I spent three days alone, in the room they gave me. It had coloured glass bottles on its shelves, and little carved wooden boxes. Two horses made of fabric so worn the straw stuffing was coming out. They never quite stood up on their own.
“You’ll be interested to know that this was Chenn’s room,” Teldaru said from the doorway, that first time. I think he expected me to be afraid, or at least unsettled. I might have been, if it had been night. But the sunlight was shining past the open shutters and onto the blue and red glass bottles, and the horses seemed to be smiling lopsided smiles. I smiled too, and said, “Good.”
So for three days I was by myself in this room. I threw the door and shutters wide, even at night, when the air was early-winter sharp. There was always a man outside—a succession of men, in fact; Teldaru must have had them on a schedule. They wore no armour, but their thick necks and bulging shoulders would have revealed them as soldiers, even if the short swords at their sides had not. They began by standing, tensing whenever I appeared. I would glare at them, then turn to look out at the seers’ courtyard. I only ever looked—at the other small, stone rooms that clung, like mine, to the red wall; at the drifts of fallen leaves and the bare branches above them; at the sky. Especially at the young people who would gather at their own doors and out under the trees. Two boys, two girls: it seemed that Teldaru had told me the truth of this, anyway, when he had still been Orlo. They stood, singly or in a group, and stared at me—Selera most often, though thankfully she did not come too close. She made a show of whispering to the others, and her rolling eyes and scornful smile were obvious enough—but I was not sure what I saw in the faces of her companions. I showed all of them—guards and youths—an expression of defiant helplessness. See, my eyes and straight, stiff body said, I am not afraid, but I am also frozen here. I could not move quickly, even if I truly wanted to.
The guards seemed to believe this, for they all began to relax. They leaned and watched me with hooded, careless eyes, and I thought, Yes, you think this. Think that I will just stand here forever.
Because I meant to run.
At first I was too tired to think about this with any precision. I simply knew I would reason it out when I could. But before I could, Teldaru came for me.
He had not appeared at all, those first three days. A silent, stooped woman had come instead, with my food, and to take me (escorted by whichever guard was nearby) to the dark, dank outbuilding I was now permitted to use, rather than a bucket in the corner. I had tried not to think at all about Teldaru, and I really only failed at night, when every scraping branch or pacing guard became him, coming to me again in darkness.
He came at noon. I had just eaten and was sitting on the chair by the desk. (There was nothing inside it: no papers, no quills or ink. Nothing that could help me, now that my own voice could not.) I saw him when he walked out of the naked trees, along the path of tiny white stones. He was wearing a deep red cloak that he twitched at, every few strides, to keep it from tangling in his legs. Borl loped beside him, his tongue lolling. Teldaru nodded to the guard, and then his eyes found me. He did not smile, and my insides clenched. I knew what his smiles meant; his smooth, expressionless face could mean anything.
“Good,” he said when he was in my room. “You’re dressed and you’ve eaten. We can go.”
“Where?” I did not want to speak to him, of course, but I needed to know this.
“To the history lesson room. It’s time you met the others.”
I followed him outside, my belly sour with nervousness. Borl rose and planted his legs wide and snarled, showing his pink-and-black mottled gums. I snapped my own teeth at him. “Enough,” Teldaru said brusquely, maybe to both of us. He walked, and I hurried to walk beside him. (Borl loped behind, still growling deep in his throat.) We stopped at a building that was nestled in the crook of the courtyard wall. This building had two floors and a much larger door. A great tree stooped in front of it, its branches touching the upper casements. There was a corridor inside, and a flight of smooth, uneven stairs, and a dimness that made me hesitate.
“Up,” Teldaru said, and wrapped his fingers around my arm, just above the elbow. He pushed me before him on the stairs, which were unnervingly slanted, worn down and inward by generations of student-seer feet. When we reached the top he put his hand against the small of my back, just as he had when we had crept out of the brothel. He kept his hand there as he rapped at a new door, this one painted green. It opened. Heads and eyes turned to us.
“Master Teldaru!” The teacher was a short, round woman with white hair that had been pulled into an unruly knot. Behind her were a high table, shelves of books, an open window filled with a tangle of bare tree branches. All four students were sitting around the table. There were books open in front of each of them: slender ones with large, colourful pictures for the two boys and thicker ones with only text for the older girls. Sheets of paper too, and quills and ink. My palms began to sweat; I pressed them against my dress.
