Glasswrights' Master (4 page)

A vicious clatter forced Rani to spin around, and she saw ranks of candelabra toppled to the floor, offerings to Tren flying. Soldiers jumped back from the burning wicks. One of the Briantans, discernible by the oversized Thousand Pointed Star embroidered on his chest, picked up a sharp-pointed stand and lunged into a knot of Morenian soldiers. He was cut down, his blood spraying across the altar dedicated to the god of candles.

Mair laughed, and her cold glee was more frightening than anything she had said or done in all the days of her madness. “Are ye wi' us, then, Rai? Are ye wi' us, or d' ye plan t' stay 'ere 'n' be cut down?”

Another Briantan leaped into a group of soldiers loyal to Hal, and fierce blows echoed off shields. Oaths rang out in the cathedral, and the sickening stench of entrails wafted across on the wind that blew through the shattered door.

“I'm with you,” Rani said, and she caught the victorious gleam in Mair's eye.

The Touched girl nodded once, and then she sprang past the dais. Rani never would have sought shelter there, away from the doors, away from the city, away from escape. Mair leaped, though, as if she had a plan, as if she had a destination. She moved with more certainty than she had in months.

Rani watched her friend move, and then she called out, “Sire!”

It was a sign of the devotion between them that Hal looked up at her cry. He did not hesitate to respond to the command in her one word; he trusted her, even in the midst of treachery and chaos. Against the battleground of the cathedral, she saw him measure her gesture. She watched him start to shake his head, to turn back to his soldiers, his pitiful, betrayed men.

But then the choice was taken from him. Farsobalinti bulled into his king, forcing his liege back one step, two, three. A group of soldiers swirled in front of the dais, as if they knew what Mair intended, and Farso took advantage of the chaos to push Hal forward even more forcefully.

Hal started to protest, to plant his feet, but he did not have a chance. Farso worked against him, and then Davin, and Puladarati and Father Siritalanu and a handful of loyal fighting men. All of them rolled past Rani, tumbled after Mair, through a doorway hidden in the floor behind the altar. Steps disappeared into darkness.

Rani hesitated on the threshold. Where was Mair taking them? What secret passage had she mastered years ago, during her misspent youth as a Touched wench who ransacked the city for her personal gain? What was to keep the invading soldiers from following them?

Rani bit back an oath as strong fingers wrapped around her arm. Mair had come back through the passage, come to pull her into the darkness. “Rai!” the Touched woman shouted. “Now! Or ye might as well prepare t' meet Tarn 'imself!”

Rani's eyes were clouded by the green-black wings of the god of death; he always hovered near. Before she could blink away his presence, Mair pulled her forward, into the darkness, into the relative quiet. And then Davin stood at the top of the stairs, resting his hands on the frame of the stone-cut door. He nodded once to himself, as if he had discovered some magic, some secret.

The old man cast one glance down the dim corridor, and then he twisted his wrists, manipulating some hidden latch. The door glided closed behind them, cutting off light, cutting off battle, sealing away Rani and Mair, Hal and Farsobalinti and Siritalanu, Puladarati and Davin and the handful of soldiers who remained loyal to their lost cause.

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

Kella leaned close over the fire, stirring the thick syrup in her iron cauldron. She had spent hours boiling down the moonbane, hours observing the Sisters' precepts. Following the ancient lore, she had harvested the herb in the dark of the first night after the crescent moon slipped from the sky. She had dug up the entire plant, snagging its splitting roots between her gnarled fingers, smoothing the wet earth from its gnarled bulbs. Moonbane looked like a man, her dam had said, and for years, Kella had believed that men had filth between their legs.

The herb witch smiled at the memory. She had been naive once. Long ago. A lifetime ago.

Kella hefted her iron spoon, comforted by its weight. It had been a long time since she'd used the moonbane cauldron, a long time since she had called on this specific aspect of the Sisters' lore. People did not come to visit an herb witch as often as they had in her dam's time. As often as they had when she was a young girl, and pretty.

“Isn't it ready yet?”

