Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen (The Abhorsen Trilogy Book 4) (7 page)

The viewing garden had no living plants, Clariel saw with distaste as they reached it. There were marble sculptures of trees instead, arranged in a ring, with wooden benches between them, and in the middle there was a Charter Stone, a monolith of dark basalt, its surface only somewhat relieved by the slight luminosity of the Charter marks that swarmed and swum all over it, their light faint in the morning sunshine.

Clariel noted the stone, but not with any particular interest. She’d seen other Charter Stones dotted here and there about the city, but just as in Estwael, where there were three within the town, they were such a common sight that they seemed a natural background. She could feel the power within this stone, but was not particularly drawn to it. Despite her birth as an Abhorsen, her baptismal Charter mark, and early education, Clariel had no real interest in the Charter, or Charter Magic. Whenever she had a few hours to spare she had always taken to the forest, rather than spending time in the laborious process of learning marks and then practicing recognizing and drawing them out of the constant flow of the Charter, and its seemingly endless variety of marks.

“In the evening, young couples come here to watch the sun set,” said Valannie archly, almost winking at Clariel, who looked away in distaste. It was true the top of Beshill did have a tremendous view to the west, and only a slightly lesser prospect to the east. To the north, the higher Coiner’s Hill blocked the sightline, so that only the western edge of Palace Hill beyond it was visible.

There were trees below the Palace, Clariel noted with something very like hunger. A band of green between the great swathe of white stone, red-tile-roofed buildings that seemingly filled up everything for miles, and the high, bright walls of the Palace on the hilltop.

“Come, milady,” said Valannie. “We must hurry, while not, of course, being seen to hurry. Roban!”

Clariel ignored her, and looked at those distant trees for another full minute, as Valannie made a noise rather like a squirrel being kept away from a toothsome nut by a dog.

“Milady, we should move on,” said Roban apologetically. He was still accompanied by the two extra guards, Heyren and Linel, or as Clariel mentally referred to them, Redbeard and Scarface. Roban had not been able to tell her whether they were permanently assigned or not, or whether they were there primarily to protect her, or report on her to Guildmaster Kilp. Or something of both, most likely.

Clariel nodded, and turned to follow Valannie, who was talking as usual, gossip about the dyer and his house, and how he had been lucky that the Governor had allowed him to hand over his house in lieu of his truly enormous debts, and then in his generosity Kilp had given it to the city, for use as an Academy, one being sorely needed . . .

Clariel stopped listening. As they descended she looked out to the southwest, out beyond the walls of the city, to freedom. There was the great field of the horse fair, mostly empty at the moment, for it was only Dyrmday, and the horse-trading ran from Belday to Astarday.

If she could buy a horse there, Clariel thought, then she could be quickly away, following the road that ran straight as a swordblade alongside Erchan’s great aqueduct, till it met that even greater road, the Narrow Way, which was broad enough for six carts to pass abreast and had got its name from the peninsula it traversed, not from being a meager track.

Here the daydream hit a familiar obstacle. She had no money to buy a horse. There was one simple solution to this, which she had been considering for some time: to steal some from her parents. This wouldn’t be difficult. She could help her father in the counting house, take the money she needed and make the necessary adjustments, a few silver deniers subtracted in one column, a few from another. Her father probably wouldn’t even notice a dozen gold bezants disappearing if the bookwork looked right.

But it would be
stealing
. . . and she wasn’t quite ready to take that step. Not yet.

“Watch these steps, milady,” said Roban, interrupting her thoughts. “Some of ’em are cracked at the foot.”

Clariel stopped thinking about embezzling money and looked to her feet, just in time to avoid slipping on a crescent-shaped gap in the next step, that wasn’t so much a crack as a great bite out of the edge of the worked stone.

“I cannot believe these steps haven’t been repaired!” exclaimed Valannie, again with her annoying laugh as special punctuation. “I’m sure when the Governor hears that
you
will be coming this way so often then he will speak to whoever is meant to keep this quarter in full repair!”

Clariel didn’t respond. She was still thinking through the events of the day before, and the things she had been told by Roban, Valannie, and her father. She needed to know more, particularly if one of the likely possibilities she’d thought about needed to be averted.

If her parents got her married off, then she would
never
escape from Belisaere.

“Almost there!” said Valannie, as they reached a road cut into the side of the hill to make a long terrace. There were houses built all along its outer edge and down the slope, presenting one story at the road level, but three or perhaps four going down the hill, where there was another, lower road along another broad terrace. “Look, the house of blue gables there, that is the Academy.”

