Master and Servant (Waterman)

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER TWO

  By the time Meredith arrived back at the Third House, classes had let out. The hallways were thronged with second- and third-rankers tossing schoolbooks back and forth to one another, bargaining over sweets, and scrummaging over bits of wadded-up paper. Meredith slid between them, unnoticed or at least unnoted, turning over in his mind the conversation with Carruthers.

  "Meredith!" It was Davenham, looking up from where he and some fellow second-rankers were setting up old bannister rails for an impromptu match of picket. "Pembroke is looking for you. He says you're to meet him in the prefects' study. —Not that way, bloody bumblers. You'll let the enemy through for sure if your picket-line is that loose."

  "Well, if your bowling is as poor as it always is . . ."

  The friendly argument rolled on, a mere background to the thumps, bangs, calls, cries, and laughter that filled the House. A first-former, bearing the earnest expression always held by students in their initial term at Narrows, skidded to a halt in the corridor and said, to nobody in particular, "Master Nevins says can you please keep it down, he's studying, and you're too loud, and I'm to make sure you stay quiet—"

  Nobody paid any attention to the fag. House Master Nevins sent this message daily, and daily he refused to emerge from his study in order to enforce his order. Everyone in the House knew that, if the volume reached the point where it disturbed their Head Prefect, they'd be forced to quiet themselves. Otherwise, there was no point in worrying, for the other House Masters kept strictly to their own Houses, and the rest of the school masters lived in the Old Building, which also housed the chapel and lesson-rooms and dining hall.

  True, Carruthers had a tendency to come knocking at their door when their noise irritated him, but the knowledge that they had been disturbing the Second House was, if anything, incentive for the Third House students to grow louder.

  The students in the Fourth through Twelfth Houses were easygoing on the matter of noise, probably because they had learned the uselessness of complaining to Rudd. As for the First House, its rooms lay empty. Five tri-centuries had passed since any First Landsteader had applied for entrance to the school.

  His mind still cluttered with thoughts of Carruthers, Meredith made his way through the crowd, heading in the direction of the inner circle. The Second House's territory – like that of all the other Houses – was a slice in the round pie of the New Building. In the common area of the inner circle – the circular courtyard at the center of the circular building – fist-fights between rival House members were so frequent that entering the inner circle was like entering a war zone. Overlooking the inner circle were the rooms of the House Master and the first-ranked students; the next room out, the largest in the Third House, was the prefects' study, where the prefects studied and chatted and invited in guests whom they deigned to be worthy to enter their abode.

  Pembroke was frequently to be found there. He had fagged for Rudd when he initially arrived at school as a first-former; Rudd had been in third form at that time. Now, as a fifth-former, Pembroke was welcomed to the study as a friend of Rudd's. The place of second-ranked masters in the school hierarchy was always a delicate one, and Rudd could easily have decided to emphasize Pembroke's service to him. Instead, Rudd had Pembroke offer his liegeman's service only within Rudd's bedroom, with the doors shut; outside the bedroom, Pembroke was a good friend of Rudd's and was therefore treated by other students as though he were a first-ranked master himself.

  So it was not until Meredith was actually in the midst of knocking on the prefects' door that it occurred to him to wonder why Pembroke had summoned him to the prefects' study rather than to his own room.

  He froze, like a third back who is unexpectedly passed the ball when two seconds are left on the clock. A voice shouted for him to enter; it was Rudd's. With a shaking hand, Meredith opened the door.

  The prefects' study was a quadrilateral that curved to fit between the boundaries of the curving corridors outside. In the shorter section of the curve, closest to the first-rankers' rooms, was a curved dais with a table on it, usually used as a place for the prefects to study. Now the prefects were all sitting in a row, facing the doorway in which Meredith stood. On the table in front of them, gleaming black under the lamplight, lay two canes.

  "Close the door," ordered Rudd, sitting in the middle of the table, directly opposite the canes. On either side of him were the remaining four first-ranked masters of the House – plus Johnstone, a seventh-form second-ranker, who served as a prefect because the school regulations required six prefects in every House.

