Ranita heard the words from a distance. She could not feel her fingers, could not feel her toes. She was far away from her body, far away from her mind and her memories and all the problems that spun her through her days.
Flarissa’s voice resonated as she said, “Breathe deep, Ranita. Feel the air flow through your lungs, feel it move through your body. Breathe out now. Let your worries flow away. Good, Ranita. Very good. Now, breathe in again. …”
Ranita’s body tingled, humming with the strength that she breathed in. Exhaling redoubled that power, soothed her, healed her, made her whole.
Flarissa continued speaking. “Remember this power, Ranita. Remember the power of Speaking. Think of it as glass that you can pour within yourself, glass that grows deeper and smoother with every breath. You can return to this power. You can return by yourself, without me. Whenever you need strength and power and peace, you can return here. That is the power of Speaking. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Then remember, Ranita. Remember all the questions I have asked, and all the answers you have Spoken. And remember the feelings that you have now, the comfort and security of this place, remember them and feel them when we are through Speaking. Feel them for the rest of today and tomorrow and all the days to come. Very good, Ranita. When you are ready, I want you to count with me, from ten to one. I want you to leave the glass and come back to my tent and my brazier and Liantine. Will you do that, Ranita?”
She did not want to. She wanted to stay with the glass forever. She wanted to stay away from action and responsibility.
But Flarissa said that she could come back to the glass whenever she wished, that she could remember the way that she felt now. Flarissa said that she had the power.
“Ten,” Flarissa said. Rani fought the pull.
“Nine,” Flarissa said. “Eight.”
The numbers thrummed inside Ranita’s skull, tugging her, drawing her. “Seven. Six.”
“Five,” Ranita whispered. “Four.” Her voice grew stronger, matching Flarissa’s. “Three.” She spoke normally. “Two.” She took a deep breath. “One!”
Her eyes flew open.
She still sat in the tent. The pine sticks still curled their smoky incense into the air. The creamy white candle still sat beside the brazier, a little more wax melted around its wick. Rani forced herself to look at Flarissa. “You made me go back to the cathedral.”
“You chose to go back there. You chose to Speak that story.”
“I was afraid. I did not want to remember Tuvashanoran dying, ever again.”
“You were very brave.” Flarissa smiled, closing her hands over the cobalt pebble and hiding it away inside her skirts. “How do you feel, Ranita?”
Rani paused to think before she answered the question. Her anger with Hal was gone. Her hopelessness, the feeling that she was trapped – all gone. She felt as if she had run through the streets of Moren, run through every passage of the Merchants’ Quarter of her childhood. She felt as if she had combined a perfect glassmaking technique with the powerful patterns that she had created and studied as a merchant child. A smile eased onto her lips. “Wonderful!” she breathed.
Flarissa nodded and climbed to her feet. Rani followed suit, but she was surprised to find the tent pitching wildly around her. “Easy,” said Flarissa. “Breathe deeply. Take a moment to find yourself.”
Rani clutched the woman’s hand for balance. Only when the floor stopped tilting did she dare to look into the player’s eyes. “Please, Flarissa. Will you answer a question?”
“Of course.”
Rani struggled, suddenly embarrassed. “I – ” She lowered her eyes. “Was –” She could not bring herself to say the words – they were too personal, too secret.
“What, Ranita?”
“Was my story useful?” Rani blurted. “Will the players tell my tale?”
Flarissa did not smile, but she answered immediately. “Aye. The players will tell your story. We’ll study it, and then we’ll play it well, Ranita Glasswright.”
Rani’s pride melted across her chest. “Will you show me the glass, then? Will you show me the players’ panels?”
“Aye, Ranita Glasswright.” Flarissa leaned down to pick up the beeswax candle. Rani followed her to the trunks, trying to remember to breathe, trying to plumb the deep power of the cobalt glass, trying to hold on to the endless peace of Speaking.
