If she stayed in Belisaere, she was sure it would kill her. One way or another.
chapter sixteen
the governor’s dinner
It was growing dark by the time they tore Jaciel away from the Dropstone work and returned to the palanquins. A light rain had begun to fall by then. It was not much more than a mist, but it made the evening unpleasantly clammy. Yet even this did not weigh on Jaciel’s mood. She was happy, possibly as happy as Clariel had ever seen her, and certainly the most visibly happy she had been with her daughter for a very long time. This was entirely due to the rosewood box she had just shut back in the Palace, which contained the Dropstone salt cellar in the shape of a ship, to be transported to her workshop the next day. There Jaciel’s apprentices would draw it from every angle, and she would study it till she discovered all the secrets of its making.
‘You will ride with me,’ Jaciel told Clariel as Gullaine bowed farewell at the end of the bridge. ‘Harven, you take the other palanquin. Valannie, you may walk with the guards.’
‘Yes, dear
,’ said Harven.
‘But I need to repaint Lady Clariel’s face, milady!’ protested Valannie. Probably because she didn’t want to walk or get damp, Clariel thought.
Jaciel looked at her daughter, and Clariel felt as if her mother was actually seeing her for the first time in years. There were faint beads of mist on Clariel’s scarf and a lock of hair had escaped it on the front. Jaciel carefully tucked the errant hair back under the scarf, a maternal gesture Clariel had not experienced since she was a little girl. It made her feel quite odd now, because she knew it stemmed from her mother’s love of her art, her excitement for the work that lay ahead, and not from a pure love of Clariel herself.
‘I think Clariel looks fine as she is, thank you, Valannie. You did a very good job earlier.’
‘Yes, milady,’ said Valannie mulishly. Jaciel ignored her, climbing into the palanquin and settling in among the cushions. Clariel followed more slowly. She wasn’t keen on the dinner ahead, and she was particularly not keen on sharing the enclosed space of the palanquin with her mother.
‘You did very well today,’ said Jaciel as the palanquin was lifted and the bearers began their whispered chant. ‘I had not thought there was any possibility that the King would let the salt cellar leave the Palace, even temporarily. He must have liked you.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Clariel honestly. ‘We kind of … had an argument.’
‘He must have liked you despite that,’ said Jaciel. ‘Captain Gullaine tells me that he may be open to a regency. That you might be regent, Clariel. Guided and aided by the appropriate people of course, a regency council. Your father would be good on that.’
‘And Governor Kilp, I suppose,’ said Clariel bitterly, seeing a new web being woven around her. She’d thought Gullaine at least something of a friend before this visit.
‘No … we won’t need Kilp now,’ mused Jaciel. ‘I thought I might need his assistance to even get a look at the Dropstone salt cellar … but if you are regent, then there will be no problem with getting at the other works. I know there are more in the Palace, unattributed, of course. A full inventory will be required.’
‘I don’t want to be regent, Mother!’ protested Clariel.
‘Don’t be silly!’ snorted Jaciel. ‘It is a wonderful opportunity, far better than anything else we could arrange.’
‘Really?’ asked Clariel. ‘If I took it, I’d probably be dead in a week, and you and Father too. Do you think Kilp is going to stand by and let someone else take the power he’s been aiming for?’
‘Bah, Kilp! He’s simply the Governor of the city, and I’m sure he’s happy with that,’ said Jaciel. She wasn’t looking at her daughter now. Her eyes were out of focus, dreaming of some unseen, distant object, almost certainly the Dropstone salt cellar or the imagining of a work of her own that would surpass the ancient master. ‘You make too much of this, as always, Clariel.’
‘No I don’t,’ said Clariel calmly. ‘You are immersed in your work, Mother. You have no idea what is going on in the city. I admit that I don’t know enough either, but I do know that I don’t want to be part of the politics and the plotting. I’m going to go back to Estwael. I’m going to live in the Great Forest as a hunter.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ snapped Jaciel. ‘We’ve been over this before. No! Not another word on the subject. I am grateful to you for procuring the salt cellar, but do not imagine this gives you licence to behave like a spoiled five year old!’
Clariel opened her mouth, her lips almost curving into a snarl, but she managed to shut it again. Anger boiled up inside her, the rage threatening to take hold. Clariel forced it back by will alone, starting the breathing exercises she’d learned from The Fury Within. There was no point in continuing to talk, Clariel thought. She would simply go to Magister Kargrin’s tomorrow, take the money, allow him to disguise her with Charter Magic, and flee.
The whispered chant of the bearers provided a backing rhythm to her breathing exercises. Her breath came slowly in and went slowly out, as she imagined the calm place the book told her was of central importance in restraining the fury. She pictured her favourite glade in the Forest, where two clear, cold creeks met, and two ancient willows curved overhead to make an arch. She had often lain there on her belly, tickling the trout under the red stone ledge … There she was, the dappled sunshine on her back, her arm in the water up to her elbow, still as a stone herself, the fish brushing her fingers …
It only occurred to her much later that Jaciel was probably doing the same thing, and her mother’s calm place lay in her work. There they were, two people who were so much the same, retreating into their inner worlds, one of the Forest, one of gold. Both steadying their breathing, slowing mind and body as they restrained the fury that was their birthright.
