Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen (The Abhorsen Trilogy Book 4) (27 page)

There was a great deal of food, all of it very good, but after assuaging her initial hunger, she paid it little attention. Unlike Mogget, who ate as if he really was a starved cat and not something else that probably didn’t need to eat at all. He certainly didn’t need duck in a wine sauce and poached salmon, the latter dish being greeted with yowls of almost unseemly enthusiasm, though Mogget then went on to eat it daintily. The cat-shape was clearly not just a mere outward shell, but extended to behavior as well.

Clariel pushed her plate away, deep in thought about how she could escape the House. Even if she managed this, she would then need to evade everyone searching for her, which would include not only Kilp’s people, which essentially meant all the organized forces of the Kingdom; but also the Abhorsen’s. And probably the Clayr as well, she thought, who might simply be able to look into the ice and see where she was
going
to be and tell the Abhorsen where to intercept her.

It seemed impossible, but she knew that part of her generally defeated feeling was simply tiredness and reaction to everything that had happened. Surely there would be ways to escape the House. The Abhorsen might even change his mind, or could be helped to change his mind.

There was also the Free Magic creature in the silver bottle. It was here somewhere, in the House. She had freed Aziminil once. Perhaps the creature could help return the favor . . .

She looked over to ask Mogget about where the bottle had been taken, only to see a completely bare salmon dish. The cat-thing, all the fish being eaten, had departed upon some silent mission of his own.

Clariel waited for him to come back, but eventually gave up and, after refusing more offers of various desserts, including one involving ice and apricots that looked delicious, started back upstairs. Halfway up, after briefly considering going farther to look at the study and the observatory in the tower, she instead decided that she really, really needed to go to bed.

Chapter Twenty-Five

GONE FISHING

C
lariel slept for sixteen hours. When she woke up, sunshine was streaming through the windows, and her attendant sending—or at least one that looked exactly the same—was standing at the end of the bed holding a towel. There was an odd smell in the room, almost like rotten eggs, which surprised and alarmed Clariel until she realized it came from the steaming hot water that had just come out of the pipe into the basin. It was the same smell as the hot springs that could be found half a day’s ride from Estwael, a favored spot for the townfolk to ease aching limbs. Some Abhorsen had worked out how to pipe hot water from just such a spring below the House.

As soon as Clariel got up the sending with the towel ushered her over to the basin and, acting more like a nursemaid trying to bathe an infant than a lady’s maid, helped her wash and dress. New clothes had been laid out, new linen underclothes and a light woolen dress in blue, with the silver key motif very faintly woven into the cuffs. The improvised leather slippers from the day before were still there, but had been cleaned. Clariel’s knife was laid on top, with a knotted black cord provided as a belt to hang it from.

It was very peaceful, Clariel thought, as she tied the cord around her slim waist and checked the knife moved freely in its scabbard. The sun was shining, she’d had a rejuvenating sleep, and there were wonderful smells of fresh baked bread and cooking bacon coming up the stairs.

Mogget wasn’t at breakfast, but even after only a short acquaintance Clariel presumed he’d simply had his earlier rather than skipping it. After Clariel had eaten she went out into the garden. It was warmer outside in the sun, but there was a cool northerly breeze blowing in off the river. She walked around the rose garden, marveling at all the different varieties, most of them in bloom. There were red, white, and yellow roses, and even one so dark purple it looked black from a distance. A black rose would be a suitable flower for the Abhorsens, she thought, a death-flower. Not for Tyriel and his hunters, who it appeared had mostly given up the old ways. A black rose for the old Abhorsens, the ones who often walked in Death.

Clariel thought about that as she walked across the lawn to the grove of oaks. She never really thought much about the sensation she felt when an animal died, it was something she had got used to in the forest. But in Kilp’s dining chamber, the deaths there . . . it was the same feeling, but magnified many times.

So she had the Abhorsen’s Death sense, inherited along with the berserk fury from the royal side. But all the Abhorsens and the Royal Family were great Charter Mages, and she wasn’t, as Kargrin had discovered. She couldn’t even begin to understand why Bel, for instance, was so interested in the Charter and felt so much a part of it. Perhaps it was because she was an outsider, and
wanted
to be an outsider.

Clariel put her hand on one of the oaks, feeling the strength of it under her hand. It was old, all the oaks here were old. Hundreds and hundreds of years, growing tall and strong. But like her, they were contained within the white walls . . .

“Heading for the fishing tower? Excellent idea.”

