‘To what end?’ asked Clariel.
‘To make friends,’ said Valannie, with a smile that Clariel found very condescending. ‘Surely, you wish to find some new friends here, milady?’
‘I have friends in the Forest, and in Estwael,’ said Clariel. ‘I will rejoin them soon enough.’
But as she said this, she thought that in fact she had very few friends, and the ones she had were unusual for a woman of her age and station. Her aunt Lemmin was the closest. But she was almost more like an older sister, an ally against her parents. Lemmin provided a useful alibi for her Forest adventures, and was also an uncritical listener to retellings of her exploits, rarely offering a comment, let alone an opinion. She supported Clariel, and loved her, and that love was returned, but they didn’t really talk …
Then there was Sergeant Penreth of the Borderers, a tough and silent woman who had let her trail along and learn by observation since she was thirteen … but again, she didn’t talk much, and Clariel had never felt the need to smile at her, or make conversation.
There were childhood friends as well, of course, people she had played with when small, or had shared the experiences of the dame school. But she hadn’t really kept in touch with them, save to say hello, or perhaps share a glass of wine if they happened to run across each other in the town.
Clariel had never felt much need for friends, but then she had also never felt alone, even when she was at her most solitary. The Forest filled her up, she needed no more. Here, things were different. Perhaps she should seek to make some friends … At the least, they might be able to help her work out how to escape the city …
‘So I should talk to the others,’ she said abruptly. ‘What about?’
‘Oh, that is easy!’ exclaimed Valannie. ‘About clothes, of course, and at the moment, comical songs are very fashionable, the minstrels who excel at this are in great demand, as is Yarlow the balladeer, who writes such sly verses. Oh, and always, betrothals and weddings, and the alliances of the Guilds, and in some quarters, among the more sober, the course of business, the price of grain and suchlike, though I expect that this is more for the older students –’
‘I cannot talk about clothes and comical songs,’ said Clariel. ‘I suppose I could support a conversation about business, at least as it is done in Estwael.’
‘Oh, best not talk about Estwael!’ cried Valannie, throwing up her hands in horror.
‘Why not?’
‘It is in the country,’ whispered Valannie, bringing her painted face close to Clariel’s, so that for the first time she noticed her maid had no eyebrows of her own, just cleverly painted streaks of black. ‘No one speaks of the country in Belisaere!’
‘I will,’ said Clariel. ‘Estwael is a fine town, and the Great Forest beyond an even finer place. Better than any part of this noisome city!’
‘Oh, milady, I beg you not to speak such! Not at the Academy! Not anywhere! It will serve you ill.’
Clariel sniffed. Valannie’s pleading seemed very sincere, and though she burned to hear criticism of Estwael, perhaps it would be sensible to follow the maid’s advice. She had learned long ago not to rush ahead into who knew what, but to go silently and hidden, to spy out the lay of the land.
‘I will try not to speak of … of the country,’ she said.
‘Good, good, milady!’ said Valannie, with a heartfelt sigh. She bent down to do up Clariel’s sandals, ignoring Clariel’s own motion to bend and do them up herself. ‘No, no, milady. I will fix these on properly. You will see, it is not too difficult to make conversation. The young gentlemen and ladies will be keen to meet you, being the daughter of so famous a goldsmith.’
‘Will they?’ asked Clariel. It was interesting that Valannie did not say that her connection to the King, or the Abhorsens, would make her popular. Her father had been strange about this as well, with his talk of the ‘best people’.
‘Tell me, Valannie, should I mention that my grandfather is the Abhorsen? Or the King my mother’s cousin?’
Valannie stopped doing up the left sandal for a second. Clariel looked down at the top of her maid’s head. The foremost part of hair, that part not covered by her scarf, was so shiny and stiff that she realised it must be coated with lacquer, or a varnish.
‘Perhaps not unless it is brought up first, milady,’ Valannie said cautiously. ‘There, the buckle should rest just above the ankle, no higher, and turned out so.’
‘Why?’ asked Clariel.
