Glasswrights' Progress (23 page)

Crestman scarcely hesitated before stepping back from the fire. “Free them,” he barked, gesturing to two of his soldiers. The pair of victorious boys hooted as they cut the ropes that bound their captives. One of the released boys staggered to his feet and stumbled a few steps away from the firelight, only to be harried back with the flats of his brothers' blades.

“Choose a man, Varner. Choose your best man.”

The blond boy glared at Crestman, but he barely hesitated before he said, “Stand forward, Monny.”

Rani caught her breath as a boy stepped up to his leader's side. This must be the smallest child in all the Little Army! He could hardly be eight years old. The boy's red hair was darkened with sweat, wiry where it had come loose from his warrior's clout. Freckles stood out across his unmasked face.

“This is your best? This is the best you can offer King Sin Hazar?” Crestman's harsh laugh was echoed by his men.

“Monny.” Varner barely whispered the boy's name, but the red-headed child nodded. Faster than Rani's eyes could follow, he hurtled his full weight at one of Crestman's guards, catching the older boy completely by surprise. Before the larger soldier could regain his footing, Monny had captured the boy's arrow-launching device. He scraped the knife-edged arrow across his erstwhile guard's throat, reached down to scrape some of the black paint from the older boy's face and deposit in on his own cheeks, and then he turned the weapon on Crestman. He closed one eye as he aimed the short bolt at his captain's heart, and then he froze, testifying mutely to the damage that he could cause.

Crestman's soldier was swearing, sucking his breath between his teeth as his own sweat stung his slashed throat. Monny had moved carefully, though; the boy's wound was more bloody than deep. Rani watched Crestman register his approval, a slight lifting of his eyebrows and a slow nod of his head. “Drop your weapon, soldier.”

Monny complied immediately, shouting out, “In the name of King Sin Hazar!”

The cry was taken up by Crestman's victors. “Sin Ha-zar! Sin Ha-zar!” The boys stomped on the ground with each syllable, and they moved forward ominously, encircling the unfortunate children who had been ordered to defend the Swancastle's walls.

Crestman barked his orders so that they fell between his army's cadence. “On the ground, boy! Spread your arms! Spread your legs!” Monny answered each order immediately, breathing heavily, but doing nothing else to betray any apprehension.

Rani stepped forward as Crestman signaled four of his men to his side. She had seen the cruelty of children; she had seen military discipline at its worst – in the Brotherhood of Justice, infractions were considered blood debts. Before she could speak, though, before she could distract Crestman from his deadly mission, Mair gripped Rani. The Touched girl shook her head once and dug her fingers into the meat of Rani's arm.

Meanwhile, Crestman gave a curt nod, and each of his four soldiers knelt beside the red-headed child, putting his full weight on a limb. Crestman waited until his men were settled before he turned back to the assembled soldiers. He thrust one fist into the air, momentarily stilling their chant of the king's name.

“King Sin Hazar relies on his soldiers to be the best in all the land! He relies on us to serve his cause, easy or hard, just or unjust, right or wrong. King Sin Hazar rules Amanthia by the right of all the Thousand Gods. By all the Thousand Gods, King Sin Hazar will come to rule the world!”

The army cheered Crestman's words, all of them but Monny and Varner. Crestman drew his short sword, brandishing it above his head until the boys fell silent. The captain's eyes glowed from behind his mask of black soot; the paint had smeared down his face and across his lips. “Sin Hazar demands our complete faith. When we do not understand a command, it is because we are only soldiers, because we are not king. Long live King Sin Hazar!”

“Long live King Sin Hazar!” rose the boys' shouts. Monny's voice rang out, shrill and piercing, loudest of all the children. Rani swallowed hard, her heart pounding as she dreaded whatever would happen next.

Crestman stepped over the red-headed boy, scarcely acknowledging his own kneeling soldiers. The captain came to stand chest to chest with Varner. The defeated boy glared at his leader for a moment, but then dropped his eyes. Crestman took the vanquished soldier's hand, closed it around the hilt of his own curved sword. He waited until Varner had accepted the weapon, until the boy had met his eyes.

