Wilberforce

by H. S. Cross

  He leaned forward and murmured something. Morgan recognized the boy vaguely as a fag in their own House. Alex delivered a punch before closing the curtains on the boy.

  —You are such a piece of work, Morgan said.

  Alex shrugged again:

  —Someone’s got to keep an eye on things.

  Morgan appraised him—You need taking down a peg. You’ve got too big for—then the boy’s wrist was in his hand, and he was hauling Alex back onto the bed:

  —That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.

  It was easy to haul him about. It would be easy to hurt him. Even with one arm.

  —You are going to tell me everything, you little perisher. Explosion, locks, fire, all of it.

  —Or what?

  Or you’ll have a very sore Accounting when it arrives.

  —Or I’ll make your life fifteen kinds of hell.

  —Yes, please.

  Not how things were supposed to go at all. Morgan dropped Alex’s arm.

  —I know you were behind it all. What I mean to know is how you drugged Matron and Fardles.

  He had never cheeked Silk the way Alex was cheeking him, audacious, defiant.

  —A neat trick, Morgan said, the way you dealt with the two of them.

  A smile broke across Alex’s face, and for the first time all morning Morgan felt a waft of hope. He was clearly too undaunting to force confessions from anyone, but now he saw that no force would be necessary. Alex was dying to confess and had in fact been exerting superhuman effort to keep from blurting it out from the start. Morgan felt idiotic not to have understood right away. Every prankster from Hermes to Laurie to Alex hungered desperately for acclaim. Alex had been confined in the Tower since the Bang, denied even a moment of applause. He was quite literally bursting.

  —You’ve no idea, he said.

  —Chemist, are we?

  Alex leaned forward, his lips at Morgan’s ear.

  —There was a book in REN’s room. It had things in it about drafts.

  —Oh, yes?

  —Nothing harmful, Alex said. Just something to help you sleep deeper.

  —But how did you get Matron to take it?

  Alex required no further prompting.

  —I found one you can’t taste. Then I got myself to the Tower and mixed it up, using things she already had in the dispensary! Slosh, teapot, good night, Matron.

  Heat in his throat.

  —You counterfeited your way into the Tower?

  Alex grinned:

  —I had help.

  Morgan drew up his knees. Alex had gone to the Tower for the knock on his head, allegedly acquired at Games, but actually received in rapid confrontation with a desktop. Which meant that their encounter in the form room had not been accidental, or if it had been accidental, the outcome had not. He couldn’t think of anything suitable to call Alex.

  —So, Morgan said at last, you drugged them.

  Alex beamed:

  —It all worked out better than I hoped.

  —But what about the explosion?

  He could hardly bring himself to believe that Alex would engineer an explosion in the lab, burning yon Third Former so appallingly, simply as a cover for … what? Morgan felt mentally feeble in the face of it all.

  —What’s the idea anyhow?

  —You wouldn’t understand, Alex declared.

  —Then make me.

  Matron’s voice cut across the ward:

  —Alexander Pearl!

  Alex froze.

  —Yes, Matron?

  Matron did not dignify the moment by asking obvious questions, such as what Alex imagined he was doing out of his own bed, much less sitting on Morgan’s. Instead, she marched dramatically towards them, whisked the curtains fully open, and stood arms akimbo. Morgan quailed. Alex smiled wanly:

  —Sorry, Matron. I was worried when I woke up and saw Wilberforce. His arm …

  Alex allowed his voice to trail off in feigned concern. Morgan expected her to seize one or both of them by the ear, but she continued to glare in silence.

  —I’m sorry for getting out of bed, Alex said. I didn’t want to wake Carter.

  Here Alex lowered his voice and indicated the bandaged fag.

  —Please don’t be angry, Matron. It’s only …

  Dramatic pause, artful swallow.

  —everything’s been so odd, and when I saw Wilberforce …

  His voice trailed off again, and astoundingly tears pooled in his eyes. Matron pursed her lips, though not as severely as usual.

  —Nevertheless, she said, this isn’t where you belong, is it?

  —No, Matron, said Alex, hanging his head.

