Glasswrights' Progress (15 page)

“Your Majesty!” It was the other girl who spoke, the one whose arm was in its awkward sling. “We have asked for your protection. We have asked that you return us to Morenia.”

The king bit off his annoyance. He had not forbade that casteless wench to speak. “All in good time, Lady Mair. All in good time.” Sin Hazar took a couple of steps toward the doorway of the stone chamber, driving his nephew forward with the weight of his hand. He let it seem an afterthought that turned him back to the two girls. “In the meantime, you should make yourselves comfortable in our castle. We will send women to you, to tend to your needs. Guards! Al-Marai, attend me.”

Sin Hazar left the two girls in the stone chamber, surrounded by the toys of war and a handful of soldiers in royal livery. The king would be true to his word. He would send women to look after Lady Ranita and Lady Mair. But that would be
after
he broke bread with his nephew.

After he began to explore the benefits of his three new hostages.

 

Halaravilli, King of Morenia, stood in the drafty entrance of a ramshackle hut, cursing himself for not grabbing a warmer cloak. Nearly three months had passed since he'd last masqueraded as a Touched youth, slipping out of the palace through the secret corridor that Dalarati had shown him so long ago. Three months ago, the summer sun had beat down on Hal's head as he made his way through the City streets, worming into the narrow byways of the no-man's-land between the quarters.

Now, a chill wind blew through those same streets. A promise of snow teased the air, and Hal would not even have considered leaving the palace compound if he had not found the slip of parchment lurking beneath his morning cup of mulled wine. Even as he unfolded the message, he knew what it would say. There was no need to question his manservant about the parchment's provenance. Even though Hal was only seventeen years old, he had lived long enough to know that the servant would have no idea how the message had appeared on the tray. The Fellowship of Jair wanted things that way.

And the Fellowship had certainly lost no time in summoning him. Hal had only taken his stand against Tasuntimanu in the council room the morning before. The earl must have run directly to the Fellowship's hierarchy. Hal, sipping his mulled wine, had nodded as he read the neat words: “The Pilgrim Jair watches over all his children, even from the darkened hallway, even as the sun draws nigh to noon.”

Hal knew from earlier cryptic messages that the Fellowship had moved its safe house only a fortnight before. The newest meeting place was a tiny hut in a nondescript street. Hal just hoped that whoever he was supposed to meet would show up promptly at noon. The streets would be even colder when the sun began its early trip to the west.

Blowing on his fingers to warm them, Hal could not help but think of the tales Rani had told him about the Brotherhood of Justice. She had witnessed some of their meetings in similar ramshackle huts; she knew how members of secret cabals could be betrayed in the dark passages where Hal's own soldiers did not patrol.

A chill crept down the king's spine as he thought of the conniving traitors that Rani had almost joined, of the headman's axe that had closed their tale. What would Hal's loyal councillors do if they discovered their king skulking in dark alleys, making deals with shadowy forces? How quickly would they have him imprisoned, executed?

Nonsense. Hal was the king. He could hardly commit treason against himself.

He was only thinking such morbid thoughts because he was tired, because yesterday's council meeting had worn him out. He was tired and nervous at the proposition of defending his actions to the Fellowship of Jair. Tugging at his filthy cape, Hal resisted the urge to look up and down the dingy street. The King's Guard would throw a fit if they learned their liege lord slunk through the City in common trews and a grimy shirt, looking for all the world like a ragged Touched boy, roaming free from his troop for the first time in his life.

There was no reason, though, for the guard ever to find out. With luck, no one would come to check on Hal until well after the sun had set. The king had carefully fostered a rumor born during his days as an odd junior prince in his father's court, a rumor that served him better now that he was seventeen than it had ever done him as a child. Hal let all around him believe that he sometimes suffered gripping headaches, pulsing agonies that left him incapable of speech, unable to gather his wits about him. His only salvation in the midst of those seizures, he lied, was sleep – uninterrupted sleep in a completely darkened chamber.

He knew that he played a dangerous game. No sane king would deliberately foster the image of himself as an invalid. But no sane king would deliberately join an underground cabal of people from all the castes, working toward some mysterious, unknown goal. Hal had had no choice, when he had made his initial decisions. He needed to guarantee that he could escape the palace when necessary. He needed freedom to fulfill his obligation to the Fellowship of Jair, to meet his debt to the brotherhood that had helped him gain his throne, that had stood by him when he was weakest and most subject to attack.

