by Garth Nix
‘How would I know? I’m just a slave, remember?’
‘Look, I don’t even want to know this!’ protested Clariel. ‘I don’t care who’s the Abhorsen now or then or whenever! I just want to go and live my life in the Great Forest and be left alone!’
‘Well why don’t you?’ asked Mogget reasonably.
‘I just told you,’ said Clariel crossly. ‘Governor Kilp wants me to be a puppet Queen. Gullaine wants me to be some kind of regent. The Abhorsen wants to keep me out of the way while he dithers about actually doing something about anything. And I’m a prisoner here!’
Mogget’s ears went up, expressing an opinion Clariel interpreted as mild contempt, and padded out of the room. Clariel followed him, treading heavily, and wondered why she’d bothered to tell the creature anything. But he had made her think.
I won’t accept my imprisonment here, Clariel thought. I would have escaped the bottle cell in Belisaere even without Kargrin’s help, and that really was a prison. Surely I can get out of here as well. And once out, then I can decide what to do myself. Whatever I want to do. Whatever I think must be done.
From the open doorway of the room opposite, evidently another armoury or a store of some kind, Mogget gestured with one paw. Clariel frowned, but bent down on one knee. Mogget gestured again, so she leaned forward, close enough for the cat to butt his head against her chin.
‘You’re thinking of escaping, aren’t you?’ whispered Mogget.
‘No …’ said Clariel unconvincingly.
‘Yes you are,’ said Mogget.
‘If I was I wouldn’t tell you!’
‘But you should,’ purred Mogget. ‘I’m the only one here who might be able to help you.’
‘Why would you do that?’ Clariel whispered back. ‘Besides, aren’t you a slave who has to do what he’s told? The Abhorsen told the sending to tell everyone not to let me out.’
‘I don’t take orders from the sendings, and the Abhorsen said nothing to me,’ said Mogget, very quietly. ‘In fact, no Abhorsen has told me to do anything for a long time, the consequence being that I have … ahem … managed to get out of the habit of obeying some of the more general commands of yesteryear.’
‘What do you get out of it?’ asked Clariel again, who had dealt with many tricky merchants over the years in her father’s counting house. She had never known someone to offer something for nothing, even if it was something intangible or some future favour that was being stored up just in case and might never be used.
‘Amusement,’ breathed Mogget, his eyes wicked. ‘I told you it was dull here. Maybe more than that.’
Clariel stood up abruptly. Her heel-following sending had drifted closer, she saw, as if it had wanted to hear what Mogget said, and some others had literally come out of the woodwork. One of them was the guard sending from the gate, she noticed, unless there was another one exactly the same with a two-handed sword.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she said to Mogget. ‘What’s upstairs?’
‘Music room, practice room, Abhorsen’s bedroom, and in the tower the upper reading room, study and observatory,’ rattled off Mogget. ‘Roof gardens on either side of the tower. Downstairs is much more interesting. The lower levels. What?’
The last word was addressed to the guard sending with the two-handed sword, who had silently moved closer to the cat and was looking down at him, his face stern.
‘Go on then,’ said Mogget to the guard sending. ‘Report me. But who to, that’s the question, isn’t it?’
‘Report what?’ asked Clariel suspiciously.
‘Nothing,’ said Mogget. ‘Like I said. You going up?’
Mogget was silent as they took the stairs to the third floor, the two-handed sword sending now accompanying them along with the cowled attendant. Clariel barely glanced in on the third-floor rooms. The music room had a clavichord, zithern and other instruments; the Abhorsen’s bedroom was much fancier than Clariel’s; and the bare chamber for weapons practice was only made distinctive by virtue of its floor being three inches deep in pure white sand that was so clean it squeaked when Clariel stood on it.
The tower room on this level was again completely lined with books, but there was also a narrow stair cutting through the shelves, going up higher. Clariel looked up and was about to ascend when she heard the sharp note of a gong being struck below. Mogget immediately whipped around and lit out for the main stairs, crying out, ‘Dinner!’
