The Fragrant Glasswork

Aitapati of Orashuris was a thief. He had long since made peace with the fact. His parents wouldn't have liked it, had they known. But if they wouldn't, they shouldn't have named him Aitapati, Wielder of Movement. And they shouldn't have kicked him out before he knew what he wanted to do with his life.

His most recent target was the easiest he'd hit in a long time: an exhibition of art glass here in Amucheiru, the greatest city of the Indoru. He hadn't touched any of the glasswork for sale; the exhibition floor was patrolled by seihipadan, master assassins, who would kill him without a second thought. He hadn't gone for the cash boxes either. Sales hadn't opened yet, and when they did, it would mostly be receipts with the priests of Hasutanu, the badger god of wealth and honest dealing.

Instead, he had snuck into the kitchen that the exhibition's food stands shared. Every drop of wine and brandy, every ounce of meat and butter and dried fruit, was logged and double-checked; but the tea-holly berries, the salt, the chestnut flour and watercress powder, were general issue. No one would notice if a few scoops of these went missing; but salt and tea holly sold for good money in the countryside.

That was how you stayed alive in Amucheiru. Seeing what no one would miss, and what price you could get for it. There were those who bought apartments in rich quarters of town, got the largesses of bedding and durable goods that the lineages handed out at feasts and weddings, and sold them in the countryside for respectable sums. He did the same thing, but without spending a few herons to get started.

Sometimes you got greedy. He had nicked a vial of rose perfume that had been forgotten in the kitchen. He knew it would be missed. But running risks made the rest of life worthwhile.

#

Knowing that he'd have more money soon, he took supper at a fine inn near the exhibition. Eavesdropping at a place like this could give you leads for the next job. You didn't want to take all the leads, of course. 

Aitapati finished his custard, and eased back with a glass of cherry wine. The man and woman at the next table over, who each wore the single orange bead of a married couple outside the lineages, were applying themselves to poached rabbit and traditional Shairokasun tusiroan. It was a humble choice for a meal at an inn, but food stands rarely did rabbit well.

As they finished the course and sat back to talk, Aitapati ordered tea and a paper of nuts, to seem less suspicious.

"I can't believe they did that," the man said. "'We judge the artist, not the work!' As if a single thing by that amateur Taihutari could match my perfect roses!"

The woman put her hand on his. "You knew going in what would happen," she said, looking him in the eye. "The Wind's Wish paid for this exhibition. Of course they'd give first place to one of their own."

"But all three ribbons going to lineage glassblowers? When I'm obviously better than any of them?"

"They waived the entry fee for you. They named you first among the honorable mentions."

"They swore to judge the exhibition fairly! Those oct--"

"Ranahiti," the woman snapped. "Don't say such things. You did extremely well. The exhibition opens to sales tomorrow, and who knows what the buyers will think? Maybe they can tell who the real winner was."

"Of course they can," Ranahiti said sourly. "I'm sure none of them are lineage members themselves."

"Then pray to Reitaneché," the woman said. "You know how she's helped us before."

Aitapati settled up his bill. Sometimes there was only one thing to be done.

#

This was the worst decision Aitapati had ever made in his life. The exhibition hall was four bays wide, most of the tables had drawers and clutter underneath, he didn't know where to look for Ranahiti's booth, and he couldn't see the seihipadan in the gloom.

He was dressed in midnight blue himself. Blue stockings, blue gloves, even a blue scarf over his face. If he was caught, he was a dead man, but that was true no matter how he dressed.

By the door, there had been a placard showing which exhibit was whose. He hadn't dared to pause and look at it. He slipped from one exhibit to the next, peering at them in the gloom. One table, a third of the way up the right side, held a cut-glass statuette of Aitakeiro herself. The starlight sparkled off her wings. Goddess of swans, goddess of the Chehirainan, she had ignored him entirely. She had left him to live and die a petty thief.

He wiped a tear from his eye, and felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked to his left, and a pair of eyes glittered at him in the gloom. The seihipati's blue garments really were invisible. Aitapati froze, and hoped this would be a warrior's death.

"Mulberry?" the seihipati whispered.

Unthinkingly, Aitapati nodded.

"The countersign's 'truffle.' Keep moving, there's time for prayers tomorrow."

The seihipati vanished into the gloom. Aitapati couldn't breathe for a moment. He couldn't think straight for a few moments more. Standing at this table, dressed as he was, doing nothing suspicious, he had passed as a seihipati himself.

#

He went through the hall more openly after that. He was twice rebuked for being too visible. He was challenged with "soaring," responded "truffle," and now knew both the sign and countersign. He found Ranahiti's table, and the glass roses were impeccably beautiful, although they really were monotonous.

Someone whispered to him that the shift was almost over. The seihipadan left the hall by scaling a wall to a second-storey window. Ranahiti's table was on the west side of the hall, on the other side of a pillar from that part of the wall. Aitapati hid by the table, prayed to Aitakeiro and Reitaneché, took out the rose perfume, and went to work.

He slipped out before the shift change was complete. He changed into the clothes he'd hidden outside, dumped his seihipateh garments into a latrine, threw the vial of rose oil down another one, didn't return to his rented room with its saleable stolen goods, and was out of Amucheiru, out of its countryside, deep in the wilderness near the mountain of Dorusu Askasé, before sunrise.

#

Upper-class Chehirainan knew all about wilderness survival. It was the fanciest of skills for them, like the fancy skills of law and history in the east. But Aitapati's father was a cooper in a small town near Askasinis, and had pushed him out at thirteen to have one fewer mouth to feed. So Aitapati knew nothing of these things.

He stumbled along in a direction that he hoped was south or southeast. There were patrols on the border at Kauru Chunetasé; someone might pick him up. Then he might slip away before the seihipadan found him.

He was drenched in a passing summer storm. He tried to make a fire, spinning a stick against a clear spot on a fallen log, but wore himself out to no purpose. At least his clothes dried as he worked.

He slept under a tree that night, and woke up in the middle of the next day, with a hacking cough and horrible congestion. He stumbled along, still trying to go southeast, his head spinning. He found a stream and drank, and ate what he hoped were bilberries.

He carried on until evening. The berries must have been poison. He heaved and retched, fouling his clothes; eventually his gut settled down, but he was too weak to stand. He crawled under a bush and curled up, helpless and hopeless, and prayed to Aitakeiro to accept a thief, who had died of his first good deed.

#

He awoke not to a swan maiden, but to a young Karanaiyé woman.

"Where --" he tried to ask.

"You're in Teyoru Dohupraisé. We found you north of Dorusu Askasé, delirious, terrified of the seihipadan."

The Karanaiyé woman smiled. She looked so sincere, with her open, squarish face. A Chehiraineh smile always looked sinister.

"Would you believe that real seihipadan showed up here?" she asked. "They were hunting a spy from the Isles of Gloom, who infiltrated a glasswork exhibition. They said Reitaneché worked a miracle to scare him off." She rolled her eyes. "You Chehirainan have such vivid imaginations, but real people can get killed over such things."

Aitapati was too tired to listen. She helped him drink warm broth, and he sank into a peaceful sleep.

#

Aitapati never saw Ranahiti again. He never even learned Ranahiti's wife's name. But twelve years later, the rumor reached him, as he sat making shoes in Pesenaitis in the Heron Lands, of a rising lineage in Amucheiru called the Fragrant Glasswork. It was said that the goddess Reitaneché had blessed their founder's glass roses, to ward off a spy from the Isles of Gloom. For one day and the following night, their scent had been fairer than any living rose.