“We were not expecting you today! But welcome, of course; we were just reciting the twelve laws of the Paleric Age. . . .” Her black eyes leapt from Teldaru to me and back again. I could tell that she did not want to stare, as all the students were, but that she also could not resist.
“Ah,” Teldaru said, “the Paleric Age. Excellent.” I could hear his smile. His warmest, most relaxed tone; everyone else smiled too, though all of them except Selera lowered their eyes to their books or hands. “You must forgive my interruption, but I have brought someone to meet you. You may have seen her in the courtyard.” I thought he had probably watched them there, as they watched me, and whispered. And now I am one of them, I thought, with another thrum of eagerness and dread.
“Her name is Nola. Her Otherseeing power is so strong that it made her sick, for a time, but now she is well again. She will be studying history with you.”
A pause. The younger boy wriggled on his chair. Selera twisted a long, blonde coil of hair around her forefinger.
“Only history?” the teacher said.
“Yes.” He was stroking my back. I wanted to whirl and cry, “What? Now that I’m finally here you won’t even let me take lessons with the others?” Instead I flushed slowly, as his fingers circled.
“As I have said already, she is powerful. In fact, she could probably teach several of your classes.” He chuckled low in his throat, and it sounded like one of Borl’s growls. “So I will be taking charge of her Otherseeing instruction.”
Selera stopped playing with her hair. Her emerald eyes widened. And I felt triumph, flooding over everything else. I smiled a tiny smile at her.
“I will leave her with you now. If you could just step outside with me for a moment, Mistress Ket?”
“Certainly. Children, write down laws eight and twelve without consulting the texts.”
She was gone. They both were.
I walked to the table. There was an extra stool pushed beneath it; I pulled it out, sat down between Selera and the littlest boy.
“What are your names?” I said as I reached for paper and quill. My voice was steady; my heartbeat was not. Perhaps my hand would be unsteady too, and I would blot the ink, smudge it so that no one would be able to read my words.
“I believe Mistress Ket told us to write.” Selera glared at each of the other students. The two boys avoided her eyes; the girl looked back at her with an expression of profound disinterest.
“She did,” I said, and dipped the quill in Selera’s ink pot.
I had imagined what I would write, when the opportunity arose. The words had been very clear, these past few days:
I am Teldaru’s captive. He uses Otherseeing for evil purposes and has cursed me so that I cannot tell anyone. Please give this information to the king. Please help me.
I did not expect anyone to believe me, but I did think they might fetch King Haldrin. I would write much more for him, of course, but now I needed to set down only enough to bring him to me.
I placed the quill’s tip against the paper, aware of everyone’s eyes on me. My hand moved and letters scratched forth, dark and wet.
Teldaru Teldaru Teldaru Teldaru
Selera giggled.
Teldaru Tel
“Well. It seems that Master Teldaru’s special student wishes to learn more than visions from him.”
I set the quill down. Folded the paper in half, and in half again. Of course, I thought, flooded now with a numbness that was too familiar. Of course he would think of this; he would make sure to take everything away from me . . . There was a warm pulse, in the numbness: the memory of another Path I had not even known about until it was gone. I lowered my head for a moment, so that my freshly washed hair hid my face.
“Anyhow,” said the other girl, who was sitting beside Selera. This girl was covered in freckles (even her arms) and had greyish eyes and lank brown hair. She was shapeless, too—fourteen but somehow old as well, all rounded edges but no curves. “My name is Grasni.” She nodded at me as if we had just conducted a satisfying bit of business. I nodded back at her.
“Grasni is tedious and annoying,” Selera said. “You and she should be fast friends.”
“I believe Mistress Ket told us to write?” Grasni said in a high, querulous imitation of Selera. Selera herself scowled and the little boy to my left cringed back on his stool, but Mistress Ket came back in then, and we all bent over our papers.
The eighth law of the Paleric Age, I wrote, as familiar numbness gave way to familiar pain.
I ran that night.
I put the largest glass bottle under my cloak. It was heavy and had a broad, thick bottom. It was also red, and this seemed important, even though I would not be able to see it.
“Help me . . . Sir Guard? Help . . .” I made my voice thin and weak and leaned on the doorframe, both hands beneath my cloak, as if I were clutching my belly.
