Death by Silver (41 page)

“Mrs Landry can wait,” Julian said. “You said yourself, you didn’t think this was in her league.”

“And you said I might be surprised,” Ned pointed out. “Miss Frost would know more.”

“We should talk to Victor first,” Julian said. “I want to be the one who gives him the news, not someone else.”

“Or we should talk to Mrs Nevett,” Ned said. “Or Mrs Victor, for that matter. They’re actual suspects.”

Julian frowned. “And if we talk to Victor, we might well eliminate one of them. I’m no more eager than you are to see Victor again – particularly in the so-salubrious environs of Holloway – but he may have the answers we need.”

“I doubt it.” Ned slid another piece of ham to the
Urtica mordax
. “And anyway, he probably won’t tell us if he does.”

“It’s not as if we can’t tell when Victor is lying,” Julian said. “He never was any good at it.” He gave Ned a sidelong glance. And that was the real problem, he realized suddenly. Not that Ned thought they’d learn more elsewhere, but that Ned simply didn’t want to deal with Victor. “You don’t have to see him,” he said, tentatively. “I could go.”

“That’s not the problem at all,” Ned snapped. “I simply think we could be better employed.”

Julian narrowed his eyes. “Then why don’t you just let me go?”

“Because there is absolutely no reason for it,” Ned answered.

“Humor me.”

“I am – there’s absolutely no reason for me to be at all bothered by seeing him,” Ned said. “So I’m not.”

“Mathey –” Julian just stopped himself from saying
you are so
, said instead, as mildly as he could, “I’d say we both had reason.”

“It was a long time ago,” Ned said. The expression on his face was suddenly familiar, frustration warring with misery, the look he’d worn for too much of their school years, and Julian’s fists clenched in spite of himself. “And, anyway, it wasn’t that bad.”

“For God’s sake,” Julian said. “It was exactly that bad, and worse, and Victor Nevett was very nearly the worst of the lot.”

“We’re grown men,” Ned said, doggedly.

“Yes, and?” Julian tried to keep a grip on his temper, and knew he wasn’t succeeding. “Damn it, Ned, it was bad enough that Wynchcombe won’t send his boys away to school for fear the same might happen to them. You wouldn’t call him either a fool or a weakling. Most schoolboys aren’t handed over to a cabal of prefects who take great pleasure in beating them bloody while the masters do absolutely nothing. Most boys don’t go to the sports fields expecting to get things hit at them, or knowing they’ll get a caning if they don’t play up to par. Most boys don’t have to memorize complete nonsense and spout it back on command – and get beaten whether they know it or not, because the prefect said so, because it pleases them and makes them feel manly. Most canings don’t draw blood –” He checked, afraid he’d gone too far, and there was a moment of silence.

Ned said, “I should haven’t said that, about fools and weaklings. I meant me, not you. You’re not weak, and you’ve never been a fool. But I’m not going.”

It felt as though a door had been slammed in his face. Julian considered half a dozen answers, but none of them seemed adequate to the situation. He hadn’t had the words then, either. Ned pushed himself back from the table, paced to the window and leaned against the frame, looking down into the street.

“You were the strongest of us all,” Julian said, and knew the words fell on deaf ears.

They’d made him wait, sending him up to his dormitory where he sat on the edge of the bed, grateful at least that he didn’t have to face anyone else. Ned wondered what actually happened when you were expelled, whether they sent you away that minute or wrote to your parents, and what they did with you in the meantime while they were waiting for your parents to arrive. It might be possible to speak to Julian before –

“You’re wanted in the prefect’s parlor,” one of the New Men said, hovering uncertainly in the doorway. He looked pale, and Ned guessed he’d been threatened with dire consequences if he didn’t fetch Ned along promptly. As Ned was nearly a head taller than he was, that would have been difficult if Ned had chosen to make it difficult, but that wouldn’t help him.

“I’m coming,” Ned said.

They were all in the parlor, not just Victor Nevett but Staniforth and Evelyn and Noyes and Larriby. It was safest to keep one’s eyes appropriately downcast at such times, but Ned risked a glance at Victor. His face was visibly bruised, and so stormy that Ned looked quickly away.

“There you are, Mathey,” Staniforth said. He sounded more entertained than angry himself, as if anticipating some treat. “I hear that you struck Nevett.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

“You ought to be expelled, you little bastard,” Victor said.

Ned was momentarily taken aback by his language – normally the prefects made a point of affecting the manners of gentlemen – but it wasn’t an excuse to argue. “Yes, sir, I ought.”

“What have you to say for yourself?” Staniforth said.

That was always a dangerous question. Generally it was best to say nothing, as any attempt at explanation was put down to cheek. And what was he to say? That he was defending his mother’s honor, but Victor would certainly say he was lying.

“No excuse, sir,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

“Beg Nevett’s pardon,” Staniforth said.

He felt a surge of relief so intense it nearly made him dizzy. If they meant to expel him, they’d be summoning the masters now, surely. Which meant it was only a matter of taking his punishment.

Ned raised his eyes to Victor’s. “Please, sir, I’m sorry I struck you.”

“Try again,” Victor said. “I don’t believe you.”

“Please, sir,” Ned said, letting his voice break deliberately on the words. It was worth it to stay in school. “I’m sorry I struck you.”

