CHAPTER FOUR
The mid-point of autumn term turned out to be the day that the fifth-formers had chosen for their annual rag.
The Fifth-Form Rag was a relatively new tradition – only a tri-century old – but it was a popular tradition, not only among the students, but also among the school masters, who had convinced themselves that the rag was a sign of inter-House unity. There was no doubt that the day of the rag was the one day during the circuit of seasons when members of all eleven Houses united together, albeit for the purpose of creating mayhem.
A suspiciously large number of fifth-formers were absent from chapel that evening; by the time the chapel master rose to give the evening's commentary on Remigeus's sayings, the students were nudging each other in a knowing manner. The chapel master remained blindly unaware that anything out of the ordinary was about to occur. The Head Master, who had asked the chapel master to take his place as commentator that night, had a carefully composed look of innocence on his face.
The interruption came just when the chapel master was warming to his theme, which was about the importance of lesser masters showing respect for their superiors – a thinly veiled way of telling the students to show respect for the school masters and their chapel master.
"Hold it right there!" squawked a voice loudly from under the lectern, which nearly caused the chapel master to fall over in fright. "We have all of you surrounded! Place your hands behind your heads and come quietly!"
As the loudspeaker made its announcement, into the inner chapel strode Pembroke and a number of fifth-formers from other Houses. All of them were dressed in policemen's uniforms. All of them carried rifles.
The student nearest to Pembroke yelped and raised his hands to his head with alacrity. The chapel master spluttered about the unseemliness of bringing weapons into a place of worship. Everyone else laughed and surrendered to the mock policemen, allowing themselves to be guided out of the inner chapel and down the stairs to the crypt. Meredith caught a glimpse of Carruthers, walking toward the stairs with his hands behind his head, smiling as Pembroke prodded him in the back with his rifle. Rudd wasn't even pretending that he was in danger; he strolled alongside Pembroke, chatting with him.
The crypt, of course, was where the ash-pit was located, but the fifth-formers had enough reverence not to disturb the part of the underground chamber where the remains of the dead lay. Instead, they guided the other students and the school masters to the storage area, which now bore a sign above its door: "Prison City."
Inside, the storage area held none of its usual clutter of old benches, broken chairs, and extra mattress frames. Instead, the twelve gated stalls were empty except for a few mysterious metal objects, lit by battery-powered electric lamps.
The "prisoners" were forced into the twelve stalls, without regard for the House names labelling the stalls. Rudd, unsurprisingly, managed to end up outside the stalls, alongside Pembroke. Pembroke and the other "policemen" had now transformed into prison guards. Since nobody knew what the guards in Prison City looked like, he and the other fifth-formers had put hoods over their faces, as though they were torturers from the Eternal Dungeon in the old days.
Meredith found that, by chance, he had been placed in the same stall as Carruthers. He edged himself into a corner of the stall, hoping that Rudd would not notice his placement; if Rudd did, Meredith was sure that a caning would follow the ragging. Carruthers, fortunately, seemed not to have noticed him. The Head was quietly talking to the servant who had been assigned the job this term of turning the pages when the students gave the chapel readings from Remigeus's sayings. Most of the servants, who sat in the chapel gallery during services, had been left behind to make their way back to their quarters, but this man had evidently been caught up in the general corralling on the main floor of the chapel.
Some of the students in the other stalls had begun rattling on the bars of the now-locked gates, crying amidst laughter, "Let us out! We're innocent!"
"Silence!" The voice came from yet another loudspeaker, sitting in the dark corridor outside the stalls, where the hooded fifth-formers now patrolled. "You have been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in Prison City for abuse of power over your servants" – there was a general chorus of booing from the students – "or for causing severe harm to your servant-masters." This brought laughter. The loudspeaker continued relentlessly, "You will now pay the penalty for your heinous deeds. If you fail to follow the instructions of your new House Masters" – the guards waved, to make clear who they were – "you will be tortured and broken. The punishments will now begin."
The punishments were administered by the mysterious metal objects in the "cells," which, it turned out, were supposed to be automated devices controlled by the prison computer. There was a device for electrocution, a device for freezing people in place, a device for serving horrid liquids . . . The students and school masters gamely played along, though even Meredith's fertile imagination began to die after a while.
The last instruction, however, jolted everyone awake. "And now you will meet your final test," solemnly announced the loudspeaker (or rather, the prison computer, as had become clear at some point in the proceedings). "As punishment for having abused those under their power, all liege-masters here must kneel to their liegemen."
