by Aubade Teyal
Chapter Four - Test
She sat beside Mannik at lunch. Side by side, and silent, sheltering in each other’s company, they ate meat pie. Alongside them, Connel, Rick and Henry and some other Perissodactyla boys she did not know, talked amongst themselves.
‘It’s rabbit pie,’ Rick was saying. ‘I heard Bull tell Duncan.’
‘Yeah, and he caught them all himself,’ Connel laughed. ‘Its factory farmed chicken, nothing else.’
‘Bull’s got an armoury here, you know,’ Rick snapped back. ‘Wall to wall hunting knives and traps.’
‘Maybe,’ Connel agreed. ‘But whatever he hunts, we don’t get to eat.’
Mannik looked sideways at Lennox, to see if she was listening.
‘Is Bull… like the Masters?’ Lennox asked.
Mannik shook his head.
‘No,’ he whispered. ‘He’s worse. He’s a psychopath.’
As Mannik got up to refill his water, Lennox watched Bull, watching the boys. With his arms crossed in front of him, and wearing a t-shirt despite the winter chill, he looked more like a wrestler, than a chef.
Bull watched Mannik step up to the water urn, then get elbowed to the side by Gram. Bull’s expression did not change. Mannik’s did. He shrank into himself.
Lennox shook her head. Maybe Mannik was right. Maybe Calgacos did encourage bullying.
‘Why?’ she muttered, not talking to anyone, only herself. But Connel noticed, and he knew exactly what she was talking about.
'Because Mannik's not your normal Calgacos type,’ he told her, leaning over to explain. 'Most people who come here, come here for a reason. They're fast, or they're fit, or they can climb, hunt. You’re not the only one who’s turned up mid-term, you know, and you’re not the only one who got kicked out of their last school.’
‘I never said I got kicked out.’ She never talked about life outside school, and she was certain she hadn’t said anything about Kingham to Connel.
‘You didn’t need to.’ Connel told her smugly. ‘Anyway, from the moment he got here, it was obvious Mannik was different. He's only at home with a book in his hand, and his Dad's works in IT. In every other school in the country, there would be a gang of kids just like him. Here, it makes him a freak.'
'Does that mean everyone else can just push in front of him?' Lennox demanded.
'No. It doesn't. I was just explaining. That’s all. You asked, so I answered.'
‘I wasn’t talking to you.’ Lennox told him. She knew she was being rude, but she didn’t care.
‘Oh?’ Connel raised his eyebrows and looked around. ‘So who else were you talking to?’
Before Lennox could answer, Mannik reappeared. He looked warily from Lennox to Connel. He could tell he’d just interrupted something.
‘And over there is Olson,’ Connel said, as if he had been in the middle of pointing out people. ‘He’s the Perissodactyla House Captain. He’s the one with hair as big as a haystack, and a plate piled as high as his considerable nose.’
Rick sniggered appreciatively. Connel’s description was apt. It was easy to pick Olson out from the crowd of seniors who had just joined the lunch queue. His nose was gnarled, like an old tree, and dominated what would otherwise have been his handsome face.
Standing only a couple of feet away from Olson was one face more perfect than all the rest. Deep in conversation with Horace, Kellas’s back was to her, but she could see his silver hair was darkened, wet, as if he was fresh from a shower.
As Lennox watched the lunch queue, she noticed some of the other seniors were staring back in their direction, more specifically in her direction. Olson was one of them.
'Who is that?' Olson asked, nodding at her.
She shouldn’t have been able to hear him. Certainly no one else on her table appeared to notice that Olson was talking about her. But she could. His voice was as clear from across the hall as if he had been standing next to her.
It had always been like this for her. She heard things she shouldn’t. It meant she had heard Mr Whittle describing her as a ‘feral psychopath’ while she ate rice pudding at Kingham College the night before she left. It meant she had heard her father on the phone begging and pleading for one of her previous schools to give her a place the last time he had been in England with her. It meant being a new girl was unbearable, for she always heard every whispered comment.
Over in the lunch queue, two more seniors had turned in her direction and were studying her.
'What the hell?' said one burly boy, who actually raised a finger to point at Lennox.
‘A girl, Daryl.’ said his companion. ‘Same species, different gender. They are reclusive but not that uncommon.’
‘Smart ass,’ mumbled Daryl, his finger slowly dropping.
‘Zac’s right. Not uncommon,’ agreed Olson. ‘Except here.’
‘She won’t last a week,’ Daryl added.
