Staff & Crown

by W. R. Gingell

  Feeling just a little bit raw and annoyed, Annabel asked Isabella, “Do the other girls know what the blue napkins are for?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Isabella said, in a lowered voice. “It’s one of the things they don’t tell us—you either notice or you don’t. And the ones who do know are more likely to feel sorry for you than to rejoice at your expense. Or to tell anyone else who can then rejoice at your expense, if it comes to that. Oh, good! Look, there’s one of the Awesome Aunts! Let’s bother her!”

  Gazing down at the single piece of dry toast and the cup of water in lieu of tea—did they suppose she was desperate enough to load tea with sugar if given the opportunity?—Annabel was annoyed into following the suggestion.

  It was the Yellow Aunt who was threading her way through the tables, apparently trying to look in any direction but theirs. Today she was in different clothes, but the cameo and main accent was still yellow. She always wore yellow accents, Annabel had discovered; just as the Lavender Aunt always wore lavender accents. Eyeing that yellow ensemble in dislike, Annabel waited until the Yellow Aunt was in closer proximity before she said in a carrying voice, “Good morning, ma’am! Could we speak with you?”

  “Oh!” said the Awesome Aunt, forced to look at them. “Well really, my lady, it’s quite a busy morning, and—”

  “We won’t take much of your valuable time,” said Isabella, with smiling steel. “Really we won’t. Miss Ammett simply wants to know why it is that she’s been put on starvation rations.”

  “Really, Miss Farrah! Starvation rations indeed! You must learn to moderate your language!”

  “I don’t care what you call it,” Annabel said, too annoyed to be less direct. “I just want to know why I’ve been given it.”

  The Awesome Aunt cleared her throat delicately. “I understand that there was a directive from your guardian,” she said. “I’m afraid there’s really nothing we can do, my lady.”

  She sailed away again while Annabel and Isabella were still looking at each other in differing degrees of surprise and annoyance. Annabel, despite what she had said, hadn’t really thought the command came from Melchior. It was evident that Isabella was just as surprised.

  “This is another odd thing,” Isabella said. “I should ask Melchior about this if I were you, Nan.”

  “I don’t see that it’ll do any good,” Annabel said, and went back to her dry toast and water.

  She said the same thing again at lunch, where the only solace allowed her was an extra half-piece of fruit with her small salad. At the evening meal, Isabella didn’t make the suggestion again, but Annabel saw the annoyed pinch to her lips when she put another something on the dining room door.

  “What are we putting on the doors?” she asked. Isabella had been discreetly leaving small, metallic pins in each of the doors they passed through that day; always just too deft to be caught, done behind cover of Annabel. “Is it a joke like the smuggling competition?”

  “Good heavens, no!” said Isabella. “This is much more important. You said you wanted to begin classes, didn’t you?”

  “We have begu—oh. Those classes. Yes.”

  “We’ve got a place to have them, and I’m certain we’ve got the interest. I’ve been leaving invitations all around the school. It’s only fair that everyone gets a chance to come if they want to come.”

  Annabel, who didn’t see how a drawing pin could be construed as an invitation of any kind, looked dubiously at it and found herself dragged away by the other girl.

  “Don’t stare at it, Nan!” hissed Isabella. “You’ll give it away to the teachers! It’s no good as a secret invitation if the teachers find it! We’ll have trouble enough with whistleblowers as it is!”

  “You mean some of the girls really will tell the teachers?”

  “More than likely at least five. The last year I attended Trenthams we had to weed out eleven in the first class and a few sneakier ones after that.”

  Annabel forgot about her lean breakfast for a brief moment. “If there were still some of them in the second class, how did you avoid being caught by the teachers?”

  “That was a somewhat hair-raising year,” admitted Isabella. “It was the year that made me realise I would have to be rather more careful in my vetting process. It should be much more streamlined now, Nan; never you fear!”

  “I understand the first class,” Annabel said. “That’s easy. You just tell each group of girls that the meeting place is in a different spot, and then have people you actually trust tell you where the teachers show up. But how did you manage not to be caught for the second lesson if there were still some girls there who told the teachers?”

