‘Shit,’ she says, then glares at me. ‘Now I have to start again.’
‘Not tonight you don’t and not without a tutor here! You’re not good enough to keep it contained. You still can’t get the balance between light and dark right. Selke, you’re amazing, but this just isn’t your skill!’
She looks set to argue, so I say, ‘Another word and I will tell your aunt—then you’ll be cleaning Primary for the rest of your life.’
Selke subsides. The last thing she wants is for Lucina to hear about this—it may tip the balance the wrong way for her.
‘Peace offering?’ I say, holding the wicker basket high. We are not bad friends, but at the heart of matters we are rivals and this causes tension. Oh, others here have their special talents—Kina can make pretend birds that sing you an aria, Lalla can paint a doll’s face so it seems to have a different expression depending on the direction from which you view it, and Talia’s soft fake foxes will curl about your feet and purr like cats—but Selke and I have, as Mater frequently tells us, the most developed abilities. Some days I think Lucina says this to make us opponents so we will strive harder. It’s worse, still, that Selke is being offered what I so desperately want when she has no desire for it at all.
‘Nice to be the good girl,’ she sneers without heat, and takes the chicken leg I offer.
‘Oh, c’mon. I’m not the one with the exploding simulacra. What did you think that would get you? Top of the class?’
She shrugs and says, ‘Still and all, it was pretty spectacular, wasn’t it?’
I have to agree. We eat in silence for a while, then she asks ‘So, has she set your final task?’
A successful graduation piece gets you admitted into the Doll Makers’ Guild and then you can find gainful employment in one of the town or city fraternities. Some might have the luck to be taken in by one of the houses rich enough and large enough to employ a dedicated doll maker. Some may take to the roads, as itinerant wanderers and makers of toys, living hand to mouth. Or some can teach—if you’re really fortunate you might be asked to join the staff of an academy, like Tintern, which may be small, with no more than forty students, but our work is respected. And we have a powerful patron, which counts for a lot.
‘A special commission. You?’
‘Well, if she lets me graduate—’
‘Avoid the exploding things and you should be fine,’ I interrupt, halving the piece of pie and sharing it. Selke will graduate whether she wants to or not.
‘Shut up. The wolf—Rennak of Lodellan wants guard dogs for his cathedral.’
‘You mean . . .’ I bite down on a gooseberry and its juice is sour. ‘You’re reanimating for the Archbishop?’
She grins in a way that strikes me as obscene. ‘As soon as I can get the balance right, the slices thin enough.’
‘How does that count as toy making, Selke? If it were clockworking I’d understand.’
‘Oh, c’mon. You think your puppets are any better? I’m using existing materials to create something different. Same as you. And don’t get onto your reanimation soapbox—when you’re fully fledged you’ll put a sliver of your own soul into each doll.’ She makes a face as she, too, gets a bitter berry. ‘Anyway, you know I’m not interested in the stupid dolls.’
She never has been. If she manages the wolf then martial households will fight for her services. In fact, if she pleases the Archbishop, she’ll find a place in his grand home. That is if, and only if, Mater Lucina lets her go. ‘Besides, clockworking is unreliable. Eventually the damned things run down, they need maintenance. The wolves are another matter entirely. Anyway, the point may be moot.’
‘Selke, she’s let you learn the art—no one else has been allowed to deviate from standard instruction—she’s letting you do the wolf. She’ll let you go.’ We both hope I’m right. If she is allowed to go, then perhaps I will be allowed to stay. Resources are finely balanced in a small academy—there is only room for equilibrium.
She shrugs, morosely. ‘What’s this special commission anyway?’
‘A doll for Lord Holgar’s daughter.’
‘Will you use one of these?’
I look at the rows and rows of porcelain shells lining two of the four walls of the room; all empty and waiting to be filled with a tiny piece of humanity. I shake my head.
‘No, I’ll start from scratch. She needs to be right. I don’t want it to be . . . easy.’ I smile.
‘You won’t have any trouble with making her beautiful.’
