Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen (The Abhorsen Trilogy Book 4) (8 page)

“Go and find out,” said Mistress Ader. “I shall see you again in due course, to discuss your progress. You may go.”

Clariel hesitated, then bowed and turned around, heading for the southwest staircase. She had just taken her first step down when Ader called after her.

“Lady Clariel. One more thing.”

Clariel looked back from the top of the stairs.

“I understand you are to study Charter Magic. It is a good thing for one of your heritage to study Charter Magic, as ignorance of it may prove fatal. Please pass on a message from me to Magister Kargrin when you see him this afternoon. Tell him I said, ‘None have yet passed through, but I shall keep watch.’”

“None have yet passed through, but I shall keep watch,” repeated Clariel. “What does that mean?”

“It is a private message,” said Ader. This time, perhaps because of the angle, even at the greater distance, Clariel saw that there was a Charter mark on Ader’s forehead, showing through the whiteness. Or was there? When she blinked and looked again, she couldn’t see it.

As she stood there, staring, Mistress Ader raised one eyebrow, and this was enough to send Clariel quickly down the stairs. It was odd, she thought, that she should feel more nervous about going against that raised eyebrow than she had when facing down a boar armed with nothing but a boar-spear, trusting to its cross-guard to stop the boar running up the shaft and slicing her to death with its tusks, teeth, and sharp trotters.

She didn’t feel particularly nervous about the class she was going to, because she didn’t care about the people, or about the subject. “The Serving of Tea” sounded like an awful waste of time, but Clariel supposed she could endure it.

Particularly as she now had a plan with a definite object. Fifty bezants a year. It wasn’t a great sum compared to the amounts her parents earned in the business. And there might be a simple way to get it. Clariel had always presumed that her
mother
was the stumbling block for her desire to become a Borderer, but perhaps it was really her father. Now she thought she had been wasting her time trying to get Harven to agree to her going to live in the Great Forest, when she should have been talking to Jaciel. Not that she ever really did talk to Jaciel, Clariel had to confess to herself. But surely this same question had arisen for her, and led to the falling-out with her father the Abhorsen. So she should be sympathetic.

The big question was when to talk to Jaciel, or more important, how to get her to pay attention. Timing was everything, and it would depend upon what she was working on at the moment. If the necklace of golden tears was close to being finished, then there would be an opportunity soon, as Jaciel typically did not start a new major work for a few days after finishing the previous one. Not that she stopped work, she just didn’t pursue it with the same level of intensity.

Clariel was thinking about this, and going through various lines in her head, wondering which would work best to broach the subject, when she reached the door that had a bronze plaque set squarely in the middle with the words engraved upon it in an ornate script “Three Windows Room.” The door was ajar, and she could hear the murmur of conversation on the other side. Clariel pushed it open and walked in.

Five heads turned toward her, and the conversation stopped. Four of the heads belonged to people roughly her own age, somewhere in the vicinity of sixteen to twenty years old. There were two young men and two young women. The women wore the layered tunics of differing length in their Guild colors, and had their scarves tied around their necks rather than on their heads. The men had sleeves cut to show the inner lining of different colors and were bareheaded. None of them wore swords or daggers, or carried any obvious weapons at all.

The fifth person was much older, perhaps fifty, and reminded Clariel of a crane, for he was very tall and thin, his nose was long, and he had tufts of grey hair that departed his head at angles that made them reminiscent of wind-ruffled feathers. Wearing a long coat of banded white and cream, clearly the colors of the Academy, he immediately stepped forward and gave a middle bow to Clariel and said, “Welcome. You are the last to join us. I am Master Dyrell, and this class is The Serving of Tea. Before we begin, we shall practice polite introductions. You have entered the room, therefore it is to you that we look to begin.”

“My name is Clariel,” replied Clariel, speaking to the room at large, without really looking at anyone other than Dyrell. “Daughter of Jaciel High Goldsmith and her consort Harven.”