“The usual punishment for striking a fellow student is caning,” Staniforth said. His eyes were alight with unexplained anticipation. “However, that doesn’t seem suitable punishment for being quite this much of a disgrace to the school.” Staniforth drew a bundle of thin switches from the bucket they’d been soaking in and drew it through his hands experimentally before handing it to Nevett. “The Canon does still allow for the use of the birch in particularly egregious cases, and Nevett has requested the privilege. Drop your trousers, Mathey.”

He did so without tremendous reluctance. The bundle of switches didn’t look as though it could hurt much worse than being caned, even if the prefects intended to entertain themselves by reviving antique punishments. It would all be over in a quarter of an hour.

“Take your jacket off as well,” Staniforth said. He waited until Ned was bent over the chair back, and then tugged Ned’s trousers and breeches sharply down, pulling his shirt-tails up to bare his lower back. He handed over the birch to Nevett. “He’s all yours, Nevett. Your discretion as to the number of strokes. Make it educational.”

It hurt, but not nearly as much as a smack with the cane. At six strokes he thought he’d gotten off easily. At twelve he was beginning to doubt. It stung, a bright rising burn. At twenty he couldn’t help flinching, his hands opening on the rungs of the chair.

“Little coward,” Victor said, his breath coming hard. “Stay still and take your punishment. You asked for it.”

Ned gripped the rungs of the chair harder, because it would be unbearable if they had to hold him still, if he wasn’t man enough to bear it. And he had asked for it, he’d struck a prefect, but it didn’t feel fair. He gritted his teeth, swallowing against the knot in his throat.

“You bastard,” Victor said. He sounded strangely as if he was on the verge of tears himself. “Think you can hit me. You won’t do it again. You won’t.”

He couldn’t hold still against the pain every time Victor dragged the birch across his skin as he drew it back. He clenched his hands around the chair rails and tried not to flinch. He could feel sweat trickling down the backs of his legs, a maddening itch perversely not drowned out by pain.

“Nevett,” Evelyn said, sounding for some reason troubled. “He’s had enough, don’t you think?”

He’d lost track of the number of strokes. He felt a brightening panic at that, because sometimes they’d ask you how many you’d had and you were expected to be able to say, but he couldn’t gather his thoughts enough to even guess.

“You bastard,” Victor said. “You bastard.” His breath was coming in harsh gasps. The birch fell again and again.

“Stop it. He’s had enough.” That was Staniforth, close behind him. Ned flinched in anticipation of the next blow, but it didn’t land, and after a long moment he managed to shift enough on the chair to ease cramped muscles.

“Take your hands off me,” Victor said.

“Control yourself, Nevett. You’re acting like a child.”

“Christ,” Evelyn said. “Look at him.”

“Well, so?” Larriby’s voice.

“Shut up, the lot of you,” Staniforth said, his voice crisp and stern. “Get up, Mathey. Get dressed.”

“It’s in the Canon,” Victor said, his voice rising defiantly. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Didn’t I just tell you to shut your mouth?” There was sharp warning in Staniforth’s voice.

Ned got himself down off the chair, his hands shaking as he pulled up his trousers and fumbled with the buttons. His legs were cramped so badly it was hard to stand squarely on his feet, and he felt alarmingly lightheaded. He mustn’t faint, he told himself, and steadied himself on the chair back, hoping they wouldn’t notice. He knew he should thank Nevett, but he couldn’t make himself shape the words.

“Mathey, you’re to go straight back to your room, do you understand me?” Staniforth said. “The masters needn’t know about this. If they hear about it, you’ll most likely be expelled.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Straight back to your room, then, and we’ll say no more about it,” Staniforth said, and took him firmly by the shoulder to steer him out into the hall.

They’d been frightened, he knew now, although he hadn’t understood at the time. If he’d gone to the masters bloodied from back to thighs, there would have been trouble. An investigation, at least, and perhaps the curtailing of the prefects’ privileges. Trouble worth avoiding, and he’d been willing enough to avoid the risk of being expelled that he’d kept their secrets for them.

He felt his stomach turn at the memory, and braced himself on the window sill. Julian had been waiting for him, and had tended his wounds as best he could, but a few faint scars still remained, still perceptible to his fingertips. And a few scars weren’t much, but all the same, it hadn’t been fair. It hadn’t been right.

He’d cried afterwards, shamefully, curled up with his head on Julian’s knee like a child. But he’d only been fourteen, and not really a man yet. Perhaps he might at least be forgiven for that.

“It wasn’t right,” he said, making himself turn away from the window.

Julian looked at him as if that should be obvious. “Of course it wasn’t right.”

“The masters let it go on.”

“The masters didn’t care as long as they weren’t bothered.”

“I thought everyone else bore it better than me.”

“No one bore it better than you,” Julian said. He reached tentatively for Ned’s arm, and Ned let Julian hook it through his own, half-embracing him. “You needn’t see the bloody man. I can go.”

“I’ll go,” Ned said. He clasped Julian’s arm for a moment, and then disentangled himself. “I’d rather face him than be a coward.”

“Never that,” Julian said. “But I do wish sometimes you’d let me kill him.”

“Just now, so do I,” Ned said. “Let’s go try to save the wretched man’s neck.”

“If we must.”

“I’m afraid we must.” He hesitated. “But I’ll admit don’t much like it.”

“That’s because you’re a reasonable man,” Julian said, and Ned had to admit he found a certain comfort in the words.