“Shave him.”

“What?” Varner laughed, the sound incongruous in the charged air beside the bonfire.

“Shave him.”

Varner laughed again and crossed to the restrained Monny. He knelt beside the boy and shook his head, raising the curved blade to the child's sweat-dulled red locks. “In the name of Sin Hazar,” he began, and Monny smiled too.

“Not his head,” Crestman interrupted.

“Not –”

“The king has enough soldiers. He needs more nightingales, to sing to him. To ease his mind, as he plans our next battle.” Monny had frozen beneath his captors' hands, his grin still gaping incongruously against his filthy skin. “Geld the boy.”

Varner stared at Crestman. “You're mad.”

“I'm your captain, soldier! I'm the king's voice on this battlefield!”

“But he's just a boy! He's too young even to
be
in the Little Army!”

“He showed his own bravery, and his willingness to follow his king's orders. Are you going to take that away from him with your cowardice?”

“You don't know what you're asking!”

“I know,” Crestman answered evenly. “Believe me, soldier, I know.”

Rani shuddered at the grim words, at the confession painted behind the statement. Crestman had faced his own test. Sometime in the past, he had held his own blade, or arrow, or garrotte string. Captain Crestman had already passed the challenge he set for his men.

Even without black paint, Varner's face contorted into a mask, his mouth stretched into a gaping hole, his broken nose smashed beyond recognition. “Don't make me do this,” he whispered. Rani could barely hear his words above the crackle of the fire, above the murmur of the waiting Little Army.

“
I
don't make you do anything, soldier. The king makes you. The king
commands
you. In the name of Sin Hazar!”

As Crestman must have planned, the boys took up the cry, pounding their feet against the earth, shouting the king's name as loudly as they could. Rani felt the hillside shake beneath them, the very ground trembling beneath the Little Army.

Crestman stepped back, away from the fire, away from Monny. Varner staggered toward the pinned boy, falling heavily to his knees. Crestman's loyal soldiers did not flinch; they maintained their grip on Monny's limbs. Varner's hands shook, and now tears glistened on his cheeks, mixing with the slimy trail of blood from his nose. He raised Crestman's knife, offering it like a prayer to the Thousand Gods, and then he reached out with his free hand, seizing Monny's smallclothes and slashing through the cloth with a single motion.

Monny panted like a trapped animal, his breath whistling between his teeth. Every boy in the Little Army stared at Varner, watched as the vanquished soldier raised a blade against his own brother.

Every boy watched Varner, but Rani watched Crestman. She saw the captain measure his men. She saw him follow the path of his own sword, his own blade flickering above a sacrificial child in the firelight. She saw him weigh fidelity and trust. And she saw him snatch a breath of midnight air.

“Hold!” The word exploded from Crestman's mouth like the stone walls of the Swancastle cracking down onto the field. “In the name of King Sin Hazar, hold your blade!”

Varner snapped like a cut bowstring, falling across Monny's chest. The soldier's sobs wracked his body; he gasped for air like a drowning man. Monny did not even attempt to move; instead, he stared up at Crestman with a fierce glint that Rani could not read, that she could not translate to either love or hate.

Crestman stepped forward, into the firelight, into the deadly silence that had replaced the chanting Little Army. “In the name of King Sin Hazar, I spare this boy. Fetch a calf! We'll have fresh meat to celebrate our victory! Fresh meat as a gift from our king! A gift from Sin Hazar!”

It took only a moment for the boys to regroup, for a bawling calf to be brought from the holding pen on the other side of the Swancastle. Rani did not bother to watch as the animal was sacrificed, as its blood was caught in an iron pail, for Shea to use in making sausages. Rani did not witness the hide peeled back from the steaming meat, and she did not see the boys carve away flesh to roast in the fire.

Instead, she watched Crestman strip off his cloak. She watched the captain cross to Varner and settle the garment across the still-weeping boy's shoulders. She watched Crestman raise the edge of the cloak, wipe away some of the mess from Varner's face. The captain reached out for Monny as well, touching the boy's forehead once. “In the name of King Sin Hazar,” Crestman murmured, but Monny flinched from his hand.