“No, no, Lady Clariel,” said Dyrell. “One at a time, one a time, beginning with the person of the highest order in the room.”

“Who would that be, then?” asked Clariel. “And how am I supposed to know?”

“It will be a trifle difficult before you have met many people,” admitted Dyrell. “But you can begin by looking at the indication of guild, which will narrow the possibilities. Here, you see, there is but one High Goldsmith other than yourself, so naturally that person will be of the highest—”

Clariel interrupted him with a kind of snort that would not have been out of place coming from a disturbed boar, as she properly looked at the person in the white and yellow of the Goldsmiths. A young, handsome man with fair hair and strikingly blue eyes. Familiar eyes, that had winked at her the day before, just before the young man had made his escape after the mummery of his supposed attack upon her.

“You!” she said, following the snort.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” said the man, with a smile that was nearly a smirk, and very annoyingly, the shadow of a wink. “I am Aronzo, son of Kilp, Guildmaster of the High Goldsmiths and Governor of Belisaere, and his consort Marget.”

“You see, that is how it is done,” said Dyrell, with a curious glance at Clariel and then back at Aronzo. “Then we have . . .”

“Actually I believe I should have precedence, even over High Goldsmiths,” said a slighter, shorter young man with badly cut dark hair that made his fringe slant from left to right, above regular but not particularly handsome features, and skin rather too white to look healthy. He wore simpler clothes than Aronzo, dark blue on top with dull silver stripes showing through the cuts in his sleeves, with no other indicator, save a small silver badge of a single key high on his left arm, so unobtrusive Clariel almost missed it. “Being the Abhorsen’s great-nephew—”

“Rat-catcher!” said Aronzo, making it sound enough like a sneeze for Dyrell to be able to ignore him, though like everyone else present he must have heard it.

“—and a cousin of the King,” continued the pale young man, ignoring the interruption.

“Yes, yes, we have been over this,” said Dyrell testily. “This is not the old times, and in the modern age, certainly for the last very many years, it has been the custom in the
city
for guild rank to take precedence, save in some of the old ceremonies—”

“It’s all right, Dyrell,” said the black-haired man. “I’m just showing my cousin how things are.”

He made a bow to Clariel and she saw a glint of mischief in his eye. Aronzo pointedly yawned and made a faint show of covering it up by turning his head a fraction, as the pale young man continued.

“Greetings, milady. I am Belatiel, and as we are kinfolk, please call me Bel,” he said. “Unfortunately, since I cannot claim a guildmember for a parent, I am something of a nuisance here. They never quite know what to do with me. I welcome a relative and—”

“Now, Lord Belatiel, please, there are introductions remaining to be done, and there is a correct order to matters, tea to be poured, and so forth, before we can make conversation. Lady Clariel, the ladies present are of the Spicers Guild, red and yellow alternated in double bands; and the Vintners, purple, green, and silver. In the order of precedence as I have given them. Please introduce yourself.”

“But they’ve already heard who I am,” said Clariel.

“Please, Lady Clariel,” said Dyrell. “Once learned correctly here, you will never be embarrassed anywhere in the city.”

“I don’t get embarrassed,” said Clariel frankly. “I think it’s because I don’t really care—”

“Please!” beseeched Dyrell, with a flutter of his hand. “I do not wish to send you back to Mistress Ader.”

“Oh,” said Clariel. She didn’t want to be sent back to that formidable woman either, though the whole thing seemed ridiculous. She turned to face the young woman from the Spicers, who was tall, blond, and even featured but not particularly attractive. Her nose was out of proportion to her face, and she made herself more unattractive as far as Clariel was concerned by looking down that long nose in a supercilious fashion.

“Greetings. I am Clariel,” said Clariel quickly. “Daughter of Jaciel High Goldsmith and her consort, Harven.”

“Well met, Lady Clariel,” said the Spicer, though her face gave no indication that it was indeed a happy meeting. “I am Yaneem, daughter of Guildmaster Querem of the High Guild of Spicers and her consort, Wihem, also a Spicer.”

