Glasswrights' Progress (20 page)

Rani lifted the cloth and fed it through her hands, taking a deep breath to prepare for stepping over the stone wall. “No.” Mair spoke close to Rani's ear, her voice scarcely audible. The Touched girl panted as she said, “I'll go first. In case th' knots dinna 'old. In case I dinna 'ave th' strength.” Mair flapped her injured arm like a wounded wing.

Rani argued, “But I can anchor it for you once I'm on the ground. I can make it easier.”

Mair shook her head furiously, barely mouthing, “I'm the weakest. Let me go first.” When Rani still refused to step back, Mair leaned closer still and hissed, “It ‘as t' be done. If I'm to fall, don't let me go, knowing that I've brought you down as well.”

It has to be done. Mair was terrified, injured, and no doubt exhausted, but there was no other means of escape.

In the starlight, Rani could just make out Mair's progress down the rope. She saw how the Touched girl used the knots to support herself, how she found anchors with her feet and her fists. More than once, Mair let herself swing back toward the palace wall, easing some of the pressure of her descent by settling her back against the stonework. Slowly, painfully, she made her way down.

Twice, Rani saw Mair start to slip, both times when she had put too much weight on her injured arm. Once, the Touched girl hissed between her teeth, loud enough that Rani could hear. Apparently no soldiers did, though, for no alarms shattered the wintry night.

Once Mair reached the ground, she tugged three times on the rope. Rani caught her breath and threw one leg over the embrasure edge. As she gathered the first knot between her fingers, she realized that she could not remember the name of the god of ropes. “Help me, Roan,” she improvised, speaking to the god of ladders instead. “Help me to descend this crafting, made in your name and to your glory.”

The prayer was unsettling, though, not least because Rani feared that the god of ladders would take offense that his special province was being impinged on by a hastily knotted cloth contraption. Rani settled her prayer into a simpler sentence: “It has to be done.” She repeated the five words again and again, stretching for foot-holds, squeezing her hands together for a better grip.

She almost screamed when Mair's hands closed around her calves, but she managed to swallow her surprise and drop to the ground. She stumbled forward a step and was surprised to see that a few coils of the rope lay upon the ground – Mair's improvised creation had been more than long enough. Rani took only an instant to be grateful that she had not needed to cling to the slippery silk of her balkareen.

Before Rani could look back up at the tower, Mair tugged her deeper into the shadows. Rani followed obediently, skirting the foot of the building until they reached the courtyard. The drays were standing where the soldiers had left them, waiting for the oxen that would drag them out of the city gates.

The first three wagons that Rani checked were lashed down, with tarps stretched tight over the clear forms of barrels and boxes. Before Rani could despair, though, she heard Mair hiss from the next cart.

Rani could smell the autumn fragrance even as she approached. The wagon-bed was deep, filled with new-harvested hay. The grass had dried partially in the field, but it still gave off the heady aroma of autumn.

Mair grinned at Rani and gestured toward the dray. Rani took only a moment to gather her cloak close about her flimsy garments, and then she pulled herself up onto the wheel, throwing first one leg and then the other over the side of the wooden cart. She hoisted Mair up beside her, tugging hard on her friend's good hand, and then both girls were burrowing deep into their fragrant bed, creating a nest that was warm and safe and secure from the king's wrath.

 

 

Chapter 7

 

 

Shea settled her hands on her hips, glaring at the carters. “You took your time getting here, didn't you?”

The leader flicked his gaze toward her sun tattoo; the man's own rayed mark was small and high on his cheekbone. “This entire journey has been cursed, goodwife. We were late leaving the city. The king's lions made us repack our entire load.”

“That was a week ago! Couldn't you make up time on the road?”

The man bristled, and for a moment, Shea thought that she might have prodded him too hard. They were both suns, though. They both should have known their place beneath the sky. She should not need to fight with one of her own kind, just to do her own work, just to serve the Little Army.

