Glasswrights' Progress (36 page)

Mair snorted. “Escape? You watched those girls in the camps! You can hear them now, rutting like sows. They've already been recruited to the Little Army. They're here to serve your precious Crestman's boys, wherever they might have to go, and don't fool yourself otherwise.”

“He's not
my
Crestman!” Rani and Mair had avoided this fight for days, for all the time that they'd been stuck in the stockade outside Sin Hazar's city.

As the ship lurched into yet another deep trough, though, Rani could not think straight, could not ask herself the right questions about the Little Army. About the girls in the camp. Nothing made sense down here in the stinking hold, not as her mind reeled with the discovery that Teleos was a slaver, that she and Mair were mere goods to be delivered. Rani could not think with the sounds of creaking ropes and moaning boards around her. And not with the other sounds in the hold – a smothered giggle, a scarce-masked grunt.

Fifteen thousand children in Liantine. Fifteen thousand slaves, disappeared. And those had been boys, hardened in the Little Army's camps. What would happen to the girls following in their footsteps – untrained girls, without weapons, or experience, or even a hint of battle training?

“But Crestman wouldn't let –” Rani began.

“How much control will Crestman have, when we're greeted by archers at the port? How much power will he have, when one of his boys is shot, as an example? When one of the girls is collared and chained, or worse, on the very dock?

Rani swallowed hard, fighting against the reek of salt and fish and unwashed bodies. For just an instant, she could remember standing beside Sin Hazar, dancing with him at his cursed feast. Her breath was tight in her chest, as it had been when she'd been bound by the nareeth, by the queer, restrictive northern garments. Rani remembered the flush that had spread across her cheeks as Sin Hazar danced with her, the way she had responded to his silky words.

Even then, he had been using her. He had been exploiting her the way he intended to exploit all the girls on this ship, all the children in the Little Army.

She had been spared his touch that night in Amanthia, the night that she had escaped with Mair. Whatever she had thought she wanted, whatever she had thought was right, she had escaped with her honor, her faithfulness to Morenia and Halaravilli intact. She wasn't about to lose that honor now, not on this ship, and not on the Liantine shore.

They had three days before they were supposed to arrive in Liantine. Three days before they would be pawned for gold. For gold that could buy weapons, buy grown mercenaries who would be used against Halaravilli, against Morenia, against her liege. “We've got to do something, Mair.”

“And what do you suggest, Rai?”

“We've got to gather the girls together. We've got to explain.”

“The girls!” Mair snorted. “There may be five score girls all told, on both these ships, only about sixty of them here. What can we do with sixty girls against the Little Army and all the grown soldiers? Those boys believe they're on a mission, appointed by their king! And there are Sin Hazar's men, too, more than half a dozen of them, guarding us.”

“We have to try,” Rani vowed. “Come on. Let's head toward the ladder. There's a breeze, and we'll be able to think more clearly.” When Mair did not move, Rani plucked at her arm. “I won't be used, Mair. I won't be a bedwarmer or a slave or a weapon against my king.”

“I don't know that you have the choice, Rai.”

“We've all got choices.” Mair started to protest again, but Rani merely shook her head, dragging her friend over to the ladder and the tendrils of fresh air that curled down from the deck. “No, Mair. We've all got choices. Some of them are just harder to see than others.”

 

 

Chapter 12

 

 

Sin Hazar removed two ship-markers from his map, scooping up the carved pieces as if he intended to throw them across the board, like dice sealing his fate. Instead, he turned toward his nephew, tossing the wooden carvings to the unsuspecting Bashanorandi. The boy let one of the pieces clatter to the floor, and he scrambled to retrieve it before it could roll toward the drafty hearth. Felicianda's boy, on his knees before his uncle.… Well, it was an amusing start for a strategy session. Suppressing a tight smile, Sin Hazar turned his focus to his brother. “Well, Al-Marai. Two fewer issues to worry about.”

“Aye.” Al-Marai moved to the foot of the board, cocking his head, as if to get a better perspective.

“Those ships should reach Liantine within the next three days,” Sin Hazar mused. “Our profit on the goods will let us buy another score of Yrathis. What does that bring our total to? Eight hundred?”

