Glasswrights' Progress

by Mindy L. Klasky

  As long as she was traveling toward the south, Shea also knew that she would go east. East toward the ocean, toward the Swancastle. She needed to see that massive fortification, needed to see the magical place that she had turned to all her life, in times of strife and misery, in times of need. She needed to see the place where the nobles of her province had first rebelled, where the Uprising had been born. The Swancastle had cost her her son, her daughter, the peaceful life she had known and loved.

  Shea was afraid of the Swancastle, and of the ocean beyond it. She had never seen the moving, seething water, but she had heard tales. In fact, she had heard tales about so many things along the road – the dark forest through which she walked, the ravening hordes of the king’s riders. Shea had heard of wild beasts too, voracious animals that would snap up a sunwoman with two short clicks of their jaws.

  Crestman did not seem afraid. He walked beside her like any sullen youth, like her own son had, before he had gone off to fight. She judged him to be fifteen years old. A difficult age. A stubborn age.

  “Make sure that you gather enough wood,” Shea remonstrated with Crestman as they started to settle in for the evening. “It’s going to be cold tonight.” Her back ached as she eased herself to sit on a fallen log. The day had been long, and every muscle in her body protested the abuse of walking, walking, walking endlessly beneath the forest canopy. The autumn chill settled in her bones. Already, it seemed like a lifetime ago that she had taken her babes to harvest the last autumn berries, centuries since she had lazily fallen asleep in the warm sunlight of the clearing near her cottage.

  “I’m working as fast as I can,” Crestman grumbled, shuffling his feet through the rotting dust of years-past leaves.

  “No, you’re not. It will be dark soon.”

  “I’m not a sunboy, for you to order me around!”

  “No, you’re not,” Shea repeated, disapproval spicing her backhanded agreement. “If you were, you’d listen to what I have to say.” Shea huffed and pulled herself to her swollen feet. She dug about in the shadows to the side of the path, stooping low to lift the loose branches that had fallen by the roadside. They were on the very edge of the forest; this would be the last night that they could sleep beneath its protective branches.

  It took only a few moments to shame Crestman into helping her. At first, she refused to let the boy carry the wood that she had gathered. She dragged it back to the forest’s threshold, to the place where they would pass the night. She relented, though, when she felt a sharp pang in her back. She had to take several deep breaths before she could see clearly again, and even then it was difficult to find a comfortable sitting position, difficult to find a way to sleep in the cold, dark night. She was too old for this adventuring.

  She was too old, and too frightened, and too ignorant. She should be jostling her children’s children on her knee, sitting in front of a warm fire. But she had no choice. She needed to be on the road, with her newest ward. With Crestman.

  The next day, they were almost caught by soldiers twice. Perhaps the men had seen the smoke of their fire on the horizon. Whatever the cause, the horsemen were thick on the road. Crestman was responsible for watching for riders. He’d cry an alarm, and the two travelers would leave the road, roaming across wild-grown fields until they could crouch in weeds. If Shea had realized how close the soldiers were before she began this foolish journey.… If she had known the danger that she was in, with her skychildren, with all her precious lions and suns and owls, with her one little swan.…

  As the last of the soldiers rode off and the sun began to set, Shea decided that she should turn back. She should return to her cottage and her children. Who said that Hartley and Tain would be able to protect the children? Even now, they might all be hungry and cold. They might need her.

  Shea started to turn around, but she realized that she might put the children at greater risk if she returned. Who was to say that the soldiers were not tracking them this very instant, playing with her like a cat with its prey, waiting for the night time, for the next day, to take her captive? Who was to say that Shea would not lead King Sin Hazar directly to her children, if she turned around to save them?

  Better to press on, then. Better to keep moving toward the Swancastle.

  At least Crestman seemed to be gentling a little under her ministrations. Of course, he still cried out in his sleep – that she was unable to stop. If Shea startled him awake from a nightmare, he woke grasping for his knife. He also shied away from anyone touching his face – Shea had learned that lesson inadvertently, when she’d reached out to rub away a smear of berry juice from his cheek. He still kept his hair pulled tight in a soldier’s clout, emphasizing the harsh lines of his hungry face.

