Glass Swallow

by Julia Golding

  ‘You must ask for the artificers to protect you when you get to Rolvint,’ he said. ‘They’ll take you in for your betrothed’s sake.’

  Having passed through so many shocks today, Rain felt reluctant to leave the safety she had found with this birdman for an even more uncertain future.

  ‘Can I no stay with you until go home?’

  He gave a bitter laugh. ‘You have a funny sense of humour, artificer. There’s no place for the likes of you in the graveyard district.’

  Rain loosened her arms from his waist. He was rejecting her, didn’t want anything to do with her now he had done his duty and rescued her.

  ‘You are right. No place for me here.’

  It sunk in for the first time that she truly was on her own. Her mind reeled with the enormity of her situation. She had no money and no Shadow to pretend to be the designer while she worked. How would she be able to afford the journey back to Holt? Had the ambassador even had time to tell the Master he had engaged a foreign glassmaker’s services? The people who had brought her here were dead; it seemed likely that no one still alive in Magharna would take any responsibility to see to her welfare.

  Rain closed her eyes, resting her forehead on Peri’s stiff back. Then again, at least she had her life. How could she be so selfish, worrying about the future when her cousin went unburied? She would survive and find a way back to Holt; she had to, for her father’s sake if for no other reason.

  ‘Here we are, my lady, the gates of Rolvint.’ Peri slowed Nutmeg to a stop. ‘The baths are on your left, though I expect you know that.’ He felt the girl slide off from behind him and drop to the ground. He’d forgotten how tiny she was; her head barely reached his knee as he remained in the saddle.

  ‘No, I do not know,’ she said, not looking at him but at the imposing gateway. ‘Not been here before.’

  ‘But I thought … ’ Peri quickly reviewed their conversation. He’d assumed she was travelling with a Magharnan craftsman as part of the ambassador’s entourage but another possibility struck him. ‘When did you arrive in my country?’

  ‘Yesterday.’ She gave a little hiccup of laughter that sounded more like a sob. ‘I do not like it very much.’

  What bad luck: to tie herself to a Magharnan visiting her country, travel back to his home, only to lose him. Still, she wore jettan clothes and had been under the protection of the ambassador—an extraordinary honour for a foreigner. Her betrothed must have been one of the jettan’s most valued men to allow a non-Magharnan wife in his party. The city would look after her. She would only be at a disadvantage if it were known she had any link to a scavenger. Peri tried to ignore a niggling feeling that all was not right with the little stranger.

  He felt in his pocket and flipped her a brass coin. ‘Here: this will pay for the bath. Then ask for your betrothed’s family: I’m sure they’ll take you in when they hear what has happened to him.’

  Rain shook her head hopelessly. He was talking too fast again. She looked at the strange disc in her palm: it had a hole in the centre.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Money,’ Peri repeated slowly, frowning. ‘For bath.’ He pointed to the building.

  ‘You want me to have bath now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She must reek really badly if he thought that she had to bathe before doing anything else. Surely she should be reporting the bandit attack to someone?

  ‘Go on. That way.’ Peri passed her bundle.

  ‘All right. Thank you.’ Rain walked in a daze to the bath-house door and handed over her coin. She did not have to say anything. The woman on duty took one look at her escort and ushered her in. Half an hour later, scrubbed raw and shivering with cold, Rain emerged on to the street. Her falconer had gone.

  Peri rode back to the barracks with a deep-seated sense of unease. It wasn’t only that he’d witnessed the bloody aftermath of the bandits’ attack, shocking as it had been, nor the fact that he had made an enemy of Krital, dangerous though that may prove in the future. The root of his discomfort was his doubt over leaving the girl alone. He told himself that she would be all right, that the city had special measures to look after people such as her, but part of him felt as if he’d just led a lamb into a wolf den and abandoned her. Something about her guileless blue eyes made him fear for her in the tough streets of the capital.

  Helgis bobbed up in the stable to help him unsaddle Nutmeg.