There was a murmur of discontent. In the stall next to Meredith's, someone made an enquiry, and the Head Master cheerfully replied, "No, no, we must follow the instructions, or dire consequences will arise. —Master Trundle, may I have the honor of serving you?"
Having thus received the imprimatur of authority, the final part of the rag proceeded; indeed, some of the liegemen seemed to be quite enthusiastic about receiving their liege-masters' obeisance. Many of the liege-masters were good sports about it; Meredith saw Arthurs leave his fellow guards in order to fling himself abjectly at the feet of his liegeman, who was imprisoned inside the stall. Arthurs was laughing all the while. Nearby, an argument had broken out over whether a second-ranker should kneel to his liegeman or receive his liege-master's obeisance.
Meredith, alone in the corner now, looked round. Pembroke was one of the hooded House Masters outside, while Rudd, thank goodness, was outside as well. As a third-ranker, Meredith had no liegeman to kneel to. He was just wondering what to do when the crowd parted, and he caught sight of Carruthers, standing alone near the bars, watching him.
His breath caught. For a fatal moment, he almost stepped forward. Then came the sound of Rudd, arguing with the fifth-formers, who wanted him to kneel to Pembroke. With his heart beating rapidly, Meredith turned away.
When he managed to raise his courage a minute later, he turned to see that Carruthers was kneeling now, his face turned up toward the chapel servant, who looked exceedingly uncomfortable.
o—o—o
"Him?" said Davenham when Meredith asked afterwards. "That's Master Carruthers's valet."
He crawled under the chapel lectern as he spoke, turning over to lie on his back. Davenham was in the Lower Fifth, two forms below Meredith, but he was practically the only student who was willing to speak politely to Meredith, having evidently decided that his own status as a second-ranked master gave him the duty to act civil toward the symbolic runt of the Third House.
Now he fiddled around with a screwdriver, red in the face from his exertions. As the "prison computer," Davenham had been left in charge of disconnecting the loudspeakers. He was doing so now, immediately after the ragging, because the Head Master had passed on to him a quiet word that certain equipment "which appears to contravene the Embargo Act" would need to be off the school grounds by the end of the day.
Meredith considered offering to do the work for Davenham, then thought better of this idea. Instead, he said, "He has a valet serving him here? I didn't know that was allowed, sir."
"It's not," Davenham said, mumbling around a piece of wire in his mouth. "He had to get special permission from the Head Master. Apparently, his parents were going on an extended holiday to Mip, and the Hou
se of His Master's Kindness was being shut up in the meantime. The valet had nowhere to stay."
"But how could Master Carruthers's parents shut up their House?" Meredith asked in bewilderment. "Where did all their servants and lesser masters go who live there?"
Davenham shrugged as he pulled out another wire. "I heard that Master Carruthers's parents sold all their domestic servants last spring. They're Egalitarians, you know. And they have almost no liegemen, for the same reason – just a few captains for their boats, and a foreman for their oyster packing plant. I think all of their watermen live on shantyboats."
"So Master Carruthers doesn't have any liegemen in the Second House?"
"Well, when he becomes High Master, all of the first-ranked masters in his landstead will be his liegemen, of course," Davenham replied. "But if you mean now . . . No, I suppose not. Bloody blades!" This, as he nicked himself with a penknife, trying to cut a wire. "I give up," he said, scooting himself out from under the lectern. "Master Arthurs ought to be doing this instead of me. It's his equipment."
"Is it?" said Meredith, curious. The loudspeaker just barely contravened the Embargo Act of 1912, being a tri-decade older than that date. "Where did he get it from, sir?"
"Who knows?" Davenham rose and clapped his hands free of dust. "His room is filled with contraband equipment; he always claims that it's to help him with his mathematics studies. He's going to get into trouble one of these days. . . . Well, dismantling this isn't work for a second-ranker like me anyway. I wish my liegeman could fag for me. Oates is in the Sixth Form, so he's too old. I suppose I'll have to find one of the servants to do this. How tedious."
"Er . . . I could . . ." Meredith said hesitantly.
Davenham looked over at him quickly. "Sweet blood, no! I didn't mean to suggest that. Master Rudd would cane me till next term if he discovered I'd been making use of his fag. —Here, you don't have to do that."
Meredith, who had been going down on his knees to brush the dirt off Davenham's trousers, hastily stood up at the sound of alarm in Davenham's voice. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to impose myself on you."