‘No, it will be the slivering. It will be keeping steady when I do the soul.’ I’ve made dolls before, lovely ones, perfectly gorgeous toys that we’ve sold at great profit, but the little piece of spirit inside has never come from me; one of the tutors has always done that. I know all the theory; I have done all the practice with breath; but this will be the first time I’ve worked on my own soul. Everything rests upon this. But even if I succeed, there’s no guarantee I will be given what I want.
We finish the cheese and bread then turn down the gas lights and go to the Dormitory. Before I sleep I remember that tomorrow my cousin will arrive with Lord Holgar. I have not seen Benedict for some time. I wonder if he will look different.
***
Tintern Academy sits inside a rectangular, walled compound about half a mile from the city proper. We have three workshops, a kiln-house and a cooling room, stables, guesthouse, kitchen and refectory, a student dormitory and a main house with classrooms on the lower floor, and tutors’ accommodation on the second. The entire third level is Mater Lucina’s domain.
In her library-cum-office, the smells of ink, paper and beeswax polish are strong. The flat plane of Mater’s wide desk shines and I know from experience that if you put a cup down on the surface with too much enthusiasm it will speed across like a skater on a frozen pond. The bay window behind opens onto a small balcony that looks over the yard of the Academy’s enclosure. Strong morning sun pours in and highlights the dust motes that float and whirl, in spite of or because of the enthusiastic cleaning I gave the room this morning when it was still dark.
Mater wears her guild attire, a purple robe with dagged sleeves over a long blue tunic with all the embroidered badges of her station running from the top of each shoulder down almost to her knees. The floppy black cap has three feathers, one blue, one red, one green, which all stand to attention. Lucina’s greying-brown hair is tucked up and hidden. Her fingers, thin and scarred, are weighted with gold rings. I notice that she has applied the most subtle of make-up to brighten her sallow complexion.
She stands in front of her great bureau, and I, in my only passable tunic, wheat-coloured and washed out, beside her. In my hand I still have the key to the room, and my palm is sweating. I slip the big black lump of metal into my pocket. The door opens and Duke Holgar, Lord of Tintern and its surrounds, strides in as if he owns the place. I keep my eyes downcast as Mater Lucina taught me—the man expects humility, he demands people know their station. His entourage follows him.
I know he has left a company of ten troops down in the yard and our groundsmaster is directing them to the stables and the small guest quarters in the eastern corner of the compound. Those deemed fortunate enough to accompany the Duke number five: two huge blonde men, obviously soldiers; another man who looks like a warrior-scholar; a dark, angry youth; and last of all, my cousin Benedict in his grey robe with white rope belt. The soldiers take up position by the door, brooding presences filling up more space than seems physically possible or indeed reasonable.
I risk a peek at the Duke. He is tall and richly dressed in blues and greys. His hair hangs in two thick long plaits and his beard and moustache are pale gold—I suspect he is very vain of them. When the welcome is done, Mater launches into business. She seems unafraid.
‘This is Bitsy, my lord,’ says Lucina. ‘A final year apprentice, one of my best.’
I blush warmly to hear her say that, although it would be better had she called me ‘the best’.
Holgar looks behind him at the young man slouched between Benedict and the warrior-scholar. He’s olive-skinned, with shorn black hair, and a raised and recent scar running the length of the left side of his face. His expression contains enough hatred to make me nervous. I take an involuntary step back and bump against the desk.
His companions look askance at me. The warrior-scholar is in his thirties, muscular and broad, but his shoulder is hunched as if once broken and never properly healed. My cousin is older again, in his forties with greying hair and a weary face. I wonder how life in the Duke’s household is agreeing with him. Holgar’s attention returns to me.
‘A lesson,’ he repeats, ‘to those who would disrespect their betters. Alexander.’
The hunch-shouldered man comes forward. ‘My lord,’ he says and hands over a black silk pouch, which Holgar in turn gives to me. I upend it. A ruby oozes out onto my palm like a large, slow drop of blood. I lift my eyes to the Duke’s proud, cruel face.
Behind him, the boy vibrates with rage.
