“Aye,” Rani said, and she drew it closer about her shoulders.
“My Landur would have given me his, but he’s up on deck.”
“Of course,” Rani said neutrally.
“My Landur says that he’ll give me a fur-lined cloak when all this is over. After the war. When he’s had his share of the gleanings.”
And he’d give her a silk gown, Rani thought bitterly. And velvet slippers. And a golden fillet for her hair. If he could buy their way out of chains. Rani had thought that owls were trained in thinking, in proper logic, but there was no limiting what lies a girl would tell herself when she was lonely and frightened and far from home.
Rani held her tongue while the other girls settled down. When she finally did speak, she purposely pitched her voice low enough that everyone drew closer. “We’re drawing nigh to Liantine, ladies. We’re nearing Liantine, and the Little Army is preparing to fight. There’s something you should know, though. Something that all the Little Army needs to hear.”
Rani looked at the earnest faces around her, flickering in the rushlight. Their tattoos stood out on their pale faces. Suditha’s owl, and a handful of lions. Two swans, on the edge of the crowd, and suns. So many suns. Swallowing hard, Rani turned to Mair and spat out the protest they’d rehearsed. “I can’t do it, Mair. I can’t betray my people.”
“You don’t have much choice, now, do you?” Mair’s condemnation was immediate; her words dripped with scorn.
“But Mair, I grew up in Morenia! I was raised in the shadow of King Halaravilli’s palace! Halaravilli was like a brother to me!”
“A brother, was he? Tell me about Halaravilli’s brothers, Rai. He’s lost three of them, hasn’t he? And under mysterious circumstances, to say the least.…”
Rani swallowed hard at Mair’s insinuating tone. She knew that she had to continue with this charade. She had to sway the girls. But the words sounded so much like treason.… They felt so much like betrayal. “Ach,” she breathed, and then forced herself to voice, for the benefit of the Amanthians: “I know you’re right, Mair. It’s just that I trusted him. I thought King Halaravilli would come to save me.”
“He has greater interests than you, you little fool!” Mair’s anger sounded real, and the shock on Rani’s face wasn’t feigned. “He’s marching north, through Amanthia. He has a throne in his sight, not some caste-jumping girl, not some fool who dreams of rebuilding a broken guild. Even now, he’s likely at the Swancastle, billeting his men in the Great Hall.”
“No one could take the Swancastle!” That, from one of the girls in the shadows at the edge of the circle. Even as Rani reeled from the viciousness of Mair’s attack, she swallowed a smile – the first bait was taken.
“Aye, no one could have,” Mair answered the girl. “Once, long ago in the history of your people. But after the Little Army finished its training, after they’d used the Swancastle to learn how to protect all Amanthia, it was left undefended. It was ripe for Halaravilli’s army to pluck.”
“How can you know that?” Suditha whirled toward Mair, tossing her red hair over her shoulder as if it were a weapon. “How can you, a southerner, know anything about the Swancastle? How can you know how we Amanthians do things?” Again, Rani swallowed a smile. The owl had spoken her lines as if she’d memorized the script for this play.
Rani took up her cue, forcing Suditha to whirl back around. “We learned it while we were at court, Suditha. I learned it sitting at Sin Hazar’s side.”
“You were never with His Majesty!”
“Ah, but I was. I wore a nareeth and a balkareen, and I danced with King Sin Hazar at a feast held in my honor.” The heat of Rani’s memories burned behind her words, and she leaned toward the hungry girls. “I ate at the king’s table, and I drank from his cup. He pledged to me that he would conquer Morenia, and then we danced in front of all his lords.”
Rani heard the tears behind her speech, the emotions that she thought she’d strapped down within her. What did it matter, though? How were the girls to know that Rani longed to murder King Sin Hazar, not bed him?
“So why aren’t you with His Majesty now?” Suditha had opened another door without even realizing it, and Rani swallowed hard, pushing down the crimson bloodlust that welled up in her chest. Let the Little Army think that she longed for the king. Let them think that love, not hatred, drove her back to the Amanthian shore.