Davenham gave him a look – one of those looks that said clearly, "You're not acting your proper part" – but said only, "Oh, I suppose I should go change before Master Trafford sees me like this." Davenham's liege-master was exacting about appearances. "Blast it, I'll be late meeting with him. I don't know why the Head Master won't allow students to have their valets here. I mean, it's not as though most of us have fags."
"Who is Master Carruthers's fag, sir?"
It seemed a natural enough question to ask, and indeed Davenham, who was trying to brush dust off his vest, barely looked up as he said, "Doesn't have one. I suppose he doesn't need one, what with the valet. But oh, did you see that valet's expression tonight when Master Carruthers knelt to him? It was like his face was saying, 'I will never in a tri-millennium be able to live down this humiliating mockery.' I mean, really, what was Master Carruthers thinking, acting as though his servant was his liegeman?"
"Maybe the valet was just embarrassed because he thought he was being honored too greatly. I mean, to have a first-ranked master kneel to him . . ."
"'It will be my honor to serve you, master, and it will give me pleasure to fulfill my duty as a master.'" Davenham quoted the liegeman's oath easily as he nudged aside a coil of wires with his foot. "Those of us who are liegemen don't find it embarrassing to be knelt to. I mean, I've been knelt to and bowed to and curtseyed to plenty of times in my life, and so have you – if not by your liegeman, then by servants. It's not mockery for us to receive service; it's just humorous to have our liege-master be the one offering the service. But for a servant to be knelt to . . . Honestly, Master Carruthers must have been out of his mind. He really ought to assign himself a fag, if only so that he won't be forcing his servant to do a liegeman's service."
"Is he?" Meredith asked quickly as he followed Davenham to the chapel door. "I mean . . . is his valet serving him in bed, sir?"
"I shouldn't think so," replied Davenham. "It was Master Carruthers's uncle who wrote the Abuse of Power Act. I think that's why everyone was nervous tonight. —Oh, thanks." This was as Meredith held open the door to the corridor that led to the outside of the Old Building.
"They were nervous because Master Carruthers knelt to his servant?"
"Don't be silly. I mean that people were nervous because making a liege-master kneel to his liegeman was a little too close to another act that the Abuse of Power Act forbids: making a master act like a servant."
"But sir, you fifth-formers only ordered the liege-masters to act like liegemen, not servants," Meredith argued as they came out into the coolness of the dusk, where the sun was setting over the Bay.
"Which is why the Head Master let us get away with it. —Oh, blast."
This exclamation came as Trafford appeared on the path ahead of them, turning his head to and fro, clearly in search of someone. Oates was walking slightly behind him.
"Quick!" said Davenham. "Go fetch the loudspeaker and— Oh, sorry, I'm not thinking. Find a servant to do that, will you? Master Trafford looks as though he's ready to eat me alive for being late." He hurried forward to where Trafford stood, frowning. Trafford said a few words that carried to Meredith, concerning Davenham's filthiness. For a moment, it looked as though Davenham would be forced to do the obeisance as a form of apology to his liege-master, right in front of his own liegeman. But that sort of protocol had fallen very much out of fashion between liege-masters and liegemen, long before Meredith was born; not even Rudd required his liegemen to kneel to him, except during the initial oath of allegiance. So instead, Trafford let the matter go with a brief scolding and then gestured toward the grove nearby. Davenham and his liege-master and liegeman stepped off the path together.
Other students were walking arm-in-arm across the Circle toward the grove now, in twos and threes and occasionally larger groups, when a liege-master had several of his liegemen as classmates. The Head Master encouraged liege-masters to walk in the grove each week-break with their liegemen, to increase the opportunities available for the liege-masters to care for their liegemen. Liegemen who were also liege-masters usually brought along their own liegemen – hence the triads amidst the pairs.
Rudd, though, disliked sharing his time with Pembroke. Standing on the path, Meredith could see what he saw on every week-break: Pembroke disappearing into the grove with Rudd, leaving Meredith behind.
Meredith paused only long enough to find a servant who was heading back toward the Old Building; he rapidly conveyed Davenham's orders to the servant. Then Meredith turned away and began to walk slowly toward the New Building. He told himself that Pembroke's disinterest in him didn't matter, for Meredith had much to think about on this night.
