Bloodkin (Jaseth of Jaelshead) Page 14

  Charlie I wrote. That was an easy one. I was grateful to Charlie for coming to rescue me from my tedious existence as Lord’s heir, and for generally being such a cool guy.

  Telgeth and Lolitha were next, for being nice to me, and for not appearing to care about what I was. I chewed my pencil and thought.

  Hyaven I wrote, guessing at the spelling. For the mere existence of it, that made all these wonderful things possible, and for the fact that apparently I had it, and it had been recognised and I was not, after all, an insane pyromaniac.

  Sallagh I scrawled quickly, last. Because even if she was being horrible and ignoring me, she had still given me my first proper kiss, and it had been pretty amazing.

  As the music ended I folded my piece of paper and sat back. The Priestess up the front held up her list.

  “I am grateful for Queen Lilbecz, for her bravery and sacrifice in leading the Leaving, so that Humans can live happily and at peace. I am grateful for everyone here today, who have taken the time to reflect and acknowledge those things that bring wonder and joy to our lives. I am grateful for Myn Gilbert at the bakery, for saving me one of her special pies that I will enjoy for my supper.” She smiled beatifically at the congregation as we laughed. She folded her piece of paper and dropped it into the small charcoal brazier on the altar, and as it burnt to ashes she placed her hands together.

  “So mote it be,” she intoned, opening her hands and gesturing for us all to stand. The organist began playing again, a strident, joyful piece, and we all shuffled out of the pews and formed a line down the aisle to go and place our own pieces of paper in the brazier. When I made it to the front I dropped my small list in and placed my hands together.

  “So mote it be,” I said quietly as the paper crumpled and caught alight. The Priestess smiled at me in a kindly way, her rather wrinkly old face suffused with happiness. I bent my head to receive her blessing and she touched me on the forehead. “Peace and joy be with you, child.”

  I thanked her and turned, walking back down the aisle to the now-open doors and out into the hot sun.

  Outside, our groups gathered as everyone performed the ritual and left the Temple. On the whole everyone seemed quiet and contemplative, but happy, which I guess is the point of the Temple services anyway. Mantilly spoke a few words to the Acolyte at the door who collected our pencils, then came over to us, smiling.

  “I told you the organist was good! Hey, there’s a great café just over there, I could totally go for some ice cream right now. Oops, that’s something I forgot to put on my list – ice cream!” She giggled. “Fine then!” She called back in the direction of the Temple, “I’m grateful for ice cream!” We laughed with her as she led us down the cobbled walk that edged the green. Not far from the Temple was the café, set back from the rest of the shops with shaded tables scattered over the courtyard. Inside, a glass-fronted counter held an assortment of sweet treats and pastries, and big tubs of flavoured ice cream.

  “The confectionnaire who runs this place is Nea’thi-Blood,” Mantilly told us. “That’s how they keep it cold in there,” she waved her hand at the tubs. “Cool eh?”

  I had never had ice cream before, and the waitress behind the counter scooped some of the dark brown chocolate-flavoured one into a hard waffle cone for me. The Mentors eschewed the cold treat in favour of ordering coffees, and Thomas brought up the rear, handing over coins from the Hall allowance purse.

  We settled at some of the tables outside, us Nea’thi-Bloods taking the sunnier spots so the Mentors could sip their coffees in the shade.

  “So what were you grateful for on this fine day?” asked Telgeth, leaning back in his chair and taking huge freezing bites of his ice cream, three scoops high, each a different flavour.

  “Um, Charlie mostly, for bringing me here I suppose.”

  “Ha, me too. Well Jimmy, obviously.” Lolitha licked delicately at a drip threatening her fingers.

  “It was a bit strange. We never went to the Temple much at home, except for the festivals of course.”

  Lolitha looked at me appraisingly. “Us neither. Maybe people at home would be nicer if they did. I don’t know if it was the weather or what, but that miserable little hellhole was filled with bastards.”

  “Lallisol?” I asked and she nodded, then looked between Telgeth and me.

  “So you two really didn’t know each other before coming here? How big is Jaelshead?”