‘I wouldn’t be too sure,’ said Duncan, the house captain of Feliformia, who had just moved to the front of the queue with the assurance of a headmaster. Kellas and Horace had also stopped talking, and were looking over.
'Will you put money on that?' Zac asked.
She stood up, not wanting to hear anymore. The only way to make sure she didn’t was to walk, very quickly, away.
‘Wait!’ said Mannik, rising to his feet. ‘I’ll come with you,’
They left the hall together. Mannik at Lennox's heels.
'Are you alright?' he asked.
‘Fine.’
'Mannik!' The new voice came from behind them, back towards the entrance to the kitchens. It was not full of mirth, like Zac's had been, or menace, like Gram’s, or confidence, like Duncan's; it was simply firm.
Somehow Lennox knew who it was before she turned round. Somehow her blood was already pulsing.
'Yes?' Mannik replied, but they both stopped. Both turned.
Kellas was bearing down the corridor, his strides swift, his good looks overwhelming.
'Gnarle wants her for a medical examination,' he explained curtly.
Then he sent one briefly glance at Lennox,
'Come,' he said, and that was it. One moment she was with Mannik, the next she was walking behind Kellas, just the two of them, and Mannik was left behind, floundering.
At first, neither spoke. She followed him, and studied him. He was taller than she had first thought, more than a head taller than her, and strong. His graceful movements concealed his muscular frame.
He led her down a long basement passage, then up through rooms she had not seen before, into the old part of the castle. He walked quickly, never turning to look at her, to see if she was following. The rooms were sparsely furnished, and cold as winter, with large gilt framed portraits covered by a film of dust. The noise of the dining hall was long gone. The castle was silent apart from their clipped footsteps on the stone flagged floor. It dawned on Lennox that Kellas didn't intend to speak to her at all, just lead the way.
'So what happens during this examination?' she asked. To her own ears, her voice sounded high, girlish.
He didn't break stride.
'It is a medical to check you're fit and well enough.'
'Well enough?’ she echoed. For what, she thought silently. ‘What happens if you're not well enough?’ she asked.
‘You are sent home.'
But she had no home. And she was already leaving. So what was the point? But she didn’t argue with Kellas.
They had reached a long gallery sparsely furnished with a few wooden chairs, shelves and books that contained more dust than paper, and chests. Kellas stopped at the opposite end of the room, where a small, plain door was shut tight, and turned to look at her for the first time.
Close up, he was staggering. His eyes were a tropical green, curved like a cat’s eyes, and buried within were slivers of gold.
‘He is expecting you,’ he said, and gestured towards the door.
His coldness was worse than silence. It reached deep inside her, and
sliced through her self-composure.
'I heard you all betting,' she declared abruptly, the words spilling out, uncontrolled. 'I know you think I won't last the week. Well the thing is, I don’t want to last the week. The sooner I get out of here the better.’
Behind her, there was the slight sound of a door click. But she was focused on Kellas, on his sand and silver marbled hair, his perfect face, his eyes now dark with disdain, and she heard nothing but his cold, hard voice.
'That bet has nothing to do with me. You have nothing to do with me. And whether you stay at this school or not, is not for you to decide. It has never been for you to decide...
'...it is for me.'
Startled, Lennox turned. A most peculiar looking man was standing behind her. His eyes were small, dark and hidden behind a pair of wire rimmed spectacles as thick as magnifying glasses. Stubble covered every inch of his face, leaving nothing uncovered but his prominent, pink nose, and a creased and overgrown forehead buried in his long, brown dense hair.
'Come this way,' he beckoned her with one small hand, his fingers all curled in on themselves, his nails hidden in his pale palm.
She didn't look back at Kellas. She didn't dare. His disdain for her could not have been made clearer. There was nothing in his direction but a cold silence.
Dr Gnarle waited for Lennox to walk into the small surgery then shut the door firmly behind them. Inside the room was white washed with a pale lino floor, and a tiny latticed window set deep into the wall that revealed a square of sunlight no larger than a shoebox, but through which Lennox could just see a glimpse of the valley and the hills beyond. There were cupboards and shelves with jars, boxes, books and packets of pills with hand written labels, and a single metal trolley covered with tools. In the darkest corner was an old desk, with a worn, wooden stool, above it hung garlands of dried leaves, pungent enough to fill the room with the smell of the wild. In the opposite corner, a small wooden door was sat tight. Lennox sat in the nearest empty chair and watched with interest as Dr Gnarle waddled to the stool. He lurched from one leg to the other, like a ship rocked by waves. When he reached his stool, he hunched over a sheet of paper, his back rounding into a ball.