  Meredith, now shaking from head to foot, turned to close the door. As he did so, he noticed that Pembroke was standing inconspicuously at the far end of the room. Standing, not sitting, which meant that he was in trouble too. Meredith had a moment to feel fierce regret for that before fear for his own fate overwhelmed him again.

  As Fletcher had said, though, Meredith did know proper protocol, even in moments of crisis. Ignoring the prefects, he walked over to Pembroke and said, "You wished to see me, master?"

  "Yes." Pembroke's voice was as steady as ever. "Master Rudd and the other prefects have some questions for you."

  "Yes, sir," he whispered and backed away.

  There was a small circle painted in the middle of the floor where students brought before the prefects' council were supposed to stand. He stood there, body rigid, facing Rudd and the others. Rudd was writing on a bit of scratch paper, a typical conceit. He said, without looking up, "You are Meredith?"

  "Yes, sir," he replied, resisting the impulse to add, "I was when you had me fag for you this morning."

  "Just Meredith? No last name?"

  Several of the prefects covered their mouths to hide smiles. Fletcher openly grinned. Through gritted teeth, Meredith said, "Yes, sir."

  "Hmm." Rudd looked up finally. In Meredith's nightmares, he always looked like a Vovimian demon who served Hell, but in reality he had a plain, unassuming face, a bit freckled because he was one of the House's batsmen and therefore spent many hours in the sun during summer term. "Master Fletcher" – Rudd pointed his pen, as though Meredith might have forgotten who Fletcher was – "tells me that you obeyed an order by Master Carruthers this afternoon to enter his House."

  Meredith's stomach dropped out. Rudd was gazing at him through narrowed eyes, while Fletcher was playing with Rudd's dagger on the table. The prefects had changed into their formal clothes, as they always did during serious disciplinary hearings, which was why Rudd had come symbolically armed. Fletcher, Rudd's cousin and next in line for the heirship, was the only student there who would dare to touch the dagger worn by the heir to the Third Landstead's High Mastership.

  "Well?" said Rudd, his voice sharper this time. "Speak up, Meredith."

  "I—" He had to swallow before he could speak again. "I thought he was inviting me, not ordering me."

  "Oh, I see." Rudd leaned back in his chair. "The Head of the Second House invited you to enter his House, and so of course you took him up on his invitation."

  "Meredith." Edwards, a serious-minded first-ranker from the northeastern end of the Third Landstead, leaned forward. "Are you aware that, in order to enter the territory of other Houses of this school, you need the permission of the Head of whatever House you're entering and the permission of your own liege-master?"

  "Yes, sir," he whispered.

  "Speak up, man," said Rudd with irritation.

  "Yes, sir!" He was too loud this time; Johnstone winced, while Fletcher let out a guffaw.

  "Pembroke." Rudd turned his attention to the second-ranked master standing at the end of the room. "Did Meredith apply to you for permission to enter the Second House?"

  "I regret to say that he did not, master." As always, Pembroke was carefully formal when called upon to respond to his liege-master in formal situations.

  "When did this take place?" Rudd asked Fletcher.

  "Two-thirds of an hour ago," Fletcher replied.

  "Well, then, Pembrok
e couldn't have known anything about this; he was with me at the time," Rudd declared flatly. "Meredith, why didn't you apply for permission?"

  He was stuck then, trying to figure out the correct way to say, "Because you would have torn me into a dozen pieces if I'd interrupted you while you were with Pembroke." The prefects waited, Fletcher tapping the dagger hilt impatiently on the table.

  Pembroke coughed softly. "Master, may I say a word?"

  Rudd waved his hand in the general direction of Pembroke.

  "Thank you, master. If I may, I would like to suggest that Master Meredith may not have sought me out because he did not wish to disturb you."

  "Is that true, Meredith?" asked Edwards.

