“One tree,” he said. “One tree for every slave.”
“Ten,” Rani countered.
Anigo’s teeth grated, the scraping clear in the otherwise-silent room. Rani caught her breath, frozen, waiting. “Ten.”
“No!” Crestman howled, throwing himself toward the guildmaster. A half dozen soldiers surrounded him, even as Anigo scrambled back four steps. Crestman swore and fought as if his life depended on ripping himself free from the spiderguild guards. He tossed his head like a wild man, struggling to bite his captors, to kick them, to chop at them with his furious fists, but he was subdued quickly by their weapons and superior force.
Rani stared, horrified by what she had provoked. For just an instant, she thought that Crestman might only be play-acting, that he actually knew her true plan, the one still hidden, but when she saw the vicious hatred flashing from his eyes, she knew that he was lost. “Crestman,” she said, her voice barely audible above his harsh panting, and the exerted breath of his captors.
“Don’t speak to me, traitor!”
She could not respond. She could not tell him her intentions. She could not say that she would bargain for the riberry trees, establish Hal’s silk trade, and then return, next year, with gold from the profitable sale of silk, gold that the spiderguild could not resist. She would ransom all the slaves eventually, but for now she could not reveal her plans.
Crestman twisted until he could glare at Anigo. “Take me, then. Make me one of your slaves.”
The guildmaster laughed, the grim sound bouncing off the ceiling of the high chamber. “And why would I do that?”
“I can work. I can plow your fields and haul your water. I’ll feed your cursed spiders. I’ll do whatever you command.”
“I could never trust you.”
“You’ll keep me under guard. You’ll keep me without weapons. The other slaves will see me, and they’ll know better than to rebel.”
Rani wanted to protest. She wanted to tell Crestman that he did not need to do this; he did not need to sell himself for the riberries. He could stand now, walk out of the hall with her, with Tovin. All would be right, within one year.
Anigo nodded slowly, and his blunt fingers stroked his neckpiece. “I won’t change my mind. I won’t release you, when you recognize your foolishness.”
“My foolishness was in believing a Morenian would ever hold my own interests at heart. Better that I serve honorably with my soldiers, than that I lap the boots of conquerors.”
Anigo stared for a long moment, but then he gestured to his soldiers. “Take him to the slave quarters. Issue him a tunic, and send him to the fields, with chains about his ankles. He’s on bread and water rations until I say otherwise, and two men will watch over him. Kill him if he takes one false step.”
The guards wrestled Crestman to his feet, jostling him with their swords. “Crestman!” Rani cried.
He spat at her.
For just an instant, she was outside of the spiderguild hall, outside of Liantine altogether, and back at the fallen Swancastle. She stood beside Crestman on the hillside, listening to his tale of bitter disappointment, to the cruelty that had bound him to the Little Army. She remembered the hatred in his eyes, the bitter lust for revenge that had tightened the scar across his cheekbone.
And now, she saw that same raw desire, that same desperate rage. Crestman was lost to her forever.
He turned away without a word, and the guards led him from the hall.
Anigo waited for a long minute, and then he raised a diamond-studded hand. “Done. Ten trees for each of my slaves. But not for that one. He was not mine when you drove your bargain.”
Rani nodded, sick at heart that anyone – even Anigo – could think that she had meant to profit from Crestman’s choice.
Anigo raised a commanding hand, summoning a servant from the shadows. “Very well. We will have the papers completed by sunset, and you may sign them then. Ranita Glasswright, you may go about our compound for the daylight hours, but you may not enter any building without a member of the spiderguild.”
Rani inclined her head, accepting the restrictions. Before Anigo could leave, Tovin started forward, looking as if he intended to kneel before his lord. “Player,” Anigo said. “You too are forbidden from entering our buildings.”
“My lord, I have negotiations to complete, for the players’ cobalt cloth.”
“You will not negotiate with us. You chose your side in this charade. The spiderguild has no further interest in the players.”
