Glasswrights' Master

by Mindy L. Klasky

  And details she heard. Alton bark was gathered at sunrise after the first full moon. The wood was pressed flat between smooth rocks. After four days of drying, the bark was crumbled into a reed basket, and the container was suspended in the smoke from a fire layered with willow, ash, and rowan. The bark took on the color and aroma of the smoke, turning completely black. Then, it was allowed to cool beside running water. Only when it had been stirred by noon-time breezes on three consecutive days was it ready to be ground.

  “A mortar,” Kella explained, raising the tool, “and a pestle.”

  Rani nodded at the familiar implements. She had mastered grinding out pigments–first in Morenia’s glasswrights’ hall, then in Brianta’s. She looked more closely at the tools that Kella showed her. “What are those?” She pointed with a steady finger.

  “Ah… Your eyes are sharp, then.” The herb witch ran her palm over the edge of her grinding bowl. “Those are symbols of the gods. We southerners don’t hold much with the Thousand, but there are some who watch over the preparation of our herbs.”

  “Who?” Rani asked, and she braced herself for the responses.

  “Mart.” The god of earth. Rani was surprised by the sound of clucking chickens filling her ears, but she knew better than to look around the cottage for the source. “Mip.” The god of water drowned out the chickens with his nightingale song. “Gir.” The god of fire flashed across Rani’s vision, his gold and white raiment brilliant in the cottage. “And Ralt.” The god of air coated Rani’s tongue with the flavor of new-pressed olive oil.

  Kella appeared not to not notice her pupil’s reactions; she settled her hand on the edge of the mortar. “This tool is very old. Many hands have gripped its edges and worn down the signs, but they still offer their protection and their blessing.”

  Rani nodded. “And when the alton bark is ground?”

  “Then it can be sprinkled onto food. It tastes mostly of the smoke in its preparation, so it is hidden best on meats.”

  “And its effect?”

  “If a woman takes it every day, swallowing a portion the size of the nail on her little finger, she’ll conceive a boy child by the next moon.”

  Rani wondered if Mareka had heard of alton bark. Was that how Marekanoran had been conceived? Was that how Hal’s living heir had finally made his way into the world? “And what do you charge for the bark?”

  Kella’s eyes glinted, and she might have been any shrewd merchant in Moren’s marketplace. “One gold coin. The price is not negotiable.” The herb witch turned her head to the side. “Are you hoping for a boy, then? Are you trying to give your man a son?”

  Rani blushed, and then she cursed herself for the reaction. “No. No son. I trade in knowledge, not in children.”

  Rani knew that she must begin to drive this negotiation toward her own destination. After all, as fascinating as she found the herb craft, she’d come to the cottage for another reason. She must find the way to the Fellowship. Attempting to keep her voice casual, Rani said, “There are many men afoot in the forest. An unsuspecting maid could find herself surprised by one of them.”

  Kella raised an eyebrow. “But there are no unsuspecting maids here, are there?”

  Rani shook her head. “No,” she said firmly. “None at all.” She waited for Kella to elaborate on the strangers in her forest. When the herb witch was not forthcoming, Rani thrust down an inner grimace and said, “Tell me about another element of your craft, then. What are those roots over there?”

  Kella peered into the corner, squinting at the earth-crusted balls. She nodded to herself as she stood, and Rani could hear her counting out the coins in her own mind. The witch took a stick of kindling and added it to the one already on the table. Twenty copper pennies. A fair enough price to reach the Fellowship. “You have a sharp eye,” Kella said at last. “Those are demons’ teeth.”

  “Demons’ teeth?” Rani had never heard of them.

  “Aye. They grow deep in the forest, beside running water where a rowan tree has rotted into the river bank.” The old woman returned to the table, holding three of the dirty globes by their withered stalks. She set them in front of Rani with a small grunt and pulled up a bench to sit on.

  As Rani looked at the roots, she thought that they were moving, as if the plants were still alive. Leaning closer, she realized that the motion was caused by tiny worms, the largest no greater than an eyelash. “That’s disgusting!” she said, and her stomach turned as she thought of weevils spoiling good wheat, of maggots eating flesh.