Clariel immediately turned to the next young woman and rattled off the same greeting again, ignoring Dyrell’s wince as she sped through it. The Vintner looked a bit friendlier, Clariel thought. She was also tall and dark-haired, and perhaps could even be described as beautiful, or would be in a few years, as she had not yet grown into herself. She actually looked at Clariel as she replied, and there was warmth in her eyes, which were somewhere between blue and green.

“Well met, Lady Clariel. I am Denima, daughter of Haralf of the High Guild of Vintners and his consort Jonal, Undermistress of the Guild of Upholders.”

“Now, please my lords and ladies, be seated around the tea table,” intoned Dyrell, indicating a fairly low, hexagonal table of pale timber with a tiled top, set with an unlit spirit burner, a small tin of friction lights, a highly polished metal kettle, an enameled box that was open revealing tea leaves, a white ceramic teapot, and six very pale yellow ceramic cups on even paler saucers. The table had six curiously foreshortened chairs around it, as if like the table, it was made for people a foot smaller than usual. “Highest precedence to the north chair, there, then clockwise around.”

Aronzo immediately sat in the north chair, and patted the seat next to him.

“Here, Lady Clariel, before Bel tries to sit down.”

Clariel didn’t move. She didn’t like the way Aronzo was patting the seat, like he was calling a dog to come and sit by him.

“I will sit last, as Dyrell insists is the current mode,” said Bel. “Yaneem and Denima, I am sure you will be happy to sit before I do.”

“Conversation after the tea service,” pleaded Dyrell. “You know that! Silence and decorum, please. A slight nod, a gesture, no more!”

Yaneem and Denima sat in the approved fashion, without speaking, leaving Clariel and Bel standing. Aronzo patted the adjacent chair to his left again, and smiled at Clariel in what he obviously intended to be a winning fashion. He was very handsome, she noted without favor. Combined with being Kilp’s son, that probably meant he was used to getting his own way with women as much as in anything else.

“I am also close kin to the Abhorsen,” said Clariel. “Perhaps I should sit in the least chair.”

“No, no,” beseeched Dyrell. “You are a
Goldsmith
. It really isn’t difficult, Lady Clariel. You sit
here
, to the left of Lord Aronzo.”

He went and stood behind the chair, pulling it out a little. Aronzo slowly removed his hand. Clariel hesitated, then walked over and sat down, pulling the chair in herself before Dyrell could push it in from the back. Bel went to the sixth chair, leaving a gap after Denima, so he was next to Aronzo but on the right side, in the position of lowest precedence.

“Please,” sighed Dyrell, raising his eyebrows. Bel laughed and moved across one seat so there was no gap.

“Now that everyone is
correctly
seated,” said Dyrell, “we may begin the service of tea. Lord Belatiel, you will light the burner; Lady Denima lift the kettle; Lady Yaneem pass around the cups; Lady Clariel, you will measure the tea in the pot, three spoons; and then when the kettle boils, Lord Aronzo, you will fill the pot.”

“What is the point of all this?” asked Clariel.

“The point? It is a ceremony, to quiet the mind, before conversation; and like all such ceremonies, is best done properly or not at all,” replied Dyrell, his voice unable to hide his agitation.

“Best go along,” whispered Bel to Clariel, across Aronzo. “It’s quicker that way.”

As he spoke, he reached and began to sketch a Charter mark at the top of the wick of the spirit burner, only to be interrupted by a screech from Dyrell.

“No, no, Lord Belatiel! The friction lights! Only a servant uses magic!”

Chapter Six

TEA AND ARGUMENTS

R
eally?” asked Clariel. “I thought that couldn’t possibly be true.”

“Magic is tiresome and menial. It is work that only befits a servant,” said Aronzo, pushing the metal box of friction lights to Belatiel. “Or a rat-catcher.”