“I had no choice. I was carried away by events and misunderstandings. Besides, the important thing is not what I learned with your king. It’s what I knew before I ever arrived in Amanthia, long ago, when I was in Halaravilli’s court. The important thing is what I learned before I came to love King Sin Hazar.”
There. That caught them. That snared them.
“Don’t say more, Rai,” Mair warned, and Rani could hear the double meaning of her words – the false warning that the girls were meant to hear, and the hidden one that reminded Rani that the girls were about to buy her story, fit and whole, if only she did not push them too far. Mair continued, “There’s no going back, if you tell these girls more.”
“There’s no going back, even if I don’t.” Rani took a deep breath and gathered Crestman’s cloak about her shoulders. “Ladies, Halaravilli poses more of a threat than just marching his soldiers into the Swancastle. The king of Morenia has men who are loyal to him, here in the north. Halaravilli has agents who are already stationed in Amanthia, agents close to King Sin Hazar.”
“That’s ridiculous,” snorted Suditha, even as other girls gasped in horror. “His Majesty has spies whose sole job is to root out Morenian agents, to discover them and execute them like dogs.”
“Is it ridiculous? Is it so very strange?” Rani let the passion of her lies carry her to her feet. “You Amanthians are marked at birth. You’re tattooed with your caste, marked as swan or sun, lion or owl.” Rani watched as more than one hand was raised to a cheek, as more than one girl thought of her station beneath the Amanthian skies.
Rani continued: “But in Morenia, it’s different. I was born as Rani Trader, a merchant, by the way my people count things. But I changed my caste. I bought my way into the glasswrights’ guild. I left the guild and became a soldier, then one of the Touched. I joined the nobles. Like First Pilgrim Jair, I changed my life.”
“First Pilgrim!” Suditha retorted. “Jair was a man, not a god. The Thousand Gods never intended men to live in castes like you southerners!”
“They may not have intended it, but that’s the way of my people. And that’s the way that looked inviting to some of you northerners.”
“To us? To whom?” Suditha’s challenge was bald, as stark as the owl that flickered across her cheek in the rushlight.
“To Al-Marai.”
The girls’ collective gasp was like a wave striking the ship, but Suditha recovered first. “Al-Marai? The king’s own brother?”
“Aye. The king’s brother. The brother who was born before him, who was born first, but bears the mark of a lion. In my home, first-born Al-Marai would have been the king. He would have commanded all Amanthia, not just its armies. But here, because of the time of night when Al-Marai was born, because of when his mother pushed him, screaming and puling into the world, he is nothing but a general.”
“A general who will beat you southern invaders into submission!”
“A general who has already decided to join the southern invaders!” Rani’s declaration rang out against the rafters of the hold. Her breath came in panting gasps, and she grabbed hold of Suditha’s patent incredulity to plant her final lie. “A general who has sold his birthright, for the hope of changing castes.”
Rani’s heart pounded as she watched Suditha fight her disbelief. The other girls were silent, studying the scene before them as if they watched a play. Suditha swallowed hard and said, “Premise. Al-Marai is the brother of King Sin-Hazar and loyal to Amanthia.”
Rani answered as if she’d been born to the northerners, but she employed the skills she’d le
arned in the south, the tricks that she’d learned masquerading through all the castes of her youth. She joined the debate as if an owl’s tattoo were painted across her cheek. “Counter-premise. Al-Marai is a man, who is controlled by jealousy and passion like any other man.”
Suditha’s throat worked as she looked at the other girls in the hold. She clearly wanted to respond as an owl, wanted to find the cold, logical argument to dispatch Rani’s words. She wanted to believe in Al-Marai, in King Sin Hazar, in the order that she’d been taught since her birth. But she had no tools to force faith into her story.
Suditha swallowed hard and sank back on her heels, a gesture that Rani chose to interpret as submission. After a quick glance at Mair, Rani spoke to the other girls. “Al-Marai is a man. A man who will betray his brother. A man who will open the palace gates to King Halaravilli, who will hand over Amanthia, unless –” Rani stopped, and the girls leaned toward her. “Unless we let His Majesty know of the danger.”
