Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen (The Abhorsen Trilogy Book 4) (6 page)

“Well, it is only natural we should think on it,” continued Harven. “We want you to be well-established, Clarrie. If you chose to be a goldsmith, then of course you would be apprenticed, or any of the other high crafts, but if you aren’t interested . . . and failing a craft of your own, a marriage seems the best course.”

“I don’t want to be married. I’m like Aunt Lemmin. I am happiest by myself. I would like to live by myself.”

“Lemmin is a very good woman, and has been a good sister to me, but she is not a
usual
person, Clariel. Even when we were children she was not at all—”

“Father, I am not a usual person either! Can’t you see that?”

“You are just young,” said Harven. His smile flickered across his face for a moment. “I daresay you haven’t met the right young man. There are far more eligible young men here—”

“I don’t want a young man, eligible or otherwise!”

“You don’t know what you want!” snapped Harven.

“I
want
to be a Borderer,” said Clariel forcefully. “I
want
to live in the Great Forest. The best course for me would be if you supported this ambition!”

“Clarrie, don’t be silly. You are our daughter, a familial member of the High Guild of Goldsmiths in Belisaere! You cannot just go and live in the woods!”

“It is what I want,” said Clariel. She could feel anger rising inside her, a heat kindling that she knew she must not feed. She took a deep breath, held it for a second, then calmly said, “It is all I ever wanted.”

“You are too young to know what you want,” repeated Harven, as if repetition might make it true. “In any case, you owe us, you owe your family, to do the right thing and forget about this child’s dream! You would not last more than three days in the Great Forest, and you know it!”

“How little
you
know me, Father,” said Clariel. The anger was not rising, but rather ebbing, being replaced by a deep sadness. “I have spent many days and nights in the greenwood, since before I was even thirteen. All those times you thought me at Aunt Lemmin’s house, I was where I wanted to be. In the forest.”

“What?” asked Harven. “Don’t be ridiculous and don’t try to present your aunt as some ally of your fancies, just because you slipped away from her for an afternoon or two. This is an ill-considered dream, too long prolonged. And we have spoken enough of it. You go to bed. Tomorrow you begin your lessons at the Academy, and I trust that you will soon learn to become a proper young lady who respects her parents as she should!”

“As I should?” asked Clariel. “Perhaps I have respected you too highly!”

This was too much, even for Harven, who usually shied away from any confrontation. Pushing his chair back violently, he stood up and raised his hand.

“To bed!” he shouted.

Clariel gave no ground, and met his gaze, discovering for the first time with some shock that she was now slightly taller than her father, and that neither shout nor raised hand made her quail and want to flee to her room.

“I will go, Father,” she said quietly. “But I tell you now, that one day I will go to the Great Forest, and make my home there, and then . . .”

Only at this last did her nerve fail her, the sadness welling up so high that tears filled her eyes, and one, never so perfect as the golden teardrop on the desk, splashed upon the floor. She ran out the door, crying out words she hadn’t used for many years, because they never came true.

“And then you and Mother will be sorry!”

Chapter Four

GETTING READY FOR SCHOOL

T
he next morning dawned bright and clear, and even more detestable to Clariel than ever. The sunlight seemed to penetrate everywhere, accompanied by the dull, ever-present noise of the city, and there was no quiet, cool place to hide, no forest glade to shelter in. After a simple breakfast, taken alone in her room, Valannie appeared, chivvying her to the bath chamber in the lower part of the house, where other servants had labored in the dark to light the fire that heated the hot water reservoir, and work the pump to fill the cold pool. Clariel offered no resistance to the routine of steam and oiling, and plunged into the cool pool as instructed, and stood to be toweled dry without complaint. But inside she was once again wondering how she might escape the city, and get back to Estwael . . . or not Estwael exactly, but some part of the Great Forest near it where she would not be so easily found. But finding a practical means of carrying out what was essentially a daydream was no easy task.

“You seem tired, milady,” said Valannie, as she helped Clariel dress in linen underwear and the multiple layers dictated by her guild status and affiliation, alternating tunics of silk, white and gold. “Are you well? You were not too alarmed by yesterday’s—”

“No,” said Clariel. “I am just thinking about . . . things.”

“May I suggest, milady, that at the Academy, it would be well to smile, and to talk with the other young folk,” said Valannie.

“Why?” asked Clariel. “I have no interest in them. I consider this Academy a mere duty, and a dull one.”

Valannie tied a blue scarf over Clariel’s head.

“It will be easier for you, milady, to . . . um . . . make a pretense of interest. A smile, a simple question, these ease the way with people.”

“To what end?” asked Clariel.

“To make friends,” said Valannie, with a smile that Clariel found very condescending. “Surely, you wish to find some new friends here, milady?”

“I have friends in the forest, and in Estwael,” said Clariel. “I will rejoin them soon enough.”