  Telgeth grinned. “Well I knew who he was, of course, but he didn’t come to school with us. And I don’t know, maybe seven, eight thousand people live in Jaelshead proper, who knows how many in the district.”

  “Seven thousand, two hundred and twenty-four in town, twenty-three thousand, five hundred and ninety in the district as of the last census.” Telgeth raised his eyebrows and I blushed and looked down. “Yeah, I had tutors and stuff instead.”

  Dunkerle, who was cleaning a spot of ice cream from his spectacles, overheard and leaned in. “Okay, no offence Jas, but why, if the country’s all democratic and that, are there still hereditary Lordships for the districts?”

  The answer I knew all too well, having had it drummed into me from an early age.

  “Because we have to start training to be a Lord starting from when we’re really little. That’s why I wasn’t allowed to go to school, I had to have the tutors to teach me all about boring legal stuff and taxation and… yeah,” I finished weakly.

  Telgeth grinned. “Sounds bloody awful, mate.” He crunched on his cone. “Hey, we’ll all be able to vote next elections.”

  Dunkerle looked up mournfully. “I won’t, I’ll still be nineteen.”

  Sallagh glanced over and waved her fingers impatiently. “Don’t be silly, you can vote when you’re eighteen, you just can’t be selected until you’re twenty.”

  “Oh ho, one of us could be selected. It could even be me!” Telgeth stretched his hands behind his head and Sallagh snorted. “Hey! I’d be an awesome King!” He grinned at her.

  “I thought you wanted to be a smith?” Lolitha asked, ignoring Sallagh.

  “Oh, well I do, but it only takes four years, I could smith after that. Speaking of which, the Queen arrives at midwinter. Have you seen the picture of her? Total babe!” He poked Lolitha in the shoulder, and she reddened and elbowed his hand away.

  I hadn’t actually seen a copy of the Ashlu portrait of our current Queen, Thaelique of Allyon. All the Candidates at each election had their portraits painted by the famous artist, and copies of these were distributed to the Temples where the voting took place. The portrait of the winning Candidate was then retained and hung somewhere, but I hadn’t particularly paid any attention at home or at the two Temples I had visited in the past couple of days.

  Sallagh smiled loftily at us. “My father customarily holds a function for the Royal Party when they’re in Lille. You might even get to meet her.” Telgeth’s eyes bulged. “Don’t get any ideas, she’s far too old for you.”

  “Hardly! She was young when she got elected, she’d be only, what, twenty-three by now?”

  Sallagh rolled her eyes and turned away.

  We could see the ferry pull in to the dock, spilling its passengers down the gangplank, and the Mentors moved to leave, the Journeymen hoisting the baskets and the rest of us finishing our cones.

  Thomas handed over more coins to the Captain and we settled on the ferry. The sun was beginning to droop over the plains to the west, and I looked back at Nallow as the steam engine roared into life and we pulled away from the jetty, taking us back home to Lille.

  Dinner at the Hall was a subdued affair, all of us feeling the lingering effects of the night before and an afternoon in the hot sun. At the end of the meal, before I could gratefully get away to my own room, Eve instructed us to get an early night, as our classes at the Academy started the next day. Downstairs, Charlie helped himself to a bath as I stretched out on a chair in front of the fire. I was tired, certainly, but also restless, and I felt the need to stand and pace
for a bit. Charlie found me doing this when he emerged from the bathroom, towelling his white mane. He caught my mood at once.

  “Fancy some Blue, old chap?”

  “Blue what?”

  “Blue moss. Helps you sleep.”

  “Oh.” I thought for a minute. “I thought we weren’t allowed to smoke in the rooms.”

  “We’re not, but we can go upstairs.”

  “To the common room?”

  He shook his head. “Come on, I’ll show you.” He gathered his pipe and his small blue leather bag and led me up the stairs and through the common room, which was mercifully empty, the fires banked for the night. We went through the door that led to the kitchen and turned towards another door just inside that revealed a neat spiral staircase.

  “I hadn’t even realised there was another floor,” I whispered to him as we wandered down a short hallway that had seven doors, three on either side and one at the end.

