The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [24]
He clicked his teeth. “You took too long. I see you need a talk with Madam to help you overcome your laziness. I will make sure to arrange it.” The sheer maliciousness in his beautiful face angered me.
“It is as she told you,” I said, stepping between them. “I had trouble waking, because I arrived so late last night.”
Selmar nodded pathetically.
“Well, go on with your duties, then,” he conceded with a nasty smile. Selmar turned with a frightened sob and fled down the hall, her stumbling footsteps echoing after her. Chewing his bottom lip, the boy watched her departure with thoughtful eyes.
“What did she say to you?” he asked, turning back to me.
“Nothing,” I answered flatly, wondering by what right he interrogated me.
He frowned petulantly. “You’re new. You will learn,” he said. “Now get up and I will come back for you.” He closed the door behind him.
Rummaging angrily through a chest of assorted clothes, I found a cloak. It was freezing within the stone walls, and pale early-morning light spilled in wanly from the room’s sole window. There were no shutters, and cold gusts of air swept freely through the opening. I would have liked to look outside, but the window was inaccessible, fashioned long and thin, reaching from above my head almost to the ceiling.
The door opened suddenly. “Come on, then,” the blond boy snapped.
As we walked down the hall, I noticed a good deal more than I had the previous night. There were metal candle brackets along the walls, shaped like gargoyles’ heads with savage mouths. Cold, greenish drips of wax hung frozen from the gaping jaws. I eyed them with distaste, reflecting that whoever had built Obernewtyn had no desire for homely comfort.
We passed the entrance hall with its heavy front doors and continued along a narrow walkway on the other side.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
The boy did not answer, and presently we came to a double set of doors. He opened one with something of a flourish. It opened onto a kitchen, a long, rectangular room with two large dining arbors filled with bench seats and trestle tables. At the far end of the kitchen, almost an entire wall was taken up with a cavernous fireplace. Above it was set an immense mantelshelf, laden with stone and iron pots. From its underside hung a further selection of pans and pannikins. A huge, blackened cauldron was suspended over the flame, and stirring the contents was a woman of mountainous proportions.
Her elbows, though bent, resembled large cured hams, and a large white bow sat on her hips and waggled whenever she moved. The roaring heat of the fire had prevented her from noticing our entrance. Tearing my eyes away, I saw that there were several doors besides the one we had come through and a great number of cupboards and benches. A young girl was sitting at one of these, scraping potatoes, and they sat in two mounds on either side of her. She watched me with currant-like eyes buried in a slab-jowled face. The knife poised above the potato glinted brightly.
“Ma!” she yelled, waving the knife in agitation, throwing its light at me.
The mountain of flesh at the stove trembled, then turned with surprising grace. The woman’s face was flushed from the heat and distorted by too many chins, but there was a definite resemblance between her and the girl. The thick ladle in her hand dripped brown gravy, unheeded.
“Ariel!” she cried in dulcet tones. Her accent was similar to Enoch’s but less musical. “Dear hinny, I have nowt seen ye in an age. Ye have not deserted me, have ye, sweet boy?”
She gathered him in a bone-crushing embrace and led him to one of the cupboards. She took out a sweet and gave it to him.
“Why, Andra, thank you.” Ariel sounded pleased, and I wondered why the cook treated him with such favor. Surely he was only a Misfit, unless he was also an informer. Yet he seemed too arrogant for the latter. Most informers were clinging and contemptible, and even those who used them tended to dislike them.
The girl with the knife giggled violently, and again the blade flashed its silver light.