And then there were detentions ...
I’d hated detentions myself, even though I knew it could be worse. The really badly-behaved students were put in the stocks, when they weren’t suspended or expelled outright. But there was something about being trapped in a classroom, after classes were meant to be finished for the day, that got to people. The lowerclassmen wrote their lines, or scribbled their punishment essays, while every so often throwing wistful glances at the bright sunlight outside. I sat at my desk and watched them, brooding. It was sheer luck, I supposed, that the rumours hadn’t reached the lowerclassmen.
A motion caught my eye. “Fredrick, if you throw that hex at Daria, you’ll get more lines.”
Fredrick flinched. He’d thought I wasn’t paying attention. I watched him until he returned to his lines, then returned to my brooding. I should have brought a book. Or a notebook. Or ... something. I really should have known better. I’d taken detentions before. It was on the tip of my tongue to order one of the lowerclassmen to go get me a book, but I refrained. I wasn’t meant to be drawing attention to the fact I wasn’t paying - much - attention.
The thought made me smile as I opened the desk drawers and glanced inside. There were no notebooks, no sheets of paper ... there weren’t even any trashy novels, hidden at the bottom of the drawer. The detention room got checked every day, if I recalled correctly. There was little in the room, save for what we brought. I would have killed for one of the silly novels Isabella had used to read, despite our governess’s disapproval; I would even have welcomed one of the books that was supposed to provide moral guidance to Young Children and - instead - bored them to death. The heroes were either paragons of morality or bumbling halfwits who ran into danger without thinking. I supposed I should have been paying more attention to those old tales. I’d run into danger - and near disaster - because I’d wanted revenge.
And because they wrecked a lot of our work, I said. My team hadn’t said anything, not to me, but I could tell they were discouraged. We’d taken a hit - and we hadn’t even been able to hit back. Francis talked about going back to the McDonald base and hitting it again, more carefully this time, but I was wary. We’d had a very close shave. I don’t want to go through that again.
It wasn’t a pleasant thought. My feelings were conflicted. There had been a thrill, yes, in being somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be ... yet, I knew - all too well - just how close I’d come to utter disaster. And ... Ayesha had kissed me. I knew she’d done it to sneak a spell past my defences, but ... she’d kissed me. My mind kept replaying it, over and over again. I had no idea how I was going to tell Cat. She might break the betrothal on the spot. Or she might laugh at me. I honestly wasn’t sure which one was worse.
Being laughed at would be bad for me, I thought, dryly. I valued Cat’s good opinion more than anyone else’s. But breaking the betrothal would be bad for the family.
I looked up as the door opened. A latecomer? Very few students were late for detention, not when it meant more lines or a notation in their permanent records. Kate stepped into the room, looking ... my eyes narrowed. Kate looked like a doll, one of the perfect china dolls my mother had owned and forbidden us to touch on pain of... well, she hadn’t been explicit, but she’d made it sound pretty bad. Isabella had wanted one, I remembered. Mother had promised her one for her sixteenth birthday. I wondered, suddenly, if Mother had sent the doll.
Kate walked over to me, her eyes downcast, and held out a red slip. I glanced at it, sharply. Kate had been given lines for cheek - and orders to do them in detention, rather than doing them in her own time. I didn’t have to look at the signature to know that Penny had written the slip and sent Kate to me. I looked up at Kate, feeling another pang - she looked like Isabella, in the days when we’d been displayed to prospective clients - and motioned for her to take a chair. She sat, looking terribly out of place. It was odd for firsties to get formal detentions. Their dorm monitors normally dealt with them directly.
I allowed my eyes to roam around the room, then glanced at the clock. Only twenty minutes had passed since the period had started ... just twenty minutes? It felt like I’d been sitting in the chair for hours. I wanted to stand and pace, to march around the room and peer out the window, but I refrained. I’d always hated watching the upperclassmen prancing around when I’d been a lowerclassmen. One of them had always peered over our shoulders while we’d written our lines. I wouldn’t have minded so much if his breath hadn’t stunk. I really didn’t want to know what he’d been eating. We’d joked that someone had cast a permanent halitosis hex on him.
Think, I told myself. You can think, even if you can’t do anything else.
My mind ran in circles. Father had told me I’d be attending a potions fair, over the half-term. I had no idea why - naturally, he hadn’t bothered to ask before making the arrangements. Rose would be coming with me, which was odd. I didn’t need a chaperone if I wasn’t going to see Cat ... could I be going to see Cat? Her family was a little reluctant to let her out of their sight, but she was seventeen. There was no way she’d consent to remaining a prisoner forever, even if she wasn’t betrothed. And a potions fair was something she’d enjoy. I allowed myself to hope I’d see her. Away from our families, with only Rose to chaperone us, we might actually be able to talk.
I had to smile at the thought. We were supposed to do nothing now, but talk. And yet, what could we talk about with the old biddies listening in? I couldn’t have a normal conversation with Cat - about anything - when I knew that everything we said would be reported to our parents. Ancients alone knew what conclusions they’d draw, from our talks about Objects and Devices of Power. Perhaps they’d fear that we were planning to take over the world. It struck me as a little too much hard work.