  “Honestly,” Isabella said confidentially, “that day we all did rather a lot of running and someone did a very good bit of spellcasting that made us all look like the girl who had brought the teachers down on us.”

  “A very good bit of spellcasting?”

  “Certainly,” said Isabella. “Don’t forget, Nan; I have very little magic of my own.”

  “Yes,” Annabel said suspiciously. “I know. Where did you get the spell?”

  Isabella grinned. “That would hurt my feelings if it wasn’t so complimentary,” she said. “We’d best duck down this hall, Nan; we’re going to be late for Deportment if we don’t take a short cut. In all truth, it wasn’t me. It was Delysia. I was very grateful to her, because if it hadn’t been for that, there would have been a lot more trouble about it than there was. I don’t like people to know that I’m fallible, but if it comes right down to it, there’s always a chance my schemes won’t work. It’s good for you to know that if we’re going to be working together closely.”

  “That’s all right,” Annabel said. “If it comes to that, I’m not really very good at planning, but I seem to do all right when things go wrong, so maybe that will work out for the best.”

  “We’ll have to be more careful this year,” Isabella said soberly. “If you’re joining us, I mean. It won’t be merely a matter of the teachers not finding out—it will be a matter of which girls may or may not be reporting back to someone else, and what they’ll do if they know we’re somewhere the teachers don’t know about. It might be as well to make very good use of our library, after all.”

  “What will happen when the girls see the invitations?”

  “The ones who already know what it means will give me notice that they’re interested,” Isabella said, in a lower voice, as the Deportment Master’s head poked out into the hallway, his mouth pursed. “And the others will ask the ones who know. After that, anyone interested will approach me. After that…well, won’t it be interesting to see how things fall out, Nan?”

  “All right,” Annabel said beneath her breath, as they passed the purse-lipped Deportment Master on their way into the room, “but if we get caught, I’m going to tell them that I was led astray by bad company.”

  8

  Annabel had not enjoyed her first Deportment Lesson. It was less enjoyable, she soon discovered, attending a Deportment Lesson on an almost empty stomach, where the primary subject matter was Correct Corsetry. The Deportment Master scowled if her stomach growled, pursed his lips if she wobbled out of line by the smallest degree, and pursed them still tighter if she swayed due to a combination of too-tight corsetry and hunger induced giddiness. It wouldn’t have been so bad, Annabel thought, if the Deportment Master were not in charge of the lacing of their corsets. He wasn’t directly in charge of it—Trenthams was far too careful of its students to allow any such thing—but his shrieks of “Tighter!” and “Again!” could be heard not only from the imperfect protection of the changing screens, but probably out into the hall and other classrooms. Any other girls who were unfortunate enough to be bigger than the Deportment Master considered ladylike, were watched just as carefully in the changing screens as Annabel herself was. Annabel, being squeezed tighter and tighter in her corsets by one young girl who was nearly as red faced as Annabel herself, came to the conclusion th
at he must have a gradient for matching the colour of his students’ faces with an appropriate tightness of corsets.

  When Annabel at last escaped the classroom, far too hot and more than a little dizzy, she had to take a moment in the hall to catch her breath.

  “Nan?” Isabella’s hand was on her arm, but Annabel couldn’t quite feel it. “Shall we go to our suite? I think it’s about time you were unlaced. Next time, try to be a little closer to me when the Master calls for partners, won’t you? I’m really very good at pretending to tighten corsets.”

  “Don’t tell me,” said Annabel, unsure whether she was laughing or whimpering, “you did a class on that, too!”

  “If a girl is incapable of pretending to tighten her corsets, there’s no hope for her in today’s society,” Isabella said. “Aren’t you glad we’re going to change the fashions? If all else fails, Nan, you’ll be the queen who was known for freeing New Civet’s women from the restrictions of corsetry and bringing about a new era of fashion.”

  “It’ll have to be your legacy,” groaned Annabel. “Because I’ll already be dead by then.”

