‘You still should have drunk it,’ Arthur said. ‘I’m not finishing it for you next time.’
‘You had to finish hers?’ Gwenhwyfar asked.
‘I didn’t want it going to waste,’ he remarked, his eyes shifting to Marvin, who was spread out across his desk with his latest read in his hands. Gwenhwyfar caught Bedivere’s gaze. He made a face, and she felt she was missing something.
‘So have you spoken to Marvin yet?’ he asked her when Morgan looked up and the grotesque was gone.
‘No. I’m not sure if I should if it’s by invitation only.’
‘He won’t mind.’ Bedivere turned to Arthur. ‘Will he?’
‘He shouldn’t do.’ Arthur shifted. ‘Maybe I should ask him for you?’
‘I thought you said it was better if I did it myself?’ Gwenhwyfar glanced to Morgan, and felt the bitterness resurface with the reminder of her exclusion. ‘When’s the next one?’
‘Friday.’
‘I’ll do it. It might not be this week, though. My aunt and uncle are coming for dinner, and I don’t think I’ll be able to get out of it.’ She was still half-expecting a summons from Free Countries or Isolde. She sent them a masking smile. ‘I’ll let you know.’
The rest of the lesson passed quietly, with a low murmur that Marvin rarely achieved from his pupils. Even Tom was subdued. After a brief speech covering their homework, the bell rang and Morgan scurried off in an effort to walk alone.
‘It’s because I’m here,’ Gwenhwyfar said as Arthur frowned after her. ‘I’m sure if I weren’t, you and Bedivere would have the pleasure of her company.’
‘She’s probably just got somewhere to go before class,’ he excused. ‘So what have you two got next?’
‘English,’ Gwenhwyfar replied, gathering her coat. ‘You can walk with us, if you like?’
‘Sure.’ He hoisted his rucksack onto his shoulders and followed them both out into the corridor. They were caught in the current.
‘What are you doing for break?’ Bedivere asked brightly. ‘Don’t tell me you’re sitting with Marvin again?’
‘I was going to read in the library, actually. Refresh myself on our homework for the week.’
‘Homework?’
‘Marvin asked us to read 1984,’ Bedivere divulged.
‘Well, if you need a break from it you can always come and sit with us,’ Gwenhwyfar suggested. ‘Bedivere hangs out with me and Vi now, anyway.’
‘You do?’
‘I’m only doing it to irritate Lance,’ he grinned.
‘Lance? You sit with him?’
‘Technically he sits with me.’
Arthur looked to Gwenhwyfar. ‘You too, Gwen?’
She hadn’t anticipated that Lancelot would be a problem. ‘Yeah, but only because he’s friends with Tom,’ she explained. ‘It’s not like I like him.’
‘Can’t we all just sit somewhere else?’ Arthur appealed. ‘Just the three of us?’
‘We can’t do that, it’s not fair on Vi,’ Gwenhwyfar objected. ‘Besides, Lance will be on his best behaviour. If not, he’ll get kicked off the table. It happened a lot last week.’
Arthur’s scowl thickened.
‘It’d mean we could all spend some time together at least,’ Gwenhwyfar pursued. ‘You never know, you might like them. They’re actually really nice. They don’t hang around with Hector, anymore.’
‘And they can’t stand the Furies,’ Bedivere encouraged. They strolled three abreast down the busy corridor.
‘I’ll think about it,’ he relented. ‘Not for break, though. Maybe lunch? Where will you be?’
‘The canteen,’ Gwenhwyfar told him, as they paused outside their English room. ‘You’ll see us. You’d better come.’
‘I will if I can. See you later?’ Smiling, he shrugged out of their company. Put out by his reluctance to make plans, Gwenhwyfar watched him stride down the corridor.
‘He’ll sit with us,’ Bedivere assured her. ‘Don’t worry. He’s probably just reluctant to be seen with the cool crowd.’
He grinned at her, and then Ms Appelbauer opened the door and called them promptly into class.
* * *
‘Where is he?’
Gwenhwyfar dumped her mobile phone on the wooden table. They were still waiting for Arthur to join them, but with much of their lunchtime gone his sudden arrival was looking all the more unlikely. They were sitting outside in the warm sunshine on a bench opposite the Wormelow wing of the canteen. Viola was boasting about her latest test shoot, while Tom held a protective arm around her, gazing at her proudly.
