Wilberforce (14 page)

—Mr. Hazlehurst has also requested the company of …

Another Third Form list, catholic in its character.

—Ah, and it appears that Mr. Clement would like the following to join him and Mr. Lockett-Egan in his study, immediately and without detour.

More names.

—And as we're about it, the rest of this list may cut along to Mr. Eton-Knowles for good measure.

That disposed of the Third. John relaxed slightly. He would only have to flog the Fourth; the Remove would be glad of the exercise, and if they weren't, they could suffer, as he himself would be suffering.

S-K made a final survey of his list, index finger ticking off names. Then, with a sovereign nod, he departed.

*   *   *

Morgan squinted against the light. His mouth tasted foul. There was a rumble in the courtyard. He went to the window, which admitted an impossible scene: masses of boys jogging across the quad at the heels of Mr. Grieves. Like a mob of soldiers, they trooped unspeaking, cold in singlets, as the mist lowered into rain.

—What's the racket?

Morgan turned, and the curtain around one bed glided aside, revealing Alex. Not burned.

He wasn't ready, but he conjured the coolness of Spaulding:

—Cross-country. Fourth, Remove, and Grieves.

Alex looked askance, as if Morgan had reported pornography. The occupant of the other bed moaned for them to shut up. Alex scurried to the door, checked for Matron, and scurried back to Morgan's bedside. A red-and-blue bruise swelled beneath the hair on his forehead.

—When did you turn up? Alex demanded. And what the hell happened to your chin?

Morgan touched his face reflexively and felt the tiny stitches. At close range he could see Alex's eye was swollen, too.

—Mind your tongue, Morgan said.

—I'd rather mind yours.

Morgan struggled for a riposte as Alex made himself comfortable on the bed, crossing his legs as if they were preparing for a game of Spite and Malice, minus the cards. This was not the interrogation Morgan had in mind. A wisp of fear rose inside him. He made to cross his arms, but his left didn't go that far.

—They say you missed the explosion at Prep, he began.

—They say right.

—They say someone got burnt.

Alex shrugged:

—Just Carter, little sod.

—I can hear you, came a voice across the ward.

Alex darted to the other bed and whisked back the curtain. A boy lay there, his hands mummified in white bandages.

—If you don't keep your mouth and your bloody ears shut, Alex began.

He leaned forward and murmured something. Morgan recognized the boy vaguely as a fag in their own House. Alex delivered a punch before closing the curtains on the boy.

—You are such a piece of work, Morgan said.

Alex shrugged again:

—Someone's got to keep an eye on things.

Morgan appraised him—
You need taking down a peg. You've got too big for
—then the boy's wrist was in his hand, and he was hauling Alex back onto the bed:

—That's what I wanted to talk to you about.

It was easy to haul him about. It would be easy to hurt him. Even with one arm.

—You are going to tell me everything, you little perisher. Explosion, locks, fire, all of it.

—Or what?

Or you'll have a very sore Accounting when it arrives.

—Or I'll make your life fifteen kinds of hell.

—Yes,
please
.

Not how things were supposed to go at all. Morgan dropped Alex's arm.

—I know you were behind it all. What I mean to know is how you drugged Matron and Fardles.

He had never cheeked Silk the way Alex was cheeking him, audacious, defiant.

—A neat trick, Morgan said, the way you dealt with the two of them.

A smile broke across Alex's face, and for the first time all morning Morgan felt a waft of hope. He was clearly too undaunting to force confessions from anyone, but now he saw that no force would be necessary. Alex was dying to confess and had in fact been exerting superhuman effort to keep from blurting it out from the start. Morgan felt idiotic not to have understood right away. Every prankster from Hermes to Laurie to Alex hungered desperately for acclaim. Alex had been confined in the Tower since the Bang, denied even a moment of applause. He was quite literally bursting.

—You've no idea, he said.

—Chemist, are we?

Alex leaned forward, his lips at Morgan's ear.

—There was a book in REN's room. It had things in it about drafts.

—Oh, yes?

—Nothing harmful, Alex said. Just something to help you sleep deeper.