It was very dark, beyond my door. The branches were black and there were stars among them, but no moon. My breath was white; the brightest thing I saw.
“What is it?” He was dark too, though as he neared I made out the silver glint of his eyes. He had a beard, contrary to the custom begun by Teldaru. This almost made me regret what I intended to do.
“I’m ill . . .” I retched—a wracked sound that produced no vomit but was nonetheless convincing. “I need . . .” I leaned over, heaved again.
“Very well,” he said hastily, “I’ll take you.”
I stumbled after him to where he had been sitting. He picked up his lantern (which glowed only weakly) and led me to the latrine. I thought, as I lurched inside and slammed the knot-holed door, that it did not stink as much at night.
I straightened up against the wall and waited. The bottle was in my hand, which was already raised. I counted my own heartbeats; twenty of them, before the guard rapped on the wood.
“Come on, then,” he called. “Come out.”
Fifteen more heartbeats.
“Girl . . . Nola. Come out now or I’ll come in.”
Five more, and the door creaked open. I was relieved that he did not pound it open, because I was behind it, and needed him to be tentative in order to carry out my plan. I was relieved, but sorry again, in a clear, sudden, silly way—and then he was in, head and neck, and I was bringing the bottle down on him with all my strength.
He fell onto his stomach with a grunt that sounded puzzled. He tried to twist onto his side when I stepped over him; I slammed my foot against his forehead and he fell back again. I ran out the door and into the shadows of the trees. I ran as if I had done it before, here: skimming over roots and crackly grass, toward the keep that flickered with red-orange light. I heard only my own footsteps—no one shouting; no one following.
At the double doors to the keep I halted. I leaned against the stone, panting in long, vanishing plumes. Think. Think: this part will be harder. . . .
I pulled the doors open and saw a stretch of torchlit corridor. No guards; no one at all. I stepped inside and pulled the doors shut behind me. Walked quickly, but not too quickly. I remembered this place a little; I knew I would see a staircase, at the end of the hall, and yet another set of doors, and another guard. I did. I stood and watched him. Think, Nola, think. . . .
I burst into the brighter light of the entrance hall. He saw me almost immediately and stiffened, though he did not draw his sword. “You must come!” I cried. “The guard in the seers’ courtyard—someone has attacked him!”
He stared at me for a moment, then rushed off the way I had come. I scrabbled at the double doors until they creaked open and flung myself down the long staircase outside. It seemed very dark here, after the keep, and I was moving swiftly; I slipped several times and flailed my arms gracelessly to keep my balance. There were knots of people at the bottom but I flew past them, and past the guards who were standing by a wagon at the main gate. My feet pounded the cobblestones that sloped away from the castle. I made for an alley that branched off the main street. It was narrow and dank and there was no light at all, so I slowed, dragging my shoulder along a rough wooden wall. The alley twisted downward.
Yes, I thought as I followed it, take me away from him; take me to a street I know—the one with the brothel, so that I can find Bardrem. We’ll leave the city together and he’ll write a poem about it someday, when we’re old. . . .
Light flickered ahead of me. I quickened my pace, blinking, clenching my hands to try to keep them warm. A pony clopped by where the alley met the street. I edged forward and peered out after it. The castle was there, very close, looming against the sky. I stared at the shapes of its gatehouse towers and walls, thinking, No—that’s impossible—I ran down, away. . . .
This time I took the main road, and I walked. Down again—I was sure of it, because when I glanced over my shoulder I could see just the black shadows of the gatehouse banners. I breathed and wrapped my arms around myself and kept walking. A woman carrying a yoke and two buckets was coming up toward me, and I stepped to the side to let her pass. When she had, and I went back into the middle of the street, the castle was directly ahead of me.
I stopped. Everything swam in my vision, as if I were beginning to Othersee. I staggered where I stood, and turned around to look behind me. I saw the castle again: a mirror castle and a real one, or maybe neither? Men were approaching from both. Guards—four of them, led by the bearded one I had hit. As he drew closer I saw that his left eye was swollen shut. I spun and spun and there was no path away from them. Even if there had been I would have been too dizzy to follow it.
“Nola,” the bearded one said softly as the others fell in behind him. He closed his big hands around my upper arms so tightly that I cried out. His mouth was nearly touching my ear. “He warned us you’d be tricky.”
