Of course, none of those women was likely to be his bride.
And none was so afraid of him that her breath sounded like sobs as she led him through the palace hallways.
The solar was reached by a well-sculpted stone stair, a graceful curve that arched to the highest point in the castle’s north tower. Berylina paused at the door to the chamber, bowing her head. Her short fingers hovered over the latch like fluttering sparrows, and Hal could almost hear her thoughts, hear her questioning why she had brought a stranger – a man! a suitor! – to her refuge.
She waited for so long that the silence grew awkward, even more uncomfortable than all the other silences she had spawned. Hal waited for one of the nurses to urge her forward, to push the door open, but apparently the women dared not be so aggressive.
Hal glanced at Farso for guidance, but the knight only shrugged. When Hal could no longer bear the tension, he said, “Perhaps, my lady, you can show us the solar another day. It’s probably just as well that my companion and I return below. A cup of mulled wine would do all of us well, chase away the chill.”
“No.”
Berylina could not say more than the one syllable, but she made her fingers close on the iron latch, and she pushed the door open with the grim determination of a prisoner marching toward the headsman’s block.
Hal followed her into the solar.
At first glance, the room seemed empty. Great panes of glass were set into three walls, including the one that looked out on the storm-tossed sea. Rain sleeked down the windows, the rivulets making it difficult to decipher clear forms in the city below.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, Hal could make out dark wooden chairs that hulked against the solid wall, grim with carvings that tangled about their clawed legs. A low table crouched in the center of the room, like a beast skulking before its master. A shuttered lantern was centered on the table, its wrought iron seeming to send out the bitter chill that permeated the room.
One of the nurses shook her head as she stepped over the threshold, muttering something about the wayward whims of children. She eased past her charge and bustled over to the lantern. When she leaned down to tend to the wick, she shielded her work with her black-clad body, but light soon blazed up in the solar, sending shadows scurrying for the corners. The nurse lit a pair of tapers that stood at either end of the table, encouraging further life to enter the room.
Hal could see now that the solar had not been deserted. In fact, there were many signs of the pleasure taken in the room. Lap rugs were draped over two low chairs, and a small book lay open on the floor. A quick glance showed the volume to be an illustrated Book of the Gods, with brilliant blue- and red-illuminated pages devoted to the lives of the Thousand. An ivory comb rested on the low table near the lantern, and Hal could glimpse a single mouse-brown hair trapped between its teeth.
His attention, though, was drawn to an easel that stood by the far windows, as if an artist had looked out over the distant ocean while she worked. Heavy parchment was attached to the board, held in place with a clever arrangement of brass pins. The stand’s sturdy tray held sticks of charcoal and white clay crayons and one long piece of reddish chalk.
The parchment presented the detailed outline of a figure, firm lines emerging from the beige background. Hal could see a man’s gnarled arms, muscles twisted with some extreme effort. Reins were twined between his fingers, and Hal could just make out a waterspout hitched to the leather, the swirling storm visibly pulling at the restraints. The man’s face was contorted with the effort to harness the storm. His cheeks were hollow above a ragged beard that was braided in the Liantine fashion, entwined with shells and bits of flotsam. The man’s shoulders were draped with seaweed, and his hair was fashioned from fantastic blocks of coral.
“Kel,” Hal said.
“Yes,” Berylina said, and she flushed. This time, though, the color in her cheeks was not the burn of shame. It was the powerful shade of pride. She was pleased that Hal had recognized her handiwork.
“You’ve drawn him well.”
“He’s not finished.” Berylina crossed to the easel and picked up one of the charcoal crayons. The tool seemed to grant her the power of speech. “I started him on the day that you arrived. You said that Kel had been kind to you, driving your ship across the ocean. I prayed to him in the evening, and he sent me this vision.”
“You prayed –” He heard the confidence in her tone, and he registered the strangeness that a child would speak of visions from a god in such an offhand manner. “I understood that your people do not place much faith in the Thousand Gods.”