  “A few more hallways, Nan; a very few more. And perhaps we could bestir ourselves just a little bit more. It wouldn’t do to be late to Statecraft, after all.”

  “If I’m dead, I can’t go to Statecraft anyway,” Annabel said. At this point, she wasn’t sure if it was something she actively wanted to prevent.

  “Nonsense,” said Isabella; “They’d simply drag your non-resisting corpse to the classroom and prop it up nicely.”

  Still, Annabel was feeling a little less corpse-like by the time she got to Statecraft. Some of that relief was due to Isabella’s quick job at relacing her corset; the rest of it was no doubt due to the small cake the other girl gave Annabel to eat while she was doing so. It didn’t quite do away with the lightheaded feeling, but it did take away the breathlessness and the sharp pains around Annabel’s ribs. Statecraft, on the other hand, produced a sharp pain in the temple that didn’t seem likely to be alleviated by anything other than the end of the class. Since there wasn’t, thought Annabel gloomily, at least a decent meal to look forward to at the conclusion of the class, there wasn’t any other point to the end of the class than the relieving of that headache.

  Lunch was the depressing affair Annabel had expected of it; she was given a grapefruit, a cup of water, and a few slivers of the same ham that the other girls were eating heartily. Isabella slipped a few of her own slices of ham over to Annabel’s plate when it seemed expedient, but since the Meal Matron was watching them closely, her eyes dark and suspicious, those moments didn’t occur as often as either of them would have liked.

  “All right, then,” said Annabel wearily. “If I can’t eat, at least we can plan.”

  “Very good,” Isabella said, and swept a few slices of ham neatly into her napkin as one of the Awesome Aunts sailed between them and the Meal Matron. “We’ve been rather reactive until now. I don’t like being reactive. I like making other people reactive.”

  That brought a reluctant tilt of amusement to Annabel’s lips. She had already discovered that much about Isabella. “I think we should concentrate on finding the spies in the school,” she said. “We’re already pretty certain they’re here, so how do we find them out? I don’t mind them being here if we know who they are.”

  “Very politic,” agreed Isabella. “Friends being the Cuffs and Enemies the Collar, as they say. Where would you like to start? It would have to be someone with the ability to get reasonably close to you, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought. You don’t happen to be an Old Parrasian spy, do you?”

  Isabella giggled.

  “Oh well,” Annabel said. “I thought it was worth asking. You’d probably tell me if you were.”

  “Oh, certainly! There should be no secrets between friends, after all!”

  “It doesn’t have to be someone too close; I think they’d be satisfied to see me every day. So it needn’t be any of the girls who were trying to make friends.”

  “I agree,” said Isabella. “It could even be one of the teachers, at a pinch.”

  Annabel said rather hopefully, “Is it the Meal Matron, do you think?”

  “Oh no!” Isabella said airily. “She merely detests me. There’s nothing suspicious in that; just inconvenient.”

  “I suppose she’s a bit too open about it,” reluctantly agreed Annabel, poking at her grapefruit half with one disconsolate finger. “What a shame! It would have been nice to throw her in prison. Why does she hate you, by the way?”

  “There are some people, Nan,” said Isabella solemnly, “who simply take an immediate, instinctive dislike to me. In general, I can point out the ones likely to do so; they share a similar disposition and personality. Odd, I know; but there’s no accounting for tastes, after all!”

  “I can understand people taking a dislike to you,” said Annabel, brutally honest. That brought a distinct sparkle of amusement to Isabella’s grey eyes. “But why does she dislike me so much? What did I ever do to her?”

  “That’s instinctive, too, I shouldn’t wonder,” Isabella said. “You’re the queen—well, the queen heir, at any rate. Matron’s personality being what it is, I believe she detests you because everyone else is kowtowing to you, and she likes to fancy herself above that sort of thing. What a fortunate thing for her daughter that she considers Trenthams to be all pettifogging and pretension. The poor girl might otherwise have been sent here.”

  Annabel, whose small village school had been presided over by a teacher who was the mother of one of the children, heartily agreed. “She would have had a worse time than anyone else here.”

