Glasswrights' Apprentice (24 page)

She became creative in finding bribe money for Garadolo. Often, she cleaned other soldiers' quarters, earning a few coppers from the fighting men's kept women. Once, she slipped past the checkpoints, back into the City streets. Too proud to consider begging, she managed to pick a stranger's pockets, earning a handful of silver for her trouble. A handful of silver, balanced by the weight of her soul - she considered the trade a fair one when she thought of Bardo. Another day, she ducked into a soldier's unattended doss, digging in his possessions for anything of value. Garadolo did not ask her where the silver belt buckle came from when she handed it over, and she dared not volunteer the information.

As the days dragged on and Rani became more skilled at theft, the thought crossed her mind that Garadolo might be lying. She went so far as to threaten to leave one night, gathering up her meager belongings and opening the door to their tiny room. The soldier bellowed in rage and dragged her back inside, and when he forced her down beside the lantern, she could see his skin was pasty, and sweat poured off him in the cool night. “You can't leave! Not after you've had me approach the Brotherhood.”

“You're not holding up your end of the bargain,” Rani shot back at him. “I've given you more trinkets in a week than I've traded in the rest of my life, and you've returned the favor with nothing!”

“I'm working up the ladder,” he muttered for the thousandth time. “I don't know how to prove to you.…”

“What sort of Brotherhood closes its doors against one of its own?”

“You don't know this Brotherhood, girl. You only think you know your Bardo. He's high and mighty in his tower, protected by the longest field, lying behind the deepest moat, surrounded by the highest wall, with more arrow loops than stars in the sky.”

“Have you told them who I am? Does he know his sister is the one who seeks him?”

“I've told everyone who'll listen to me. Don't you think I want you gone?”

While Rani did not trust Garadolo as far as she could kick him, she did believe he would rather have a cooperative bed-warmer than her own constant argument. Nevertheless, as she fell asleep that night, listening to the Pilgrims' Bell measuring its doleful welcome across the City, she vowed she would follow the soldier in the morning. She would trail him to his contact with the Brotherhood, and she would see Bardo before the bell tolled the next night.

 

 

Chapter 10

 

 

“Halt and speak the password!”

The voice hissed from the shadows, and Rani jumped, barely remembering to pull Farna's cloak close about her. She almost missed Garadolo's response as she craned her neck, tilting her head to catch the soldier's words above her pounding heart.

“Tarn keep me from the Heavenly Gates,” muttered the soldier, and his invocation of the god of death sent shivers down Rani's spine. The words proved acceptable to the watchman, and Rani squinted as Garadolo slip past the checkpoint.

The night was cold here near the City walls, and Rani needed to snatch breaths through her cloak, trying not to betray her presence with a fog on the midnight air. She had spent an uneventful day tracking Garadolo, but he had cut short their dinner with the announcement that he was going to meet with Bardo that night, come Cot or the midnight watch. Rani had promised to wait in the soldiers' quarters as she handed over part of her most recently stolen bribe - a hoard of silver coins that she had … borrowed … only the day before. Hopefully, she would be long gone before the captain of the guard realized that someone had found his treasure trove.

The theft made Rani nervous - she had been hired to clean the captain's quarters, and she would be the most likely suspect when the soldier discovered his loss. She had become enough of a fixture in the Soldiers Quarter that any of the girls who consorted with the guards would know to find her in Garadolo's lair. Her sense of exposure was only heightened by her knowledge that she had not given Garadolo all of the coins; she had kept the lion's share of the incriminating evidence herself, the better to plead her case with Bardo's protectors when she succeeded in meeting them.

Whatever the cost, she reminded herself, she must see Bardo. She must learn the truth behind the snake tattoo. She must solve the mystery of Tuvashanoran's murderer, who still stalked the City by day and by night. She'd been running long enough, cold and scared and hungry and homeless. Rani longed to be through with her charade, to return to the simple days before she had ever heard of the Brotherhood.

