The Margrave by Catherine Fisher

me how he longed for the Journey.”
    “In retrospect, maybe. But I’m sure at the time he was afraid.” The creature interlaced its long fingers. “Raffi, you must not think yourself unworthy. This is what you have worked toward for many years.”
    “But I’m not ready! It’s too soon.” He paced anxiously. “I don’t remember half the responses, or the Prophecies. I don’t really know the Wisdom of the Calarna or how to open and close Flain’s Gate, how to make the awen-power come fully into the Blessing. Galen keeps drumming it into me, but I keep forgetting, and there’s so much else going on, with Carys missing, and all of it! I get everything wrong! Look at that business with those jeckle-things.”
    The Sekoi was silent a moment. Then it said, “Maybe you should not just blame yourself. Has it never struck you that Galen might not be the best of teachers?”
    Raffi stopped and stared. “He’s always making me learn.”
    “Yes, but it takes more than that. It seems to me you were happier working with Tallis. Galen is not the most patient of men. And I think he finds it . . . difficult, to enter into what another might feel.”
    Raffi shook his head sourly. “Someone with less faith, you mean.”
    “Even Galen’s faith is not perfect.” The Sekoi bit a nail. “And, as we know, the Crow is in him. That alone makes him no ordinary master.”
    Raffi poured some water into a bowl and soaked his face and hair. It made him feel better, but the chill of his nerves made his stomach ache and his breath come short. “There are stories,” he whispered. “Scholars whose minds have broken, who’ve never been the same after . . .”
    “Raffi.”
    “I’m sorry.” He turned abruptly. “Talk about something else. I feel as though I’ve been locked in here for weeks. What’s Alberic up to?”
    The Sekoi laughed, an uneasy bark. “Ah, yes. Our gracious host. Well, it will surprise you—it astonished me—but the dreaded warlord has had a change of heart. Last night he summoned Galen to his upper room, so I went too, out of curiosity. Such nightclothes, Raffi! Palest blue silk . . .”
    “Yes, but what did he want?”
    “He was sly, as ever. He said that as Galen had proclaimed war and announced to the world they were allies, and as the news would be raging through every village and Watchhouse for miles by now, it may as well be true. He agreed to become the Crow’s ally for the price of one million gold pieces and the overlordship of Tasceron, if and when the city was captured.”
    Raffi stared. “What did Galen say?”
    “You know the keeper. He laughed. That laugh. He said the Order has no money and that this was a war of souls, not weapons. But that after Soren’s Day Alberic must lead a march on this Wall. The dwarf did not find that amusing. They argued hotly.”
    “He wants to run things.” Raffi sat on the bed. “I don’t trust him.”
    “Nor I, small keeper. He will always be a slippery friend. I hope Galen knows what he’s doing.”
    A bell began to ring, far off in the castle. The Sekoi stood hastily. “I must go. Good luck, Raffi. Remember, you will emerge from this ordeal. You have grown much in the past years.” At the door it paused and looked back. “My people have a saying. ‘Even in darkness, the river runs.’ ”
     
     
    WHEN GALEN CAME, he carried new clothes. A white shirt and dark green trousers. Raffi had to strip and wash himself from head to toe. The water was icy; he had to grit his teeth to bear it, and afterward he couldn’t stop shivering. Galen anointed his hands and neck and forehead with some pungent, sharp-scented oil.
    The clothes felt fresh, smelling slightly of bergamot. He wondered where Galen had gotten them. Silently he dressed. His feet were bare.
    Galen looked at him. “The beads,” he said.
    Clumsily Raffi took them off. The seven strands of blue and purple crystals that marked the scholar; he had worn them now for so long his neck felt bare