Chapter 8
Hal stood in his Liantine apartments, looking out the window of his receiving room. He tried not to curse the rain that had been falling steadily since dawn. Of course the downpour was necessary for crops. Of course rain was to be expected in spring. Nevertheless, he regretted that he could not walk out of doors. Berylina had agreed to meet with him before noon, and he had hoped to take her outside the palace. He had thought they might return to the jousting field; the site of their little wagering victory might place the princess more at ease around him.
There was, however, nothing to be done for it. Bern, the god of rain, would act as he thought best. So Father Siritalanu had reminded him, when they had prayed that morning. Hal had tried to accept the priest’s remonstration with good grace.
He sighed now and turned back from the window. “I’m sorry, Farso.” He smiled at his friend. “I know you’d rather be anywhere but trapped in here with me.”
“Not anywhere, Sire,” the nobleman said easily. “My lady Mair returns to the marketplace today, and I’m grateful for the excuse not to look at trade goods in the rain.”
“Why would she go out in this downpour?”
“She claims she’s found a cure for firelung – some weed they raise far east of here. She’s negotiating for bales of it to be delivered. Between the rain and her harsh tongue when she’s driving a bargain, I’m more than pleased to stay with you.”
“Does she have Rani with her?” Hal realized that he had asked too quickly when Farso shot him an inquiring glance. “It’s just that if Mair’s bargaining. …”
Hal still regretted walking away from Rani at the jousting competition. He knew that she’d been about to say something, about to answer his question about a more suitable match than Berylina. He could certainly imagine what proposals she might make – he’d rehearsed his own responses often enough. Nevertheless, the facts did not change. He was a king. He needed a queen. An heir. He needed five hundred gold bars to begin repaying the church, by no later than midsummer.
For the thousandth time, his thoughts tumbled to the Fellowship. Would Moren have been so needy if Hal had not siphoned off some of his gold to the cabal? Would the kingdom fare better if Hal had not been bidding for secret power? There was nothing to be done for it, though. Hal could not take back the gold that he had given Glair.
Farso shrugged as if he were casting off Hal’s own doubts. “I don’t believe that Rani will stand with Mair for these negotiations.”
“Why not?”
“Sire, you have not heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Rani is spending all her time among the players. She is studying their glasswork, the panels that they use for their productions.”
Rani and her glass. Well, that was just as well. Something good should come of this journey. Rani should return to Moren with something she desired.
Before Hal could respond to Farso’s announcement, the door to his apartments swung open. Calaratino, the boy who was serving as his page on this expedition, stepped inside. The child’s face glowed with excitement, and he thrust out his chest like a bantam rooster.
“Your Majesty! Princess Berylina requests admission to your presence!”
Hal swallowed a sigh. “Thank you, Calo. Please show Her Highness in.”
Hal pasted a smile on his face as he looked expectantly toward the door. A pair of nurses entered first, tucking their carefully coiffed heads low enough to show him respect, but not so low that they could not keep an eye on the doorway, on their charge.
Berylina entered like a sus
picious cat. She held her head at an awkward angle, half turned away from the people in the room. She placed each foot cautiously, as if she expected the wooden floors to melt away beneath her slippers. She edged forward, one step, two steps, three, four, and Hal felt his welcoming smile age upon his lips. He abandoned the pretense of joy at seeing the girl and settled instead for a falsely hearty greeting, “Your Highness! You look well today!”
His words confused the poor girl. She started to drop into a curtsey, clearly recalling whatever careful instructions her nurses had provided. She saw Hal’s extended hand, though, and hesitated, obviously uncertain about whether she should enter farther into the room. Aching at her indecision, Hal moved forward another few steps. “Please, Your Highness, be at ease. Bid your lady nurses to make themselves comfortable.”
Berylina looked about, as if startled to find her nurses so close at hand. She waved her hands at them, like a child shooing flies from honeyed bread, but she seemed apprehensive when they crossed the room, moving to stand in a shadowy, paneled corner. The princess turned back to Hal, as if she expected praise for her action.
