The Pattern Scars (13 page)

There were six of them, hanging in brackets above the shelves. They were arranged from smallest to largest. The largest was about as big as the one Bardrem had used to slice heads of cabbage and lettuce, but its blade was different: curved like one of Uja’s talons, and notched at either end. The smallest blade had so many notches that they looked like tiny teeth.

“What are those for?” I asked, even though part of me did not want to know.

Orlo clucked his tongue, and Uja, on her perch, made a sound very much like a dog’s growl. “Dear girl,” he said, “you’ve had no lessons yet and already you seek to know the deepest truths?” He was beside me, his arm nearly touching mine. I thought that I could feel heat rising from his skin and wanted to put my own cool fingers on him—wanted it so suddenly and strongly that I had to press my nails against my palms, instead.

“Not yet,” he said, serious again. I had protested when Yigranzi had said these words to me, but I only nodded at him. His eyes, which always seemed to move, made me still. “But,” he went on, stepping back, smiling, “there is much that I
can
teach you now. Shall we begin?”

In the beginning, the lessons unfolded as they had at the brothel: with much talking and no doing. I hardly noticed, during those early weeks at the house, and I cared even less. For Orlo came to me at nightfall, or sometimes a few hours later, and he talked and talked as darkness held us close together, alone in the world. He spoke mostly of the history of Otherseeing, which should have grown dull. It did not. I watched him stride around the mirror (we never sat) or back and forth before one of the great garden trees, and every gesture, every quirk of lips or brows, made his words live. I remember him acting out the Betrayal of Seer Aldinior—all the parts, from the each of the foreign emissaries to the queen’s lady-in-waiting, who was actually a rebellious student seer in disguise. I remember laughing until I wept, and then—when the story turned tragic—weeping again so that the mirror’s metal and Uja’s feathers blurred.

He told me to read about these things in the books he kept in the library (another huge room, all wood and leather), after he discovered—to his surprise—that I could read. But beautiful and mysterious as these books were, with their gilt pages and ancient paper smells, his words were better.

I talked too, because he encouraged me to. He was mostly very patient with my castle questions, and asked me many questions of his own, which it seemed no one else ever had.

These lesson-talks are patchwork, now; I remember the bits, in their colours and textures, but they no longer exist individually. One long, breathless conversation that lasted all summer.

“How many Otherseeing students are there at the castle?”

“Only four, since Chenn left.”

“How old are they?”

“Ten, twelve, fourteen and eighteen. And before you ask, I will answer: two are boys and two are girls.”

“And how many teachers?”

“Two, and myself.”

“And Master Teldaru—does he teach, too?”

“He sometimes visits the classes, to observe. Now and then he speaks.”

“How old is he?”

“You should be able to answer that yourself, Nola. If he was five when he was taken to the castle, and he served King Lorandel for fourteen years, and if he has so far served King Haldrin for sixteen, then he is . . .?”

“. . . thirty-five? But that seems too young; he is so—”

“Yes, yes—his legend has lent him years beyond the ones he actually possesses, and he is said to be wise even beyond these. . . .”

“You sound impatient. Do you like him?”

“I like him very well—but if you do not stop asking questions about him, I shall have trouble liking
you
.”

“You’re jealous!”

“Perhaps a little. He and I are close in age—and no, I will not tell you how old I am!—and I have known him since we were both young. It is hard, sometimes, to be so close to greatness and to share none of it. But that is enough. You will meet him soon and have all the answers you desire. Until then you are mine.”

“And what of the king?”

“We were speaking of the properties of wine. What
of
the king?”

“He must be of an age with Teldaru—and you. Do you know him well? He and Teldaru must be like brothers, and—”

“Indeed, yes—they grew up side-by-side, and Teldaru is the elder by several years, and the king trusts him with his life—and they are both staggeringly handsome, though I am even
more
handsome, which makes them both sick with envy. Will this suffice, Mistress Overcurious Seer?”

This was the day that he first brought his dog Borl to the house. I remember that Borl burst from the bushes right after Orlo said, “Mistress Overcurious Seer.” He dropped a rabbit at Orlo’s feet and stood waiting, his lean flanks heaving and his tongue lolling from mottled, brown-and-pink gums. I drew back from him; I had never liked dogs.

The rabbit was small and brown and twitching. Orlo chuckled and said, “He pretends to be gentle, bringing them to me alive.” To the dog he said, “Well
done
!” Borl whined and rolled his long head on the grass.

Orlo crouched and picked the rabbit up. He twisted its neck in his hands and there was a cracking sound. I had seen Rudicol and Bardrem do this many times and had not flinched, but for some reason this time was different. I sucked in my breath, as the creature’s neck broke.

