Clariel

by Garth Nix

  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.

  Abhorsens, Clayr, the King: they all seemed to be relics of a bygone past, just as the ‘stone and mortar’ of the rhyme meant very little in the present day. This referred to the Wall in the south, to Clariel merely a curious landmark she’d heard about but never seen; and to the Great Charter Stones she knew only as they were depicted in a mummers’ play: big grey man-size puppets painted with gold representations of Charter marks. In Estwael they had become part of a comic turn in the Midsummer Festival, tall rocks that crashed into each other, fell over, got up again, and then repeated the whole process numerous times to gales of laughter.

  ‘Of course you knew about your mother’s sister,’ said Harven, as if they talked about Jaciel’s family all the time, instead of never. ‘Anyway, we may be seeing her or your grandfather, and then there’s the King, who is your mother’s second cousin after all, and they all are … well … you know, very big on Charter Magic.’

  ‘I thought you said the “best people” don’t do Charter Magic any more because it’s too much like hard work or they’ll get their fingers scorched black or something. Are the King and the Abhorsens not the best people?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Harven. ‘They’re more … more kind of separate, particularly these days. Out of the way. Modern times, you know, and different ways and means, things change …’

  ‘What are you talking about, Father?’ asked Clariel.

  ‘You are to have lessons in Charter Magic,’ rallied Harven, getting back to the subject at hand. ‘We have arranged for you to take afternoon lessons with a Magister Kargrin, whose house is on the hill below us. Possibly you can see it from here, I believe it is quite distinctive …’

  Clariel looked over the railing. There were hundreds of houses on the western slope of Beshill, and many more beyond, all crowded together.

  ‘Where?’ she asked.

  ‘Somewhere downhill,’ replied Harven, waving vaguely. ‘The house with the sign of the hedgepig on the street of the Cormorant … anyway, your guard will lead you there –’

  ‘My guard?’

  ‘I thought I told you about the guards already?’

  ‘No you did not,’ replied Clariel sternly. ‘What guards?’

  ‘The Guild has sent us some guards, for the house and the workshop, and also to … look after us. The family.’

  ‘Why do we need guards?’

  ‘I don’t think we need them particularly,’ said Harven, but he was looking at his shoes again. ‘It’s just something they do here. In any case, one will be guarding you. To and from the Academy, and so forth. His name is … um … well, it’s slipped my mind for a moment. He’s waiting to meet you downstairs. Also your mother wants Valannie to help you with your clothes.’

  ‘What’s wrong with my clothes?’ asked Clariel. She was wearing what she wore most ordinary days in Estwael, basically her own version of a Borderer’s uniform: a short-sleeved doeskin jerkin over a knee-length woollen robe with long sleeves dyed a pale green with an inch of linen trim at the wrists and neck; woollen stockings; and knee-high boots of pig leather, made from the first boar Clariel had hunted and killed herself, when she was fourteen.

  Admittedly, leather and wool was a little too heavy to be comfortable in Belisaere. The sun was hotter and the winds warmer here by the sea, compared to Estwael, which was situated in a high valley and surrounded by the wooded hills of the Great Forest. There was a term used disparagingly in other parts of the Kingdom, when it was unseasonably cold: they called such days an ‘Estwael Summer’.

  ‘Women wear different things here,’ said Harven. ‘Valannie will help you buy whatever you need.’

  Valannie was Clariel’s new maid. She had been waiting for them at the new house and, like it, had been provided by the Guild rather than being hired by the family. Jaciel didn’t care about choosing her own servants, particularly since Valannie was immediately competent and useful. But Clariel had refused her help as much as possible so far. She was determined to do without a maid, since she could not have the help of her old nurse, Kraille, who had chosen to retire to her son’s farm outside Estwael rather than brave the horrors of the city.

  ‘So you need to come down,’ said Harven.

  Clariel nodded, without speaking.

  ‘I’m sorry, Clarrie,’ said her father. ‘But it will all be for the best. You’ll see.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Clariel bleakly. ‘You go, Father. I’ll be down in a minute.’

  Clariel’s new guard was standing in the courtyard, near the front gate, watching two of Jaciel’s workmen stacking sacks of charcoal. She was rather surprised to see he was both shorter and even thinner than she was, and much older, probably at least thirty, if not more. His eyes were hooded, and he did not look at all agreeable. As Clariel left the stairs and walked closer, she saw he had a Charter mark on his forehead, the baptismal symbol that was the visible sign of a connection to the Charter. So he was at least capable of wielding Charter Magic, though the forehead mark itself meant little without a lifetime devoted to learning and practice.

  But the guard’s forehead mark was mostly concealed by the red bandanna he wore, and would be totally hidden when he put on the open-faced helmet he held at his side. His surcoat showed the golden cup of the Guild, but it was done in a dyed yellow thread, not even a part gold alloy. The hauberk of gethre plates he wore under it was short, reaching only to mid-thigh, and did not meet his knee-high leather boots. A sword hung in its drab scabbard on the left side of his broad belt, and thrust through the belt on the right side was a narrow club of some dark, heavy wood.

  He turned as Clariel approached, bowed his head and snapped to attention.

  ‘Good morning, milady,’ he said, without a flicker of emotion in his eyes or face. ‘My name is Roban. I have been assigned by the Guild to guard you when you go about the city.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Clariel. ‘Um, why do I need to be guarded? We got here without any guards.’

  ‘Actually, we were with you from several leagues outside the High Gate, milady,’ replied Roban. ‘Incognito, being as the Lady Jaciel wasn’t yet admitted to the guild.’

  He didn’t look at Clariel, but at a point somewhere above her right shoulder. It almost felt like he wasn’t talking to her, but reporting to some invisible officer who was hovering above her head.

  ‘Did you really follow us in?’ asked Clariel. ‘Why?’

  ‘Orders, milady,’ replied Roban, not actually answering the question.

  Before Clariel could continue, she was interrupted by the bustling arrival of Valannie, who was always bustling, constantly on the move, busy doing somet
hing or organising other people to do things. She was probably only ten years older than Clariel, and certainly did not look prematurely aged, but there was something about her that made her seem much older than anyone else around. She reminded Clariel of her grandmother, her father’s mother, who had been just such a managing person.

  ‘Lady Clariel, I am so sorry to keep you waiting,’ she declared, pausing only to insert her arm through the crook of Clariel’s elbow. ‘Everything is arranged. We will go to Parillin’s first, for cloth, then to Mistress Emenor; she has by far the best dress-cutters. Then Master Blydnen for shoes, or perhaps Kailin’s, and I think Ilvercote for some scarves and suchlike. Oh, that reminds me. Take this for the time being. Don’t worry, you’ll soon have something more fetching.’

  She held out a blue shawl of some shimmering cloth. Clariel looked at it, but didn’t take it.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A silk scarf, milady!’ exclaimed Valannie. ‘To cover your head.’

  ‘I have hair for that,’ replied Clariel. ‘And a perfectly good hat inside I can get if you think it’s going to rain. It doesn’t look like it to me.’

  ‘No, no, no! Hats are for ordinary folk! You must wear a scarf, Lady Clariel!’

  Clariel opened her mouth to say something about no one wearing scarfs on their heads in Estwael, but stopped as she saw her mother come out of the workshop door, trailed as always by apprentices and forge hands. She was not wearing her simple linen working clothes and leather apron, with its pockets full of files, hammers, pincers, rules and the like, but a kind of layered robe of blue and pale gold silks. She also wore a blue headscarf, though Jaciel’s was embroidered with small golden coins that caught the sunshine and flashed it back, proof of real gold.