  “Where did you think the Journeymen lived? This is the guest floor,” he whispered back as he unlatched the door at the end and pushed it open.

  I followed him outside, onto a small balcony cut into the roof. It was shaded with cloth and had lavender bushes growing in pots, scenting the night air. The balcony just had room for a table and a few chairs and we sat, looking out over the Nea’thi Quarter, lines of streets bathed by glowbes and the light of the moon. Charlie sparked the pipe, handed it to me and we sat in companionable silence as we smoked.

  “Charlie, did you stay up here when you came to Lille?”

  “I did indeed! I was in the middle one on the lake side. That would have been, oh, eighteen years ago. Aӣấ and Aliakh had the very same room we’re in now.” He rushed on, obviously not wanting me to ask about Anna. “Yeah, I was here most summers, Aӣấ helped me find a nice apartment after the first one.”

  “What did you do in the winters then?”

  “Oh, what Journeymen are supposed to do – travel around, explore the world. I even spent one winter in Yhull.”

  “Wow, really? How long did it take to get there?” Yhull was the country to the south, almost completely cut off from us by the massive sweep of the Rhye Mountains.

  Charlie chuckled. “Two months each way. It’s pretty crazy down there, warm though. I even saw an elephant. A real one!”

  “And?”

  “They don’t look anything like us!” He grinned in the dark. “Anyway, I soon realised I was pretty good at sniffing out Nea’thi-Bloods.

  “Eh?”

  “You’ve never wondered how we knew about you?” I had, of course, but had never found the right moment to ask. “Well, that’s the other thing we’re supposed to do while travelling around. Finding out about any suspicious fires, meeting young people, then discreetly probing to see if they have any Hầұeӣ.

  “Did you find me?” I asked, half-hoping.

  “Oh no, boyo, this would have been when you were just little. I believe you were detected by the assessment team from the last election. There was a fire, I believe?”

  I scratched my head ruefully. Oh yes, I remembered the night the Nea’thi had come to Jaelshead all too well.

  “Funnily enough, Telgeth was identified by the same team. Nea’thi-Bloods don’t show any signs of having Hầұeӣ until they hit puberty, and don’t get any sort of real power or control until their late teens, when their frontal lobes develop, you know, in your brains. That’s where the Hầұeӣ comes from.”

  “Right. Yeah.” More seemingly basic information I had had no idea about.

  “Anyway, when I was a Journeyman I was pretty good at finding Nea’thi-Bloods, I’m good with all the brain and emotional stuff. I even thought about becoming a Psychosolast!” He looked at me expectedly, as if anticipating some sort of reaction.

  “Er, I don’t really…”

  “You know, Psychosolasts! They’re like regular Solasts, but instead of healing physical ailments with Hầұeӣ, they heal people’s brains.”

  “I thought that was Psychotherapists?”

  “Ahh, no, there’s a difference. Psychotherapists give counselling for mental and emotional problems, sometimes using Hầұeӣ to give temporary relief. Psychosolasts use Hầұeӣ to permanently change the chemical emitters and neural pathways of the patient. It’s like brain surgery. Remember when Фyѫea – Fiona, that is – made that hair blue? Yeah, it’s like the difference between the first time, which slipped away, and the second time, which was permanent. Anyway, the training would have taken another ten or so years, and I figured Mentoring would be much more fun. And I don’t have to hang out with the criminally insane!”

  I thought about something Charlie had mentioned a few times. “Why do you like Humans so much?”

  He looked at me, surprised. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re fascinating, you really are. I don’t know if it’s your short life span—”

  “It’s not that short,” I grumbled, and Charlie laughed.

  “Well, comparatively speaking, of course. But you have so much energy and creativity. Everything in the Enclaves is so slow, so measured. Humans are… different.” He waved his pipe around, lost for words. “You have ideas. You have conviction. It’s remarkable, it really is.” I was surprised at his vehemence. “Anyway, you feeling tired yet? You do have class tomorrow.”

  On cue, I yawned loudly. Hell, I was tired now. Charlie yawned as well, then grinned at me.

