The wild … that was where she should be, Clariel thought. Not imprisoned here behind a great maze of walls, roped in by the vast net of streets, caught up in the thrashings of the multitudes of people likewise trapped –
‘It’s not like your old school,’ her father said, interrupting Clariel’s thoughts. ‘It is a new thing, that they call a polishing … no, I mean finishing … a finishing school. And it’s not for children as such … it’s for the young men and women of the senior Guildmembers. You’ll meet the best people in the city and learn how to mix with them.’
‘I don’t want to meet the “best people” in the city!’ protested Clariel. ‘I don’t particularly want to meet anyone. I’m quite happy by myself. Or at least, I was, back home. Besides, who is going to help you?’
Clariel had assisted her father for several days each week for a long time, working on all the aspects of being a goldsmith that Jaciel ignored, which included money-changing, some minor loans and financial dealings, and the administration of the workshop, particularly the detailed accounts of the raw materials bought, how they were used, what they were made into and how much profit they returned when sold. She had liked doing this, mostly because she was left alone, and it had been quiet and peaceful in Harven’s old study, a high tower room with tall windows that gave a wonderful view of the forested hills that surrounded Estwael. It also only took her a dozen hours a week, leaving her plenty of time to wander in the green world beyond the town.
‘The Guild is sending me a senior apprentice,’ said Harven. ‘One who is suited for the … less … ah … someone with the …’
‘With an eye for numbers and good penmanship?’ suggested Clariel. She knew that her father felt diminished by his lack of talent in the actual craft of goldsmithing, though he tried to hide it. He had not made anything himself for years, probably because he could not come even close to his wife’s genius, though he always lamented how the business took up all of his time, leaving nothing for the craft.
‘Yes,’ said Harven. ‘Though I expect I will still need your help, Clarrie, only not as much.’
‘Or at all, from the sound of it,’ said Clariel. ‘How much time do I have to spend at this school?’
‘Three days a week, until the Autumn Festival,’ said Harven. ‘And it’s only mornings, from the ninth hour until noon.’
‘I suppose I can survive that,’ said Clariel. It was already several weeks past midsummer, though the days were still long and the nights warm. ‘But what happens after the Autumn Festival? Can I go home then?’
Harven looked down at the sharp-pointed, gilded toes of his red leather shoes, fine footwear for the consort of the city’s newest and probably most talented High Goldsmith. Along with the smile, looking at his shoes was a well-known telltale. He had a habit of shoe-gazing when he was about to lie to his daughter, or wanted to avoid directly answering a question.
‘Let us see what paths appear,’ he mumbled.
Clariel looked away from him, up at a lone silver gull flying towards Fish Harbour, going to join the flocks that endlessly circled and bickered there, mirroring the people below.
She knew what her father wasn’t saying. Her parents were hoping she would find someone who wanted to marry her, or more likely, wanted to marry into the family of Jaciel High Goldsmith. An apprentice from a Guild family, or one of these ‘best people’ from the school. This would solve the problem of a daughter who didn’t want to be a goldsmith herself, or take up any of the other crafts or businesses deemed suitable.
But Clariel didn’t want to marry anyone. She had once or twice – no more – wondered if she was naturally a singleton, like the russet martens who only came together for the briefest mating season and then went their own way. Or her own aunt Lemmin, for that matter, who chose to live entirely alone, though happily for Clariel could stand visitors provided they amused themselves.
They had talked about solitude and self-sufficiency once, Lemmin and her niece, soon after Clariel had first chosen to lie with a young man and had found herself quite separate from the experience, and not caring one way or another about repeating the act itself or the emotional dance that went with it.
‘Perhaps I don’t like men,’ Clariel had said to her aunt, who was pulling garlic bulbs and delighting in her crop. ‘Though I can’t say I have those feelings for women, either.’
‘You’re young,’ Lemmin had replied, sniffing a particularly grand clump of garlic. ‘It’s probably too early to tell, one way or another. The most important thing is to be true to yourself, however you feel, and not try to feel or behave differently because you think you should, or someone has told you how you must feel. But do think about it. Unexamined feelings lead to all kinds of trouble.’
