S.T.A.G.S.

by M A Bennett

  There were no flies on the Abbot. He knew at once that Henry was talking about some sort of sect; he didn’t blunder about like we had. I realised then what a clever bloke he was – he wasn’t headmaster of such a prestigious school for nothing.

  ‘He was referring to the Order of the Stag, a centuries-old death cult involving the hunting of schoolchildren,’ I said. ‘It started when the Crusaders, including Conrad de Warlencourt, sent their sons to be educated by Friars after the Crusades. Henry said it himself – Conrad had fought the infidel and was looking for new savages to fight. It’s been going on since then,’

  ‘And,’ said Shafeen, ‘in the sixties, my father went to Longcross too. He was Aadhish Jadeja, the only brown kid in the school. He was invited for Michaelmas Justitium in 1969, for a spot of huntin’ shootin’ fishin’. And he was shot. Frightened and broken.’ Shafeen’s voice wobbled and for a moment I thought he was going to cry.

  The Abbot turned his kindly eyes on Shafeen. ‘And your father told you all this?’

  ‘No,’ said Shafeen, almost sadly. ‘My father didn’t say a word all these years. Some misplaced sense of honour – the kid who won’t snitch even if it means waterboarding. He didn’t tell me anything. But this did.’

  Shafeen placed the black game book on the table. Then, almost as if he couldn’t bear to touch it, he turned the volume around with one finger until the gold-tooled date faced the Abbot. He flipped the book open at the right page – 1969.

  The Abbot read the page and went totally white. He sat back in his chair and let out a deep sigh.

  It was as if the phone, with all its new technology, hadn’t quite convinced him, but the game book defeated him because it was from his own world. Books were his kryptonite. Now he got the full extent of the corruption in his own school, going on under his own nose.

  ‘Have the police seen this evidence?’ he asked. ‘The book, and the … film?’

  We looked at each other. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Do you want to go to the police?’

  Strangely, this had never really occurred to us. We’d been so busy trying to avoid their scrutiny over Henry’s death ourselves, that we’d never thought to pursue the Medievals with the law.

  ‘Leaving aside the historical actions of the Friars for the moment,’ he said, ‘let us turn to your contemporaries.’ He picked up the paper he’d been scribbling on and read out what he’d written. ‘Henry Cookson. Piers Holland. Charlotte Lachlan-Young. Lara Petrova. Esme Dawson.’ It sounded like some sort of perverted register – a roll call of guilt. The Abbot waved the list. ‘The actions of these five, they were undoubtedly cruel, but were they murderous?’ He looked at Nel. ‘Let’s start with you, Miss Ashton.’

  ‘Well,’ Nel began, ‘on the first day, the huntin’ day, it was Henry who gave me his jacket, and set the hounds loose. The others … well, they didn’t really do anything, until they sort of helped to look for me.’

  ‘They helped to look for you?’

  Nel squirmed a bit. ‘Yes, but they enjoyed it, if you see what I mean. It was part of the hunt.’

  ‘And you, Mr Jadeja?’

  Shafeen, too, shifted uncomfortably. ‘Well, on the shootin’ day, it wasn’t any of them that shot me. It was Henry.’

  ‘Did they attempt to assist you once you’d been injured?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Shafeen in a small voice. ‘They offered to help me back to the house.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Abbot gently. ‘And what about you, Miss MacDonald?’

  I thought about it. ‘They didn’t actually do anything. But that was exactly it – they didn’t lift a finger to help me out of the water. But they didn’t put me in there either; that was Henry.’ I was beginning to understand – it would be my word against all of theirs.

  The Abbot shook his head. ‘From what you say, it sounds as though it would be hard to make a convincing case against them. At best they were accessories to attempted murder, but proving such a charge would be difficult, particularly if they all decide to tell the same story. All the same, I would be remiss in my duty not to advise you to go to the police, and to assure you that if you do so, you will have the full support of the school.’