“Please do be explicit, Aronzo,” said Belatiel sweetly. “Are you saying that the Abhorsens are rat-catchers?”

“Would I insult such an . . . ancient and illustrious . . . family?” asked Aronzo. “I was merely thinking of an old rat-catcher who used magic to herd rats to their . . . death.”

“My lords!” exclaimed Dyrell. “Please! Be civil, let us get on with the tea service, there is not much time remaining in this lesson.”

Bel shrugged, took out a bright yellow-headed friction light, and struck it on the table. It lit instantly, spewing white smoke that smelled strongly of phosphorus and sulfur. Bel applied it to the wick of the spirit burner, then opened the other side of the box and dowsed the friction light in the black sand that filled it, before laying the burned-out stick on the table next to the burner.

Denima immediately put the kettle on the trivet above the burner, and adjusted the wick so that it would heat the water more swiftly. Before she had finished Yaneem was passing around the cups and saucers, very deftly balancing two at a time.

Clariel shrugged and transferred three spoons of tea from the tin to the pot, noticing that Dyrell winced at her inelegant motions and not very well-regulated measures, the first spoon heaped and the other two not even full.

Everyone then sat in silence, waiting for the kettle to boil. Clariel stared straight ahead, not wanting to look at any of the others, or at the nervously hovering Dyrell. She couldn’t believe that she was stuck here in an absolutely ridiculous class, with people she had no interest in whatsoever. It made escaping to the Forest even more imperative, and then and there she determined that she would talk to her mother that night, even going into the workshop if that proved necessary, though this would be akin to entering the lair of a monster.

As soon as the kettle began to whistle, Aronzo took it off and poured the water into the pot, put the kettle back, turned the wick of the burner down till it went out, and put the lid on the teapot.

“Now what?” whispered Clariel. “Who pours the tea?”

“We pour for each other, for whoever we choose to show favor today,” said Aronzo. “Isn’t that right, Master Dyrell?”

“Yes, milord,” said Dyrell, more respectfully than he had spoken to anyone else. “Whenever you wish to proceed.”

“I thought the form was to let it steep for a measured five minutes,” said Belatiel, ostentatiously consulting a blue crystal timepiece that glowed with Charter marks. “And I can tell you, it has only been three since the water was poured.”

Aronzo ignored him. Taking a gold-cased and jewel-encrusted clockwork watch of the newer egg type out of a pocket in his sleeve, he flipped it open and watched it with an air of civilized boredom till the appointed five minutes had passed. Snapping the watch shut, he replaced it in his pocket, picked up the teapot, and leaned past Clariel to pour Yaneem a cup. She simpered, and when the pot was set before her, poured Aronzo’s cup in return, before passing it to Clariel.

“I don’t even drink tea,” said Clariel.

“You don’t have to drink it, milady,” said Dyrell. “Simply pour for someone who has not yet received a cup and when you are poured for, do not drink.”

Clariel looked at Denima and then at Belatiel.

“I suppose since you’re some sort of cousin I should pour for you,” said Clariel. “Since I cannot choose from any other knowledge who is most deserving of the honor, such as it is.”

“How very sensible of you, cousin,” said Bel, as Clariel poured his cup and passed the pot to him, whereupon he poured for Denima, who smiled as she poured Clariel’s cup in turn, finishing the process. Clariel noticed that the smile was particularly for Bel, whose eyes sparkled in return.

Bel and Denima certainly seemed friendly, but Clariel couldn’t tell whether they were amused at her or at the stupidity of this tea business. She similarly couldn’t tell whether the hostility between Bel and Aronzo was real or some kind of playfulness between old friends, or at least old acquaintances. All in all it made her feel tired.

Clariel did not like trying to make friends, or the business of keeping up with them. As far as she was concerned, people might hunt with her, for example, or otherwise work cooperatively. She had no time for simply talking or the lounging about doing nothing together that had seemed to her one of the prerequisites of the groups of friends back in Estwael to which she had never really belonged. Here seemed no different, save that she could not escape these enforced sessions of conversation or whatever was supposed to happen.