Berylina flushed, but she raised her chin defiantly. Hal tried to ignore the jutting of her rabbity teeth. “Some of my people know your gods. My nurse, she first taught me of the Thousand Gods.”
“Your nurse?”
“Aye.” Berylina waved toward the oldest of her attendants. “Her people come from Amanthia.” From Amanthia. Like the enslaved Little Army. The nurse was too old to be one of Sin Hazar’s soldiers, though. Her family must have come before the Amanthian king began his desperate policy.
But the Little Army soldiers who had entered Liantine in the past several years – they had brought with them their Thousand Gods. Perhaps the slaves were the reason for Teheboth’s vehemence in hunting the Horned Hind. Perhaps the Amanthians’ faith was sharpening worship in Liantine, turning folks back to their old ways, their dark ways, the mysterious ways of the woodland goddess. …
Princess Berylina, though, was holding to her attendant’s example: “My nurse taught me. She knows the truth.”
“The truth!” Hal started to ask Berylina how she could defy her father, but he bit off his words, though, when he feared they might sound like an accusation. He tried to sound casual when he asked, “May I see the other drawings you have made?”
The princess darted a quick glance at him, as if she feared he mocked her. Hal held his face carefully blank, keeping his expression polite but offering no further pressure. The danger seemed to pass, and Berylina turned to a table in the far corner of the solar.
“Here, my lord. Here are my other drawings.”
Hal moved forward, past the two silent nurses, away from Farso. The first drawing was Yen, the god of music. He had a tambour in one hand, and pipes leaned against his feet. His mouth was open in a round O, as if he were singing aloud, and his hair flowed around his head in rhythmic curls.
The next parchment showed Glat, the god of snow, with a mantle of fresh flakes across his ancient spidery shoulders. The old man’s head was nearly bare, with just a rim of wispy hair at the back of his skull, a circle that might only have been a dusting of snow.
There was Ile, the moon god, and Par, the god of the sun. There were the gods of horses and hawks, and one tiny sketch of the god of cats. Toward the bottom of the pile, there was a drawing of Tren, the god of candles.
As Berylina had said, he was not a happy god. His face was drawn in long lines that spoke of ill temper, of bitterness, as if he had eaten uncooked greens. He extended a candle toward his viewers, apparently luring them forward, drawing them into the sketch. Hal could see what Berylina meant, when she said that the god had no friends. He did his job, he presented his candles, but he had no energy left for good cheer and glad tidings.
The princess’s drawings were not perfect. Hal could tell that they were not done by a court painter. In one, an arm was twisted at an unnatural angle; in another, silk robes fell in rigid, impossible folds. Nevertheless, each sprang from the page with an energy and a life all its own, a level of detail that amazed him. It was as if the gods had come to Berylina one by one, journeying to sit beside the princess in her solar, gathering about their attributes so that she could commit them to parchment. Father Siritalanu, with his earnest faith, would be fascinated.
Hal looked up from the drawings and caught Berylina smiling shyly at him. He covered his surprise by saying, “These are very good, you know.”
“
The gods … they come to me. I can see them, and they reach out to hold my hand. They help me draw.”
“You must be a very holy person for the gods to speak to you in such a manner.”
She shrugged. “They come. I think of them, and I call them by name. Sometimes, I need to pray to get their attention. I’ve never asked for one to visit me and been refused.”
Hal could not keep from probing. “Your father must be very proud of you.”
Berylina looked at him oddly. He could not tell if her gaze was skeptical, or if she was merely catching him with one of her skewed eyes. Then she whispered, “My father would have no interest in my drawings.”
Hal turned back to the work. He noticed one piece of particularly large parchment turned upside down, peeking out from a pile of completed drawings. “What’s this one?”
“Nothing!” Berylina lurched forward and planted her fingers squarely on top of the page.
“Please! Let me see it.”
“No, my lord. It was only a drawing that did not work.”