  He got up from Morgan’s bed and came to stand beside Matron, prepared to submit to any punishment she might prescribe. He didn’t go so far as to wipe his eyes, but he blinked as if to stop himself from succumbing to tears. Matron led Alex back to his bed, ushering him into it with a swat, but nothing more. She switched on his reading lamp and removed a thermometer from her apron. Alex opened his mouth and cleared his throat.

  —Sorry, Matron, but please may I have some water when you’ve done? My throat’s feeling all sandpapery again.

  Matron felt his glands, placed the thermometer in his mouth, and told him to keep it under his tongue. Alex nodded in feeble compliance as Matron clomped over to Morgan, produced a second thermometer for his mouth, and then clomped away with Alex’s glass. As soon as she passed through the door, Alex removed the thermometer from his mouth and held it to the bulb of the reading lamp. A tap turned on. A tap turned off. Alex, smooth and unruffled, put the thermometer back in his mouth. Matron returned with the water, found the thermometer’s report of concern, and tucked Alex back into bed with the maternal brand of scolding she reserved for the unwell.

  Morgan’s thermometer did not impress her, and neither did his claims of lingering queasiness. She sentenced him to tea, dry toast, and magnesia, which she promised to deliver shortly. Morgan suddenly felt as queasy as he had just claimed. If Matron had been the kind of person to say harrumph, she would have said it. Instead, she pulled back the curtains around the mittened Third Former and, finding him asleep, departed the ward.

  Not high tides, but something more sinister caged him, squeezing until there was not enough air. He had been spectacularly naïve. Had his pristine idea included a strategy to escape the Tower once he’d concluded his investigation? Had he thought through what he would do with the information he acquired? Had he made adequate preparations for what he might encounter in close quarters with Alex?

  He had prepared for a more or less routine confession, but Alex’s actual testimony struck him as grotesque. Not only had the boy turned his hand to criminal narcotics, but he had ensnared Morgan as unwitting accomplice in his scheme. Evidently, Morgan had gone overboard with Alex because Alex had meant for him to go overboard. He could hardly bear to think of the encounter, but hadn’t Alex cheeked him brazenly, in front of seven fags? Just now, Alex had sat on Morgan’s bed with the bruise on his head, wearing it proudly, like a brand, except there was no ownership between them, unless Alex was somehow gaining purchase—

  He needed not to get confused. Alex had a habit of confusing him, but Morgan could tell lies from the truth, and the truth was Morgan had never encountered such a liar, so accomplished, so natural. Silk had lied reflexively to masters, but they knew perfectly well he was lying and simply couldn’t be bothered to contradict him. Alex’s performance with Matron had been so artless that Morgan almost believed it himself. If Alex could manage Matron so effortlessly—the Academy’s most fearsome foe besides S-K, and even that was debatable—then what else had he done, or could he do?

  Morgan had known Alex as Nathan’s brother for three years; Alex had always possessed an attention-seeking strain, rebellious but manageable with the correct authority. Neither of Alex’s parents possessed such authority, but Alex had always looked up to Morgan. And just now he had taken immense pleasure regaling Morgan with
his exploits as criminal apothecary. Never had a boy more sorely needed sorting out.

  Morgan wasn’t a prefect. He had no study of his own, no private place beyond the curtain of his bed to deal with Alex. The only place he could possibly imagine was—out of the question. And even if the Hermes Balcony were not out of the question, the fact remained that he had not set foot in it for three years, since the wish slips and The Fall, which was confined to history and parenthesis and something he intended never to revisit, which was why the Hermes Balcony was out of the question. He had not even mounted the stairs since that day; he could hardly haul Alex up there in the present age. In the present age, he could only sit with Alex on a bed in the Tower, behind a curtain, close enough to smell his breath and see the pimple coming on his chin.

  The squeaky wheels of Matron’s trolley announced her arrival bearing something revolting she would force Morgan to ingest. But first she set to examining his arm and shoulder, testing range of motion, asking where it still felt tender, instructing him to press against her hands with what force he could. Seventeen years old, and he couldn’t overpower her. She made him remove the nightgown and examined the places where there had been bruises and swelling, declaring him much improved. She handed him a glass of milky sludge. He gagged at the sight of it.

