Chương 10

On the morning of the enrolment ceremony, John set himself the modest goal of ending his enforced sedentary lifestyle. He began the morning by walking to the window and back. His healing proceeded apace, and now he was capable of walking short distances without issue, though Elara had yet to approve his discharge from the infirmary. A few dozen cycles later, going from the window to the foot of his bed, he finally decided he had enough and settled back into bed. Elara watched from beside the narrow window.

She had come dressed in black, formal to the collar, with her document case tucked under one arm. Mirelle wore grey and her usual expression, and took up a position by the wall from which she could see the door, the window, and both of John's hands. It appeared a fortnight of guarded cooperation had moved her assessment of him from confessed traitor to confessed traitor who is currently useful, and she saw no reason to let the distinction blur. John was, on the whole, in favour.

Someone in the household ought to be sensible about him.

"Master Rook."

"My lady."

"I will be occupied from midday. The final candidates' briefing." A small pause, in which she appeared to review a prepared sentence.

"I thought it prudent to check in on how my prospective retainer was recovering before heading off." John looked at the distance he had crossed. A personal guard who could manage a few hundred steps before requiring a bed. House Vey was acquiring excellent value.

"I'm recovering."

"You have yet to be cleared to walk."

"The Lady Sera is just a tad over-cautious," John replied, deflecting the admonishment.

"I assure you I am very much better."

"Perhaps, but Lady Sera is also a Third-Circle Wood mage, and I believe it prudent to heed her words." That was inconveniently true. John eased his back against the pillow and adjusted until he was more comfortable.

"Very well, my lady. I shall try to give you fewer reasons to worry." Elara's eyes narrowed a fraction. The joke had failed to move her, which was probably fair. He was still untrusted, and tomorrow she meant to put him inside her household. There were many reasonable responses to that arrangement. Amusement ranked fairly low amongst them. Tactfully, John decided to change the topic, bringing up another matter of interest to him.

He asked his question in a manner he believed not to unduly arouse suspicion, which was to say, lazily — half a thought, wandering out on its own.

"Is the candidate list posted anywhere? Before tomorrow."

"List?"

"Yes. For the new intake registry." Elara's attention came back to him, a degree cooler for being attention.

"Why?"

"Curiosity. If I'm to stand behind you, I'd like to know which of the great houses are sending children this year." He let one shoulder rise and fall.

"It seemed prudent." The lie came out with suitable dullness. It was a serviceable one, as lies went — true at every point except its centre. Cal's naturally dry expression helped sell the deceit. Elara studied him for several seconds.

"You expect trouble from one of them?"

"If I knew who was coming, I could decide."

"That sounds very nearly diligent." John sniffed.

"You have a rather high opinion of me, my lady. As I said, I am merely curious."

"Then your curiosity can wait a day," Elara said.

"Nothing is published before the Roll. The registry holds the complete list, and the faculty; no one else sees it until the names are entered. Candidates withdraw at the last hour more often than you would think, and the Academy posts nothing it might have to amend." A beat.

"The Roll itself is public once entered. And if it is the noble houses you want, Nessa will have them catalogued by tomorrow's supper regardless. With commentary." John nodded slowly, hiding his disappointment. He looked at Elara and, for exactly the length of one breath, consoidered asking her directly. When the list is entered — if it passes near you — there is a name I would like to know about. Aren Mills. Common-born. Bletchmoor. On the surface, it seemed sensible.

She was already going to the ceremony, and a candidate named Mills would hardly attract notice among the children of titled houses. Except that she would remember the request. Why that name? In her curiosity, he new employer could require details john could not call on from Cal's broken memories to assemble a believable lie. And then were the questions that could be borne of this. Who is Aren Mills? How does a mercenary know the name of a miller's orphan from a chapel-school many days away on a fast horse?

Why does it matter to you whether one scholarship boy enrols? What else do you know that you have not said? Against that: the Roll was public after entry. A posted list was a list, readable by anyone with eyes and a healer's permission to cross a courtyard — or, failing both, by a maid who apparently catalogued strangers for sport. He did not need the name tonight. He needed it eventually, and eventually could wait. For once, the lazy option and the safe option were the same option. John took it with both hands.

"…Is there someone you expect to see?" Elara asked into the silence that John in his inattentiveness had let to build.

"No one in particular," he said, easing further into the mattress. Her gaze stayed on him. John let it. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Then, having determined that John had nothing else to say, Elara adjusted the case under her arm.

"Then I should attend my briefing." John nodded simply in response.

"Alright, my lady. Good luck." * Mirelle left her at the cloister arch, bound for the registry with the designation papers, and Elara went on toward the admissions hall alone. The morning had filled. Candidates crossed the outer court in ones and twos — a tall boy rehearsing something under his breath, two girls comparing folded papers, a knot of the already-acquainted laughing too loudly at the foot of the stair. She was still a dozen steps short when a voice she had known all her life said, "There you are."

Seraphine detached herself from a group near the colonnade with the unhurried ease of a hostess leaving one conversation to bestow herself upon another. Seraphine had improved since home. Or perhaps the Academy suited her. Her fine-boned face required very little assistance from powder, her hair had been arranged in smooth, immaculate coils which the damp air had failed to disturb, and the family grey-blue of her eyes worn several degrees warmer thsn Elara remembered them being.

She took Elara's hands before Elara had decided to give them.

"Look at you." Seraphine turned her half a step, so that the light — and the colonnade — could see them both.

"Whole, upright, and terrorising the registry. I have been trying to catch you for days, but they keep you behind such dreary doors."

"Seraphine."

"You look well. Considering." The smile deepened by one careful degree.

"You have become rather memorable, little sister. Half the upper years can recite your arrival by now — the burned coach, the dead hirelings, the midnight ride. The details improve with every telling. In yesterday's version you carried a sword."

