In the end, she took the servants’ staircase down to the kitchen, then descended the narrow steps into the cellar. Then it was simply a matter of bracing herself in the coal chute and inching her way up it. If she fell, she’d probably break something and be stuck in the cellar until the next time someone wanted coal, at which point she’d be in a whole heap of trouble. But that didn’t happen, and finally – muscles shaking with the exertion – she pushed open the hatch that covered the chute and wriggled out into the street.
She was covered in enough coal dust that she looked as if she’d been sweeping chimneys, but she didn’t stop to clean herself up. Instead, she headed off down the street at a run. The sooner she got back to her lodgings, the safer she’d feel – and the sooner she could write a letter to Tomas Caraway.
THREE
Ree stood outside the Gate of Steel and gazed up at the row of sharp metal blades that lined the archway. Here she was. A few more steps, and she’d be in the fifth ring.
As she hesitated in front of the place she’d been dreaming about since she was old enough to read, her doubts all came swimming around her again: a school of sharp-toothed fish, nipping away at her confidence. You’re not good enough. They’ll chew you up and spit you out. Girls can’t be Helmsmen.
Stop it, she told herself sternly. Those aren’t your doubts. Not that it made much difference. They were in her head, whether she’d put them there or not.
She reached into the bag that was slung across her shoulder and pulled out her border pass. Her tutor had explained to her that although people weren’t allowed to enter the higher rings of Arkannen whenever they felt like it, youngsters in search of weapons training had always been welcome from anywhere in Mirrorvale. All she had to do was present her identification to the guards at the gate and explain what she was there for. One of them would show her to the quartermaster, who’d enter her details in his ledger and allot her a place in the barracks.
O’course, it’s a bit different now, her tutor had said. He was a big, bluff man who looked like he belonged in a field rather than a duelling ring, but he was far more nimble than his appearance suggested. I hear the weaponmasters’ve made a few changes. Still, you get there sometime in the week ’fore the next training period starts and you’ll be fine.
Clutching the border pass, Ree took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She’d arrived in good time, on the first day of the sign-up week that preceded the start of training. She had her identification. She just had to step up to the gate and let everything on the other side of it fall out as it would. The thought didn’t make a blind bit of difference to the churning in her stomach, but she obeyed it anyway. As she approached the gate, one of the watchmen peeled off from the wall where he’d been lounging and came to meet her.
‘Weapons training?’ The boredom in his voice reassured her. This wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. She was an everyday person doing everyday things. With a mute nod, she showed him the pass.
‘C’mon, then.’ He turned on his heel, and Ree followed obediently. As she passed beneath the steel teeth of the gate, her heart gave a funny little skip. She’d done it. She was really here.
Just as her tutor had predicted, the guard took her to a building not far from the gate and handed her over to the quartermaster. He, in turn, proceeded to give her a bewildering set of directions: Your barracks are here. The trainees’ mess hall is there. The practice grounds are over there. She didn’t take in any of it, except the final set of instructions.
‘From here, turn right and stay on the main street until you see a long, low building with a red roof. That’s the central training hall. You’ll find the sign-up sheet pinned on the door, along with separate lists for specialist training, like the Helm –’ He broke off from his practised recitation long enough to sweep her with a glance. ‘Though, of course, that won’t be relevant to you.’
At that casual confirmation of Ree’s doubts, they swam back in shoals. She bit her lip and didn’t reply. After all, the quartermaster was only saying what everyone assumed. There were too many more important battles ahead of her to make it worthwhile fighting this one. All the same, after she’d left him with mumbled thanks and set off in search of the training hall, she concentrated on warding herself against those biting doubts. She couldn’t afford to listen to them, not now she was here. She couldn’t let anyone make her feel she wasn’t good enough. And so she deliberately remembered each and every time she’d been mocked or slighted for her inappropriate ambitions, until she was wrapped in a thick blanket of anger that would protect her far better than fear. I won’t let them stop me. I can’t. This is what I’ve wanted all my life.
As she walked the streets of the fifth ring, trying to stare wide-eyed at everything without seeming amazed at all, she was relieved to see women as well as men. In fact, close to half the warriors she passed were female. The Helm might not include women in their number, but mercenaries, patrolmen and the Arkannen city watch were not so closed.
So why aren’t you trying to become a sellsword or a soldier or a member of the watch? Ree asked herself, but she already knew the answer. The fifth ring winnowed out the best potential warriors from across Mirrorvale. The Helm accepted only the best of the best. And if Ree wanted to prove herself to her own satisfaction, she had to be the best of the best of the best.
Do it perfectly or not at all, her mother had always said. Though, of course, she’d been talking about etiquette or embroidery or whatever it was she’d been trying to drum into Ree at the time. Yet the only lesson for which Ree had shown any aptitude was horse riding and then, later – once she’d persuaded her father that a daughter who could fence would provide amusing anecdotes to tell his friends – sword fighting and acrobatics. When she’d surpassed her tutor, he’d helped her to convince her father that with two other daughters to marry off, having a third who could pay her own way in the world could only be a good thing. And thus, despite her mother’s opposition, Ree’s father had let her come to Arkannen.