But as she said this, she thought that in fact she had very few friends, and the ones she had were unusual for a woman of her age and station. Her aunt Lemmin was the closest. But she was almost more like an older sister, an ally against her parents. Lemmin provided a useful alibi for her forest adventures, and was also an uncritical listener to retellings of her exploits, rarely offering a comment, let alone an opinion. She supported Clariel, and loved her, and that love was returned, but they didn’t really talk . . .

Then there was Sergeant Penreth of the Borderers, a tough and silent woman who had let her trail along and learn by observation since she was thirteen . . . but again, she didn’t talk much, and Clariel had never felt the need to smile at her, or make conversation.

There were childhood friends as well, of course, people she had played with when small, or had shared the experiences of the dame school. But she hadn’t really kept in touch with them, save to say hello, or perhaps share a glass of wine if they happened to run across each other in the town.

Clariel had never felt much need for friends, but then she had also never felt alone, even when she was at her most solitary. The forest filled her up, she needed no more. Here, things were different. Perhaps she
should
seek to make some friends . . . at the least, they might be able to help her work out how to escape the city . . .

“So I should talk to the others,” she said abruptly. “What about?”

“Oh, that is easy!” exclaimed Valannie. “About clothes, of course, and at the moment, comical songs are very fashionable, the minstrels who excel at this are in great demand, as is Yarlow the balladeer, who writes such sly verses. Oh, and always, betrothals and weddings, and the alliances of the guilds, and in some quarters, among the more sober, the course of business, the price of grain and suchlike, though I expect that this is more for the
older
students—”

“I cannot talk about clothes and comical songs,” said Clariel. “I suppose I could support a conversation about business, at least as it is done in Estwael.”

“Oh, best not talk about Estwael!” cried Valannie, throwing up her hands in horror.

“Why not?”

“It is in the country,” whispered Valannie, bringing her painted face close to Clariel’s, so that for the first time she noticed her maid had no eyebrows of her own, just cleverly painted streaks of black. “No one speaks of the country in Belisaere!”

“I will,” said Clariel. “Estwael is a fine town, and the Great Forest beyond an even finer place. Better than any part of this noisome city!”

“Oh, milady, I beg you not to speak such! Not at the Academy! Not anywhere! It will serve you ill.”

Clariel sniffed. Valannie’s pleading seemed very sincere, and though she burned to hear criticism of Estwael, perhaps it would be sensible to follow the maid’s advice. She had learned long ago not to rush ahead into who knew what, but to go silently and hidden, to spy out the lay of the land.

“I will try not to speak of . . . of the country,” she said.

“Good, good, milady!” said Valannie, with a heartfelt sigh. She bent down to do up Clariel’s sandals, ignoring Clariel’s own motion to bend and do them up herself. “No, no, milady. I will fix these on properly. You will see, it is not too difficult to make conversation. The young gentlemen and ladies will be keen to meet you, being the daughter of so famous a goldsmith.”

“Will they?” asked Clariel. It was interesting that Valannie did not say that her connection to the King, or the Abhorsens, would make her popular. Her father had been strange about this as well, with his talk of the “best people.”

“Tell me, Valannie, should I mention that my grandfather is the Abhorsen? Or the King my mother’s cousin?”

Valannie stopped doing up the left sandal for a second. Clariel looked down at the top of her maid’s head. The foremost part of hair, that part not covered by her scarf, was so shiny and stiff that she realized it must be coated with lacquer, or a varnish.

“Perhaps not unless it is brought up first, milady,” Valannie said cautiously. “There, the buckle should rest just above the ankle, no higher, and turned out so.”

“Why?” asked Clariel.

“The buckle is very fine work, and gold, so should be shown. If it were pinchbeck or mere gilt, then you would hide it—”

“No. Why should I not mention my connection with the King or the Abhorsen?”

Valannie looked up and gave the tinkling laugh that had already annoyed Clariel on several occasions.

“Oh, politics, milady! That is for your elders, I think—”

“I wish to know,” said Clariel sternly. “If you will not tell me, I shall ask at the Academy. I shall ask everyone I meet.”

Valannie snapped back like a bowstring freed of its arrow, and took Clariel’s hands anxiously in her own.

“No, no, my dear. You mustn’t do that!”

“Then explain to me. What are the politics? What is going on in the city?”

Valannie scowled and dropped Clariel’s hands.

“Oh, milady, you are a hard mistress. I will tell you, but you must not let on that it was I. Your parents do not want you worried, and there are . . . well it is not right for a young girl to be drawn into troubles that are of no concern—”

“They are of concern!” snapped Clariel. “I wish to know.”

Valannie pursed her lips, and looked to the door, before lowering her voice.

“Some years ago, the King went mad, or so they say. He is very old . . .”

“And?” asked Clariel, as Valannie faltered.

