The Betrayals

by Bridget Collins

  She draws in a long breath. She has given this lesson over and over again, but now for some reason she is hesitating. Part of her wants to speak to Charpentier directly, but what would she say? Launch into a brief history of the grand jeu that explains its origins in the Christian Mass? A diversion into the Cordoba and Jerusalem games, a short essay on the compatibility of scriptural religions with the new forms of worship? That would get her into trouble, but nonetheless it’s hard to resist. We search for the divine everywhere, she could say, and we may find it in the grand jeu or in the liturgy or both. There were grands jeux played in the Hagia Sophia, and in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and at the Western Wall. It is modern arrogance to imagine that the divinity we hope to touch through the grand jeu is better than, or even different to, the deities of other religions. A younger way to worship is not necessarily a better way; nor is it the only way … A brief attack on anyone who can use the grand jeu and its theology as a basis for discrimination, when the whole point of it is humility, attention, silence …? Or on the people (she’s not reckless enough to name the Magister Cartae specifically) who seem to resist regarding it as worship at all, who wince at the word ‘God’ as though it’s embarrassing? Or merely a few acerbic words on the government, and the long years of economic unrest, and its choice of scapegoats?

  But there is no protecting Charpentier from the other scholars, who are even now distancing themselves, refusing to meet his eyes; she would only make things worse. And part of her resents him for reminding her that she’s an outsider too, that she knows full well how cruel Montverre can be.

  The silence has gone on too long. She raps on the surface of the desk, dragging her mind back to her beginning-of-term speech. The old rhetorical question: ‘What is the grand jeu, gentlemen?’ Then a pause, of course. As if she expects one of them to reply … ‘I find it hard to believe that no one can tell me,’ she says. ‘You’ve done well in the examinations. You’ve passed your vivas. Anyone?’ And she pauses again, just enough to make them shift in their seats.

  ‘Good,’ she says. ‘I’m glad that none of you is under the illusion that you can define, or even explain, the grand jeu. That is a good place to start. In the meantime, let us consider the things that it is not. It is not music.’ She counts on her fingers. ‘It is not maths, or science, or poetry. It is not art. It is not fiction. It is not performance. It is not even, strictly speaking, a game.’ By now she is fluent again, the words so familiar she hardly has to concentrate. ‘In your time at Montverre you will study all these things, and more; but they are merely aspects, elements, of what constitutes the grand jeu. You may make something of all of these things that is not a grand jeu, and equally a grand jeu may have none of them at all. There is only one possible way to answer the question, what is the grand jeu? And that, gentlemen, is by playing it. That is what you will study with me, in this classroom.’ She leans against the desk. ‘This term you will sketch a game every two weeks, and play and critique one another’s games; at the end of Vernal Term you will write one full-length game each as well as taking your preliminary examinations. Please remember that everything you learn in every other class is for the grand jeu; this class must and shall be your highest priority. And—’

  There’s a movement on the other side of the frosted windows that let in light from the corridor. A figure is outside, at arm’s-length from the door: the brownish silhouette of a man in a suit, no gown. Léo Martin. He is waiting there. Listening.

  She takes a step towards the door, ready to fling it open and confront him; but before she reaches it he’s gone, sliding away. Footsteps click along the passage.

  What was she saying? She can’t remember. She has lost her train of thought entirely. She turns carefully towards the blackboard, conscious of the scholars’ eyes on her. Five more seconds of silence and they will realise. Her armpits are damp, her mouth dry. She is afraid; and suddenly the realisation makes her angry.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ she says, without thinking, ‘if you are here to be a great player of the grand jeu … you should leave now.’

  A couple of scholars swap a glance; one frowns, another crosses his arms.

