by Laure Eve
‘What’s wrong with you, anyway?’ came Lea’s voice, irritable. ‘You’re practically lolling on me.’
And I’m not hanging on your every word, which annoys you no end, thought Rue.
‘I’m tired,’ she said out loud. ‘Keep having these dreams.’
‘Ooh, you’ll want to write all that down. He asks you about your dreams every lesson, and gets awfully cross if you can’t remember all the details. Dreams are the key, so he says. You know that, right? I mean, I know you haven’t had a lesson with him yet but you know about the dreams, of course.’
‘Course I do,’ said Rue, irritated. She was currently struggling with an impasse concerning the Talent. She burned to know more, but couldn’t bring herself to ask Lea or any of the others about it, because then she’d look ignorant. They already thought her backward just because she was from the country. She wouldn’t prove it by asking questions that would make them laugh at her.
‘Well, you’d better remember as much as you can, then. He’ll ask you on your very first lesson, I don’t doubt.’
Rue folded her arms. ‘Well, and so, when is my first lesson?’
‘In half an hour.’
She sat upright, squalling.
‘Sorry,’ called Lea, watching Rue as she scrabbled around the room, trying to make herself look decent. ‘It’s in your lesson plan, look. I’ve got it for you here and everything.’
Twenty-seven minutes later, Rue was walking as fast as she could along a corridor, glancing every few seconds at the map Lea had given her and looking desperately around for the right door. The building that Mussyer White taught from was hidden away at the back of several others. You could only find it by twisting and turning through a series of obscure rooms and then walking across a small, forlorn courtyard with cracked paving stones to another set of rooms and endless, endless corridors.
Eventually, she came across a black painted door with a small, neat plaque fixed about eye level.
Talent theory and practice
That was all it said.
She raised her hand, hesitated; knocked. No time for shyness, she was already nearly late. She listened for a moment, but heard nothing from inside. She opened the door a crack.
‘Come,’ said a voice from beyond the gap.
Rue slipped in through the doorway and stood, trying to make sense of the room. It was freezing in here, and far too dark. Why weren’t the lamps lit?
She looked about for Mussyer White, but couldn’t see him. She couldn’t even make out the place to any degree, although there were vague bulky furniture shapes a good distance off. This part of the room nearest the door was bare and cavernous. It was a ground-floor room, which meant its floors were stone instead of wood, like the rooms in Red House.
‘Come to the table,’ said the voice.
It was a hard voice, and suited the room. Well, he was probably old and cold and dusty, wasn’t he? That would be about right, considering the other tutors she had met so far.
She looked about, hoping that the table he meant was where the only source of light was positioned. She could see an enormous lamp, even from here, which gave out a strong but oddly dark colour, throwing everything into shadow and strange shapes.
Rue started to walk, feeling her anxiety grow. Instantly she disliked this White, for she understood his first trick; to make visitors walk to him across a bare and barren floor, with bad lighting and a dim, forbidding appearance, increasing their nervousness and fear of him. She had reacted the exact way he had wanted her to, and she did not like to be manipulated.
He was hunched over the end of the table farthest away from the lamp, a vague figure with his head lowered, appearing to look over papers strewn in front of him. The shadows his body cast against the wall behind gave him an insectile shape.
‘Name, please?’ he said, turning over a paper.
‘Vela Rue,’ said Rue. Was he even going to look at her?
‘Ah. Yes. The one Frith found himself.’
Rue was silent.
‘What you will understand from the commencement of our lessons,’ he said in his strange, jangling voice, ‘is that I do not appreciate time-wasting nor laziness. Whilst a student under my supervision you will work as hard as is possible for you to do. You are here to learn from me and I am here to examine you for latent Talent that I am informed you possess. If you do have such of worth to offer, we will see how far I can coax it from you. Do you comprehend my terms? A simple ‘yes, syer’ will suffice.’
During this speech, the man at the table had not once looked up. Rue felt her cheeks flush with the slow build of anger and embarrassment.
‘You’ve certainly an odd way of talking,’ she said.
White finally turned his face and gave Rue the full beam of his gaze.
Gods. He was so young. He looked as if he could pass for a student himself. No one had so much as mentioned that to her. Was it a mistake? Had she got the wrong room?
‘But you’re just a boy,’ she blurted. ‘Are you … are you supposed to be my tutor?’
He continued to stare at her, unreadable.
‘You possess neither maturity nor manners. This is a good beginning,’ he said at last, his voice drier than bone dust. ‘Sit.’
She took the chair beside him, flouncing as much as she dared. He had bent over his papers once more and she studied his profile, determined not to be cowed. His face seemed chiselled from stone, his nose long and his skin smooth and luminously pale. He could not possibly be any more than nineteen or twenty. His hair was very dark, thin, and draped freely over his shoulders, a lacquered fall of silk.
Rue waited, watching him read. After a moment that lasted too long, he shifted and leaned back. It was strange the way he moved, as if his bones were built differently to hers. His eyes were black in the dim light. He was … exotic. Unlike any other boy or man she’d seen before.
