by Laure Eve
‘Sit down, dear,’ she said.
Rue sat.
CHAPTER 16
ANGLE TAR
Rue
Mussyer de Forde had been silent for some time.
Rue was not inclined to rouse him from his thoughts. The past day of travel through endless landscape and crowds of people had shown her how small she was, and she felt glad to be going towards a place where she might mean something again.
This coach was the final leg of their journey to Capital City. They had taken a public coach from her village to the train station, which was many miles up the coast and further than Rue had been since she was a child. The station was a short squat building on the outskirts of a provincial little city, long and low, and filled with dirt and sound and people, always so many people.
Then the train, which she had taken once as a girl and had vaguely frightened memories of, her recall clouded by painful levels of noise and steam. In the end, it had been quite ordinary, though she loved the way the landscape slid past and around her, as if she flowed through it, and sat within the natural order of things. Fernie had packed her a substantial lunch and she had offered some shyly to Mussyer de Forde, but he’d had none of it, professing himself too tired to eat.
After many hours, and several more stops at crowded platforms, they had left the last of the southern vegetable plains behind. The vista outside Rue’s window shifted grad-ually, until the few scattered and huddled farm buildings had changed into a never-ending array of walls. And tall, how tall! There was nothing past a second-floor hay barn in the villages she knew.
The train station in Capital had been an airy, beautiful building with the highest ceiling Rue had ever seen, but she hadn’t been able to pause much – the crowds had swept them along. Mussyer de Forde had hurried her through, stopping outside the station at another coach. This one was far grander than the one that had taken them from her village to the train, though, all that time ago. It was not a plain black but a gleaming blue, with an image of an eagle clutching a key painted in lovely detail on its side. In spite of the swathes of people milling about, there were only three or four getting onto this coach, and, noticing her confusion, Mussyer de Forde told her that it was a university coach, reserved for university teachers, students and staff only. He flashed a key he kept on a chain around his neck to the driver, and they boarded.
Fernie had told her a little about Capital City. Though claiming to never have been there, she had described it in some detail to Rue. They had sat at the kitchen table together, as they had done so many times before, eating, talking, working. Only this time would probably be the last time, and for who knew how long?
‘I know you’ll go, so it’s no good pretending you’re still thinking about it,’ Fernie had said.
‘Fern,’ Rue protested.
‘No, it’s fine. Look Rue. I know you … I ain’t doing this right.’ A sigh. A pause. Then: ‘You’re young and headstrong, and you can do something that most people don’t even know exists. I don’t know how strong you are in it. I pray not very.’
‘You pray?’ said Rue, unable to stop herself.
Fernie waved a hand irritably. ‘It’s an expression. Stop interrupting, be a good girl for once.’
Rue fell silent.
‘Now,’ said Fernie. ‘You know I’m sorry about the whole thing. You don’t know how much. I should’ve told you what I long suspected. But I didn’t want you to have it, Rue. The Talent. It brings nothing but trouble. But it’s no good telling you that either, as you don’t care right now, and why should you? You’ve been given an adventure, and you’ll never be right in your life if you don’t go to Capital and let Mussyer de Forde poke around inside your head and do his stupid tests. It’s all right. I’ll get a prentice in training to help me out once in a while. I’ll get Mewan’s girl from the Flats to come over once or twice a week, something like that.’
‘Deer? She’s messy in her prep work and she don’t know any of the local herbs,’ said Rue. She wanted to protest to let Fern know she cared, but not enough so that Fern would see sense and make her stay.
‘Deer’s more advanced in her training than you are and knows what she’s about, and don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,’ said Fernie. ‘I’ll be fine, and you’ll be fine, and Deer’ll do, and you’ll be back before you know it.’
Come back to this? thought Rue. Only if I fail.
She was determined not to fail.
It wasn’t in Rue’s nature to lie and say she didn’t want to go, and Fern saw it plain as day, written all across her body. But still, she felt awfully guilty about being so eager to leave and do something Fernie clearly disapproved of.
But then again, Fern had kept the truth from her, hadn’t she? Rue could be angry about that, if she wanted to be. She wondered when the old witch had first known what it was she had.
So Rue went to Mussyer de Forde by herself, to the small cottage where he was renting a room over in the next village, and he smiled when she said she wanted to go with him and told her to call him Frith.
They left a week later. Her last image of Fernie had been of her stood on her doorstep, framed by the rounded weight of her cottage, looking at Rue sitting in the coach. The coach had started to move and Fernie had gone inside almost immediately, firmly closing her front door. Rue had felt a small rush of sickness then. Fernie was her weight. Fernie looked after her and told her when she made mistakes and tutted when she said something wrong and guided her. She was deliberately discarding her only protection, leaving behind the only person who cared about her.
But Rue was determined not to be the sort of girl that was cowed by adventure, now that it had finally come and found her. She would prove herself.
The university coach was getting busy. The last stop they had halted at had taken on several new passengers, and some of their clothes had been so outlandish, Rue had had to force herself not to stare. Frith had caught her open-mouthed gaze, nevertheless. She’d expected him to be angry but he’d smiled secretively at her.