“No.” I whimpered and wrenched myself around in his grasp, but it did not matter—not only because he had me so firmly, but also because the castle was there, where it should not have been. It was everywhere.
“Back we go, mad girl,” he said. “Master Teldaru’s waiting.”
He did not come until dawn.
I heard him, after hours and hours of silence. It was almost a relief to hear him: his footsteps, his voice murmuring to whichever man was outside my door. I sat on the edge of the bed, holding one of the cloth horses in my lap. I thought of Chenn.
Borl came in with him, this time. Teldaru was holding a lantern; its light glanced off his belt buckle and Borl’s bared teeth, and something that was between his teeth—something metal. They both stood just inside the door and stared at me.
“Well, Nola,” Teldaru said at last. My muscles ached from gripping the horse, but I held it even closer. “You still do not appreciate all I have done for you, it seems. You still seek to defy me, even though I have offered to lift the curse if you obey.” He stepped toward me, and I flinched. “And you evidently had little faith in the curse itself. You will never leave me—I bent your Paths to make this true. Perhaps now you understand? You can try to run, but your feet will always lead you back to me.”
I remembered the alley and the street, and the castle that had waited at the end of both. Sickness bubbled up into my throat.
“And yet,” he continued, “even though you have been disobedient, I have brought you something. Something you might have been missing.”
This something was small and pale, and he was holding it between his fingers. He dropped it onto the bed beside me and I reached for it, even though I did not want to. Paper. Just a square of it, wrinkled where it was folded—but it was not folded now.
“Do you remember it? You should: it was in your dress—that lovely pink dress you were wearing when you first arrived here. Remember?”
You are beautiful help!
I nodded.
He whistled and Borl came toward me, too. He opened his jaws and the metal thing he was carrying fell.
“And this, dearest—do you remember it?” I looked. I knew but did not know; I waited because I could not move. “Go on,” he said. “Pick it up.”
It was Bardrem’s knife—the small one, the one with which he had sworn to kill Chenn’s murderer. The one I had scoffed at because I had been thinking of Orlo’s black, restless eyes and broad shoulders. I picked it up and turned it over and over, and I saw dark streaks on the steel.
“He defied me too, your Bardrem.” Teldaru shook his head, smiled. “He yelled ‘Orlo!’ and ran at me, but too late.”
My breath shuddered in my chest. “You killed him,” I said. The blood on the blade smudged under my fingertips.
“No. Why would I be so foolish? No: he is alive now. But if you are foolish enough to try to escape me again, he dies. He dies, Nola. Do you understand?”
I did not nod or speak, but he leaned down to me and said, “Good,” as he plucked the knife from my hands. “And now we are done with foolishness.”
He traced the line of my cheekbone, smoothed his thumb along my forehead. Bent even closer and whispered, “Goodnight,” against my hair, as Borl growled from the doorway.
He left the door open when he went. I stared after him, at nothing—until someone else appeared on the threshold, maybe minutes later, maybe an hour.
“May I come in?”
I blinked, heard myself say, “Yes.”
The girl Grasni came to stand in front of me. She plucked at her voluminous brown dress with one freckled hand. “I heard,” she began, and cleared her throat. “We all heard the commotion last night, with you and the guards. No one will tell us what it was about, and I’m not here to ask you—just to say that I’m sorry. You must be feeling unhappy here, lonely—I know what that’s like, so I thought I’d come and give you these.”
She put something down on the bed where Teldaru had dropped Bardrem’s note. I reached out again and felt cool metal against my fingers. “They’re for your hair,” she said in a rush, as I picked up two of the dainty bronze butterfly pins and turned them over in my palm. “Now that I think about it, I’m not sure why I imagined they’d help you be less lonely. But my brother gave them to me, and he was the one I missed when I came here. They always slide right out of my hair—yours is so much nicer than mine, and I saw that it was falling in your eyes, yesterday in the classroom, so I thought that you should try them.” She drew a deep, gusty breath and let it go again.
I looked up at her. “Thank you,” I said, quietly enough that I hoped she would not hear the wobbling of my voice. “Help me with them?”
She gathered one thick strand of my hair up and away from my forehead, gave it a deft twist, and thrust one of the pins in. She did this three more times, then stepped back and cocked her head at me. “Well,” she said, “you look just lovely. Selera will be jealous.”
She smiled at me—and despite the note, the knife, and the road that would never lead me away, I smiled back at her.