Glasswrights' Progress (40 page)

“One night.”

“Two.”

“One. My ship is well-known. As soon as we're spotted, Sin Hazar's lions will be on us like vultures on carrion. We can only stay hidden for a night, if we go into a port close to Amanth.”

One night. They could never succeed. They could never find Hal and return with the gold that Teleos demanded. They weren't likely to be able to return even with a royal pledge. Rani nodded, though, as if she were accepting Teleos' explanation. “We'll need a fourth to help us then. We need the boy called Monny.”

Rani saw Crestman look at her oddly, but then he nodded as well. He understood that they were going to fail. He knew that the Little Army was going to be forfeit. Monny, at least, should be spared the passage to Liantine; he should be spared a lifetime as a slave.

Teleos waved his hand. “One night. If we don't see you by sunrise, we lift anchor and head east.”

Crestman finally spoke. “And we need the flying machine as well. To get the Morenians' attention.”

“The flying –?” The slaver cut off his incredulous exclamation and pursed his lips in his shiny beard. “Fine,” he shrugged, spreading his hands to indicate his generosity. “And the flying machine.”

Rani nodded and tried not to think of all the children who were huddled beneath the deck. She tried not to think of the girls who were even now rewarding their soldiers for rising up against their Amanthian guards. She tried not to think of the lies that she had told those girls, the stories that she had woven to get the ship back to land with the least amount of bloodshed, with the fewest lives lost.

All of her manipulations were likely to be for nothing. Suditha, Landur, all the other children.… If Rani could not do the impossible, if she could not find Hal and convince him to pay Teleos' extortion, the Little Army would be heading back to Liantine.

Nevertheless, they now had
some
chance, a single ray of hope.

Crestman and Teleos shook hands over their bargain, and the three children were escorted from the crowded cabin. Mair took one look at Rani's face and darted belowdecks. The Touched girl would tell the Little Army what had happened. She would tell them that the ship was turning about, that they were heading back to King Sin Hazar. She would tell them that Rani and Crestman had been successful.

Before Rani could follow her friend, Crestman gripped her arm. With his free hand, he tilted her face, moving her about so that the moonlight bounced in her eyes. “It's not easy to do what you did in there.”

“What I did? I struck a bargain.”

“Aye. You bargained with children's lives. You bargained to save the four of us, even though the currency you paid was children's lives.”

Rani swallowed hard. Four was such a small number. “I chose to get us back to Amanthia. I chose to give us a chance for freedom, a chance to reach Hal.”

“You acted like a general.”

Rani stared at the captain as his words prickled across the nape of her neck. She shook her head, wondering if she could possibly make him understand. “Not like a general, Crestman. Like a merchant, making my best bargain. Or... or like a guildmistress. I chose what was best for my people, over all, when I had next to nothing to bargain with. I did what had to be done.”

There was a chance, after all. A shadow of a ghost of a vestige of a chance. They might find Hal. He might agree to the twenty-five bars of gold. He might spare the Little Army.

A sailor cried out in the night, and Rani felt the ship begin to turn about. The great sails swelled with wind, and the craft creaked as it shifted its heading from Liantine back toward Amanthia. Rani swayed as the ship lurched, but Crestman tightened his grip on her arm, steadying her. “We've begun, then.” His voice was grim. “The Little Army has turned against its king.”

“Aye.” She matched his tone. “And may Doan help us find King Halaravilli.”

She whispered the prayer, almost losing the name of the god of hunters in the sounds of the wind and the waves, and the sigh of the soldier standing beside her.

 

Hal knelt before the makeshift altar in his tent, bowing his head against the sharp wooden edge of the platform. He had tried to pray all evening, tried to pull words together to exorcise the demons that so often whispered in his mind. Nothing worked, though. Nothing brought him the peace of his childhood prayers, his appeals to the simple gods of love and family, of nobles and playthings. Whatever words he spoke, whatever prayers he prayed, Hal kept seeing the mute smith splayed against the wall of the earthen pit, mouth gaping around the quivering shaft of an arrow.

“Hail, Roat, god of justice,” Hal began again. “Look upon me with favor, great god Roat. Know that I have acted to further your ways among men. Know that I have tried to bring your wisdom to my actions.”

