“Mom,” he said, as gently as he could, “I’m almost fifteen, almost grown. I want to go out into the world. It’s very common ... you know, ‘The young man left his home when he came of age’—it’s in a hundred stories.”
“You were ready to stay here when you had an apprenticeship,” she countered.
“I don’t anymore,” he countered in turn.
“Why don’t you work for me?” She set her teacup down, her eyes intent as the idea took hold. “I know you don’t want to be a chandler, but you could start doing the books for me and your father. It’s a very useful skill. I’ll even pay you a wage ... don’t shake your head right away, just think about it. You don’t want to leave Jolie, do you?”
“I’m not going to.”
This brought her up short. “You’re not?—But ...”
“I’m not leaving her. I will come back in a couple of years, Mom. I’ll be fine, you’ll see. You don’t have to worry so much.”
Clearly Jolie had been her last card to play, and she slumped back in her chair. There were dark circles under her eyes. He smiled at her, to soften his words, and to try to push away the guilt. He couldn’t stay just for her. “Thanks, Mom, really. But I don’t want to be a bookkeeper any more than I want to be a chandler or a woodwright.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, very quietly.
There wasn’t anything more to say, so he stood and retreated up to his room, leaving his mother at the table with her tea.
It was quite some time later, after he’d taken a rough inventory of his possessions and made some decisions about what he would take with him and what he would leave behind, when he heard a knock. It was a specific pattern that Audrey always used, and he grunted, which she took for permission to come in.
She was dressed in brown—all brown; she refused to mix colors these days. She closed the door behind her and sat down on the floor in front of it, hugging her knees to her chest and pushing her feet into a fold of her skirt. “Grae?”
“What?” He was lying on his back on his bed, turning his Godcircle medallion over in his hands. He hadn’t worn the pewter disc since he was a child. He’d been thinking about making it his promise-gift to Jolie. It wasn’t much, but he didn’t own anything else that would be suitable.
“Is your quarterstaff really magic?”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Where’d I not hear it?” She waited, then asked again, “Is it magic?”
Reluctantly Graegor shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Why are people saying it is?”
He sat up and set the medallion on his clothes-chest. “Because no one believes I could have thrashed all four of those goons last night without it being magic.”
“But you did.” The statement was firm.
“For all the good it did me.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally she looked at him very frankly. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
He didn’t answer at first, then told her, “When Father and I go to Farre next month I’ll just stay there.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll ask Mister Johanns to help me find a job.”
“He knows a lot of people, doesn’t he?”
“He knows everybody.”
She was quiet for a while longer, and Graegor had the feeling that she was going to miss him; then she asked, “I can have your room, right?”
He couldn’t help laughing. “I guess so.”
“It’s bigger than mine.”
“Slightly.”
Another pause. “When I’m old enough, I’ll leave too.”
This was new. There had always been the unspoken assumption that she’d become a chandler. Maybe that’s why his mother had been so upset—had Audrey told her that she planned to leave the village when she grew up? “How come you want to leave?” Audrey had lots of friends and didn’t seem unhappy here. Then again, it’d be hard to find an eight-year-old who was unhappy here. His mother was right, as far as it went; this was a safe, prosperous little artisan village, where everyone had their role, where the children could play without fear, and where there were always handcakes on Godsdays. He’d simply gotten to the point where games and pastries didn’t count for much.
“I’m too smart for everyone here,” she said seriously.
“You probably are,” he agreed just as seriously. She could read, she could figure things out, and all her friends were older than she was.
“I don’t know what I would be if I stayed.”
“You don’t want to get married?”
“Not yet.”
He had to smile at that. Then he asked, “Why don’t you want to be a chandler?”
“It’s too sticky.”
This was true—and sufficient reason for a rather fastidious girl. “What do you want to be?”
She shrugged. “Maybe I’d like to be like Mister Johanns.”
“Really?”
“I think I’d like to know a lot of people.”
They didn’t say anything for a little bit, and then she said, “And I’d like to meet the queen someday.”
That was out of the blue. “When would you ever meet the queen?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if I did something really important and she wanted to thank me. Do you think I’ll do something really important someday?”
“I’m sure you will.”
She snorted. “Now you sound like Dad.”
“Don’t insult me.”
“Don’t fight with him anymore, all right? It upsets Mom.”
He was about to tell her to mind her own business, because he was still feeling guilty about his mother. But Audrey was in earnest, her eyes reflecting back the flame of the candle by the window. As much as she seemed to let everything roll off her back, sometimes it got to her, too. Finally he said, “I don’t try to fight with him. But when he goes behind my back and tells people not to let me work for them ...”
“Well, maybe if you ask nicely, he’ll let you go back.”
Their mother had always told them to ask nicely. He wasn’t in the mood. “There’s no point. It’s only a month before we go to Farre.”
She nodded. “I guess you’re right.” After a pause, she said, “I can’t wait until I can go to Farre. It’ll be great to meet some new people for a change.”