  ‘Goldie’s doing much better, thanks to you,’ his brother chattered away, brushing the lower reaches of the horse.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Much happen today?’

  ‘Some.’

  Helgis threw the currycomb back in the bucket. ‘What?’

  ‘I met a girl—’

  Helgis sniggered.

  Peri gave him a quelling look. ‘She survived a bandit attack.’

  ‘Oh. Was she hurt?’

  ‘Not hurt. In shock I think.’

  ‘What did you do with her?’

  ‘Took her to the city.’

  Helgis shrugged. ‘Well, that’s that then. You did what you could.’

  His father entered the stable, leading his own horse, loaded down with the fruits of his hunt over on the marshes to the north of the city. ‘What’s all this, Peri? Who did you meet?’

  ‘It was another bandit attack, Pa, much more serious this time. They killed an ambassador and his escort. Krital led them.’

  His father gave a melancholy whistle. ‘It’s getting completely out of hand, Peri. It’s like they’re waging war on us. You’re not to go up on the mountain passes again, not until the government stamps out the bandit threat.’

  Peri heartily agreed with his father’s order, not least because he did not want to cross paths with Krital any time soon.

  ‘I helped this girl—I think she was the only survivor. Took her to the baths.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  ‘That’s the odd thing: she said she was from Holt. Does that mean anything to you?’

  Hern’s brow wrinkled in thought. ‘Now you come to mention it, I did hear a rumour that Ambassador Lintir had gone on an embassy to a new trading partner over the Portic Ocean. He was going to bring back some fancy foreign craftsmen to work on that palace. His kinsman, Jettan Kirn, is overseeing the works and wanted something special.’

  ‘So the craftsmen were outsiders? The ambassador wasn’t travelling with his own people?’

  ‘I think so. But it’s not really our area, is it? I only hear the rumours at third or fourth hand.’

  Peri groaned and rested his head on Nutmeg’s flank. ‘I’ve made a mistake, Pa.’ An old conversation had come rushing back to him; Mikel had mentioned the foreign craftsmen but Peri had forgotten all about that until this moment.

  ‘What you? My perfect son do something wrong? Surely not?’ Hern teased him, rubbing Peri’s neck to relieve the tension.

  ‘The girl I told you about, she said she was travelling with her betrothed in the ambassador’s cavalcade. I assumed that he had to be Magharnan because when have you heard of foreigners being allowed as part of an ambassador’s party?’

  Hern shook his head. ‘Never.’

  ‘Her Magharnan is very weak. She couldn’t explain herself well.’ And she had probably not understood half of what he had said, he now realized. ‘I left her, telling her to go to her betrothed’s family.’

  ‘I see.’ Hern began to unload his horse, passing the catch to Helgis who was keeping very silent during Peri’s confession. ‘What do you think you can do about it? You’re not responsible for her bad luck.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘We’re scavengers, in no position to help anyone else. Once she found out about us, she wouldn’t thank you for making her unclean to any other Magharnan.’

  Peri grimaced. ‘She did seem a bit bemused that I was so insistent that she bathed. But you should have seen her, Pa: she’s very young and tiny with it. People in her country must be only half grown compared to us.�
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  ‘You always do want to take the wounded creatures under your wing, don’t you, Peri?’

  ‘Not all of them: only those that drop into my path, so to speak.’

  ‘Like this girl.’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘I’ll ask around tomorrow. I have a friend among the butchers who makes deliveries about the city. He might be able to find out what happened to her. After all, she’s a foreigner, bound to be noticed. I imagine she’ll be taken special care of because of that.’

  ‘Thank you. If I could find out that she was looked after, I’d not worry so much.’

  His father left for the butchers’ sector of the compound, carrying his catch on a pole balanced on his shoulder. Helgis swung himself up on the stable door as Peri forked a fresh bed of straw for the horses.

  ‘So what’s she like, this foreigner? Did she have two heads? Six fingers? Breathe fire?’

