Glasswrights' Progress

by Mindy L. Klasky

  “Look, Mair!”

  “I can see from here.”

  “Mair!” Rani looked up from the busy courtyard and took a step toward her friend. The Touched girl was as pale as the bleached cloth that framed her face, and she huddled beside the lion-tattooed guard who silently watched over the pair. Mair also wore one of the strange northern headdresses, and the ornate piece underscored how pointed her cheekbones were, how thin her face had become. “Mair, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothin’s wrong, Rai.” Mair swallowed audibly, letting her Touched patois leak past her chapped lips. “At least not like ye mean.”

  “Then what? Come look at the courtyard from here! It’s filled with carts, like it’s market day, or something.”

  “I believe you, Rai. No need t’ look at th’ obvious.”

  Rani turned back to the parapet wall. “There must be two dozen drays there! Just feeding those oxen would eat up a merchant’s profit in no time. It’s strange to hold a market now – everyone must be getting ready for winter.” Rani watched for another minute before she exclaimed, “Wait! They’re not setting up any market. These carts aren’t arriving. They’re leaving Amanth!” Rani leaned out over the low wall, craning her neck for a better view of the ground close to the tower.

  “Rai, don’t!” Rani turned to look at her companion as she registered the note of fear in Mair’s voice. “Don’t be leanin’ over th’ wall!”

  The soldier smirked at the Touched girl’s obvious terror, and Rani shot him a glowering look. “Mair, it’s fine,” Rani hastened to assure her friend. “I’m perfectly safe.” Mair only shook her head, flattening her palms against the stone wall behind her. She managed to dart a glance at the railing, a look akin to terror. No, Rani realized, not akin to terror – filled with terror.

  “What is it, Mair? What’s wrong? Is your arm paining you?”

  “My arm is fine.” Nevertheless, the Touched girl hugged the splinted limb close to her chest, taking an unconscious step closer to the lionman.

  “What, then?”

  “Do ye ’ave t’ stand so near th’ wall? It’s a long way down.”

  “Of course it’s –” Realization finally dawned on Rani. “It’s the height, then? You’re afraid of the tower?”

  Mair tried a weak grin, with little success. “Not much chance t’ learn about towers, when ye’re livin’ i’ th’ City streets.”

  “But you were fine on the ship, on the deck when we sailed north!”

  “I was fine so long as I stayed away fro’ th’ railin’! Do ye know ’ow far th’ drop is t’ th’ courtyard?”

  Mair, afraid of heights! Rani might have laughed, if the Touched girl had not clearly been so close to tears, so close to fainting dead away.

  Rani had craved heights all her life, since she had first climbed the ladder to her bed in the shadowed loft above her parents’ shop. As Ranita Glasswright, she had scampered over her guild’s scaffolds like ivy tumbling over a wall. And now, to find Mair afraid! Mair had faced down the King’s Guard; she had led a troop of children for years, keeping them safe from illness and starvation and Turning Out days. Mair had even manipulated the Fellowship of Jair, making her way into that hierarchy with scarcely a moment’s hesitation. To think that the Touched girl could be afraid of fresh air and a little sunlight!

  “Well, then,” Rani finally said, surprised at the rush of warmth she felt toward her friend. “Let’s just go inside.”

  Mair immediately turned to the stairs that led from the rooftop; she began her descent before Rani could even gather up the goblets they had brought to the open platform. Rani had never seen her friend so anxious to retreat. The guard chortled as they passed him, but he did not follow them down the dark, twisting stairs. There were other soldiers to watch over the prisoners once they were back in the tower.

  In fact, even Mair might not have been so anxious to escape the parapet if she’d known what awaited them in their chamber. The girls were sharing a round room halfway up the tower. Guards were posted on the level below them, always a pair of stalwart men armed with pikes and swords like the fellow on the parapet. Rani could scarcely tell when the individual soldiers changed – each man was beefy and overfed, his hair cropped short to fit beneath his fighting helmet. Every one of Sin Hazar’s guards bore a lion tattoo beneath his left eye. The guards had obviously been instructed not to speak to the southerners; every friendly overture from Rani had been greeted with stony silence.

