Glasswrights' Progress (4 page)

For just an instant, Rani thought that her eyes deceived her in the twilight gloom. When the man pawed at his face, he left behind a tracery around his eyes. Only when Rani blinked did she realize that the man had not
covered
his face with the strange design. Rather, his wiping motion had removed a layer of color, a coating of flesh-colored paint like the cosmetics that Nurse was always thrusting at Rani. Beneath that false color, Rani could now make out a distinct tattoo, the careful outline of a lion beneath the man's left eye.

She caught her breath. She'd heard enough in Hal's court for the past two years to know that the northern soldiers tattooed themselves at birth, dedicating their lives to their warrior existence. A northern soldier, then, from Amanthia. From the executed Queen Felicianda's homeland.

“What have you done, Bashi?”

“That's Prince Bashanorandi to you!” Bashi nearly screamed his rebuff, pulling hard on Mair's arm. The Touched girl tried to bite back her cry of pain, but a little of the sound leaked into the clearing.

“My lord Bashanorandi,” Rani forced herself to say.

Bashi nodded, apparently placated. With a curt gesture, he passed Mair to one of his soldiers. “Kill her, if that one takes a single step amiss.”

“Yes, my prince.” The soldier locked his arm across Mair's windpipe, settling a long, curved dagger against her side. A curved dagger, Rani finally registered. Curved like the knives of the northern troops.

“What are you doing, Bash –, Prince Bashanorandi?”

“Once, I thought I'd wait to show my strength, but you've made that impossible. Get on your horse.”

“What?”

“I know you're not stupid, Ranita. Get on your horse.”

“I'm not riding anywhere with you.”

“I'll kill you here and now, if I have to.” Watching the pulse beat fast in his throat, Rani understood that Bashi was not making an idle threat. “I'm not going back to Moren, back to Hal. But if I sent you back to Moren directly, I'd never have time to get to Amanthia, before you'd have Hal's soldiers after us. I just might convince my brother to ransom you two sorry excuses for courtiers, though. Parkman, get the creances.”

The lion-tattooed soldier strode over to the toppled cadge, swearing as the frantic Maradalian flapped her grey and white wings. The man extracted two long leather leashes from the collapsed structure. He snapped the creances between his fists, testing their strength as he turned back to his liege.

Bashi's eyes glinted in the last of the sunlight. “I don't want to do it, Ranita. I don't want to order you killed, but I will if I have to.” The girl had no doubt that he
would
follow through on his threat. “Mount up now. We have a long ride ahead of us.”

With a warning glance toward Mair, Rani turned back to her stallion. She grunted as she pulled herself onto her high saddle, trying to ignore the slash of crimson that painted the leather as her wounded hand opened again. Somewhere in the struggle of the last few minutes, she had lost her rough bandage.

Bashi jutted his chin toward Rani, and the soldier snapped the creances once again. “Lash her to the stirrups.”

Rani immediately set her heels, ready to kick the horse and flee back to Moren. Before she could act, though, Bashi barked a command to the soldier who held Mair. The man tightened his grip on Mair's arm, twisting hard and pulling the limb high behind the Touched girl's back. The crack of splintering bone was audible above the rustle of the high grass, and Mair cried out through her clenched teeth. “Don't even think about riding off, Ranita. I'll kill her before you're out of earshot.”

Certainly Bashi would use more violence to gain his way. The prince's face was coated with a sheen of sweat, and his hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly in the twilight. Mair began to moan softly, although she tried to swallow her pain. Rani sat still as Parkman tightened the falcon's leash about her, lashing first one foot to her stirrup then passing the leather beneath her stallion's belly and binding the other. “Get her hands, too,” Bashi barked, and the soldier complied, using another length of leather.

Staring at Bashi with bitterness, Rani only just remembered to hold her tongue as the prince nodded and ordered Mair released. It was a simple matter for Bashi to have the Touched girl bound, to have her tied to her own mount. Then Bashi's soldiers seated themselves on their own horses. The prince glanced around the plain nervously, his eyes lingering on the dead falcon-master, the murdered soldier, the maimed one. The falcons' cadge was crumpled on the ground like a skeleton. Maradalian stood amid the ruins, blinded by her hood, uncertain of the disaster around her.