‘What’s up there?’ Clariel asked her attendant sending. It bowed, then bent to imitate sitting down, and made scribbling motions with its hand across an imaginary page.
‘An office … a study?’
The sending bowed, straightened up, and gestured urgently towards the main stairs as the gong rang again.
‘I’m expected for dinner?’ asked Clariel. The sending bowed and gestured again. Though there was no indication it would try to force her to go downstairs, Clariel still felt it was like a prison warder laying down the law. It was dinner time, and she must follow the routine of her prison.
A comfortable, perhaps even fascinating prison, but a prison nonetheless.
For now, thought Clariel, and went down to dinner.
She was rather surprised to see that Mogget was seated with her at the table in the hall, the cat-creature sitting on a stool opposite her own place, a quarter of the way down from the thronelike chair at the head of the table, in what appeared to be a measure of Clariel’s standing in the family. Not one of the titled Abhorsens, but a close connection.
There was a great deal of food, all of it very good, but after assuaging her initial hunger, she paid it little attention. Unlike Mogget, who ate as if he really was a starved cat and not something else that probably didn’t need to eat at all. He certainly didn’t need duck in a wine sauce and poached salmon, the latter dish being greeted with yowls of almost unseemly enthusiasm, though Mogget then went on to eat it daintily. The cat-shape was clearly not just a mere outward shell, but extended to behaviour as well.
Clariel pushed her plate away, deep in thought about how she could escape the House. Even if she managed this, she would then need to evade everyone searching for her, which would include not only Kilp’s people, which essentially meant all the organised forces of the Kingdom, but also the Abhorsen’s. And probably the Clayr as well, she thought, who might simply be able to look into the ice and See where she was going to be and tell the Abhorsen where to intercept her.
It seemed impossible, but she knew that part of her generally defeated feeling was simply tiredness and reaction to everything that had happened. Surely there would be ways to escape the House. The Abhorsen might even change his mind, or could be helped to change his mind.
There was also the Free Magic creature in the silver bottle. It was here somewhere, in the House. She had freed Aziminil once. Perhaps the creature could help return the favour …
She looked over to ask Mogget about where the bottle had been taken, only to see a completely bare salmon dish. The cat-thing, all the fish being eaten, had departed upon some silent mission of his own.
Clariel waited for him to come back, but eventually gave up and, after refusing more offers of various desserts, including one involving ice and apricots that looked delicious, started back upstairs. Halfway up, after briefly considering going further to look at the study and the observatory in the tower, she instead decided that she really, really needed to go to bed.
chapter twenty-five
gone fishing
Clariel slept for sixteen hours. When she woke up, sunshine was streaming through the windows, and her attendant sending – or at least one that looked exactly the same – was standing at the end of the bed holding a towel. There was an odd smell in the room, almost like rotten eggs, which surprised and alarmed Clariel until she realised it came from the steaming hot water that had just come out of the pipe into the basin. It was the same smell as the hot springs that could be found half a day’s ride from Estwael, a favoured spot for th
e town folk to ease aching limbs. Some Abhorsen had worked out how to pipe hot water from just such a spring below the House.
As soon as Clariel got up the sending with the towel ushered her over to the basin and, acting more like a nursemaid trying to bathe an infant than a lady’s maid, helped her wash and dress. New clothes had been laid out, new linen underclothes and a light woollen dress in blue, with the silver key motif very faintly woven into the cuffs. The improvised leather slippers from the day before were still there, but had been cleaned. Clariel’s knife was laid on top, with a knotted black cord provided as a belt to hang it from.
It was very peaceful, Clariel thought, as she tied the cord around her slim waist and checked the knife moved freely in its scabbard. The sun was shining, she’d had a rejuvenating sleep and there were wonderful smells of fresh-baked bread and cooking bacon coming up the stairs.