  Even without words, the guards managed to forbid Rani and Mair to leave the tower, blocking their way with weaponry. Sin Hazar had commanded the girls to get their rest. They were to recover from their arduous journey north. When Rani had insisted that she needed no rest, the king had merely brushed away her protest, like an unseemly crumb that had fallen upon his broad chest. “Your friend needs rest, then. She needs to recover from her injury.” After that rebuff, it had seemed disloyal to Mair to continue to protest, and Rani had let herself be shown to her elaborate prison.

  For that’s what the room was. Surely, it was better appointed than other prison cells Rani had survived. The floor was strewn with fragrant rushes, rather than sodden straw. The fireplace drew well, and the soldiers brought in a steady supply of dry wood. The food was tempting and varied, arriving still warm from the royal kitchens. Nevertheless, Rani had no doubt that she was a prisoner.

  Therefore, she should not have been surprised to find someone inside her chamber when she and Mair entered from the dark stairwell. Prince Bashanorandi started nervously as the girls entered the room, looking like a child caught filching sweets from a shop.

  “Bashi!” Rani exclaimed, before she could stop herself.

  “Ranita.” The prince bowed stiffly as he registered her use of his nickname. “Mair.”

  The Touched girl lashed out, anger crackling across her words. “What are you doing in our room?” Rani barely noticed that Mair’s Touched speech had faded, replaced with the iron tones of court.

  “It’s hardly ‘your’ room, now is it? It belongs to my uncle, to King Sin Hazar.” The prince eyed the girls, and a sheen of disgust oozed across his features, as if he smelled something rancid. Rani became aware of her headdress once again, of the awkward wings that weighted down either side of her head. She rubbed her palms against her sides, but the action only served to remind her that her clothes were not her own. Fine silk and velvet, certainly, but borrowed. The deep breath that she took to steady herself cut into her side, and she was forced to think about the tightly lashed girdle beneath her gown. Northern women wore strange attire, none of it comfortable.

  “Why are you here, Ba –” Rani stopped herself before she could start another fight by calling the prince by his nickname. “Bashanorandi.”

  “Our benefactor sent me. He wishes to hold a feast in our honor, tonight. It’s been a month since we arrived at his court. Four weeks since we came under his protection.”

  “I don’t have a benefactor here.” Rani’s voice was cold.

  “This is an honor, you fool!”

  “This is a ploy! Don’t you see how he’s playing you, Bashi? Don’t you see how he’s manipulating you, with fine horses and jewels! Can you honestly be bought for a few bites of roast fowl?”

  “No one is buying me, girl!” Bashi flushed crimson, and his words cracked off the stone walls.

  “What’s that on your hand, then?”

  “This? It’s nothing. It’s a signet. I sent a letter to Hal this morning. I needed something to seal it, didn’t I?”

  Mair snorted, snagging Rani and Bashi’s attention. “And you could hardly seal a letter to a king without using gold.”

  “I don’t have to listen to you, wench!”

  “I’m the guest of your precious king, aren’t I?”

  “Don’t push me, Mair.”

  “Or you’ll what? You’ll order us to the dungeons?”

  “I’ll order you confined to this tower! I’ll have them lock the passage to the rooftop! You can
just sit here in your chamber and rot!”

  “Go ahead, Bashi!” Mair was so angry that spittle flew from her lips as she spoke. “Chain the door above! That won’t change anything! Rani and I, we still know where our loyalties lie. We still know enough not to bow down before a strange king!”

  “I’m not bowing, you sl –”

  “No, ye’re not, Bashi,” Mair interrupted before the prince could spit out his slur. “Ye’re not bowin’ at all. Instead, ye’re kneeling, close enough t’ fondle yer king’s ballocks, ye are. Close enough t’ take ‘im in yer lyin’ mouth ’n’ –”

  “Guards!” Bashi bellowed as he whirled toward the doorway, and his hands were clenched so tightly that his entire ermine-lined robe quivered like a living beast. “Guards!”