‘Vela Rue,’ White stated. ‘Vela to denote your approach to adulthood, Rue your birth name. Rue a country name by origin, meant to symbolise a relationship with nature. But Rue being the common plant name, not its proper form. Perhaps to denote humility.’
Rue couldn’t possibly see where such an odd series of statements was going. She opened her mouth as if to interrupt, but White was staring off into the middle distance, as if talking to himself.
‘I wonder,’ he continued in his stilted manner, ‘about origins. About how much they can affect a person. Whether a mind that has not been expanded from an early age by vigilant learning could ever hope to absorb the teachings it must to grow. The problem with Talent is that it is an art, a beauty, and a science all in one.’
You strange, rude little snob, thought Rue. I bet no one ever puts you in your place.
‘I can’t follow your talk at all,’ she said. ‘You speak like you’re reading something out loud and your words don’t fit together properly, and you’ve a horrible accent. If you put such faith in learning, how about getting on with some?’
White was icily silent. After a long, long moment, he stirred.
‘Our lesson ends for today,’ was all he said.
Rue waited.
White had moved back to his papers.
Rue waited.
‘Perhaps you misunderstood,’ said White eventually, still reading. His hand came out, and for one moment Rue thought he meant to hit her. His fingers flicked upwards.
‘Get out.’
Rue stood, stumbled, turned and walked.
‘Grad take him!’ Rue spat. ‘He’s nothing but a stuck-up lump of brown ice!’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Frith smoothly.
They were sat together in the common room of Red House. Rue hadn’t seen Frith since the day he had dropped her off at the front door, but he had called in unexpectedly that evening for tea. Lea was nowhere to be seen and the boys had gone to play some dull aristocratic sports game or other with carved sticks.
She was glad to see Frith. It took her away from stewing about her encounter wi
th White by herself, which was never as satisfying as doing it with someone else.
‘He’s just a baby! He’s my age! I mean to say that it’s rich the way he talks, as if he were forty years older than you and knows everything there is to know about everything!’
‘He is slightly older than you, in fact,’ said Frith. ‘But I take your point.’
‘What’s a boy his age doing being a teacher anyway? That’s just about the most ridiculous thing I ever saw. I could teach, if we’re talking about having kiddies being teachers now. I could teach about a lot of things.’
‘I’m sure you could.’
‘He’s rude. And he can’t even speak properly! He has this horrible accent and he says his words all mixed up!’
‘You didn’t happen to mention that charming sliver of thought out loud, in front of him, did you?’
‘So if I did.’
‘Rue. Please think for a moment about the way your accent is received in the city. Your rather hit and miss grammar and the words you use that no one here has ever heard of.’
‘And so? I’m not changing one slice for anyone,’ snapped Rue.
‘I’m glad to hear it. But think of what people say about you, based solely on what they hear when you open your mouth?’
Rue sighed loudly. She’d already seen where this was going. ‘That I’m rude and ignorant.’
‘And we know this to be both unfair and untrue,’ said Frith. Rue watched him. If anyone else had said that, she would have slapped them for laughing at her. But Frith never looked like he was lying.
‘So, think,’ he continued, ‘Mussyer White’s mode of speaking makes you perceive him as odd and cold. But he can’t help the way he speaks, any more than you can help the way you speak.’
Rue was irritated by this sensible reasoning and tried to ignore it.
‘But why does he speak like that?’
‘He had to learn our language. Some people are easy with adoption, others are not.’
Rue felt a grudging stir of interest.
‘Where’s he from?’ she said.
‘He’s from URCI.’
‘From where?’
Frith looked at her for a moment, tapping his chin with a finger.
‘It’s a country in World. What do you know of what lies outside Angle Tar?’
Rue shrugged, stalling. She hated appearing stupid, and she knew that he didn’t ask her to make her look so. But still.
‘Not much,’ she said at last. ‘They used to tell us at school that a lot of it was just wastelands, and they were all a bit backwards in other countries.’
‘It’s not quite like that,’ said Frith. ‘Their way of life is simply very different to ours.’
‘Our history teacher’s said some things.’
‘Such as.’
‘He said that everything I’d learned was wrong. That Angle Tar is some small country that no one cares about.’
‘It’s not quite like that, either. But you must understand, Rue, that you will never get the truth as you want it about this. Everyone has their own idea of the world and how they want to see it. Your history teacher tells you how he sees it. I tell you how I see it. Both are true. You will decide how you see it. Facts can be wrong, and one person’s opinion influences everything.’
‘That’s complicated and annoying.’
‘Such is life. So. Tell me what you think of the world as you have seen it so far.’
‘In my dreams?’
‘If you wish.’
‘Grey … and waiting, like the skeleton of a place instead of a real place. And people fall down. Something attacks them all together and they all fall down.’
‘What?’
Rue stopped, feeling suddenly foolish and a little scared.
‘Please, go on,’ said Frith, seeming only interested.
‘They … They have something I don’t, and when they get attacked they fall. I don’t fall. I watch them fall around me. And there’s nothing there. Everything is grey. I feel like they’re there with me but somewhere else at the same time, as if they can see things that I can’t.’