  “Exactly so. Now, if this leak is of any great proportions, I think we can count on more than one spy, don’t you think?”

  “They’ve probably all got someone here,” Annabel said gloomily. “Melchior for Black Velvet, and one each for the Old Parrasians and the Royalists.”

  “And then we have to consider that they’ll need to get information out of the school grounds,” added Isabella. “Which means there’s at least two for each party. Melchior has Raoul to do his running around outside the school, and unless the others are much better at magic than I think they are, they’ll need someone to run messages out, too. We’ll have to look at all the maids and gardeners’ boys; see who is willing to bend the rules and take out messages.”

  “I’ll talk to the maids,” Annabel said. “If you’re flirting with the gardeners’ boys you won’t have time to get to them.”

  “Nan!” said Isabella. One hand was pressed against her chest in a shocked sort of fashion; the other, Annabel was fairly certain, was sneaking that meat-laden napkin into one of her pockets. “I’ll have you know that I’m perfectly capable of flirting with the gardeners’ boys and questioning the maids. It’s a matter of timing and prioritisation—the very things, in fact, for which Trenthams best equips a young lady.”

  “I’ll still talk to the maids,” said Annabel, grinning. “I’m not very good at flirting, actually. I’d rather you look after that bit.”

  Isabella sipped her tea. “It needn’t be flirting, you know. I simply skew toward that because it seems to work so well. Fancy, Nan! I’m not at all attractive—it constantly surprises me that flirting works for me. And it’s so convenient! All it costs is a smile or two, and it’s enjoyable for me, too.”

  Annabel would have asked, in outright astonishment, who had told Isabella that she wasn’t attractive, but it seemed to her that Isabella was already dangerous enough. It didn’t bear thinking about what she could accomplish if she was equipped with the knowledge that she was attractive, too. Besides, Annabel was hungry, and she was beginning to feel gloomy again.

  She was still feeling in equal parts hungry and gloomy when she went in search of a convenient maid or two to talk to during her free period. Annabel was well aware, from bitter experience, that her hunger pains didn’t usually fade into gnawing emptines
s until the second day; it was likely that she would have trouble sleeping tonight. And if Isabella didn’t manage to sneak more into her napkins than she had hitherto managed, by the third day it was likely that Annabel would faint—especially if the Deportment Master had anything to say about her corsets again. Still, Isabella was already out flirting with footmen or gardener’s boys, and Annabel didn’t like to think about going back to their suite without having something to match what Isabella would no doubt come up with. She wandered casually through Trenthams, mindful of Isabella’s tenet that an unhurried, unworried student was less visible than a secretive one, until she found the back staircases; there, she reasoned, it should be easy enough to encounter a stray maid or two.

  In fact, she encountered one before she reached the back staircases; a small girl who was apparently walking the halls for no other reason than to activate a small spell in the glass of each window that faced the pending onslaught of the afternoon sun.

  Annabel, who was curious about everyday magic as a result of her complete lack of inherent magic, stopped to watch her and asked, “What’s that?”

  The maid jumped and gasped, “Miss! Don’t do that to me!”

  “Oh, sorry,” said Annabel, very much amused.

  “Bother!” the maid said. “Now I’ve been rude. I remembered to call you miss, though, didn’t I?”

  Annabel successfully smothered her grin. “That bit was pretty clear. Why? Are you anti-classist?”

  The maid looked very shocked. “Goodness, no! It would be pretty hypocritical of me to be anti-classist.”

  “Would it? Why?” asked Annabel, forgetting both her original mission and original question in her curiosity.

  “Well, I’m only a maid because my father lost all his money,” the maid said, matter-of-factly. “I wasn’t anti-classist when I was rich, so I shouldn’t try starting now that I’m poor. It would look a bit too much like trying to light the candle at both ends.”

  “I suppose so,” Annabel said. She thought about it for a moment and added, “Then if I started out poor and got rich, I shouldn’t be anti-classist just because I’m rich now?”