by Garth Nix
Clariel took out her paper, consulted it and said, ‘I have “Matters of Law, Royal, City and Guild” in the Crooked Room. But I don’t know where it is.’
‘That’s my next lesson too,’ said Denima. ‘I’ll show you the way. Come on, we don’t want to be late.’
She started off, with Clariel and Belatiel following, the latter talking as he walked.
‘I’ve got “Money Counting”,’ said Belatiel, making a face. ‘Tower Room, with Master Fincher. But I really do want to talk to you, cousin, about … about a very important matter concerning our family, the Abhorsens that is. I hesitate to ask, after Aronzo, but my motives really are straightforward and honest, so I wonder if we could meet after the lessons today …’
‘I really am busy,’ said Clariel, giving him the benefit of the doubt. ‘I have Charter Magic lessons this afternoon, and tomorrow I have to go to the Islet to try to find a colourful fish.’
‘So you don’t hold with only servants doing Charter Magic,’ said Belatiel, with a pleased look.
As before, Denima spoke at almost the same time, so their words overlapped. ‘A colourful fish? Who for?’
‘The King,’ said Clariel. ‘I’m not much of a Charter Mage and I don’t particularly want to be one, but I don’t think it should be left to servants … What?’
Denima had stopped in mid-stride and swung around to face Clariel so they nearly ran into each other, and Belatiel had also crowded close, and they were both staring at her.
‘The King?’
‘You’re seeing the King?’
‘The day after tomorrow,’ said Clariel. ‘The fish is for a kin-gift. It’s traditional, apparently.’
‘But no one sees the King,’ said Belatiel. ‘Not for years.’
‘No one,’ repeated Denima.
‘I was told he keeps up some of the old traditions,’ said Clariel, uncomfortably. ‘Like the kin-gift, and I’m his cousin so I have to see him to give him the present –’
‘I’m a cousin too, and I’ve never been able to get an audience,’ interrupted Belatiel. ‘I was supposed to present the kin-gift when I first got here last year, but the King refused to see me. Or someone refused on his behalf.’
‘Mother seems to think we’ll get in,’ said Clariel. ‘I wish I understood what is going on here. There’s clearly all kinds of machinations afoot and I really don’t want to get caught up in them before I can …’
Her voice trailed off and she looked down at her shoes, before realising she was doing exactly what her father did when he wanted to avoid talking about something difficult, so she jerked her head back up to see Belatiel and Denima looking at her, not unkindly. For the first time she realised that they both had forehead Charter marks, albeit disguised under the same sort of thick paint as her own. But Aronzo and Yaneem didn’t have marks, or at least she didn’t think they had.
‘Before you can do what?’ asked Denima.
‘Make my own plans,’ said Clariel.
‘You’re right about the machinations,’ said Belatiel, lowering his voice. ‘There are things you should know, that’s why I want to see you after the lesson. Be very careful of Aronzo, for one. His father effectively rules the city now, and that pretty much means the Kingdom as well –’
‘Does it really matter who rules the city, or the Kingdom for that matter?’ interrupted Clariel.
‘Perhaps it doesn’t matter so much who actually rules,’ replied Belatiel. ‘But the royal family don’t just govern the Kingdom. They also embody part of the Charter, and are charged with its preservation, in all its manifestations. Which begs the question, who … or what … also gains if the King is overthrown?’
chapter seven
the education of a charter mage
‘If the King is overthrown?’ asked Clariel. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We can’t talk about it here,’ said Belatiel. ‘I’ll meet you straight after class, and we can go –’
‘You shouldn’t be talking about it at all,’ interrupted Denima. ‘Best you leave it alone. Come on, Clariel. Law is taught by Mistress Gurlen and she’s a very different proposition from old Dyrell.’
‘Wait for me after class!’ called out Bel, as Denima took Clariel’s hand and dragged her away. ‘It is important! Very important!’
‘They always say that,’ said Denima. She darted a look at Bel that Clariel couldn’t interpret: part angry and part wistful. ‘Men!’