“My lord!”
“Silence!” Anigo’s bellow made the floor tremble. “You brought outsiders into our midst. You allowed them to manipulate us. You paved the way for riberry trees to be released into the outside world. The spiderguild will having nothing more to do with you – not with you, and not your troop. You will leave at dawn tomorrow, and you will be denied any further entrance to our enclave.”
“My lord, I –”
“One word more, and I will have you taken to the stockade, with the two who broke our laws at the gate.”
Tovin’s throat worked, and he clearly considered testing the guildmaster’s edict. Rani could see that Anigo would not relent, though, and she reached out one hand to still the player. He shook away her fingers angrily.
“Until sunset, then,” Anigo said, inclining his head toward Rani.
The remaining guards led them from the chamber, weapons drawn as they traced their way through the twisting guildhall corridors. None actually touched Rani with the point or flat of a blade, but they left no question about where she must walk and how quickly. The tangled hallways seemed darker now, gloomier and more twisted.
Rani was relieved at last to find herself in the large reception room, under the glint of colored glass from the octolaris window. Then, she was outside the building altogether, back in the morning sun, looking down on the black-veined marble courtyard. The leader of the guards repeated Anigo’s warning to avoid the buildings before he led his men away, abandoning Rani and Tovin on the blinding white steps.
Rani waited until the soldiers had left, and her voice trembled as she asked, “Is that all? They won’t place a guard upon us for the day?”
“What could you do to harm the spiderguild?” Tovin’s words were bitter. “All the silk is locked up. The spiders would be death if you handled them. You are locked inside until the gates open at tomorrow’s dawn.”
Tomorrow’s dawn. When the messenger would arrive from King Teheboth.
Rani swallowed hard. “I bargained for Morenia. I got the riberry trees.”
“At what cost?” Tovin nearly shouted, his player’s voice booming across the courtyard. He clutched at her arm and pulled her close, the force of his fingers strong enough that she knew immediately she would have bruises. “At what cost, Ranita Glasswright? To prove that you could outwit Anigo Octolaris? Without octolaris, your trees are worthless, and for that, you have broken the players!”
“Surely, the players are not broken! Audiences will watch you, even if you play your pieces with ragged curtains.”
“This isn’t about curtains! Don’t you understand? The guild has withdrawn its support. We will not be allowed on the Liantine roads without a sponsor. The entire troop will be illegal, banished. Every troop needs a patron, and you have driven ours away!”
Rani had not understood. She had not realized what her bargain cost. Nevertheless, she could not have acted otherwise. She needed the trees. Hal needed them; Morenia did. With the trees, they could rebuild safely, recover from the fire and the illness, escape from under the Fellowship’s thumb. …
Even if she had needed to bring down the players. Even if she had lost Crestman.
Tovin glared at her. “And you don’t even realize, yet, that all your bargaining was for nothing. You’ll never keep those trees alive.”
“We will. We must.”
“Do you know the first thing about riberries, Ranita Glasswright? You should have asked a player. Any one of us
could have told you that your plan was foolish. We trade in stories, after all. We trade for knowledge. Our Speaking is not just a way for lonely noble-girls to pass the time.”
“I’m a guildsman,” she said through set teeth.
“Aye, a guildsman. So what do you know about riberry trees? First, you must protect them from the wind.”
“I’ll do that. I – I’ll design glass screens.”
“You must pollinate each tree by hand.”
“The children will do that – the Touched and other folk in Moren who were left homeless by the fire.”
“You must water each tree twelve times daily, with two full buckets each time.”
“We can –” Rani caught herself. “Twelve times?”
“Twelve.”
“The trees will drown!”
“They are nourished by a moss that grows around their roots.”
“We – we can impress people to do that.”
“And what will they use for water?”
For the first time since leaving the guildhall, Rani saw that her plan might fail. Her voice shook as she said, “Moren’s wells, of course.”