You can have a year, Cheri, he’d said. You’re sixteen now, old enough to give it a good go. And if you can’t make anything of it, at least you’ll get it out of your system.
He expected her to fail. They all did. Her mother was actively hoping for it. And so Ree had no choice but to succeed so fast and so marvellously that it would be impossible for them to decide it wasn’t working out and bundle her off back home like a runaway lamb.
Yet now she was here in the fifth ring, with the training hall only a few steps away, fast and marvellous seemed a long way off. Everyone was so big. And so … well worn, making her lovely new training clothes – the ones she’d slunk into an alley to change into as soon as she was off the airship – look silly and childish, as if she were a child playing at dress-up. And the weapons! She’d never seen so many weapons. The people here were adorned with them like the society ladies back home were adorned with gemstones.
Ree looked down at the slim sword by her side, the one she’d had since she was twelve. We’re really not prepared for this.
Of course we are, she imagined her sword replying.
She raised her head again. To her left was a wall made of sand-coloured stone, into which was set a wide archway. Through it she could see the single-storey building that the quartermaster had described, a long hall with a shallow sloping roof tiled in orange-red. Unlike the buildings down in the lower rings, which were a jumble of ever more fanciful styles from different periods in Arkannen’s history, this one didn’t look as if it had changed since the city was built. A single set of double doors led into the hall, and windows just beneath the roof ran the length of the building – too high to see in through, but providing plenty of natural light. The hall contained several indoor practice floors, the quartermaster had said, plus as many external grounds at the back.
Between archway and hall was a dirt yard, which appeared to be deserted. Ree took a deep breath and rested her hand on the hilt of her sword, drawing enough cour
age from it to step through the archway. The walk across to the door felt endless, but finally she reached the sheet of paper pinned to the door of the hall, and the sharpened stick of charcoal tied to a nail beside it, and used one to sign her name on the other. Ree Quinn. Not just in the general training section, but in the Helm assessment section as well. She let the charcoal fall, and took a deep breath. There. Done it.
‘You here for the training?’
So she wasn’t the only one who’d turned up on the very first day. Tensing automatically, Ree turned to find a young man standing behind her. Maybe a few years older than her, curly hair, skin a darker shade of brown than her own, cheekbones to die for. Even in her current state of prickle, she noticed the cheekbones. She scanned his face for mockery, but found only a friendly grin. All the same, she couldn’t help the defensive note in her reply. ‘I just signed up for the Helm assessment programme.’
His smile didn’t change, but his eyebrows lifted. ‘Setting yourself a bit of a challenge, aren’t you?’
‘Why?’ Ree snapped, a bit of that protective anger she’d summoned finally spilling out. ‘Because women can’t be Helmsmen?’
‘I’m not saying they can’t. I’m saying they aren’t. There’s a difference.’
‘And that would be …?’
‘One’s a judgement, the other merely an observation. And if there’s one thing you need to know about me, it’s that I never make judgements about anything. Far too much effort.’ He stuck his hand out, his smile growing even warmer, and added, ‘I’m Zander. I’ll be joining you for the assessment.’
Ree took his hand. Her smile answered his of its own volition; he was clearly a practised flirt. But it was going to take more than a curly-haired boy with amazing cheekbones to distract her from her course.
‘If you don’t like making an effort, I’m surprised you want to be considered for the Helm,’ she retorted. ‘It’s not exactly an easy life.’
‘Physical work, I can handle,’ Zander said. ‘It’s my brain that’s lazy. Though not so lazy that I didn’t notice you failing to tell me your name.’
‘Ree.’ Elements. He’d won her over, and she wasn’t even sure how. Still, she reminded herself belatedly, no point being too antagonistic. She’d never get anywhere if her potential future colleagues decided to close ranks against her.
‘Ree,’ Zander repeated. He peered at her name on the sign-up sheet. ‘Short for …?’
‘Just Ree.’ She certainly wasn’t going to share that secret with him. Hastily she dug up a question from her mother’s endless lessons in polite conversation. ‘So where are you from?’
He finished signing his name beneath hers and turned, eyebrows raised. ‘Why? Because someone with my colouring must be foreign?’
‘No, I –’ She was already blushing and stammering when she noticed the way his eyes were creasing at the corners … and realised how exactly he’d mimicked her earlier defensive tone. Curse him. For a man who claimed to have a lazy mind, he was pretty sharp.
‘I meant where in Mirrorvale,’ she protested.
‘I know.’ The smile that had temporarily retreated to lurk in his eyes returned to his face. ‘And my family is from Sol Kardis, originally, as you probably guessed from the way I look. But I was born and grew up in Cardrey.’
Ree relaxed. ‘That’s not far from my village. Torrance Mill, you know it? I must have visited Cardrey nearly every week when I was a child.’
‘What are the chances?’ Zander’s expression stayed as friendly as before, but she detected a shade of constraint in it. His gaze flicked over her shoulder, then returned to her face. ‘Looks like some more victims are heading this way.’