“Now, as you sip your tea, considered conversation,” said Dyrell. “A suitable topic might be the weather, or any striking matters of business observed in the market or suchlike.”

“I observed something in the clothier’s quarter yesterday,” said Clariel, turning to look at Aronzo, who once again annoyed her with the faintest wink. “A strange attack upon a Goldsmith’s daughter. A piece of mummery and—”

“No, no, Lady Clariel,” interrupted Dyrell. “That is not an appropriate topic. Lady Yaneem, perhaps you might start?”

“I thought today less hot than yesterday,” said Yaneem, slowly and without emotion. “And the day before that was hotter.”

“Odd that it should be growing cooler so soon,” added Denima, also speaking slowly, again without energy or feeling. But Clariel noticed the corner of her mouth quirked up, showing some effort at not laughing at herself.

“We must hope that it doesn’t rain too much,” continued Aronzo, his deadpan delivery slightly spoiled by a sideways glance at Clariel, who looked away.

“Excellent, that is the way it is done in the best houses,” said Dyrell. “Please continue, till the Academy bell tolls the eleventh hour. I have something . . . some work I must attend. Lord Aronzo, I deputize my authority to you.”

Dyrell was hardly out of the door before Aronzo spoke.

“Fussy old fool. And tea is a disgusting drink. Whoever thought up all this rigmarole should have been thrown off the seawall at the Shark Pool.”

“But you go along with the rigmarole . . . when anyone’s watching,” said Belatiel.

“I don’t lack for sense, unlike some people,” said Aronzo. “There are advantages to having our elders think well of me.”

“Why did you attack me yesterday?” blurted out Clariel. “What was the point of that?”

Aronzo yawned.

“Must you keep harping on about that?”

“What attack?” asked Belatiel and Denima at almost the same time.

“A faked one,” said Clariel. “Aronzo, under a hood, pretended to take a dagger-swipe at me, then ran off while his father came up with a whole troop of men and made a speech about not attacking Goldsmiths, which seemed to be the whole aim of the stupidity.”

“We shouldn’t be talking about this sort of thing,” said Yaneem stuffily. “Dyrell could come back, or Mistress Ader might come in.”

Everyone else ignored her. Aronzo shrugged at Clariel.

“That
was
the point of it. Father wanted an excuse to warn some of the weavers and tailors who’ve been talking trouble. I merely volunteered to help out, and you happened to be a convenient target. Besides, I wanted to take a look at you.”

“Why?” asked Yaneem, with a sniff that suggested no one would want to look at Clariel at any time. Particularly not if they had her to look at instead.

“Sometimes one wants to . . . see something new,” said Aronzo, with a sigh. Yaneem colored and pursed her lips while Denima and Belatiel exchanged a swift glance. Clariel noted all this and inwardly sighed, though she was careful to show no outward emotion. Back home in Estwael she had avoided becoming involved or even necessarily knowing about all the complicated romantic entanglements of her former school-fellows, simply by not being around.

Clariel’s own sexual experimentation with a twenty-two-year-old Borderer the previous year had happened out of curiosity, not love, or even very much desire. She had liked Ramis well enough and he had certainly desired
her
, but though she had slept with him three times to be sure of what she was feeling—or not—she had not particularly cared when he was posted away, and neither had she sought out a new lover. Though her aunt Lemmin had suggested her feelings might change as she grew older, Clariel wasn’t so sure. She simply felt she had better things to do. Or she did have, when the Forest lay close by.

But though Clariel was not a captive to such feelings, it seemed to her that Yaneem was in the grip of just such emotion. Clearly Aronzo and Yaneem had some history as bedfellows, and Yaneem considered the relationship to be more important than Aronzo did.

“I trust your curiosity has been entirely satisfied,” said Clariel coldly. “You were lucky I didn’t kill you.”