No one was talking to anyone else, and so there they all sat in utter silence. The outside world began to intrude over the creaking and rumbling of the coach, and Rue listened keenly. There was a lot of shouting, words she tried to catch as they went past. There were brief snatches of smells she half recognised. It had begun to rain, and she watched people totter past with enormous shades held over their heads, jostling each other for space. Sometimes they even walked in the streets, and more than once she’d seen someone dance hurriedly out of the way when a coach had come rumbling up behind them. There was a lot of joyous swearing and shaking of fists. At first it had made her nervous, but as it seemed so much to be the way strangers interacted here, she presumed it normal and began to enjoy each short drama when it happened. Frith had apparently gone to sleep. Rue supposed that he found all this completely regular, even wearisome. But how could you sleep with such a racket going on?
There was a busy shuffling of people for the next hour or so, alighting from the coach and heading off determinedly into the rain. Rue wondered if she should wake Frith – they were almost the only people left. But in the strange manner he’d displayed over the last few hours, almost as if he could read her mind, he beat her to it and spoke without opening his eyes.
‘Nearly there, Rue. Look out of the window and you’ll see a yellowish tower poking up from the general mess of buildings we’re heading towards. That is the university tower, and those buildings will be your home for the next few months.’
Rue peered out, trying to dredge up the required expression of excitement at what she would see. In truth, now it came to it, she felt a little nerve-sick. What if it all went wrong? What if it turned out she had less Talent than a cat?
No, she told herself. You’re special, you know it. Stop this.
The yellow tower was obvious right away. It rose up magnificently from a sprawling nest of low buildings that surrounded it like a garden. All in all, it didn’t look h
ow she’d imagined. She’d thought of a series of grand monuments, pristine white, mysterious. Apart from the tower, the university appeared to be a clustered collection of mismatched buildings on a hill, albeit surrounded by an impressive wall. She would have been more awestruck if this had been the first thing she’d seen on leaving the countryside, but a day of travelling had rapidly hardened her.
The entrance gates were standing open and their coach rattled on through. Rue looked about as they went past – there were two small posts on either side with two plump, bored-looking guards stationed there. They moved on from the sprawling front driveway and started to roll down the side of the main layout.
When they alighted a few minutes later, it was in front of a squat set of houses made of red stone. Frith had confirmed that everything they had passed was part of the university. Rue couldn’t imagine a place so big. The red stone buildings, she was told, exclusively housed all those students who had specifically been recruited to study the Talent.
Despite his promises to the contrary, Frith had in fact told her very little of what exactly the Talent was on their long journey to the city. He’d evaded her ten thousand questions with an easy manner that should have provoked her but hadn’t.
What Rue had managed to ascertain was this: the Talent surfaced in people at a young age, and to varying degrees. It was rare, and very hard to spot. In most of those with Talent, the ability was surface only. In a tiny handful of people it manifested more strongly, but it was almost impossible to test. In fact, Frith had said, there was only one man in all of Angle Tar qualified enough to decide how much Talent an individual had, and his name was Mussyer White. It would be he whom Rue and others like her would be having lessons with in order to test her.
What was the Talent, and how could you tell who had it? Frith had smiled at her awkward attempts to ask this in different ways and merely said that he couldn’t speak of it because he didn’t know; but that she would, soon enough.
They got out of the coach together and he took her up to the front door, which was opened before he had knocked. A woman with flickering, blinking mouse eyes peered at them both.
‘Mussyer Frith!’ she said. ‘We weren’t expecting you ’til tomorrow.’
‘I’m a constant surprise,’ said Frith. ‘This young lady is special; I collected her myself.’
The mouse woman looked Rue up and down. ‘I’m sure. Room fourteen, is it?’
‘If it’s vacant,’ said Frith easily. ‘Now I shall have to leave you, Rue. This is Zelle Penafers Hannah. She runs Red House, your new home. She’ll look after you while you’re here, and give you your itinerary and map. Everything you need.’
Rue felt a little abandoned but was determined not to show it. She smiled and bowed to the mouse woman, who did not acknowledge it.
‘Until we meet again,’ said Frith.
‘When will that be?’
‘Not for a few days, I’m afraid. Work we must. You’ll be fine.’
He climbed back into the coach, and she watched it rattle away. As she turned back to the open doorway, she found the mouse woman had disappeared.
Good beginning, she thought, bending to pick up her battered luggage bags. She lurched into the hallway and thought better about kicking the door shut, bumping it with her side to swing it closed.
‘Zelle …’ She thought back. ‘Penafers?’
Silence. It was a long hallway lined with doors, all of which were shut. She stood for a moment.
Fourteen, wasn’t it.
She walked carefully along, looking at each door as she passed. Four. Six. Eight.
The lighting in here was terrible. Half the lamps weren’t even lit.
Twelve. Fourteen. This was it. She grappled with the handle, hoping it wasn’t locked. It swung open easily.
The first thing she noticed was that it was quite small. The second thing she noticed was that, compared to the hallway, it was quite bright. The third thing she noticed was that there was a girl with a very minimalist attitude towards clothing reclining on the narrow bed.
Rue dropped her bags. They made a series of thumping sounds as they hit the floor.