“But how can we do that?” The question came from the center of the cluster of girls, and it was met with a bevy of nodded heads.
“We can turn this ship about. We can return to Amanthia. We can let the Little Army march into the king’s courtyard and alert him to the danger.”
“You lie!” Suditha had come to her feet again. Tears coursed down her cheeks, and she pointed a shaking finger at Rani. “You stand there and tell us lies!”
“How have I lied to you, Owl?”
“If you knew this, if you knew that King Sin Hazar was in danger, you would have spoken before you boarded this ship!”
Rani eyed the owl steadily, and the words came to her as if she were tutored by Hin, the god of rhetoric. “Premise: I did not know my heart until I boarded this ship.”
“Counter-premise,” Suditha spat. “Your heart lies in Morenia, with your upstart Halaravilli.”
“Premise,” Rani answered evenly. “My heart lies with the Little Army. With its captain, Crestman, who serves my one lord and king, Sin Hazar.” Rani let her arms fall to her side, let Crestman’s cloak drape over her Little Army rags.
Rani read Suditha’s face as if the owl were a parchment scroll. Suditha was jealous of Rani. She doubted her own soldier, Landur. She longed for a simple garment. She longed for true love. Rani whispered, “I found my heart, Suditha, and I spoke as soon as I knew the truth. This goes beyond owls and premises and counter-premises. This is love, Suditha.”
The owl’s lip quivered, but she kept her voice steady. “And what would you have us do? You and your cloak and your love, what would you have us do?”
There. The hook was set.
“I’d have each of us spread the word within the Little Army. I’d have us explain what must be done. I’d have us gain the attention of the soldiers in every way we know, so that they listen, so that they hear us and they understand. And then I’d have this ship turn about. I’d take us back to Amanthia, so that we can save King Sin Hazar.”
“Are you mad? We’ll be in Liantine in three days!”
“Aye,” Rani nodded. “Three days. That doesn’t give us much time, does it?”
“Why don’t we just wait? Why don’t we reach Liantine, and the Little Army can fight the king’s battles there?”
“If the Little Army is forced to fight its way through our enemies in Liantine, we won’t return to Amanthia in time to save the king. King Sin Hazar will fall to Morenia. It will be too late.”
As Rani finished speaking, a giant shout went up on the deck of the ship. She knew that sound – the Little Army had finished its maneuvers for the afternoon. Crestman would set them one last task; he would send them running about the ship’s deck, for five laps or ten. Then the boys would come hurtling down the ladder, down to the hold.
“What do you say, girls of the Little Army? Are you willing to fight for your king? Are you willing to convince your men?” Rani heard footsteps pounding the deck; the boys were running their last footrace. “Will you save Amanthia?”
Will you save yourselves, Rani thought. Will you spare us all a life of slavery and shame?
The first of the boys darkened the passage abovedecks, his shadow long and flickering across the hold. Suditha looked up as if she’d had a visitation from all the Thousand Gods. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes!” The other girls joined in her cries and moved forward to greet the returning army, to draw the boys into the shadows.
Rani gasped for breath, more than a little unnerved that she had cut things so close. Mair came to her side and whispered, “I didn’t think you were going to get them in time.”
“I didn’t either.”
“We’re not done yet. There’ll be boys who need convincing beyond anything the girls say. There are boys enough who’ve kept themselves warm on these winter nights, without the help of our girls.”
“Just as there are girls who’ve kept to their own bedrolls. Talk to them, Mair. You’re the best at that.”
“And you?”
Rani only sighed and gestured with her chin toward the deck. “I’ve got to bring him around. Without Crestman, we’ll never succeed.” She strode toward the ladder and climbed up on deck, before she could lose her nerve.
The sun was bright as it cut across the ocean, boosted by the occasional curl of a wave. Rani caught herself squinting, and she tried to force her eyes open wide, but they watered in the late afternoon gold. Irritated, she glanced about the deck, taking a moment to locate Crestman.