—But how did you get Matron to take it?

Alex required no further prompting.

—I found one you can't taste. Then I got myself to the Tower and mixed it up, using things she already had in the dispensary! Slosh, teapot, good night, Matron.

Heat in his throat.

—You counterfeited your way into the Tower?

Alex grinned:

—I had help.

Morgan drew up his knees. Alex had gone to the Tower for the knock on his head, allegedly acquired at Games, but actually received in rapid confrontation with a desktop. Which meant that their encounter in the form room had not been accidental, or if it had been accidental, the outcome had not. He couldn't think of anything suitable to call Alex.

—So, Morgan said at last, you drugged them.

Alex beamed:

—It all worked out better than I hoped.

—But what about the explosion?

He could hardly bring himself to believe that Alex would engineer an explosion in the lab, burning yon Third Former so appallingly, simply as a cover for … what? Morgan felt mentally feeble in the face of it all.

—What's the idea anyhow?

—You wouldn't understand, Alex declared.

—Then make me.

Matron's voice cut across the ward:

—Alexander Pearl!

Alex froze.

—Yes, Matron?

Matron did not dignify the moment by asking obvious questions, such as what Alex imagined he was doing out of his own bed, much less sitting on Morgan's. Instead, she marched dramatically towards them, whisked the curtains fully open, and stood arms akimbo. Morgan quailed. Alex smiled wanly:

—Sorry, Matron. I was worried when I woke up and saw Wilberforce. His arm …

Alex allowed his voice to trail off in feigned concern. Morgan expected her to seize one or both of them by the ear, but she continued to glare in silence.

—I'm sorry for getting out of bed, Alex said. I didn't want to wake Carter.

Here Alex lowered his voice and indicated the bandaged fag.

—Please don't be angry, Matron. It's only …

Dramatic pause, artful swallow.

—everything's been so odd, and when I saw Wilberforce …

His voice trailed off again, and astoundingly tears pooled in his eyes. Matron pursed her lips, though not as severely as usual.

—Nevertheless, she said, this isn't where you belong, is it?

—No, Matron, said Alex, hanging his head.

He got up from Morgan's bed and came to stand beside Matron, prepared to submit to any punishment she might prescribe. He didn't go so far as to wipe his eyes, but he blinked as if to stop himself from succumbing to tears. Matron led Alex back to his bed, ushering him into it with a swat, but nothing more. She switched on his reading lamp and removed a thermometer from her apron. Alex opened his mouth and cleared his throat.

—Sorry, Matron, but please may I have some water when you've done? My throat's feeling all sandpapery again.

Matron felt his glands, placed the thermometer in his mouth, and told him to keep it under his tongue. Alex nodded in feeble compliance as Matron clomped over to Morgan, produced a second thermometer for his mouth, and then clomped away with Alex's glass. As soon as she passed through the door, Alex removed the thermometer from his mouth and held it to the bulb of the reading lamp. A tap turned on. A tap turned off. Alex, smooth and unruffled, put the thermometer back in his mouth. Matron returned with the water, found the thermometer's report of concern, and tucked Alex back into bed with the maternal brand of scolding she reserved for the unwell.

Morgan's thermometer did not impress her, and neither did his claims of lingering queasiness. She sentenced him to tea, dry toast, and magnesia, which she promised to deliver shortly. Morgan suddenly felt as queasy as he had just claimed. If Matron had been the kind of person to say
harrumph
, she would have said it. Instead, she pulled back the curtains around the mittened Third Former and, finding him asleep, departed the ward.

Not high tides, but something more sinister caged him, squeezing until there was not enough air. He had been spectacularly naïve. Had his pristine idea included a strategy to escape the Tower once he'd concluded his investigation? Had he thought through what he would do with the information he acquired? Had he made adequate preparations for what he might encounter in close quarters with Alex?

