The Betrayals

by Bridget Collins

  He speaks over her. ‘Did you stay here all vacation?’

  ‘Yes. Actually, I’m trying to write an exam paper, so—’

  ‘I thought of you,’ he says, and the words silence her like a gag. ‘I went into town a few times,’ he goes on, oblivious. ‘That’s when I bought your sweets. But most of the holiday I was staying with my mother, up north. It was horribly dull. So I spent a lot of time working. That paper you lent me, the one comparing Philidor to Schoenberg – I wrestled with it for ages. Trying to understand why I didn’t understand it.’ He gives her an amused grimace. ‘My faculty for critical thinking is pretty rusty. Then I realised why it didn’t make sense.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Yes. Because it’s nonsense.’

  ‘You thought so?’ she says, tilting her head to one side. ‘That’s … interesting.’

  ‘You know it’s nonsense,’ he says. ‘You gave it to me deliberately. Admit it.’

  She hesitates. But it’s too late. He laughs, and after a second she allows herself to join in. ‘I suppose it was a kind of test,’ she says.

  And then he says, ‘You’re so like your brother.’

  She stands very still. The air seems to crystallise around her, forming a layer of glass on her skin: the smallest movement might break it. Distantly – miraculously – her own voice says, ‘Yes?’

  ‘He’d do something like that. Try to trip me up. Dare me to call his bluff. It was his way of getting me to tell the truth …’ He swallows. ‘He taught me a lot.’

  ‘I’m not like him.’

  ‘Not in some ways, of course.’ He pauses, and she can almost see him counting the ways in which she’s different: female, older, uptight, plain, inferior. Alive. ‘But in others … He was a genius, you know. Really. The way he could play the grand jeu, the way he taught me to play it. I didn’t always understand – I was too young then, we both were – but … My word, he was talented. And … sly. Clever. He understood about games, I think. The way the whole of your life can be a game.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘All I’m saying …’ He falters to a stop. Clearly he expected her to be flattered by the comparison. It hasn’t occurred to him that her brother never made it into the third year at Montverre, and she is Magister Ludi. Then he raises his eyes and looks at her, and a trickle of fire runs down her backbone. Something has changed, in his face. He says, on an outrush of breath, ‘I did something terrible.’

  She doesn’t answer.

  ‘It’s my fault he’s dead. Did you know that?’

  She shakes her head; although what exactly she’s denying she isn’t sure. It is Martin’s fault. Almost as much as it’s hers.

  He says, ‘If I could go back … I miss him. I—’

  He stops, as if she’s interrupted him. But she hasn’t.

  He goes on slowly, picking his words as if they’re footholds on a precipitous path. ‘I dream about him, all the time. But the last time I dreamt about him, I think I was also dreaming … about you.’

  She tries to clear her throat. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘It was a good dream. You being here … my having met you … it feels …’ He bites his lip. All the irony, the charm, the urbane glint in his eyes has gone: now he’s simply telling the truth. She wants to reach out, take hold of him and rest her forehead against his; and she wants to slap his face so hard he never opens his mouth again. Can’t he see? ‘It’s as if—’

  ‘He’s dead,’ she says. ‘You can’t bring him back.’

  ‘I know that. Of course. I didn’t mean—’

  ‘I’m not him. You understand? I’m not Aimé.’

  He nods. His jaw is set, and there are red blotches deepening around his hairline, as though she’s told him off. For God’s sake, it’s only the truth. But if it’s the truth, why does it hurt to have said it aloud? There’s a fierce ache stitching her throat and heart and gut together, tightening. And why is he looking at her like that, as if he can see how she feels?

  ‘Please,’ she says, ‘please don’t,’ and then she falls silent, thinking of the page she read in Martin’s diary a moment ago. Is she standing like a duellist who’s opened his arms, inviting a blow? Perhaps. Well, too bad if she is: if he steps inside her guard she’ll scratch out his eyes.

  He holds her gaze for a long time. The clock chimes. A long way away a door slams, and two young voices come down the passage in a counterpoint of laughter, rising to a crescendo and fading again until another door shuts on them.

