by Garth Nix
Maybe Jaciel felt so badly towards 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 a 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 further 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 towards 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-coloured that Valannie had painted on very thickly 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.
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 spare she had always taken to the Forest, rather than spending time in the laborious process of learning marks and then practising recognising 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 sword-blade 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 meagre 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, which 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 sto
ne 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 storeys 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 neighbours, 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 Goldsmiths’ 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 recognised.’
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, synchronised 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 realised. 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
The 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, spiralling up and down. The hall itself was newly whitewashed, and was very clean and empty, save for a writing desk right in the very centre, 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 organisation these colours 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 close, 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 Panelled 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. 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 were 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 Goldsmiths’ 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 th
e Flat, where the day labourers 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 organisation 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 importantly 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.’