  "Yes, sir," he replied with relief.

  "I see." Rudd scribbled something on his paper, probably a note about the previous term's picket matches. "So you didn't want to disturb me. I assume, then, that you told Carruthers, 'I cannot enter your House without permission from my liege-master'?"

  A small space of silence followed before Meredith said in a low voice, "No, sir."

  "Did you even think of waiting to get your liege-master's permission?" Rudd persisted.

  Meredith bit his lip, saying nothing. He turned his head in time to see Pembroke close his eyes, emitting a sigh. Meredith felt another sharp stab of regret.

  "I say we beat him for being a booby," concluded Edwards.

  "I agree, sir," put in Johnstone. "We can't have members of this House skipping off to other Houses whenever they feel like it. It's an attack on House loyalty."

  There was a general murmur of agreement. Rudd said, "Well, as I see it, Pembroke isn't at fault in this matter – are we all agreed on that? . . . Pembroke, thanks for coming by. Do you have anything more to say on your liegeman's behalf?"

  "No, master." Pembroke did not so much as glance in Meredith's direction as he spoke. "I have nothing more to say."

  He left the room without looking at Meredith again. Meredith felt a weight grow in him that had nothing to do with the coming beating.

  "Right," said Rudd, walking round to the front of the table and picking up one of the canes, "let's get this over with before tea. Meredith, bend over there."

  "Let's make him take down his trousers too," suggested Fletcher as he picked up the other cane.

  "Bloody blades, Fletcher, this isn't an orgy." Rudd sounded annoyed, as he always did when asked to share his fags. "Save that sort of thing for your own fag. Johnstone, it's your turn first." He held out the cane.

  Six prefects, two strokes each. The first five prefects left the room after their strokes were finished, no doubt because they knew Rudd well enough to guess why he had chosen to go last. After the twelfth stroke, Meredith continued to bend motionless over the table, his face buried in his arms to stifle any sounds. If he made any noise, Rudd would give him extra strokes, just for being a blasted nuisance.

  "You are a little mutt, aren't you?" Rudd said, almost amiably. "What did you do, tot up in your mind the acts you could do that would annoy me most? Take down your trousers."

  Meredith straightened up, fumbled with his belt, pulled down his trousers, and leaned over again. The autumn air was cool, but his bottom still felt hot from the twelve previous strokes.

  There were six more cane-strokes, this time on the table leg; Rudd liked to lash the furniture first with his promised strokes, in order to build his victims' fear. Then came six cane-strokes on Meredith's bare flesh, which left Meredith sobbing. He barely had the energy to flinch when Rudd pulled back his cheeks.

  The rape was short. It always was; Rudd had little staying power. It was never the rape that was the worst; it was the words that accompanied it.

  "—You bloody well belong to me" – stroke – "Pembroke gave you to me" – stroke – "you belong to me, not Carruthers" – stroke – "not to any other master" – stroke – "don't care if your mother decided to whore herself" – stroke – "you fag only for me, you bastard-of-a-slave!"

  Then it was over. Meredith, sobbing uncontrollably into his arms, barely reacted as Rudd slapped his bottom and said cheerfully, "Sweet blood, what a fucking mess you are. I don't know why I bother with you. Go get yourself cleaned up. No tea or supper for you today; I want you cleaning my bedroom till you can lick the floor with your tongue. Oh, and tell Davenham I'll want your services overnight; he can lock up the third-rankers' dormitory without you."

  "Yes, sir," he managed to croak out.

  Rudd slapped him again. "You mean 'Yes, master.'"

  Meredith didn't reply. It was the single point in his lost honor that he refused to cede: he would not call Rudd "master," for Rudd was not his true liege-master. Rudd, laughing, didn't press the matter. Meredith's indeterminate rank was a matter of amusement to him, nothing more.

  Which, if Meredith thought about it, pretty much defined his role at Narrows School.

  o—o—o

  Hungry, exhausted, and sore, Meredith scrambled his way up the crumbling stones of the island's ancient lamphouse.