  Peri gave a half-hearted chuckle. ‘No, nothing like that. I think she must come from a race related to the fey people: she comes up to here,’ he tapped his chest, ‘and has long curly hair the colour of Nutmeg’s coat, and blue eyes.’

  Helgis almost fell off the door. ‘Blue eyes? Could she see with them? She wasn’t blind or anything?’

  ‘No, they seemed to work perfectly well. Strange—like bits of sky, or a forget-me-not.’

  Helgis snorted. ‘You’ll be spouting poetry next, Peri.’

  His brother just shook his head and continued to spread the straw.

  Shard 5

  Clear Glass

  He’d left her. The stupid falconer had just gone, without a word of goodbye or hint what she should do next. How could he do that to her when he knew she was a foreigner in a strange city?

  Anger revived Rain’s spirits, far better than the dull shock of the past few hours. No one in Tigral would treat a visitor like this! Common courtesy would demand that you open your home to the traveller.

  If she saw him again, she would be tempted to slap him for his neglect. Energized by her rage, Rain turned on her heel and strode back to the bath-house.

  ‘I want to say about a crime,’ she announced, trying to make herself understood to the woman in charge. ‘I say about an attack. Bandits.’

  ‘What’s new, love?’ the portly woman said with an indifferent shrug. ‘Been a raid each week for months now. But if you must, take your tale to the guard house at the gate.’ She pointed across the street to a prisonlike building with bars on the window.

  Rain marched to the guard house before her nerve failed her and rapped on the door.

  ‘Come!’ called a gruff voice.

  Rain entered, finding herself in a darkened room that smelt of stale beer and unwashed humans, which she thought odd considering the bath-house was so close. A man sat with his feet up on a table, his blue uniform with its slashed sleeves unbuttoned at the waist so that his belly hung over his belt. He examined her with vague but friendly interest.

  ‘Where are you from, darling?’ he asked. ‘Not seen the likes of you before.’ He put his feet on the floor and brushed some crumbs off the table. ‘Sit down. Tell me your tale.’ He seemed relaxed, in no hurry to hear the report of a crime.

  Rain took the bench opposite him, twisting her fingers in her lap. ‘Thank you, sir. My name is Rain Glassmaker. I come from Holt, a long way from your country. I travel with ambassador. He is dead. Bandits attack.’

  ‘What! An attack on an ambassador?’ The guard shot to his feet and lunged for a bell rope; he pulled it three times, summoning more help. ‘Where?’

  Relieved that her report was being taken seriously, Rain pointed westwards.

  ‘On road from the port. All killed.’

  Two men came into the room, buckling on their swords.

  ‘Was everything taken?’ The guard scribbled a message down on a piece of paper.

  Rain frowned, puzzling her way through his words. ‘Yes, people killed, baggage stolen.’

  ‘And you: how did you escape?’

  Rain rubbed her hand over her eyes, wondering if her limited Magharnan would stretch to explaining.

  ‘Man called Krital took me. A man with a bird helped me.’ She feared she wasn’t making much sense.

  The guard turned to his colleagues. ‘Take a party out to the mountain pass and check the girl’s story. You’ll need wagons to transport the bodies and to bring back any survivors. Be quick: it sounds like a jettan was involved.’

  The men left hurriedly, leaving Rain alone with the guard again. Standing in front of her with his arms folded, he inspected her from head to toe.

  ‘You look surprisingly unscathed for your ordeal, mistress.’

  Rain frowned. ‘Sorry, I do not understand.’

  He gestured to her appearance.

  ‘Ah, I see. Falcon man, he made I go bath.’

  The guard relaxed his stance, his suspicions quieted. ‘Good. Then you are purified and can enter the city. I’ll escort you to your people.’

  ‘What people?’

  The guard hitched his belt, making his tummy wobble. ‘You must know someone in Rolvint?’

  She shook her head. ‘I be in Magharna one day only.’