“Moren’s wells? How deep are they? How much water do they yield, Ranita Glasswright?” She heard her name like a mocking slur. What could a glasswright hope to know of such things, of planting and harvesting and husbandry? How could she be expected to answer?
“How does the spiderguild do it, then?” she spat back in defiance. “We’re on a plain here, far from any river.” She waved her hand vaguely to take in the marble courtyard, which had begun to shimmer in the morning heat.
“The spiderguild has a well. A deeper well than you’ll ever dig in Moren.”
“Don’t be so sure. When King Halaravilli sets his mind to something, he can do it.” He can, Rani told herself. Hal can, and Davin, and all the people of Moren, who will have no choice if they wish our land to survive.
For answer, Tovin merely strode away. When Rani hesitated to follow him, he turned back, his lips twisted into a cruel grin. “Surely you’re not afraid, Ranita Glasswright? Not afraid to follow me to the truth?”
Rani trotted to catch up to him. She wanted to demand an answer. She wanted to order him – a player, a man not even recorded in Morenia’s castes – to stop, to listen to her. But she thought of the power he had held over her, the power of Speaking, the power of his glasswright skills, and she held her tongue.
And all the time that she followed him, around the corner of the guildhall, along the side of the long brick building, through the ornate, carefully planted gardens, she listened to doubt grow in her mind. Hal had taken the spiders from Mareka. Mareka had offered the spiders to Hal. What had passed between them? How had their alliance been built? What would that bond mean to Hal’s impending marriage to Berylina?
Tovin brushed past a kitchen garden, pushing his way through feathery herbs. Beyond the plantings, there was a field of blinding white stone. The player’s boots crunched on the surface, the sound echoed by Rani’s own feet. Tovin headed toward an unassuming heap of bricks.
A pair of donkeys stood beside the structure, lazily lipping at grass that struggled in the shadows. The draft beasts trailed their harnesses, and Rani saw that two massive yokes had been settled haphazardly against the brick wall. A spider was carved into each frame, the eight legs creeping across the wood like a cancer.
“What is this?” Rani panted as she caught up with Tovin.
For answer, he pushed open a door, revealing a passage barely wide enough for a laden donkey to pass through. When Rani hesitated to enter, the player crossed his arms over his chest. “Come see what you compete against. Come see how the spiderguild prospers.” His words were mocking, condemning, and Rani wanted to explain, wanted to make him understand that she had had no choice but to work for Moren, no choice but to bid for the trees, whatever the cost to the players, to Tovin. To Crestman.
She wanted to explain, and she wanted to turn away, to go back to the front of the guildhall, to the bright morning light. Anything would be better than Tovin’s furious superiority. Anything at all.
Swallowing hard, she forced herself to step forward. Over the threshold. Into the darkness.
No. Not darkness. There was no roof overhead. The brick wall was nothing more than a shield to keep the unwary from falling down a steep ramp. Rani looked across the enclosure to a matching hole, another mouthed ramp.
Tovin turned to Rani, half-bowing. “My lady,” he said with a condescending sneer, and Rani bristled as she began to descend.
The passage was carved from stone, after the first few feet of earth. The ramp curved around a central column of excavated space, the shaft of the well itself. Every ten paces, a window broke through from the enclosed ramp to the shaft.
Taking a deep breath, Rani approached the next gap. When she looked up, she could see two rows of windows above her, cut into the stony column that stretched to the sky. Looking down, she found that windows spiraled beneath her, spinning out like a spiderweb to dot the inside of the stone shaft. She leaned out further, further, stretching to see the bottom of the well. “Roan preserve us!” she gasped, calling out to the god of ladders for lack of another protector against the dizzying height. Rani had always liked high places, had always reveled in the power of ladders and scaffolds. This, though, was nearly too much, even for her. She pulled herself back over the window’s stony lip.