Kella should have waited longer, let the potion boil more. Certainly, there was pleasure in brewing the old herbs. Certainly, she enjoyed the power that coursed through her veins when she hefted the iron cauldron, when she stirred with the iron spoon.

But she had no desire to keep Jalina waiting any longer than necessary. The woman was a wildcat, nearly more trouble than she was worth. Of course, Kella had signed the handsel contract eagerly enough, sensing that Jalina had a deep purse. The ancient arrangement was simple: Jalina, as handsel, would pay Kella every copper of whatever price they agreed. In exchange, Kella would provide her herbs and keep the woman's identity a secret, her identity and the reasons that she sought an herb witch's aid. The Sisters had developed the handsel arrangement generations back, and it served its purpose, soothing the wary, helping them to trust in herb witches' skill.

Not that Jalina looked to frighten easily. She pretended to be an ordinary woman on an ordinary retreat in the forest. But she was something more. She was something powerful in the outside world, in the world of men. She ordered her retainers about as if she were accustomed to people meeting her needs.

If Kella wanted to, she could wipe that complaining expression from the girl's face, and she would not need the Sisters' magic to do it. Kella could simply mention the riders who had come through the woods a fortnight ago. She could say that there was money being offered for a woman of middling height, a dark woman with a northern accent, a stranger woman with a suckling babe.

But the handsel bound Kella to silence. She had said nothing to the rider, nothing to the twisted man who looked as if he should be cushioned on a litter rather than clinging to the mane of his warrior stallion. She had seen the pain etched across that one's face, seen his anger and his hurt, planted deep beneath the scar that glistened high on his cheekbone. She had seen the ghosts that he had left behind him, shed from his life as a soldier, certain as Kella was an herb witch, born and raised.

That man would be back, if he did not find Jalina. He'd be back, and he'd offer more for Kella's aid. By then, Jalina might have moved on. The handsel might have ended. No reason for Kella to harvest the first green shoots of spring; better to wait until the plant had grown to summer height. Better to wait until she could turn a healthy profit on her information, her knowledge. That was the way of the herb witch, after all, trading in knowledge. That was the way of the Sisters.

“Almost ready,” she said to Jalina. “You wait and see. You give this potion to your son, and he'll grow strong as an oak. He'll have all the power of the moon in his veins. You've seen the moon, my dear. You've seen how it's strong enough to stay in the sky, even with the sun trying to drown it out.”

Jalina nodded impatiently and shifted her sleeping child, clicking her tongue as she looked over her shoulder. She was a hurried one, like a spring crocus rushing out from under a snowbank. Well, crocuses froze sometimes. Crocuses lost their power.

The infant opened his mouth and mewled a protest. He was little, that babe. Kella had helped at his birthing, helped in her very own cottage. Even so, it had taken all her herb knowledge to keep both mother and son alive. In between contractions, Kella had asked Jalina about her other children, asked how many the slender woman had borne. Jalina's jaw had set firmly, as if her body were clenching in another birth throe. She'd insisted she had no other children.

Kella had gotten to the truth soon enough, though. She'd learned of the lost babes, left wandering in the twilight. The Heavenly Fields, Jalina had said. Even now, the herb witch snorted. Those Heavenly Fields were fine for folk in the cities, fine for the noblemen and the merchants, the soldiers and the guildsmen who could take time to pray to their Thousand Gods.

The world's true power lived in the woods. Lived in herbs and trees, in secret streams. The Sisters found the true power, found it and harvested it.

Lost children would try to block a living sibling from entering the world. Kella had finally made Jalina understand. She'd made the woman recognize her lost babes–first a son, then a daughter, then twin boys. Kella had twisted a grass-babe for each of them, figures that represented the four lost bodies. She had sprinkled water over each knotted form, water that had been collected from dew on the first day of spring. She had tossed a handful of earth on top of the grass-babes, loam from the bank of the stream that fed the largest oak in the forest.

Kella had spoken the secret words, the mother words, the words the Sisters had taught her when she was young and fresh and new to her game. And during Jalina's next contraction, the young mother had gasped and clutched at the grass-babes. She had pulled them to her chest, staining her hands with grass and water and earth.