He smiled weakly. At least there were only two nurses today, not the four that Berylina might have required. Was that a positive sign? Was that a mark of progress?
“My lady, you remember Baron Farsobalinti? My honored friend?”
The princess cocked her head at Farso, catching him with one of her eyes. She nodded silently, looking as if she would flee the chamber if the tall, pale man took one step in her direction. Hal’s concern began to turn to irritation.
One of the nurses cleared her throat, obviously prompting her charge. Berylina remained stubbornly silent, though, clutching the rough-spun linen of her gown with her pudgy fingers. The nurse stepped forward from her shadowed niche. When the princess still failed to act, the woman finally said, “We hope that we have not disturbed you, Your Majesty.”
She used the voice of barely restrained exasperation that mothers employ with small children, when they are forced to prompt and prod, teaching by example.
Hal was struck yet again by how young Berylina seemed. At thirteen years of age, she should have learned to speak to nobility, to answer basic questions put to her. Even if the act of speaking caused her embarrassment, she should have been required to do it, required to master it. She was a princess, after all. She did not have the luxury of indulging her fears.
Well, if she were a princess, Hal was a king, and he was well-trained in making the best of a bad situation. This current disaster was no different from a dozen other crises he had resolved since taking his throne. He might as well respond to the nurse’s question as if it had come from Berylina. He could pretend that the nurse was merely acting as a translator. This entire conversation could be conducted like trade discussions with ambassadors from the distant east, with men who spoke only in harsh words and guttural exclamations that Hal could not have reproduced for all the gold in the world.
He forced himself to smile directly at Berylina. In the few days that he had passed in Liantine, he had become accustomed to the princess’s cast vision; it now seemed normal to address her with a slight lack of focus in his own gaze, with an open, easy glance that spared her from turning to one side. It could not be easy for her, viewing the world from two eyes that refused to act in concert.
“Nay, Your Highness. Your visit could never be a disturbance. I was looking out upon the courtyard just before you came. A messenger rode up from your father’s docks. He could scarcely be more wet if he had dived from his ship and swum to land.”
A ghost of a smile flirted around Berylina’s lips, tugging past her teeth. Wonderful, Hal thought. He could almost glean a smile from a child. He must have said something properly, though, for Berylina managed to step forward until she was looking out the window. A gust of wind rattled the lead frame, and the girl crossed her arms over her chest, pulling the heavy linen closer. Hal stepped forward solicitously and said, “Are you chilled, Your Highness? Let me close the shutters.”
He started to reach past the princess to pull the insulating wood panels into place, and his palm inadvertently brushed across her arm. Berylina leaped back as if he had burned her, a complicated mixture of shame and urgency flaring in her face. Hal hissed and pulled back, as if he had done something wrong. One of the nurses gasped, “I’m sorry, Your Majesty!”
“There’s no need to apologize.” Hal recovered quickly, managing to keep his smile pasted across his lips. He spared only a glance for the woman who had spoken, though, and he could not bring himself to look upon the trembling princess. How could anyone live, so afraid of the surrounding world?
He pulled the shutter closed and latched it carefully. The last thing he wanted now was to have the wooden panel fly open from a gust of wind. That would spook Berylina enough that he would never see her again. She’d be like a high-strung new horse, slipping free of a bridle and disappearing over the horizon.
Like a horse. … Hal toyed with the notion. The princess behaved precisely like a terrified animal. He needed to keep her calm; he needed to keep her from noticing any noose of ownership that he might slip around her neck. He thought of the first scared filly he had ever trained to harness, years ago, outside his father’s stables. Turning from the shuttered window, he decided to try a new approach.
“I’ve always liked rainy days, myself. Farsobalinti can tell you, when I was a boy, I would sit in my nursery and play with my tin soldiers for all the long wet days of spring. Even when my brothers and sisters pestered our nurses to let us play outside, even when they begged to run up and down the palace hallways.” Hal cast a quick look at Farso, who nodded as if he recalled Hal’s own awkward wordlessness. Berylina seemed to realize that Hal meant her no harm, and her breathing slowed to normal.