‘You can use this?’ Holgar asks. I nod and he continues, ‘Then let it be done.’
I see the boy’s face again and know that this is designed to cut him to the quick: a great gem like this to be set in a child’s doll.
I speak without thinking, quickly, wanting the Duke to know how much I will put into this piece, how important it is for me; what good work I will do for him. I think of the hours I shall spend working the clay, ‘I’ll mix in gold and pearl dust so the skin looks real. A woman from Tintern, her daughter died last year, she donated the girl’s hair—that will be perfect. The eyes, the eyes should be green. The ruby I’ll use as the heart—I can create a panel in the chest and your daughter will be able to open it and watch the gem pulse—’
‘The work will begin tomorrow, my lord, and may take up to a week,’ Mater interrupts swiftly and I stop, bewildered. Holgar, I realise, is completely uninterested in what I have said, bored with my maundering. The dark boy glares at me and his hatred feels like a dagger. Benedict is shaking his head, not angrily, but pityingly. Pity that I thought this was somehow about my skill, my future and my success. It’s not; it’s about Holgar’s revenge and whatever hurt he can inflict upon this young man.
Mater is still speaking, ‘I invite you to take your ease with us this evening, my lord. The guest quarters have been prepared; tomorrow perhaps you would like to watch Bitsy work? Or perhaps not. Will you dine with me or take supper in your own room?’
I look at the floor, to the thickly patterned whorls of the rug and wish my cousin was not there to witness the raw ache of my embarrassment.
***
Outside, between the walls of the compound and the sluggish summer river, lie the gardens, filled with vegetables for our meals and the herbs required for our work. The juniors (some as young as five, none older than ten), are bent over flower beds picking what they need for their practise. They will make simple corn-dollies, stuffed with a combination of leaf and petal that will give the things a brief life while the ingredients are still fresh in the hollow space of their husk bodies.
I remember my first: it got me Mater Lucina’s attention and shifted from me being kitchen scrub to student. Sent out to harvest produce for a meal, I watched instead the pupils playing, not following instructions, or doing so and simply failing. I forgot my task and made my own tiny creature. It danced like a mad thing for two days. I got in trouble with the kitchen mistress, but it didn’t matter: Mater Lucina had seen something in me and the next day I was in class with the others. I promised myself I would be exceptional; I promised that I would not let Lucina down.
More and more Mater is letting me teach. I hope it means something good, I hope it means she will reward me with the position left vacant since Venantis’ death last winter. Today, I’m overseeing the juniors in the loosest of ways—normally I’m not so lax, but I do not see my cousin often. We sit on a fallen tree trunk, smoothed into the shape of a seat by weather and backsides.
It’s almost a year since Benedict last visited and he looks hollow, as though his duties as spiritual advisor to Holgar’s house are eating him away.
We are cousins at some remove or another; when I was orphaned Benedict brought me to the Academy for he could not bring up a small girl. He begged Mater to find a position for me. He did not think for anything too great—my mother was a castle kitchen maid, why should I hope for better? He is kind and good. He spent most of his years in the monastery, but when the Duke came to the Abbott seeking a house-priest, Benedict, concerned he was not in the world enough, volunteered. I used to see him more often before he left for Holgar’s and I believe he regrets his decision. We hold hands, a small familial comfort. Our news has been sparse. I do not share my hopes and fears as I do not wish to hear a sermon on the evils of ambition, of desiring to rise above one’s allotted place. It is easy for me to distract him with questions about his own situation, and about other people, for Benedict’s single vice is gossip. I ask him about the boy and, in his roundabout way, he tells me.
‘One of Holgar’s vassals, Robert Velatt, held back part of the crop tithe he was bound to give, so his own village would have enough food to get through the coming winter. The Duke marched on the rebellious holding. To teach him a lesson, Holgar took The Luck.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The ruby you held in your hand not many hours since; it’s been in the Velatt family for hundreds of years. Having it put into a doll and given to his daughter is Holgar’s idea of how to best display his contempt for the family.’ Benedict shakes his head. He cannot find service with his lord very fulfilling.
