Glasswrights' Test (40 page)

 

 

 

Chapter 14

 

Rani Trader stood in the doorway, shaking her head as she looked about the plain room. Her bed-chamber seemed so large. It had been months since she had enjoyed the privacy of her apartments, a suite of rooms set aside solely for her, without interference from anyone else. In Brianta, she had shared a room with Mair and Laranifarso; on the road back, she had huddled in common tavern rooms. Now, the simple space seemed clean and fresh and good.

And empty.

Rani swore and turned on her heel. Where could Tovin have gotten to? She had read the threat on his face, the knowledge that he would not gladly submit to her order and leave her alone with Hal. She'd had no choice, though. She had needed to speak to the king alone, needed to try, try, try to convince him to set Mareka aside.

Without conscious thought, Rani's hand moved back to her skirts, to the pocket where the glass vial of poison still lay undisturbed. She had thought that she had a perfect solution. If she could convince Hal to send Mareka away, then the Fellowship should free Rani from her obligation. After all, their goal would be accomplished. Mareka would be out of Hal's life. She would no longer be a factor in the secret organization's plans. Rani would worry about protecting Hal himself later.

The Fellowship's plans. … Rani had carefully avoided letting herself think about those machinations. It was clear that the Fellowship wanted Hal gone; they wanted the end of the house of ben-Jair. Rani's belly twisted, and she dug out the piece of parchment that she had found on Hal's writing desk.

She had not been violating his privacy, she told herself for the hundredth time. He had left her in his study, left her with the papers. She had been obliged to determine what was happening in the kingdom, what crucial events she had missed while she was in Brianta. It was not her fault that she had set her hand directly on the crumpled parchment when she pulled herself to a standing position. It was not her fault that the message was more intriguing than any figures about the sale of spidersilk. It was not her fault that she had been drawn to lies and manipulations more than to an accounting of taxes from scarce-attended summer fairs.

Crestman. Rani had recognized the man's hand immediately; she had seen it often enough in the letters they had exchanged years ago, during the sweet years after the liberation of the Little Army. He had a curious way of slanting his writing, as if he held his parchment perpendicular to his body. His letters were always scratched into the surface with more force than any scribe would condone.

Force. That he had attempted to use against her, to ruin her life, to betray her to Hal.

Thinking back, Rani could almost understand Hal's vehemence that morning. He had seen her as a threat. Of course, he had viewed her as a manipulator. Of course, he had seen that she wanted to separate Mareka from the comfort and security of the court, draw her off from the royal herd as if she were a beast to be cut down by wolves.

Crestman had primed that pump.

How could he hate her so much? Even as she asked herself that question again, she pictured his twisted arm, his dragging leg. The octolaris poison had ruined him. Crestman was a soldier, a mercenary, a fighting man who had always lived by the strength of his body. With that body maimed, he was destroyed. He was not the youth that she had met in Amanthia, years ago. He was not the man who had chafed under obligation to the house of ben-Jair. He was a new creature, a wilder being, a desperate animal who would stop at nothing in his quest for vengeance.

Who
had
stopped at nothing. Crestman had lied to see her cast into prison, or worse. He would have no delusions about the penalties for traitors; he would know that he had bargained for Rani's death.

Rani read the lies one last time, and then she folded the parchment, shoving it deep into a pocket. There would be time enough to deal with it later. Time enough for her to explain to Hal that Crestman had manipulated both of them.

After she did what she had to do. After Mareka was taken care of. After she found Tovin.

A quick glance confirmed that the dust on the stairs to her tower glasswright study was undisturbed. Tovin had not gone up there. She had sent him to the stables, ostensibly to retrieve her saddle bags. Could the player actually have followed her orders? Could he still be with the horses?

She ran down the stairs, ignoring the startled glances of retainers and guards. The hallways were almost empty; many nobles had returned home to supervise harvests in their own lands. Hal would convene an autumn court, but Moren was close to deserted during the sultry days at the end of summer.

