Glasswrights' Apprentice (42 page)

If Rani learned to manage the wild raptor.

Drawing her thoughts back from the beasts that would eventually sleep by the hearth in her own guildhall, Rani stretched her fingers toward Gry's hound. Soon, she would learn how to hunt with her own dogs. For Kalindramina's first flight, though, Rani would rely on the falcon-master's experienced hound to flush autumn-fat grouse from the brush. The dog sniffed at Rani's hand curiously, but he jumped back toward his master as another horse gained the crest of the low hill.

A young woman clung to the reins, sawing back on her mount's mouth as if she would decapitate the poor beast. The girl's shoulder-length hair was whipped by the wind of her passage, and her narrow features were pulled into a grimace. “Ye might've waited fer me!” she squawked, before Rani could step forward to help her. “Ye might remember that some o' us aren't used t' perchin' on a cursed animal's back!”

“And you might remember that you're supposed to be a lady, Mair.” Rani grinned. “You promised His Majesty that you would stop squawking like a Touched hen every time you speak.”

“And
you
promised His Majesty that you would stay within sight of the city walls when you go out riding. There's a whole lot of lying going on in the royal palace, isn't there?” Mair's retort was quick, but Rani noted that her companion slipped back into the cultured tones of the court. Two years of living in the palace had smoothed Mair's rough brogue, but Rani was still a little surprised every time she heard the Touched girl speak in the round, soft tones of Morenia's nobility.

Of course, Mair was a quick student. That skill had kept her alive for more than sixteen years, years that had been astonishingly rough in the City streets. Mair refused to talk about her childhood, about the parents who had abandoned her to her life among the City's teeming population of lawless, casteless children. All that Rani knew was that Mair had gathered a group of loyal Touched around her, children who were willing to lay down their lives for their leader. In exchange for that devotion, Mair had kept her troop safe and warm and fed, even when the king's guard had tried repeatedly to drive out the group of casteless urchins.

“Cursed beast! Stand yer ground!” Mair swore at her mount as it shied away, and she sawed at the animal's tough mouth with arms that trembled on her reins. Rani's falcon, Kalindramina, shifted her talons on her bow-shaped perch, ruffling her feathers at the disturbance. The peregrine, though, remained aloof beneath its buckskin hood.

“Mair,” Rani chastised. “Don't frighten Kali. You know you won't get anywhere if you manhandle your horse like that. Hold the reins firmly, and don't pull sideways.”

“Mind your own horse,” Mair snarled, and Rani swallowed a laugh as she turned her attention back to the falcon-master, who had watched the entire exchange with an indulgent smile. “Gry, can we fly Kali now?”

The old man's eyes darted to Rani's hand as she pulled on her heavy buckskin falconing glove. He tugged at his ear and gazed out across the plain toward Moren. “We'd best wait for the prince, my lady. He'll be offended if we start without him.”

“He could have been here already, if he didn't ride like a noble reviewing his troops,” Rani grumbled. “Besides, the prince already knows that his Maradalian will fly well. Please, Gry! I don't want to look like a fool in front of him.”

The falcon-master glanced at the hooded peregrine, perched next to Kalindramina on the sturdy cadge. He tugged at his ear again, and a frown creased his forehead. “It's not a contest, my lady. You must respect the bird, as she's learned to respect you. You're not competing with Prince Bashanorandi today.” Shaking his head in rebuke, the falconer stepped away from the two girls, becoming unusually interested in the raptors' jesses, the strips of leather that tethered them to their perches.

“She's
always
competing with Bashi,” Mair noted dryly to the back of Gry's head as she finally slipped to the ground from her jittery mount. “You know, Rai, you were wrong to speak so harshly to the soldiers when we rode through the city gates.”

“They were taking too long to pass us through. They
know
we're allowed to come and go. They were only dragging their feet because Bashi was there too.”

“They were doing their job.”

Rani glared at Mair. “So, it's come to this? You're going to tutor me in being kind to
soldiers
?”