  “That’s the power of the teeth,” Kella said with a grim smile. “The worms eat the roots and leave behind a black powder. Here,” she said, pointing to the fine dust that spread across the scrubbed table. “See?”

  “And what do you do with that?”

  Kella must have heard the revulsion in her voice, for the herb witch shook her head and clicked her tongue. “This is the power of nature, girl. You shouldn’t look askance at it.”

  “I don’t,” Rani protested automatically. She swallowed and said, “I just can’t imagine what you would do with the worms and their waste.”

  “We take the worms one at a time,” Kella matched actions to words, plucking up a grub with a two-pronged wooden tool. “Four of them, placed in an iron cup filled with water from a clear-running spring. At midnight, the cup is set in the embers of a fire that has burned for four days and four nights. By dawn, the worms are ready. You pluck them from the water, and you cut them into an equal amount of their own black dirt. White with black, wet with dry, it’s all about the balance.”

  “You cut them?”

  “Aye, with a knife. It has to be a special knife, though. One without a metal blade.” Kella pushed herself up from the table and crossed to the low table beside her pallet. She returned with something in her hand. “Like this.”

  For just a moment, Rani was not surprised by the diamond knife in Kella’s hand. After all, she had held one hundreds of times herself, used it to cut glass for her guild, used it to create panels for the players. Even as she registered the item, though, she realized how odd it was to see one here, in Sarmonia, in an herb witch’s home.

  Keeping her voice even, she extended her hand. “May I?” Kella passed the knife to her. “Where did you find this tool? What is that blade?”

  “It’s a diamond knife,” Kella said, and Rani heard the pride in her voice. The witch stood a little taller as she identified the tool, and a soft smile curved her lips. She glanced toward the pallet, and Rani knew more than she had ever wanted to hear. More than black willow. More than Tovin’s touchy temper.

  The blade spoke all the tale. Tovin Player had been here. He had shared Kella’s bed. He had left behind his diamond knife. That was why the player had tried so hard to talk Rani out of coming to the cottage.

  Rani knew that her jealousy was wholly unfounded. She and Tovin had parted months before; they had decided to follow their own paths. She could hear him berating her, accusing her of faithlessness with Hal, with Crestman, with any man in pants. (Unfair, that last one. Mean and angry and simply unfair.) And yet, it still cut her to know beyond doubt that he had come to Kella.

  The herb witch was an old woman, after all. How much time had he spent fondling her sagging flesh? Had he kissed the wrinkles on her cheek? Had he turned her head to the side and whispered against her crepey neck.… ?

  Rani flushed, and she forced her mind away from the image. Tovin was his own man. He always had been. He always would be. She could not control him. She did not want to control him. She made herself ask, “And what use are the demon’s teeth? What do the grubs do?”

  “The poultice will heal venomous bites–snakes, bee stings.”

  Venomous bites, Rani thought, intent on ignoring the diamond knife. Bites like those from an octolaris spider, from the beasts that she and Hal had successfully brought to Moren years before. Thinking about Hal reminded Rani once again of her true mission here in the cottage. She forced her thoughts away
from Tovin, made her voice drop back into its casual register. “There must be plenty of poisonous creatures here in the woods. Do you ever get frightened here, living alone?”

  “I’ve lived alone for a long time.”

  Not so alone, Rani wanted to cry out. Not recently! Tell me about the Fellowship!

  She was getting nowhere. Crestman might as well be a figment of her raw imagination. She pressed harder, desperation making her clumsy. “I’ve seen strange folk coming and going throughout the forest. Three days ago, I was in another clearing, closer to the road to Riadelle. There was another cottage there, one that looked like it might belong to a woman of your calling.”

  “There used to be many herb witches in the forest.”

  “But not now?” Rani’s voice ratcheted up a little as she spun out her story. “There had been many people at that cottage, and not long before. The grass was trampled, and horses had passed by. Their droppings were still fresh.”

