As he spoke, he reached and began to sketch a Charter mark at the top of the wick of the spirit burner, only to be interrupted by a screech from Dyrell.
‘No, no, Lord Belatiel! The friction lights! Only a servant uses magic!’
chapter six
tea and arguments
‘Really?’ asked Clariel. ‘I thought that couldn’t possibly be true.’
‘Magic is tiresome and menial. It is work that only befits a servant,’ said Aronzo, pushing the metal box of friction lights to Belatiel. ‘Or a rat-catcher.’
‘Please do be explicit, Aronzo,’ said Belatiel sweetly. ‘Are you saying that the Abhorsens are rat-catchers?’
‘Would I insult such an … ancient and illustrious … family?’ asked Aronzo. ‘I was merely thinking of an old rat-catcher who used magic to herd rats to their … death.’
‘My lords!’ exclaimed Dyrell. ‘Please! Be civil, let us get on with the tea service, there is not much time remaining in this lesson.’
Bel shrugged, took out a bright-yellow-headed friction light and struck it on the table. It lit instantly, spewing white smoke that smelled strongly of phosphorus and sulphur. Bel applied it to the wick of the spirit burner, then opened the other side of the box and dowsed the friction light in the black sand that filled it, before laying the burned-out stick on the table next to the burner.
Denima immediately put the kettle on the trivet above the burner, and adjusted the wick so that it would heat the water more swiftly. Before she had finished Yaneem was passing around the cups and saucers, very deftly balancing two at a time.
Clariel shrugged and transferred three spoons of tea from the tin to the pot, noticing that Dyrell winced at her inelegant motions and not very well-regulated measures, the first spoon heaped and the other two not even full.
Everyone then sat in silence, waiting for the kettle to boil. Clariel stared straight ahead, not wanting to look at any of the others, or at the nervously hovering Dyrell. She couldn’t believe that she was stuck here in an absolutely ridiculous class, with people she had no interest in whatsoever. It made escaping to the Forest even more imperative, and then and there she determined that she would talk to her mother that night, even going into the workshop if that proved necessary, though this would be akin to entering the lair of a monster.
As soon as the kettle began to whistle, Aronzo took it off and poured the water into the pot, put the kettle back, turned the wick of the burner down till it went out and put the lid on the teapot.
‘Now what?’ whispered Clariel. ‘Who pours the tea?’
‘We pour for each other, for whoever we choose to show favour today,’ said Aronzo. ‘Isn’t that right, Master Dyrell?’
‘Yes, milord,’ said Dyrell, more respectfully than he had spoken to anyone else. ‘Whenever you wish to proceed.’
‘I thought the form was to let it steep for a measured five minutes,’ said Belatiel, ostentatiously consulting a blue crystal timepiece that glowed with Charter marks. ‘And I can tell you, it has only been three since the water was poured.’
Aronzo ignored him. Taking a gold-cased and jewel-encrusted clockwork watch of the newer egg type out of a pocket in his sleeve, he flipped it open and watched it with an air of civilised boredom till the appointed five minutes had passed. Snapping the watch shut, he replaced it in his pocket, picked up the teapot and leaned past Clariel to pour Yaneem a cup. She simpered, and when the pot was set before her, poured Aronzo’s cup in return, before passing it to Clariel.
‘I don’t even drink tea,’ said Clariel.
‘You don’t have to drink it, milady,’ said Dyrell. ‘Simply pour for someone who has not yet received a cup and when you are poured for, do not drink.’
Clariel looked at Denima and then at Belatiel.
‘I suppose since you’re some sort of cousin I should pour for you,’ said Clariel. ‘Since I cannot choose from any other knowledge who is most deserving of the honour, such as it is.’
‘How very sensible of you, cousin,’ said Bel, as Clariel poured his cup and passed the pot to him, whereupon he poured for Denima, who smiled as she poured Clariel’s cup in turn, finishing the process. Clariel noticed that the smile was particularly for Bel, whose eyes sparkled in return.
Bel and Denima certainly seemed friendly, but Clariel couldn’t tell whether they were amused at her or at the stupidity of this tea business. She similarly couldn’t tell whether the hostility between Bel and Aronzo was real or some kind of playfulness between old friends, or at least old acquaintances. All in all it made her feel tired.
