Untalented (2 page)

He cut her off. “You will no longer hand in assignments, and you will remain quiet during the lesson. Ingrate—you’re lucky I even let you stay in class.” He turned back to his papers, dismissing her.

She froze in disbelief. Her cheeks burned—a freshman student arriving for the introductory class had heard every word. She hurried from the room.

Saroya ducked her head whenever she saw an Adept, flinching at the sight of their silvery gray robes, a constant reminder of her new non-status. In class after class, it was the same: she had ceased to exist for the Adepts. Why waste teaching time on an Untalent, someone who’d never master a vocation?

With her so-called friends, it was even worse. When Saroya sat down in the refectory at midday, Martezha elbowed her in the back as she passed by with her own bowl of noodles with mutton.

“Aren’t they giving you the boot? You should be serving us dinner instead of sitting here.”

Saroya put her knife down and stared into her lap. Steam wafted up from the food, adding heat to the shame burning her cheeks. Blast Martezha!
Like I don’t already know I’m useless.

“I take it back. Don’t you clean the doyenne’s chamber pots now? Nobody wants someone that filthy near food.” Martezha flounced away, secure in her singing Talent.

Out of the corner of her eye, Saroya sensed a presence next to her, and a plate slid into view on the table beside her. She looked up as her roommate Nalini Ferlen sat down.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Saroya said.

“We always sit together.” Nalini dug with relish into her pasta. She grinned around her spoon. “Besides, you know how much I love sticking it to Martezha and her friends. So she’s a Singer. She should be resting her voice instead of gossiping all the time.”

Saroya smiled. “I’ve never understood how you manage to fit all that food into you.” Nalini’s slim frame bordered on waiflike.

“That’s the spirit. Change the subject. Always lifts my mood. Look, it seems awful now, but you’ll figure something out. I can help you get organized with the council.”

“The council … Do you know where they send people like me? The mines.” Saroya’s chest tightened at the mere thought of the mines—living underground, never seeing the sun, choking on ore dust. But Doyenne Ganarra had ordered her to report to the village council. They would not give her a choice.

“Better that than the brothels.”

“What do you know about it?” Saroya rounded on her friend. “You’re guild-bound, normal, just like everyone else except me. You’ll never have to worry about where your next meal is coming from.” Nalini could not look her in the eye. Saroya tossed her spoon down onto her plate, spilling noodles onto the table. Conversations died at the tables surrounding them. “You know what will happen to me. Pretty soon you won’t want to be seen with me. I mean it—if it’s going to make things hard for you, go sit somewhere else.” More than anything, she wanted Nalini to stay. But not at the cost of always seeing pity in her friend’s eyes.

“I’m still your friend,” Nalini said. “But I don’t sit with sulkers. The trick is to act like you don’t mind. If you look all mopey and act like the barn dog, people will treat you like the barn dog.”

The sun shone and a light ocean breeze played in the flags when Padvai of House Roshan, Queen of Veyle, was laid to rest. The gathered nobility stood in their mourning finery, sober as King Urdig delivered the eulogy.

Isolte whispered in her husband Loric’s ear. “Do you think he will take another wife?”

Loric glanced at her in irritation. “He needs an heir, Isolte. Of course he will remarry.” His tone turned biting. “But you need not worry it will be you. He’ll look for some bright young thing, with child-bearing hips.”

Isolte pursed her lips. “And leave you, Loric? I had my chance for Urdig’s hand long ago.”

Loric arched an eyebrow, but Isolte continued. “I’m not certain he needs an heir. He might already have one. Unless Padvai whelped a bastard.”

Loric stifled a startled laugh. “Aren’t we just full of secrets today? My, my.”

Isolte gave him a knowing simper. “Why Loric, if we don’t find some way of getting you onto the throne of Veyle soon, I’ll never be queen.”

Loric schooled his features as he turned back to watch Urdig throw the first handfuls of soil into his wife’s grave. It was a good day to be alive, Loric mused as he catalogued the damage he could do with the secrets Urdig had failed to bury with Padvai.

The council building, of large timbers and stone, was wedged between a merchant’s shop and an inn on the north side of the Adram Vale village square. It did triple-duty as meeting hall, post station, and tax office for the village. Saroya took a deep calming breath and went through the door. Inside, her eyes adjusted to the lack of sunlight. A large woman glanced up from an untidy pile of parchment.

“Yes? Do I know you?” the woman asked.

“N—” Saroya cleared her throat. “No. I’m from the Cloister.”

“Oh. One of those.” Disinterested, the woman turned back to sorting her parchments.

Saroya walked up to her and held out her letter. “One of those?”

“The Cloister only sends but one kind of person to see the council.”

“Doyenne Ganarra told me to give this to the head councilman.” Saroya held out the letter with the Cloister’s seal.

The woman snatched the rolled up paper from Saroya and waved her away. “He’s out. Wait over there.” She indicated a stool in the corner.

Saroya’s mouth tightened but, with a single longing look at the padded chair in the other corner, she took a seat on the stool.

For an hour, she waited. And waited. She tapped her foot on the floor, counted the small dimples in the wall missing plaster, played an imaginary game of Queen’s Gambit on the tiles of floor.
This is stupid.
She stood up and smoothed out her tunic.