  And then Prince Bashanorandi fled the tower room, hurtling down the stairs as if he were chased by the Thousand Gods. Rani could hear him exclaiming to the soldiers; his voice rising as he referred to “that Touched sow.” Rani could not make out the soldiers’ reply, and she waited only an instant before she turned to her friend.

  “And you think that was wise?”

  “I think it was necessary. Don’t you see what’s happening, Rai? The king is seducing him, as certain as if he were a bed-boy.”

  “He’s the closest thing we had to an ally here, Mair. You shouldn’t have made him so angry.”

  “If you think he’s your ally, Rai, then you know nothing of war. He’s not your friend. He never has been. He’s the one who dragged us here.”

  “He’s the only friend we have, now.”

  “We have each other, Rai. That’s all. Don’t be counting on anyone else, not anyone else in all of Amanthia. You remember that, until we’re back home in the City. No one in Amanthia is your friend.”

  Rani sighed in disgust and stomped across the room. Her skirts tangled about her legs as she threw herself into a low chair, and she tugged furiously at the fabric. These cursed clothes, with their tight-laced underskirts – the nareeth, the Amanthians called them – and the pleated overdress, the balkareen.… No wonder northern women did little more than pick at needlework or pluck an occasional instrument! They could hardly breathe to do anything else. No self-respecting glasswright would find herself confined in such a cloth prison.

  Rani sulked while the better part of a log burned away in the fire. She’d be cursed by all the Thousand Gods if she’d speak to Mair first. Rani hardly cared that Mair had offended Bashi – that had happened often enough when they’d lived in the south. No, the true problem was that when Mair alienated Bashi, she cut off one of the girls’ few activities of interest. There was nothing to do in Sin Hazar’s palace.

  Rani had requested parchment every morning since their arrival, and she had been told repeatedly that writing tools would not be made available, that they were for owls only. Owls? It had taken nearly a fortnight before Rani understood that owls were another one of the strange northern castes. Now, Rani scarcely paused to wonder how Bashi had secured writing tools for his letter to Hal. He’d probably had an owl do his copywork for him, writing out his words. Sin Hazar would approve of such an arrangement – it would prevent any secret messages.

  After Rani had failed to send a letter, she had tried to obtain permission to ride beyond the city walls. She was told, politely but firmly, that Sin Hazar would not permit his guests to take such risks. There were dangers in the countryside, and King Sin Hazar would not have Rani and Mair harmed while they were his responsibility.

  The girls were not allowed to walk alone in the gardens; they were not allowed in the palace library. Rani had not been permitted to find Sin Hazar’s glasswrights, to learn from her erstwhile guild members.

  The girls were not even allowed to wander the palace hallways unattended. Once, the previous week, an ambassador had ridden into the courtyard – whispered palace rumor said that he was from lands to the distant west. Rani and Mair had been forbidden to see the man; their guards had become surly when the girls even tried to examine the magnificent destrier that had borne the nobleman.

  Even Rani’s attempts to educate herself about the northern court had borne little fruit. Amanthia was largely a mystery to its southern neighbor; Queen Felicianda had been an exotic visitor to the Morenian court. By watching Sin Hazar’s palace staff and listening to snippets of gossip, Rani realized that some of the “truths” she thought she knew about Sin Hazar were merely tales.

  For example, she had been told once, by her brother, that warriors in the north fought for the title of king, that there was no direct succession to the throne. Rani’s brother had lied, though. Lied, or he had not been told the truth himself. Sin Hazar was descended from a long line of kings; his royalty ran deep in his blood, channeled beside his pride. And that royalty led him to issue edicts, absolute orders that were enforced by steel.

  One such edict made Rani and Mair prisoners, and they stood little or no chance of communicating any message to Hal. And now, Mair had squabbled with Bashi, cutting off the girls’ one solid line of communication with the king who held them captive. In the name of Plad, the Touched girl was insufferable when she thought she was right! Muttering a prayer to the god of patience, Rani finally stalked to the woven basket beside the room’s one narrow window. As she leaned down to pick up the fancy needlework Sin Hazar had bestowed upon her, she heard the heavy door open lower in the tower.