Hal owed the Fellowship. He had sworn his fidelity as a member of the shadowy coalition. The Fellowship, in turn, had sent members to watch over him, to help him, to protect him. One of those members, Dalarati, had died to further Hal's cause, cut down in the bitter struggle with the Brotherhood of Justice.

The Fellowship might be dangerous, but it had accepted Hal when no one else would. Hal paid his debts, no matter the cost, no matter the games that he needed to play with his court, the charades of illness that he needed to create.

“Speak, Pilgrim, and enter.” The cathedral bells had just begun to toll noon when Hal finally heard the whisper at his ear, through a bolt-hole that grated open in the door of the rotting hut. He stepped forward before he could question the wisdom of disappearing, anonymous and alone, into a structure of questionable integrity with an unknown stranger.

“Blessed be Jair the Pilgrim, who protects the lion from the flood.” Lion. Flood. Hal was certain those were the passwords. Nevertheless, he knew a moment of heart-clenching fear that he had remembered incorrectly, that the Fellowship had changed its passwords since he had last heard. Or worse yet, that it was not the Fellowship that waited within the crumbling building. If even one of Hal's enemies had learned of the existence of the shadowy body.…

Hal imagined a heavy sword suspended over his bare neck, a wicked Amanthian blade curving toward his blood. He should have slipped on armor beneath his Touched garb. He should have protected himself before he risked his life and his kingdom. He should have told someone – anyone – where he was going.

Where he was going. The threat was growing. His blood was flowing.

Catching his breath, Hal swallowed the blossom of panic, forcing himself to count to twenty. He had only completed half the count, though, when the door swung open. “Come, Pilgrim, and enter the house of Jair.”

House of Jair! Not likely!

Nevertheless, Hal's relief washed over him like a wave of scorn, and he drew his cloak closer as he strode down the narrow corridor. He tried to tell himself that he pulled the filthy garment closer to protect it from the sticky walls, but he knew that he sought comfort in its woolen warmth. He may not have been waylaid by assassins
this
time, but there was still danger in the hut. Who knew how Tasuntimanu had twisted his story of the council meeting?

Hal was shown into a room as grim as the outside of the building. A low fire crackled on a flagged hearth, but the flue did not draw well, and smoke had stained the wall to either side of the flames. A three-legged stool crouched beside the fire, close enough that Hal expected the seat's occupant to be flushed with heat. She wasn't, though. She was pale, pale white, like an insect writhing under a stone in the royal garden.

“At least ye still remember 'ow t' follow a direct order when it drops into yer lap.” The cracked voice made Hal jump, and he bit back a curse.

“Glair.” Well, at least the Fellowship was not going to waste Hal's time with minor officials. Contrary to all order in the rest of the City, the Touched crone was a high commander in the Fellowship of Jair, the most senior member of the brotherhood that Hal had ever met.

The ancient Touched woman barely acknowledged his greeting. “Boy, d' ye realize 'ow serious this is? 'Ave ye thought on why I summoned ye 'ere?”

Boy. Under other circumstances, Hal would have resented such a familiar address from a subject, especially from one of the Touched. He might even have had the disrespectful wretch tossed into the royal dungeons, to contemplate caste and station in society. Coming from Glair, though, the word was little more than a statement of fact. Hal was not a nobleman in this hut. He was merely a footsoldier in the Fellowship's army, a pawn who knew next to nothing about the organization's master plan. The king of all Morenia forced himself to take a steadying breath before he looked the ancient crone in the face. There was no reason to make up a tale. To fear the jail. To admit he'd failed. “Yes, Glair. I understand why you are concerned.”

“Concerned? Ye think I'm
concerned
?” The old woman's voice broke on the word, and her head shook with more than her usual palsy. “Only 'n idiot would think I'm
concerned
!”