'Name?'
'Lennox.'
'Surname?'
'Constable.'
She was looking at Dr Gnarle's concave back and thinking only of the horrific darkness in Kellas' coral green eyes.
'Age?'
'Fifteen.'
Dr Gnarle did not appear to have even noticed she was a girl, not yet, anyway.
'Any family history of heart disease, lung disease, asthama or epilepsy?'
She paused. She didn’t know much about her family history. Her father didn’t like to talk.
'My father's fit and well,' she said at last.
'I'm pleased to hear it. But what about the rest of your family. Has anyone suffered from heart disease, lung disease, asthma or epilepsy?'
This time she shook her head. Dr Gnarle, head inches from his paper, his nose almost touching it, saw nothing but his questions.
'Yes or no?' he repeated.
'I don't know,' she whispered. 'I can't tell you.'
Dr Gnarle lifted his nose up and away from his paper and swivelled round on his stool, so his body was still at his desk but his face was towards Lennox. He peered uncomprehendingly at her.
'You don't know?'
'No.' She confessed. It filled her with shame.
'Do you have any other family members?'' Dr Gnarle asked, blinking,
'It's just me and my Dad.'
Gnarle looked down at his paper, made a brief note then forsook his desk and waddled over towards Lennox.
'Now for the fun part,' he said, smiling, and revealing a set of very small, even teeth.
'Fun?' Lennox asked, unconvinced.
'Indeed,' he said, reaching for the medical trolley and pulling it closer. 'The boys think of this as a competition.' His eyebrows wriggled and his eyes screwed up into another smile. 'But then they think of everything as a competition.'
He squinted at her, as if seeing her for the first time.
'They'll be competing for you too.'
Embarrassment flooded through her. So he had noticed she was female.
'Let's start with the easy part' Dr Gnarle decided, pointing at a chart and scales in the corner. 'Height and weight. Shoes and socks off please.'
'Why do you do this?' she asked as she did what he asked and stepped up to the chart.
She was not tall, a fact which had never pleased her father. 'With height comes strength,' he had commented many times, and there was nothing that pleased him more than strength, or endurance. Ironically, he wasn’t tall either. He had made up for it by becoming inhumanly fit, tough, and stringy as a mountain goat, all muscle and bone. He never mentioned his own height. Lennox suspected he was still counting the lines on the road, hoping to look up one day and find himself a head taller.
'We have to monitor various aspects of your fitness,' Gnarle explained. 'Calgacos is not your average school. Everyone here has to prove they're worthy. You are not just expected to be fit. You need to become more fit.'
He scribbled down her height, then pointed at the scales. She had no idea how much she weighed and she didn't care. Beyond making sure she was wearing as much black as possible, she tried not think about her appearance. It brought her too much attention as it was.
After the weighing, Dr Gnarle shooed her back to the chair then picked up an otoscope and tried to poke it in her ears.
Lennox shied away instinctively. She didn't like the look of the otoscope. There was tape round the handle and it was a strange, dirty colour, halfway between black and brown.
'Come, come,' Dr Gnarle muttered. 'It just takes a second.'
She forced herself to relax and allowed him to continue. He was true to his word. The antiquated otoscope was soon back on the table. Lennox resisted the urge to throw it in the bin.
'Now raise your hand like this as soon as you hear something,' he told her, picking up a small, black box.
He flicked a switch and, at first, Lennox heard nothing. She stared at his face, but it was inscrutable. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to be listening for. Then she heard something. It sounded distant at first, so distant she thought it had to be something else, traffic far away, not connected to the test. But steadily it intensified and she knew beyond doubt. She raised her hand.
His eyebrows jerked upwards in surprise but he offered no explanation as to what was surprising.
'Next I want you to blow into this,' he told her, offering her a pipe with long tube attached.
She lightly put her lips on it and exhaled.
He shook his head.
'No, no, no no!' he told her. 'Look, see here. There's a dial. The aim is to make the needle move to the right. You have to breathe out as hard as you can. Got it?'
Lennox nodded, readied herself and did it again. This time she sucked up a lungful and blew out long and hard into the pipe. When she was done, Dr Gnarle plucked it away from her, and his eyebrows rose so high his forehead merged with his hairline.
'What?' she asked.
'Eye test,' he replied, which did not answer her question at all.
He shuffled over to the door, dimmed the lights and flicked on a projector.