Thus, it was easy for Rani to see that Tovin was not in the stables. His great bay stallion stood in a stall, munching contentedly on hay now that he had borne his owner back from Brianta. Someone had curried the beast and tended to his tack, but there was no indication that Tovin had done those duties. It was unlikely, in fact. One of Hal's grooms would routinely have tended to the horses, or one of the young players.

The players. Of course. That was where Tovin must be.

Rani nearly flew across the courtyard.

The heat shimmered off the practice field as she entered the clutch of buildings that housed the players. In a series of darting glances, she noted that a pair of young acrobats were practicing their routines, falling onto hay-stuffed bolsters as they negotiated a series of handholds. Children sat in a semi-circle around one half-blind woman, watching as the old dame showed them how to stitch colorful costumes. Another woman paced back and forth on a wooden stage, gesturing with her hands toward absent fellows, muttering lines beneath her breath.

Everyone looked up as Rani staggered into the courtyard, and a few of the players called out greetings. Those kind words were frozen on lips, though, as people glimpsed Rani's face. She must look a fright. She knew that her eyes grew puffy when she sobbed, and enough people had told her that she looked a mess after whatever illness had struck her down in Brianta.

Poison? Hal had seemed so confident of his diagnosis. It fit, she thought, swallowing a leaden taste. No. She would not think of that now. Would not dwell on the glasswrights, on Master Parion. She had completed her test, and now she must wait.

The players. That was what she must handle now. Tovin.

She realized that her shoulders were hunched close to her ears, and she forced herself to take a calming breath. Another. Another.

There. She was ready to see him now.

She crossed the courtyard to the storage hut, to the building that housed the costumes and glass panels and all the other riches of the troop. When she settled her hand on the iron latch, she heard a voice within. A low rumble, the certain tones that she knew were Tovin's. Her throat tightened, and she had to remind herself to breathe once again.

And then, there was a higher voice. A woman's tones, flowing gently and firmly. Flarissa, Tovin's mother. The woman who had welcomed Rani to the troop years before, who had Spoken with her first, long ago in Liantine. Offering up a quick prayer to Fell, the god of families, Rani opened the door and stepped into the hut. She ordered herself to ignore Fell's sound, the plaintive cry of a cat.

Tovin was standing in front of a trunk, folding a length of crimson spidersilk. He looked up when the door opened, and the sunlight fell directly on his copper curls, teasing out all the glints of red. It was Flarissa who spoke, though. “Ah, welcome home, Ranita. Perhaps you can talk some sense into this son of mine.”

“Flarissa,” Rani said by way of greeting. “Tovin.”

“Leave us, mother.” His voice was harsh; it sounded as if he had run too far in too short a time.

“I think that that would not be wise,” Flarissa said mildly. Rani could feel the woman's curious eyes on her face. She resisted the urge to push her hair back, to straighten her skirts.

“Mother, do you fear that I would strike our generous patron? Surely you do not think so poorly of your only son.”

“Hush, Tovin. I know that you would never hurt with weapons. I also know that you underestimate the power of your words. You might do injury where you least expect to.”

Rani longed for Flarissa to stay, for the woman's cool logic to prevail. Nevertheless, she knew that she needed to speak to Tovin alone; there were things that no other player should hear about the Fellowship, about Brianta. “Thank you for your concern, Flarissa. I think that you should leave us, though.”

The woman glanced at her sharply. “You are certain, Ranita?”

“Yes.” She tried to place confidence in the word, but it whispered into the dark corners of the hut.

“Very well, then. Be careful, children.” As Flarissa crossed to the door of the hut, she raised her hand to Rani's cheek. “Be very careful.” Rani turned her head so that she could absorb the full touch of Flarissa's fingers, the blood-warmth that flowed from flesh to flesh. She closed her eyes against sudden tears that seemed to well up from the depth of her memories, and she drew a ragged breath. “Very careful,” Flarissa whispered again, and then she was gone.

Rani turned to Tovin and drew a deep breath before she began. “What are you doing?”