“Give or take.”

Sin Hazar was annoyed that his brother replied without a trace of emotion. This was a time to celebrate! The notion of impressing the girls – that had been inspired by the Thousand Gods! Why, if the recruiters gathered up girls throughout the winter.… Sin Hazar would have another – what? – five ships to send to the Liantines? Another fifty Yrathis added to his troops? Al-Marai should be a touch more enthusiastic. He should at least
pretend
that he cared about the looming battle. “Perhaps, brother, you'd like to switch sides now.” Sin Hazar kept his voice dry, but he watched the general tense at the words.

“I'd fall on my sword, if my liege but suggests it,” Al-Marai replied automatically, and his hand reached for the curved blade that hung from his waist.

“Yes, yes,” Sin Hazar waved off the formula, directing a scowl toward the now-hovering Bashanorandi. No reason to drag the boy into this, to make statements that would have to be backed up in front of prying eyes and ears. “What's wrong, Al-Marai? What are you not telling me?”

“Nothing's wrong, Your Majesty.” Al-Marai kept his hand on his weapon as he strode up the side of the map. “Nothing that we can't fix.”

In a flash, the general reached out for the board, shifting pieces to move the Morenian army closer to the capital, closer to Sin Hazar himself. Still dissatisfied with the map's display, Al-Marai shook his head and reached into the gutters at the side of the painted board. He extracted three more crimson pieces, markers for the upstart Halaravilli's army. Al-Marai settled them on the board beside the other pieces, shook his head, and moved the entire mass of crimson markers still farther north, so that they were within two days' march of Sin Hazar.

“Surely you jest.” Sin Hazar kept his dry cynicism with an effort.

“There's no jest here. I've just received our most recent scouts' reports.”

“But there's no way that southern dog can have that many men! It's wintertime! He would need to muster his entire kingdom!”

“Perhaps we were misinformed about the number of his standing forces.” Al-Marai flicked a glance toward Felicianda's bastard.

Sin Hazar followed his brother's gaze and restrained a shrug of irritation. “Bashanorandi.” The name was clearly a command, but it still took the boy a moment to step up to the map. What had the creature expected when he insisted on joining his uncles in the stone chamber? That he could sulk in the corner like a child denied sweets?

“Your Majesty?” Bashanorandi bowed as he stepped up to the table, but he avoided meeting Sin Hazar's eyes.

Ah, Felicianda had much to answer for.… Had she truly expected to set this child on her southern throne? If so, perhaps she had remained more dedicated to her homeland Amanthia, to her family, than Sin Hazar had ever expected. He could have overrun
Bashanorandi's
kingdom with the effort it took to swat a fly.

“You've heard your uncle. There are more troops approaching from the south than we expected. You told us that we would find no more than a hundred men on horse, and merely ten companies of foot soldiers.”

“Th – that's what I thought, Your Majesty.” Bashanorandi darted a tongue over his chapped lips. A nasty habit, that. It made him look like a lizard, an appearance that was not disputed by his eyes' furtive dart toward the map board. The new swan's wing tattooed on the boy's cheek twitched nervously.

“And what was your base for those estimates, Bashanorandi?”

“There were exercises set for us by our tutors, back in Morenia.” The boy closed his eyes and caught his tongue between his teeth, sighing deeply as if he were trying to remember a complex calculation. “They said that in the first years of Shanoranvilli's rule, he marched north to Amanthia. He raised troops along the way. One hundred men on horse, he had, and he gathered ten companies –”

“At the beginning of his reign!” Sin Hazar exploded, smashing his fist down onto the table in fury. The army markers jumped, and three units of footsoldiers collapsed on their sides. “How long did Shanoranvilli sit his throne, boy?”

“F – for sixty years.”

“And what Amanthian borders changed during that time?” Bashanorandi stared at him as if he spoke the language of the Thousand Gods. “Didn't he become the lord of the Eastern March?”

“But, Your Majesty, I did not know how to calculate other figures!”

“Didn't he become lord of the Eastern March?” Sin Hazar repeated, ignoring the pitiful protest.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Bashanorandi hunched his shoulders unhappily.

