by M A Bennett
DE WARLENCOURT PLAYHOUSE – built in 1969, the theatre is an exact replica of the sixteenth-century Swan Theatre which used to stand on London’s bankside.
BEDE LIBRARY (incorporating the Scriptorium) – named after the Venerable Bede, the library has several notable architectural features, including the medieval Scriptorium, a remnant of the original monastery school, and the Tudor Reading Room.
GATEHOUSE – the gatehouse forms the entrance to the school, reached by crossing the medieval moat. In the days of the monastery school, the drawbridge was raised at night to keep marauding Scots away from the treasures of the chapel.
BEDE’S PIECE – STAGS boasts extensive playing fields, named for a piece of common land enclosed by the school during the eighteenth century.
CHAPEL – Founded in 683, the chapel is the oldest surviving building of the first monastery school. The stained-glass window of Aidan and the stag is original.
REFECTORY – This long building with vaulted ceilings was rebuilt at the time of the Civil War after a fire. The wooden benches and tables on which the students dine are the original ones from the monastery, on which the monks ate their breakfast of bread and beer.
ENGLISH SCHOOLS – In the reign of Edward VI, New Quad –a quadrangle of exquisite Tudor buildings – was built at STAGS to represent the four pillars of learning. The first of the schools (always referred to in the plural) is the English Schools, and the original sign still remains carved above the door.
HISTORY SCHOOLS – The second side of the quad, the History Schools houses the original copy of Bede’s work.
CLASSICS SCHOOLS – The third side of the quad, the Classics Schools still fulfills its function of teaching Latin, the language of law and learning.
SCIENCE LABS – Originally the Theology Schools, the fourth side of the quad, despite its Tudor appearance and theological sign carved in stone, now houses STAGS’ extensive science laboratories.
THE HUNDRED STEPS – this ancient stone stairway connects the upper and lower schools. Legend has it that in 1348 Edmund de Warlencourt rode up the hundred steps on his horse for a wager.
POOL – The STAGS swimming pool is Olympic-sized and fully compliant with the regulations of the Fédération Internationale de Natation. It is 164 feet long, 82 feet wide and 6 feet deep, with eight swimming lanes marked with rope and buoys.
FIVES AND REAL TENNIS COURTS – Both courts are fully enclosed, and constructed of their original timbers. The Real Tennis court is fashioned after Charles II’s court at Hampton Court Palace. The Fives court is designed to replicate one of the exterior bays of the chapel, where the game was first played after Mass.
HONORIUS
Honorius was Archbishop of Canterbury in the seventh century. His is the oldest and grandest house at STAGS. The White Quad, dating from the tweltfh century, features at its centre the Jerusalem Tree, a cedar tree grown from a seed brought home from the Crusades by Conrad de Warlencourt.
Honorius house colours: a white stag’s head on a ground of red and gold with a cedar tree as a charge.
BEDE
The Venerable Bede was an English Benedictine monk who wrote The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, a draft of which survives in the Scriptorium at STAGS. Bede house incorporates the extensive playing fields known as Bede’s Piece.
Bede house colours: a white stag’s head on a ground of red and blue, with a book as a charge.
OSWALD
Oswald was king of Northumbria from 634, uniting the kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira to become the most powerful ruler in Britain. Oswald did much to promote the spread of Christianity in the north, and fittingly the school chapel can be found in his house.
Oswald house colours: a white stag’s head on a ground of red and green with a crown as a charge.
PAULINUS
Paulinus was a Roman missionary and the first Bishop of York. The Paulinus Well, built during the bishop’s mission to Northumbria in the seventh century, stands in the middle of Paulinus quad. The waters at its depths were said, upon drinking, to turn a sinful man to God.
Paulinus house colours: a white stag’s head on a ground of red and purple with a well as a charge.
LIGHTFOOT
Lightfoot is the girls’ house at STAGS, and is the newest of all the houses, built originally as a dwelling for masters in 1550. It is a handsome Tudor building with its own Garden Quad, and it was first named Aidan’s House. The name was changed when Bishop Joseph Lightfoot of Durham successfully lobbied for the admission of girls in 1880. Since then, Lightfoot House has borne his name.