'Just read everything you see,' he told her. So she did, and the test went on, and on, and on, as the letters became smaller and smaller until she became bored.
She stopped reading the tiny letters and looked instead at Dr Gnarle. He was flicking furiously through a file of notes, not appearing to be listening anymore.
'What is it?' she asked again.
'Have you ever had your eyes tested before?'
She shook her head. She had rarely been to the Doctors, and never to an optician. Her father didn't trust any medical people.
'What about we have a look at your teeth?' Dr Gnarle decided, turning the lights back on and donning a pair of gloves.
> She stared as his hands. They were small and crooked, and, even under the white, plastic gloves, they looked dark, somehow warped. She could just discern the fingernails curved round the tips of the fingers through the stretched plastic.
'Open wide,' he said.
She could have groaned. This was getting worse. But, fortunately, the dental inspection was quick. He simply counted her teeth, and prodded her incisors.
'No fillings?' he asked.
'I've never been to a dentist,' she replied. 'So no. No fillings.'
'Hmmmmm. Well, you don't need anyway.'
He peeled off the gloves and picked up a needle. This time she did groan.
'Do you have to?’
'I do,' Dr Gnarle didn't pause. 'Just roll up your sleeve and look away.'
She did as he said. He didn't even form a tourniquet. He just straightened her arm and jabbed the needle into the crook of her arm.
'Well, it’s red,' he muttered under his breath, as the syringe filled up.
'Are we done?' she asked, as he pressed a wad of cotton wool to the pinprick of blood.
'Just two more things.'
He picked up a small bottle from the trolley, wrote her name on the label, and handed it to her.
'There’s a toilet next door. Return to me with a sample. Urine.'
He pointed to the wooden door in the corner of the room. Lennox grimaced. It was definitely getting worse.
'Do the boys compete over this too?' she asked.
'Absolutely! This is the best part,' he told her, his small dark mouth breaking into a surprisingly large smile. 'They compete to see who can aim it into the bottle from the greatest distance. But you don't need to do that. Consider yourself exempt from that particular challenge.'
On the far side of the wooden door was a long narrow infirmary, with 12 beds, and an empty fireplace. At the far end, a bathroom, as big again as the infirmary, but cold as ice, and with a row of silent showers and one, simple toilet.
'And the last thing?' she asked, as soon as she was finished, and the sample placed discreetly on his desk.
'A quick physical examination. Just take off your clothes. Leave on your pants and your, um, bra.'
Lennox's mouth fell open. She stared at him in horror.
'No!'
Gnarle's smile was gone, his eyes were blinking so furiously they were shut more than they were open.
'All the boys have to do this too. It is exactly the same. But I can assure you that it is a purely visual examination. I will not touch you at any point.'
She shivered and shook her head at him. She didn't undress in front of her father. She hadn't undressed in front of the other girls, in her old school. She had found ways to hide. What Gnarle was asking her to do was impossible.
'If you wish, if it makes you more comfortable, I can ask one of the other masters to be present. Master Torkil will come.'
It was an excruciating thought. Gnarle and the headmaster both witnessing her humiliation as she stood in the chill castle in her bra and pants.
'No! I...I'll...' But her voice trailed off. She couldn't speak the words.
Instead she sighed, reached for the waist band on her leggings, and pulled them down to expose her marble white, sculptured legs. Dr Gnarle leant forward in his chair. Lennox winced, stared at the ceiling, forced herself to keep breathing, and tugged at her top.
When the examination was over, Lennox walked back from the surgery in a daze. The Feliformia corridor was deserted. She slipped inside her room, collapsed onto the bed, and hugged her knees to her chest. Outside the sun was flickering between clouds, turning the valley of grass into a kaleidoscope of shadows. But Lennox was still trapped inside Gnarle’s surgery. She could see his face as she had pulled off her top. She had watched him as he had watched at her. She had seen his chest rise and fall as he had looked at hers. But it was when he had walked round her, to inspect her back, that she had lost her courage. He had gasped at the sight of her back, and she had wanted to die.
Outside her room, the corridor suddenly roared into life. One moment there was silence, the next there was the pounding of feet, doors wrenched open, doors slammed, and then her own door handle rattled. But she did not want to talk. Not now. So she said nothing. She heard Mannik retreat from her door.
The noise outside did not lessen. The boys' room was adjacent to hers. She could hear them; throwing themselves on their beds, kicking off shoes, throwing shoes, talking.
She could even hear her name. It was too much.
She rose, seconds later she was out her door. Then, as if they had been waiting for her in ambush, the boys' door opened and they all spilled out: Connel leading, Rick, Mannik, even Henry.