Clariel jumped at the sound of Mogget’s voice. The cat emerged from behind one of the other oaks and sat near Clariel’s foot as if he had been waiting there all morning.

“I wasn’t,” said Clariel. “But I could. I want to ask you some questions, away from—”

“Away from the cruel cares of deciding what to have for breakfast,” interrupted Mogget.

“No, I meant away from the—”

“Repressive number of plates of dry crusty things those sendings put out,” interrupted Mogget again. “I trust they’re looking after you? That one there can be a bit pushy.”

“What?”

Clariel turned around. Her attendant sending, who had silently followed her from the house, was standing two paces behind her back. It bowed, the strange face inscrutable under the cowl.

“Oh, do go away,” said Clariel.

It didn’t move.

“It won’t,” said Mogget. “Ordered to watch you. Guard you too, I suppose.”

“Will it report what I say to the Abh . . . to my grandfather?”

“Yes,” said Mogget. He bent forward and suddenly scratched at the ground, clearing away some leaves and fallen acorns to the bare earth. Then, extending one claw, he scratched something in the dirt. It took Clariel a moment to understand that he was writing something. She knelt down to see it better, and briefly saw the words
Sme cn’t read
.

“Ah,” said Clariel. She arched her eyebrows and jerked her head back a couple of times, indicating the sending behind her.

“There’s a fungus on bread that will make you do that,” said Mogget. “I believe it is curable.”

Clariel sighed and, holding her hand close to her stomach, pointed with the tip of her forefinger at the sending.

“Oh, yes, I think that does apply to the one in question,” said Mogget, scrabbling for a moment in the earth as if he’d spotted a tasty-looking bug, but in fact writing another message in shorthand:
I can shw yu how to gt rid of them
.

“I think I’d like to look at the study in the tower,” said Clariel. “I have some letters to write.”

“After you catch me a fish, surely,” said Mogget. “It’s easy enough, because of the spelled currents, the fish get drawn in around the southern end of the island. There’s a pole and hooks and such in the tower, and a sending will bring worms from the kitchen garden.”

“I see,” said Clariel, who saw very well that Mogget would answer no questions unless she did catch him a fish. “I’ll catch you a fish.”

Two hours and three long but slim silver fish that Mogget called “skinnerjacks” later, they were crossing the southern lawn going back to the house when the cat suddenly stopped, ears flicking.

“Someone’s coming,” he said.

“The Abhorsen?” asked Clariel.

“No,” replied the cat. “There would be more sendings coming out. I suspect it is your lover. Belatiel.”

“He’s
not
my lover,” protested Clariel. As the actual catching of fish had only taken up some fifteen minutes of the two hours spent fishing, she had spent a lot of the time talking. Mogget was interested in everything that had happened, though every time Clariel had tried to move on to questioning him about the House and how to get out of it he’d changed the subject, apparently because the sending was listening. But she hadn’t mentioned Bel’s romantic intentions, so either the cat had read more into what she’d said, or he was just making fun of her.

“Your friend, then,” said Mogget, as they turned left and followed the path toward the western gate. “Particular friend.”

“He’s not a particular . . . oh, never mind,” retorted Clariel. She looked down at the cat. He blinked his eyes at her, pretending total innocence. “You just like to stir up trouble, don’t you?”

“Not as much when it is so remarkably easy,” said Mogget. “Though you do offer slightly more of a challenge than Belatiel.”

Clariel hoped the visitor was Bel, because he would be vastly more preferable than Tyriel, or, Charter forbid, Yannael.

The sending with the two-handed sword opened the gate as they walked up, and it
was
Bel. He looked pale and drawn, but better than he had when they’d landed the day before, not least because he was wearing fine clothes, similar to the outfit Clariel had seen him in when they first met at the Academy. He smiled as he saw Clariel, a full-hearted smile, which retreated somewhat when Mogget slunk out from behind her legs.

“Clariel! And Mogget . . .”

“Hello, Bel,” said Clariel. Mogget merely winked and tilted his head to look at the fish Clariel held by a string through their open mouths. His pink tongue protruded just a fraction as if he couldn’t quite hold it back.

“I see you have met Mogget,” said Bel. “And he’s talked you into fishing for him already.”

“She volunteered,” said Mogget. “You look sick.”

“I was wounded,” said Bel. “Clariel saved my life.”

Mogget looked up at Clariel, emerald eyes inscrutable.

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“Twice, really,” said Bel eagerly. “First from the crossbow bolt, then she stopped a Free Magic creature that was about to kill me.”