  I thought of the bother – questions, hassle, parents knowing, press knowing. The paparazzi were already at the gates – there would be a feeding frenzy. We looked at each other. I collected the expressions of the other two, and spoke for all of us. ‘No. No police.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the Abbot. ‘Here is my contention, for what it is worth, but I will be guided of course by you. Henry was undoubtedly guilty, but Henry is dead, and by his own hand. The Friars, it seems, are guilty too, but I do not know enough of the law to tell you with any certainty if they can still be prosecuted for crimes that took place almost fifty years ago, especially if you would rather not show this film to the police. In any case they can and will be dismissed – that is something I can do immediately without recourse to the law.’ He patted the black morocco cover of the game book and his wedding ring gave a faint clunk. ‘With your permission I will keep this game book in my possession, in order to show the Friars the evidence that exists against them and ensure that they leave quietly. I will replace them with the brightest and best teachers from the public sector. No ex-STAGS pupils will be considered for these posts.

  ‘As for these young people –’ he looked again at the list on his desk – ‘I will speak to them, of course, and they will be stripped of their prefect status. They will be informed that evidence exists against Henry, with the assurance that we will pass it to the police if there are any further misdemeanours of this kind. I suggest, though, that instead of ruining five young lives – and condemning their characters as wholly evil when they may now improve without the malign influence of their ringleader – we let them complete the year and take their exams. I am afraid expulsion, considering their privileged backgrounds, would only harden their cruel tendencies, but a shock, and an opportunity to alter themselves, may well bear fruit.’

  I saw the sense in this. Without Henry to impress, it was just possible that the Medievals might become halfway decent human beings.

  ‘I cannot comment further on the alleged murders to which Henry alluded. I can only say that in both known cases of this deplorable practice – 1969 and this year – the ringleaders were de Warlencourts; and the entire sport – if so it may be called – was instituted by Conrad de Warlencourt on his return from the Crusades. Henry de Warlencourt is gone, and once the head of an organisation is removed, that organisation generally falls into chaos. The Friars and these prefects – Medievals, as you call them – were only followers. A fish stinks from the head, and only if malign leadership continues can evil prevail.’ I thought of Henry Cookson, and his transformation into the new Henry, but I didn’t protest. It was such a relief to have someone – OK, OK, a grown-up – taking charge of this awful responsibility, that I let the Abbot continue.

  ‘So, in an attempt to change the world order (if you will forgive the phrase) for the better, I hereby appoint you all the new prefects of St Aidan the Great School. Congratulations.’

  He leaned across his desk and shook each of our hands in turn.

  All thoughts of Cookson dropped out of my head. I couldn’t quite believe it. Me, Greer MacDonald from Arkwright Road, a Medieval! I glanced at the other two and saw my own feeling reflected in their faces. They were pink with pleasure.

  Then Shafeen said, respectfully, ‘May I say something?’

  The Abbot spread his hands benevolently. ‘Certainly, Mr Jadeja. This school is now our joint concern.’

  ‘If that’s so,’ said Shafeen hesitantly, ‘I think you … we … should introduce a new admissions policy. I think we should admit more children of colour –’

  ‘And more kids that aren’t from aristocratic backgrounds,’ Nel put in. ‘Old money and new money –’

  ‘And no money,’ I added. ‘We should offer more scholarships to state-school kids. One a year d
oesn’t really cut it.’ I had a flash of inspiration. ‘We could call them the de Warlencourt Scholarships, in memory of Henry de Warlencourt.’ It pleased me that clever kids from state schools would have access to STAGS and all its fantastic facilities because of Henry. ‘He would hate it.’

  Now, for the first time in the interview, the Santa Claus twinkle returned to the Abbot's eyes. ‘He would indeed. But it seems to me a fine way to salvage some good from this tragic business.’ He stood and smoothed his habit over his chest. ‘If you trust me, we can transform STAGS into the school it can be. It will take some time, but as our motto says, Festina Lente. Will you help me?’

  We looked at each other again, and started to smile.

  Nel went to lock the Saros 7S away in her room, and I walked Shafeen back to Honorius. The moon was rising over Paulinus quad and I stopped by the well to see if I could see the moon in there. I still couldn’t see the surface of the water. ‘How deep is this thing?’ I said.