He stood alone, at the prow of the ship. He leaned out over the carved wooden balustrade, as if he would drive the ship to Liantine with the power of his thoughts alone. A wisp of hair had come undone from his tight clout, and his face was still red from the exercises he’d set for his men. His breath puffed onto the air, like a dragon’s white smoke. As Rani approached, the breeze carried the healthy rankness of his sweat.
“You’re working hard to keep your army in shape,” she said.
“Aye. It was hard to stay fit in the stockade. No room for maneuvers. Not much better here.” He was still panting, and she wondered what deadly tricks he’d shared with the boys, what useless moves they’d practiced, which would only guarantee them violent executions as rebellious slaves in Liantine.
“Crestman, you should take back your cloak. You’ll catch your death in this breeze.”
“I’ll go below in a moment.” He made no movement, though, and Rani told herself that his staying at the prow was an invitation, a gift from the gods. Forcing herself to ignore the tossing deck of the ship, she found a foothold and hauled herself up to stand beside Crestman. He automatically reached out to steady her, and she let his hand brush against her arm.
She’d done this before. She had masqueraded as a girl in love with a boy. She had lain in wait in a man’s bed, eager to trap him. Eager to kill.
No. This was different. Crestman was only a boy. Only a soldier in the Little Army. He was not Dalarati, not a full-grown warrior, no matter his command over his boyish troops. Crestman was not one of the Fellowship of Jair. And Rani did not need to kill him. She only needed to convince him, to bring him around to her way of thinking. She did not need her knife.
“We’ll be in Liantine in three days,” she forced herself to say.
“Aye.”
“And the Little Army will do battle.”
“Aye.”
“As soon as you’re told what that battle will be.”
“I told you, Rani. I’ll wait for my orders.”
“You know they aren’t coming! You know that something is amiss!”
“I know that I’m a captain in the Little Army.”
“Is that always your answer? Is that always your excuse?”
“Rani, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Did they carve out your brain, when they carved away your lion tattoo? Go ahead, Crestman! Go ahead and strike me! I’m only asking the question that you’ve been asking yourself since you returned to the Little Army! They took you from your family
; they made you fight with other boys. They carved away your sky sign. They killed your dog, and they forced you to eat its flesh. What makes you think that King Sin Hazar is watching out for your welfare? What makes you think that Liantine will be a safe place?”
“I’m a soldier, Rani. I don’t ask for safety!”
“Do you ask for death?” The tears that had come close to her eyes when she spoke of Sin Hazar’s seduction were back again, forced down her cheeks by her pounding heart. “Crestman, is that what this is all about? You wanted to escape from the Little Army, but you were not able? You couldn’t leave when you came across Shea, so now you’ll let the Little Army orchestrate another sort of escape for you?”
“Are you calling me a coward, Rani Trader?”
His hands gripped her arms, and even through his cloak, she felt the fury tremble through his body, the raw rage that coursed untapped in his flesh. She remembered the passion that had spilled into his embrace before, the fire when he had kissed her on the hill below the Swancastle. She raised her chin defiantly. “Are you a coward?”
For just an instant, she thought she’d pushed too hard. She thought that he would toss her over the railing, throw her to the sharks and all the other fishes. She watched his jaw tense, watched the wisp of hair that had fought free of his battle clout. His face flushed crimson, raw with fury, except for the stark white patch of the scar stretched beneath his left eye.
Rani raised her hand to touch that scar. It was cool against her fingertip, impossibly chilled when the boy-soldier before her was so enflamed with war and fear and honor. She whispered, “I know you’re not a coward. Crestman, I know!”
He crushed her against him, completing the embrace that Bashanorandi had interrupted on the grounds of the Swancastle. Rani was startled by the strength of his arms as he pulled her against his chest, and she gasped as he crushed his lips to hers. Her heart pounded, harder than it had when she’d stood up to Suditha, harder than when she’d danced with King Sin Hazar. Harder than when she’d betrayed Dalarati, so long ago in far-away Morenia.
Glasswrights' Progress Page 29