Clariel examined her feelings once again, and found them unchanged. What she desperately wanted to do was get out of the city and, since the Borderers wouldn’t let her join them, purchase a hunting lodge or forester’s hut outside Estwael, to go hunting and fishing and just live in the quiet, cool, shaded world of the Forest valleys and the heather-clad hills that she loved. But that would require her parents’ permission, and money, and she had neither of these things.
At least not until she worked out how to get them …
‘There is one other matter,’ said Harven cautiously. He was gazing over the railing now himself, which was a slight improvement from staring at his shoes, though he still wouldn’t look her in the eye. ‘Well, a few other matters.’
Clariel lost sight of the seagull, who had joined the flock and been absorbed by it, all individuality gone in an instant.
‘Yes?’
‘This school … uh, the Academy … it doesn’t teach Charter Magic.’
‘And this means?’ asked Clariel, encouraging the bad news out. Her father’s smile was spreading across his face again, so obviously there was more unpleasantness to come.
‘Apparently it’s not the fashion these days, or something,’ muttered Harven. ‘The best people don’t practise Charter Magic, they hire people to do it for them, if absolutely necessary.’
‘These “best people” sound rather lazy and stupid,’ observed Clariel. ‘Do they get awfully fat from not doing anything for themselves?’
She herself was slim and, up until relatively recently, could easily pass for a boy. She still could, with a bit of preparation and the right clothes. It was quite useful, and had made it easier to follow the truffle-hunting pigs, tickle trout in the Wael River, hunt the small puzzle deer, or do any of the things that she liked but weren’t proper for a well-brought-up child of the merchant elite. She thought this potential for deception might come in handy in Belisaere as well. Particularly for leaving the city.
‘No, don’t be silly,’ said Harven. ‘In any case, your mother wants you to further your Charter Magic studies –’
‘Why?’ asked Clariel. ‘She never wanted me to before. Is it something to do with Grandfather?’
Her mother was a Charter Mage, and certainly used her magic in her goldsmithing, but she made no display of it outside her workshop. This was presumably because she was estranged from her family, the Abhorsens, and the Abhorsens were very much a living embodiment of some aspects of the Charter and tended to be powerful Charter Mages. In fact, Jaciel’s father was the current Abhorsen, but Clariel had never met him, because of a never-spoken-about rift that had occurred when Jaciel was young.
‘Possibly, possibly,’ muttered Harven, which suggested to his knowing daughter that it probably didn’t have anything to do with the Abhorsens. But he seized upon it as a possible explanation to her, adding, ‘The Abhorsen or the Abhorsen-in-Waiting do come to Belisaere upon occasion, there are ceremonies and so on, so we might well have to meet either your grandfather or your aunt –’
‘My aunt is the Abhorsen-in-Waiting?’ asked Clariel. ‘I didn’t even know mother had a sister!’
Her parents never talked about Jaciel’s family, so this was all interesting information. She hardly
knew anything about the Abhorsens really, apart from the childhood rhyme everyone learned about the Charter:
Five Great Charters knit the land
Together linked, hand in hand
One in the people who wear the crown
Two in the folk who keep the Dead down
Three and Five became stone and mortar
Four sees all in frozen water.
The Abhorsens were the ‘the folk who keep the Dead down’, which as far as Clariel knew meant they hunted down necromancers, and banished Dead spirits that had somehow returned from Death to Life. The Abhorsens could walk in Death themselves and like necromancers used Free Magic bells to command and compel the Dead, though the Abhorsens’ bells were somehow not Free Magic as such but bound to the Charter.
Not that the Abhorsens did much keeping the Dead down in the present era, as far as Clariel knew. She’d never heard of the Dead causing any trouble in her lifetime. Nor for that matter did the Clayr, the fourth of the Great Charter bloodlines, seem to see very much into the future. If they did, they kept it to themselves, just as they kept themselves remote in their glacier-sheltered fortress far to the north. Even the King, head of those ‘who wear the crown’ didn’t do much ruling any more, though Clariel had never really been interested in who ultimately was in charge of the various institutions that effectively managed the Kingdom.