Clariel wondered if it was as simple as that. Bel wasn’t obviously trying to set up a flirtation, he appeared sincere about having something important to tell her. And she felt she should know more about the situation in the city and what was going on with the King, and the Guilds and all that, despite another part of her wanting to keep separate from it all. If she could convince her mother, she might be away within days, off to the Great Forest, and then everyone could fight over who ruled to their hearts’ content.
As for the Charter, Clariel thought it ought to be fine without assistance from the likes of Belatiel or herself. She didn’t really know what the royal family had to do for or with the Charter, the childhood rhyme about the Great Charters not being very informative on a detailed level. Apart from the royal family, the Clayr and the Abhorsens having some role, she did know Charter Stones were important for keeping the whole thing together. There were several Charter Stones in Estwael, and every village had one, and she had seen a number in the city, often at crossroads or other such places as well as the one in the hilltop garden near her house. All of them looked extremely old, and from her limited perception of the marks that shone and crawled upon the stone, the magic within them was ancient too, so it didn’t seem that the current King or any of his immediate predecessors had very much to do with them.
‘Come on. We’ll be late!’ urged Denima. She started to run, and Clariel ran with her, up one of the corner stairs, along another bare, whitewashed corridor and then into what was clearly a later addition to the house, the stonework changing to brick, the ceiling lower, and the angle where the walls met something less than true.
‘Crooked Room,’ said Denima, slowing to a walk. ‘Better lesson, better teacher. You might even like this one. Sit by me … if you like.’
It was a better lesson, and Clariel did sit by Denima. The group was larger, but there was no nonsense with introductions, apart from Clariel meeting Mistress Gurlen, a surprisingly young woman with a commanding presence, bright eyes and a penetrating voice. She lectured from a podium and drew with chalk on a huge slate board, and the students sat in rows behind small desks. Every desk had two key reference books chained to it, books that Gurlen expected everyone to be able to hunt through and find any indicated text at a moment’s notice.
Clariel almost enjoyed it, for it suited her idea of how things should be. There was a clear aim, potentially useful knowledge, a confident leader, and no time to waste. If only the class had taken place beyond the walls, in some sun-dappled glade, she would have enjoyed it completely. But even grappling intently with questions of law and the differing interpretations of the texts and a third opinion from Mistress Gurlen, she could never entirely forget the brick walls that hemmed her in, and the oppressive weight of the city beyond that.
It was a relief when the class was finally over, and they were dismissed. Though many of the students were slow to leave, chatting to one another, Clariel went straight for the door. Denima half raised her hand as if to call her back, but Clariel didn’t even notice. She needed to get out under the sun again, away from the weight of stone and the smothering attention of other people.
In her urge to escape the confines of the house, she also forgot that Belatiel had asked for her to wait.
Roban, Heyren and Linel were standing around outside the front door. There were even more guards there now, two score at least, showing many different Guild badges. Though they straggled along the wall of the house, most leaning against the stonework or sitting on some upturned barrels, Clariel noted that even in this
apparently relaxed attitude they still watched the street, and all passers-by. At the moment this included workmen pushing barrows of sand to a building site; women returning from a market with their large baskets full of foodstuffs, mostly a kind of purple root vegetable Clariel didn’t recognise; and a peddler and his family engaged in propelling a handcart laden with small puppets, traditional figures from the various festivals, like the Midsummer Bird of Dawning and the Autumn Festival’s Moon-Moth.
‘Let’s go,’ said Clariel to Roban. ‘Magister Kargrin’s house. I want to get the next lesson over and done with as well.’
‘Ah, milady, your maid … Valannie,’ said Roban. ‘She probably wasn’t expecting you to come out so quickly. She’s not –’
‘Here I am!’ pronounced the penetrating voice of Valannie, almost as if she had been summoned by Roban speaking her name. She followed this with her annoying laugh, and added, ‘You sped past so quickly, Lady Clariel! I had thought you might lunch with some of the other pupils …’
‘I would like to go to my Charter Magic class,’ said Clariel.