“You made your choice. And I've made mine.”

“I needed to speak with my king. You know that he is my liege lord.”

“I know that you were in danger. I know that you ordered me away. I know that you have manipulated me since the first day you decided to travel to Brianta. Since earlier than that.”

“Tovin, you sound like a child! I did not ask to be alone with Hal as a way of
manipulating
you. There were words that he needed to hear. Words that he needed to hear alone, so that he could react to them as a man. Not as a king, not as a noble lord, but as a man.”

“I see. And did your private audience with Halaravilli the man get you what you wished? Did you work your wiles upon him as you planned?”

“Tovin Player, you have no reason to be jealous! I did not touch the king!”

“A man can be jealous of thought. More harm can be done by a wandering mind than by any wandering fingers.”

“So that's what this is all about? You think that I still long for King Halaravilli ben-Jair?”

He faced her squarely for the first time since she'd entered the hut. “Can you stand there, Ranita, and tell me you do not?”

She wanted to tell him that he was being absurd, that he was manipulative himself. And yet, the words froze in her mouth. Any feelings that she might have for Hal were meaningless. He was a king and she a glasswright—not even a glasswright master yet, Clain be willing. Hal was the overlord of all Morenia, and he had a wife that he refused to set aside. What difference did it make, if Rani still recalled their past? What difference did it make, if Rani dreamed of how things might have been?

“There,” Tovin said. “You've taken too long to answer.”

“Don't be ridiculous!”

“I won't be. Not any longer.” He finished folding the crimson silk and set it into the trunk. Another length of cloth followed, and a tight roll of leather. His glassworking tools. He was truly leaving.

“Where are you going?”

“I'm not certain. Perhaps I'll try my fortune on the southern road, in Sarmonia.”

“What, as an herb-witch?”

He frowned at her sarcasm. “I hear they have players' troops there. Maybe one of them needs a glasswright.”

“I'm your patron. You can't leave without my permission.” She regretted the words as soon as she had said them, but there was no possible way to comb them out of the air.

“Would you do that, Ranita? Would you chain me to you, like a dog in a stable?” The planes of his cheeks caught the light, sending the rest of his face into shadow. She remembered when she had first met him, high on the Liantine plain. He had frightened her then, terrified her with the secret power of glass. The secret power of his masculine strength. The secret power of him.

“Please, Tovin! I need you here!”

“So you think. You think that I will stay to help you out of yet another predicament. You can't do that, Ranita. You've chosen to send me away once too often.”

“I had no choice!”

“Do not lie. You took your oath in Brianta, before a hall of glasswrights, before Mair, before the Thousand Gods. I had traveled all that way to stand beside you in your labors, to aid you in your quest, and you set me aside as if I were an inconvenient dog.”

“I—”

“And when we returned here, you ordered me away again, so that you could talk to the man you love, talk in privacy.”

“Tovin—”

“I know that you don't mean to. I know that you think you had no choice. But I cannot live here, knowing that you will do the same again. Whenever I am not convenient, whenever you need others more. … A man can't live with that.”

He closed the trunk and fastened it with a heavy iron lock. Rani flinched as he snapped the hasp closed, and she took a step back as he tested it with two quick jerks. Searching for words, for any argument, she said, “Crestman is trying to manipulate Hal against me. He wants me dead.”

“Oh, you're too inconvenient to die.”

“Tovin!”

“You've been jousting with that solider boy as long as you have known him.”

“He's lying to Hal.”

“All part of the drama, Ranita. You're a better player than that, by now. You should recognize the pattern.”

Recognize the pattern. That was what she had done since she was a child. Found the shapes. Found the lines. Found the connections between things. Things and places and people.

She closed her eyes, and she could see a map laid out before her, a map of all that had transpired to bring her to this place. She could see Tovin Speaking with her, teaching her the ways to plumb the depths of her consciousness. She could see their first frantic fumblings in the spiderguild's Great Well. She could see how he had stood beside her as she watched over the riberry trees, over the octolaris.