Mogget wasn’t at breakfast either, but even after only a short acquaintance Clariel presumed he’d simply had his earlier rather than skipping it. After Clariel had eaten she went out into the garden. It was warmer outside in the sun, but there was a cool northerly breeze blowing in off the river. She walked around the rose garden, marvelling at all the different varieties, most of them in bloom. There were red, white and yellow roses, and even one so dark purple it looked black from a distance. A black rose would be a suitable flower for the Abhorsens, she thought, a death-flower. Not for Tyriel and his hunters, who it appeared had mostly given up the old ways. A black rose for the old Abhorsens, the ones who often walked in Death.
Clariel thought about that as she walked across the lawn to the grove of oaks. She never really thought much about the sensation she felt when an animal died. It was something she had got used to in the forest. But in Kilp’s dining chamber, the deaths there … It was the same feeling, but magnified many times.
So she had the Abhorsen’s death sense, inherited along with the berserk fury from the royal side. But all the Abhorsens and the royal family were great Charter Mages, and she wasn’t, as Kargrin had discovered. She couldn’t even begin to understand why Bel, for instance, was so interested in the Charter and felt so much a part of it. Perhaps it was because she was an outsider, and wanted to be an outsider.
Clariel put her hand on one of the oaks, feeling the strength of it under her hand. It was old, all the oaks here were old. Hundreds and hundreds of years, growing tall and strong. But like her, they were contained within the white walls …
‘Heading for the fishing tower? Excellent idea.’
Clariel jumped at the sound of Mogget’s voice. The cat emerged from behind one of the other oaks and sat near Clariel’s foot as if he had been waiting there all morning.
‘I wasn’t,’ said Clariel. ‘But I could. I want to ask you some questions, away from –’
‘Away from the cruel cares of deciding what to have for breakfast,’ interrupted Mogget.
‘No, I meant away from the –’
‘Repressive number of plates of dry crusty things those sendings put out,’ interrupted Mogget again. ‘I trust they’re looking after you? That one there can be a bit pushy.’
‘What?’
Clariel turned around. Her attendant sending, who had silently followed her from the house, was standing two paces behind her back. It bowed, the strange face inscrutable under the cowl.
‘Oh, do go away,’ said Clariel.
It didn’t move.
‘It won’t,’ said Mogget. ‘Ordered to watch you. Guard you too, I suppose.’
‘Will it report what I say to the Abh— to my grandfather?’
‘Yes,’ said Mogget. He bent forward and suddenly scratched at the ground, clearing away some leaves and fallen acorns to the bare earth. Then, extending one claw, he scratched something in the dirt. It took Clariel a moment to understand that he was writing something. She knelt down to see it better, and briefly saw the words: Sme cn’t read.
‘Ah,’ said Clariel. She arched her eyebrows and jerked her head back a couple of times, indicating the sending behind her.
‘There’s a fungus on bread that will make you do that,’ said Mogget. ‘I believe it is curable.’
Clariel sighed and, holding her hand close to her stomach, pointed with the tip of her forefinger at the sending.
‘Oh, yes, I think that does apply to the one in question,’ said Mogget, scrabbling for a moment in the earth as if he’d spotted a tasty-looking bug, but in fact writing another message in shorthand: I can shw yu how to gt rid of them.
‘I think I’d like to look at the study in the tower,’ said Clariel. ‘I have some letters to write.’
‘After you catch me a fish, surely,’ said Mogget. ‘It’s easy enough, because of the spelled currents. The fish get drawn in around the southern end of the island. There’s a pole and hooks and such in the tower, and a sending will bring worms from the kitchen garden.’
‘I see,’ said Clariel, who saw very well that Mogget would answer no questions unless she did catch him a fish. ‘I’ll catch you a fish.’
Two hours and three long but slim silver fish that Mogget called ‘skinnerjacks’ later, they were crossing the southern lawn going back to the house when the cat suddenly stopped, ears flicking.
‘Someone’s coming,’ he said.
‘The Abhorsen?’ asked Clariel.
‘No,’ replied the cat. ‘There would be more sendings coming out. I suspect it is your lover. Belatiel.’
‘He’s not my lover,’ protested Clariel. As the actual catching of fish had only taken up some fifteen minutes of the two hours spent fishing, she had spent a lot of the time talking. Mogget was interested in everything that had happened, though every time Clariel had tried to move on to questioning him about the House and how to get out of it he’d changed the subject, apparently because the sending was listening. But she hadn’t mentioned Bel’s romantic intentions, so either the cat had read more into what she’d said, or he was just making fun of her.