  The lamphouse, which was located on an extension of the school grounds, was off-limits to students because it was both historic and falling to pieces. Of course, this made it a favorite place for the students to climb for dares. The lamphouse was far enough away from the school buildings – at the tip of Richland Point, the peninsula where Narrows School stood – that students could not easily be detected there, and the fence around it was child's play to squeeze through, especially if you were a footer third back who regularly squeezed through the fences behind the goalposts on the playing field.

  Nobody was at the lamphouse now; all of the students were at supper. Meredith, having finished cleaning Rudd's floor with vigor – he would not put it past Rudd to make him actually lick the floor to test its cleanliness – had found himself with an hour to spare before Rudd would be likely to return to his room. So Meredith had come as far away from Rudd as he could without a pass to allow him beyond the school gates.

  The staircase leading to the top of the lamphouse was long since crumbled away; the only manner in which to reach the top was by scrambling up the inside walls of the now-hollow lamphouse. The task required a good head for heights, knowledge of cliff-climbing, and not a little courage. Meredith – who had learned as a child to scramble atop a lamphouse roof to clean off bird-droppings – had the knowledge to climb, while he was blessed with a good head for heights. As for courage . . . He tried not to think about that. Most of the students, he knew, scorned him, not so much because of his birth and ambiguous rank, but because he was a blatant coward. Any time he was bullied, he would lower his eyes and act subservient. Little wonder that Pembroke avoided his company.

  He pulled himself up through the hole to the top of the lamphouse and panted for a moment, feeling the evening breeze brush across his skin. He had wondered sometimes whether the other students would regard him as a sneak or as brave if he went to the Head Master and told him that Rudd was forcing Meredith to serve him sexually. It was an issue that rarely arose in the school. Most fags were liegemen to the students they fagged for; they were already planning to pledge their liegeman's service to their liege-masters once they reached journeyman age in their seventeenth sun-circuit. The Head Master, with admirable frequency, reminded the student liege-masters that they must not require sexual service from their liegemen until after the exchange of oaths at the confirmation of the liegeman's journeyman status. The students just as regularly ignored the Head Master's words. Most liegemen, whether fags or not, were eager to begin their service to their liege-masters, having been raised since young children to anticipate that day. And most liegemen who were near the age of journeymanship were unwilling to confine their service to such tedious tasks as cleaning plates for their liege-masters. Bed service, nearly everyone agreed, was far more fun.

  Meredith walked slowly across the lamphouse roof, avoiding the bad patches where gaps gaped between the stones. His thoughts were elsewhere. Only liegemen were required to offer a liegema
n's service, as bed service was euphemistically called, and they were only required to do so because they had chosen their liege-masters. Rudd was not Meredith's liege-master; nor had Meredith been given a choice whether to serve him sexually. Indeed, it was hard to think of that which Rudd required in terms of service as all; the Head simply took what he wanted from Meredith, without regard for any pain his fag was undergoing. Even Meredith, who held the very practical viewpoint that eight out of nine tasks that liegemen undertook were likely to be dull and difficult, knew that Rudd was going far beyond the behavior that a liege-master was supposed to show toward his liegeman, much less toward his liegeman's liegeman.

  Meredith leaned upon the stone baluster of the lamphouse, looking down at the reeds below, swaying in the current of the Bay waters. His thoughts were no longer on Rudd but on Pembroke. If it was wrong for Meredith to be forced to serve Rudd in bed, it was even more wrong for Pembroke to have given Meredith over to Rudd. Going to the Head Master would mean betraying his liege-master, and despite everything, Meredith could not do that. He could only hope that, in some way, he could prove himself worthy enough as a liegeman that Pembroke would grow interested in him again and take him back from Rudd. Perhaps, he thought as he flicked a pebble off the baluster and watched it fall, he need only show further diligence on the playing field.

