‘What?’ asked Clariel.
‘You are a brave and sensible young woman!’ declared Kargrin. ‘Now, we must focus your mind on Charter Magic, for there is no small danger in the task ahead, and you are currently ill-prepared. I believe we have another two hours of your time today, do we not?’
‘We do,’ sighed Clariel. ‘But …’
‘No buts!’ cried Kargrin. ‘Do not fret. It is simple stuff we will do, the very foundation work you have neglected!’
The prospect of studying Charter Magic for two hours was not something Clariel relished. But despite that she felt a fizzing excitement, for at last she had a plan of escape that was more than just a daydream. She could see a path forward now, out from behind the walls that loomed so high above her, back to the quiet, green world of the Great Forest.
All she had to do first was be the bait in a trap for a Free Magic creature …
chapter nine
old secrets, new plans
That night, Jaciel came to dinner, surprising not only Clariel but also her father. They had already sat down, and the score or so younger apprentices and forgehands at the lower table were drawing in their benches when Jaciel appeared with two of the senior apprentices following subserviently, as if they were holding an invisible train on her dress. This appearance required everyone to stand up again, and the apprentice who had been just about to place the gravy boat in front of Harven spilled it, sending a flood of thick, spiced sauce across the high table.
‘Be seated,’ said Jaciel. She had been working when Clariel had returned from her magic lesson, smoke billowing from the workshop, but had washed and changed since then. Now she was wearing another multilayered dress of gold and white, this one trimmed with tiny, paper-thin gold coins at the sleeve and neck. ‘Sillen, don’t stand there gaping, scrape the gravy back in the boat and return it to the kitchen. Cook will give you a fresh service. You – Kellil – come up here and help her.’
‘Hello, Mother,’ said Clariel. Before she had agreed to help Magister Kargrin she had thought to ask her mother about why she had left her family, in the hope of finding some common ground. But now she had a definite way out on her own, she considered it best to stay quiet. Similarly, she had also decided not to talk about any plan for her to marry Aronzo, mostly out of fear that there really was a plan, and that by bringing it up she would make it more real, make it more than Kargrin’s suspicion. A polite exchange of greetings, followed by silence, seemed the best policy, as it had been so often in the past.
‘Clariel,’ replied Jaciel, taking the high seat, which here in their new house was almost a throne, a great thing of gilded wood, set with semi-precious stones: garnets and amethysts and chrysolite. Back in Estwael, she had been content with a high-backed chair. ‘Harven.’
‘Hello, my dear,’ said Harven. ‘I trust your work goes well?’
‘Well enough,’ said Jaciel, leaning back so yet another apprentice on table duty could fasten a napkin around her neck, the snowy linen suspended from a cord of twisted gold. ‘I will speak to you later about the latest delivery of the blue natron, which is not of the first quality. Clariel, you went today to the Academy, and then to Magister Kargrin, did you not?’
‘Yes, Mother,’ said Clariel.
Jaciel stabbed a long spear of poached asparagus with her silver fork, one she had made herself, as she had made all the cutlery on the high table.
‘And?’ she asked, turning to look at her daughter as she bit off the top of the asparagus and flicked the woody stem back on her plate.
‘I … attended, as I have been asked to do,’ said Clariel.
‘You met other young people,’ said Jaciel. ‘Including Aronzo, our Guildmaster’s son?’
‘Yes,’ said Clariel, her mouth tightening. It was typical that having decided not to bring up the subject herself, her mother unerringly did so for her, as if she could sense her daughter’s caution.
‘Good,’ said Jaciel. ‘I wished you to meet him. You and he are of a similar age. I believe he is a useful journeyman in his father’s workshop and will soon be admitted as a goldsmith in his own right.’
‘Will he?’ snorted Clariel. ‘I doubt he works very hard at it.’
‘Do not judge others by your lack of application,’ said Jaciel. ‘Have you found a present for the King?’
‘Not yet,’ said Clariel. She could feel herself growing angry again. It was somehow closer to her now, after her berserk fury earlier that day, and she had to try harder to keep it in check. ‘I hope I will have something tomorrow. Even though I know it’s just an excuse to get you in the Palace to look at that Dripstone work or whatever it is.’
‘Dropstone work,’ said Jaciel coldly. ‘It is very important that I see it, and given the King’s attitude, your presentation for the kin-gift was the only way to do so. You should be pleased to be able to help me towards what I intend will be a truly great creation of my art.’
‘That’s all you care about it, isn’t it?’ snapped Clariel, rising to her feet and throwing down her knife and fork so they clashed on her plate, a meeting of arms like a harbinger of battle. ‘Your art! You can’t even see that other people have things they care about just as much, but you won’t help them!’
‘Clarrie …’ warned her father, raising one ineffectual hand.
‘I suggest you retire,’ said Jaciel, apparently unperturbed by her daughter’s outburst. ‘I am making allowances for you, Clariel. I know that our removal here has disturbed you, but please do understand that I … that we … simply know far better how to arrange your future. You will be grateful, in time.’
‘How can you say that?’ asked Clariel, her cheeks white with suppressed anger. ‘You ran away from your home to do what you needed to do! How can you not understand that I want something different from you too!’
Jaciel’s eyes had half closed as Clariel spoke, hooded as if she was momentarily lost in thought. She opened them wide and stared at her daughter, a powerful, disturbing stare.
‘I did not run away from my home to become a goldsmith,’ she said very quietly, so that despite craned necks and obvious attention the lower table could not hear. ‘I was already apprenticed, and would have stayed at Hillfair. Many Abhorsens have been metalworkers, particularly bell-founders, of course. I left because … because …’
‘You do not need to speak of it,’ said Harven, covering her hand with his own. For once, he was not looking at his shoes.
‘It is enough to say that things happened there that were misunderstood …’
‘No,’ said Jaciel softly. ‘You should know, for it may help you understand that your own problems are petty ones. And you may meet your grandfather and aunt soon. They may wish it so, even though we do not, and will not ever, speak.’
She paused and looked down at the lower table, where everyone suddenly turned away and started eating again with faked enthusiasm.
‘Go,’ said Jaciel, only a little louder than she had been speaking before, but her words carried through the hall like a trumpet. ‘Take your plates to the courtyard. All of you. Go!’
There was a moment when no one moved, followed by a sudden clatter and bustle as everyone moved at once, eager not to be the last one to leave the room. Several apprentices crashed together in the door and fought to get out, doubtless inflicting minor injuries with the deliberately blunted knives and three-tined forks that were all they were allowed, given their propensity for using them on one another.
When they were gone, the hall strangely quiet, Jaciel continued as if there had been no interruption.
‘I will tell you this once, and once only. I left Hillfair because my father believed that I had killed my brother.’
Clariel heard the words, but it was as if she couldn’t understand them, that they were some strange language that might as well be grunts and coughs. Surely she had misheard? She opened her mouth to say so, say that she didn’t understand, but her mother was talking again, not looking at her, but staring into the air as if it were a window to a time long past and, as much as possible, forgotten.
‘Teriel was the youngest of the three of us. I am eldest, then Yannael, who is Abhorsen-in-Waiting now, then Teriel. Back then it was Teriel who was the greater Charter Mage, the only one of us who wished to become the Abhorsen, the one who delved in those arts …’
She paused for a moment, her eyes unfocused, seeing who knew what.