Crestman nodded, as if he had received the response that he expected, and then he helped Varner to his feet. He took the boy to a log, and settled him comfortably. Crestman tucked his own cloak in carefully, as if he were a nursemaid, and then he called over another soldier, ordered fresh meat and watered wine brought to the blond boy.

Once he had seen Varner settled, Crestman staggered off into the night, wrapping his arms about himself to ward off the chilly wind that had begun to blow across the hillside. Rani started to climb to her feet, to go after the boy, but Mair's hand clamped around her wrist with a fierce force. “I told ye i' th' king's palace, Rai. Ye canna trust anyone i' Amanthia.”

“But –”

“'E's dangerous, Rai.”

“He's frightened. And he's filled with remorse.”

“'E's bound these boys t' Sin 'Azar better than any oath could 'ave. 'E's dangerous.”

Rani pulled her wrist away from Mair and limped away from the fireside, ignoring the invitation of roasting meat, ignoring the ache in the back of her throat, ignoring the memory of Crestman, who had looked back at his private, untold torture as he ordered Varner to act. Instead, Rani remembered her own past, her own longing to join a group. She recalled the innocent blood she had shed to further that goal.

She knew the pain of belonging. She knew Captain Crestman of the Little Army, even if she could not, would not, go to his side.

 

 

Chapter 8

 

 

Hal stood in the embrasure of the nursery, staring down at the courtyard through the mullioned window. It had been months since he'd been in this room, in the chamber that he had shared with Bashi and his four half-sisters, the apartments that he had shared with Rani when she first came to the palace. A few minutes earlier, when Hal had strode in, the nurses had looked up from the princesses' morning meal. They had needed only one glance at the king's face, one glance at the knife-like shards of wax that jutted from the parchment in his hands, and they had fled, taking the princesses and leaving Hal alone.

All alone. On his own. Blood and bone.

Consciously refusing to read the parchment letter again, Hal scooped up a doll that the youngest princess had been holding. He smoothed his thumb across the toy's wooden face, down the silky locks of horsehair. Rani had owned a doll when she had been designated First Pilgrim. She had offered up the poppet on the dais in the cathedral, cementing her oath to her king, to the Defender of her Faith.

Defender of the Faith. Remember the wraith –

No! No more rhymes!

After Rani had settled in the castle, after the horrific events that had cost her her brother and set Hal on his throne, Rani had confided to him that she had dreaded parting with her past, that day in the cathedral. She'd been loathe to hand over the final bond with her mother and father, with the family that had sheltered and loved her as she had grown up within the city walls. Of course, the old king, Shanoranvilli, had known nothing of a child's hopes and desires. He had accepted the doll with an incredulous laugh, propelling Rani forward on her quest.

On her quest. To her rest. Death is best.

Death
is
best.

Why hadn't Shanoranvilli refused the childish offering? Why hadn't the old king mandated that Rani could not be the First Pilgrim, that she was too young? Maybe, then, Rani would still be alive. Shanoranvilli might still sit on his throne. Halaravilli might be left alone in the corner of this very nursery, playing with his soldiers, lining up his toys. Playing like a boy. Any little ploy.

Anything other than reading this parchment, reading it again, and knowing that it reeked of death. Death for Rani. Death for soldiers, who would fight to avenge the merchant girl. Death for Bashi who had brought them all to such straits. Death for Hal, most likely, who would be hunted down by the Fellowship of Jair for rebelling against their orders, even if he somehow survived his war in the north.

For Hal had no option now. He and Sin Hazar had engaged in a stilted exchange of letters, two traveling in each direction. The king of Amanthia had made it clear that he desired nothing more than to return Rani to Morenia, along with Mair and Bashi. Sin Hazar claimed to be worried, though, afraid that he could not guarantee safe passage of his hostages. He believed that the journey could only be secured if he were allowed to move his troops into northern Morenia, into the rich borderlands between the two kingdoms.

Hal had refused, of course. As king, he could not permit entire divisions of armed men to encamp in his territory. Instead, Hal had suggested that the three hostages be returned on the next available ship, with no further questions, no further threats between the parties.