Tovin snorted and gestured for her to lead the way down. At the bottom of the well, the walls were damp, traced by rivulets that trickled silently into a vast, spreading pool. Thick wooden planks stretched across the water. Rani wondered how deep it was, but before she could ask, Tovin reached into the leather pouch at his waist. He pulled out a misshapen lump of blood-red glass – a scrap from the players’ panels, Rani realized. He held his hand over the water for a moment, and then he released the drop. Rani watched the glass sink through the water, fall into the shadows, disappear into the endless depth of the well. She could not see the bottom; she could not imagine how much water pooled beneath her. The well held more water than many rivers. More water than in all of Moren.
Only when the crimson drop was lost in the shadows at the bottom of the well did Rani dare to speak. “This is what they need, then? The riberry trees?”
“This. Or some other way to get them water.”
“Four and twenty buckets a day.”
“For each of your trees. For every one that you bought upon a child’s back.” Tovin’s fury had faded to spite. “But you can tell your king that you won your bargain. You won your bargain, and you cut the players off from their sponsor.”
“That was not supposed to happen!”
“Of course not.” He was mocking her.
“I only meant to help my king.”
“Without thought for anyone else. For anything else. You used me, Ranita Glasswright. My players will be lost without a patron – all because you had to prove that you were right. You had to prove that you could best the spiderguild.”
“That’s not true!” Rani had not bargained for herself at all. She had negotiated on behalf of all of Moren, all the men, women, and children who suffered in the fire’s bitter wake. Even now, she could picture the orphans, coughing blood past their sooty lips. She could see the bodies of the dead, stacked like firewood. Like the riberry trees that would also die in Morenia, starved without the water they required. Riberry trees that could only become the faggots to burn the corpses that counted out Rani’s failure.
Unless Rani had spoken some version of the truth in Anigo’s chamber. If Davin could find a way to save Morenia. … If Davin could construct some massive engine, some pump to convey water to the riberry trees. …
“That’s not true, Tovin,” she repeated. Her defiance echoed off the stone shaft, but the player set his fists against his hips and strode over the planks, crossing to the other ramp, to the one that led up from the bottom of the well.
Rani hurried across the pool, forbi
dding herself to think about how much water was beneath her, how much water she would need for the trees. For Hal’s trees. For Hal’s spiders. For Mareka’s spiders. Once again, she ordered her thoughts away from the manipulative spiderguild apprentice, from the currency she suspected Hal must have paid for the octolaris.
“Tovin!” she cried, and the player was pulled around by the force of the single word. “You must believe that I did not plan to hurt the players! I would not betray you! If you do not believe me, then Speak with me! Let me tell you that way.”
“Speak with you.” His voice dripped with scorn. “You should know more than that by now, Ranita Glasswright. Anyone can lie while she Speaks. Anyone can tell stories. Speaking does not bind you in any way.”
It had bound her, though. It had bound her to this tall player, to his satin voice. She needed to know that he did not hate her, that the bond between them was not destroyed. Even here, even now, with Crestman carried away and the Little Army soldiers enslaved above her, Rani could remember the lure of Speaking, the cool blue stream that had called to her, soothed her, drawn her to Tovin. She wanted that water to carry her away, past the spiderguild, past riberry trees and octolaris, past all the bargains that she had made. The bargains that she had made, and Hal as well, in Liantine, with Mareka. …
“Tovin,” she whispered, and the sound curved back along the stone ramp.
He paused by the first window, framed in the diffuse light that made its way down the well shaft. Rani could see the stiffness in his shoulders, the hard line of his jaw.
She strode up the ramp.
He was taller than she was; she circled half around so that she did not have to look up at his face. Her fingers on his spidersilk tunic were certain; her palm lay flat against his chest, absorbing the beat of his heart through the fabric.
For just an instant, Rani was catapulted into her past. Years ago, she had stood before a man this way. She had felt her blood stir at his strong, handsome face, her breath come short beneath the power of his gaze. He had given her an almond cake, and she had thought that she might love him. But she had been tricked, driven by forces beyond her control. She had killed that other man.
Glasswrights' Journeyman Page 31