Kilp lived in the Governor’s House, a vast mansion of six levels that with its broad outer courtyard took up all the space between the Western High Aqueduct and Carmine Street. It was typically built of white stone and red tiles, but unlike other houses in Belisaere it boasted a fifteen-foot-high curtain wall around its grounds, and the house itself had a tower on each corner, topped with cupolas of greenish bronze.
The courtyard was full of a great number of guards, from many different guilds. There were scores of them, sitting, standing, wandering around, eating, drinking, talking … all clearly waiting for something, their halberds, spears, bows, helmets and other weapons and paraphernalia of war stacked in neat piles around the courtyard, under guild flags that had been thrust into barrels of sand.
‘Why are all these guards here?’ Clariel asked one of their own, as she was helped down out of the palanquin.
‘There’s rioters gathering in the Flat, milady,’ said the guard. ‘Troublemakers going to march on the Governor, so they say. Don’t expect they’ll hang about when they see us waiting for ’em.’
‘Why are they rioting?’ asked Clariel.
‘Couldn’t say, milady,’ replied the guard, his face wooden. Before she could ask more, he’d stepped back and joined a file waiting to escort them to the house proper.
‘Come along,’ said Jaciel. ‘Harven!’
Harven ran up to Jaciel’s side and took her arm, and they swept on up to the broad front steps of the house, Clariel following along behind. The flickering light of oil lanterns lit their way, with no Charter Magic illumination to be seen, not even the soft sheen of the old marks that must have been in the stone of the steps and the railings, and so must have been chipped away or painted over.
The rain began to fall more heavily as they reached the front door, which stood open, Goldsmith guards standing on either side. A servant, dressed entirely in cloth of gold, bowed low as they stepped through to the entrance hall. This again was lit only by lanterns, and crowded with yet more guards, mostly officers of the various Guild Companies, in fancier clothes and armour, many sporting expensive decorations on the hilts and scabbards of their swords.
The cloth-of-gold-clad servant, some kind of major-domo, coughed gently to get their attention and said, ‘Welcome, Lady Jaciel, Master Harven, Lady Clariel. The Governor wishes to apologise for the unusual circumstances in the house. Please follow me to the Governor’s study.’
The major-domo led them through the crowd of officers, some pausing their conversations to bow or salute, though many of them hardly noticed the new arrivals. There was an air of excitement among them all, the kind of energy Clariel had often seen before a hunt, the expectation of adventures to come. Here she found it distasteful, the powerful and rich about to descend upon the weak and defenceless, as if a full array of Borderers were about to attack a rabbit hutch. All these sleek soldiers, and the massed ranks outside, up against the kind of folk who’d thrown the scrunched-up papers at the Palace gates … it had all the trappings of a nightmare, a nightmare bounded by the city walls.
‘This way,’ said the major-domo, opening a small door in the corner, revealing a narrow, winding stair. He took a lantern from its hook above the
door and started to climb, his shadow flickering behind him across the steps. ‘This is the Governor’s private stair.’
The door at the top of the steps was open, a bright rectangle lit by many candles within. Kilp himself stood there. He was wearing armour, a coat of gilded mail with no surcoat over it, and his sword with the swan-wings hilt was at his side.
‘Well met, well met! Come on up! I’m sorry we shall not have too much time to dine, as no doubt you saw there is serious business afoot tonight. But the Governor’s office is ever busy.’
He stood aside as they entered a surprisingly large room, the narrow stair being truly a private entrance, as there were large double doors at the other end. The place was lit by candlelight rather than Charter Magic, two huge chandeliers of golden filigree hanging from the timbers of the vaulted ceiling, each carrying a hundred candles. Beneath them was a table of deeply polished walnut, set for six, with a great array of gold and silver cutlery, gold goblets and silver-rimmed glasses, and a massive salt cellar fashioned in the shape of Belisaere itself, or an abstraction of it, a thing of aqueducts and walls with a few key landmarks like the Palace, all of it shining gold and silver and massive gemstones. It was quite remarkably ugly and the weight of metal alone would make it worth a fortune.
Aronzo came in through the main doors as Clariel stepped in from the small, private way. He also was armoured, in blackened mail, and he wore a dark gold surcoat over it, a sword and long dagger on his belt. He smiled, his blue eyes bright in the candlelight.
‘Lady Jaciel and family. Good evening.’
Clariel returned his bow, a second slower than her parents. She was thinking about Kilp and Aronzo armed and armoured, and her empty sleeve and generally weaponless state. But surely there could be no real danger … not when they had arrived so openly, and Jaciel an important figure in the Guild … If there was danger, it would not be a danger that could be met by a dagger from her sleeve or boot.