  ‘If you are here,’ she says, ‘to win the Gold Medal. If you are here because you want your face on the cover of the Gambit. If you are here’ – she pauses, and her hand goes to the headband of her cap – ‘because you want to be standing here, in my place, as Magister Ludi … you would do better to walk out of that door, and find another route to success.’ She shakes her head. She has never said this before, but the words are there waiting, like a game she can play without notes. ‘Or you may even have lower ambitions. You may be here because you want to go into the Civil Service, or because your father was here before you, or because you want to boast about being an alumnus of Montverre, or keep up with intellectual conversations with business acquaintances over a glass of port. You may think that the grand jeu is our “national game” and that therefore it is simply one more accomplishment to master, a creditable hobby for when you re-enter the real world. You may think that, because you have won a place here, you are being rewarded. That learning the grand jeu is some kind of prize.’ She takes a breath. ‘But you would be wrong. The grand jeu has nothing to do with glory. It is a vocation, gentlemen. It is harder and lonelier than you can imagine, and the higher you go the colder it will be.’ Almost to herself, she goes on, ‘The grand jeu is not a game. It is the opposite of a game. It is our way of paying attention to something outside ourselves. And what is outside ourselves – whatever truly exists – is the divine. We remake the world so that we can submit to it; and what we encounter, in the act of playing the grand jeu, is the truth.’

  Someone fidgets in the back row, scraping a shoe against the floor.

  She smiles. ‘You don’t understand now,’ she says, ‘and you will understand less and less … It is very easy to start on the path. But be wary; because at the end of it is God.’

  6: Léo

  The clock strikes two. Léo hisses through his teeth into his pillow, squeezing his eyes shut as if he can will himself into unconsciousness. Then he rolls over, swings his legs out of bed and stands up, abandoning the attempt to sleep. Eventually, maybe, he will get used to this room below the clock tower; but for now he jerks awake every hour when the bell chimes, and passes the days in a haze of sleeplessness. A few days ago he asked the Magister Domus to move him, but he only shook his head and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Martin.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Léo said. ‘I can’t stay in that room. I can’t sleep.’

  The Magister Domus smiled. He wasn’t the same Magister Domus who had been there ten years ago, when Léo was a scholar; this one was plump and younger, with a placid look on his face that made Léo want to take him by the collar and shake him. ‘You don’t understand, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘We don’t have any other rooms suitable for a guest.’

  ‘I’ll sleep in a cell, I don’t care.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Those are the only rooms we can offer you.’

  Léo stared at him. In his office, he would have sacked someone for a flat refusal, especially if it came with a smile; here, he felt his own helplessness, as if suddenly his fingers had decided not to button up his flies. ‘If it’s a question of money …?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s an honour to offer you our hospitality,’ the Magister said. ‘I’m very sorry not to be able to help.’ He nodded, with deliberate courtesy. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me … I must hurry, the clock has to be wound every morning. It’s never run down in two hundred years.’

  Léo watched him go, feeling queasy and murderous. He was too used to having enemies to mistake hostility when he saw it; but to encounter it here, at Montverre, when they should have been grateful to have him … He straightened his tie, as if someone was watching, and walked down the corridor back to his rooms with his hands in his pockets, whistling the tune of a risqué ballad.

  Now he crosses to the washstand and splashes his face until the grit
washes out of the corners of his eyes. He pulls on a shirt and trousers. He fumbles for a match and strikes it, squinting at the flare of the flame, and then lights the lamp. If he reads, eventually he’ll fall asleep. But he’s long since finished the detective novel he bought at the station. He picks up the lamp and takes it out into the corridor before he remembers that the library will be shut for the night; but he can’t bring himself to go back to his room. Instead he goes down the staircase into the little cloister that joins the clock tower to the Magisters’ building. Summer is over: out here the night air is chilly and has the clean, sharp scent of autumn coming, with winter on its tail. He pushes the heavy door open and turns right, past the Magisters’ Entrance, past the music rooms and offices, up the spiral staircase, and into the wider passage of the scholars’ wing. The Square Tower houses the scholars’ cells; he turns in the other direction, towards the classrooms. He has only been up here once since he arrived, one morning when he was pacing the corridor and paused outside the grand jeu classroom to listen. Now he walks to the classroom door, puts his hand on the doorknob, and hesitates. He’s half afraid that he’ll open the door on a silent class, turning to look at him with vacant eyes. The image sends a shiver down his back. It’s the lack of sleep, and the lamplight, sowing shadows in the corners of the corridor. If he walks away it’ll be cowardice, or hysteria. He throws the door open with a kind of daring flourish: and of course the room is empty, quiet, the moonlight spilling through the windows so strongly he can see every outline, every desk and chair. There’s no need for the lamp; he puts it down on the windowsill in the corridor, and goes into the classroom without it.