“I think so too.”
“We’re different. Some people never want to meet new people.”
“I know,” he agreed. “They’d rather spend their whole lives in the same village, seeing the same people, doing the same things.”
“Like Grandmother. She hasn’t left Daviton ever.”
“She wasn’t born there,” he reminded her. “She moved there from Rochden.”
“But she never leaves now,” she reminded him. “We always have to visit her, she won’t come here.”
He couldn’t help smiling, because that was something he never had to do again if he didn’t want to. He and his father and Pieter might stop in Daviton on their way to Farre, but his father usually found a reason not to.
“Don’t gloat,” Audrey said in a deliberately sulky voice.
“What, you don’t like it when Grandmother tells you to stand up straight?”
“Oh, yes, I love it. Stand up straight! Shoulders back! Chin high! Stomach in!”
“She’s so obsessed with it, she should be buried that way.”
“And it wouldn’t matter that she couldn’t breathe,” Audrey pointed out, “because she’d be dead.”
That struck Graegor as enormously funny, and they both burst out laughing. Then Audrey did an impression of standing up straight, but dead, her eyes crossed and her tongue lolling, and that made him laugh even more.
After things had calmed down, Audrey sat on the floor again. “I wonder where our cousins are now,” she said, pulling her sleeves down completely over her hands.
“I’ve never heard.” All four of his mother’s brother’s chi
ldren had left home at an early age, quite some years ago. He suddenly felt a connection to them that he’d never had before.
“Do you think Grandmother knows that she is partly why they left? Because she’s such a ...” She stopped, but Graegor almost heard the word “bitch”. He’d never heard her say it, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to use it.
“I bet our uncle wishes he could leave,” he said. “Between Grandmother and Aunt Iris ...”
Audrey shrugged. “He’s an old lump too.”
“It’s strange that Mom’s related to them.”
“Maybe she’s like her father. She says that everyone liked him.”
“You didn’t know about our other grandfather, right?” He wanted to make sure he hadn’t been the last to know. “What Mom said last night, that he beat Dad’s brother to death?”
“No. She’d never tell me something like that. I think she forgot I was there. Was she trying to scare you?”
“I don’t know. I do know that she doesn’t want me to leave.”
“But you’re grown up, almost,” Audrey said. “You’re supposed to leave.”
“Leave the house, yes. It’s my leaving Long Lake that upsets her.” He paused. “Did you know that she almost died in childbirth with me?”
“No!—Really?”
“Really. She just told me.”
Audrey thought about that. “I wonder what else she’s never told us.”
He’d missed that implication, but now of course he wondered about it too.
They sat in silence for a while, lost in their own thoughts, before Audrey asked, “Do you still want to go to Khenroxa?”
He’d once mentioned to her that the Khenroxan horse trainers and breeders were the best in the world. She’d taken the next step and assumed that he planned to go there. “I’d like to,” he said. “I’m good with horses, but everything I know, I picked up by myself. Up there I could learn from the masters. How to break a wild stallion, how to breed racing stock, how to ride like a cavalryman, all of that. Like the Telgard elite horsemen used to be, when the Torchanes were kings.”
“Don’t you need a fancy saber to be a cavalryman?”
“I said I’d learn to ride like a cavalryman.” The depredations of the bluecloaks in Farre still bothered him too much.
“I got to shoot a real bow yesterday,” she said proudly.
“Really?”
“Lesya’s father showed us. I was good. I hit the tree two out of three times.”
Graegor didn’t ask how many paces from the tree she’d been. “That’s great.”
“Maybe I’ll shoot a rabbit, and Mom will make me some gloves with rabbit fur inside.” She flexed her perpetually cold fingers inside her sleeves.
“Rabbit’s good eats, too.”
“Oh! Speaking of good eats.” She stood up and dug around in her tunic pocket. “I have a copper quarter—could you get me some more candy in Farre?”
“Candy’s not good eats,” he said, just to be difficult.
“You eat it, and it’s good, so it’s good eats. Will you get it?”
“I’ll get it.” He’d have Pieter take it back home for her.
“You can have a piece of it if you want.” Her tone was laden with generosity, but she knew he couldn’t stand pynade. He made a face at her. She laughed at the face, and went back to her room to find the quarter.
By the time dinner was ready, Graegor had decided against asking his father why he hadn’t told him about Pritchard. There was no point. But he’d also decided that he owed it to himself and Jolie to find out if his father actually would be willing to talk to Jarl to try to rescue the apprenticeship. His hopes weren’t high, but if there was any chance, he had to take it.
He reached the dining table as his mother and Audrey did. His father, Joshua, and Pieter were already serving themselves, and Ulla was tracing the Godcircle to finish her meat-thanks. He took the empty chair to his father’s right and recited his own meat-thanks in his head, then filled his glass with water and drank it down.