“I can’t imagine that. All of your drawings work quite well. Better than anything I could ever try.”
“Please, my lord!” She was upset enough that she put her hands on his, wrestling with him to take away the parchment. “It was just something I started sketching on the day that you arrived. Before Kel spoke to me. Before I realized that I needed to draw the god of the sea.”
“My lady, let me see it!”
His tone was harsher than he intended, and Berylina caught her breath. Her fingers froze into pebbles on the back of the parchment, and then she folded them, one by one, until her hand was a heavy, hopeless fist.
Hal regretted frightening her; he regretted making her cringe from him. Now, though, he had to see what was on the parchment; he had to see the drawing that she would fight to keep from him, when she had shared the others so generously. He moved his hand to cover hers, but she withdrew before he could actually touch her. In fact, she backed away from the table entirely, edging back to hover beside her silent, disapproving nurses. She crossed her arms over her chest, tucking in her hands as if they had become unclean.
Hal took a deep breath and turned over the drawing.
At first, he could not decipher what he saw. An angry hand had slashed red chalk across the parchment, leaving behind rusty streaks that looked like flaking blood. Beneath the red, though, beneath the efforts to deface the work, Hal could make out unsteady charcoal lines.
The ruined drawing had not been made by the same strong hand that had limned the gods. Rather, these marks were tentative, hesitant, barely visible beneath the chalk. Hal turned the parchment a bit to catch the light, and he made out a tangle of hash marks that might have been antlers. He turned the drawing more, and he could see an animal’s body, a distorted flank that might belong to a deer.
Recognition dawned. “The Horned Hind.”
“Aye, my lord,” Berylina whispered, barely audible across the chamber.
“But why did you ruin her?”
For a long moment, he thought that Berylina would not respond, that words would prove too much for her. Her lips trembled, and one tear welled up from her right eye, slipping down her cheek like a silken bead. “I tried, my lord,” she gasped at last. “I tried to make her right, but I could not. I could not draw her. I wanted to give her to my father, to make him a gift for the Spring Hunt. The Horned Hind, though, she doesn’t speak to me, not like the Thousand Gods. She would not let me draw her.”
Hal recovered from the torrent of words, and then he prodded gently, “Would not let you?”
“The Horned Hind grows ever stronger in Liantine, but she has no mercy for one like me.”
“Like you?”
Berylina raised her twisted face, made even homelier by the pull of her lips as she tried to restrain her sobs. “The Horned Hind teaches that my eyes mark me, Your Majesty, mark me as one who cannot look on truth. The Horned Hind says that my … my teeth are the struggle of good in my body, always fighting to escape. The Horned Hind says that I am evil!”
“You are not evil, my lady!”
“The Horned Hind says I am! My father says I am! He says the Thousand Gods are for slaves and weaklings, and that only the Horned Hind is true!” The girl lunged for the parchment that Hal still held, tugging it away from his unsuspecting grasp and crumpling it into a tortured ball. She clutched the ruined drawing to her belly, stumbling away from the table. One of the nurses folded the sobbing child into her arms, smoothing her hair and crooning helpless words of comfort. The other nurse pursed her lips in silent disapproval, glaring at Hal as if he were the source of the princess’s distress.
Hal stared in shocked silence, wondering at the agony of a scorned child. Even as his heart went out to Berylina, he plummeted into his own memories, into his own recollections of a father who could not be pleased, a court that believed him an idiot, flawed.
He knew Berylina’s anguish. He understood her pain.
Before he could decide what to say, how to act, there was a commotion on the stairs that led to the solar. “Your Majesty!” Hal recognized his page’s voice, even as Farsobalinti stepped toward the door to the chamber. When Berylina’s sobs grew louder at the newcomer’s shout, Hal stepped in front of her, blocking her from Calaratino’s sight.
“Your Majesty!” the boy called again.
“King Halaravilli is here, boy,” Farso said, reaching out a hand to steady the gasping page. “What message do you bear for him?”