Even now, she looked back to her life as an apprentice with blinding fondness. She'd been so lucky then, so privileged that her most difficult task had been scrubbing a white-washed table. Her life had been good before Tuvashanoran's murder, and her heart pounded at the thought that she might now find her way back to that simpler time.

And so, Rani found herself crouching in a doorway in the City's darkest sector. Garadolo had unwittingly led her through the City's meanest streets, tracing a path through slumbering quarters that scarcely cared whether a soldier passed, or an apprentice, or a Touched child. By contrast, there had been murderous caution in the voice that demanded a password, and Rani trembled as she debated how she could best maneuver her way past the sentry, to the Brotherhood and Bardo.

“Step smart, little rat, or I'll carve you to the bone here and now.” The voice hissed out of the darkness, and Rani could not entirely smother her yelp of surprise. Focusing on the sentry ahead in the mist, she had not heard anyone glide up behind her. A sharp blade pricked the nape of her neck, and she dared not move as she struggled to formulate a response.

“Tarn keep me from the Heavenly Gates,” she squeaked, even as she thought a more comforting prayer in her own mind.

“So, the rat has sharp ears. The better for paring, eh?” The knife-point edged her forward, and she took three reluctant steps, trying to ignore the scarcely-mastered trembling that made her knees ache. Before she could reach the checkpoint where Garadolo had passed the guard, a heavy black cloth fell over her eyes, and a blindfold was pulled tight none too gently. One stray fold cut across the bridge of her nose, and the dusty bond urged her to sneeze. The cold metal kissing her neck convinced her to stifle the impulse. “Go ahead, you spying rat. Walk forward.”

The hissed command left her no choice, and Rani moved as steadily as she could. The darkness was disorienting, and she tried to test each step before planting her foot. Her captor did not give her time for exploration, though, and Rani feared that she would find her way into a deep earthen grave at any second. The knife brooked no dissent, and she commanded herself to focus on her surroundings, to learn what she could above her lungs' panting and the itch about her eyes.

The cobblestones under her boots gave way to smooth flagstones, lessening the likelihood that she would turn an ankle in her blind exploration. Even as she sighed with relief, she realized that she had passed through an entryway. The door was low and narrow, and the lintel brushed against her hood, so close that Rani wondered if her captor would have warned her before she dashed her brains out. She scarcely had time for further indignant speculation as rough hands forced her to turn sideways, to inch forward one half-step at a time as she tried to preserve her balance in the narrowest of corridors. Stone walls snagged at her cloak, and the loose ends of her blindfold caught once, leaving her a tiny slit to view her surroundings.

She could make out the torchlit walls to either side - crumbling brick that leaned close above her. The passage wound about itself, writhing like a serpent. The soft bricks were broken by many jagged cracks, and crusty stains remained where water had seeped into the structure. No building could contain a passage so long - Rani realized she must be moving
inside
the City walls. Unbidden, Rani remembered Mair talking about the Brotherhood, recalled the Touched girl's statement that the Brotherhood kept out of the City streets, clear of the City's four quarters.

Rani continued through a passage impossibly narrower than the tight corridors she had worked through so far, emerging at last into a broad chamber. Without warning, her captor hit the back of her legs with some stout object, and she plummeted to her knees. The brick floor was hard, and her teeth rattled in her skull, but she scarcely had time to protest as the man ripped away her blindfold.

Torches flickered in the low room, and Rani could just make out the warren of hallways that scurried away to her right and left. Mosaics tiled the walls, eerie patterns that made her cringe. Only after she saw the same shapes reproduced on the floor did she realize what the lines represented: four serpents twined about themselves. Eight eyes glared at her from the cardinal points of the room, bloody patches on the writhing wall mirrored by crimson pools on the floor.

Rani squirmed beneath the malevolent gaze, jumping as Garadolo spluttered from across the room, “I didn't know that she followed me here! How could I know she would track me? I told her to stay in the barracks - I ordered her to stay away!”

“You fool!”

Rani squinted, trying to make out the owner of the slurred voice that hissed from the shadows on the opposite side of the snake chamber. Garadolo appeared to know the speaker; the soldier fell to his knees, bobbing his head in submission. “Begging your pardon, lord. I didn't mean to expose the Brotherhood to harm. I didn't mean to endanger you, lord.”