  He lifted his eyes. From where he stood, staring north toward the head of the Bay, he faced most of the Dozen Landsteads; only the Fourth and Fifth Landsteads lay east and southeast of him. This area, near the southern end of the Dozen Landsteads, was where the first masters of the landsteads had settled and had eventually allied themselves in order to fight off surrounding enemies. Gradually, from this area on both sides of the Bay, the landsteads had spread northward. The early masters, anticipating this growth, had carefully required that the amount of land in each new landstead be roughly equal to those of existing landsteads. Only the First Landstead had grown greedy – so greedy that it had broken from the alliance.

  From where Meredith stood, he could see a thin, white line upon the horizon, a few miles inland of the Bay coast of the Western Shore of the Dozen Landsteads: a great wall, the height of many men, that separated the upper landsteads from their western and northwestern neighbors on or near the east coast of the continent: the First Landstead, the Queendom of Yclau, the Magisterial Republic of Mip, and the Kingdom of Vovim. There, beyond the wall that had been jointly built by all of the upper landsteads, was where the future lay. The upper landsteads were frozen in the past.

  Meredith looked down at the balustrade again. Generations of students had carved their name into it. "Everard of the 10th, 1378." That was one of the earliest students, writing at a time when Narrows School had first been founded, ostensibly as a communal project by the High Masters of all the landsteads, but in actuality as a way to prevent heresy, for that had been the tri-century when the Reformed Traditionalists, proclaiming that High Master Celadon was an incarnation of Remigeus, had broken away from the Traditionalists, who believed that it was blasphemous to claim that the founder of the Dozen Landsteads' law system had been reborn as a High Master who had so little regard for the proper order of ranking.

  "Kenrick of the 2nd, 1482." By the fifteenth tri-century, the controversy had settled down enough that Reformed Traditionalist boys were now attending Narrows School. Kenrick was Narrows School's most famous graduate: a man who had helped High Master Fernao of the Second Landstead pen the act that emancipated the Dozen Landsteads' slaves, turning them into free servants. Kenrick was from the Second Landstead but proudly claimed heirship of the First Landstead too, since one of his ancestors had been the younger brother of the mistress whom the First Landsteaders proclaimed as their High Mistress at the time they broke away from the upper landsteads. The First Landstead paid no attention to Kenrick's claim of heirship. By the fifteenth tri-century, the First Landstead had turned itself into the Queendom of Yclau, which was rapidly expanding into an empire. Most of the Yclau preferred not to speak of their mean origins as a mere landstead among many landsteads.

  "Hodgkin, 1798." A student of no note, whose landstead he had forgotten to mention. By this time, Yclau had forgotten its origins as well; it no longer spoke of masters and servants but of lords and commoners. Yclau had broken so thoroughly with its past that many of its words and customs were now adopted from its northwestern neighbor, the Kingdom of Vovim, with which it quarrelled incessantly. The upper landsteaders, in a dignified manner, refused to pay attention to the squabbles to the west and north of them. They were too busy engaging in their own squabbles, for this was the tri-century when the Second and Third Landsteads began their long battle over fishing rights on the Bay.

  "Vaughan of the 9th, 1885." There weren't many signatures from the nineteenth tri-century; Narrows School had entered into a decline, for all of the excitement now clearly existed in the nations surrounding the Dozen Landsteads. Young Landsteaders abandoned their Houses in order to resettle in Yclau, Vovim, and the new nation of Mip. These were the years when Yclau workers founded the world's first Commoners' Guild and demanded their rights, when Vovim became renowned around the world for its arts, when Mip became the trading center of the midcoast nations. The Dozen Landsteads, with their ancient system of masters, liegemen, and servants, were ignored by nearly everyone.

  But then . . .