He walked off to greet the new arrivals, but Ree stood lost in thought. Huh. So he doesn’t want to talk about his home town. Well, everyone had secrets – that was pretty much what made people human. All the same, it was odd.
She turned. Four or five more young men had entered the yard, and Zander was busy charming them in exactly the same way he’d charmed her – with that air of insouciance and a smile that assured his audience how pleased he was to meet them. He didn’t just flirt with women, then. For some reason that made her feel better about succumbing to it. She wandered over to join them, arriving in time to catch the tail end of the introductions.
‘And this is Ree,’ Zander said without a pause, as though he’d planned to include her all along. ‘Another masochist for the Helm assessment programme.’
That inspired a few curious glances from the new arrivals. One of them, a short stocky lad, frowned at her and began, ‘But she’s –’
‘A woman. Yes.’ Zander clapped him on the back. ‘With powers of observation like that, Farleigh, you’ll be joining the Helm in no time.’
The others laughed; the one called Farleigh gave him a mock scowl. Unsure whether to be amused or irritated – she was, after all, perfectly capable of standing up for herself – Ree said nothing. You may not like making an effort, Zander, but you’re bloody clever. If only I knew whether you’re really as pleasant as you seem.
She stayed mostly quiet as the boys got to know each other through a mixture of bravado and banter, but her attention kept being drawn back to Zander. He was somehow … more detailed than the others. Like a full oil portrait, when the people around him were mere sketches. Most of the other boys were indistinguishable to her, even after a half-bell spent in their company, but she’d never be able to mistake Zander for anyone other than Zander. Which wasn’t to say she was attracted to him, or even that she liked him. She didn’t know what she thought of him. But one thing was for sure: she envied his ability to make so much impact on the world, simply by virtue of being in it.
Time passed, a few more boys showed up, and after a while the chiming of bells from up in the sixth ring – Third bell! No wonder I’m famished – galvanised them into going in search of food. That was how they ended up in the mess hall, eating something beige that tasted far better than it looked.
‘You wait till we get near the end of training,’ Farleigh said. ‘The food won’t even taste good by then. The cooks run out of money and interest after a while.’
Farleigh, apparently, was an expert on the fifth ring and everything therein. An expert on the whole city, in fact. Unlike many of the new recruits, he’d grown up in Arkannen, so he knew his way around. Ree found it a little intimidating to be in the company of someone who knew so much more than she did, but she did her best to bluff her way through it. When he paused for breath, she asked him why he wanted to join the Helm, and he gave her a proud smile.
‘It’s in the family. I’ve known I’d be a Helmsman since I was a tiny lad.’ The smile turned slightly condescending. ‘What about you?’
‘I want to be the best,’ Ree said simply. ‘And the Helm are the best.’
He nodded. ‘True. Though just wanting isn’t enough, is it?’
Lucky I have the talent to back it up, then, Ree was about to say – but again, Zander got in first.
‘Ambition versus family tradition, huh? Wonder which will turn out to be the stronger force.’
Beneath the table, Ree’s nails dug into her palms. She wasn’t sure why she found his constant deflection of Farleigh’s barbs so annoying. He was trying to be kind, after all, whereas Farleigh was clearly attempting to needle her. But perhaps it was because Farleigh’s reaction was what she’d steeled herself to expect. She was used to throwaway quips and mocking remarks being aimed in her direction, and she’d learned how to handle it – whereas Zander’s behaviour was another thing entirely. Somehow, it made her seem weak even as it tried to strengthen her.
‘What about you, Zander?’ she asked sweetly, seeking to turn the tables. ‘What could possibly have made someone like you want to join the Helm?’
The slight, telling emphasis on the word you found its mark; Zander’s forehead creased as if she’d stung him. Ree suppressed a smile. Maybe she had learned something from her mother after all – though it di
dn’t take long for him to come back with an answer.
‘Money. A Helmsman’s pay is worth having. And I’m decent enough with a sword.’
Disdain settled on Farleigh’s face. ‘Is that it?’
‘More or less.’
‘But surely … you believe in protecting the Nightshade line, don’t you?’
Zander shrugged. ‘I make a point of not believing in anything too much.’
Farleigh glanced over at Ree, and for the first time the two of them were united in mutual opinion. Because the whole point of being in the Helm was to believe in something. The Mirrorvalese might not have gods, but they had Changers. And as far as the Helm were concerned, it came to the same thing.
‘Well,’ Farleigh said. ‘All I can say, Zander, is that it’s a good thing not all aspiring Helmsmen are like you.’
‘Really?’ Zander’s voice remained light, but his gaze was intent as it moved between Farleigh’s face and Ree’s. ‘Seems to me it’s believing in things that causes a lot of the world’s problems. Believing in something enough to die for it means believing enough to kill for it. And that’s when you start putting principles above people.’ One eyebrow twitched. ‘Look at Captain Travers.’
Three years was plenty long enough for the story of Owen Travers – the man who had been Captain of the Helm until he sought to commit treason against the Nightshade line and was killed in a duel by the new captain – to have reached every corner of Mirrorvale and beyond. So Ree didn’t question the point. All the same, she still thought Zander was wrong.
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