  Shafeen joined me, our heads close together, and we both looked down; down and down where I’d once thrown a coin and didn’t hear it hit the water. Just as Henry had fallen and we didn’t hear him land. Then I looked up, at the moon and the stars in the clear sky. Now, at last, I felt like I could say what I’d wanted to say to Shafeen for weeks.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘This could all have been stopped sooner. If I’d seen what was going on. If I’d not let Henry fool me. That very first night, when they all jumped on Nel’s accent, I could see Henry enjoying it. No, it goes back further than that. In history, when they were picking on you. But I just didn’t want to see it. And then, after Nel got hunted, he took me up to the top of the house. We went through this kind of door from the long gallery onto the roof, and he showed me his world.’

  ‘Greer,’ he said gently, ‘you don’t have to –’

  ‘I’m trying to explain something to you,’ I said desperately. ‘The next day I couldn’t find the door again. I couldn’t tell you then, but I understand it now. I think I always believed Nel, deep down. But I was afraid that if I said I believed her, and I made a fuss, I’d never be able to get back into Narnia again.’

  Shafeen was silent, looking at me.

  I gave a half-shrug. ‘It sounds so stupid.’

  ‘No,’ he said softly.

  ‘I was obsessed with their world.’

  He leaned against the edge of the well. ‘Since we’re admitting things, I was wrong too. I thought Henry was trying to hold back a world that was approaching. He wasn’t. He was trying to bring back a world that was already gone.’

  I put my hand on the cold stone. ‘Well, if we’re being fair, their world did have some good things about it.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And that’s their great advantage. You weren’t the only one who was seduced.’

  I looked at him questioningly.

  ‘My dad … me …’

  ‘You?’ I was surprised.

  ‘Oh yes.’

  I thought for a moment. ‘I suppose, in an ideal world, you’d keep the best of the old stuff and adopt the best of the new. But can it be done?’

  ‘Let’s see.’ He turned to face me. ‘We’ve got a year left at STAGS after this one. Festina Lente.’ He smiled his rare smile. ‘Make haste slowly.’

  And he put his hands in my hair and kissed me.

  Epilogue – One Year Later

  On the last day before Michaelmas half-term Shafeen, Nel and I had arranged where we would meet, so we could go to Justitium Mass together.

  Paulinus quad was bathed in October sunshine and striped with long shadows. I was the first one there, so, shoving the ghosts of last year’s Medievals aside, I went to lean on the well, where I’d first kissed Shafeen.

  It had been a weird year at STAGS, watching the Friars all retiring, one by one, and the power of the Medievals ebbing away. The Abbot had been as good as his word. The new teachers, all whip-smart and highly dedicated, only cared about their subjects and their pupils and didn’t give a crap about the jumped-up status of a bunch of over-privileged kids. I didn’t know what the Abbot had said to them, but Cookson, Piers, Charlotte, Esme and Lara had all become good as gold and decided that there was nothing to be done but to knuckle down and concentrate on their exams. They’d all got their A*s in their A levels, despite the small detail of the death of their dearest friend. I pictured them now; all starting their new year at Oxford and Cambridge and Durham and Sandhurst, ancient foundation that weren’t too different from Daddy’s house.

  The Friars had all gone by Christmas. For appearances’ sake there was a big farewell assembly where they were all presented with these gold clocks engraved with the words ‘Festina Lente’. The whole school sang them that bizarre song about being Jolly Good Fellows. Shafeen, Nel and I were the only ones who didn’t sing.

  At Christmas Nel’s dad, a cheerful northerner in a sharp suit and lots of jewellery, had come to pick Nel up in a gold Rolls, and had given me and Shafeen the brand-new Saros 8, for being good friends to his daughter. The phone was amazing: rose gold and as thin as a piece of card. But I’d put the lid back on the box. As Medievals, we’d relaxed the unwritten rules about the use of phones and screens, but I didn’t forget Henry, who’d had so much distaste for the modern world that he couldn’t live in it. I decided that sometimes I would leave the phone in my drawer: there was more fun to be had In Real Life.

  I was thinking, of course, of Shafeen.

  Reader, I’d started going out with him.