"I did not."

"I know. I preferred it." To anyone at ten paces, Seraphine's behaviour was clearly concern — an elder sister taking loving inventory of a younger one nearly lost on the road. At ten paces, Elara reflected, it had always been concern. Seraphine's affection always, unfailingly, kept reliable witnesses. At Veymoor it had been warmest at dinners when everyone could see and coolest on the stairs when no one could.

"Which is why I wanted to find you before your briefing." The public register folded away; what replaced it was lower, family-grade, and very gentle.

"The petition, Elara. Sanctuary? Against Father's own seal, in front of clerks who talk? Whatever possessed you?"

"Caution."

"Caution." Seraphine said the word as though tasting an unfamiliar spice.

"Father might not recieve it properly. Either you offer him obedience, or insult — there is no third category with him, you know this. And a daughter publicly asking strangers for protection from his instruction—" She let the sentence rest, unfinished, doing its own work.

"So I wanted to reach you while something can still be done." Her hands tightened, warmly, around Elara's.

"Withdraw. Today, quietly, before the ceremony. I know how these offices run; it can be recorded as deference to the House — a daughter declining enrolment amid an open inquiry, entirely proper, nothing more. You've had a dreadful journey. No one sensible could expect your judgement to be at its best. And if you are gone before the Roll, I can manage what reaches Father. He will hear that you were shaken by the road and wished for home, which is true enough to survive repeating.

He need never hear how publicly you questioned his seal." A pause, weighted to the grain.

"I am trying to protect you, Elara. You have not seen him about his seal. I have. Do as I say." Seraphine's hand settled more firmly over Elara's arm. Elara had. Contradiction was not the useful move, so she held it. She understood the architecture beneath the kindness well enough. By birth, Seraphine stood a single place above her — sixth of twelve to Elara's seventh, a distinction that had governed nothing but seating. But birth order was the least of what stood in front of her. Seraphine was established here.

She had terms behind her, friendships among daughters of houses older than Vey, invitations Elara would never see, and the settled fluency of someone for whom the Academy had long ago stopped being new. And she spoke — she had always spoken — as though the authority of House Vey, unable to attend in person, had naturally descended through her: the nearest ranking representative, generously administering Father's likely opinions in his absence. None of which Elara could afford to say.

An accusation would be retold by supper, with improvements.

"That is generous," she said, and meant the construction of it, which was, in its way, sincere.

"It is practical."

"Then let me be practical in return." Elara withdrew her hands — unhurried, as though only to adjust her cuff.

"Consider how a withdrawal reads. The order's authenticity is disputed. The registry has written to Veymoor for confirmation, and no answer has yet come. If I obey today and the order proves forged, then House Vey let a counterfeit under its own seal walk a daughter out of sanctuary. If it proves genuine, the House loses nothing by my waiting for Father's word except a few days, which it will survive.

But a daughter who acts while the question is open — in either direction — announces that House Vey cannot keep track of its own commands. I would rather stand still and be tediously correct."

"It is his seal." The gentleness acquired its first grain of impatience.

"I have known it my whole life. So have you."

"So was the seal on my escort contract," Elara said, "and someone put three bought swords under it. In this one affair the seal has already been made to lie once. The registry knows it. That is why they wrote to Veymoor." Seraphine's head tilted, conceding the point the way one concedes a trick at cards — pleasantly, with the score kept elsewhere.

"But you may be right," Elara went on, in the same even voice.

"You know Father's seal better than any registry clerk, and better than I. So if you believe the order genuine — advise me in writing. A few lines. That Lady Seraphine Vey has examined the recall, is satisfied of its authenticity, and counsels her sister to obey it — and that she accepts responsibility for that counsel. Sign it, and I am covered twice over. No one could say I defied the House when I followed my elder sister's written judgement. I will carry it to the registrar myself, and be grateful."

The colonnade went on around them — bells anticipated, papers folded, laughter arriving on schedule at the foot of the stair. For the length of a breath, nothing in Seraphine's expression moved, which was itself a sign. She was not weighing the request. She was admiring its construction. If the order proved false, the paper made her the sister who had advised delivering Elara to its authors — signed, dated, and filed with clerks who talked. If it proved genuine, the paper earned her nothing Father would ever see.

There was no version of the signature that purchased anything but risk, and they both knew it, and neither of them was going to say so. The smile reassembled itself, as warm as before and one degree more distant.

"Family counsel does not go through clerks, little sister. What a thing to ask of me." She reached out and smoothed Elara's collar, which did not need it — a small proprietary touch, executed for the colonnade.

"You have become surprisingly cautious."

"Have I?" Elara said. Seraphine's smile grew a tad colder.

"It may even suit you," she said. Somewhere above them, the hall bell gave its first note. The older girl leisurely glanced towards it.

"Go on, then. You ought not be late for your own briefing." She pressed Elara's hand a final time, already half-turned, warmth returning and already redistributing towards its next recipient.

"I shall watch the proceedings with great interest." And she was gone — folded back into the group by the colonnade, greeting someone by name, delighted about something within the second. Elara stood in the traffic of candidates and let out a breath she had been metering for some minutes. She did not know what the exchange had been for. Father's favour, perhaps. The comfort of a sister restored to manageable size.

Or simply the old game, resumed on a larger board, grown malicious; It would not be surprising to Elara if Seraphine found amusement in the possibility of her getting kidnapped and some manner of great fortune befalling her. It had cost Seraphine nothing to try. It would cost her nothing to try again. That was the wearying nature of it. Years of this, she thought. Terms and terms of it, in corridors and at dinners. Elara was tired already, and she only just got here. The second bell rang.

Elara straightened her collar where her sister had touched it, and went in to be briefed.