Valannie visibly blenched as Clariel said the words ‘Charter Magic’ and made a frantic shushing gesture, waving two fingers across her mouth as if fanning something too hot to eat.
‘Lady Clariel, please let us speak quietly of this,’ she whispered. ‘As I have told you, it is not the done thing to be, to do, to study magic!’
‘Well, whether it is or not, can we get going to my next lesson?’ asked Clariel. ‘Street of the Cormorant, house with the sign of the hedgepig, I think.’
‘I know the house, milady,’ said Roban. He turned to Heyren and Linel and indicated for them to fall in behind Clariel. ‘Follow me, please.’
‘But luncheon, the other pupils, I’m sure we should –’ protested Valannie.
‘I’ll have a late lunch,’ said Clariel firmly. ‘Lead on, Roban.’
The Street of the Cormorant was not far below Clariel’s parents’ house on Beshill and the houses that lined it were almost but not quite as large as her parents’, each being three or four storeys high, with the familiar red-tiled roofs. They also had balconies, but these were on the far side of the street, looking east to the sea.
The house with the sign of the hedgepig was completely different to all the other houses in the street. Clariel saw it before she knew it was her destination, poking up above the red roofs like a tall daisy among a crop of beetroot. It was really a tower, not a house at all, and looked much older than the other buildings around it. It was at least six storeys high, and was built of a dark yellow stone, not faced in white ashlar like almost every other building in Belisaere. The tower was crowned with a crenelated wall surmounted by a cupola room, its roof clad in copper green with verdigris.
‘It’s a guard tower, part of the old wall,’ said Roban, correctly interpreting Clariel’s cricked neck and long stare. ‘From a long time ago, when the city was smaller. There used to be more towers, and a few stretches of the old wall, but most of it has long since been pulled down.’
‘Very sensibly,’ said Valannie. ‘That tower really does not fit in at all with the other houses.’
‘And on that account I am disposed to like it,’ said Clariel. Valannie darted a glance at her that perhaps, if she had not been a servant, might have become a scowl of distaste, but vanished so quickly into her usual, bland, pressed-flat expression that Clariel wasn’t even sure she’d seen it. Perhaps it was just how she imagined Valannie was feeling inside. Seething at having to put up with a yokel mistress who would do nothing to her maid’s credit, not even in taking a conformist line on the city architecture.
There was an iron hedgepig sign, a flat, rusty thing cut from a plate, dangling aslant from two equally rusty chains of unequal length from an iron rod that was set into the keystone of the arch above the house’s front door. Or gate, rather, since in keeping with its origins as a tower, there was a massive, bolt-studded gate of two leaves, together at least twelve feet wide and eighteen high. But there was also a lesser door set within the gate, a sally port perhaps, which was of significantly smaller size, not even high enough to admit someone of average height without stooping. Roban went to this door, and thumped his fist upon it three times, rattling the bolts on the inside.
A moment later, the bolts were withdrawn with a screech, indicating the ironwork of the gate was as rusty as the hedgepig sign. The door opened slowly, but Clariel could not see who had opened it. Roban stepped inside, bending low. Clariel followed, then Valannie, but Heyren and Linel remained outside.
The sally port opened onto an enclosed bridge over what appeared to be a very deep pit or even crevasse, with an arched ceiling overhead the most prominent feature of which was a series of holes the size of oranges, clearly for the application of heated oil or pitch onto unwelcome visitors.
‘Murder holes,’ said Roban, again noting Clariel’s stare. ‘Stopped up now. I had to check once. Long ago, when the … Well, I had to be sure it was safe.’
Clariel blinked, accustoming her eyes to the relative darkness. There were some dim Charter marks for light set into the ceiling, but they did not illuminate very much. The bridge crossed some fifteen paces over the pit and led to another great gate, with another smaller sally port set into it. This door was half open, though she didn’t think there had been time enough for a doorkeeper to run back from the outer door.
‘I don’t like this place at all,’ pronounced Valannie as they crossed the bridge. ‘It’s no wonder that the Governor wants it knocked down.’