‘Maybe he got held up with Marvin?’ Bedivere murmured, looking over his shoulder for the fifth time. ‘It’s not like he can’t find us.’
‘He’d see us, if he was looking for us.’ Gwenhwyfar rubbed her thumbnail, and pushed away the varnish. ‘I’ll text him. I wanted to see if he’d like to walk home together, anyway,’ she whispered. ‘What’s his last lesson?’
‘Politics, same as me.’ Bedivere pressed his chin into his fist. ‘Though he won’t be going home, he’ll be going to work.’
‘I can walk him to work.’ She punched out a quick message to Arthur and then fell back into watching the others idly, paying particular attention to Lancelot, who sat with his jaw cupped in his bruised hand, his dark eyes tracking every slight movement. The conversation had migrated to the Furies’ apology.
‘So they came in with Mr Hall, then?’ Gavin was asking, with a folded frown. ‘What did Hector say?’
‘He barely apologised at all, did he, Gwen?’ Viola asked. Gwenhwyfar sat forwards with Bedivere, and shook her head.
‘Hardly. Mr Hall made him. He definitely wanted me to say sorry, too. Though I don’t know what for.’
‘For what you were wearing, obviously,’ Lancelot remarked, with a slow roll of his eyes. ‘Or maybe for what you were drinking. I don’t know, it’s usually one or the other.’
‘That’s not Gwen’s fault,’ Bedivere objected, rising quickly to the remark.
‘Still—’ Tom started.
‘Still nothing, Hareton—’ Gavin snapped, ‘—he’s being sarcastic. Obviously.’
Tom reddened, as did Bedivere.
‘You know, given what Ravioli said to me, I was hoping that Mr Hall would apologise too.’
‘Yeah right,’ Gavin remarked. ‘He wouldn’t do that, and definitely not in front of your whole tutor group. If he does, it’ll be in a private meeting with you and your parents, with the principal’s hand up his arse, puppeteering his mouth.’
Lancelot smirked at this, and Tom sniggered.
‘The Furies didn’t look too happy, either,’ Viola went on. ‘None of them actually apologised for what they got Hector to do.’
‘No, but Emily did apologise for the prank at least,’ Gwenhwyfar reminded her. ‘Sort of.’
Gavin looked to Bedivere. ‘Didn’t you make out with her?’
Bedivere’s face lit up with immediate embarrassment. ‘We kissed, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Didn’t she apologise for that too…?’ Viola started, looking to Gwenhwyfar. ‘She did, didn’t she? Completely unprompted.’
‘Christ, Bed, how bad was she?’ Tom laughed.
‘It was a prank, remember?’ Gwenhwyfar pointed out. ‘That’s why she was apologising, because she used Bedivere to get to Arthur and me.’
‘Oh, really? And here I was thinking that she snogged you because she has the hots for you,’ Viola teased, rolling her eyes.
‘Emily has the hots for Bedivere?’ Tom asked. His face crinkled up drastically at such a notion. ‘What happened to her fancying Lance?’
‘I almost feel hurt,’ Lancelot quipped.
‘At least you came out of it unmolested.’ Gavin nudged Bedivere in the side. ‘I can’t say the same for you, Bed.’
‘Jealous?’ Bedivere scowled.
‘Completely,’ Gavin gesticulated. The table laughed.
‘Well, you’re welcome to her if you lik
e,’ Bedivere retorted. ‘She’s a crap kisser.’
Viola gasped, and the boys all voiced non-verbal opinions of his daring.
‘Ooh, that one’s going to go around like wildfire,’ Gavin observed.
‘Well, she is!’
‘Emily won’t like that,’ Tom mocked.
‘I couldn’t care less,’ Bedivere muttered, his cheeks blooming with crimson. Angrily he twisted his hair.
‘We’re only teasing, Bed,’ Viola tried. ‘We know it was a prank. It was cruel of her.’
‘At least you didn’t have to knock her out with a lamp,’ Gavin added.