Orlo looked up at me. “Ah, Nola—so soft-hearted. You’ll be glad of Borl’s prowess when you’re eating rabbit stew. Though we’ll need a cook. I can manage soup and bread, but stew . . .” He rose, gazing thoughtfully at the shadows of the trees. “A cook,” he said again.

He brought Laedon with him the next day. The talking part ended, then, and the doing began.

At first I was excited.

“There’s someone you should meet, Nola,” Orlo said. “Someone who will cook you real meals and help us with our lessons.”

I uncurled myself from my favourite library chair. For a month I had sat in the one that looked like a throne, because even though its grandness made me feel a bit silly, there was no one else to see me. Recently, though, I had been using one that was low and round and fashioned from what seemed to be thick reeds—a strange thing that I thought must have been made in another country. But it had a deep, soft cushion, and I dozed in it as much as I read.

“Oh?” I closed the book I was holding—a slender tome on the Otherseeing uses of sparrow bones during the reign of the Boy King.
Someone else here
,
I thought, and this thought was followed by a flurry of others:
It will not be us alone, any more, and I am sorry for this . . . I am
not
sorry—I’m lonely when he’s not here . . . a cook and a helper; by Pattern and Path, he’s brought me Bardrem. . . .

The kitchen smelled of simmering wine and meat and rich, dark broth. The table was covered with knives and platters stacked with vegetables and bones. It looked like a kitchen, and smelled like one; I thought,
Bardrem
, one last, breathless time—even as Orlo called, “Laedon?”

A very old man shuffled out of the shadows at the far end of the room.
Maybe
an old man: he was swathed in so many layers of cloth—coloured rags, really—that his body was shapeless. There was a tight leather cap on his head; wisps of yellow-white hair had escaped from it and were clinging to the stubbled hollows that were his cheeks. His eyes were white-filmed blue, and they wandered and rolled.

“Laedon can hear us,” Orlo said. “Can’t you, Laedon? But he’s been mute for years, and blind for even longer.”

“But he can still cook?” I said. Laedon’s head jerked in what might have been a nod, and I drew back, just as I did from the dog—who, I saw, was lying in front of the fire, gnawing on what looked to be a small skull.

Orlo walked over to the iron pot that was hanging above the flames. “Oh, he can cook. Come and see for yourself.”

I followed him, and the old man’s eyes swivelled to follow me, or the sound of me. Orlo held up a wooden spoon and I sipped from it. “Delicious,” I said loudly (because it was; it was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted).

“He is blind and mute, remember,” Orlo said, “not deaf. You do not need to raise your voice.”

“All right.” I glanced at Laedon. I wondered how he could bear the heat of fire, clothing, heavy midsummer air.

“He used to work in the castle kitchens—didn’t you, Lae?”

A twitch of the lips, this time. I saw two blackened teeth.

“He befriended me when I was new to the place, and missing home. His kitchen always reminded me of my tavern’s, though the two were really nothing alike. Perhaps you understand this, Nola?”

I nodded. Orlo waved me over to my customary stool; I sat, and he put a bowl of stew in front of me. Even though I was ravenous I ate slowly, placing the spoon carefully in my mouth so that none of the liquid dripped. Some moments in this house were for teasing and jests; others felt like practice.

“When Laedon lost his sight and then his voice,” Orlo said as I sipped and nibbled, “the castle kitchens grew too much for him. He worked in the seers’ kitchen, then. A smaller place, but his handiwork was much appreciated by the students. Recently even this job has seemed too difficult for him. How perfect, that I could bring him here.”

“So no one will miss him?” I asked—for Orlo had told me that this house was a secret from the castle folk, just as I was.

Orlo smiled a sad, gentle smile. “Likely not. I am the only one who’s paid him any mind, these last few years.”

I looked at Laedon—stared, now that I was sure his swivelling eyes were sightless. “You said he would help us with our lessons. How?”

Orlo stirred the stew, then knocked the spoon against the pot’s edge. “I will explain this to you when—”

“Explain it now,” I said. “Or better yet: show me.”

The broth wine
, I thought;
it has made me even freer with my words than usual
. I kept my eyes steady on Orlo’s. He did not seem angry—though he had never been angry at me, and I did not know how it would look. He was silent for a long time. The only sounds were flame pops and the crunching of the skull between Borl’s jaws.

“Now,” he said at last. “You are certain?”

I pushed my stool back and stood up. My hair slid out from behind my ears. (Now that it was growing, it was as wayward as Bardrem’s.) “Yes. I’ve been here for a long time, and all I’ve done is read and talk to you. Which has been good,” I continued hastily as his eyes narrowed, “wonderful, in fact—but I’m ready. I want to
do
something.”

There was another moment of motionless quiet before he smiled slowly. Something in my chest pulled tight. “You remind me of myself,” he said. “How can I deny you?” He placed the spoon across the top of the pot and pointed at the table. “Choose something—an Otherseeing tool.”