'Mannik told us you had your test,' Connel announced. 'So what happened? Did you pass? Are you in or out?'
‘Out!’ she shouted, though in truth she had no idea. Gnarle had said nothing. After the physical examination, he had been in just as much hurry to leave as her. He had followed her out of his surgery, hot on her heels.
She pushed past Connel, ran along the corridor, flew down the stone Feliformia steps, and the downstairs hall, ignoring every boy who stopped to watch her. The outer doors burst open at her touch, hitting the outer stone wall with a crack. Without a backwards glance, she raced across the courtyard as if she was being chased, and sprinted out the main gateway.
Once alone in the grass and heather, she headed for the crest of the nearest ragged peak, where she could catch the last of the sun's rays on the bare rocks at its tip, and be beyond sight and sound of another. It was this need to be alone that had got her into trouble before. One previous Housemaster had called her a jailbird, another a delinquent. They all found different names; none flattering. Only her father understood. It was just about the only thing he did understand. He called it taking a breather, and he did it regularly. The only difference was when he went, she never knew when he was coming back.
An hour later, from the crest of one of the overlooking peaks, she watched the sun slowly dip, the rocks yellow in its final glow, She still smarted from the memory of what had happened in Gnarle’s surgery. He had not touched her once but she felt violated. She had spent a lifetime hiding her back; and he had just broken through a lifetime of defences.
In the distance, Calgacos was visible, reduced to the size of one of the boulders she was sitting on. The castle snared the last of the sun's rays, its weathered grey stone walls burning like gold in firelight. The valley between was steeped in shadow, and silent, but as she watched, she thought she saw a ripple of movement to the far left, close to where the road to the castle was. She stared hard, but even for her, at that distance, it was hard to be sure what she had seen.
It reminded her of Gnarle’s eye test that afternoon. “Have you ever been tested before?” he had asked. There had been a reason for that question, and it wasn’t because she needed glasses, she was sure.
She scanned valley again. There was no movement now. But whatever it was she had seen, had been large and fast. She didn’t know why. She had nothing more than a hunch, a glimpse from the corner of her eye, and a shiver up her spine. But something told her it was not a man or a boy, not human at all. It was time to get back.
Seconds later she was running, leaping, jumping, down the hillside, taking chances over rugged ground. Her father would have rolled his eyes, called her stupid, for not paying more attention to where she placed her feet. That didn't stop her. It encouraged her.
Her attention was focused on the valley below. Only once, when she was near the tree line, did she see movement again. It was too fleeting for her to see any detail. It was only a blur of motion. But it was moving in her direction.
When she reached the valley, her view became obscured, hidden by the uneven land, the trees, and the darkness which had fallen. She ran as she had never run before. Fear gave her speed she had not known she possessed.
When the black shape of the school finally loomed above before her, her breath was t
earing from her lungs, and her chest shaking. She kept running all the way up the final stretch, through the outer gatehouse into the darkened and deserted inner courtyard, its corners black as pitch.
'There you are.'
She controlled herself with difficulty, stifling a cry, for she had thought no one was present. Master Kearns was only an arm’s length from her back, his eerie face sinister in the darkness, his eyes as bright by night as they were dull in the daytime.
'I've been looking for you,' Kearns told her.
She shook her head, though he had asked her nothing, and accused her of nothing, yet. It was instinct. Deny everything.
'There are two rules here all juniors must respect,' he continued. 'And while you are here, you will respect them too. Firstly, you do not go out alone and you do not come back alone. Secondly, you stay within the school boundaries. There are maps in each common room showing the boundary lines. Study it. And if you wish to visit the local village, Balreaig, see me for permission.'
Lennox had seen the detailed map, showing the topography of the area, with a thick red line marking the school grounds. It had curled round the nearest forests and a bowl shaped range of low mountains, stretching far enough along the lowlands to include a small glen.
'And if you ever go out alone again, I will have you on kitchen duty for the rest of the term. Is that clear?'
'Yes.'
Lennox wondered if Master Kearns disliked all the boys in Feliformia, or whether he particularly disliked her because she was a girl. She guessed it was the latter.
'Now, follow me,' he ordered, and took her back into the shadows, down the narrow needle-like passage way that led into the adjoining smaller courtyard, then up the shallow steps leading to Torkil's little door.
Above them, one of the arched windows of the octagonal tower was open, and from it a cacophony of voices poured out.
As Kearns pulled the tower door open, one voice lifted above the others.