Mair grimaced at Rani's sharp tone. “I'm telling you to be kind to
people
. I don't care what caste the men are, they don't deserve the cheek you offered them.”

“Cheek! I haven't been cheeky a day in my life!”

“Call it what you will. Some of us adapt better to our life in the castle than others.”

“You take that back, Mair! I didn't do anything wrong with the soldiers!”

“Of course not.” Mair paused. “My lady,” she added sweetly.

“Mair, if you want to criticize me, do it outright.”

“You'll know when I criticize you, Rani Trader.”

The words bit hard, spiced with deep-rooted anger, and Rani blinked back sudden tears. “You used to call me Rai.”

“You used to act like one of the Touched.”

Rani spluttered, digging for an answer, but no retort came easily. Instead, she glared at Gry's back, taking in the falcon-master's supposed interest in one of the joints of the portable cadge. Gry had been born one of the casteless Touched, like all of the nobles' servants. Through the years, he had worked hard to gain his employers' trust, to earn his success as master falconer. Rani looked away from the silent condemnation of his still back, turning her attention to the four soldiers who finally drew near the top of the gentle rise. “My lady,” called the captain, bowing slightly from his saddle. “It's dangerous for you to ride alone.”

“I'm not alone!” Rani exclaimed, and her voice was sharper than she intended. She swallowed hard and forced her words into a less shrill register. “I rode with my lady-in-waiting, Mair. And I rode to the king's own falcon-master. Besides, we were never out of your sight, Farantili.”

“Much good it would do me, if I had to watch enemy troops ride out of those trees and carry you off.” Farantili nodded his grizzled head toward the copse that bled across the bottom of the hill.

Rani covered a shiver of concern with scornful words. “What enemy would come so close to Moren? We're near enough to hear the Pilgrims' Bell from here. By all the Thousand Gods, you worry too much, Farantili.”

“I'm paid to worry, my lady.” The soldier's words did nothing to ease Rani's roiling
temper, especially when he edged his horse between hers and the trees. “I'll send one of my men down
to check out the woods, before you fly the kestrel.” 

“Farantili, that's ridiculous. It's already getting late in the day. If we have to wait for your scout, we won't get back to the city until after dark.”

“Of course, my lady. We should turn back now. You can practice your falconry another day.”

Mair did not bother to disguise her smirk of amusement as Rani yelped in frustration and whirled on Gry, ready to plead her case to the master. Before she could speak, though, the last handful of horsemen rode up. Farantili bent low in his saddle and Gry swept into a deep bow, but Rani scarcely inclined her head.

“Bashi,” she murmured, and she watched anger flare across the prince's pale face. Prince Bashanorandi had no use for childish nicknames, particularly names that had been bestowed by the current king, when both boys had lived in the royal nursery.

“You had no right to leave me back there!” Prince Bashanorandi scowled as he fought to rein in his feisty brown stallion. “You
know
that Hal would not want us riding this far from Moren's walls. He'd have your hide if he saw you jump that creek! When will you stop to think, Ranita? You're not a merchant brat any longer.”

But you're a brat, all the same.

No, Bashi was not fool enough to utter those words, not in front of the master falconer and the soldiers. Nevertheless, he thought them so clearly that Rani's hands curled into fists as expressive as Kali's talons. She bridled at the bitterness in Bashi's superior tone, even as she tried to remind herself that the past two years had not been easy for the bastard son of two proven traitors.

Bashi had been indirectly implicated in the plot to assassinate Morenia's Crown
Prince. Many thought that the bastard should have been executed like his scheming mother and father.
King Shanoranvilli, though, had mandated from his death bed that the boy he had always known as his
youngest son should live. Even after the heartbroken old man died, Halaravilli had not withdrawn
that sanctuary. In fact, Hal had left Bashanorandi the title of “prince,” figuring that the
appellation might help rein in the rebellious youth.

But Bashi had continued to be difficult, refusing to assume any responsibility in administering the kingdom. Hal had rapidly found himself snared in a paradox: he could have forced his so-called brother to act as a councillor, to be responsible for Moren's day-to-day administration, as was typical of a Crown Prince. But everyone knew that Bashi
wasn't
the Crown Prince. He wasn't of Morenian royal blood at all.