‘Oh,’ said the girl. ‘You must be a new one.’
‘I’m sorry, I’ve the wrong room.’
‘No, I don’t think so. It’s been empty for ages, and it’s the smallest one, so no one wanted it.’
Rue tried not to stare. The girl was wearing a dress made of very thin material, so thin that it looked like she wore nothing at all. It clung to every cave and corner of her flesh and stopped short of her knees. Her hair was very fair and frizzy, so that it stuck out in wispy waves from her head, and she was knobbly slim.
‘You’re quite pretty, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Allow me to enquire after your family name.’
And she was aristocratic. Only aristocrats spoke like that.
‘It’s Vela. My familiar’s Rue. What’s yours?’
The girl broke into a short stream of giggles. ‘Oh my,’ she said. ‘You’re from the country, aren’t you? I wasn’t sure at first but your dress, and that accent. Oh my.’
Rue stared at her in irritation. ‘Why are you in this room, then, if it’s not yours?’
‘It’s quieter in here. I come to read.’ She did have her hand on a book.
‘Why do you read with hardly no clothes on?’
The girl giggled again. It was starting to grate. ‘Well, what do you wear to bed? Woollen pyjamas?’
They watched each other. The girl broke first. Rue felt triumphant.
‘You don’t look Talented, but I suppose that’s a good thing.’
‘You don’t look Talented either,’ said Rue.
‘No one does, that’s the point. Did you really just get here?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll have History with us tomorrow, then. You’ve missed half the autumn term already. That will be a lot of catching up.’
Rue shifted on her feet, aching for the girl to leave. ‘I shall cope, I’m sure.’
‘Can you hook yet?’
‘What?’ said Rue, annoyed.
‘Hook, you know? I can. But I suppose I have an advantage, my brother is Talented as well. He taught me some of it last winter, when we finally found out I had been accepted here. I cannot wait to Jump for the first time, though.’
Rue listened to this with resentful curiosity, trying to comb out anything useful she could from the babble. The girl must have noticed her strained expression, because she smiled.
‘You don’t know what the Talent is, do you? Well, why would you. I only know because of my brother. I’m surprised you weren’t told on the way here, though. A recruiter picked you up, didn’t they?’
Rue shrugged.
The girl slid off the bed, clutching her book. The thin nightgown ruffled briefly upwards to the tops of her thighs.
‘My family name is Pralette. My familiar is Lea, though. Only Mussyer White insists on calling me Zelle Pralette, as if he still lives in the last century, so please don’t call me that.’
‘All right,’ said Rue, warming to the constant chatter, despite herself. It was better than no talk at all, and listening was easy enough.
‘You should come for breakfast at eight. It’s in the dining room. You’re too late for supper but you can go to the kitchen and eat anything you like. You wouldn’t be able to do that in other university houses but we’re treated quite well here. They’re a bit afraid of us, I think. Sometimes I like that, but other times it’s a bit annoying. And it makes me feel sad.’
Rue didn’t quite know what to say to that. For the first time in her life, she began to understand what it might be like to talk to someone insistent on being truthfully blunt at every opportune moment.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Where’s the dining room, then?’
‘It’s just down the corridor, but don’t worry, I shall knock on your door and take you with me in the morning. All these doors look alike. And then I shall take you to class.
Mouse hasn’t told me I should but she won’t worry herself about it, I am sure.’
Rue was delighted. ‘You mean Zelle Penafers? She does look like a mouse!’
‘She’s useless,’ said Lea airily. ‘I shouldn’t think on her at all. She’s not afraid of us, she just thinks we’re all pointless. I shall complain to my father about her, I think. He’s on the university board, you know. Some people think that’s why I got a place here, but I’ve been showing Talented signs since I was little, so.’
Rue had time to wonder at the oddness of someone who said she wanted peace and quiet to read, but created so much noise instead, as Lea stepped delicately over her discarded bags and whipped out of the open door.
‘I shall collect you in the morning,’ she sang as she walked off.
Rue watched her go, then hauled her bags inwards and closed the door.
The room wasn’t bad, all things considered. It had a mismatched look which might have perturbed some people, but that Rue liked; the furniture was solid and there was a decent-sized grate. She wondered where the bathroom was and how many people she was sharing it with. Then she sat on the bed, and thought about her situation.
It was an odd one, there was no denying it. She was far from everything she had ever been sure about in her life, far from the faces she knew and the sights she’d seen a thousand times. She was in a room, in a house, in a place, in a city. The city, in fact, Capital, a place she’d only heard of and as a child decided was populated with giants and fairies, so unreal had it seemed to her. She was here because she might be able to do something only five other people her age could do. Five other people they’d been able to find, at least. Frith had told her that there were only six new Talented students that year, including herself, which was quite a low figure. Sometimes it could be as much as twenty.
And she still didn’t know what the Talent was. All she could think about it was that it seemed to be to do with the way she dreamed, the way she thought, and the way she saw the world. It didn’t seem like much of a skill, more an accident, but she supposed the skill was what she was here to learn. And then what? Would she be put to work? Being Talented seemed to be a very valuable asset. What could she do with it?