Calaratino staggered forward a step, still gulping for air, and he looked about the solar as if he were in a strange new land. Farso rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder, shaking him slightly, as if that would summon a speedier reply.
The page remembered himself enough to sketch a bow toward Hal, and he cast a glance at the sobbing princess. Hal narrowed his eyes, and Farso acted on the implicit order. “Come, Calaratino,” the knight said. “What message was so important that you ran to find us here?”
The page extended an oiled tube, with lead caps sealed tight on either end. “A ship just arrived in port, Your Majesty, from Morenia. This missive was entrusted to the captain, with orders that he should deliver it to you directly.”
Hal bent closer to study the tube. Beads of water had collected on its side, remnants of the storm that blew against the solar’s windows. Hal rubbed his palm over the raindrops, smoothing the oiled surface, then wiped his moist fingers against his thigh. There was no sign of who had made the urgent dispatch – no seal, no ribbons, no indication whatsoever.
Farso seemed to recognize his uneasiness. “Sire, would you like me to … escort the ladies downstairs?”
Hal thought about the panic that such attentions were likely to engender, at least for the poor princess, and he sighed. “No, my lord. We are guests in Princess Berylina’s solar. I’ve intruded enough to bring my business here, no reason to force the ladies to leave.”
Nevertheless, the message was urgent; it required his immediate attention. He strode to the rain-slicked windows at the far side of the chamber, snatching one of the lit tapers as he distanced himself from the Liantines. He set the candle on a table and took a deep breath before he opened the tube.
The parchment that slipped into his hand seemed harmless enough. There was a single sheet, curled into a roll that was narrower than his wrist. Again, there were no identifying features, not a wax seal, not a ribbon, not even a distinctive hand. He glanced for a signature, but there was none.
Muttering a prayer to all the Thousand Gods, he unrolled the parchment, turning it toward the taper to make the most of the dim light. He began to read.
“In the name of Jair.”
Hal glanced up hurriedly, scanning the oiled tube one last time for any sign of the document’s provenance. Nothing. Anonymity cloaked the message, as if it wore a hood, as if it skulked about in the darkest hours of the night.
“In the name of Jair. Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall, all for want of go
ld. The First Pilgrim offered up his riches, one thousand bars of gold, upon the feast of First God Ait. Jair guides us in all things, blessing body and soul forever. Let all who would be true to their fellow men offer up one thousand bars, gold to serve Jair’s cause. The man who strays from the First Pilgrim risks life and limb and peace everlasting but the man who honors Jair finds glory and fame. May Jair protect and keep us, forever and ever.”
A cold knife of excitement slid down Hal’s spine.
The Fellowship. No one else would call on Jair so explicitly, to the exclusion of all the gods but Ait. No one else would demand one thousand bars of gold – one thousand! – to be true to “fellow” men.
But why? What could the Fellowship intend? Were they raising an army, purchasing Yrathi mercenaries? Were they testing Hal’s dedication, ratcheting up their demands because he had produced donations before? Because he had hoped for advancement before? Was this the next test, the next measurement of his devotion, so that he might ascend to a position of authority and leadership in the Fellowship? Why now, when Hal’s own treasury was nearly empty?
Hal read the message three times over, hoping that the glimmer of a promise might outweigh the veiled threat. He could not be certain, though. He could not be sure that the letter was anything more than extortion.
He could summon the ship’s captain. He could demand to know who had given the man the message, how he had come to bear the scroll. He could rant. He could rave. He could threaten to torture the seaman. The answer would stay the same, though. Some Touched child, some merchant brat, some anonymous guildsman or acolyte or noble boy had brought the sealed tube to the dock. The captain had received a bag of gold for his troubles.
Or he had received a new ship, fresh-caulked against the spring-time storms.
Or his family had been threatened, his children held hostage against the scroll’s safe delivery.
Glasswrights' Journeyman Page 18