“Oh, I don’t think you could have done that,” drawled Aronzo, displaying massive—and to Clariel, deluded—self-confidence. “I was a little surprised to find you so suddenly beclawed.”

“I would have liked to have seen this combat,” said Belatiel. “My money would be on my cousin if it happens again.”

“Oh, I’m sure we could find better things to do together than fight,” said Aronzo, looking at Clariel and smiling. He was very handsome, and his teeth were very white, so white that Clariel found herself wanting to smack him in the mouth with her teacup, for his assumption that she would swoon and lie back when he paid attention to her.

“I doubt it,” she replied, through gritted teeth. “I doubt I shall see you at all outside of this ridiculous Academy.”

“Of course you will,” soothed Aronzo. “We are both Goldsmiths, and your mother and my father are working
so
closely together, we’re practically family already.”

“What do you mean ‘practically family already’?” asked Clariel. Her fingers were tightening on the teacup, knuckles almost white. She could feel the anger growing as she thought about what he was implying. Her mother and his father . . . it was an insult that could not be borne. She half rose out of her chair, the teacup shattering in her hand. She held a jagged segment of china, and then Denima was calling out—

“Clariel! Don’t react! Aronzo likes to tease and cause trouble, he likes people . . . women in particular . . . to get upset.”

Aronzo chuckled and deliberately leaned past to say something to Yaneem, who laughed in turn. Clariel, standing above, for a brief, white-hot moment of anger considered punching down with the sharp ceramic shard, straight into his neck, but the moment passed as quickly as it came. Frightened by the intensity of that sudden emotion, Clariel slowly subsided into her chair and let the fragment drop onto the table.

“It’s true, Aronzo is like a troublesome thorn in the foot,” said Belatiel. “A little prick—”

“Shut up, rat-catcher,” said Aronzo. He leaned back in his chair and smiled again at Clariel, this time more easily, showing less of his ever-so-white teeth. “I apologize, Lady Clariel. It is true that I like a jest or jape, sometimes too much. I most humbly beg your pardon.”

“I accept your apology,” said Clariel shortly. Inwardly she decided to keep away from Aronzo. She just didn’t understand this stop-start behavior, or what his true intentions were.

“Where is it you have come from?” asked Yaneem, apparently politely returning to the proscribed small-talk for a tea party.

“Estwael,” said Clariel, with a pang. What she would give to be there now, and be able to walk out through the town gate, and leave the high road a hundred yards south and take the track that wound up into the hills, into the Great Forest—

“I’m not even sure where that is,” tittered Yaneem. “Do you know, Aronzo?”

“Of course I do,” said Aronzo. “Haven’t you ever looked at a map?”

Yaneem flushed again, and was silent.

“Another delightful lesson,” murmured Belatiel.

“Don’t
you
be mean, Bel,” said Denima. “We might as well try to be nice to each other, since we’ll be doing this till the Autumn Fair.”

“What!” exclaimed Clariel. “This same tea business every week?”

“Or more,” said Denima. “If Mistress Ader thinks we need it.”

“So we will be seeing each other after all,” said Aronzo. “Won’t that be amusing?”

Clariel didn’t answer him.

“In fact, why don’t you come and take supper with me this evening?” continued Aronzo. Yaneem turned her face away as he spoke, and Clariel heard her bite down on a sob. “So I can make amends for my bad behavior?”

“No thank you,” replied Clariel. “I’m afraid I will be busy.”

“Tomorrow then.”

“I shall be busy tomorrow evening as well.”

“Come to luncheon. Starday tomorrow, no Academy.”

“I will be busy,” reiterated Clariel.

“Doing what?” asked Aronzo.

“Being busy,” said Clariel. “As I shall be busy on any other day you might ask me to luncheon or supper or any such thing.”

“I’ll just have Father ask your parents to have you visit,” said Aronzo. “They’re very keen we should . . . acquaint ourselves.”