“Idiot!” There was something familiar about the hissed rage, and a fading memory leaped in Rani's mind. She craned her neck to get a better look at the speaker, but was curbed by the prick of metal at the base of her skull. She settled for listening to the nightmare anger. “You cursed soldier - you don't even know what the Brotherhood stands for! I'm not your lord, you miserable excuse for a doorstop. I'm your brother.”

“Aye,” Garadolo bobbed, even as he visibly fought the urge to tug at a forelock. “I know that, l- , brother. You're my brother, but wiser and shrewder than I -”

“Quit your babbling!” The interrogator moved into the light, and Rani saw why his voice was familiar. Larindolian, the nobleman who had met Instructor Morada in the decaying hut, nudged her with his toe. “And you! How did you find your way here?”

“Begging your pardon,” Rani bobbed her head, but purposely neglected to add a title to her salute. If the man did not want to be called a lord, who was she to gainsay him? Rani gestured toward Garadolo, who cast daggers with his eyes. “I understood that this soldier was coming to meet with you this evening, and I worried that he might forget the gift I gave him to carry on my behalf. I thought it best to bring my full offering directly.”

Rani produced a knotted rag from the pouch at her waist, trying to ignore the pressure of the suspicious captor's knife at her neck, trying to forget that the man before her had betrayed Instructor Morada to her death. Rani focused instead on moving her hands smoothly, steadily, doing nothing to threaten the knife-wielding sentry. She had tied the rag tightly about her treasure, and she could not pluck loose the knots; she was forced to raise the cloth to her teeth. She tasted salt on her tongue, and tried to forget that her own blood would flow with a similar tang if Larindolian chose not to accept her offering.

“For the Brotherhood,” she managed, when she at last untied the cloth. The hoard of silver glinted red in the torchlight. She managed a bow and set the coins on the floor before the nobleman.

“What ho, Garadolo! This urchin brings us more in one visit than you manage in a fortnight of escapades!” The soldier glared his fury across the small room, and Rani found herself almost grateful for the nobleman's presence. “Perhaps we're lucky this prowling child managed to trace your steps!”

“I wasn't concerned with a child, l- , with a mere child.” Garadolo scarcely remembered to swallow Larindolian's title. “I had other matters on my mind.”

Larindolian poked a toe at the hoard of silver, only pulling back his fine leather boot when he appeared to consider kicking the soldier. “Matters more pressing than a spy who tracked you to the Brotherhood's heart?”

“I didn't worry about that mewling tiger cub.” Garadolo glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice to a whisper. “It was all I could do to shake Dalarati when I left the mess hall.”

Larindolian swore a vicious oath, whirling to slap a well-gloved hand across Garadolo's cheek. “You still have not disposed of that threat? You were ordered to act more than a month ago!”

“I've been trying to see the Brotherhood for the better part of that month,” whined the soldier, terror glinting in the bloodshot eyes above his greasy beard. “It's not as easy as you make out. The man is popular with the soldiers. He's always surrounded by his fellows - on the target field, drinking draughts. I think it's not necessary to do away with him. Not yet.”

“
You
think? Since when have you dared to think, Garadolo?” Larindolian pursed his lips with disapproval. “We can see the product of your
thinking
right here - with this street urchin you've permitted in our midst.”

Rani had listened to all she could; she nearly interrupted the nobleman in her eagerness to focus his attention on her. “Begging your pardon, but Garadolo is not wholly to blame. I followed him, even though he ordered me to stay in the barracks, because I wanted to see my brother.”

“Your
brother
?” Larindolian was incredulous, but Rani could not tell if his surprise was from being interrupted, or if he simply could not imagine all the trouble spawned by a girl's simple desire to see her sibling. “And who in the name of all the Thousand Gods might that be?”

“Bardo Trader,.”

“What, ho!” Garadolo exclaimed. “Don't waste time with your story, little tiger!”