  It’s changed since he was last here. When Holt was Magister Ludi the walls were covered in diagrams and charts and grand jeu scores: but as Léo looks round there’s nothing on them but austere planes of moonlight. The notation graph has gone. Even the blackboard is wiped clean. He runs his hand along the shelf below it to feel the thick softness of chalk dust on his fingertips.

  Then, without knowing why, he goes down the aisle to the desk beside the window and sits down. It’s the same desk, his desk: the same nick beside the inkwell, the same scars and dents, the same L carved into the top. He touches it, like a blind man trying to read, and his heart gives a thud. He remembers scratching an old pen-nib into the wood, one lesson early in Vernal Term of his first year, anticipating two hours of boredom while they critiqued other people’s sketches for grands jeux. He had his head down, listening with half an ear to Carfax summarising his ouverture. Carfax’s games were always clever – and flashy, as well – but Léo was determined not to show any interest; when he’d presented his own sketch a few days before, Carfax had watched with insolent attention, suggesting improvement after improvement with overstated courtesy until Magister Holt sighed and said, ‘Perhaps … someone else …?’ Léo knew he wouldn’t be able to retaliate in kind – Carfax was the top of the class, week after week – but at least he could pretend complete indifference. And later, when they were at dinner, there would be a joke or a snide comment to be made, another opportunity to balance the score. He drove the point of the nib across the grain of the wood, deepening the bottom line of the L. On the dais, Carfax cleared his throat and said, ‘So I’ve decided to focus on the first development of the musical theme, and the transition into the lyric element …’

  Léo kept his pen moving, scraping splinters out of the groove he’d made. In a moment it would be clear enough to last for years, and he could move on to the E.

  ‘So with that overview, we have the introduction of the first theme: the potato.’

  Léo looked up. Felix caught his eye and gave a tiny, bemused shrug; other scholars were repressing smiles. Carfax had noticed their reaction – you could see that from the way his eyes swept across the room – but his composure didn’t flicker. He used his notes to gesture, with the insouciant authority that set Léo’s teeth on edge. ‘We begin with an exploration of musical notation as both itself and an almost literal pictogram: that is, the semibreve acts as a kind of pun, providing both the melody and a portrait of the potato. Thus—’ He demonstrated the musical theme: a single dull thump of a note, repeated. It was like something heavy falling into a bucket. For a few bars everyone sat silent, watching him; and then the first snort came from Dupont in the back row. It set off a ripple of smothered amusement. Carfax tilted his head, with a tiny acknowledgement.

  It was then that Léo realised Carfax was doing it deliberately. He leant forward, his pen loose between his fingers.

  ‘I’ve used that melody’ – Carfax paused for the tiny incredulous giggle from Emile, as if he knew it was coming – ‘that melody as a cantus firmus. For the elaboration, I have composed a baroque variation.’ He consulted his notes and turned to the blackboard to sketch the movement. ‘While maintaining a continuo for the theme, I’ve indulged in some compositional extravagance—’ He broke off, adding diacritics to the structure. Then he stood back to assess what he’d written, as if for a moment he’d forgotten that the rest of the class was there. Léo frowned. Carfax’s game was absurd, grotesque, completely unlike his usual style: and yet he was surveying it as if it was the best thing he’d ever done.

  ‘Now – following the classic structure, I introduce the mathematical proposition – a combination of lyric poetry and an allusion to the philosophical tension between integers and the looming infinite.’