Taking the princess’s reaction as a good sign, Hal kept up his babbling. “I would sit on a stone bench in a deep window, much like this one. My nurse would bring me warm milk and fresh-baked bread, and crisp autumn apples if we had any. I could spend hours reading books on the history of Morenia, on all the battles fought by my father, and his father, and his father before him. I would study maps and plot those battles, and while away entire days with reading. Reading and writing and drawing.”
“I draw.”
Hal tried hard to mask his surprise, his relief that the princess had finally said something – anything. He dared not ask her a direct question. Instead, he shrugged and looked down at his hands with a self-deprecating grin. “I drew, but nothing I would show to anyone. I could sketch a map or two, and I could scribble out a coat of arms. But I never was much good at drawing figures.”
“I draw figures.”
“That takes skill! You must have had good teachers. I never found anyone with the patience to teach me how to draw figures.”
“My drawings are in the solar.”
“The solar must be cold today.” Hal paused, curious to see if she would fill the gap in conversation. Berylina stared at her hands, wringing her fingers as if she could not think of a suitable reply to his statement. Fighting not to sigh, Hal continued. “Spring weather is so unreliable. All this rain would be snow, if it were only a little colder. In Morenia, we get a great deal of snow in winter, and some in spring.”
“The solar is very bright when it snows, but it’s too late in the year for that now.”
Hal fought to hide his surprise – that was the longest speech that Berylina had shared with him. “Alas,” he said, trying not to speak too quickly. “The solar is not likely to be bright today. The rain clouds are thick. No, this is a day for torches in the hallways and candles on our writing desks.” Still no response. “I think that Bern must be good friends with Tren.”
“The god of candles has no friends.”
“Why certainly he must! Candles light our way in the dark! They are signs of good cheer. Certainly the god of candles must be the embodiment of that very good cheer. He must be one of the most popular gods!”
&nb
sp; “He gives out all his glad tidings in his candles. He has none left for himself.”
Hal was stunned. Two consecutive sentences, two complete thoughts, two statements directly contradicting what Hal himself had said, and the princess was not blushing at all. Clearly, she felt strongly about candles. Or gods. “I’d never heard that about Tren.”
Berylina took a deep breath and braved Hal’s direct gaze. “I’ve drawn Tren. Would you like to see him?”
Hal sensed how much the question cost her, how much she longed to flee from him, to run to her nurses and hide her face in their skirts. He saw that she cast a glance toward Farso, that she took in the nobleman’s attentive presence as if it physically pained her. Still, she included both of them in her invitation, waving one hand slightly in front of her. Hal made his voice grave, and he bowed a little as he said, “Yes, Your Highness. We would like that very much. I would like that.”
Berylina turned away without saying anything else, walking determinedly to the door of the chamber. Hal caught an expression of surprise on the face of the younger nurse, the woman who had spoken for the princess when they first entered the room. The servant quickly masked her emotion, though, and fell into place behind her mistress, waving the other nurse forward.
They made a strange procession in the hallway. Berylina led the way, her pudgy hands clenched into determined fists at her sides. Both nurses followed behind, wearing the drab black dresses that were expected of their station. The older one turned to look at Hal several times, as if he were a beast harrying them along their way. Farso trailed all of them, a silent honor guard, a chaperon. Hal suspected that the tall nobleman hung back so that he would not be tempted to laugh aloud, so that he would not mock outright his hapless king.
Why should this be so difficult? Hal was not afraid of women! He certainly had no trouble talking to Rani – even fighting with her. There were other women as well – Mair, and his four sisters, and any number of ladies who were married to his lords. He’d had nurses as a child, and none had left him tongue-tied. None had left him wondering if he held his arms correctly, if he stepped quickly enough, but not too fast.
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