Lightfoot house colours: a white stag’s head on a ground of red and silver, with a bishop’s mitre as a charge.
By the first day of Michaelmas Term, all students must be equipped with the following uniform
Black Tudor coat
Scarlet stockings (unless you are a Medieval, in which case you may wear knee-high stockings of a design of your choosing)
Narrow brown deer-leather belt
Plain white wing-collar shirt
White clerical tie
Black knee breeches
Black deer-leather lace-up shoes
Regulation black PE kit with STAGS crest
Uniform may be purchased from our suppliers: Keytes of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
The STAGS uniform must be strictly observed year round. A scarf in the colours of one’s house may be worn during Michaelmas and Hilary Terms.
JUSTITIUM – a short holiday that falls roughly in the middle of each term, when students are permitted to return home if they wish
MEDIEVALS – the prefects, usually between three and six in number, chosen from among the final-year students at STAGS
PROBITIONES – final examinations at STAGS, set in the final year
FESTINA LENTE – the STAGS school motto: ‘Make Haste Slowly’
MEDIEVAL – anything traditional or historical, in line with the highly prized values of the school
SAVAGE – anything modern or technological, considered not in keeping with the ethos of STAGS
Acknowledgements
Firstly my apologies to Rudyard Kipling for bastardising the first line of The Jungle Book to begin this book.
I’m indebted as always to my friend and agent – Fragent™ –Teresa Chris for her expert guidance.
Thank you as ever to the triple threat of Emma Matthewson, Holly Kyte and Talya Baker for editing, copy-editing and proofreading T.I.G.E.R.S. This time I must add Tia Albert, who heroically went through the whole series to create an invaluable S.T.A.G.S. bible.
I’m grateful to the whole team at Hot Key Books for their hard work and support for the S.T.A.G.S. series.
I’m indebted to Sally Taylor for making STAGS school a reality with her beautiful artwork.
Thank you to ace literary scout Drew Reed, who was the first proper grown-up to like the idea of going back in time to tell Aadhish’s story.
Some of this book comes from my own heritage. Ina Forrester was my grandmother, who went into service at the age of fifteen. Much of this is her story.
But some of this history is not my own, and therefore required a lot of research. I won’t bore you with endless titles but must stress that any mistakes made about the people or culture of India are my own. One resource I will mention is Sathnam Sanghera’s excellent documentary on Amritsar for Channel 4 (The Massacre That Shook the Empire, 2019). I studied history at two schools and four universities but was never once taught about that dreadful day.
I highly recommend watching the film Junoon (1992, dir. Mahesh Bhatt). It’s a fantastically campy horror.
Once again the film The Lion in Winter (1968, dir. Anthony Harvey) is referenced throughout – definitely worth a watch if you are at all into power and kingship.
The photograph of the Queen’s Tiger Hunt, which is pivotal to this story, is real. It shows the queen and the late Prince Philip, and a number of other hunters, standing over the corpse of a tiger in Jaipur in 1961. It’s a diffic
ult image, and probably not the one that the royal family would wish to promote, but if you want to see it, it can be found online with the most cursory Google search.
Lastly but not leastly, thank you to Sacha, Conrad and Ruby. As Bryan Adams once said, everything I do, I do it for you.
M. A. Bennett
M. A. Bennett is half Venetian and was born in Manchester, England, and raised in the Yorkshire Dales. She is a history graduate of Oxford University and the University of Venice, where she specialised in the study of Shakespeare’s plays as a historical source. After university she studied art and has since worked as an illustrator, an actress and a film reviewer. She also designed tour visuals for rock bands, including U2 and the Rolling Stones. She was married on the Grand Canal in Venice and lives in north London with her husband, son and daughter. Her first YA novel, S.T.A.G.S., was published in 2017, shortlisted for the YA BOOK PRIZE 2018 and won the Great Reads ‘Most Read’ 2018 Senior Award. D.O.G.S., the second in the world of STAGS, followed in 2019.
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First published in Great Britain in 2021 by
HOT KEY BOOKS
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Copyright © M. A. Bennett, 2021
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The right of M. A. Bennett to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-4714-0869-4
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Hot Key Books is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK
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