  I’d met his dad too, over the summer, when I’d been to stay in Rajasthan, at the house in the Aravalli mountains above the hill station at Guru Shikhar. At first I couldn’t quite reconcile Prince Aadhish Bharmal Kachwaha Jadeja, this distinguished white-haired Indian gentleman, with the terrified misfit teen I’d felt so deeply for in the Longcross library. But I tried my best with him. I was really hoping Aadhish would like me – not just because I’d risked my life for the boy he once was, but also because of what had happened between me and Shafeen.

  It was OK though; it turned out that Aadhish did like me. He’d been really smiley and sort of courtly, and my stay in his palace had been amazing.

  A whole summer with Shafeen, him in a white shirt, me in a floaty dress, wandering through the palace gardens with the white peacocks and the fountains and the tigers, looking like Jasmine and Aladdin in, well, Aladdin.

  And now we were at the top of the school, a very different school to the one we’d enrolled in.

  The Abbot had kept all the good things, like the traditions of the ancient foundation of St Aidan the Great, while doing away with all the bad ones, like running a murderous child-killing cult.

  I hadn’t been waiting long at the Paulinus well when I saw Shafeen and Nel crossing the quad, from different directions. You could see their stockings a mile off – now we were Medievals, we didn’t have to wear the regulation red. I’d found silver ones dotted with little black-and-white film clapperboards. Nel had defiantly chosen shocking-pink Chanel stockings with the little double Cs of the logo picked out in gold. Shafeen had chosen tiger stripes, and I smiled whenever I saw them, remembering that he was the tiger’s son.

  We stood there, the three of us, breathing in the autumn air, the holiday weekend stretching ahead. Justitium began that evening, and we knew that, for the first time in hundreds of years, no one would be going to Longcross, or one of the other stately homes, to be hunted, shot and fished. All the kids would be going home to their parents, just as they should. I myself would be going home to Dad, to our new flat in Salford Quays, overlooking the BBC studios. It was right in the middle of a landscape of modern iron and glass. There would not be a hillside, a tree or a lake in sight.

  The bell began to ring for Justitium Mass and students began to cross the quad in twos and threes towards the chapel. A figure waved at me, a new girl called Tyeesha. I knew her slightly as she was one of the first batch of the new de Warlencourt
scholars the Abbot had started to admit to the school. I waved back automatically and Tyeesha started walking over. I couldn’t help sighing. The three of us didn’t need other company right now; things were so perfect. But I reminded myself that I couldn’t exactly tell her to get lost. She was the only black girl in Lightfoot, and she’d been having it a bit tough at the beginning of term. I’d sort of taken her under my wing, hoping to be the friend I’d never had as a new girl. Blanking her now would make me no better than those blonde Medieval bitches. So instead I turned to her and gave her my best smile. ‘Hi, Ty,’ I said. ‘How are things?’

  ‘Great!’ she said. I was a bit taken aback by her enthusiasm.

  ‘Really great,’ she repeated.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said in her strong London accent. ‘I think I’ve turned a corner. Those kids that were bothering me – twins, they were – well, I think they like me now.’ She looked like she was all lit up from the inside.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘That’s really good to hear.’ I supposed it would take a little time for the new scholarship kids to fully settle in to the school, but you had to give it to the Abbot, he had made a start. ‘Going someplace nice for Justitium?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, but she didn’t volunteer any more information.

  ‘Post some photos on Instagram,’ I suggested.

  She frowned a little. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No – I don’t think so. I think I’ll send you a postcard instead.’

  ‘Cool,’ I said. ‘Have fun.’

  She smiled this huge, beaming smile. ‘Thanks. I think I will.’

  At that moment, the chapel bell started ringing double time as it always did for the five-minute warning. Tyeesha turned and hurried to catch up with the rest of the school as they filed into the chapel. I followed her, thoughtfully.

  In the chapel everything had changed. Yet everything was the same. I thought about last year’s Justitium Mass, the morning before I’d gone to Longcross. Last year on this day, the three of us had sat dotted around the chapel on our own. Now we were no longer lonely, even if the darkest of reasons had brought us together. We sat there, by some accident of fate, right under the same stained-glass window of St Aidan and the stag. The white deer stared me down throughout the service, just like Jeffrey had done.