  Bit by bit, though, like a sparrow growing accustomed to taking breadcrumbs, Crestman began to relax around her. During the day, he let his hand stray from the curved knife that he kept tucked into his leather belt. Once, when Shea slipped in a muddy rut in the road, Crestman hovered over her, a look of anxiety twisting his face where annoyance had played only the day before. When they were caught in one of the frequent autumn downpours, Crestman no longer hesitated to pull close to Shea, to take shelter under her oiled cloak.

  The morning after the heaviest downpour, though, Shea had her first true fight with the boy. Not surprisingly, it was about their destination.

  “Why go to the Swancastle?” Crestman had complained. “There aren’t any swans there, anymore. The castle lies empty.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Aye.” Crestman looked uncomfortable, as if he wanted to forget a bad dream. “My unit trained on the castle grounds.”

  “Trained? What do you mean? What did you learn at the Swancastle?” Crestman refused to meet Shea’s eyes, but his fingers strayed to the scar that melted beneath his eye. “Is that where they did it, then? Is that where they cut away your tattoo?” Crestman only tightened his belt and hefted his meager pack. “You can’t ignore me, boy! You answer your elders when they speak to you!”

  Crestman would not reply, though. Shea’s anger flashed behind her eyes, as sharp as the pain in her back, and she badgered him for a few minutes more. “Are the troops still there? Does King Sin Hazar use the Swancastle to train his Little Army?”

  “I don’t know! Stop asking me questions! I don’t know who’s there now! I just know that the king’s troops fought long and hard for it, to take it from the rebels years ago. After the Uprising, Sin Hazar decided to use it to train his armies.”

  Fought long and hard.… That’s right. King Sin Hazar had paid in blood to defeat his rebellious swans. He had extracted a toll as well, though. Now, more than ever, Shea had to go to the Swancastle. Now that she was free from protecting her orphans, she had to see where the Uprising had been born, where her world had been turned upside down. She had to see the place that had spawned the battles that cost her Pom. Pom, who had died in the Little Army’s first camps, who had fallen learning how to protect the king’s loyal swans in the precarious years just after the Uprising. Pom, who had been learning how to protect his way of life.…

  By the time they’d been a week on the road, Shea had grown tired of fighting with her lionboy. Crestman’s initial obedience, his early sense of gratitude, had faded away like stars bleached by the morning sky. The farther south they moved, the more Crestman challenged every statement that Shea made. She needed to explain why they started at a particular hour of the morning, why they traveled down a particular fork in the road. She needed to justify why they stopped to fish at a particular rill, why they could not eat those particular mushrooms. She needed to prove every decision, every choice.

  And she did. She stood up to the lionboy, as if she hadn’t spent her entire life acting on decisions made by others. She stood her ground, as if the sun had burned away her old self, crisped her ancient identity and blown it away with the autumn winds that came with increasing frequency. Shea had become a different person from the meek sunwoman
who had lived her entire life one day’s walk from a village, from the comfort of Father Nariom, from the familiar skycastes.

  Now that Shea was not acting like a sun, she had freedoms she’d never dreamed of. Once, while they wandered, they came across a stand of curling sweetleaf. Shea knew that she should harvest the dark green leaves, stow them away for future use and throw the seeded fruit far over her shoulder, to spread the patch of the precious herb. She did not care to, though. She would have no time to use the sweetleaf, no time to bake, or even to boil the herb down to its sticky syrup. She walked on, ignoring the tug at the back of her mind. She might be a sunwoman, but she was no fool. She’d do what needed to be done, here and now, not just what she’d been raised to do.

  Another time, a couple of days later, she and Crestman were skirting the edge of a village. Crestman had spent the better part of the morning complaining about their food, or more precisely, their lack of sustenance. Shea had listened to him with a mother’s concern at first, but then she had grown tired of the sulking boy. Certainly he was hungry. So was she.

  “Why can’t we go into the tavern, Shea?” Crestman was still whining as the village faded behind them.