‘Does he?’ asked Clariel. ‘Why?’
Valannie immediately reverted to the smiling ignorance she displayed so well to any of Clariel’s significant questions, and shrugged her shoulders.
‘Who opened the door?’ asked Clariel.
‘You’ll see, milady,’ said Roban, as he hunched down to go through the inner door.
Clariel followed him into a small hall that took up most of the tower’s lower floors, the vaulted ceiling and the beams studded with many bright Charter marks for light some thirty feet above her. Unlike the dilapidated exterior, this large room was clean, tidy and in good repair, though furnished in an eccentric fashion. There was a very long table of some dark, dense timber, bearing many scars and scratches. It could easily seat twenty people or more, though there were now only two old benches drawn up to it, and a single high-backed chair at the very end. A chair that had once been very grand, for it still showed patches of gilt here and there, the rest having been long worn away.
There were no windows as such, but there were arrow slits every four or five paces around all four walls, about twelve feet up, with a few broken beam ends protruding from the stonework to indicate where a wooden walkway had once given archers somewhere to stand.
There was a stairwell in the northeast corner, but it was filled with rubble, great stone blocks that had tumbled down and blocked it completely, so that only three or four steps poked out, leading nowhere. If the upper floors of the tower were still standing, they could not be reached by that stair, and Clariel could see no other entrances or exits. One corner of the room was out of sight, partitioned off by a folding screen of six hinged panels, each section painted with a scene that all together told a story, though it was so faded and damaged that it was unclear whether the narrative was of a great hunt, a parade or festival, or perhaps a battle.
The opposite corner had a workbench and a very tall glass-fronted bookcase of four doors with a hooked ladder to reach the higher books. There was a man standing at the bench, so intent on whatever he was doing that he did not look around or greet the visitors. He was tall and very broad-shouldered, bald on top but with hair braided down his back. His arms were also extremely muscular, well displayed by the sleeveless leather jerkin he wore atop leather riding breeches that were not paired with the usual boots, but slippers of a bright blue cloth, which were turned up at the toes and ended in sharp gilded points.
‘Don’t interrupt!’ he ca
lled out, still without turning around, his voice loud and commanding. ‘Stay over there.’
Clariel and her entourage stopped near the end of the long table as instructed, an instinctive response to the authority in the man’s voice. For a moment Clariel wondered what he was doing, then she saw Charter marks begin to glow and appear around his hands, a great stream of them that moved and roiled over the bench, and wrapped themselves up his arms to his elbows. They were directed at something on the bench, but Clariel couldn’t see what it might be, as it was blocked by the man’s body. By Magister Kargrin’s body, since he could be no one else. Clariel hadn’t expected a magister who looked like a tavern brawler, but then she had never met a fully fledged magister before; the Charter Mages who had taught her the fundamentals of magic back in Estwael were healers, with additional lessons on defensive and offensive marks from the town’s sergeant, who had served with the Wall Garrison.
They stood in silence for a few minutes, Valannie shifting nervously by Clariel’s side, clearly discomfited by seeing the evidence of magic at work. Eventually the Charter marks subsided down Kargrin’s arms, fading as they retreated into his hands, until they disappeared completely. The magister turned around, and Valannie shrieked as she saw he was cradling a large brown rat in his hands, its pink tail dangling down over his wrist.
‘Well met, Roban. And Jaciel’s daughter, whose name I have forgotten,’ said Kargrin. ‘And Valannie, isn’t it? You’d best begone, lest you see something truly disturbing.’
‘I will stay with my lady –’ Valannie started to say, ending in a shriek as a hand touched her elbow, a hand made not of flesh, but of thousands of Charter marks, close together, giving the illusion of skin. The hand belonged to a robed and cowled figure. Its face, if it had one, was hidden deep in the shadow of its hood. It gestured at the door.
Clariel had never seen one before, but she knew what it was, from many stories and legends. The robed figure was a Charter sending, a magical creature created for a specific purpose, usually a servant of some kind, a guard or a messenger.