“He stopped . . . he stopped ruling, I suppose. He lets no one enter the Palace for any serious matter, only if it be for one of the old rituals, and then only upon rare occasions. He will not hear his officers, he will not read letters or petitions, he will not sit in the Petty or the Greater Court, or sign or seal any document of state. He dismissed most of the Guard, keeping only two score, so that the city was left bereft of soldiery and order, till the Governor and the guilds stepped in. There was trouble with lawless folk, and the commoners who have ever caused trouble against the guilds, and the King to blame for it all! Now no one knows what is to come, for he does not abdicate, and Princess Tathiel is who knows where, and all must fall upon the shoulders of Governor Kilp and the High Guilds!”

“I see,” said Clariel. “I suppose this is also why Charter Magic is frowned upon now? Because the King is part of the Charter itself?”

“Oh no, magic has been ever so unfashionable for years!” exclaimed Valannie. “It is so tedious to learn, all that time memorizing marks to make spells, and then if you get one wrong, your eyes might bulge out of your head or your hair catch on fire, or something even worse. Best left to those who have the time to waste on learning it all, I say!”

Clariel nodded. Valannie did not have the baptismal Charter mark, so she had no real idea of what she was talking about it, though it was true that Charter Magic could twist against the wielder. But it fitted with what she had seen so far of the city, that if some difficult service could be bought instead of learned, that would be preferred.

“And the Abhorsens?” she asked. “They are seen as allies of the King who has caused such trouble to the city-folk?”

Valannie looked up and shook her head.

“No . . . the Abhorsens rarely come here. I doubt anyone thinks much of their connection with the King. I don’t want to speak ill of your relations, milady, though how your mother, the artist that she is, came to be born from . . . from . . .”

“From what?” asked Clariel curiously. Back in Estwael, though they did not often come up in conversation, the Abhorsens were held in high regard, as past defenders of the Kingdom against the Dead, Free Magic entities, necromancers, and all manner of evils. Not that any of these things were considered current problems, nor likely to be in the future.

Valannie pursed her lips and tucked her chin in, before reluctantly speaking, almost out of the side of her mouth.

“Well, just as Yarlow said in that ballad, they get rid of unwanted things, so they’re really rather like rat-catchers, or even night-rakers—”

“Enough!” snapped Clariel. “That is even more stupid than being too lazy to learn Charter Magic.”

Valannie shrugged angrily. “It is what everyone says, milady.”

“You’d better make sure my mother doesn’t hear it,” said Clariel forcefully. Though even as she said that, she wondered if that was true. Jaciel was estranged from her father, the Abhorsen Tyriel, and the whole clan who lived somewhere to the south in a sprawling house or series of houses collectively called Hillfair. The reason or reasons for that estrangement had never been explained to Clariel. She’d never asked about them, either, and in fact hadn’t ever really thought about it.

Maybe Jaciel felt so badly toward the rest of the Abhorsen family that she wouldn’t mind them being called rat-catchers or night-rakers, the folk who back in Estwael emptied cesspits, but here apparently worked in the great sewers far beneath the city, keeping them working to carry away the vast ordure of so many people in one place . . . Clariel’s nose wrinkled at the very thought of it.

Valannie was saying something about never speaking so in front of Jaciel, but Clariel ignored her, as she was suddenly struck by the question: what had made Jaciel separate herself from her parents? Quite possibly it was exactly the same problem Clariel faced now, that her mother had wanted to be a goldsmith, and her parents hadn’t wanted to let her follow that ambition.

I need to find out, thought Clariel. If I can just get her to understand . . .

Far off in the distance, carried by the sea breeze, the bells on the tower of the Southeast Gate began to sound, ringing out the hour. A few seconds later, like a distant echo, Clariel heard other bells farther into the city follow. She did not know them all at present, but would soon learn their distinctive tones: Grey Tower, Old Shoulder, the Narrow Spire, and the clear chime of Palace Hill.

“Eighth hour already!” exclaimed Valannie. “We must bustle!”

“Where is the Academy?” asked Clariel. “More than an hour’s walk away?”

“Oh no, it is not far, just over the top of Beshill, a little way down the western side, on Silver Street, that was once called Janoll’s Way, and to tell the truth still is by the uneducated folk who can’t read the new signs the Governor has put up. It is a very good address, and no more than an easy walk at a comfortable pace.”

“Why the hurry then?” asked Clariel. “We have plenty of time.”

“No, no, no,” cooed Valannie. “We haven’t painted your
face
. Come over to the window, here is a little stool, and turn toward the light. Please, milady!”

“No one paints their faces back—” Clariel started to say, but she bit back the words, and sat down as instructed, tilting her head so that the over-bright sun could fall full upon her. She shut her eyes and thought of home, of the Great Forest. There had to be a way she could bring her parents around, or failing that, escape from them . . .

Almost forty minutes later, her eyes wider than they had been, her lips much more red, and her forehead Charter mark almost invisible under something skin-colored that Valannie had painted on very thick so it felt unpleasantly like a scab, Clariel was walking up the broad steps that led to what she was told was a “viewing garden” atop Beshill. From there they would go down the other side via another series of steps to Silver Street, where the Academy occupied a very large house that had once belonged to a past Guildmaster of the Dyers, who had fallen on hard times.