‘Yeah, and if you can’t laugh about it, what can you do?’ said Tom.
‘Nothing,’ huffed Bedivere, irked.
There was an uncomfortable silence. ‘Someone got out of the wrong side of bed this morning,’ Lancelot muttered. To Bedivere’s obvious relief, he then changed the subject; and as Gwenhwyfar watched Lancelot talk and joke with Gavin, her thoughts soon returned to Arthur.
* * *
She met him when the final bell of the day went, and together they walked under the long shadows that cut across the school grounds, out of the gates and onto the main road.
‘So how was Politics?’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I mean, it was all right. It’s all a load of nonsense, really. I feel we never learn anything.’
‘I have that in General Studies,’ she smiled. ‘Sometimes I think there’s no point in attending. It’s all just general knowledge that’s not really general and not really knowledge at all.’
‘At least you don’t have to write propaganda papers,’ he reasoned. ‘In Politics it’s all I ever do. I feel like I’m being brainwashed.’
She laughed. ‘Science is a reprieve, at least. We’re looking at man-made cells tomorrow, right?’
‘Oh, don’t get me started on those.’ They crossed the road, and then meandered up a gentle hill lined with small, suburban houses. ‘The Second Genesis. Well, the third technically, as they discovered a cell completely separate to the one we’re all descended from at least fifty years ago. But they can’t use that to produce natural resources. Or incurable diseases.’
‘How about cures for diseases?’ asked Gwenhwyfar. ‘Can they use it to do that?’
He looked to her and smiled. ‘Good point.’
‘So what happened to you at lunch? We waited for you.’
‘I was going to come,’ he offered, ‘I just lost track of time. Sorry.’
‘That’s all right. Tomorrow, maybe?’ She smiled up at him, but he kept his gaze fixed steadily ahead. ‘How long have you got to work for tonight? It must be hard having a job and studying at the same time.’
‘Two hours. It’s not too bad. If it’s quiet they let me do my homework.’
‘Which library is it?’
‘Lower Logres. It’s connected to the school—that’s how I got the job.’
They fell victim to a prolonged silence. As they walked together Gwenhwyfar almost thought she could feel his body heat transcend the gap between them. The sensation was swiftly interrupted.
‘Is there a reason you hang around with Lance?’
She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, why are you friends with him?’
‘I’m not friends with him,’ she disagreed. ‘I actually can’t stand him.’
‘No?’ He looked at her quizzically. ‘Then why do you hang around with him all the time?’
‘I don’t hang around with him all the time. He just has the same friends as me. We don’t even talk.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No. Would it make a difference if we did?’
He shrugged. Gwenhwyfar turned her eyes back to the road. They were quite far from the school now, and she realised that she should have been paying attention to the route they were taking. She lived in completely the opposite direction.
‘I was just wondering. Last I heard Lance and Hector were pretty much best friends; Tom, too.’
‘Well, all that’s changed now,’ Gwenhwyfar assured him. ‘None of them even speak to Hector anymore.’
They turned the corner at the end of the tree-lined road. Across the street, by a small playground skirted with balding grass, sat a dismal building with a damaged sign indicating it was ower ogres bra.
‘Is this it?’
‘It needs new funding really,’ Arthur told her. ‘At the moment we’re running on donations. It’s the last one in the area.’
She looked up at the grey concrete block that was her local library. At least she knew where it was now, and since Arthur worked most nights she could do her homework here to be near him. ‘It doesn’t look too bad.’
‘It’s nicer on the inside. Want to see it?’ His eyes always seemed wider when he looked at her, as if he was trying to see her whole.
‘I’m all right, thanks. I’d better get home. Though I might have to come and find you if I get lost. Which way is it?’
He sidled closer, his front lightly brushing her back, and pointed. ‘That way: down George Street, then left at Victoria Lane. You should come to Potters Park. Do you know your way home from there?’
‘I should do.’
‘If not you can always come back and find me,’ he said.
‘I hope you’re not sending me the wrong way on purpose, Arthur.’
They gazed at one another. He was much more amiable when he wasn’t talking about Lancelot, Gwenhwyfar thought.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he breathed.
‘You will,’ she promised. As she turned to retrace their steps, Arthur retreated through the library doors and waved at her with one last lopsided smile.