“Stopped a Free Magic creature?” asked Mogget. His eyes gleamed in sudden interest. “Fascinating. I wondered how you came to be . . . that is, I understood you are not much of a Charter Mage, as such . . .”

“I held its feet,” said Clariel, uncomfortably. “They were like blades . . . anyway, what am I supposed to do with this fish? And what are you doing here, Bel?”

She did not notice Mogget’s eyes widen as she spoke, or the calculating glint that came into them.

“I came to see you, of course,” said Bel, as if there could be no question that he would do so at the first opportunity. “I would have come earlier this morning, but ah, I didn’t think the Abhorsen would . . . um . . . make you stay here and no one would tell me where you were. I had to go and ask Tyriel himself, which, let me tell you, wasn’t easy. I had to submit to a lecture about flying low over horses and dogs.”

“Well, here I am,” said Clariel. “A prisoner again, as I foretold.”

“He told me it’s for your safety,” said Bel awkwardly. “But it shouldn’t be for very long, only until Kilp is dealt with—”

“And how soon is that going to be?” asked Clariel bitterly. “Tyriel isn’t going to do anything. Not with the Summer’s End Hunt to get through first, and who knows what else he thinks is more important.”

“He says the King is safe enough in the Palace,” said Bel awkwardly. “And he doesn’t take Kilp seriously anyway. I’m sorry, all right?”

“Sorry for what?”

“For not flying you to Estwael like you asked,” said Bel. “Though I guess with your aunt being arrested there—”

“What!”

“Maybe not arrested exactly—being taken to Belisaere for her own safety,” said Bel quickly. “Didn’t the Abhorsen tell you?”

“No.”

“Maybe he only found out this morning. There have been so many message-hawks flying back and forth all the pigeons have fled Hillfair . . .”

“She was arrested by Kilp?”

“On the orders of the Governor,” confirmed Bel. “The story being that her safety was at risk, with the ‘rebels’ threatening Queen Jaciel . . . there’s still no public sighting of her by the way . . .”

“There won’t be. She’s dead,” said Clariel, stony-faced.

“You can’t be absolutely sure of that,” said Bel awkwardly.

“The Abhorsen could, though. He can go into Death can’t he?”

“Yes,” admitted Bel. “But it wouldn’t be that easy to find out. If she was killed at the dinner then she would have long since passed the Ninth Gate. So it would be a matter of questioning certain . . . things . . . that lurk in the Precincts between, maybe even go as far as the Sixth or Seventh Gate. Tyriel would never do that. Risky even for a practiced Abhorsen.”

“You mean he wouldn’t get off his horse long enough to do something useful!”

“It isn’t just that,” said Mogget. He had found a dandelion and was intent on delicately removing each petal with a single outthrust claw. “He’s afraid of Death, afraid of being the Abhorsen. That’s why he never comes here, because everything reminds him of what he’s meant to be. Out hunting, he can forget.”

“What?” asked Clariel. “That can’t be true . . .”

Her voice faltered, because she could see from Bel’s face that he shared Mogget’s opinion. The Abhorsen
was
afraid of Death, and was shirking his responsibilities.

“He’s a coward?” asked Clariel. That would explain why he was so slow even planning to take action against Kilp . . .

Bel shook his head.

“No . . . he’s as brave as anyone in the hunt, braver. He’ll ride anything, face down a boar or a bear . . . but he won’t do anything the Abhorsen is supposed to do. Nor will Yannael. I guess they’ve been able to avoid it, because nothing has threatened them or the Kingdom. Tyriel’s been the Abhorsen for nearly fifty years and I doubt he’s ever been called to deal with anything. So he has been able to forget it all and devote himself to hunting. That’s why I’ve been training myself, so there
is
a proper Abhorsen when one is needed.”

“I thought it was just an overly developed case of curiosity,” said Mogget. “The kind that kills cats. Myself excepted, of course.”

“I wondered why he would just throw me in here and leave,” said Clariel. “But do you think this means he
won’t
go and help the King at all?”

“I don’t know,” said Bel. He looked wretched, as if he was personally letting down the King. “I think he will eventually, because it’s not really Abhorsen business, I mean not to do with Death, or the Dead, or anything like that. But the hunt takes up all his mind, and until the Summer’s End Hunt is done . . . nothing will even be got ready.”

“Is the King really safe in the palace?” asked Clariel. “Kilp has a lot more guards. A lot more.”

Bel shrugged unhappily. “I don’t know.”

“What about Princess Tathiel? Any signs of her showing up?”

“Not that I know of,” said Bel. “What are you laughing at, Mogget?”