The carter glanced at his men, who were unpacking barrels and crates from the wagons, and for just an instant, Shea thought that he might order them to stop their work. The man only shook his head, though. “Don't complain to us, goodwife. There were troops moving north, troops getting ready to sail east. We had to clear the road every time they came by.”

“Well I've got troops here, too – hungry mouths to feed. I hope you've brought us enough supplies. My lions work up quite an appetite.”

“There are no lions in Sin Hazar's Little Army.” The man's flat statement deflated Shea. Of course there were no lions among the children. Their tattoos had all been carved away. They'd all been turned into casteless rogues, children without homes, without families. They were vicious little creatures fighting for their proper place in the world.

Not for the first time, Shea wondered if she were lucky that Davin had permitted her to stay. That strange old man had fed her potions mixed from herbs she'd never heard of, counting her pulse until he declared her cured of the strange heart-gripping pain that had felled her on the road. She'd thought that he would throw her out then, force her back on the road, with or without Crestman.

He'd done nothing of the sort, though. Instead, he'd muttered that she could sleep in an abandoned hut, one of a half dozen crumbling buildings that ringed his own sorry cottage. He'd accepted Crestman's strange story about how a captain in the Little Army came to be on the road, traveling with the king's old nursemaid. The ancient man had accepted Crestman's rank, too, and he'd ordered the other boys to give way to their new captain. Davin had not turned the pair over to King Sin Hazar's men – neither to the Little Army nor to the grown soldiers who rode through irregularly. Davin had chosen not to label Crestman a deserter; he kept both of the newcomers alive.

Shea had returned the favor by doing a sun's work, trying to straighten the old man's cottage into a decent space. She had whipped up clouds of dust and swept up droppings from that terrifying talking bird. She had sorted through rolls and rolls of parchment, trying to separate them into military projects and landscape sketches and endless pages of writing. She found herself baking bread for the boys, using their fine-ground flour to relieve their dull menu of gruel and salt beef.

Throughout the commotion, Davin ignored her, poring over his books and charts and muttering strange words to himself. Three nights in the past week, he'd stayed in the blacksmith's forge behind his cottage until dawn, shouting orders to the mute giant who pounded away at the iron, trying to match his master's strange specifications.

Every morning, Shea awoke, remembering that she had planned on fleeing south with Crestman. She had planned on escaping Amanthia, on leaving behind the famine, and the war, and a king who was desperate enough to impress children into his army. She was a sun after all – affairs of state were none of her business. But then, every morning, Shea remembered the Swancastle.

The castle was just beyond the fringe of Davin's forest, an easy walk from Shea's little hut. The first time she had emerged from beneath the trees to see it, she was overwhelmed by its glistening snowy walls. The castle towered above her, easily the height of ten men. The building itself was at the top of a steep hill; Shea remembered the stories she had heard of suns toting cartload after cartload of earth to the building spot. The walls gleamed in the morning air, capturing sunlight and fracturing it into a thousand thousand prisms.

Shea had fallen on her knees as she stared at the edifice that had sparked the rebels during the Uprising, the building that would have been a peaceful home to her own swangirl, to Larina, if only the war had never begun. Even now, even knowing what the castle had cost her, Shea was bound to the ghosts of the swans who had lived there, the swans who had rebelled against Sin Hazar and dragged their province to defeat.

Thinking of the waste caused by her province's rebellion, Shea felt the familiar weakness seize her chest, and she gasped for breath. What was she doing here, arguing with carters in front of the Swancastle? She should have been home in her own cottage. She should have been surrounded by her own children, by
their
children. Her greatest concern should have been whether or not to give a grandson a bite of honey bread before supper. She should not need to worry about feeding dozens of ravenous boys, about filling their bellies so that they would have the strength for their next maneuvers in the service of their king.

Shea shook her head. She was lost in the past. Again. She'd get nowhere by fighting King Sin Hazar's cartman. “Go ahead, then, man. All of you, get your supper, round the castle. On the far side, there's a cook-tent. I'll unhitch your oxen.”

