her skirts, though, and she wondered if he were biting back an apology. She sighed and held her body steady. If she challenged him, she would only waste more time.

“Sir!” the boy said when he was through. “I found only these!” He held four packets of parchment, the contents carefully protected by heavy wax seals.

“What are they?” the youth asked her.

“Herbs for my evening tea. Shall I brew you a cup?” The young soldier scowled, and she remembered that she must not make herself suspicious. She must not seem anything more than a tired old woman. “They're harmless,” she made herself say. “They'd be very fine with a toothsome biscuit.”

The younger boy started to grin, and she knew that he was remembering biscuits from his past. Kella matched his smile with one of her own. She must convert these children, and quickly, too. “I'd make you some tea, if I had the time.” She would do that, too. She'd watch both boys swallow the dara bark, watch them drift into the deepest sleep of all.…

“Very well,” the youth spluttered, as if his authority were threatened by memories of peaceful times. He ordered his companion, “Take this woman to the players' camp. Release her to Tovin Player and no other.”

“Yes, sir!” The boy handed back her herbs, failing to mask a longing frown. He was silent as he marched Kella across the Great Clearing.

She could see many changes in the grassy field since her last visit. The northern soldiers had put up ramshackle shelters close to the center of the field, circling them around a large firepit in apparent disregard for King Hamid's restrictions. Torches fanned out from the edges of the blaze, ready to kindle against the night.

Kella's eyes traveled across the field to the players' enclave. Nothing had changed there, at least. The solid stage still stood on the edge of the field. Children ran beneath the structure, playing some game that led them into the shadows on the edge of the woods. Men and women lounged about their brightly colored tents, calling to each other in the growing twilight.