* * *
‘Did you hear about Scotland?’
Gavin clenched his abdominals into his twenty-second sit up. Beside him Lancelot rose and reclined in a long line of Cadets, all exercising on the order of their SSI, the Staff Sergeant Instructor.
‘No.’ Lancelot sat up again, his breathing controlled, his words effortless. ‘What about it?’
‘The New Celtic Rebels have occupied Fort William. Killed fifty people.’
‘I didn’t hear that,’ Lancelot murmured, his cheeks hollowed with concentration.
‘I found an eyewitness account on the Internet,’ Gavin remarked, lowering himself onto the cold grass, wet against his back. ‘They’re talking to the Irish and the Welsh. They think they should have full independence, and that this is the only way to get it.’
‘Let me guess, any Scot or person of “Celt-origin” not on their side is an English bastard? I know they want what they feel the New Nationals have taken from them; I know that they don’t want to suffer under this government any more than the rest of us—but blowing up buildings and shooting civilians—? That’s not going to get it.’
‘Ever since we left Europe there’s been unrest,’ Gavin puffed, now on fifty-two. ‘The upper one percent has nothing foreign to blame anymore.’
‘They’ll find someone, they always find someone. The disabled, for example, or the poor—it’s their fault that we’re circling the plughole. Don’t you know it?’
‘I know it,’ Gavin remarked. ‘If the New Nationals place the blame, the average citizen will be happy to point the finger, too.’
‘As long as it’s not at themselves,’ Lancelot said with a sidelong glance.
The SSI wandered their way, scrutinising every rise. It was cold, and the frigid air burned Gavin’s dry throat. He waited until their superior passed them, nearly at the benchmark. ‘You changed your mind yet?’
Their gaze crossed again as Lancelot sat back up. ‘About what?’
‘Joining up when we finish school. If you studied, got through your exams, I reckon you could sign on as an officer.’
‘Don’t you need a degree for that?’
‘Not these days.’
Lancelot frowned, his heavy brow darkening. ‘Where are you getting this stuff from, anyway?’ He paused to rest a moment, an
d Gavin sat up to join him. ‘You’ve been banging on about rebels, rights and the poor for weeks.’
‘I told you, the Internet.’
‘Not on one of those crackpot conspiracy sites?’
Panting, he shook his head. They had just done track. ‘Nah. Some encrypted blog that posts up eyewitness accounts. Whistleblowers use it. It’s one of the ones that helped blow the lid on the Poppy Scandal.’
His thick eyebrows twisted. ‘What, the one about that girl?’
Gavin nodded. ‘It was a mass cover up. People being too poor to afford healthcare: more specifically the new generation of antibiotics. People dying of throat infections, cuts and scrapes.’
‘I remember,’ he said solemnly. ‘What did they do about it?’
‘After the fuss? Nothing. People are still dying. Christ, it’s bad enough paying my own health insurance, let alone contributing to my brothers’, but my parents think it’s fair. Those who work, chip in. Until I sign up, of course.’
They both leant back and resumed the exercise.
‘You’re not still taping over your webcam, are you?’ Lancelot asked with a huff.
‘Webcam, phone camera, any camera on any device I own.’
‘You know it’s illegal now.’
‘I know. I also know they’re not going to find out. I don’t want the New Nationals watching me shit, shower and shave. You can’t tell when they’re using them.’
‘I’m beginning to think you’re wasted on the army,’ Lancelot said.
‘It’ll be a waste if I don’t join. You too, Lake.’
‘Don’t think there’ll be a regime change. What we’re stuck with now, we’ll be stuck with then. If you sign up you’ll be taking your orders from him.’
‘Is that what put you off? Milton?’
‘I don’t want to be anyone’s attack dog,’ Lancelot scowled.
‘You know what they say. If you’re not police or army, you’re little people.’
‘I thought you were all for the little people,’ Lancelot duelled.
‘I am,’ Gavin frowned, ‘but I can hardly watch out for them if I’m one too.’
There was a moment’s silence between them. Gavin had hit their target about ten sit-ups ago, but there was no order from the SSI, so he kept going.
The Future King: Logres Page 21