Clariel did not like trying to make friends, or the business of keeping up with them. As far as she was concerned, people might hunt with her, for example, or otherwise work cooperatively. She had no time for simply talking or the lounging about doing nothing together that had seemed to her one of the prerequisites of the groups of friends back in Estwael to which she had never really belonged. Here seemed no different, save that she could not escape these enforced sessions of conversation or whatever was supposed to happen.
‘Now, as you sip your tea, considered conversation,’ said Dyrell. ‘A suitable topic might be the weather, or any striking matters of business observed in the market or suchlike.’
‘I observed something in the clothier’s quarter yesterday,’ said Clariel, turning to look at Aronzo, who once again annoyed her with the faintest wink. ‘A strange attack upon a goldsmith’s daughter. A piece of mummery and –’
‘No, no, Lady Clariel,’ interrupted Dyrell. ‘That is not an appropriate topic. Lady Yaneem, perhaps you might start?’
‘I thought today less hot than yesterday,’ said Yaneem, slowly and without emotion. ‘And the day before that was hotter.’
‘Odd that it should be growing cooler so soon,’ added Denima, also speaking slowly, again without energy or feeling. But Clariel noticed the corner of her mouth quirked up, showing some effort at not laughing at herself.
‘We must hope that it doesn’t rain too much,’ continued Aronzo, his deadpan delivery slightly spoiled by a sideways glance at Clariel, who looked away.
‘Excellent, that is the way it is done in the best houses,’ said Dyrell. ‘Please continue, till the Academy bell tolls the eleventh hour. I have something … some work I must attend. Lord Aronzo, I deputise my authority to you.’
Dyrell was hardly out of the door before Aronzo spoke.
‘Fussy old fool. And tea is a disgusting drink. Whoever thought up all this rigmarole should have been thrown off the seawall at the Shark Pool.’
‘But you go along with the rigmarole … when anyone’s watching,’ said Belatiel.
‘I don’t lack for sense, unlike some people,’ said Aronzo. ‘There are advantages to having our elders think well of me.’
‘Why did you attack me yesterday?’ blurted out Clariel. ‘What was the point of that?’
Aronzo yawned.
‘Must you keep harping on about that?’
‘What attack?’ asked Belatiel and Denima at almost the same time.
‘A faked one,’ said Clariel. ‘Aronzo, under a hood, pretended to take a dagger-swipe at me, then ran off while his father came up with a whole troop of men and made a speech about not attacking goldsmiths, which seemed to be the whole aim of the stupidity.’
‘We shouldn’t be talking about this sort of thing,’ said Yaneem stuffily. ‘Dyrell could come back, or Mistress Ader might come in.’
Everyone else ignored her. Aronzo shrugged at Clariel.
‘That was the point of it. Father wanted an excuse to warn some of the weavers and tailors who’ve been talking trouble. I merely volunteered to help out, and you happened to be a convenient target. Besides, I wanted to take a look at you.’
‘Why?’ asked Yaneem, with a sniff that suggested no one would want to look at Clariel at any time. Particularly not if they had her to look at instead.
‘Sometimes one wants to … see something new,’ said Aronzo, with a sigh. Yaneem
coloured and pursed her lips while Denima and Belatiel exchanged a swift glance.
Clariel noted all this and inwardly sighed, though she was careful to show no outward emotion. Back home in Estwael she had avoided becoming involved or even necessarily knowing about all the complicated romantic entanglements of her former school-fellows, simply by not being around.
Clariel’s own sexual experimentation with a twenty-two-year-old Borderer the previous year had happened out of curiosity, not love, or even very much desire. She had liked Ramis well enough and he had certainly desired her, but though she had slept with him three times to be sure of what she was feeling – or not – she had not particularly cared when he was posted away and neither had she sought out a new lover. Though her aunt Lemmin had suggested her feelings might change as she grew older, Clariel wasn’t so sure. She simply felt she had better things to do. Or she did have, when the Forest lay close by.
But though Clariel was not a captive to such feelings, it seemed to her that Yaneem was in the grip of just such emotion. Clearly Aronzo and Yaneem had some history as bedfellows, and Yaneem considered the relationship to be more important than Aronzo did.
‘I trust your curiosity has been entirely satisfied,’ said Clariel coldly. ‘You were lucky I didn’t kill you.’
‘Oh I don’t think you could have done that,’ drawled Aronzo, displaying massive – and to Clariel deluded – self-confidence. ‘I was a little surprised to find you so suddenly beclawed.’