The Betrayals(68)

He rolls his head from side to side against his linked hands, and then stretches his arms over his head. His muscles creak. He’s not in his twenties any more, and the lack of exercise this winter has taken its toll. But he feels younger than he has for ages – since he left Montverre – no, since he won the Gold Medal – since the moment when the Magister Scholarium stood in front of them and said, ‘I’m afraid, gentlemen …’ He has to swerve away from that memory, but it’s easier than it used to be. He can turn his attention deliberately towards this afternoon, when he’ll knock on Magister Dryden’s door with a first draft of what might turn out to be a pretty decent article for the Everyman’s Game or the New Herald or even, if he’s lucky, the Gambit. He knows already what she’s going to say – that in quest of populism he’s sacrificed subtlety – but he’s looking forward to it anyway. These days he sees her often; they have evolved a routine, and he turns up at her door almost every other day, half supplicant, half pedlar, offering articles, essays, plans for grands jeux. A few times they have ended up talking about the Midsummer Game, although she’s refused to show him any work-in-progress. She’s still, of course, as graceless and prickly as ever; but his perseverance is paying off. She has gone from hostile resignation to acceptance: sometimes she forgets herself far enough to argue with him, leaning forward and pounding her fist on the desk, passionate about Philidor or Harnoncourt, and sometimes she even grins at something he’s said – although that’s a Pyrrhic victory, because she always dismisses him a few minutes later, claiming curtly that she has to get back to work. And every so often, as though she doesn’t realise she’s doing it, she gives him a glancing, elusive look that could almost pass for tenderness. The thought takes him by surprise, and he straightens in his chair, pursing his lips. Tenderness? Really? But yes, he’s not making it up, he’s definitely seen something of the kind – and why wouldn’t he? He can be charming when he tries; he built a whole career on it, for goodness’ sake. And he’s trying as hard as he can, because in spite of himself he wants her to like him. Those moments when she cracks a smile, or gives him a look as though she knows him better than he realises, or … They kindle sparks inside him, sparks that sting a little and warm a little. She isn’t Carfax, but gradually he’s starting to forget that.

A moist breeze rattles the window, and a sudden spate of drips streaks down from the eaves. He blinks away the vertical comet-tails of darkness that linger on his retinas. She’s never mentioned the perfume he bought her, but perhaps that’s a good sign; she’s not the sort of woman who’d be used to getting gifts, who’d accept them as her due or coo meaningless thanks, like Chryse?s. Perhaps she was overwhelmed and still doesn’t know what to say. He’s imagined it over and over, her unwrapping the bottle, the flame-colours shining in that austere room like a jewel. When she took the stopper out, the scent must have risen like smoke, exotic, bewitching. He should have gone back and looked through the keyhole. He wants to see her face off guard, open, wiped clean by beauty.

He gets up, shaking the circulation back into his fingers and toes. The sun may be swinging through the seasons, but it’s still chilly. He turns back to his desk and picks up the book he was reading. It’s an anonymous little octavo, a Treatise on the Harmonical Form of Play that he picked out of the furthest, darkest corner of the library. Recently, as well as the grand jeu, he’s begun to play another sort of game: can he find an idea that Magister Dryden hasn’t already encountered, or make an argument she can’t refute? So far he hasn’t managed to score a single point. He can’t tell whether she knows what he’s trying to do, and enjoys her victories, or whether it’s a sort of childish solitaire, as though he’s making faces at himself in the mirror. He despises himself a little for how much pleasure he takes from it, but it’s an antidote to boredom, at least. And his knowledge of the obscure points of the grand jeu has come on by leaps and bounds; it might not outstrip Magister Dryden’s, but every flicker of her eyebrows as she suppresses surprise gives him a tiny jolt of pleasure. In any case, he has high hopes for the anonymous Treatise. He flicks back a few pages, to a line he’s drawn in the margin: the claim that all the disciplines, so apparently discrete and separate, are merely facets of one ineluctable Truth, and may find their apogee in combination, is the same claim of religion, that every man shares a spark of the divine essence and his sense of individuality is a mere illusion. But on second reading, it strikes him as commonplace: in other words, the grand jeu is an act of love. That goes without saying, doesn’t it?

Underneath the little book is a half-finished letter to Emile. These days, with belated circumspection, he keeps himself to the small comedy of Magisters jostling for status, the hints of scandal among the scholars (nothing new there, as Emile himself will know), and the occasional conversations he has with the porters or librarians: a Christian first-year beaten up in the corridor, the mayor of the village taken away on a trumped-up charge, the perennial rumour of a ghost. Nothing significant. In return for his musings, Emile sends parcels of tobacco and chocolate and books, which are much more welcome than Mim’s inept offerings; and, more importantly, Léo sleeps well at night. He hasn’t forgotten Pirène’s warning.

But he can’t be bothered with the rest of the letter right now. His restlessness won’t let him stay still. He puts the book into his pocket and goes out into the corridor. He crosses the court and pauses for a moment to look up at the blue sky. The low hedges are still covered in snow, but he can smell soil and sap and the metallic tinge of meltwater. Icicles hang like clear tusks from the gutter, and a gargoyle has a jagged beard of glass. He walks through the doorway into the murk of the passageway. His heart is light again, as though cheerfulness is carried on the spring air.