  Léo couldn’t concentrate on what Carfax was saying. He stared at the elaboration of the musical theme on the blackboard. It was familiar, somehow. Not that he had ever seen it before – he would have remembered that – but the style, the shape … His own game had been called the New World – had there been something about potatoes? Maybe he’d read something similar, when he was doing his research. It seemed unlikely, but he couldn’t deny the twist of recognition in his gut.

  ‘One potato,’ Carfax said, ‘two potato, three potato, four – five potato, six potato, seven potato, more …’

  This time everyone laughed. From his seat in the corner, Magister Holt said, ‘Gentlemen …’

  Léo narrowed his eyes. He ignored the joke. There was something … It was a standard structure, the sort of development he used himself – so what was it …? He leant forward, wrestling with a complex knot of notation, and caught sight of Emile glancing at him. There was something in his expression that Léo couldn’t read. He mouthed, ‘What?’

  Emile shook his head and turned back to face the front of the room. After a moment he sent another curious look over his shoulder. Felix and Jacob were nudging each other, and almost everyone was smirking. Carfax said, ‘… as demonstrated here, in the transition,’ and another wave of mirth broke over the room. Léo rolled his eyes and slumped in his chair, folding his arms. He wasn’t going to laugh; he wasn’t impressed. He kept his eyes half-closed, staring at Carfax with deliberate blankness. Carfax held his gaze, and smiled. Léo raised an eyebrow and let his eyes drift past Carfax, back to the blackboard, trying to show his contempt in his expression.

  He felt his face go slack, as he realised.

  It was his own game.

  No, not his game. But close enough. With his habits, his structure, his style – all of them skewed, caricatured but recognisable, the whole thing a vicious parody of his New World. A high piercing note rang in his ears. He shut his eyes. When he opened them again the game was still there, still monstrous, still sickeningly familiar. Was he imagining it? No. It had the same architecture as the New World – as all his games, for God’s sake – and every detail was as precise as a needle-prick. He jerked in his seat, mastering the impulse to twist round to check if anyone was watching him; if they were, he couldn’t let them see his face … He clenched his jaw. The singing in his ears intensified, drowning out Carfax’s voice.

  He sat very still. There was nothing he could do but try not to attract attention. Perhaps no one else had realised – please, let no one else have realised … Had Emile’s look been pity? Waves of he
at went over him. Sweat crawled down his scalp and soaked into his collar. There was a piercing pain in the base of his thumb; he looked down and saw that he’d driven the grimy pen-nib into the flesh, so deep he’d drawn blood. He spread his hands flat on the desk and looked down at them, and after a while a bubble of red oozed out from under his palm. Carfax’s voice came and went in his ears while the class murmured and chuckled. He told himself that they didn’t know, they weren’t laughing at him; but they were, whether they knew it or not.

  The class fell silent. He looked up, in spite of himself. Carfax had finished. He held Léo’s gaze, a long level look of victory. No one moved or spoke; they might have been the only two people in the room. Then, although Carfax hadn’t performed a whole game, he gave the low, graceful bow of fermeture.

  The class applauded. It was only for a second or two – stifled quickly, amid laughter, when Magister Holt raised his hand to cut them off – but there was appreciation in the sound, even a whistle from Dupont. Léo heard it in his bones like thunder: applause, when even the best games at Montverre ended in silence. Carfax put his hand on his heart, like an actor. ‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ he said.

  Magister Holt stood up. ‘Thank you, Mr de Courcy,’ he said. ‘I think I will discuss this game with you privately after class. Please sit down.’ He walked to the dais and consulted his list. He ignored the mutter of confusion. ‘Mr Matthieu, I believe …’

  Carfax bent his head, collected his notes and went to his desk. There was a flush on his face, and a hint of a private, triumphant smile. His hands had been steady all the way through his presentation, but Léo saw them tremble as he drew up his chair and sat down. Someone leant across and said, ‘That was brilliant,’ but Carfax seemed not to hear.