The situation was frustrating, and Hal took out his aggression with his sometime brother in a thousand ways, berating Bashi in the dining hall when the youth arrived late for supper, ridiculing Bashi's notions for a feast-day honoring all the Thousand Gods.

And Bashi took out his anger in ways that were safe, especially by tormenting the lower-caste Rani. The prince had arranged for her apartments to be on the darker, southern side of the palace compound, and he had snagged the best palace seamstress for himself. He had even managed to snare the treasured dinner place at Hal's right hand.

Rani was forced to grit her teeth and accept the ignominy. She was, after all, a merchant girl who only teetered on the edge of the noble caste. Now, painfully aware of all the limits on her rights, Rani harnessed her self-control. “I didn't leave my escort ‘far behind,' my lord. You must not have noticed that we're at the top of a hill. The soldiers could see Mair and me, as we rode to this vantage point.”

“A lot of good it would have done, if you'd been attacked.”

“And who's going to attack us, this close to the City?”

“Ranita, you know there've been tales of marauders,” Bashi sneered. As his face twisted around his superior words, he looked younger than his fifteen years. “Even if you
haven't
been allowed in Council meetings, you can't have missed the stories in the streets.”

“You may be frightened by tales meant for children, o prince, but
I
am not. I know the difference between a monster that lurks beneath a child's bed and an invading army.”

“No one said that it would take an army,” Bashi answered hotly. “A single soldier with a sharp blade could kill you, before you even knew that you'd been taken.”

Mair cut in before Rani could spit out a reply. “Aye, Prince Bashanorandi. A single blade is all it would take to cut down any of us. That's why we all must stay united. Against our
true
enemies.” Mair accented her pious declaration by settling her right hand on the hilt of the dagger she wore at her waist, contrary to the delicate customs of the noble caste. There were, after all, advantages to being one of the casteless Touched.

“Now, now,” interrupted Farantili. The grizzled soldier had let his wards argue among themselves, accustomed by now to their squabbles. When hand touched steel, though, he apparently deemed it time to intervene.

“Lady Rani, Lady Mair,” Gry took advantage of the broken hostilities to regain the young people's attention. The master falconer added the noble title to the girls' names, as if he were accustomed to following the polite form of address with only a few syllables, instead of a noble's long name. “It
is
getting late in the day. If these falcons are going to fly, they should do it now, before dark. It can be hard enough finding them at noon, once they've taken their prey in the high grass.”

Rani bit back a sharp reply, swallowing her inclination to claim that
she
had been ready to fly the falcons hours before. Instead, she turned her back on Bashi, stepping toward the falcon-master with a nervous energy. “Do you really think Kali's ready, Gry? Do you think she'll come back?”

The old falcon-master shrugged, and his brows beetled ominously. He tugged again at his ear. “If I didn't think she was ready, I wouldn't have brought her out here. There's no way of knowing for sure, though, until you try.”

“But –”

“You've trained her, haven't you? You've been around my mews long enough to understand that this kestrel won't be acting like a dog. She won't come back out of love for you. She's still a wild beast.”

“I know that!” Rani protested, fighting the hot blush that stole across her cheeks as she heard Bashi choke on a guffaw. “It's just that after all the time and energy we've put into training her.…”

The master falconer squinted as he settled a hand on the cadge. “She flies to your lure, doesn't she?”

“Of course.”

“And she's stopped bating when you hold her on your fist?”

“Yes.” Rani fought back a grimace, remembering her frantic struggle the first time the falcon had tried to fly away from her gloved hand, even though the bird had been held close by the leather jesses around her talons. Rani's face had been batted by the tips of the falcon's wings, and she had waved her arm in reflexive fear, upsetting the poor kestrel even more. Rani had been grateful for the thick cuff of her buckskin glove as Kali dug in her talons above her would-be mistress' wrist.

The master falconer persisted. “And you know your kestrel's hunting weight?”