  But then, like a perfectly timed wire from Hermes himself, came a knock and a voice calling out for Matron. Annoyed, she retreated to the corridor. Her conversation with the messenger was plain to hear. The Headmaster demanded the presence of Pearl minor and Carter in his study. Matron informed the page that they would not be leaving the Tower today, for S-K or anyone. The messenger was evidently under orders not to return without the requested parties; he stood his ground with the confidence of S-K’s authority, and dread of his wrath should the mission fail. Finally, it was agreed that Matron would accompany the messenger back to the Headmaster’s study, where presumably she would set the man straight as only she could. Her shoes clicked down the steps, leaving Morgan naked behind the curtains. He set the glass on the bedside table and took a strip of toast from the trolley.

  But Alex was up in a shot, diving onto Morgan’s bed.

  —What do you care why we did it?

  Morgan, flustered, set down the toast and wrestled his body back into the nightgown. Any doubt that Alex was behind the scandals vanished. The Fags’ Rebellion, Laurie had called it. If Alex unveiled his entire rationale, would it turn out to be Morgan’s fault, at the root?

  —I don’t care why you do anything, Morgan said, but I’m amused you’re too scared to tell me.

  Something flashed across Alex’s face—shame? anger?—that made Morgan feel cornered, alone with Alex where no one could see. It was always the three of them against the boy, or at least Morgan and Laurie. Even in the form room, Alex had been surrounded by friends. Morgan may have imagined dealing with him alone as Silk had once dealt with him, but it had never actually happened. Now that Alex had dived onto his bed, Morgan began to suspect that matters would never transpire as they had with Silk. That first Accounting, after Silk had cleared the ledger with the cane, after he’d made Morgan stand on the chair, made him strip, made him undergo that nerve-racking examination, that time Morgan had been too sore, too confused, too dizzyingly curious to exert any agency over the scene. But Alex would never quail before him, even when they sat with ten inches of blanket between them, Alex wearing the bruise Morgan had put on his head.

  —If you must know, Alex said, I didn’t touch a single lock last night.

  —But you planned it. You supervised the whole thing.

  Alex gave the abashed grin of one embarrassed by a compliment.

  —It looks to have been a simple affair, Morgan said coolly.

  —Like hell! It took weeks. You can’t imagine what’s involved getting platoons from every House to enlist for a thing like that. And not only enlist, but join the Covenant.

  —Covenant?

  —It was the only way. Otherwise someone would’ve spilt.

  —You think S-K isn’t getting anywhere downstairs?

  —Of course he isn’t, Alex said. Why d’you think he wants to see me and Carter?

  —Because he has got somewhere, I’d have thought.

  —In that case, he wouldn’t have asked for Carter. Little weed had nothing to do with it.

  Alex looked at Morgan with a defiance that made him stiff, challenging him as he had in the form room but without audience now. Would Alex drive him past reason, as he had driven Silk outside the Hermes Balcony? Show me what’s in there. Refusing not once, not twice, such necessity, such folly. A change had come across Silk, revealing something Morgan had sensed before but never seen. Silk had not spoken, not in words. Arm twisted, face against panel, pressed as if for the technique, but then fumbling at buttons, furious, contaminating in a breath the other thing, the thing pursued in private, in concert, now here in wrath at the top of a public—Morgan had summoned this creature, compelled this alteration. When he twisted and broke free, it was only right that he fell, back, down, out.

  A chasm opened now in the Tower, tempting him to hurdle reason and plunge into it. Only inches away, behind the fabric of a nightgown, Alex was naked.

  Morgan pulled up the covers and leaned back with as much weariness as he could feign:

  —Why go to so much trouble for a rag? What’s the point?

  —The point, Alex said, was to show them that we aren’t going to take it lying down.

  There were so very many things to take lying down.

  —Take what?

  —All of it! What fags have been taking since time immemorial.