'Enough!' Torkil cried.
The tower fell silent. Lennox winced, and followed Kearns up the spiral winding stairway. The door into the study was open. Their footsteps filled the hollow silence, announcing their arrival. Inside Torkil’s study it had fallen so quiet, Lennox heard nothing but the fire spitting in the hearth.
Torkil's round table was full. He sat, facing the door, his face ashen in the firelight, his eyes alive, his fingers in his pointed beard, tugging, ruminating. As he saw Lennox, his hand fell away, and his eyes cooled to a stone certainty. Beside him, and in contrast, sat Mr Conley; luminously young, tawny haired, his nose and jaw sharp as flint, but his thin lips curled into a sneer. Further round the table was Gnarle, looking out of place in the impressive company, his shoulders rounded, his chest hollow, his face wrinkled and reduced by his dark hair, growing low over his forehead like moss on a stone. Next, was Nighten, his back rigid but head lowered, his long, reddish tinged hair falling forwards as he looked at his own clenched fists fixed, like pillars, on the table. At his side, a man completely new to Lennox. She glanced at him once, then looked away in shock. He was colossal. So large, he made Nighten appear slender and diminutive. His hair was black, lined with white, and thick as wire, and seemed to sprout from every exposed part of his body; everywhere had a dense coating of dark hair. She faltered as he watched her approach, unnerved. She guessed this was the Caniformia Master, Bambridge.
'There,' ordered Kearns, pointing to the space before the table.
Lennox stood where he had indicated as Kearns promptly seated himself in the vacant space at Torkil’s right hand.
'Do you know why Master Kearns has brought you here?' Torkil asked.
It felt like facing a firing squad, standing before the six masters.
'Because you've spoken with my father, and I'm leaving,' she suggested.
'No.'
She had never met anyone like Torkil. No matter what he said, or meant, his face was frozen, like a statue, unreadable.
'I want to talk to about your medical examination,' he explained. 'I think you have realised Calgacos is not a school of academic learning. It has a long tradition of survival training. Often we take pupils who find mainstream schooling difficult. Sometimes we are approached by schools, sometimes parents, sometimes pupils, who want our alternative education. But we don’t take everyone. We select. Calgacos is not for everyone. Our pupils must possess the raw capability, physically, to survive when under pressure. Nature must first have endowed them, then we hone them. Here, quite literally, we work towards the survival of the fittest.'
Torkil paused. Lennox wondered if anyone was listening to him. Conley looked more interested in something out the window. Nighten looked bored. Kearns looked furious.
'You came here by accident. You were unaware of what we offered. So imagine our surprise when, according to Dr Gnarle, you have passed our entry requirements.'
Suddenly Lennox was listening. This was not what she had been expecting to hear.
'You have an exceptional lung capacity, which earmarks you as suitable for climbing at the highest altitudes. Your eyesight is phenomenally powerful and your hearing also is significantly more sensitive than most. Also, you are fit, and without any medical condition. In short, you are exactly the kind of student this school cultivates. One begins to wonder if the accident, was not so accidental after all.'
Lennox shrugged, confused. Of course it was an accident. She had been sent to an all-boys school. How could that possibly have been intentional?
'So… I've passed?' she asked
'Indeed.' Torkil agreed.'I will continue to try to contact your father, who has so far been elusive. But now my intentions will change. Instead of asking him where to send you, I will offer him a place for you here.'
Which, desperate, he would take. She was stuck here.
'It will not be easy,' Torkil added. 'You are the first girl this school has ever accepted.'
The room seemed to grow colder.
'And here, as I have said, it is survival of the fittest. You will have Mannik, as your guide, that is all.'
Torkil stared straight at her. It was almost as if they were alone. The housemasters were silent as stone. She could guess what the discussion had been in the tower prior to her arrival. Calgacos may have accepted her. But its Masters had not.
She turned and made her way out of the tower room.
Kearns did not follow her. It was clear what he thought of his newest member. She guessed he would wait for her to be on the stairs, out of earshot, then begin his complaints.
'One more thing,' Torkil called, rising to his feet. Even before he spoke, there was a change. As if the other masters knew what he was going to say, and disapproved.
'There is Kellas.'
Lennox stiffened. Kearns looked murderous.
'He will not offer his help,’ Torkil continued, ‘but if you are in need, go to him, and he will help you.'
She tried to nod, and failed. Instead she fled.
There was no way she would ask Kellas for help. He had made his feelings very clear. She was a nothing, and she did not belong.