Bashi nodded to Parkman and pointed his chin toward the hamstrung soldier. “Get rid of that one, and let's get out of here. We can get to the coast by sunset tomorrow and find a ship to sail north, to Amanthia. With any luck Hal won't find this till then. We can demand ransom for the girls when we arrive in my mother's homeland.”

Before Rani could protest, the soldier dispatched his one-time brother, slashing the man's throat with one even motion. Then the guards fell into formation, one riding at Rani's left side, one riding at Mair's right. Two of the armed men followed behind, flanking their prince. When Rani hesitated to spur her stallion, the soldier beside her drew his sword. Before she could decide whether she would take a stand, Mair swayed in her own saddle, moaning as the movement jarred her injured arm.

“You've got to help her!” Rani cried to Bashi. “At least let me put her arm in a sling.”

“After we've ridden. You can help her after we cross the Yman.”

“The river is two hours from here!”

“Then it will be two hours before her arm is set.”

Rani heard the determination in his voice. In a flash, she remembered the Bashi she had first met when she arrived in the palace. That prince had been a spoiled boy, a noble who accepted his royalty with an unseemly arrogance. He had manipulated nurses and guards, played upon his supposed father's heartstrings. Now, he had these four soldiers bound to him, and nothing would convince him to take pity on two low-caste girls.

Sighing, Rani touched her spurs to her stallion's flanks. Mair moaned through lips that were grey in the twilight, but she jigged her own horse forward. As the riders moved east into the unfolding night, a breeze picked up, blowing from the distant city walls. Rani could just make out the rhythmic clang of the Pilgrims' Bell, summoning the faithful to Moren's safety, to the haven of King Halaravilli, to the lost comfort of home and hearth.

 

 

Chapter 2

 

 

Shea had put too much salt in the soup. She had thought there were still three potatoes left, that they would absorb the extra salt. It was only when she clambered down to the dank root cellar that she learned that she was wrong. There were no more potatoes. And there was too much salt.

She was getting old. Too old to remember if she had any potatoes.

When Shea called the orphans to sit at the long table, she expected them to complain. After all, her children were still learning to follow the course appointed for them by the skies. They were still striving to live by the stars that had shone over their births. Her skychildren were not perfect.

The five lionchildren, though, stoically raised their bowls of salty water to their cracked lips. They drank like good little soldiers. Five tattoos peered at her over their wooden bowls, lion-brown constellations curving beneath each left eye.

The nine sunchildren managed as well, sighing in discontent, but drinking down their supper. Only a few rolled their eyes, wrinkling the rayed tattoos high on their cheeks, symbol of the sun that had shone over their births.

The flock of four owlchildren took the opportunity to discuss the logic of the situation. Should Shea have expected there to be more potatoes? If not, then had she acted properly in preparing the soup? On and on, the owls jabbered at each other, their own tattoos glinting black against their cheeks.

Shea merely watched them and listened, thinking of her own children, who had come to her so late in life. Her own dead lionson, her lost daughter. Her lost swangirl. Like Serena.

Just six years old, the orphaned swangirl Serena was the problem during supper. She perched at the head of the table and wrinkled her nose at her bowl of tepid brine. One of the sunchildren tried to forestall a tantrum by giving Serena his portion of acorn bread. The swangirl took one look at the dry crust, and a crystal tear trickled past the silver wings tattooed beneath her left eye.

That tear made Tain, the oldest sungirl, rush over to comfort the swanchild. As Tain crooned soft words, the lion captain, Hartley, glared at the other children. He made a show of mopping out the salty dregs from his bowl with his own bitter bread. The other children followed his example. Shea's heart went out to her oldest orphans, to Tain and Hartley, who were almost ready to take their places in the warring, wild world.

As Tain cleared empty bowls from the table, Shea rested a hand on Hartley's arm. She spoke awkwardly. “Thank you.”