  “You should not look too hard in the forest.” Kella’s voice was as sharp as the diamond blade. Once again, fear darkened her eyes, fear overlaid by something suspiciously close to greed. “Not if you have no special knowledge, girl. The forest can be a dangerous place.”

  Rani heard the warning, as blatant as her own questions. The Fellowship hung between them, as heavy as the iron cauldron sitting on the hearth, as merciless as the diamond blade in Kella’s claw.

  The herb witch broke the silence first, nodding her head once, as if she had made some decision. “If you would truly learn about herbs, your study is not complete without maiden’s veil. I do not think that it grows in your northern forests.”

  “Maiden’s veil? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Here,” the witch said, and she added a stick of kindling to the accounting on the table before she shuffled to the far corner of her home. She lifted a stick up to the rafters, a sturdy branch that had a natural hook at the end of its length. With more agility than Rani would have expected, the herb witch plucked a close-necked sack from a high peg.

  Kella brought her treasure to the table. “Let me open it.” Before she untied the sack, though, she crossed the cottage to a row of wooden pegs that marched beside the door. She selected a long white cloth that hung like one of Father Siritalanu’s priestly vestments and shook her head as she returned to Rani’s side. “Maiden’s veil. You needn’t worry about it. You’re a young woman. If I were to breathe the dust, though.…”

  She did not finish the ominous thought. Instead, she knotted the cloth around her face, wrapping it several times so that it covered her nose and her mouth. The effect was unsettling; Rani could not see Kella’s lips as she talked, could not measure the tiny motions of sarcasm and truth. “Maiden’s veil has no power when it’s fresh. The flowers are a common white, with a flash of crimson at their throat. They’ve graced many a table, I suppose, but they have no fragrance, and the leaves don’t give flavor to any tea.”

  As she talked, Kella worked at the tight knot that closed the neck of her silk bag. Her fingers were strong and wiry; her hands belonged to a much younger woman. Was that what had drawn Tovin? Was that what had lured him into the witch’s cottage, into her bed?

  When the knot was finally loose, Kella eased open the mouth of the bag. She reached inside, gingerly extracting a length of clean muslin. “Extra care,” she said, “for one as old as I.”

  “And what does maiden’s veil do when it’s dried?” Rani asked, trying to breathe shallowly despite the witch’s assertion that she would not be harmed. Kella rolled the silk bag back on itself, revealing the dusty grey of a dried plant. Its leaves were long and shaped like swords. Between them, balanced on fragile stalks, were chains of flowers. As Kella had promised, each little cone shimmered white, and each was brushed with crimson at the bottom, as if a single drop of blood had melted down the flower’s throat.

  Firelight caught on the closest flower, the flames reflecting in a prism from the flowers’ dust. Rani stepped forward, fascinated by the rainbow effect. Kella raised the dried flower, rotating it a bit, so that the fire touched the crimson spot. “It’s the fragrance,” she said. “As a dried plant, maiden’s veil sends out a scent equaled by nothing in the woods. It’s elusive, but you’ll never forget it once you’ve had the chance to smell it.”

  Nodding, Rani leaned closer. She still smelled nothing. There were so many competing aromas in the cottage–the fire on the hearth, the lavender wafting from the pallet. She took another step so that she stood directly in front of Kella, and then she doubled over the flower. She put her nose directly against the crimson spot and inhaled as deeply as she could.

  And Kella smashed the dried blossom against her face. Rani leaped back in startlement, but the herb witch gripped her head with a strong hand. The dried plant scraped against her nose, crumbling against her upper lip. Reflexively, she opened her mouth to scream, and Kella pressed her advantage, crushing the flower past Rani’s lips, grinding it against her teeth, her tongue. The taste was terrible–bitter and acid, so strong that Rani’s stomach lurched.