‘The buckle is very fine work, and gold, so should be shown. If it were pinchbeck or mere gilt, then you would hide it –’
‘No. Why should I not mention my connection with the King or the Abhorsen?’
Valannie looked up and gave the tinkling laugh that had already annoyed Clariel on several occasions.
‘Oh, politics, milady! That is for your elders, I think –’
‘I wish to know,’ said Clariel sternly. ‘If you will not tell me, I shall ask at the Academy. I shall ask everyone I meet.’
Valannie snapped back like a bowstring freed of its arrow, and took Clariel’s hands anxiously in her own.
‘No, no, my dear. You mustn’t do that!’
‘Then explain to me. What are the politics? What is going on in the city?’
Valannie scowled and dropped Clariel’s hands.
‘Oh, milady, you are a hard mistress. I will tell you, but you must not let on that it was I. Your parents do not want you worried, and there are … well, it is not right for a young girl to be drawn into troubles that are of no concern –’
‘They are of concern!’ snapped Clariel. ‘I wish to know.’
Valannie pursed her lips, and looked to the door, before lowering her voice.
‘Some years ago, the King went mad, or so they say. He is very old …’
‘And?’ asked Clariel, as Valannie faltered.
‘He stopped … he stopped ruling, I suppose. He lets no one enter the Palace for any serious matter, only if it be for one of the old rituals, and then only upon rare occasions. He will not hear his officers, he will not read letters or petitions, he will not sit in the Petty or the Greater Court, or sign or seal any document of state. He dismissed most of the Guard, keeping only two score, so that the city was left bereft of soldiery and order, till the Governor and the guilds stepped in. There was trouble with lawless folk, and the commoners who have ever caused trouble against the guilds, and the King to blame for it all! Now no one knows what is to come, for he does not abdicate, and Princess Tathiel is who knows where, and all must fall upon the shoulders of Governor Kilp and the High Guilds!’
‘I see,’ said Clariel. ‘I suppose this is also why Charter Magic is frowned upon now? Because the King is part of the Charter itself?’
‘Oh no, magic has been ever so unfashionable for years!’ exclaimed Valannie. ‘It is so tedious to learn, all that time memorising marks to make spells, and then if
you get one wrong, your eyes might bulge out of your head or your hair catch on fire, or something even worse. Best left to those who have the time to waste on learning it all, I say!’
Clariel nodded. Valannie did not have the baptismal Charter mark, so she had no real idea of what she was talking about, though it was true that Charter Magic could twist against the wielder. But it fitted with what she had seen so far of the city, that if some difficult service could be bought instead of learned, that would be preferred.
‘And the Abhorsens?’ she asked. ‘They are seen as allies of the King who has caused such trouble to the city folk?’
Valannie looked up and shook her head.
‘No … the Abhorsens rarely come here, I doubt anyone thinks much of their connection with the King. I don’t want to speak ill of your relations, milady, though how your mother, the artist that she is, came to be born from … from …’
‘From what?’ asked Clariel curiously. Back in Estwael, though they did not often come up in conversation, the Abhorsens were held in high regard, as past defenders of the Kingdom against the Dead, Free Magic entities, necromancers and all manner of evils. Not that any of these things were considered current problems, nor likely to be in the future.
Valannie pursed her lips and tucked her chin in, before reluctantly speaking, almost out of the side of her mouth.
‘Well, just as Yarlow said in that ballad, they get rid of unwanted things, so they’re really rather like rat-catchers, or even night-rakers –’
‘Enough!’ snapped Clariel. ‘That is even more stupid than being too lazy to learn Charter Magic.’
Valannie shrugged angrily. ‘It is what everyone says, milady.’
‘You’d better make sure my mother doesn’t hear it,’ said Clariel forcefully. Though even as she said it, she wondered if that was true. Jaciel was estranged from her father, the Abhorsen Tyriel, and the whole clan who lived somewhere to the south in a sprawling house or series of houses collectively called Hillfair. The reason or reasons for that estrangement had never been explained to Clariel. She’d never asked about them, either, and in fact hadn’t ever really thought about it.