‘Your friend, then,’ said Mogget, as they turned left and followed the path towards the western gate. ‘Particular friend.’
‘He’s not a particular … Oh, never mind,’ retorted Clariel. She looked down at the cat. He blinked his eyes at her, pretending total innocence. ‘You just like to stir up trouble, don’t you?’
‘Not as much when it is so remarkably easy,’ said Mogget. ‘Though you do offer slightly more of a challenge than Belatiel.’
Clariel hoped the visitor was Bel, because he would be vastly more preferable than Tyriel, or, Charter forbid, Yannael.
The sending with the two-handed sword opened the gate as they walked up, and it was Bel. He looked pale and drawn, but better than he had when they’d landed the day before, not least because he was wearing fine clothes, similar to the outfit Clariel had seen him in when they first met at the Academy. He smiled as he saw Clariel, a full-hearted smile, which retreated somewhat when Mogget slunk out from behind her legs.
‘Clariel! And Mogget …’
‘Hello, Bel,’ said Clariel. Mogget merely winked and tilted his head to look at the fish Clariel held by a string through their open mouths. His pink tongue protruded just a fraction as if he couldn’t quite hold it back.
‘I see you have met Mogget,’ said Bel. ‘And he’s talked you into fishing for him already.’
‘She volunteered,’ said Mogget. ‘You look sick.’
‘I was wounded,’ said Bel. ‘Clariel saved my life.’
Mogget looked up at Clariel, emerald eyes inscrutable.
‘You didn’t tell me that.’
‘Twice, really,’ said Bel eagerly. ‘First from the crossbow bolt, then she stopped a Free Magic creature that was about to kill me.’
‘Stopped a Free Magic creature?’ asked Mogget. His eyes gleamed in sudden interest. ‘Fascinating. I wondered how you came to be … That is, I understood you are not much of a Charter Mage, as such …’
‘I held its feet,’ said Clariel, uncomfortably. ‘They were like blades
… Anyway, what am I supposed to do with this fish? And what are you doing here, Bel?’
She did not notice Mogget’s eyes widen as she spoke, or the calculating glint that came into the cat’s eyes.
‘I came to see you, of course,’ said Bel, as if there could be no question that he would do so at the first opportunity. ‘I would have come earlier this morning, but, ah, I didn’t think the Abhorsen would … um … make you stay here and no one would tell me where you were. I had to go and ask Tyriel himself, which let me tell you wasn’t easy. I had to submit to a lecture about flying low over horses and dogs.’
‘Well, here I am,’ said Clariel. ‘A prisoner again, as I foretold.’
‘He told me it’s for your safety,’ said Bel awkwardly. ‘But it shouldn’t be for very long, only until Kilp is dealt with –’
‘And how soon is that going to be?’ asked Clariel bitterly. ‘Tyriel isn’t going to do anything. Not with the Summer’s End Hunt to get through first, and who knows what else he thinks is more important.’
‘He says the King is safe enough in the Palace,’ said Bel. ‘And he doesn’t take Kilp seriously anyway. I’m sorry, all right?’
‘Sorry for what?’
‘For not flying you to Estwael like you asked,’ said Bel. ‘Though I guess with your aunt being arrested there –’
‘What!’
‘Maybe not arrested exactly; being taken to Belisaere for her own safety,’ said Bel quickly. ‘Didn’t the Abhorsen tell you?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe he only found out this morning. There have been so many message-hawks flying back and forth all the pigeons have fled Hillfair …’
‘She was arrested by Kilp?’
‘On the orders of the Governor,’ confirmed Bel. ‘The story being that her safety was at risk, with the “rebels” threatening Queen Jaciel … There’s still no public sighting of her by the way …’
‘There won’t be. She’s dead,’ said Clariel, stony-faced.
‘You can’t be absolutely sure of that,’ said Bel awkwardly.