  "Forbes of the 8th, 1900 Fallow." The students were now distinguishing between tri-years and what the citizens of the other midcoast nations called years, as a way of making clear the distinctive calendar system used within the Dozen Landsteads, which was shared by no other country in the world. It was at Narrows School that pride in the Landsteader traditions had first revived itself. Everywhere else in the midcoast nations, the loyalties between masters, liegemen, and servants had broken down, turning into mercenary economic arrangements between the different classes. But in the Dozen Landsteads, a new generation was coming to realize that the landsteads had something special to offer that no other nation in the world had preserved. Landsteaders whose parents had emigrated returned; citizens of the Yclau territory that had formed the original boundaries of the First Landstead began to clamor for independence from the queendom that had strayed so far from its origins. For a time, it had seemed that the Alliance of the Dozen Landsteads would regain its original role as the leader among the midcoast nations.

  "Betteridge of the 6th, 1912 Barley. 1912 forever, the High Masters say."

  For a long while, Meredith traced the words with his finger, half amused, half sorrowful. The student who had written this defiant statement had spoken no more than the truth. After the crushing effects of the Tri-National War upon the Dozen Landsteads in the early years of the twentieth tri-century, the upper landsteads had drawn inward, like a kicked puppy trying to protect its belly. Landsteaders had grown distrustful of their neighbors, seeing them as a threat. Had not the tri-nations of Yclau, Vovim, and Mip lured away many of the Dozen Landsteads' brightest youths? Had not the tri-nations set out to destroy the bonds between liege-masters and their liegemen? Had not the tri-nations abandoned the entire concept of rank as it applied to protection and service, leaving lords to exploit the commoners, while commoners showed shrill disregard for received wisdom from their lords? The tri-nations were a threat to everything that the Dozen Landsteads held dear. And so the Landsteaders had begun to build their wall.

  Then came 1912 Barley, with the biggest threat of all. Yclau's Queen spoke of eventually freeing the territory that had been the First Landstead. The First Landsteaders spoke of allying themselves once more with the upper landsteads – for alone of all of Yclau's territories, the First Landstead still stubbornly adhered to the master/liegeman/servant system.

  The upper landsteaders were appalled. Allow the First Landstead back into the alliance, with its adulterated culture, half Yclau, half Landsteader? It would be the beginning of the end for the Dozen Landsteads. They would be destroyed by the creeping cultural and technological imperialism
of their more powerful neighbors.

  The upper landsteads slammed their doors shut. The Embargo Act of 1912 forbade nearly all foreign imports of technology or arts, most especially literature. The act also strongly limited the amount of technological and cultural change that could take place within the Dozen Landsteads. Immigration to the Dozen Landsteads was ended, while emigration from the Dozen Landsteads became virtually impossible. Even travel to and from foreign lands was severely restricted. Radios and other devices that might contaminate the Dozen Landsteads with foreign influences became contraband material.

  The High Masters, wisely, did not content themselves with negative measures. They pushed forward a second revival of national patriotism – easy enough to do in the years following the Tri-National War. Schools such as Narrows encouraged their students to feel pride for the Dozen Landsteads' traditions: national pride, landstead pride, and House pride. For the first time, children and youths were tattooed with their ranks and were taught that they should glory in their participation in the master/liegeman/servant system. Egalitarianism, which had made some progress in the Dozen Landsteads, was now almost universally sneered upon, since that movement had begun in Yclau. The First Landstead was firmly told that it was not, and never would be, part of the Dozen Landsteads.

  Meredith, watching the far-away jet-stream of a First Landstead car that was skimming the air just above the border wall, thought to himself that, of all the people he pitied in this tale of the Dozen Landsteads' efforts to stop time, he pitied most the First Landsteaders. From what he had heard, the First Landsteaders still desperately wanted to be part of the alliance; they still took pride in the fact that they followed the ancient master/liegeman/servant system, tracked time through the ancient tri-year calendar, and used the ternary numbering system and alphabet that only Landsteaders used. The fact that they also sped around in jet-cars and lived in domed dwellings amidst the clouds did not change their cultural heritage. They were what the Dozen Landsteads could have become, if the upper landsteads had not screeched their progress to a halt in 1912. It was 1962 Clover now in the Dozen Landsteads, but life in the upper landsteads was no different than it had been in 1912 Barley.