Words. Empty, formulaic words.

Was it justice for a man to be cut down, when he had merely acted in service to his king? Was it justice to forfeit a single life for the three score and ten who had been murdered by those impossible glass eggs? What about the twisted genius who had conceived of the eggs? What about the king who had commanded him? Where was Hal to find justice on a cold winter night, as his troops besieged a strange northern city?

And even that siege wasn't certain to bring justice, in the end. Hal's army was encamped outside the gates of Sin Hazar's capital, spread out on the plain, just beyond reach of an expertly shot arrow. They had effectively cut off the merchants' road into the city; they had severed Sin Hazar's landward supply routes.

There was nothing Hal could do, though, about the sea. He had only a handful of ships at his command. They had taken up their positions in Sin Hazar's harbor, but there were too few to cut off the Amanthians completely. Sin Hazar would be able to sneak in fish and supplies, run any number of craft around Hal's blockade.

Realizing that his attention had wandered from his prayers once again, Hal stifled an oath. As if in reply to his scarce-swallowed curse, he heard cloth shift behind him. Farsobalinti must have entered, ready to help him prepare for bed. Fine. Enough of this kneeling, of this self-abasement. If the gods wanted to send Hal wisdom, they could find him in his dreams.

“Ach,” he spoke aloud, and settled one hand on the altar as he clambered to his feet. “Farso, it's colder tonight than it was
last
 night. Why didn't we march south when we had the chance?”

“Aye, Your Majesty. If you had marched south, things might have been so much simpler.”

Hal whirled at the voice, the deep voice, so much deeper than Farso's boyish tenor. “Tasuntimanu.”

The councillor bowed slightly, his broad face impassive. “Sire.”

“Where is Farsobalinti? What did you do to my squire?”

“Nothing, Your Majesty. I told him to take a walk, to go warm his hands over one of the campfires. I told him I would serve you this evening. I've come to speak with you privately, Sire. As one man to another.”

Hal started to call for his guards, but he stopped himself. If Tasuntimanu had meant to murder him, the earl could have cut Hal down while he knelt at prayer. There must be something else the councillor wanted to achieve. Hal took the precaution of moving behind the altar, placing the wooden stand between them. He wished that he had his sword at his side, but he had left the weapon across the tent, tossed carelessly onto his low cot when he had decided to pray. Hal forced a shrug into his words and asked, “What do you want, Tasuntimanu?”

“I've been trying to speak with you for nearly a fortnight, Your Highness.”

“I've been busy commanding a war.”

“Not too busy to meet with Lamantarino.”

“May he walk the Heavenly Fields,” Hal said piously, making a religious sign across his chest.

Tasuntimanu followed suit, but he spoke before his hand had dropped to his side. “Not too busy to meet with Lamantarino, or your other councillors.”

Hal sighed. “I did not mean to avoid you, Tasuntimanu.” He hoped that the honest fatigue in his voice would be enough to mask the lie.

“If I only wished to speak to you for myself, Your Majesty, that would be one thing. But I come on behalf of others. Others who cannot abide your silence.”

“Others?”

“Aye.” Tasuntimanu stepped up to the altar, settled his broad hands across the wood surface. Hal drew his own fingers back, reluctant to allow the nobleman so near his flesh. “I speak for the Fellowship, Your Majesty. I come to you in their name.” Tasuntimanu studied Hal's face and apparently did not find the recognition he sought. “The Fellowship of Jair,” he prompted.

“I understood you, man.”

“You made promises back in the city, Your Majesty. You told Glair that you would seek my counsel before you took action.”

“I was not given the
opportunity
to consult you, Tasuntimanu. When I learned that Lady Rani had been executed, I needed to act immediately. I needed to bring my armies north, to avenge the lady. To preserve the honor of my kingdom.”

Tasuntimanu leaned forward and grasped Hal's wrists. The king jerked back by reflex, fighting to free his hands, but the nobleman only tightened his grip. His spatulate fingers dug into Hal's flesh, pulled the king forward until their faces were only inches apart. “Did you, Your Majesty? Did you need to ride north?”

“I am a king,” Hal lashed out, “anointed before the Thousand Gods! Remove your hands, or I will call my guards.”