And then the new babe had been born.

He was a little slip of a thing. Jalina admitted that her time should not have come for another moon. Even so, the child had ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes. He had soft ears, curved against his head like a mouse's. He had a tiny mouth and steady lungs, and he wasn't afraid to use them.

Marekanoran. That was what Jalina named her son. A hefty name for so small a babe. Kella refused to work her mouth around such a challenge. She called the child Mite. Jalina might have been displeased, but she would not speak out against the herb witch midwife who had delivered her of a healthy son.

Kella poured the moonbane syrup into a thick clay jar, pushing in a cork stopper with all the force in her gnarled fingers. “Go, girl. Give Mite the potion.” Jalina started to protest. “Twice a day, as the moon rises, and as the moon sets, one swallow each time. He'll sleep through the night then. You'll both sleep, and he'll grow fat and happy.”

The young mother looked too exhausted to complain. Instead, she folded her fingers about the jar. At first, she looked as if she might thank the herb witch, but then she seemed to remember her place. She turned on her heel and strode across the clearing.

Two shadows melted into the darkness after her. Oh, Jalina thought that she was crafty. She thought that she traveled with her guards all hidden. She thought that Kella was blind, or at least that the handsel-bond would render the witch mute if anyone asked uncomfortable questions.

But Kella knew. Kella understood. Kella recognized King's Men when she saw them–soldiers from Sarmonia, from the north, it hardly mattered. She spat into her fire. King's Men were the same the world over. Quick to use their blades, they were, to cut down anything that stood in their way, be it herb or tree or living, growing body.

Kella felt hands on her shoulders, and she started in surprise. Even before she could dart her fingers into the patched pocket on her gown, though, she recognized the touch. No reason to attack this one. No reason to fight.

“I didn't mean to startle you.” His voice was rich in the moonlight, complicated with the tones of lingering sunlight, of glinting amusement.

“You didn't.” She huffed around to the fire, lifting up a stick to stir the burning wood. One working for each fire. That was the old way. That was the powerful way. Better to light another fire than to carry over leached power from one spell to another.

He took the stick from her, making short work of spreading out the glowing wood. Sparks leaped up, but he ignored them, as if he were accustomed to working with fire. As if he were immune to the touch of a flame. “You gave her what she wanted?” His voice was gruff, and she glanced suspiciously at his copper eyes.

“What is that to you? She's my handsel. It's enough for you to know that she came about a woman's matter.”

“She came to you about the babe.”

Why were so many interested in this woman and her child? Kella shrugged and snorted. “Babes. Mothers. It's all the same to an herb witch like me.”

He looked at her shrewdly, peering across the pool of glowing embers. “An herb witch like you, eh?” He curled the words into a rough caress. “I've traveled in lands where those words could buy you death.”

“So you say, traveling man. So you say.” Still, his warning sent a shiver down her spine. Sarmonia might not honor its witches. It might not offer them power and prestige. But it protected the Sisters. No one was allowed to destroy Kella's possessions, to ride through her clearing and pillage her crops, her stores.

There were other places, though. Other lands. Other people who did not honor herb witches properly. Kella shuddered as she thought of women wounded in the name of their craft. Murdered for sharing their power. She swallowed and licked her lips, suddenly aware of the breeze that whispered across the clearing.

The embers from her working fire glowed in the night. He'd done a good job spreading them. They were even, smooth. Balance. That was what she must maintain. Keep the fire balanced with the earth, with the air. Avoid the need for water to take away the heat and the color of the flames.

Grudgingly, Kella nodded toward the path from the clearing. “You were watching her, then?”

“Aye. I wonder why she comes here. Why she is in Sarmonia at all.”

“The high road leads to many places,” Kella quoted. His eyes still peered into the darkness, and a shadow had fallen across his cheeks. “Why, traveling man? Why do you care about her so?”

He shook himself, like a dog shedding rainwater. “Her?” His smile was easy. “I care not for her. I only worry that she takes you from me, in the dark of the night.”