Clariel was unable to answer. She stood there, cold inside, part of her grappling with the idea that the Borderers might not be there to join, that her dream was even more foolish than she’d thought, while another part of her wanted to erupt in fury, to show this over-calm old woman that she would be a Borderer, that she would make the King pay them again, though she didn’t know how she would do that …

‘What else might you do?’ repeated Ader.

‘I can still be a hunter,’ said Clariel. ‘Live in, and off the Forest. Make what coin I need on top of that by guiding those from the town or the city who wish to hunt, but do not know the woods.’

‘You will need capital to establish such a business,’ said Ader. ‘It would be slow to start, particularly at your age, but it is not an impossible notion. If you can talk your parents into supplying say … at least fifty bezants a year, for your first five years, I would adjudge it an achievable ambition.’

‘Really?’ asked Clariel. ‘I thought you would …’

Her voice trailed off. She did not want to say that she thought that the Academy was the kind of place that would make its pupils only want one kind of life.

‘You thought that we limit the choices of our students?’ asked Ader. ‘We do not, but it is a sad fact that the great majority limit themselves. You might find it best to keep your ambition secret, Lady Clariel. Many here would consider it too small, a thing to be made fun of. However, all I am concerned with is that we equip you both for the possibility of other futures, and for the one you yourself envisage.’

She lifted the lid of her writing desk and removed a piece of thick paper, which had a list of twelve things printed in a large legible type in bright blue ink down the middle, leaving a very generous margin to the top, bottom and either side. Closing the desk again, she put the paper down, carefully inked a quill, and drew two nearly perfect lines through two of the items on the list. Then she renumbered the list from one to ten with large numerals in the margin, not in the order they were originally written.