“Father.” It came out of his mouth right after the water had gone in, and he set his glass down with more of a thump than he had actually intended. His mother determinedly kept up her murmuring to Ulla about something in the shop, and Ulla’s eyes under her high forehead kept darting from her mistress at one end of the table to the coming confrontation at the other.
“You’re upset with me.” His father stated this between bites.
“No, sir. I’m upset with Master Jarl. He tore up my apprenticeship contract.”
“Your mother told me.” This was not followed by anything else, so Graegor felt obligated to supply the necessary point.
“Don’t you think a master should keep his word?”
“As I understand it, he’d already given his word to Master Baldwin.”
“Not in writing. We had a contract. Since Master Baldwin’s son isn’t old enough ...” He paused, because he wanted to be sure he phrased this so that his father would be most receptive to it. “As a master yourself, you might be able to talk to Master Jarl about it. It’s very important to me, and you did say that he was a fair man.”
But his father shook his head. “A master has the right to choose his own apprentices. I wouldn’t want him to interfere with how I choose mine, so I can’t interfere with how he chooses his.”
“I’m not asking you to interfere. I’m just asking if you would talk to him.”
“I already did.”
What? “You did?” Out of the corner of his eye, Graegor saw his mother look up in surprise.
“Not an hour ago. He’s made up his mind.”
And how hard did you try to change it? Graegor opened his mouth, but then shut it again.
“I know you’re disappointed,” his father said. He still hadn’t looked up from his food. “But it’s not the end of the world. There are apprenticeships everywhere, if you know who to ask.”
“Yes, sir.” He’d been asking. He’d spent the last few weeks asking, riding all over the place on old Lightning. But then, he hadn’t told his father or anyone else what he’d been doing, just in case he turned up empty. “The problem is that I want to work with horses, and there aren’t any training houses outside of Farre.”
“There are saddlemakers and cartwrights in Big Mill and Daviton.”
“Yes, but they already have apprentices. There won’t be any openings for at least a year.”
His father finally looked at him and thoughtfully chewed his food. After he swallowed, he said, “You’ve been looking around, I see.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, when I get back from Farre, I’ll help you. You may have missed one.”
“You mean ‘we’,” Graegor said.
“‘We’ what?”
“When we get back from Farre.”
“No,” his father shook his head.
“You’re—you’re not taking me with you?”
“Not this time.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to risk any more fights. Remember that riot the last time you were there? I think you should stay away from the city until you settle down.”
“Settle down?” This was incredible. His father didn’t want any more fights? Would his father like him better with two black eyes and a fat lip?
Everyone else at the table was looking straight down at their food. Honoring their collective wish to turn invisible, Graegor’s father picked up his knife to slice another piece of pork. “Besides, you’ve come with me for several years now, and you know what goes on. You can mind the shop while Joshua and Pieter and I are gone.”
“Both of them have gone with you before too,” Graegor returned, forcing his words into a reasonable tone, which was like forcing a pig into a sweater. “They’re a lot more capable of minding the shop than I am. If I stay and they go, there won’t be any woodworking done at all.”
His father shook his head as he swallowed. “Maybe not, but you can learn
the books with your mother. You shouldn’t have turned her down, you know. Bookkeeping is a very marketable skill, and you don’t need to commit to an apprenticeship to do it.”
Graegor didn’t look at his mother but did feel distinctly betrayed. “I don’t think I’d be any better at bookkeeping than I was at woodworking.”
“Master Rumstad seems to think you’re quite good at mathematics.”
“That doesn’t mean I want to do it all the time.”
His father shrugged. “Well, of course you don’t. Keeping books is the dullest part of any business. But it has to be done, and it’s a good living.”
Graegor sat back in his chair and stared at his father for a moment. He realized that he had never, ever witnessed this man change his mind about anything important. In his craft, his father changed his mind many times about how a piece should look before he finished. He viewed it from different angles and lighting, took out entire sections of chairs and tables and bureaus and reworked them if he was not pleased with them. Once in a great while he even asked his apprentices what they thought. But when he wasn’t working with wood, his mind turned to stone.
“So this is my punishment for getting into a fight?” He was surprised that he could keep his voice so calm and soft. “You think that maybe if I ruin my eyes staring at numbers all day, I’ll be too blind to thrash anyone else?”
Ulla and Joshua were hunched over their dinner, but they weren’t eating. Pieter was shoveling food into his mouth as fast as he could, and Audrey was steadily cleaning her plate as if there wasn’t anyone else there.
His father sat back in his chair, sighing and rubbing his forehead. “It’s an important job, Graegor. I’d like to see how well you do it.”
“I don’t want to do it. I want to work with horses.”
“You may have to compromise.”
“Not yet,” Graegor said immediately, because the word compromise made him cold. Compromise was the death of dreams.
“Well, then, you may have to wait a bit, until one of those apprenticeships you mentioned opens up. Keeping the books for the chandlery and the workshop will give you another skill and keep you busy.”
Torchlight Page 13