  “We don’t know who’s in the tavern, boy. We don’t know what we’ll find.”

  “We’ll find food and drink, we know that much.”

  “Aye, and how would you buy it, boy?”

  “You have two copper pennies.”

  “How do you know that?” Shea tried to keep fear from her voice, letting anger wash her words instead.

  “I know things,” the boy replied stubbornly.

  Before Shea realized what she was doing, she whirled on the lionboy, catching his throat in her rough hands. “You don’t go prowling through my pockets, boy. Awake or asleep, I’m the closest thing you’ve got to a family on this road. You sneak on me while I’m sleeping, and you just remember what I can do to you. I may have saved you from my children, but I’m not above slitting your throat and letting the crows eat your liver, if you do ill by me.”

  As Shea spoke the words, she believed herself; she believed the rage that trembled through her fingers. Crestman must have believed her as well, for he dropped his grumbling and complaining, not even looking over his shoulder as the village faded from view. That night, Shea removed the two copper coins from her knotted kerchief, sliding them into the cracked leather of her shoe.

  Shoes proved to be a problem again, only two days later. Shea had never worn her shoes for as long as she had on the road, and she’d rubbed blisters on the very first day of their expedition. She had tended to her feet carefully that first night, breaking the angry, watery bubbles and binding the tender flesh with soft cloth ripped from her underskirts. She’d hobbled a bit for the next couple of days, but her feet were beginning to heal, at least enough to let her focus on the other agonies of a body not used to walking, to the hard labor of living on the road.

  Crestman, though, did not have as easy a time. Certainly, the boy was used to travel, accustomed to lean provisions and sorry accommodations. He was a growing child, though. Shea noticed him limping after the first couple of days, when her own pained feet had stopped burning and settled into a dull ache.

  “What is it, boy? What’s wrong with your legs?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nonsense. I can see that you’re limping. No reason to lie to me.”

  “There’s nothing you can do to help.” Crestman set his jaw and continued walking, visibly steeling himself not to limp. Shea did not have a chance to follow up until they reached a stream later in the morning. She pointed out some fleshy mushrooms growing along the edge of the creek, and she frowned as Crestman lurched toward the food. When he came back, he slipped in the wet earth, and he swore loudly as his feet twisted out from under him.

  “Watch your words, lionboy.”

  “I’m not a lion,” he responded reflexively, swallowing hard and offering her the newly harvested mushrooms. They smelled of good, clean earth. Shea brushed hers off against her skirts and began to chew, grateful for the food in her belly.

  Crestman sank down beside her and raised his own mushroom to his lips. He had not begun to eat, though, when Shea darted out a hand, snaking it around his ankle. The maneuver sent her own food flying, but she caught the boy tightly. Her fingers crashed against the end of his leather shoes, jamming hard against his toes.

  “Ow!” Crestman exclaimed, and he twisted to get away.

  Shea only tightened her grip on the boy’s leg, using stiffened fingers to test the shoes. There was no question – Crestman’s feet were jammed into the leather; his toes were hard up against the front edge of the unforgiving leather. “Well, no wonder you’re limping, boy! Why didn’t you say something?”

  “What was there to say?” Shea’s ungentle ministrations had brought hot tears to the boy’s eyes. “I’m a soldier in King Sin Hazar’s army.”

  “Not anymore, you’re not. Not when you’re wandering through the countryside with a sunwoman. Not when you’re sneaking beside a riverbed, trying to avoid detection by His Majesty’s troops. If we’re going to travel together, you can’t lie to me.”

  “I haven’t lied! I haven’t said a word!”

  “There are lies in silence, boy. Sometimes worse lies than speech.” Shea shook her head and let the youth go. “Take off your shoes.”

  “What? I’ll never get them back on again!”

  “I said, take them off.” Shea’s voice toughened as she spoke, until her words sounded harder than the water-tightened leather on Crestman’s feet. Swallowing his grumbling complaint, the boy complied, easing off the cracked shoes. He handed them to Shea.