“Excuse me,” Saroya said. The papers on the table continued to fly from one messy pile to the next. “I said—”

“I heard you.” The woman didn’t even glance up.

Saroya sighed. “If you told me where he was, I could find him myself and stop wasting your time.”

The woman just pointed at the stool. Saroya ignored her and made for the chair.

“The stool, I said. Learn your place.”

Saroya stiffened, but a good retort eluded her. Might as well wait outside in the sunshine.

“Good riddance,” the woman threw at her retreating back.

Small thatched houses lined the square. Outside one, a young mother washed her laundry in a vat, her toddlers playing with carved wooden blocks at her feet. Two boys chased a scruffy dog. A large oak tree shaded the middle of the square. Saroya propped herself against the gnarled trunk with a good view of the council house door. She brooded.

Even if she avoided the mines, any other menial job left her at the mercy of her employers. If they took a dislike to her, they would throw her out without a second thought. And scrabbling around in the dark, digging for ore—bile crept up her throat just thinking about it. The Cloister students traded tales of the unfortunates drafted into the mines, how they came out years later pale and scrawny, and died of a racking cough not long after.

On the far side of the square, the two boys now targeted a pile of rags leaning against a retaining wall, pitching stones at the heap and laughing. Saroya paid no mind until the mound moved. An old beggar shook off a tattered blanket, raising a trembling arm to deflect the hail of pebbles. The boys’ laughter no longer sounded so innocent to Saroya’s ears. The larger boy, emboldened, ran up to the beggar and kicked him.

“We told you to stay away from here, you dirty Untalent.”

“Yeah! We know you stole that chicken from Armen. Prob’ly Da’s good shirt from the line, too.”

Saroya shot to her feet. “Hey! Leave him alone!”

The stocky boy sneered at her then scampered off, followed by his friend. Saroya stared at the beggar, seeing not a withered old man, but her future. What kind of life was that?

A small seed of sympathy and rebellion blossomed in Saroya’s heart. It wasn’t fair that a simple test could ruin so many lives. It wasn’t fair that the guilds controlled all the good work. She didn’t feel any different today than she had before the Testing, but now she was supposed to believe she was worthless? After years of praise from her teachers? Saroya kicked at a pebble. Why?

Just last week, Nalini had popped the bread Saroya baked into her mouth and exclaimed, “This is delicious! What did you do to the crust?”

“Remember how Adept Perga showed us the difference between steaming and boiling vegetables? It gave me an idea about dry heat versus wet heat. So I put a pan of water in the oven with the bread.”

And it had turned out great. Adept Perga even went back for seconds, saying through a mouthful, “You have a bright future as a baker.” Except now, the Chef’s Guild would never let her in, mouth-watering recipes or not. All for lack of that blasted certificate of Talent.

“
A cluttered mind will lead you astray. Only a studious mind finds its one true path,
” Saroya mimicked the doyenne’s didactic tone. “I did study, blast it!” And it got her exactly nowhere. No path had presented itself. At least, no path she cared to tread.

A man coming into the square from the east road distracted her, and the beggar scuttled away. The new arrival sauntered towards the council house and went inside. Saroya walked up to a small girl playing with a wooden ball.

“Hi.”

The girl rolled the ball shyly.

“That man who just went into the council house. Was that Councilman Reeth?”

A nod. Saroya took a hard candy out of her pocket and gave it to the girl, who popped it in her mouth before grinning and scampering away.

Saroya approached the door of the council house, but, reaching for the handle, she paused. Her fingers hovered over the iron latch. The unvarnished wood loomed before her like the gate of a prison.

Deliberately, she turned back to the square. She’d find something else to do. Something she chose for herself.

The intruder padded around the room in the fading light. A foolish risk he now regretted, but when the opportunity presented to sneak into the cloister dormitories, he couldn’t resist. If he returned empty-handed, His Lordship would express his displeasure in unsavory ways.

The six previous rooms had yielded no results. He’d just avoided being caught by a group of chattering girls, ducking into a closet before they rounded the corner. He needed to find something soon.

He rifled through the items on the night table, his frustration mounting. He rubbed the prickly growth of beard on his cheeks, mulling over his options. One more room—he’d search one more then leave off. Bad enough if he didn’t deliver, but if anybody discovered him, he didn’t want to imagine what His Lordship would do in his ire. “Don’t be seen … no inns, camp in the woods.” He cursed the need for secrecy, and scratched at the spider bite on his hip. Woods indeed. There was something to be said for a good mug of ale in the comfort of a tavern.

He’d almost given up when his search bore fruit. He held the object up to the last rays of the sun filtering through the window, and smiled. Good thing he could read. Then again, His Lordship wouldn’t have chosen him for this mission otherwise. He backed out of the room, double-checking that he’d left its contents as he’d found them. “Take nothing.” His orders had been clear. Everything looked neat and tidy. Undisturbed. No one would notice he’d been here. He scurried toward the back stairs, already tasting the beer he’d treat himself to with his fee. The creak of shoe on wood at the landing down the hall caused him to glance back. He glimpsed golden hair as someone entered the hallway. He hastened his escape.