  “Come on then, let’s go get some sleep.”

  woke up nervous. Ever since Charlie had appeared at the Manor I had been excited. Excited about going to the Capitol, pleased to be not just a Lord’s heir, and somehow relieved by the diagnosis that I was Nea’thi-Blood. Everything had moved so fast, and ever since we had been in Lille I had been kept too busy to be apprehensive about what studying at the Academy would entail. Now it was finally upon me, I was nervous. I wasn’t stupid – the tutors at home had schooled me diligently and had commented that I was an intelligent boy, but learning about Hyaven – magic! – was a completely different story.

  After bathing and dressing in my linen robe, still fresh and clean after the weekend, we went to breakfast in the common room. There was an air of quiet anxiety among the Humans as we ate our bacon and eggs with toast and drank mugs of hot coffee. Afterwards in my room I gathered my pen and one of the blank journals and Charlie and I went to meet the others in the Hall’s reception so we could all walk to the Academy together. Telgeth and Thomas were the last to join us, Thomas almost pushing Telgeth down the stairs as he tried to flatten his sleep-mussed hair.

  Eve popped her head round the door and wished us a good morning, informing us that lunch would be ready back at the Hall in the midday break between classes. We shuffled a bit, all of us wearing our robes – except Sallagh of course – and carrying books and pens. Lolitha had lined her eyes with kohl again, and stared defiantly at Sallagh who pretended to ignore her. Jimmy broke the tension by flinging open the front door of the Hall and he led us out into the lane. We turned right at the end, away from the Quarter and down the street that led to the jetty we had used the day before, but we turned left before we got to the lake, onto a surprisingly wide, tree-lined avenue. The buildings on either side were no longer built from the dark, light-absorbing stone of the Nea’thi Quarter, but the paler grey slate that glittered with tiny crystals that was native to the Lille region. At the end of the avenue was a wide quadrangle of grass, peppered with mature plane trees, offering moments of respite from the glare of the morning sun. Three sides of the quad were flanked with imposing buildings, each with four storeys of arched windows. Stone gargoyles peeked from corners as Jimmy guided us unhesitatingly through the great wooden doors of the middle building and into the Academy, its parquet floors smoothed by the passage of six centuries’ worth of foot traffic.

  Inside we were met by Myr Roderick and a smaller Nea’thi man who appeared to be in his late middle age. I did some quick calculations in my head and figured that would make him about one hundred and fifty years old.
I shook my head in wonder at the thought.

  “Welcome, Bloodkin and Mentors, to the Lille Academy!” Myr Roderick announced brightly when we had all shuffled inside. “This is Bίлiжςa Θấϖeӣ of the Жanờ Enclave, or Myr Billy for the Humans.” I noted the man’s colouring, the greenish tint to his grey skin and the violet-red eyes. He smiled and nodded, examining each one of us with his big eyes, then went round introducing himself, shaking our hands gravely. He was smallish for a Nea’thi, with a round, smooth face and kindly eyes, and he smiled at each of the Mentors he had worked with before with a pleased “Welcome back.”

  “I thought perhaps we would start with a tour of the Academy before you begin your classes. Come.” Myr Roderick led the way back out through the door and onto the quad. He pointed out the wing of the Academy to the left, closest to the lake and explained that this was where the Temple oversaw the training of Solasts, Psychotherapists and Psychosolasts. Behind the wing we could see the spire of a large Temple that was, like the Temple in Nallow, a remnant of the time before the Leaving, and had been converted.

  A Human male, not much older than us I guessed, with longish black hair and weirdly pale eyes, dressed in the blue robes edged with white that marked him as a Solast, waved and hurried over.

  “Hey Jimmy, this the new intake? Not interrupting am I, Myr Rod?” He grinned cheekily.

  “Hayoum, how goes the study? Everyone, this is Hayoum, my last Bloodkin. He’s training to be a Solast,” Jimmy beamed proudly. Hayoum glanced over us Bloodkin, a flicker of recognition registering on his face when he saw Mantilly.

  “Hayoum? Ah yes, just giving the new recruits a tour of the Academy before we begin. It’s their first day, you know.” Myr Roderick shook the man’s hand warmly.