  Shea managed not to gloat over Crestman’s ill-disguised look of relief, the easing of pain in the tight lines of his jaw, his temples. Instead, she drew her long knife, the only weapon that she had taken from her cottage. The blade was sharp, but she still needed to fight with the stony leather. She set her own jaw as she sawed through the toes at the front of each shoe. When she handed them back to Crestman, he looked up at her in disbelief.

  “My feet will freeze!”

  “You’ll wrap them in cloth. You’d be a cripple if you wore those things much longer.”

  “They were good shoes!”

  “Good for a child, perhaps. You’re not a child anymore, Crestman.” She spoke the words in a chiding tone, but they made the youth stand taller. He wasn’t a child. He was growing to be a man. “We’ll see if we can get you new ones, when we arrive.”

  “Arrive where?”

  “Wherever we find ourselves,” Shea finally responded. The answer sufficed to get Crestman to wrap his feet with more bandages, torn from the last of her underskirts. When they walked away from the stream, the boy moved awkwardly at first, growing accustomed to his new, open-toed footwear. It only took him a few strides, though, to fall into a soldierly swagger. Shea swallowed a smile and let him take the lead for the rest of the day.

  Their newfound companionship made Crestman’s behavior doubly shocking when the boy lashed out at her, less than one day from the Swancastle. They had stopped to drink by a stream, grateful for the cool water after a morning of walking along a high, dry road.

  “Stay here,” Crestman insisted. “I’ll go on ahead and let you know what I find.”

  “Nonsense. We’ll walk together, as we have so far.”

  “It’s dangerous. I’ll go first.”

  “You’re only a boy.”

  “That’s not what you said the other day. I’m a soldier in King Sin Hazar’s army!”

  “Not anymore.” Shea set the words down stubbornly. She had almost grown accustomed to speaking back to lions. How a few days on the trail could change a good sunwoman like her.… “You’re not anything anymore, Crestman. You’re eager enough to point that out when you think it will work to your advantage. I won’t let you go on alone.”

  “And how will you stop me?” The boy’s face had flushed crimson, as if he were stained
by the leaves of the trees that flirted across the road. He steadied his voice by settling a hand on his knife-hilt.

  “I’ll box your ears, if I have to. You’re not so old that I won’t treat you like a child, if you insist on acting like one.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “I wish we were back at the cottage, lionboy. You’d talk to Hartley, then. You’d know that I don’t make idle threats.”

  “You’re only a sun.”

  Shea moved faster than she’d thought possible. Her hand darted out and grasped at Crestman’s fleshy earlobe, twisting viciously as she jerked him close. Even as he opened his mouth to protest, she curved her hand into a cup. She clapped the side of his head with all her force, setting free her nervousness, her fear, her hatred of this frightening, unknowable life.

  Her own fingers stung with the force of her blow, but she kept her grip on the boy’s ear as he tried to twist free. Her hands were strong, wiry after years of laundering and scrubbing, plucking chickens and shelling peas. “Only a sun, boy?” she asked, but she was not certain if she said the words aloud, or if she only thought them.

  Crestman’s cry was wordless, a gasping protest like a toddler who startles itself by falling down a steep slope. Shea shook her stinging fingers and grimaced at the boy. “You asked for it, you did! I’ve told you to listen to me. I’ve told you that I’m the one leading us. I saved your life, you miserable brat!”

  Shea heard the words tumble from her lips, scattering across the clearing like shards of broken pottery. She wanted to scramble after her anger, gather it up in her trembling hands, but it was too late. The words were spoken, the blow delivered. Shea shook in the morning sunlight, remembering the last time that she had struck Pom, the last time she had raised her hand against her own flesh and blood.

  That had been the day when Pom announced that he was leaving her, that he was riding to the Swancastle. She had protested then, told Pom that he could not leave her alone and unattended in the woods. Pom had stood up proudly, drawing himself to his full height as he must have imagined warriors doing for generations before him. Shea had flung herself at him, rage tightening her hands into fists. She had pounded on her son’s chest, beating at him with wordless fury. She could not believe that he would abandon her, could not imagine that he would let his own mother live alone and unaided in the woods.…