Which didn’t stop Stregheria Aguirre and the Crown Prince from trying, I reminded myself, grimly. I tried hard not to think about the Crown Prince - and how he had died at my hand - but, sometimes, it was impossible. Especially when I felt the sword strapped to my back. It was a needle driven into my very soul. Alana’s lucky she doesn’t have to wear her family’s sword. Not yet.
The bell caught me by surprise. I’d zoned out so completely that ... I shook my head, glancing around the room. No one stood. They’d been at the school long enough to know the period didn’t really end until the monitor said so. I frowned as I noticed Kate - she was still writing lines - then turned my attention to the rest of the group. They looked back at me nervously, like deer caught in a hunter’s light. A word from me could send them back to their desks with extra lines.
“If you’ve finished your lines, bring them here,” I ordered. “If you haven’t - or if you have assignments - scram.”
I resisted the urge to rub my eyes as a small line formed in front of the desk. I took a third-year student’s punishment book, checked the lines and dismissed him with a nod. It didn’t really matter what he’d written, as long as he’d written actual lines. I’d managed to slip a handful of fake lines into my punishment book, when I’d been younger. Francis had pointed out that very few upperclassmen would deliberately make an enemy of an Heir Primus, back then, but now I rather suspected they hadn’t noticed. They would have had to look closely to spot the lines that didn’t match.
Kate was still writing lines. I dismissed the remaining students, then peered at her. She’d been told she could go ... normally, students who didn’t have to have their work checked would have been out of the door before I finished speaking. The days were still long, but they’d be getting shorter soon enough. Better to enjoy the sunshine while it lasted.
I cleared my throat. “Kate?”
Kate looked up at me. “Yes, Senior?”
“You can go,” I said, mildly. “Unless you want the pleasure of my company.”
Kate’s eyes flickered from side to side. I frowned, feeling a twinge of concern. No lowerclassman ever born would want an upperclassman’s company - and, if he did, he certainly wouldn’t admit to it. The socia
l gulf between lowerclassmen and upperclassmen was wider than the gap between Louise’s parents and mine. Kate should have left the room at once, before I took official notice of her presence. I could have given her more lines.
I saw her rubbing her wrist and winced, inwardly. “Give me your punishment book.”
If she’d fled, I would have let her go. I wasn’t supposed to know her. But Kate didn’t seem to realise it. Or maybe she thought that running would just get her in more trouble. She stood, smoothing down her skirt in a manner that was recognisably aristocratic, and walked over to the desk. She walked so gingerly that I couldn’t help thinking she thought the floor was nothing more than very thin ice, that the slightest false move would send her plunging into freezing water. My eyes narrowed further. Penny was clearly teaching her poise as well as manners. And yet ...
I took the book and opened it to the very first page. It hadn’t been that long since Kate had started school, but she already had several dozen entries in the book. Penny had written most of them - there was a constant liturgy of lines for talking back, as well as other things - yet a handful came from the teachers. Magister Tallyman had written a sharp note about laziness that struck me as odd. What had she done? Fallen asleep in class?
Kate fidgeted nervously as I glanced through the next few pages. I hadn’t earned so many punishments in my entire first year - I didn’t know anyone who had. Francis had the record for lines, detentions and infractions in our year, I thought, and even he hadn’t collected so many punishments in a single year. Although ... there were punishments that weren’t recorded. The sports masters often handed out push-ups and cross-country runs instead of formal punishments. Francis had argued otherwise, but there was no way I’d believe that a cross-country run wasn’t a punishment. What sort of lunatic would do that for fun?
Francis, I thought.
I smiled. Kate flinched. I kicked myself, mentally. She thought I was smiling at her. I wanted to apologise, but I had no words. Upperclassmen did not apologise to lowerclassmen, even if they were in the wrong. It struck me, suddenly, that that particular social protocol might be a mistake. If the lowerclassman knew we’d made a mistake ...
She reached for the book before I even offered it to her. I winced, again. She was lucky she’d done that to me, not Alana. Or Penny.
“It’s only been a few weeks,” I said, holding the book in one hand. “How did you manage to earn so many punishments?”
Kate looked stricken, caught between two upperclassmen. I shouldn’t have asked. I should have ... I shook my head. I had to ask, even though I didn’t think I wanted to know the answer. And someone else would ask, eventually. The punishment books were charmed, linked to our permanent records. There was a point, I’d been told, when the staff would get involved. That would end very badly for Kate. They wouldn’t bother to ask why she’d earned so many punishments. They’d just throw the book at her.
“I ... ah ... I ...”
“I order you to tell me,” I said, quietly. “And if anyone gives you any trouble over it, you can send them to see me.”
“The Senior has been teaching me manners,” Kate said. “But they’re so hard to learn ...”