The house was impressive, the white stone façade newly cleaned, with thin blue lines painted to delineate each course of blockwork. The crow-stepped gables of the central roof and its two lesser companions were indeed edged with a stone that had a faint bluish sheen, of a kind Clariel had not seen before. The entire building was larger even than Jaciel’s new house, the front spreading at least eighty paces along the road, with a great arched gate and two lesser doors, and it ranged three stories up and at least another four below to the next terrace, the whole of it occupying as much space as Clariel’s old home in Estwael
and
all six of its neighbors, and those houses had been the best and largest in the town.

There were a dozen guardsmen standing outside the open gate, three wearing the familiar blazon of the Goldsmith’s coins, the others different badges: a black anvil for the Ironmongers; a slender purple bottle for the Vintners; three stacked square stones of white for the Masons; a gold-hooped barrel of red for the Brewers; a blue lozenge with silver roundels for a guild Clariel didn’t know but guessed to be the Upholders who made cushions and stuffed chairs; and a silver pepper-pod for the Spicers. The guards bore man-high oaken staves in addition to the swords at their sides, and looked ready to use them.

Clariel noted that three men who were approaching veered to the other side of the street and increased their pace. Judging by their worn leather aprons they were probably journeymen or simple workers. The guards watched them go by with an attention that was almost menacing, before switching their collective gaze to another group of men who were pushing a handcart laden with small kegs that were marked with distinctive pokerwork: the triple interlinked “O” that signified they held the fiery spirit the Borderers called “Triplex” and highly valued, though more for cleaning wounds than actual drinking.

“A Goldsmith!” called Roban, as they approached the gate, but it was not a shout for aid, just the raised voice of routine ceremony.

“We see you!” called one of the Goldsmith guards. “Advance and be recognized.”

This too was clearly routine, as even as he spoke, the six of them shuffled into two lines of three, and saluted with their staves, raising them up and then grounding them with a sharp synchronized crack on the paved road.

“Straight through, milady,” said Valannie breezily. “Roban and the others will await our return here.”

The guards had come with other students, Clariel realized. Students she would soon be meeting. New people. She had no desire to meet new people, but like everything else in Belisaere, it had to be endured until she could leave. She set her face in an expressionless mask, and walked through the gateway, with Valannie close at her heels.

Chapter Five

MISTRESS ADER AND THE ACADEMY

T
he gateway led into a large hall that had a musician’s gallery or internal balcony under a very high, vaulted ceiling, and stone staircases in each corner, spiraling up and down. The hall itself was newly whitewashed, and was very clean and empty, save for a writing desk right in the very center, with a slender curved-back chair of mahogany that had a black cushion on the seat. Standing very straight and still next to the chair was a short and rather bony woman wearing the fashionable multiple layers of tunics, but hers were cream and white, and she had a black scarf on her head. Clariel did not know what guild or organization these colors signified.

“Mistress Ader,” whispered Valannie, very softly.

“What did you say? Adder?” Clariel whispered back. “Like a snake?”

“No, no, ‘ay-der,’” whispered Valannie. “Now we must be quiet, and give her a low bow.”

The name still sounded like “adder” to Clariel. Mistress Ader didn’t look much like an adder, she thought. Clariel quite liked adders. They left you alone if you left them alone. In fact, she quite liked snakes in general. They had their place in the woods and among the rocky hills. Also you could eat them; they were quite tasty cooked on hot stones in the corner of a campfire.

Up closer, Mistress Ader was a lot older than Clariel had thought she was. Her face was so heavily caked with the white, claylike stuff Valannie called “astur” and in Estwael was called “esture” that from a distance she looked about thirty-five. Up close, the wrinkles under the white were visible, so Clariel upped her age estimate by at least thirty years. If she had a Charter mark, it was invisible under the clay.

“Lady Clariel,” said Ader, making a low bow herself. “Welcome to the Belisaere Select Academy.”

“Thank you, Mistress . . . uh . . . Ader,” said Clariel, hoping that she’d said it right.

“We are delighted you could attend,” said Ader. “Valannie, you have done well, Lady Clariel is presented adequately. You may join the other maids in the Paneled Chamber, until you are summoned.”

Valannie, for once, didn’t say anything, but simply bowed and retreated.

“Now, stand straight, Lady Clariel, and we shall talk,” said Ader.

Clariel thought she was standing up straight, but she pushed her shoulder blades back a little and moved her feet apart a few inches. Ader sat down in her chair, though her back remained completely straight and she did not relax at all.