He had prepared for a more or less routine confession, but Alex's actual testimony struck him as grotesque. Not only had the boy turned his hand to criminal narcotics, but he had ensnared Morgan as unwitting accomplice in his scheme. Evidently, Morgan had gone overboard with Alex because Alex had meant for him to go overboard. He could hardly bear to think of the encounter, but hadn't Alex cheeked him brazenly, in front of seven fags? Just now, Alex had sat on Morgan's bed with the bruise on his head, wearing it proudly, like a brand, except there was no ownership between them, unless Alex was somehow gaining purchase—

He needed not to get confused. Alex had a habit of confusing him, but Morgan could tell lies from the truth, and the truth was Morgan had never encountered such a liar, so accomplished, so natural. Silk had lied reflexively to masters, but they knew perfectly well he was lying and simply couldn't be bothered to contradict him. Alex's performance with Matron had been so artless that Morgan almost believed it himself. If Alex could manage Matron so effortlessly—the Academy's most fearsome foe besides S-K, and even that was debatable—then what else had he done, or could he do?

Morgan had known Alex as Nathan's brother for three years; Alex had always possessed an attention-seeking strain, rebellious but manageable with the correct authority. Neither of Alex's parents possessed such authority, but Alex had always looked up to Morgan. And just now he had taken immense pleasure regaling Morgan with his exploits as criminal apothecary. Never had a boy more sorely needed sorting out.

Morgan wasn't a prefect. He had no study of his own, no private place beyond the curtain of his bed to deal with Alex. The only place he could possibly imagine was—out of the question. And even if the Hermes Balcony were
not
out of the question, the fact remained that he had not set foot in it for three years, since the wish slips and The Fall, which was confined to history and parenthesis and something he intended never to revisit, which was
why
the Hermes Balcony was out of the question. He had not even mounted the stairs since that day; he could hardly haul Alex up there in the present age. In the present age, he could only sit with Alex on a bed in the Tower, behind a curtain, close enough to smell his breath and see the pimple coming on his chin.

The squeaky wheels of Matron's trolley announced her arrival bearing something revolting she would force Morgan to ingest. But first she set to examining his arm and shoulder, testing range of motion, asking where it still felt tender, instructing him to press against her hands with what force he could. Seventeen years old, and he couldn't overpower her. She made him remove the nightgown and examined the places where there had been bruises and swelling, declaring him much improved. She handed him a glass of milky sludge. He gagged at the sight of it.

But then, like a perfectly timed wire from Hermes himself, came a knock and a voice calling out for Matron. Annoyed, she retreated to the corridor. Her conversation with the messenger was plain to hear. The Headmaster demanded the presence of Pearl minor and Carter in his study. Matron informed the page that they would not be leaving the Tower today, for S-K or anyone. The messenger was evidently under orders not to return without the requested parties; he stood his ground with the confidence of S-K's authority, and dread of his wrath should the mission fail. Finally, it was agreed that Matron would accompany the messenger back to the Headmaster's study, where presumably she would set the man straight as only she could. Her shoes clicked down the steps, leaving Morgan naked behind the curtains. He set the glass on the bedside table and took a strip of toast from the trolley.

But Alex was up in a shot, diving onto Morgan's bed.

—What do you care why we did it?

Morgan, flustered, set down the toast and wrestled his body back into the nightgown. Any doubt that Alex was behind the scandals vanished. The Fags' Rebellion, Laurie had called it. If Alex unveiled his entire rationale, would it turn out to be Morgan's fault, at the root?

—I don't care why you do anything, Morgan said, but I'm amused you're too scared to tell me.

Something flashed across Alex's face—shame? anger?—that made Morgan feel cornered, alone with Alex where no one could see. It was always the three of them against the boy, or at least Morgan and Laurie. Even in the form room, Alex had been surrounded by friends. Morgan may have imagined dealing with him alone as Silk had once dealt with him, but it had never actually happened. Now that Alex had dived onto his bed, Morgan began to suspect that matters would never transpire as they had with Silk. That first Accounting, after Silk had cleared the ledger with the cane, after he'd made Morgan stand on the chair, made him strip, made him undergo that nerve-racking examination, that time Morgan had been too sore, too confused, too dizzyingly curious to exert any agency over the scene. But Alex would never quail before him, even when they sat with ten inches of blanket between them, Alex wearing the bruise Morgan had put on his head.