  In one way, Meredith thought miserably, it was worse. He looked down at the signature he had been tracing over and over with his finger during the past minute: "Hooper of the 3rd, 1956 Clover."

  Meredith's father had never attended Narrows School. He had been accepted as a student when he became a master at age sixteen and had proudly carved his name at the lamphouse to mark that fact. But before he was able to win the scholarship he needed to pay his fees, the Act of Celadon and Brun had been revoked.

  That revocation had been the crowning achievement for the Traditionalists, who had always contended that servants should not become masters except through rebirth. But the revocation had also been supported by most Reformed Traditionalists, who mumbled vague words about the need to keep pure the master/liegeman/servant system, and how too many servants were taking advantage of the act in order to adopt roles of mastership for which they were ill-suited.

  And so the act had been revoked, and Narrows School, which had become as conservative as the rest of the nation, told the former servant named Master Hooper that he was not welcome within their walls.

  Meredith covered his face with his hands. He remembered the tremendous joy and pride that his father had shown on the day that Narrows School – relenting from its hard-heartedness under the influence of its generous new Head Master – had sent word that Meredith would be permitted to enter the hallowed grounds and become a student there. His father, characteristically, had not attributed the decision to his own impassioned pleas to the school, but to Meredith's merits. "They can see that you are a true master!" he had exclaimed, his eyes shining as he smiled at his eleven-year-old son. "They can see that you are as much a master as any of the other boys!"

  Meredith fished his handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and spent a minute blowing his nose. He was trying not to think of what his father would have thought of him if he had watched how Meredith had acted on this day: allowing himself to become the victim of bullies, compliantly following the wishes of the Head of a rival House, permitting an abusive master to take advantage of him. He examined the events again, trying, with all his might, to see what his father saw in him. All he could see was himself, kneeling down to scrub Rudd's floor.

  Stuffing the handkerchief back into his pocket, he forced himself to look beyond the balustrade to the view that lay before him.

  Over the waters lay the reflection of the red sun, setting behind the Western Shore. The waters were peaceful. It was late in the season for crabbing and early for oystering; only a few pleasure boats grazed the water as they made their slow way toward the horizon.

  To the east of him, on the other side of Hoopers Island, he could see Honga River, which led to the creek that led to the manor of the House of Mollusc, the only heirship House that still existed in its original location. Of course, the manor no longer consisted of an ancient atrium; nor was it surrounded any more by solid fortifications from the middle tri-centuries, when the Third Landsteaders had required protection from the Second Landstead attackers. At one time, the House of Mollusc's manor had looked very much like the Ninth Landstead's House of Government; the latter had been a place of pilgrimage for many tri-centuries, since its west tower had been built under the supervision of High Master Celadon. But that castle had been destroyed during the gunpowder wars between the Ninth and Tenth Landsteads during the sixteenth tri-century. Most of the other Houses that supplied heirs to the High Masterships of their landsteads had moved further inland, away from the water. On the Eastern Shore, only the House of Mollusc, whose House Masters always rose to the rank of High Master of the Third Landstead, remained in this ancient heart of the Dozen Landsteads.

  Meredith turned his eyes toward the northwest, trying to envision the cove setting of the House of His Master's Kindness, the heirship House of the Second Landstead. That House's manor was built atop a line of cliffs that could be seen from Narrows School on a clear day, but the cove was always hidden behind a peninsula where another lamphouse stood guard. Meredith had often wondered what Carruthers's House manor looked like. All he knew was that it had been built in the eighteenth tri-century, when the Second Landstead had established a new capital at the southern tip of that landstead. Pembroke had once taken Meredith along with him when he travelled on his father's boat; perhaps, if that happened again, Meredith could persuade Pembroke's father to sail his boat far enough west across the Bay that Meredith could have a chance to catch a glimpse of the House of His Master's Kindness—

  Or perhaps not. It seemed all too likely that, if a tonger boat came within sight of the House of His Master's Kindness, the dredgers who worked for Carruthers's father would open fire.