“This Academy prepares the young of the notable families of the Kingdom to move in polite society,” she said. “Before a student takes their place in it, Lady Clariel, I like to discuss with them the path they intend to take, for this may shape some elements of our teaching.”

“The path?” asked Clariel.

“Your plans for the future,” said Ader. “Do you wish to be married soon? No? Many of the young ladies here do, and if that is so, then they have more lessons concerned with the supervision of a household, selection of a doctor, on childbirth, on setting up a nursery, and so forth.”

“I have no desire to be married,” said Clariel firmly. “Or to have children.”

“You do not?” asked Mistress Ader. “You prefer some more unconventional arrangements?”

“No,” said Clariel firmly. Her forehead wrinkled as she tried to think of the best way to explain. “I . . . I like to go my own way, without needing anyone else.”

“Very few people need no one else,” said Ader.

“I mean I don’t need to be
with
someone, married, or tied down,” said Clariel.

“Marriage need not be a shackling together of the unwilling,” said Mistress Ader. “But it is not impossible that you are a natural singleton. You are not apprenticed, I believe? You do not wish to follow in your parents’ footsteps? Or is it that you have no ability?”

There appeared to be no insult in Ader’s voice. Just calm curiosity. Clariel felt as if she was an object, being weighed up and examined, and, once identified, to be put in the appropriate place, just as she herself had often sorted coins by type and weight and mint, and placed them in the correct niche within the great chest in her father’s office.

“I have done some work with my mother, but not to her satisfaction, so it seems that I lack the native talent to be a goldsmith,” said Clariel, not bothering to mention that she had deliberately sabotaged her own work, because she did not want to be like her mother, did not want to be trapped inside by forge and workbench. “Though I do assist my father in the exchange of monies, lending, the keeping of accounts, and so forth.”

“That is good,” said Ader. “If you did not already know how to read a book of accounts, we would have to teach you. But tell me, is there no other craft you wish to follow? Your parents could surely have you indentured wherever you would choose.”

“No trade,” muttered Clariel.

“Please, you must open your mouth and speak clearly,” said Ader. “At all times. This is a rule of the Academy, but also a good guide in life. Speak clearly and you will never be misunderstood.”

“I do not wish to be apprenticed to any trade,” said Clariel, quite loudly. “I do not want to belong to any guild.”

“You are fortunate to be of the Goldsmith’s Guild, by blood,” said Ader. “Much more fortunate than you seem to be aware. I shall ensure that you are taken on a tour of the Flat, where the day laborers live. But the question remains, if we are to teach you most effectively, we need to know your intentions for the future. Do you, for example, wish to become a guard?”

“No,” said Clariel. “I can fight, if need be, with sword and dagger, and I am considered an able archer. But I have no desire to march about, and bellow orders, or take them for that matter. Or live among many, in a barracks.”

“You would, of course, be an officer, and not live in barracks,” said Ader. “The Goldsmiths maintain a large company, and there would be a place for you. But if that was your intention, then I would send you there at once, for soldiering is a trade best learned young. So tell me, is there some path that you
do
wish to follow?”

“Yes,” said Clariel reluctantly. She hesitated, sure that she was about to invite the scorn of this elegant, poised woman, then said, “I want to join the Borderers, and live in the Great Forest.”

One painted eyebrow rose a fraction of an inch, but there was no other obvious reaction and no immediate outpouring of derision.

“Curious,” said Ader, at last. “Perhaps I begin to understand more of your desire to be solitary.”

“In the right place,” said Clariel. “The forest.”

“Your parents, I presume, do not support you in this ambition?”

“No.”

“I am not overly familiar with the organization of the Borderers,” said Ader. “Their chief house is near Hafmet, is it not?”

“Yes,” said Clariel, surprised that Ader knew even that. The Forest fort called Greenstilts was only a few leagues from the town of Hafmet, and it was there that the Borderers’ senior officers dwelled, the stores and records were kept, a hospital maintained, and most important as far as Clariel was concerned, recruits were trained.

“But they do not take in anyone who has not already been a forester, wood-warden, or suchlike for some years,” said Ader. “Five years, if I remember aright.”

“You do, Mistress,” said Clariel eagerly. “But I have worked as such, off and on, since I was thirteen. If I can only plead my case at Greenstilts, and show my skills, I think there might be a chance they will take me.”

Ader looked at her for a moment, then slowly shook her head.

“No. This is not achievable. Not now.”