‘And the boy?’
‘Velatt’s only son—taken as hostage for good measure—to ensure he is brought up to be an obedient vassal. Velatt has three daughters—not one of them survived the Duke’s visitation with virtue intact.’ He holds his breath and then lets it all out in a rush of words, ‘I do not like my lord, Bitsy, he is not a good man.’
I open my mouth to try and offer him some reassurance, but am cut off by the sound of mirth, girlish and sly.
Selke comes out the small side gate. She is wearing a purple gown and her usually unruly hair has been brushed and held in place with mother-of-pearl combs. With her is the dark boy. Hanging behind them is Alexander, close enough to be a bodyguard, far distant enough to give them privacy. His expression is one of concerned helplessness, as if he thinks he should intervene but is not sure why.
They are laughing, however I see in both their faces a kind of cunning assessment, a measuring. I wonder if each recognises it in the other? I think it strange Selke is making friends with anyone, let alone this boy who bears the ire of her aunt’s patron. She sees me and hesitates, gives a half-smile and re-directs the boy, first with a gentle hand on his elbow, then more boldly, with a firm press to the small of his back. They move away, further into the gardens, nearer to the river, heads close together as they speak.
‘What’s his name, Benedict?’
‘Dante.’
‘Will he be allowed to go home?’
Benedict hangs his head, dispirited. ‘Holgar has taken three hostages in the last ten years. None of them has lived to be returned to their families.’
‘No wonder he’s angry.’
‘Angry doesn’t even begin to touch the sides, Bitsy.’ My cousin lowers his voice. ‘And he hates me. I have tried only to comfort him, but he swears if he ever has the chance he will cut out my tongue and stop the endless stream of my advice.’ He clears his throat. ‘But this doll you shall make? Will you tell me about it?’
He is being kind, humouring me when he knows I must still sting from the Duke’s snub, from the cut inflicted by my own ignorance. I smile and squeeze his hand and begin to tell him.
***
The week passes slowly, strangely. I spend my mornings in
the workshops and in the afternoon, I go to Tintern and do good deeds. A doll maker’s soul requires regular replenishing. In preparation for slicing the piece I will put into this doll, I help at the hospital and the poor-house, I serve meals in the orphanage and sew simple clothes at the charitable society run by Dorcas Tanner on Samhain Street. I do so many good works that I think I must surely begin to shine with virtue or sprout a halo.
In Primary, the first morning, I stand in direct sunshine and check my hands for any nicks or tiny cuts, anywhere an intrusion might occur. Finding none, I wash them in the consecrated font, and wait while a thin layer of water forms over the top of my own skin. In effect a fine pair of fluid gloves, so I am both protected and still able to work with the materials.
I open the clay-safe, an iron-clad box the height of a middling-sized man; a hefty padlock hangs stubbornly, keeping it closed. Inside, the clay is finely grained, almost white. There are eight drawers, vertically stacked, and I slide one out. Although it’s packed tight, the substance still shifts and strains within the confines, sluggish from the warmth of the safe. Dug from cemeteries, replete with the juices of the once-living, redolent with the scent of rot, it costs Mater a small fortune. It must be worked rapidly for it is not like ordinary mud; its quickening and shaping and setting happen so much faster. It fires more quickly and at a higher temperature; strangely, it cools more swiftly. Living clay is almost a second chance for the flesh of the dead.
I empty the contents onto the marble bench top and cut away a large hunk, then dump the remains back in the container, which I replace in the clay-safe. I begin to mould the pliable stuff, feeling it push up ever so slightly against my palms, objecting, for a time, to being shoved about so. I croon as I fashion it and it grows calm. I tell it who it will become and how beautiful she will be. I wash it down with water to keep it moist, but not too moist. When it is at last as malleable as I need it to be and willing to absorb other things, I sprinkle gold and pearl dust over the glistening surface and begin to knead it in, until it’s evenly distributed. It gives a lovely sheen. I take the small vial into which I bled and spat earlier this morning and now I fold that in too; tiny pieces of life.
Sourdough and Other Stories Page 13