  If Alex had taken what Morgan had taken, would he have wished what Morgan wished in the Hermes Balcony that day, finding the wish slips and wishing three things?

  —The serfs didn’t take it, le peuple didn’t take it, the Americans didn’t take it, and we’re not taking it. It’s the Guy Fawkes of the Cad!

  Alex actually raised a fist in triumph at the final, rehearsed declaration. He appeared to have paid attention to one minute in a thousand of Mr. Grieves’s history lessons and combined what he had heard with the melodrama of his father’s latest novel.

  —Are you telling me that you and the entire Third planned for weeks to sneak through the Cad and pour soss into a lot of locks so everyone would know you don’t plan on fagging anymore?

  Alex looked angry and insulted:

  —Not the entire Third, I told you. Everyone joined the Covenant, but only the cadre did it. And it wasn’t soss. It was specially prepared, quick-setting wax.

  —Presumably what was being brewed up in the lab when it exploded?

  —We’d finished already, but some duffer failed to turn the gas off properly.

  —You could have burned down the whole school!

  Alex shrugged, seeming to think it a minor snag.

  —You didn’t mention the best part, Alex said. La justice.

  —Where’s the justice in bunging up locks?

  —Keep up! Alex exhorted. The point wasn’t the locks.

  Morgan couldn’t keep up at all.

  —We bunged the locks so no one could douse the bonfire.

  —In the quad?

  —Every rod in the school consumed in flame!

  Morgan felt cold as the logic of the campaign became obvious.

  —That’s what you call justice?

  —We were planning to burn a few canes all along, but then the JCR went and whacked the entire Third yesterday—

  —With reason—

  —So we cindered them all. Gunpowder, treason, and plot!

  The fist again. Morgan flushed.

  —Gunpowder?

  —You didn’t think I gave up all of it, did you?

  The chasm yawned, no place to stand.

  —For a sure, quick fire, Alex said, you want gunpowder.

  —But … there was no bang.

  Alex grinned:

  —Flour-water paste plus gunpowder, smear on c
anes, dry, fuse, instant inferno.

  Morgan reeled.

  —Don’t you see?

  The only thing he saw was a face that had never been shaved and a lip he’d quite enjoy splitting.

  —What now? Morgan retorted. Presumably they’ll pour hot water into all the locks and unbung them.

  —Of course they could, Alex scoffed, but they’ll stick from now on.

  —That isn’t funny. What if people get locked in places?

  —If REN weren’t such an idiot, he’d realize what we’d used and tell ’em what solvent to try. It wouldn’t hurt the doors at all. As it is …

  Alex chuckled in satisfaction.

  —they’re making a dog’s breakfast of the whole thing, just like S-K is making a dog’s breakfast of his giddy investigation.

  Anarchy walked amongst them and had done for some time.

  —What exactly are you hoping for? Morgan asked. And why bung the form rooms?

  —Someone got enthusiastic.

  —For God’s sake!

  Don’t take the Lord’s—quite an account you’ve rung up—concentrate.

  —Let’s see if I’m keeping up, Morgan said acidly. Doors get opened one way or another, S-K finds no culprits, yet somehow everyone knows the Third were behind it and so accept that the Revolution has begun, you’re all let off fagging, the whack is abolished, everyone can do as he likes, and the Cad becomes some sort of daft modern girls’ school where people run about naked, painting murals and dancing with scarves.

  Alex fumed:

  —I’d have thought that you, of all people, would understand.

  —I don’t understand? Morgan balked. Which part have I got wrong?

  Alex looked him sharp in the eye:

  —I wouldn’t have expected the Heir of Hermes to take a line like that.

  No one was supposed to know the Heir of Hermes, and if one did, one was never to speak of it. Alex kept looking at Morgan as if he had the means and the wherewithal to destroy everything that mattered. Morgan sensed he had fallen into a professional trap.

  —How did you manage? he asked, rearranging his pillows. All those people traipsing through the school, stealing canes, pouring quick-setting wax, and the rest of it. You’d sent Matron and Fardles off to Neverland, but how is it no one else saw a single one of you out of bed?