“Then move out of my way.” She strode past him to the wagon, and prepared to climb aboard; Achmed caught her arm.
The flurry that resulted caught him by surprise even as cursed himself for not expecting it.
Without hesitation the woman slammed her hand into his shoulder and pushed him back, loosing his grip. As she spun, the remaining artisans, men and women, pulled an assortment of small knives and sharp tools. Achmed dropped her arm quickly and held up his hands.
“Apologies,” he said, cursing himself inwardly. “I am not good at this. I want to hire you.”
The woman leveled her gaze at him for a moment, then shook her head at her companions, who went back to loading the wagon.
“Hire us?” she asked disdainfully. “You cannot afford the price.” “I—I am King Achmed of Ylorc,” Achmed stammered. “How fortunate for you. You cannot afford the price. Now kindly move out of the way.” The woman turned her back and walked away.
Achmed felt like he was drowning. All of his normal calm had fled, leaving him feeling desperate, anxious beyond reason. “What is the price?”
The woman turned and regarded him sharply. She considered his question, inhaling slowly to calm her breath, then spoke.
“Each of us is a sealed master. Two hundred thousand gold suns.” Achmed swallowed heavily. “Done,” he said. “In gems. We cannot carry that much in coin.” “As you wish.” “Today.”
The Bolg king coughed. “Today?”
The woman nodded, her eyes fixed on his face. “Today. Before the setting of the sun.”
“I cannot possibly do that.”
She nodded. “As I told you—you cannot meet the price.” She returned to the wagon and prepared to climb aboard.
Achmed chased after her. “Wait, please. I can have a bill of tender stamped this evening.”
The woman laughed. She stepped off of the wagon’s rim and came to stand in front of him.
“You do not know of the Panjeri, do you?”
The Bolg king shook his head, swallowing to keep from misspeaking.
“You know nothing of the craft, of the trade, then. Nor anything of our language. The word means ‘the dry leaves.’ We are called that because we blow about in the wind, racing along from place to place, never staying anywhere for longer than a fallen leaf would stay in a windy desert. It pains us to remain still for too long. To ask a dozen Panjeri to come to wherever you would need us, would be as to ask a dozen leaves to remain on the ground in a high breeze.”
“I don’t need a dozen Panjeri,” Achmed said quickly, struggling to keep his tone from becoming imperious. “I need but one—the best one, the most talented, highly trained one. The leaf least likely to skitter in the wind.” He raised his eyebrows and cocked his head to view each of the other assembled workers, a wry smile coming over his face. “Which one would that be?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed in response.
“That would be me,” she said haughtily.
“And by what name are you called, as the greatest of the Panjeri?”
“Theophila.”
“I see. Since I have no way to ask the other Panjeri,” the Bolg king countered, continuing to size up the artisans, who stared blankly at him from the wagon, “and would find it difficult to communicate my needs to them, I’ll just accept that you are the heaviest leaf.”
The woman crossed her arms. “Well, even if they did not agree, how would you understand what they said?”
Achmed nodded, his lips pressed together in a mock show of agreement. “You do have a point there. Very well, Theophila, assuming you are in fact the best stained-glass artisan of the Panjeri, what would the price be to hire just you?”
She considered for a moment. “For how long?”
“However long the project takes. If you would not commit to finish what you begin, I would not have you anyway.”
The woman scowled. “I never leave any aspect of my work unfinished, even as the others pack to leave,” she snarled. “I believe you have witnessed this.”
“Indeed. So again I ask you, what is your price?”
The woman regarded him again, leaning back against the clapboard of the wagon.
“A reason,” she said.
“A reason?”
“Yes. A reason to divert my travels, to separate from my kinsmen, to remain in an unknown place for however long you wish me to remain—can you give me a compelling reason to do so?”
Achmed considered for a moment. “Yes,” he said finally, “I can promise you that the glass you will make for me, the project on which you will work, will be unlike any you have ever done before, or will do again.”
Theophila shrugged. “That is not compelling enough,” she said blandly. “That can be said of most projects we undertake. While the challenge of the work is well and good, it does not feed my family; it does not buy my tools.” She put her foot back on the wagon rim once more and started to hoist herself aboard.
The Bolg king smiled slightly. “Tools? Yes. I did notice your nippers are rusty, and your filial files and groziers are awkwardly balanced. If your price is not in gems, perhaps you can be paid in better tools.”
The woman froze on the rim, then looked back at him, a cool look in her dark eyes. One of the men in the wagon gestured impatiently to her and another of the women began to speak, but she waved them both into silence.
“Perhaps you do know a little of the trade,” she said. “But what do you know of balance, of tools?”
“Everything,” Achmed said brashly, feeling as if he were betting on a hand of cards and hating the feeling. He reached down into his boot and pulled forth a half-weight svarda, balancing one of the three blades on his gloved fingertip, then straightened his arm to demonstrate the perfect equilibrium.
The Panjeri in the wagon stared, their eyes riveted on the circular blade poised in the air above the Bolg king’s index finger. Only Theophila seemed unimpressed.
“We have no need of throwing knives,” she said contemptuously, but Achmed noted a waver in her voice.
She was betting on the cards in her hand as well.
“My craftsmen can make anything that is a tool or a weapon, and make it from a material that will last through your lifetime, and the lifetimes of your grandchildren. It will remain sharp and true, within a hairsbreadth of the width it was when planed in the forge.”
“Oh? Better than diamond-edged steel?”
“Better. Yes.”
She tossed her head, running her hand through her short tresses, spattering the sweat. “I don’t believe you.”
Achmed pulled forth a cwellan disk. “Examine it yourself. But take care—if you are fumble-fingered, you will be maimed. This has no handle; it is a weapon, not a tool.” He chuckled to see the angry reaction in her eyes to the insult, though her face remained stoic.
Delicately she took the disk, and turned it over carefully in her hand, holding it up to the last rays of the low-hanging sun. After a moment she knelt and struck the disk against a rock, then scraped it along the surface with a flicking motion. She stood again and returned the disk to Achmed.
“We are leaving Sorbold soon after we are paid,” she said, walking away as she spoke.
“How soon?” he asked as she vaulted into the wagon and sat down next to one of the other women. The man who shook the scaffold, driving the team, clicked to the horses, and the wagon began to roll.
She shouted back over the noise of the cart as it disappeared over the first rocky rise.
“As soon as the wind changes.” the Bolg king was no longer in sight, one of the women spoke in their dying language.
“Theophila, what did that strange man want?”
The woman stared back over the sideboard of the wagon, up into the rocky face of the hill. In the distance she could see a long, thin shadow, backlit by the setting sun, skittering down the cliff face like a spider, stopping from time to time, then hurrying down again as the cart moved farther out of view.