“You were a member of the Fellowship before you were king,” Tasuntimanu replied, but he loosened his grip. “We remember the oaths you swore, even if you have forgotten them.”

“I forget nothing, my lord.” Hal flexed his arms and let his cloak fall more naturally about his shoulders. “
Nothing
.”

Tasuntimanu studied him for a moment, shaking his head with grim disapproval. “This did not need to be so difficult, Your Majesty. If only you had permitted me to speak with you earlier, before we traveled this far north. Before you set siege to Amanthia.” The nobleman stepped back, letting his weight fall on his heels. “The Fellowship of Jair commands all its members not to interfere with its business in Amanthia. You must order your men to break camp at dawn. Break the siege and return to Morenia.”

Hal started to laugh with incredulity. “Break –” he began, but trailed off as he
realized that Tasuntimanu was not smiling. “You're actually serious! You think that I can just ride
south for the winter and ignore the fact that my brother is a traitor behind the walls of that city.
You think that I can just forget that they executed Rani Trader! Rani, and presumably another member
of the so-called Fellowship, Mair.”

“You're the king of Morenia. You can do whatever you want.”

Hal spluttered in disbelief. “Do you realize what my men would do? How long would I last on the throne of Morenia, Tasuntimanu? I'd be cast down before we got back to the city.”

“You exaggerate, Your Majesty.”

“Not by much.”

“It may be difficult, Your Majesty, but you must accept my word that it is necessary. We could have avoided this unpleasantness if you had listened to me in Morenia. If you had permitted my counsel before.”

“There was no way to avoid this!” Hal hissed. “Bashanorandi would have turned traitor whether I sought your counsel or not! Rani Trader and Mair would have been murdered by that Amanthian monster if I prostrated myself before Glair or not! Your Fellowship could not change what has happened here!”

“
My
Fellowship, Your Majesty?” Tasuntimanu let his own voice spark. “It is
our
Fellowship, Sire!
Our
Fellowship. And it is
our
plans that you will destroy if you persist in this siege. Years of hard work, a treasury emptied of gold, all for naught! All so that you can get your vengeance for a treacherous bastard, a Touched wench, and a dead and buried merchant brat!”

Not buried, Hal wanted to argue. Not consigned to a frozen northern grave. Surely Sin Hazar must have granted Rani a pyre.

Granted a pyre. Purifying fire. Murder for hire.

Hal managed to focus his attention past the voices, concentrate on the true thrust of Tasuntimanu's words. “Years of work and countless gold? What has the Fellowship done, Tasuntimanu? What have you orchestrated, and only now deigned to tell your king?”

The councillor glanced at the tent-flaps, as if he had just remembered that the night was passing, that the stars were rising and setting, and dawn would come all too soon. Dawn, or Farsobalinti, or some other petitioner, to take away Halaravilli. A light kindled in Tasuntimanu's eyes as he replied, “The Fellowship, Your Majesty. It's larger than you think. We have brethren in all the kingdoms, east and west, north and south of Morenia.”

“Glair said as much.”

“Aye. But she stopped short of telling you that the Fellowship has a plan, a dream of uniting all the kingdoms under one leader. We await the Royal Pilgrim to gather all the lands under the banner of Jair. The Royal Pilgrim will guide all his people in the ways of the Thousand Gods.”

Hal heard the words, heard the worshipful tone, but he wasn't impressed. He had surmised at least that much of the plan when Glair first told him of the Fellowship's shadowy reach. “And how does my treacherous brother fit into your schemes? How can it possibly help the Fellowship to let Bashanorandi live? To let two ladies' deaths go unavenged?”

“Prince Bashanorandi is a tool, Your Majesty. As were Rani and Mair. As are you and I. We all pale in significance to the Fellowship, to the power of Jair. Blessed be the Pilgrim.”

“Blessed be the Pilgrim,” Hal muttered in annoyance, making the appropriate sign to spur on Tasuntimanu's confession.

The councillor's words fell more rapidly as his religious fervor rose. “We may all be tools, but we pale in significance next to Sin Hazar. The Amanthian king is strong, you know. He is fearless, and he rules his kingdom with an iron fist, with plans to advance his holdings far and wide.”