He went back to the red door and opened it for her.
“Welcome to the Academy at the Serpentine, novice. My name is Caseen—like you I’m of no name, no name at all—but even so, it would be best for you to refer to me as the Master of Novices.”
2
Could it be true? she thought, gathering up her cloak and blanket-roll. The sad little pile of crushed reed basket and a patch of lichen-free doorstep was all that marked her long, hungry vigil.
“You’re letting me in?” she asked, slowly and carefully.
“Asking you to join the Serpentine Academy,” the Master of Novices corrected. “Provisionally. As a novice, like the others we just admitted. There’ll be a few formalities, like your oath. But you impressed us.”
She silently thanked Falth. As far as she was concerned, the Name Dun Troot had already rewarded her for keeping them informed about their daughter. She hadn’t been intentionally reenacting the story of Sabian, but maybe her sitting out there day after day had struck a familiar chord with those inside.
She fought the temptation to bolt inside, forced herself to savor the feeling as it sank in. They were asking her. Ileth, the stuttering girl from the Captain’s Lodge who caused housewives to whisper to each other when she walked past them, was being asked to join the Republic’s Dragoneers. Provisionally. As a novice.
He let her take it all in. She warmed to him; he hurried her in neither speech nor action.
“Just a mo-moment,” she said. She picked up the crushed basket. The dry old reeds crackled wearily. It had done her good service, and she couldn’t just leave garbage lying about the doorstep.
Besides, something needed to mark the occasion of leaving behind the Captain, the pitying looks, everyone’s talk of her “prospects,” the Lodge and its cabbage smells, no one thinking she was or ever could be much of anything. She held up the broken reeds to the burning gas-pipe, let them catch well on fire, and went to the cliff and cast them out to the immense lake. They spun burning into the water.
Caseen watched her, his face neutral, but his good eye was alight with interest. “Whenever you are ready, young woman.”
She straightened up her attire and, best as she could, arranged the stray hairs across her face and walked up to the door. She took a deep, bracing breath and stepped inside.
You’ve done it.
She was no longer one of the Captain’s lodge-girls who had to press up against a wall or dodge into the street to make way for the quality. Who had to keep her eyes downcast when speaking to any official in black plainclothes. Who had to suffer the pitying or, worse, appraising looks from men who knew what the Captain was and what he allowed under his roof. She looked around, wanting to remember the moment, have the details ready to recall should her frost years ever come.
The flimsy door led out into a little landing below the rest of this part of the Serpentine. Some benches were set against the thick outer wall and a long, ill-lit tunnel went off on her right. It took her a moment to realize it was both wall and hall; a corridor ran the entire interior of the fortification, with windows and portals facing the inside of the Serpentine. She could see steps leading down to it and heavy beams lining the ceiling. Rain gear for the watchmen hung like giant bats near the opening to the Serpentine grounds. There was a little charcoal stove squatting on splayed legs over a mortared floor and a pot of what smelled like day-broth bubbled there. Some utensils, bowls, and cups hung by a rain-fed water cistern.
“Take our water, if you like,” Caseen said. “We hardly ever have to draw from the well, there is so much rain. Good thing too, the dragon privies take a lot of flushing out.”
She wasn’t particularly thirsty, but she refreshed herself, not wanting to insult the Master of Novices himself by refusing the first water of the Serpentine offered to her.
The Master himself ladled her a little broth into a cup. There was no bread, but he found a tub of some mashed fruit that he scooped onto a tin plate. The fruit might have had a bit of brandy in it as a preservative, she decided from the taste.
He let her eat and watched her wipe her mouth and then collected the dishes himself and put them in a wooden tray with a carrying strap. They did things so differently here! She’d never seen the Captain or any of his gang so much as hand over a mug when there were girls around to do the work.
The tiny amount of food left her wonderfully restored. She felt like singing.
“Now, girl, you’re inside. We’ll give you a better meal in a little bit, but I didn’t want you to go to the trouble of eating only to have it all come up again. You have to be careful about breaking such a long fast. Are you feeling all right?”
Ileth nodded. “P-Perfectly w-well, sir.”
“I need to ask you a few questions. Usually this process is more formal, but I haven’t the time to interview you properly in my chamber. You’ve made the first cut, so you’ve no reason to tip things one way or another or try to impress me. One of the reasons I have these tassels on my sash is I’m not much impressed by anything from outside the walls of the Serpentine. It won’t hurt you in the slightest to be honest. It will be bad if I find out you’ve lied.”
She wondered if he meant hurt as in “getting kicked out” or hurt as in the way the Captain ran his Lodge. In any case, she nodded.
“How old are you?”
“Fourteen. Spring born . . . almost at the equinox.”
To his credit, he didn’t look dubious when she announced her age.
“What sort of education have you had?”
“We had teachers at our lodge. Sometimes. St-Starting at nine I helped teach the smaller ones.”
“The lodge, civic or private?”
“Private, sir. Does it matter?”
“The civic ones give a certain amount of education. I find the private ones are either very good or very bad.”
Ileth certainly agreed with that, but she didn’t say so. “I can tally, read, and write. I know my times tables. I can figure percentages.”
“Any geometry?”
“I know the difference between a triangle, rectangle, square, and circle.”
“No navigation, then?”
“I can . . . can r-read the stars to determine latitude. I played with an old plumb-gauge as a girl. The sun’s harder, but . . . but I’ve done it.”
“That’s better than most. How are you with maps?”
“I love them. I c-couldn’t have found my way here without studying them. I can read naval charts as well,” she continued, anticipating the follow-up question. “We had lots hanging on the walls of the Lodge. Orphans from sea work, you see.”
“Languages?”
“Hypatian, a little, just some of the high scripture. Prayers, mostly. Galantine—I can read it much better than I can speak it. What books we had were mostly in Galantine. I can say hello, good-bye, and thank you in Daphine and Poss.”
“That’s a fair list for a fourteen-year-old girl. Va luse tendi dran?”
“Apt. Nasis apt, lal relisan. But I . . . but I told you I c-could read it better than I c-could speak it.”
“I’ve had novices with Galantine tutors who allegedly also gave them lessons along with manners, dance, and deportment, who bowed flat-footed and couldn’t get beyond Va vere? when I questioned them. But then it’s considered bad form in society to take after the Galantines these days, with the war—well, with the war and then the armistice. Some even find it suspicious.”