Had he perhaps been wrong in what he thought Carruthers wanted from him? Was Carruthers seeking, not a fag, but a liegeman? Of course, Carruthers couldn't actually ask Meredith to be his liegeman. Meredith was a citizen of the Third Landstead; he would need to be released by his liege-master before he could become a citizen of the Second Landstead and offer his allegiance to a higher-ranked master there. That sort of change rarely happened. Usually a liegeman's son chose to pledge himself to the son of his father's liege-master, which was why Meredith was liegeman to Pembroke; Meredith's father was liegeman to Pembroke's father. Indeed, Meredith would not have been permitted to attend Narrows School if Pembroke had not been scheduled to attend the school as well; the school rules required that second- and third-ranked students have liege-masters in their school Houses, for at least three terms of their attendance. Meredith had given his oath of allegiance to Pembroke the previous spring term, during the chapel ceremony devoted to Meredith's confirmation-of-journeyman-status. It had been a proud moment for Meredith, kneeling before the fourth-former who would be his liege-master for the rest of his life.
Meredith had scarcely seen Pembroke since then, except during games. Pembroke was forever in the co
mpany of his own liege-master, Rudd; he never seemed to have time for his liegeman. Meredith tried to tell himself that other third-ranked liegemen also had this problem, but the truth was that he knew of no other student in school who was as neglected by his liege-master as Meredith himself was.
Which meant, in all likelihood, that Pembroke was neglecting Meredith, not because of the second-ranker's devotion to Rudd, but because Pembroke didn't want Meredith as his liegeman.
Meredith made his way back to the dormitory for the third-rankers, his head bowed. No, it was ridiculous to think that Carruthers, who could ask any unpledged second-ranker in his House to be his liegeman, would ask a third-ranker from another House to be his liegeman. Third-rankers were almost never asked to serve first-rankers; that required an elevation in rank for the third-ranker, and while Carruthers, as heir to the High Mastership of the Second Landstead, could no doubt arrange that, there was no reason why he should want a master in the Third House as his liegeman.
Unless, of course, he was dredging.
Meredith, standing at the entrance to the empty dormitory, stared at the students' cubicles there, trying to think. It seemed the ultimate in disloyalty for him to think of Carruthers in such a manner, but he had to face the truth: in all likelihood, Carruthers had shown interest in Meredith only because the Head was a dredger like his father. Carruthers's father was notorious for sending boats to dredge in the waters of the House of Mollusc, which was the House that Meredith had grown up in and would serve in as a lesser master after he graduated from university. It made perfect sense that, if Carruthers wanted to rag Rudd, he would dredge in Rudd's waters. His own House's students had said as much.
Irresolutely, Meredith went to his cubicle, climbed into his pajamas, and lay down on the bed, staring at the dark ceiling until the other third-rankers returned, chatting cheerfully about their time with their liege-masters. Then Meredith turned on his side and closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep.
o—o—o
The last weeks of autumn term were usually quiet, there being no holiday ahead to rouse the students' excitement. The servants, naturally, had begun to look forward to celebrating the Slaves' Autumn Festival, which coincided each year with the arrival of the northwest blow – indeed, the subtle signs that the blow was about to arrive would signal the final day of school. But for the students, the Slaves' Autumn Festival and the days that followed would be ordinary and dull, marked only by the sober proceedings of the High Masters' quarterly. The quarterly was taking place this time in the Seventh Landstead, yet even the members of the Seventh House seemed uninterested in the meeting. The Seventh House's members, who were still nursing their wounds from coming in last in the term's matches, was in no mood to celebrate their landstead's tri-yearly hosting of the High Masters.
As it turned out, matters were rather more exciting at the end of the term than anyone had anticipated, for the Second House students chose this moment to grow vicious in their ragging.
Meredith was used to being ragged; he was the most obvious target among the students of the Third House, to such an extent that he was even ragged by other members of the Third House. But neither he nor any other student at Narrows had ever before experienced the whirlwind of destruction that descended upon the Third House in the final fortnight of the term. Mattresses were torn to shreds, and the feathers scattered in the wind; schoolbooks were found blazing in the hearths; photographs of loved ones were torn to shreds and then pasted on the walls of the House, with obscene comments added about the virgin sisters and brothers in the pictures. Boxes fell unexpectedly off shelves, invariably onto the heads of Third House students; classwork went missing at the last minute, with consequent lowering of class standings; and any member of the Third House who ventured out of the House found his way continually barred by broomsticks that tripped him or by culled oysters laid on the pathways to make him slip.