Only an idiot. Hal had spent the better part of his life called that. He refused to let one old woman's taunts draw him into an angry retort. He forced his voice to a steady register, ignoring the unnatural ringing in his ears, the whispering rhymes that swirled just beneath the surface of his thoughts. “You have to understand, Glair. I have a greater master than my own personal beliefs, than my own faith in the Fellowship. I cannot decide, alone, what I think is right and what is wrong. I must act for the good of all Morenia, for all my people and not just the Fellowship of Jair.”

“
Just
th' Fellowship o' Jair!” The old woman's voice squeaked on the exclamation, and she pitched forward with the force of her words. “Do ye even 'ear th' words ye say, boy? Do ye even 'ear 'ow stupid ye sound? Th' Fellowship o'
Jair
, we are! Th' First Pilgrim, boy! We're th' ones 'oo got ye on yer throne, even when they said it couldna be done, even when they said all o' Morenia was lost to that scheming she-dog, Felicianda!” Glair spat into the flames, but some of the spittle stayed on her bruised lips, glistening like a slug's slimy trail.

Hal's belly twisted, and he fought the urge to back out of the chamber. Steeling himself, he cut into the old woman's torrent of scorn. “Glair, what accusations has Tasuntimanu leveled against me?”

“Tasuntimanu?” She screeched the name like a madwoman. Not for the first time, Hal wondered at the wisdom of letting a Touched woman hold such high office in the Fellowship. The Touched were casteless, they were nothing in the City hierarchy. Surely some could be trained, brought into service for nobles and the wealthiest of merchants, but most Touched were parasites, sucking life out of the City. That was why they were driven from the streets regularly, why Turning Out day was necessary. That was why the oldest among the Touched grew mad, crazed with the hard struggle of life. And that was why no decent folk associated with the Touched.

No decent folk, but the Fellowship. The Fellowship and the Thousand Gods. First Pilgrim Jair had been born a Touched brat.

Hal reminded himself that he had joined Glair's cause voluntarily, and he forced his voice to remain steady. “Aye. Tasuntimanu. I know he must have come running to you after our council meeting. There's no other reason you would have summoned me here, in broad daylight. There's no other reason you would risk exposing the entire Fellowship.”

“So ye're not so foolish that ye don't realize th' risk we're takin', eh? Ye're not such 'n idiot that ye don't see 'ow ye're forcin' me t' put me own flesh 'n' blood at risk?”

“Glair, you knew there was a risk five years ago, when you took me into the Fellowship. I never hid the fact that I have loyalties to other causes, to Morenia, first and foremost.”

“Th' entire Fellowship knows o' yer ‘loyalties', boy. But Dalarati vouched fer ye. 'E said we needed ye in our midst. That poor soldier would fall on 'is sword if 'e saw 'ow ye're abusin' th' Fellowship wi' th' power o' yer crown!”

“Don't speak to me of Dalarati!” Hal bellowed, his anger mixing with fear and spewing out like acid. “Dalarati knew the king I would be! The rest of you were only interested in
what
I was, the son of a king. But Dalarati knew
me
! If it weren't for Dalarati, I never would have cast my lot with the likes of you!”

“Cast yer lot! Th' likes o' us! Dalarati was one o' us, boy, 'n' 'e gave 'is life t' further yer cause, gave 'is life
because
'e was one o' th' Fellowship.”

“I know what debts were paid to get me on the throne, Glair. I measure them every time I pass the headman's block.” Hal's throat tightened around his words. He had not asked Dalarati to lay down his life in service to the crown. That had been a mistake, the worst sort of lies and misunderstandings. Dalarati's death had been a terrible accident, a cost of waging war.

Waging war. Fight for more. Bloody gore.

No. That's what it had been – war. Hal had waged war against traitors who would have stolen his father's throne. Glair had no business questioning Hal's loyalty, no business drawing upon the death of a beloved retainer.… Hal forced himself to take a deep breath, stealing the chance to breathe a quick prayer to Plad, the god of patience: Hail Plad, cool my blood and still my mind and give me the patience to walk upon your holy path.

The words did not make him feel any better, but they broke the angry exchange. Hal tried again, forcing himself to keep his voice steady. “Glair, you must understand. I had to speak out in council. If I don't take a stand now, if I don't separate myself from Puladarati, I'll be pinned beneath his thumb forever. Yesterday's meeting was a battle for the type of reign I'll have. It was only a single skirmish, but it will shape the entire war.”