  He whistled. ‘Well, well: that is a bit of a problem. You see, we all have places in our city. I can’t just let you wander off on your own.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘I know, I’ll take you to the vagrants’ office.’

  She did not know the word. ‘What office?’

  ‘The office that deals with people with no home.’

  ‘I have a home—in Tigral, in my country.’

  He smiled patiently at her as if she were a touch simple. ‘But not here, you don’t, love. Come along. They’ll look after you.’

  Rain wondered how many people she would be handed on to before someone realized she was tired, hungry and thirsty, still experiencing cold waves of shock whenever she thought of the attack. Resigned to struggling on, she trooped after the guard, watching as he despatched a boy with his message informing his superiors of the bandit raid, then following him to a second building further up the street. This was about as welcoming as the guard house: ugly crude furniture, stone floor, and grey walls. A long line of people sat on the benches, their expressions desperate. The guard ignored them and walked straight to the head of the queue to where three men sat behind a desk loaded with papers.

  ‘Found you a stray,’ the guard announced jovially. ‘A foreigner, would you believe it?’ He waved to Rain who stood beside him, knotting her fingers in the holes in her robe. ‘She’s a funny looking thing.’

  The man in the middle, a sullen individual with white streaked hair, stared down his nose at her.

  ‘She’ll have to wait her turn,’ he pronounced.

  ‘Fair enough. I’ll leave her with you then.’

  ‘You do that, officer.’

  The guard briefly rested his hand on Rain’s shoulder. ‘You’ll be all right now, darling. These men will look after you.’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘Not sure exactly what they do with vagrants, but I know they see to those in need. Just tell them what you told me and something will be done for you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rain said dully, counting the number of people in the queue. It did not take a genius to realize that she’d be lucky to be seen today. But there was obviously a system; as a stranger who didn’t understand Magharnan ways, she would have to give it a chance to help her.

  ‘That’s the spirit. Oh, and welcome to Rolvint.’ With a benign smile, the guard made his way back to his post, happy in the knowledge that he’d done his best for the little stranger.

  Rain took a seat at the far end of the line. There weren’t enough benches so she was forced to sit on the floor. No one spoke. Rain wondered if that was because they were all from different classes, forbidden to speak to each other, or because they were too depressed to make the effort. She passed the time listening to the interviews at the table. The three men asked the same questions over and over: profession, reason for losing emplo
yment, reason why relatives would not support the vagrant, and so on. Rain rehearsed her own answers.

  At the conclusion of each interrogation, the person was given a coloured stick. Rain wondered what the different colours meant: the blue was met with smiles of relief, the yellow, looks of despair. One man was given nothing but escorted from the building by a burly guard who held him by the scruff of the neck.

  ‘What will happen to him?’ Rain whispered to the person sitting next to her, a thin woman with straggly hair and scarred hands.

  ‘Thrown out of the city,’ she replied. ‘Nothing for it but to join the bandits, if they don’t kill him first.’

  ‘I see.’ Rain tried to still her fingers which she had been knotting and unknotting in her lap until they ached.

  ‘He was probably a purveyor.’

  Rain gave her a blank look.

  ‘He sold things in a shop or market,’ the woman explained. ‘There’s no work for them these days with so many businesses struggling to get by. No one has any money for anything.’

  ‘And if there is no work, they throw you out?’

  ‘Of course. Can’t have people with no place in Rolvint.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a cook. My master can’t afford me any longer, had to let me go. Served him for ten years and this is where it has brought me.’

  ‘There is always work for cooks, surely?’

  ‘We’ll see.’ The woman folded her arms, signalling an end to the discussion.

  As Rain had not lost a job but just needed to explain her situation, she decided she must be in the wrong place. She tried to attract the attention of the men at the desk and finally caught the eye of the one nearest her—the junior clerk.

  ‘Yes?’ he asked.

  She cautiously approached. ‘Am I in right office?’

  He raised an eyebrow.