  She thrashed like a fish on a line, twisting her head from side to side, trying to slip free from Kella’s grip. She raised a foot to stomp on the old woman’s instep, but the witch proved too fast. The bitter taste spread across her tongue, down her throat, leaving behind a sparking tingle. For the second time in as many weeks, Rani’s heart was pounding; her lungs ached. She remembered falling upon the floor of the Blue Rose tavern, and she thought of the harm she had done herself there, the jagged scratches she had made upon her flesh as she tried to flee Yor’s nettles.

  She needed the gods now. She needed them to help her escape. Arn, she thought, don’t fail me now. Amazingly, the god of courage reached through her struggle; she heard the sound of a baby suckling.

  The sound gave her strength. After all, the Thousand Gods were on her side. They were gathered around her, watching over her. She had proof of their presence, as no other living person had.

  She screamed as she opened her mouth. “Stote!” she cried, calling upon the god of mountains. As she had hoped, as she had prayed, the sensation of water poured down her throat. She had met Stote before, discovered him as she tested her newfound powers. She knew that he brought water, brought refreshment, brought life. “Stote,” she called again, and the god surged through her once more, slaking her desperate thirst. “Stote!” she cried a third time, and the bitter edge of the maiden’s veil blunted under the force of the water. “Stote!”

  As Rani washed away the maiden’s veil, Kella gave up the fight. The herb witch staggered back a few steps, dropping the remnants of her white and crimson flowers onto the cottage floor. She stared at Rani in astonishment, as if she had never heard the name of the god of mountains.

  “What was that?” Rani demanded. “What were you trying to force on me?”

  “You should not be speaking!” Kella panted. “You should not be able to stand.”

  “I have the power of the Thousand, herb witch. By Jair, I’ll know what you tried to dose me with!”

  Before Kella could craft another lie, before she could spin out another story, there was a terrific crash. The door lurched on its leather hinges, and the room flooded with women, young and old, tall and short, fat and lean. They rushed in, ten, fifteen, twenty.… Rani lost count as she backed against the scrubbed table.

  The last woman stepped over the doorway with the calm of a queen. She waited until her sisters had seized their own, until Kella was forced to her knees, her hands tied before her with rough rope. Rani waited while Kella’s cloth mask was removed, while her nose and her mouth were exposed. She waited while three of the women approached the white and crimson flowers that lay upon the floor, covered them with their silk sack, and then with the lavender-scented pallet that they dragged across the floor.

  Only when all eyes turned back to her in expectation did the woman on the threshold speak. “Kella Herb Witch, what evil do you work here in the forest?”

>   “Zama!” Kella exclaimed, and Rani’s heart flooded with mixed emotions. Zama, too, had poisoned her. Poisoned her, made promises, and then betrayed her by not coming to Kella sooner.

  “Kella, what purpose could you have, trafficking in mordana? You know that it is forbidden. One dried petal on the tongue is enough to paralyze a man.”

  “I had no choice, Zama!” Kella’s voice cracked, and she repeated her protest. “I acted to save the Sisters.”

  “Save the Sisters? And has Rani Trader threatened us in some way?”

  Kella did not waste time showing surprise that Zama knew Rani’s name. Instead, she began to speak, words spinning so rapidly that Rani could scarcely make them out. Rani dashed through the cavalcade of the gods, wondering if there were one who could clear her ears, sharpen her hearing. She settled for a quick prayer to Glane and was rewarded with the heart-calming whisper of a lullaby. The god of salt eased her pounding pulse, let her focus on Kella’s frantic tale.

  “There are strangers in the forest,” the witch was saying. “We knew them once, long ago, the Fellowship of Jair. They’ve come to me, bound me with ties tighter than any handsel.”

  “There are no ties tighter than the handsel,” Zama said.

  “There are! We Sisters are stronger than all the handsels in the world! We Sisters must stand together!”

  “And the Fellowship would threaten us?” Zama shook her head. “We have known this Fellowship in the past. They never caused us grief before.”

  “They came to me, and they demanded access to my handsel, to a woman called Jalina!” Kella’s voice grew shrill as Zama started to interrupt. “I refused! I did not break our witches’ bond. I did not give up my handsel.” She gulped a deep breath and said, “I offered them this one instead. One not bound to me, to any of us.”