The carter seemed willing enough to yield his argument, with the prospect of hot food nearby. He whistled his handful of fellows across the grassy slope, and Shea turned toward the beasts of burden. The oxen hung their heads low, snorting as if they were disgusted by the trip they had taken.

“Crestman!” Shea called, seeing her charge loitering near the haphazard tents that housed the division of the Little Army. “Give a hand, boy! Unhitch these beasts!”

The lionboy ignored her, pretending that he hadn't heard. Shea had seen his shoulders tense, though, and she scarcely hesitated before storming across the short distance that separated her from the children. She leaned close and whispered, barely taking care to keep the other boys from hearing. “I'll take away your toys, boy! I'll break that bow over my knee and toss it into the woods, even if it
was
made by your precious Davin!”

Crestman shrugged as if he did not care, but he left the ragtag group of boys. He preserved his dignity by taking his time to saunter with Shea, sighting at various birds and blades of grass with his wrist-braced bow. When they were out of earshot, though, he cast a quick glance over his shoulder, making sure that his fellows weren't watching. Then he hissed, “You can't do that! You can't order me around in front of my men!”

“Don't tell me what I can and cannot do, boy. You swore your loyalty to
me
, remember! You said the words easy enough when you thought your life hung in the balance.”

“Hush!” Crestman hissed, with another backwards glance. “There are two score members of the Little Army encamped here. If even one of them finds out that I deserted, do you think we'd last long enough to explain away our lies?”

“If you remember your oaths, there's no danger of their finding out.”

“No danger, unless they hear your squawking. It's bad enough that I'm trapped with
them
again. I don't need you harrying me, too.” Crestman continued to grumble, but he turned his attention to the oxen, unfastening their harnesses.

Shea ignored the boy's complaints. After all, her Pom had often needed to complain before he settled in to whatever tasks she'd set him. It was fine for boys to grumble, so long as they did not forget their chores.

Sure enough, Crestman began to speak to her again after only the briefest of sulky silences. “So, Shea, what supplies do you think are here?”

“From the looks of it, flour and salt. Maybe some lard. Some wine, to be watered down for the boys. Salt beef. Maybe some early apples.”

“It's about time.”

“I thought that you boys
enjoy
living by your own handiwork. I thought the Little Army liked eating what it can kill.”

“Perhaps the Little Army does, but I know better. I'll eat from the king's larder, and enjoy the honor.” Shea joined in the boy's grim laugh. She, too, had been hungry. She, too, could appreciate the wonder of food that arrived, salted and cured, ready for the eating.

If only her orphans could share in the bounty.… If only Tain and Hartley could enjoy the richness in these casks.

Tain.… Even now, the sungirl would be gathering the orphans together, getting them to offer up their daily prayers to the Thousand Gods. Shea hoped that they had been able to lay in some food against the winter, against the creeping cold.

Shea exhaled deeply, her breath fogging in the cool evening air. As she always did when she thought of her children, she wondered if she'd made the right decision. She could admit to herself that she had saved Crestman because he reminded her of Pom. Oh, she could make up stories that she was protecting her orphans from the shame of killing a child, from the sorrow they would feel when they grew and matured and realized the horror of their actions. But in her heart, Shea knew that she had not acted for the children. She had acted for herself. She had acted for Pom.

Even as Shea admitted the truth, she thought of Serena, the little swangirl that she had abandoned in her cottage. The child had been so pale, so slight.… By now, she might have succumbed to a cough or a fever. She might be nothing more than a shade.

Shea stared off in the twilight, and she could see Serena's wraith before her. The child stood beside the last wagon, holding onto the wooden side with a trembling arm. She was clothed all in white, as if Tain had managed to find a funeral dress for her. Serena looked up when she realized that Shea was watching her, looked up with an expression of horror on her face.

“Serena,” Shea breathed, stumbling forward. Even as she moved, the swangirl fell to her knees, her funeral gown billowing up around her like the finest of linen. Shea cried out and ran to her. “Serena, forgive me!” she sobbed. “Forgive me, child! I never should have left you! May Nome have mercy on my soul!”