The Betrayals(88)
‘Are you sure? Do you want some water?’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’ He exhaled through his teeth. ‘Something I ate. Leave me alone.’
I stood up, feeling clumsy and helpless. ‘What about your game? It’s nearly time.’
‘I’ll come down in a little while.’
‘Do you want me to hand it in for you?’
He shut his eyes. ‘All right. Now go away, will you?’ He gave a stiff, dry cough as if he was about to start retching.
‘I’ll see you later,’ I said, but he only nodded and pointed at the folder on his desk. I took it, paused on the threshold and looked back, but he’d already crawled into bed, facing away from the door.
I didn’t hand the Tempest in for him. I handed in the Red game, instead.
Chapter 27
28: the Magister Ludi
The games are in. Now the first-and third-years have their exams. There’s a nervous hush in the corridors, raised voices in the library when scholars are after the same scarce volumes. The tension is familiar – it’s the same every year, seasonal as the snow or spring thaw – but this year there is a discordant note. Something extra, or something missing. She isn’t sure whether it’s her own unease, or an atmosphere that drifts through the whole of Montverre like a gas. She sits with a pile of marking at the desk in the Biblioteca Ludi, unable to concentrate.
Yesterday it was the first-years’ Theory paper, and she called out Charpentier’s name when she took the register. By mistake, or was it? Perhaps she wanted to hear it echo, to see the scholars avoid one another’s eyes, before she coughed and said, ‘No, of course … Connolly?’ And then, walking back and forth while they sweated and scrawled, she had to stop and clench her fists to prevent herself snatching the nearest paper and ripping it up. How dare they sit there so calmly, when Charpentier was gone? They’d bullied him, and now they all looked merely sheepish, as if he’d had some embarrassing disease, as if it was the right thing for him to have run away. They might as well have said it out loud: his sort don’t belong here.
If he has run away. Her stomach flips when she remembers the Magister Scholarium saying, at the beginning of a Council session, ‘Gentlemen, it appears that Mr Charpentier absconded when the police came. Obviously, if any of you know of his whereabouts, it is your duty to let me know. Most regrettable.’
There was a pause, and the Magister Motuum shuffled his papers. It’s unlike him to make any superfluous movement; it was only later that she wondered if he was trying to cause a distraction, and even later when she remembered his glance in her direction. Did he – does he think that she has helped Charpentier evade the police? She wishes she had. Or did it mean something else? When she last saw Charpentier, he was blank-eyed and unkempt, barely clinging on. What if, she thinks, what if he didn’t run away? What if he went out into the forest with a rope?
But she is being neurotic. No doubt he simply left to go home without telling anyone. She is tired, that’s all. Term will be over soon, and things will be back to normal. She’s counting the days until the scholars leave: three days till the end of exams, another week of marking and discussion, and then, a few days after their final marks are posted, they’ll be streaming down the mountain like ants, while the baggage-laden bus trundles up and down along the same road, puffing acrid fumes. After that the school will be quiet, until the dignitaries begin to arrive for the Midsummer Game.
But what she’s looking forward to most is Martin leaving. He came to apologise once, and she turned him away with icy courtesy – but even though since then she has never been within a few metres of him, she can feel his proximity: as if the very stones of Montverre have nerves, and every step he takes sends an electric thrum through the corridors. Last night she lay awake, longing to go to his room, her clenched fists squeezing moisture out of the warm air; but she’s strong enough to resist, to know that no good could come of it. It won’t be long now until he goes, washed out on the tide of scholars. Will she ever see him again? No doubt he has a post lined up for him, some overpaid Ministry where he can continue the Party’s studied, deliberate destruction of society … She doesn’t care, as long as it’s far away. Once he is gone she’ll be able to forget these last few weeks. She’ll be able to think about something other than him.
She breathes in, anticipating the long summer days, the heat and lethargy … Every August Aunt Frances sends a package of novels for her birthday, and she reads them shamelessly, like a child gorging on sweets. Most of the Magisters will be elsewhere, on holiday or visiting other schools, so she’ll be almost alone, left to her own devices. There will be hours that stretch, empty and inviting. As much time as she wants: to spend with the Auburn Mistress, drunk on melody, or in the library, or meditating in the Great Hall. She will be able to sleep whenever she pleases, or stay up all night, flat on her back on the roof of the Square Tower while the Perseids rain down. But – even in her imagination – there is something unsatisfactory about the prospect, a new absence that rubs at her like a hole in her stocking. She blames Martin for this restlessness, the sense that there is a bigger, more vivid world beyond Montverre. She’s already struggling against her desire for him, but to make it worse it’s all mixed up with a fierce yearning for excitement, pleasure, the last of her youth. Curse him. He carried it on his clothes and breath, like a virus. Once he’s gone, she’ll be able to recover, coddling herself gently into innocence again. But what if it’s incurable?