  ‘I must get back to—’

  ‘Well, I should let you work,’ he says at the same time, and they both wince and share an unconvincing smile, as though they’ve nearly collided at a blind corner. But it’s Martin who carries on, assuming he has right of way. His manner is easy again, assured; the politician is back. ‘Let me warn you, though, that I’m going to pester you this term. I have an idea for a new game, and I’m too out of practice to compose it without help.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I can.’

  ‘You offered. You did offer.’

  ‘Yes, but – this term, Vernal Term is tricky.’

  ‘I won’t be any trouble. I promise.’ He shrugs boyishly, and she can’t be bothered to point out that he’s just said he’s going to pester her. She is perfectly capable of avoiding him later. She blocks out the treacherous whisper in her head that says she might not entirely want to.

  ‘In the meantime,’ she says, and gestures at her desk.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He bows his head in ironic obedience. ‘Oh – one more thing.’ All this time – like an amateur magician concealing a card – he’s kept one arm at his side, the hand hidden by the cloth of his trousers. Now he holds it out with a nearly casual flourish, offering her another little package. It’s smaller than the marrons glacés, but wrapped in the same blue-and-gold paper. ‘I took the liberty of …’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I wondered if – I saw it, and I thought – well, after all, you don’t get to town much, and—’ He stops. Again, her reaction has fallen short of what he wanted. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing. It’s stupid.’ Now he sounds confused, accusatory. She thinks he’s going to retract his arm and storm out, without a backward glance. Instead he puts the second package on the desk, next to the other. As he steps backwards he trips against the chair and nearly falls over. Then, before she can say anything, he’s gone.

  She shuts the door after him and stays there, her head close to the doorway, until his footsteps have died away. But when she finally straightens, breathing more freely, the two gaudy parcels on top of her books catch her eye, stubbornly refusing to disappear. Like a reproach? A threat? Or something else … She picks up the smaller one, weighs it in her hand, considers throwing it out of the window into the snow bank. But she’s bluffing, of course. This is what Martin does to her: she’s reduced to performing, even when she’s alone. She can’t get rid of his gaze. What is it he wants from her? What does she want from him? Nothing. Nothing.

  She takes the paper off, sliding her fingers under the folds to avoid tearing it. Another game for her invisible audience, to show that she isn’t interested enough to rip it off hastily.

  A dark red box, rippled with orange and saffron. Gold writing. Incenso Lagrime.

  The inside slides out, like a drawer. Like a matchbox. A bottle lies on padded silk, gleaming. Even in the pale wintry light of her study it shines like a flame. She lifts it out, holds it up. The glass is stained scarlet, crimson, Indian yellow, imprisoning a bright swirl of gold sparks. It spirals to an asymmetric point, so that when she twists her wrist it seems to move, narrowing and flickering. She lifts the stopper.

  Frankincense and smoke, amber, cardamom, harsh resin, beeswax … She shuts her eyes and breathes in until her lungs creak. She hears herself gasp, exhale, inhale again. It’s rich, alluring and complex; she begrudges having to breathe out. A line of poetry runs through her head: where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree
… Something else, a line of terza rima, the Inferno. The phoenix, she thinks, feeds only on the tears of incense and spices. Dies and is reborn in flames. And all at once, dancing on the edge of her mind, she feels the heat and blaze of fire.

  She catches her breath. Clumsily she shoves the stopper back into the bottle and puts it down.

  The smell of burning. His gift is the smell of burning. She shakes her head, trying to laugh; but it stings like a whip on raw skin. An appropriate perfume for the granddaughter of the Lunatic of London Library. Another sly reminder that she is a de Courcy, and de Courcys go mad, de Courcys are dangerous. She thought all those jokes, the de Courcy jokes, had been left behind: but no, here is another one. If she closed her eyes she’d see matches scattered everywhere. Or hear Léo’s voice, malicious, as he gestured at a dying fire: Hey, de Courcy, can’t you find a couple of books to throw on that? Except this time, as she’s a woman, the joke is more elegant. An expensive present. Beautiful. Feminine. Only a hysteric would object. How dare he? For a moment, when Martin was talking about Aimé, she thought he was sincere. But this …

  She puts the bottle back into its box. The scent has dampened her fingers and she resists the urge to lift her hand to her face. She puts the box in the back of a drawer, behind a pile of past papers, and slams the drawer shut.

