The Betrayals(28)
He doesn’t answer.
She pauses in the archway. ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘and please don’t use this courtyard again. It’s reserved for Magisters.’
She can’t settle to anything. She teaches her third-years like a five-finger exercise – automatic, joyless, distracted – and lets them go before the clock strikes. Afterwards she hurries down to the Great Hall. Part of her flinches from the prospect of silence, but she is still enough herself to know that it will be good for her. To let go of routine – to let go of the grand jeu, of God – would be dangerous; now more than ever she needs the reassurance of it, the bedrock. She collapses on to a bench and bows her head. She tries to breathe slowly, but now that she’s sitting down her heartbeat seems to get louder instead of softer.
She can’t keep still, so she tries to focus on listening. Beyond the dominant thump of blood in her ears, there are other sounds. The wind is a whole orchestra. Deep notes surge in the trees outside, a loose windowpane rattles, the stone chimney sings. But she can’t concentrate. She rubs her hand on her gown, as if her palm is sticky: but the memory of grabbing Léo Martin won’t be wiped away. It makes her grit her teeth with shame for having lost her temper – what would the other Magisters think, if they’d seen her? – but there’s a deeper unease, a creeping sensation under her skin. When was the last time she touched someone, was touched? She can’t remember. Magisters bow, they don’t shake hands, and she trims her own hair when it gets too long. Can it have been when Aunt Frances said goodbye to her, when she left England? Surely not; that was years ago. But she has been at Montverre continually since then, in spite of being allowed to travel in the vacations; she has kept herself impris— no, protected, safe – here. And she doesn’t want to be touched. When she was elected Magister Ludi, it was a relief to know that she would be celibate now, for ever; she’d almost laughed at Aunt Frances’ concern, her gentle questions about children and marriage and … well, you-know-what, darling … Maybe the other Magisters had secret mistresses, maybe not; it didn’t matter that they’d treat her differently, that she’d be out at the first hint of scandal, because scandal was the last thing she wanted. The thought of someone else’s flesh made her skin crawl.
But now … She tries to evoke the feeling of an embrace, the brush of a mouth on her cheek, but it is like something she once read about. It’s certainly nothing like remembering Martin’s jacket under her fingers, the solidity of his arm, muscle and bone … He smelt of tobacco and newsprint. It surprised her; now that she is alone, she can admit that to herself. Which is foolish, of course, since he was smoking and reading a newspaper. What had she been expecting? The scent of tweed and cheap soap? The mustiness of the scholars, of too-seldom-laundered linen? Or something more … glamorous?
She opens her eyes. She hadn’t realised that she’d closed them. How can she sit here, in this sacred space, thinking about Martin? Or rather, how dare he worm his way into her head, when she has earned the right to be here, alone, her own master, Magister Ludi …? And why did she tell him he could look at the archives? She wants him gone, as soon as possible. He should be playing his own, more puerile games: politics, oppression.
All of a sudden, without meaning to, she gets to her feet and steps into the silver-edged space where the grand jeu is played. She sketches a gesture of ouverture, a deep unflourished bow that she knows would make the Magister Motuum nod in appreciation. But for once it feels theatrical, the triumph of technique over inspiration.
She bows her head. There are always days when the grand jeu is out of reach. There’s no reason to feel that today is especially significant. She’s distracted, that’s all.
Something on the floor catches her eye. A dark stain between the stones. Rust, soil, paint.
Blood.
She crouches down. For a stupid, dislocated second she thinks that somehow it is her fault, from her: as though she could have bled here without noticing. But it’s dry, and the stones have been scrubbed, so the stain only lingers in the crevices. In a different light, you wouldn’t see it. There’s no way of telling how long it’s been there. If not her, then who?
She stares at the neat dark line between the stones, her mind racing. Perhaps she’s mistaken. How can there be blood here? Have the scholars been fighting? Scholars do fight, sneaking down to the gymnasium at night. In general it’s simpler to let them get on with it, so the Magisters pretend they don’t know. But it would be different, if they came here; if they were caught, they’d be expelled for sacrilege. To defile the very ground of the grand jeu – yes, that would be unforgivable.
But someone has done it.
In a rush, out of nowhere – unless it has been shadowing her all day, trailing red footprints behind her, breathing hotly down her neck ever since the moment when she woke in a bloodstained bed – a memory punches into her and she is staring at a crimson smear on white porcelain, so vivid she can’t see anything else. For an instant – a few seconds, an eternity – she is caught in the clarity of shock, where everything is simple. She is at home, and a minute ago she dropped her suitcase in the hall and came upstairs, wincing at the new rot in the staircase and the crumbling plaster, calling her brother’s name; but all that is already forgotten. The bathroom door was ajar. She pushed it open. And there must have been a moment when she saw what was there, but for some reason that too has disappeared, as if her whole life starts now – now, as she steps over the scarlet puddle on the clay tiles, which creeps outwards, silently encroaching on the painted birds and fleurs-de-lis. Now, as she takes in the handprint on the washstand, and the looser smear on the bathtub, her mind following the logic: here he grabbed for balance, here he slipped to his knees, losing consciousness, and here … And inexorably her gaze goes to the thing on the floor, the thing she has in fact been trying not to look at, the thing that is, or was – and her mind teeters on the tense of the verb like a cliff edge, as if she can still stumble back to safety – is or was, was is was—