“You have years to learn.” I supposed that explained the change in her. Penny was bullying Kate even as she taught Kate manners. “You’re doing very well.”
“Thank you, Senior,” Kate said.
I blinked as it finally hit me. Kate was calling me Senior? And Penny? Senior was an honorific given to older members of the family. It was rarely given to outsiders, even haughty and domineering upperclassmen. It would be like calling a complete stranger my father or older brother or ... I scowled. Penny shouldn’t be urging anyone to call her Senior.
“You’re welcome.” I hesitated, then made a note in her punishment book that she’d completed the whole exercise. Penny really was overdoing things. Kate had had so many lines to write that it was no surprise her wrist was cramping. “You can have a few hundred lines off for good behaviour.”
Kate’s eyes went wide. “Thank you,” she stammered, as she took the book back. “I ...”
“There’ll be someone in the year above you who’ll be producing pain-relief ointment on the sly,” I told her. The healers wouldn’t give her anything, not if her wrist was cramping through writing lines. But there was always someone who was trying to make a little money through brewing potions for the lower years. “They won’t charge you very much, if anything. And you can look up how to make it for yourself in potions class.”
“Thank you.” Kate hesitated, as if she was on the verge of saying something else. “I ...”
She bobbed a curtsey, then hurried out of the room. Technically, she should have waited for me to dismiss her ... I shook my head. There were no witnesses. In hindsight, I should have made certain that Penny and I were somewhere private before I berated her. Penny ... probably felt humiliated, even if Kate had had the sense to keep her mouth shut. I wondered if Kate had asked her what she’d been doing ... no, I doubted it. Kate knew better than to ask Penny anything.
And what, I asked myself, am I going to do about it?
I rubbed my eyes as the bell rang for dinner. There was nothing I could do about it, not without revealing far too much. Last time, I’d stumbled across Penny’s bullying by accident. Now, it would be all too easy to give Kate a reputation for being a sneak. Her peers would blame her for telling me, even if she hadn’t told me. And even if I ordered her to tell me ...
Better to keep one’s mouth shut and take whatever you get like a man than sneak on someone, even your worst enemy, I reminded myself. The code had been drilled into me from my very first day at school. It was supposed to be good preparation for later life, but ... I couldn’t help feeling there was something wrong with it. It’s one thing to lie to keep a friend from getting into trouble, yet quite another to cover up a superior’s misdeeds.
I let out a long breath. What could I do? I could keep an eye on Penny and Kate, but ... I could only watch them when they were outside the dorms. Whatever happened in the dorm stayed in the dorm. That, too, was part of the code. But ... I shuddered. There should be limits. Of course there should be limits. And yet, it was a bit much to expect twelve year olds, half of whom had come from outside the city, to know where those limits rested.
The newcomers weren’t raised in the aristocracy, I reminded myself. Rose had had etiquette lessons for the last six years, but it was still easy to tell that she hadn’t been born in Shallot. Kate hadn’t even had that. They don’t know how society really works.
The door opened. Alana stepped into the room. “Your guests await you,” she said, with heavy sarcasm. “You owe me big, you know.”
I smiled, putting Penny and Kate out of my mind. “Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
Chapter Twenty-One
It was a pity, I reflected as I entered the suite, that Francis had other engagements after dinner. There was a football game, one of a series intended to determine which team would be representing the school in the national league the following summer. It didn’t strike me as very important, but Francis swore blind he had to be there. If he wasn’t ... utter disaster would result. Or so he said.
Louise and Saline sat on the sofa, waiting for me. I nodded, then waved for them to follow me into the kitchen. A table had been placed in the middle of the room, laid out as it would have been in any Great House. I heard Louise mutter an oath, just loud enough to be heard; I tried to look at the scene through her eyes. Good manners and etiquette might hold society together - I’d heard that, often enough, from my aunties - but there was something about the table that was faintly ridiculous. It was a great deal of effort for a simple dinner.
“If you look at the children of the Great Houses,” I said, “you’ll notice that most of them - us - are treated as miniature adults. Their clothes are adult clothes, their meals are adult meals ... even their toys are often adult toys. We are taught how to be adults from the moment we are old
enough to walk, drilled mercilessly in social etiquette before we are old enough for our mistakes to be more than a source of humour. Our childhoods are often quite restrictive.”
“My heart bleeds,” Louise said, dryly.
I ignored her. “When I was a little boy, my sister and I were taught how to behave through a series of ritualised social events. Sometimes, we learnt alongside the other children; sometimes, we were taught alone. This dinner” - I waved a hand at the table - “is as close as I can come to a reproduction of how we were taught to dine. It is a little more complex than merely putting food in one’s mouth.”
“A little,” Louise repeated.
“Quite.” I drew out a chair. “In a formal dinner, each gentleman is paired with a lady. He is expected to help her into her chair, which can be a little challenging if the lady is wearing a long dress. Here ... well, we have one gentleman so I’ll help both of you. Saline?”
(The Zero Enigma Book 6) The Family Pride Page 21