  Then she stands up, locks her door, and goes back to work. But it takes her a long time to turn her attention to the essay questions she’s trying to write, and the heady spice of smoke lingers all day, clinging to her skin. Later, when she teaches a lesson, she sees the scholars frown, sniff the air, and let their eyes linger on her speculatively: as though a mere waft of molecules is enough to bewitch her against her will, change her from a Magister to a woman.

  20

  Second week of Vernal Term

  The second week! That’s gone quickly. I thought last term was hard work, but now … We’ve got, what, ten weeks till our games have to be in? The third-years have had the whole year to work on their games, but of course this is only a practice run for us, so we don’t get half as long. (Although I bet if we called it that in front of a Magister we’d get bawled out. We’re supposed to pretend every opportunity to play a grand jeu is sacred. Ha. It’s not as if second-years ever get a real shot at the Gold Medal.) Carfax has already drawn up a plan for his, curse him.

  It’s as if the vac never happened. Almost as if we’re still working on a joint game. Carfax and I are spending nearly every evening bouncing ideas off each other. First we walked over the Bridges of Königsberg – and when I say walked over, I think we’ve been back and forth over every one of them, I feel like I could draw a map of every single street in Königsberg and I STILL CAN’T WALK OVER EVERY BRIDGE ONLY ONCE – but then when we’d finally thrashed out exactly why we both hated it, I couldn’t help asking his opinion about an article I read over the New Year. And then we didn’t finish talking about it, so the next day … etc., etc.

  Something’s changed since last term. He’s changed. He laughs more.

  Unless it’s me. I suppose it could be me.

  Sixteenth day, I think

  Struggling to think of a theme for my game. Hate this feeling. Mentioned it to Carfax and I saw him start to say something pitying. Then he bit it back. I didn’t know whether to cuff him round the head or kiss him.

  For not saying it, I mean. Obviously.

  Seventeenth day (assuming I was counting right yesterday)

  Weird, brilliant Motuum class today. I think the Magister gets bored; every so often he does something odd, and I can never tell whether he’s teaching or ragging us. We ended up going out in the snow to practise our forms – knee-deep, stumbling about like drunks – which was odd and funny and surprisingly useful.

  We hurried in at the end of the lesson, dripping, and the Magister told us to go and get dry before Cartae. I was still breathless from laughing, scuffling with Jacob and Paul. Even Emile had got into the spirit of it. Then I heard someone say, ‘Dancing about in snow isn’t my idea of the grand jeu,’ and someone else said, ‘What about water? Or fire? Hey, Carfax—’

  ‘Yeah, Carfax, was that what your granddad was doing? Maybe he wasn’t a raving loony, maybe he was poncing about on hot coals to practise.’

  I swung round. I didn’t think. ‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘Leave him alone.’

  It was Felix and Freddie. They smirked and looked at each other. Felix said, ‘We were only asking Carfax about—’

  I didn’t trust myself. I grabbed Carfax’s arm and dragged him up the stairs, leaving them behind. We’d come up the south-west tower so we got to his cell first. I shoved him into it and followed him, shutting the door before the others went past. After a second he said, ‘Turn your back while I get changed.’ I sighed loudly (why would I care what he looks like anyway?) but I did. While I was still staring at the wall, he said, ‘Don’t defend me.’

  ‘What? I only thought—’

  ‘Don’t. I don’t need it. I never did.’

  ‘All right.’ I turned round.

  ‘I can cope with them.’

  ‘I never said you couldn’t.’

  There was a silence. He straightened his gown and pushed his damp hair off his face. But then, instead of opening the door to leave, he sat down at the desk and stared at the bare wood. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’d do anything to stop being a de Courcy. For a day, even.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Sure. Being descended from the most famous family of grand jeu players who ever lived must be such a burden.’