“I was only doing my job,” the lionboy growled. It still surprised Shea that he spoke with a man's deep voice. He had already lived fifteen years. Fifteen years, all in the shadow of King Sin Hazar's wars, of the Uprising and the battles that followed.

“You do your job well. It's a comfort knowing that I can trust you.”

The boy was clearly pleased by the praise, but before he could answer, Tain approached. “I'll get the children into bed. We should get the suns up early tomorrow, if we're going to forage in the northern clearing.”

“Aye,” Shea agreed. “It's a long walk.”

“I still don't think it's safe,” Hartley protested. He had argued every morning since Shea had proposed the journey to the distant part of the forest. “My lions can't guard all of us so far from home.”

“Well, we can't just sit here and starve,” Shea said. She might only be a sun, she might not have been born under a star-sign, but she knew about providing for her children. “Besides, it's just the suns and the lions who will go. We'll send the owls and Serena to the village for the day. Father Nariom can teach them more of their lessons.”

“The village isn't safe either! Sin Hazar's men could come through at any time!”

“King Sin Hazar's men have not passed this way in over a year, Hartley. They're staying far to the north. They're preparing to do battle across the sea, in Liantine.”

The boy shook his head. “They may fight across the ocean, but they'll come here to gather up soldiers for the Little Army. They're still set on punishing us for the Uprising. You know the rumors – you've heard them in the village!”

“If stories had any value, then bards would give feasts all year round.”

“Shea, my lions have been talking about nothing else. Everyone knows that the Little Army grows near.” Shea forced herself to laugh, as if she had not heard the desperate tales. “You know King Sin Hazar needs us, Shea. He needs children.” Hartley recited the lessons he'd learned, the lions' catechism that he'd been taught when he first met other lionboys around the village fountain, when he had first begun to learn how to fight, how to protect his homeland. “After fifteen years of fighting the Uprising against our pitiful, rebellious province, the king had hardly any grown men in all Amanthia. The Little Army, the army of children, will help King Sin Hazar reclaim his power in the world. King Sin Hazar will be able to capture Liantine to the east, and he'll bring power and glory to his united kingdom of Amanthia.”

Of course, Shea knew these truths. She knew about the endless battles that King Sin Hazar had fought, that he planned to fight. She knew that her tiny corner of Amanthia had led the rebellion against its king more than twenty years before, that it had planted the seeds of the civil war that had torn all of Amanthia for nearly a generation.

Shea's province had rebelled because it had been forced to pay too many taxes. It had been forced to provide soldiers for a royal army overseas. It had been forced to forfeit the peace and comfort of quiet country life. It had had no choice but to fight against its own king decades before. A lifetime ago. Many lives ago.

And it had lost.

The king was not through punishing Shea's land. He was not ready to forgive the rebellious province that had cost him so many skilled fighting men. Instead, he continued to fight, continued to harvest children for his Little Army.

Shea made her voice reassuring. “King Sin Hazar may have great plans for his united Amanthia, but we're too far from the capital for him to notice us yet. We'll be safe for a while longer.”

“You can't
believe
that!”

She shrugged. “I believe that I have to feed my children. And I believe that the owls need to learn. I can't teach them how to debate, and you can't either. We'll send them to Father Nariom in the village and trust to the Thousand Gods.”

“I'll trust to my lions,” Hartley grumbled. “I'm sending two with the owls.”

“That's a good decision.” Shea smiled at the boy.

She wondered if she was saying the right thing, wondered if she was raising him properly. She asked herself such questions every day, about all the lions, and the owls, and her sole little swan.

Shea wished that her husband, Bram, were still alive. But he had died years before, felled by a fever during the Uprising. Bram had died before the last rebels had been carted away and the rich manor fields were salted.

Before Shea could lose herself in the memories of everything she had lost over so many years, Tain began to tuck the orphans into their beds. The oldest sungirl listened to the other sunchildren say their prayers, watched the children bow to the west and thank the sun for serving as their guide and inspiration as they toiled in the fields. Taking her cue from Shea's practiced supervision, Tain ignored the fact that no fields had been planted that year. She ignored the fact that they'd eaten their seed corn in the middle of winter.