  "Of course he did! What do you expect? He's a dredger."

  This remark, intruding so neatly into Meredith's thoughts, caused him to blink before he realized that the voice came from below the lamphouse. He peered cautiously down.

  Two students were making their slow way along the shoreline, whacking at the reeds with sticks as they went. They both wore Second House caps, but they must have won them from playing picket, for Meredith didn't recognize them. The older of the two, who had spoken before, said, "It's the best rag he's ever done. I just about burst out in laughter when I saw him luring his prize into our House."

  "And he took him into the changing room?" the younger student said eagerly. "What do you suppose he did to him there?"

  "Oh, don't be coarse," the older student said scornfully. "He's not Rudd; he wouldn't throw a fag onto the floor and take his pleasure on him, then and there. I expect that he's working his way up to that. Hinting that he's a better master to fag for than Rudd – that sort of thing. It'll be a long, ripping rag; you can bet on that."

  "Rudd's sure to find out," the younger student argued, pausing to skip a stone along the water
's surface.

  "Oh, he already has; he had Meredith before his prefects' council this evening, I heard. If it were any other fag, that would be the end of it. But . . . Well, we're talking about Meredith. He doesn't know how to say no when a master tells him to do something. Just watch: I'll bet you that Master Carruthers finds a way to tempt Meredith into his bedroom. And once Meredith is there . . ." The older student let his voice trail off in a significant manner.

  "Rudd will explode from apoplexy when he finds out," the younger student said in a satisfied manner. "A pity about Meredith, though. I mean, he's pathetic, but it's not really his fault, is it? He was just born that way. And you know that Rudd will kill him once Master Carruthers reveals the rag—" He stopped abruptly, obviously just remembering that Rudd had the power to make this prediction literally true.

  "Oh, it's Meredith's own fault for coming to this school," the older boy said with scorn. "He should stay with his own kind rather than try to pretend that he's better than he is. I don't feel sorry for him at all. He's just a typical tonger, letting himself be shoved around."

  "And not even a tonger boat-master," the younger boy agreed.

  "Sweet blood, no," swore the older boy. "Do you know that he was cleaning Rudd's floor tonight? Rudd was bragging about it at tea. He wasn't even trying to keep his voice down."

  "The Head Master should send Rudd down," said the younger boy, his contempt turning to a new target.

  "The High Masters should send Rudd down," the older boy said. "To think that he will be High Master to the Third Landstead some day . . ."

  "And we'll have Master Carruthers as our High Master," responded the younger boy cheerfully. "It's no contest. Rudd is a blockhead; Master Carruthers will be able to steal his fag right under his nose. Master Carruthers will even be able to make Meredith serve him in bed, I'll wager you."

  The older boy laughed. "I'm not taking that wager; the conclusion is foregone. But he won't 'make' Meredith do anything. The silly little duffer will offer himself up on the sacrificial plate – just wait and see."

  "I suppose he can't help it," said the younger boy, trying to insert a note of justice. "I mean, he was made for that sort of thing. He'd probably be a decent chap if he just stuck to his proper rank."

  "Oh, yes, he'd be a decent servant," the older boy agreed. "Speaking of which, what did you think of that sweet little thing who was serving us at table tonight? Did you see how her breasts jutted against her dress when she leaned over to put down my plate?"

  The younger boy laughed. "You'll get yourself in trouble if you don't watch it. Remember the Abuse of Power Act. . . ."

  Their voices faded in the distance. The sun had set; only a faint sheen of light fell upon its waters, from the watermen's houses along the shoreline of the island. Meredith stood for a while, his chin buried in his arms, his eyes on the horizon where the House of His Master's Kindness stood, hidden in the darkness. Then he turned, made his way round the long-dead fire-pit at the center of the lamphouse roof, and carefully climbed his way back down to the ground.