  At first, Rani could not identify the clanking sound on the stairs. Then, her ears picked apart the sound of a soldier’s mail, of heavy boots on stone. She heard a man muttering under his breath, swearing to San, the god of iron. Only as the curse became clear did Rani understand the other noise, the clanking noise, the repeated, jarring, terrifying noise.

  Rani leaped to the threshold of the chamber, just as the soldier swung by. He snarled at her as she opened the door, his angry leer twisted further by the lion emblem etched across half his face. “Back in your room, girl!”

  “But –”

  “Back in your room, or I’ll put these on your door!”

  Rani stepped back over the threshold, gathering her skirts close about her legs. The soldier clanked on up the stairs, lugging the lengths of heavy chain behind him. Rani did not need to watch to understand the sounds she now heard. The chains were looped through the door’s ancient wrought-iron fittings. She heard metal slide against metal, scraping like giant snake scales. Then there was a softer sound, a snick, and three sharp tugs.

  Sin Hazar had ordered the tower door locked.

  Rani would no longer be able to breathe fresh air from the parapet. She could no longer study the courtyard, look out at the surrounding countryside, imagine her escape to Morenia and Hal. She was trapped in the tower.

  She only waited until the soldier had swaggered back down the stairs, accompanied by his fellow who had stood guard above. Then she turned on Mair, her voice trembling with fury, or with the tears of betrayal. “I hope that you’re happy now!”

  “It had to be done.” Mair was sitting beside the fire in a low chair. She hunched forward as she hugged her arms about her belly, and she rocked back and forth. “There was nothing for it. It had to be done.”

  “Aye, you couldn’t stop yourself!” Rani spat. “As if you even care. You hated being on the parapet in the first place!”

  “I had no choice. It had to be done.” Mair rocked slowly and steadily.

  “Nothing had to be done! We could have spoken with Bashi! We could have worked with him! Mair, not everything is a struggle! Not everything is a battle!”

  Mair only shook her head and continued her rocking. “It had to be done.”

  Rani barely caught another exclamation before she could shout at her friend, bridling her exasperation but letting herself storm across the room to their window. Looking through its narrow slit, she could make out the sapphire sky of late autumn. A flock of geese flew across her narrow field of vision, and she could just hear their cries to each other. As Rani craned her neck to follow their progress,
she saw the lead bird drop back, and another forged forward, taking the point position in the formation. The geese disappeared toward the south, away from the cold, away from winter, away from certain death. Rani felt more enclosed than ever, more hopeless than she’d been at any time since her falcon, Kalindramina, had flown from her wrist.

  The sunlight faded rapidly, and Rani set aside her needlework when she could no longer make out the faint stitches against the soft linen background. She was getting better, she decided, folding the square in her lap. Her stitches were more even, and the background was less puckered. Nurse would be pleased with her, if the Morenian woman could see what Rani had accomplished. Still, the handicraft was a waste of good time.

  No more a waste, though, than spending hours dressing herself. With the sun setting, Rani knew that she only had a little time before Sin Hazar’s feast. From past experience, she knew that the northern king expected her to be robed in the complete finery of his court if she were going to come into his royal presence.

  The first few times that Sin Hazar had granted the girls an audience, he had sent servants to help them dress. Mair had put an end to that, though, pulling one girl’s hair when the hapless servant tugged a little too vigorously at Mair’s own ragged locks. Sin Hazar had sent word that he would not have his household terrorized by uncouth southerners. Rani and Mair had been left to their own devices, then. At least they had been able to relax the robing requirements – with Mair’s damaged arm, she couldn’t pull the nareeth laces as tight as expected across Rani’s hips.

  Now, Rani rose and began to dress herself mechanically. First, the soft linen kirtle, draping her from head to toe. Then, the tight nareeth, already cutting into her flesh as she laced it snug. Mair came out of her stupor before the fire as Rani crossed the room, and the Touched girl reached up mechanically to snap the laces tighter. Rani reached up for the mantle and took a firm grip, and then Mair cinched the garment closer about her waist. “Breathe!” Mair ordered, and Rani puffed all the air from her lungs. Mair took advantage of that instant and tugged again, forcing Rani to cry out.