“And didn't he annex the Southern Reach?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“And didn't he become overlord of the Pepper Isles?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. But there aren't many people there, not more than a few hundred.”

“Not more than a few hundred!” Sin Hazar bellowed, and his fists closed in his nephew's royal blue tunic. He felt the boy's heart pound beneath his hands as he drew the whelp close, near enough for Bashanorandi's nervous breath to brush across his own lips. He squeezed the boy and hissed, “Not more than a few hundred! But how many more people declared their loyalty to your father, when he could provide them with a safe route to the spices?” He shook the boy hard enough that he could hear teeth chatter together. “How many more of your merchants swore fealty in the southern part of your father's realm? How many more soldiers bear the Morenian lion on their shields?”

“I – I don't know! P – Please, Your Majesty, you're hurting me!”

Sin Hazar swore and twisted the boy's tunic tighter between his hands, gathering up the silk folds until the cloth sawed into the vulnerable flesh at the front of the boy's throat. The soft skin was bared like a lover's, and Sin Hazar saw fear in the boy's pleading eyes, blue eyes so like Felicianda's.

What a miserable excuse for a prince!

Felicianda would never have tolerated such abuse from Sin Hazar! Even if she had made the same stupid mistakes, even if she had failed to take into consideration the most basic elements of statesmanship, she would have fought against her elder brother's punishment. Anger would have flashed from her blue eyes, pure rage. And then she would have twisted in his grip, even if the movement cut off her breath even more. She would have fought like a coney in a snare, and she would have stomped on his toes.…

But Felicianda was gone. Dead. Executed as a traitor. All for trying to place this waste of a boy on her southern throne.

“Your Majesty.” Sin Hazar barely heard the words, scarcely registered the murmur. Nevertheless, Al-Marai took a step forward, distracting Sin Hazar from his fury. The king did not bother to look at his brother as he brought himself back to the stone chamber, to the map that was riddled with false markers.

Instead, he twisted his hands a fraction tighter, sawed the fabric just a little deeper into his nephew's soft throat. And then he released Bashanorandi.

The boy collapsed to his knees, retching. He leaned forward to support most of his weights on his hands, gasping for air as if he were a fish pulled from the ocean depths. Sin Hazar reined in the temptation to dig a booted toe into the boy's side. Better to ignore the brat. Better to leave him out of the affairs of men.

Instead, Sin Hazar turned back to the board, reaching out with a steady hand to pick up the footsoldier markers that had been toppled. “Very well, then.” He might have been discussing nothing more perturbing than an overcooked goose at the dinner table. “Tell me, Al-Marai. How long will it take for these southern troops to arrive on our doorstep? And what must we do to crush them?”

Al-Marai did not waste time glancing at his gasping nephew. Lion that he was, he'd never had a great love for Felicianda. Sin Hazar knew that she'd grasped a swan's right to command when she was only a little girl. Many times, Sin Hazar had watched Felicianda order around their older brother with a vicious cruelty, making a swan's demands of Al-Marai that Sin Hazar himself had never dared. Sin Hazar had always remembered the power behind his lion-brother's sword arm. Sin Hazar had been no fool.

And now, Sin Hazar watched Al-Marai discard Felicianda's whelp, rubbing his soldierly hand across his lion tattoo, as if the general were reminding himself of his true purpose in the Amanthian court. “Here,” Al-Marai said, pointing to one of the new markers. “They've already cleared the Swancastle.”

“And what about the toys that Davin said he'd leave behind?”

“Oh, he left them, Your Majesty. They did their work. We estimate that Halaravilli lost ten of his nobles, and at least three score footsoldiers.”

“Seventy men?” Sin Hazar frowned. “That's all? Davin said they'd be destroyed entirely.”

“Seventy men, but we've made them afraid. They're sending out scouts now, studying everything on and off the road.”

“S – Seventy Morenians murdered?” Sin Hazar had not noticed that Bashanorandi had risen to his feet, had come back to the map. He
did
note, though, that the boy kept his distance. The pup was frightened of his royal uncle; he clearly had no intention of standing close enough to be seized again, even if he
had
dared to voice a foolish, sentimental thought.