‘Yes … that’s quite accurate,’ said Frith after a pause. ‘How interesting that you see it that way. You’ll learn about that place, and others too, soon enough.’
Rue shifted nervously.
Frith smiled. ‘You’d best just ask me,’ he said. ‘Never be afraid of asking questions, even if you don’t get your answer straight away.’
Rue played with a fingernail.
‘Why do they tell everyone there’s nothing much outside, then?’ she said at last. ‘If there is?’
It’s not nice to be lied to, was what she wanted to say out loud with a cold edge to her voice; but she didn’t dare, not to Frith.
‘Have you learned about the Territorial Wars in your history classes yet?’
‘No. I mean, I think we talked about them one time when I was younger, but I stopped school young, see. Because of the prenticeship.’
Frith spread a hand. ‘When you learn of the Wars, you’ll understand why.’
‘I spose it’s why it’s illegal to travel outside Angle Tar, and all. I always got told that it’s because it’s really dangerous.’
‘It is,’ said Frith. ‘The world is a dangerous place. And the beauty of you, and the others like you, is that you’ll never have to leave Angle Tar to see it. You can make your mind travel thousands of miles from the safety of your own room. You can dream.’
Rue digested this.
But it was all so vague. Her dreams felt real when she had them. But were they? Was she living two lives instead of one? What did her dreams mean? Her Talent? What about those beautiful creature humans, with silver antlers and rainbow-coloured fur and neat, perfect bodies? She burned to know. She burned for secrets.
‘So,’ said Frith. ‘As Mussyer White possesses likely the most knowledge on the Talent of anyone in Angle Tar, and his first impression of you was not, shall we agree, the best, try to consider this for your next lesson: he holds the keys to your potential. You cannot afford to lose him as a tutor if you wish to be all that you could be. Powerful, and special. Be a little more polite.’
‘I’m already special,’ she said boldly, then flushed at it.
‘Yes, you are, my dear. But not powerful. Not yet.’
Rue smiled.
CHAPTER 18
ANGLE TAR
White
White couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so apoplectic with rage. And all over a girl he didn’t even know.
He was not an emotional being, displaying his insides for everyone to see and judge – he preferred to keep his secrets. He tolerated the behaviour his demeanour and his youth caused from other university staff because he knew, according to the standard social expectations here, that he deserved them.
When Frith had asked him to become a tutor, it had been his golden ticket. He could stay. More than that, his stay had been made more official. And more than that, he had been given a purpose. A direction.
It hadn’t been without some uproar. He was to be the first ever foreigner to teach at Capital University. Not only that, but some of the more creakingly old staff had protested at how young he was. It was a farce, they said. There had been a petition. Nasty things said, but only over brandy and cigarettes in the head tutors’ studies. Nothing overt. Petty things said under petty breaths and all with a veneer of politeness. That was how things were done here.
Frith had handled it. It was to be expected, but not worried over, he said. And he had been right. White still wasn’t sure exactly what Frith did, but whatever it was, it carried weight. The petition had gone away. The grumblings had stopped.
And White had hidden himself, curling his life up into a ball, pulling his radiance inwards, building cold and careful walls so that no one could notice him or find fault. He could eat in his rooms instead of having to go to the tutors’ canteen, and he could turn down the mandatory invitations to the social balls and the
dances and the whiskie and card nights. He went only to those he couldn’t possibly get out of, and then only because when Frith asked him if he was going and he said no, he would do anything to avoid that raised brow that his answer got him. It didn’t do to displease Frith. The man with the power, who could take all of this away from him in an instant.
They had had an uneasy relationship, to begin with. But over time it had grown into something of White being his subordinate, his charge and responsibility; and just maybe even something of his friend. He would visit White in the evenings, sometimes, ostensibly to hear him report on the progress of his students, but often just to drink, and to talk. He was the only person White spent any kind of time with, and only because at first he felt that he couldn’t possibly refuse Frith’s visits. And then because it was tiring, deliberately being lonely all the time. Sometimes it was good to have someone, anyone to talk to.
He had made his peace with his life here. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a life. It was fine. Everything had been fine, until that girl had walked in his door.
It had only taken her minutes, but she had done what he’d sworn no one would do again; make him show the world how vulnerable he really was, inspiring in him an emotion so profound, he had trouble stopping himself from visibly trembling when he thought about her.
That little country nothing.
She was supposed to have behaved as expected – raw, young, nervous. She was not an aristocrat – they were born knowing they were better than everyone else, and acted accordingly, Lufe being a case in point. Rural students were always timid and overwhelmed. Not this one. So she was Talented and therefore naturally a bit wild, but even taking that into account, he had expected a measure of respect.
When she had walked into the room, he felt that he had been right. She moved uncertainly, looking suitably awed, and there had certainly been nothing that struck him as out of the ordinary. True, there was something in her face that was immediately pretty and quite sweet, but all in all she was a country girl in over her head.
But when she opened her mouth; the bored, lazy insolence in her tone had shocked him, so much so that he hadn’t reacted. When she looked at him, her eyes barely concealed a whole year’s worth of contempt. For someone she didn’t even know. He ran silently through all the cutting remarks he should have made, just to watch her face change.