“Why not?” asked Clariel. “I am as good . . . almost as good a hunter and tracker as Sergeant Penreth, I have learned a great deal of herblore from my aunt Lemmin, I—”

“Stop,” said Ader, without raising her voice or changing her tone. “It is not simply a matter of your skills. While it is very unlikely the Borderers would enlist someone so young in normal times, they simply could not enlist you now, no matter if you were half-beast yourself and the finest hunter ever seen.”

Clariel opened her mouth to ask why not, but Ader held up one forceful finger and continued to speak.

“They could not, because like all the royal institutions, they have no money, and their future is in doubt. In fact, if the King does not reassume his authority, or if the Guilds do not take over the Borderers as they have done the Royal Guard and the Wall Garrison, then the Borderers must eventually be disbanded, when they run out of whatever funds they still possess.”

“But that would be madness!” said Clariel. “The Great Forest alone needs constant attention, lest it run totally wild, and there is the West Wood, Great Sickle Wood . . .”

“Madness is unfortunately not incompatible with government,” said Ader. “So. You cannot join the Borderers, not now, perhaps not ever. What else might you do?”

Clariel was unable to answer. She stood there, cold inside, part of her grappling with the idea that the Borderers might not be there to join, that her dream was even more foolish than she’d thought, while another part of her wanted to erupt in fury, to show this overcalm old woman that she
would
be a Borderer, that she
would
make the King pay them again, though she didn’t know how she would do that . . .

“What else might you do?” repeated Ader.

“I can still be a hunter,” said Clariel. “Live in, and off the Forest. Make what coin I need on top of that by guiding those from the town or the city who wish to hunt, but do not know the woods.”

“You will need capital to establish such a business,” said Ader. “It would be slow to start, particularly at your age, but it is not an impossible notion. If you can talk your parents into supplying say . . . at least fifty bezants a year, for your first five years, I would adjudge it an achievable ambition.”

“Really?” asked Clariel. “I thought you would . . .”

Her voice trailed off. She did not want to say that she thought that the Academy was the kind of place that would make its pupils only want one kind of life.

“You thought that we limit the choices of our students?” asked Ader. “We do not, but it is a sad fact that the great majority limit themselves. You might find it best to keep your ambition secret, Lady Clariel. Many here would consider it too small, a thing to be made fun of. However, all I am concerned with is that we equip you both for the possibility of other futures, and for the one you yourself envisage.”

She lifted the lid of her writing desk and removed a piece of thick paper, which had a list of twelve things printed in a large legible type in bright blue ink down the middle, leaving a very generous margin to the top, bottom, and either side. Closing the desk again, she put the paper down, carefully inked a quill, and drew two nearly perfect lines through two of the items on the list. Then she renumbered the list from one to ten with large numerals in the margin, not in the order they were originally written.

“This is our standard curriculum for those young people who will be venturing into their own business or enterprise,” said Ader. “I think two subjects would be superfluous in your case. You will attend the other ten lessons, starting with number eight, as that is about to begin, and work your way through each day, attending lesson nine on Belday, ten when we resume next week on Bethday, and so forth, to be repeated as you go on. Each room in the Academy has a name, you will find the location of each lesson in this list, and the name of each instructor. Your immediate class is in the Three Window Room—take the southwest stair there down two floors, walk twenty paces along the hallway, and the door will be on your left, with a nameplate. After your lesson today, I suggest you to walk around and learn the names and locations of all the rooms; there are only nineteen.”

Clariel took the paper, running her eyes quickly down the list of lessons. The two that had been crossed out were “Keeping a Count of Monies, the Twice-Written Method” and “The Calculation of Cost of Making Stuff and the Setting of Prices Thereof,” both familiar to her from her work with her father. The remaining ten were:

On the Writing of Letters, Reports, Epistles, Writs, Bills, and Such

The Proper Obtainment, Direction, and Discontinuance or Severance of Servants, Apprentices, and Partners-in-Business

Music and Dancing, Courtly and Otherwise

The Role of Each Person in Households, Great to Small

The High, Middle, and Low Guilds and Great Companies of Belisaere

The Direction of Feasts, Celebrations, Festivals, and Fairs

Geographical Understanding and the Flow of Trade

The Serving of Tea

Matters of Law, Royal, City, and Guild

The Exercise of the Body, Martial and Merely Aesthetic

“The Serving of Tea?” asked Clariel. She knew what tea was, a new herbal drink that had been introduced to the Kingdom from somewhere far off five or six years before, though she had never drunk it herself. There was even a teahouse in Estwael that had been open a year with little sign of it becoming a permanent fixture. “How can that be helpful to anyone?”