Rudd placed guards at the entrances to the House, hoping to at least prevent the ragging from taking place within the House's territory, but with no luck; the students of the Second House, following the habits formed by their fathers, slipped into the House by night and did their mischief while everyone was asleep. Cries of dismay upon waking became as common a morning ritual in the Third House as tea-service. Furious, Rudd and his fellow prefects of the Third House began patrolling at night, whereupon the Second House students simply switched their ragging back to the daytime.
The climax was reached three days before the end of term, when Hinkston, a mild-mannered second-form student of the Third House, stepped into a tub of bathing water, which was supposed to have been heated by the House's servants to blood temperature.
The tub had been surreptitiously refilled with close-to-boiling water. Hinkston's screams could be heard into the Old Building. He was removed by the Third House's prefects to the infirmary, where he was discovered to have second-degree burns.
The following morning, the Head Master addressed the entire school at the end of chapel. "I have never seen anything wrong with a mild rag," he said, looking over the assembly of silent boys and young men. "Indeed, I am not ashamed to admit that I might – just might – have been in the vicinity of certain rags that the Third House inflicted upon the Second House, back in '46 Barley."
A spattering of laughter surged up from the students, while House Master Morris – who had been Head Prefect of the Second House when the Head Master was a first-form student in the Third House – smiled broadly. The Head Master smiled as well, then dropped his smile to say, "But such ragging that takes place in this school has always been within the bounds of fair play. A bucket of cold water hung over the door is one thing; second-degree burns are quite another thing. I have been reluctant to move against this term's ragging before now, lest I seem to favor one House above another. But if this sort of thing happens again, I will penalize whichever House has committed the offence, by removing their privilege to play for the Spring Term Cup."
A gasp arose from all the students present. Meredith quickly looked over at the Captain of the Second House's team – who, as it happened, was also the Head of the Second House. Carruthers was doing an admirable job of hiding whatever emotion he was holding inside.
"I trust," said the High Master gently, leaning upon the chapel lectern, "that such a measure will be unnecessary. Youthful high spirits sometimes get carried away, especially when family loyalties are called into play. I do hope that all of you will remember that you will be showing greatest loyalty to your fathers and mothers if you devote your energy to your lesson-work and your teamwork, and do not allow yourselves to enter into any activities that can only result in disgrace to your school House and to your House at home. Peace within the school buildings and vigorous fighting on the playing field – that is what the Houses of this school should aim toward. I for one am looking forward to next term's cup, and I would not want to have anything mar my enjoyment at seeing such splendid play as I've seen this term." And with those words, the Head Master dismissed the school.
Heading through the arched corridor that led from the Old Building to the New Building, Davenham said to Meredith, "Only the Head Master could make a thorough scourging like that sound like a compliment."
Meredith nodded in agreement. He did not know of any student in the school who failed to admire the Head Master, who had a surpassing talent for keeping hard control over the rambunctious boys and young men, while simultaneously making clear that he understood the students' predicaments and forgave their occasional peccadillos.
"Say, did you hear?" Jeffries elbowed Meredith out of the way, as he always did. Meredith gave way to him, as he always did. "Rudd was saying before chapel that Carruthers was so embarrassed by his House's behavior that he went and apologized to the Head Master this morning!"
"Oh, he wouldn't have." Davenham dismissed this idea with a wave of the hand as they entered the New Building. "His father is the one who started all this."
"Rudd says that Carruthers doesn't ge
t along with his father—"
"Master Rudd and Master Carruthers," Davenham corrected, but in an automatic manner; he wasn't the sort of second-ranker to stand much on ceremony, which was why he and Jeffries were fast friends.
"Master Rudd, then, but I don't see why I should have to give a dirty dredger like Carruthers the title of 'master.'"
Davenham sighed. "Oh, don't be difficult. You know why – he's a first-ranker. Besides, you just claimed he was embarrassed by the ragging."
"Oh . . . well." Jeffries shrugged. "I expect he was just trying to calm down the Head Master. But it's true, what Master Rudd says about Master Carruthers not getting along with his father. My father told me that, after Master Carruthers finishes university, he plans to leave the House of His Master's Kindness and go to live with his uncle."
"What does that prove, other than that his uncle has made him heir?" Davenham opened the door to the corridor for the second-rankers' studies, just wide enough for Jeffries. "Look, I don't want to spend all day talking about the Second House; they've made themselves too much the center of attention already. Come to my study, and we can discuss more important things before class. What do you think of our House's chances for the cup next term?"
The door swung shut, leaving the only student among them who was actually on the House team – Meredith – standing alone in the corridor.
Master and Servant (Waterman) Page 23