  He raised his head. ‘The mad de Courcys,’ he said. ‘You’ve heard of the Lunatic of London Library. And the Half-wit Poet, I expect. How about Lady Dulcamara de Courcy de Corombona? She lived back in the eighteenth century. She invented the Italian quaintise, and poisoned a couple of lovers.’ He held my gaze, narrowing his eyes when I smiled. ‘Did you know my mother committed suicide? And she was only a de Courcy by marriage, it must be infectious … My aunt died in an asylum. My father drank himself to death. We play the grand jeu, and we burn out.’ He added, with a sort of mirthless hiccup, ‘Literally, sometimes.’

  I swallowed. ‘I didn’t know. Not … that.’

  ‘That’s why I don’t find the jokes particularly amusing.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You wait for it to show up. Every mood. Every nightmare. Every time you’re happy. You think, is this it? Is this how it begins? Today I can’t sleep for thinking about the grand jeu, tomorrow I’ll be setting a library on fire. Slitting my wrists. I don’t want to be a doomed genius.’

  I said, ‘You’re not a genius.’

  He glared at me. He was right, the de Courcys do have a murderous streak. I gave him my most anodyne smile.

  At last he said, deadpan, ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Sometimes I feel like we understand each other, but this time I didn’t even know if he was being sarcastic. He’s always holding something back. I wish I knew what he was thinking; it’s like he’s wearing a mask, all the bloody time. I’d give anything to see him without it. For a second. Just long enough to …

  I do it too. But at least I know what I’m hiding.

  I said, ‘I’ll see you in Cartae,’ and went to get changed.

  Twenty-second day (I think)

  Starting to panic about my summer game now. Nine weeks.

  It’s fine. I can write a game in nine weeks.

  Well. If I had an idea for it, I could.

  Come on, inspiration. You’re leaving it pretty late, aren’t you?

  It’s so bloody stupid. They tell us the grand jeu is art. No, actually – worship. It’s a mystical process of creating an abstract object which allows communion with the divine. A testament to the grace of God in the minds of men. The paraclete blowing where it listeth – if you’ll excuse the Christian reference … That’s right. Oh, and, by the way, you have to produce games to order, when we say, on the dot, and we’ll mark you out of a hundred.

  No con
tradiction there, then.

  I said something like that to Magister Holt today, but he only smiled.

  Twenty-third day

  Today in Historiae the Magister referred to adversarial games, which I’d never heard of. He only mentioned them in passing, and when I asked him to elaborate he waved his hand as if he was striking through a measure and said, ‘I’m afraid we must move on.’ I didn’t push it; he hasn’t liked me since I lost my temper about politics last term. But it sounded interesting, so after the Quietus I went to the library to see what I could find. There wasn’t much, though. Or at least, if there was, I didn’t know where to look. The archivist on duty was useless. I spent ages looking through concordances, trying to track down some games to have a look at, but I didn’t find any. Not even any articles.

  I don’t understand. How would it work? I can’t even imagine it. Two players, standing opposite each other, all of it improvised, so no score for the audience … Not like our dead, rehearsed, perfected games. Something alive. Something actually happening.

  Twenty-fourth day

  Argh. If we have one more lesson on the Bridges of Königsberg I will kill someone. The Magister Cartae, ideally. (I wouldn’t have to make much of an effort, he’s teetering on the edge of the grave as it is.) At the beginning of the term he put this on the blackboard and made us copy it: A few games well chosen, and well made use of, will be more profitable to thee, than a great confused Alexandrian Library. To which I would like to say, Oh shut up, you old windbag.

  The worst thing, the positively worst thing, is that bloody tune. It keeps going round and round in my head. And yes, I realise that’s the point, but it’s driving me potty. Carfax thinks it’s hilarious, of course. He’s got into the habit of using the same rhythm when he knocks on my door.

  Speak of the devil.

  Later

  It’s past two, but I can’t sleep. I’ve been trying to scribble down some ideas, but I’ve got past the point where they make any sense. But the main thing is, I’ve got it. I’ve got something, anyway.