Tymon's Flight

by Mary Victoria

  Wick was a smooth-faced, smiling boy, full of confident exuberance. The only son of a wellrespected trader, he had no financial debt towards the seminary and might ape the priests with impunity. He was no snob in his associations, either. Few students objected to being called his friend—even if that honour came with the attendant duty of playing class clown. Tymon preened a little as he was shoved ahead of Wick like a gardener’s barrow. His anxiety dissipated. His crime, as he suspected, had been the ordinary one of absenteeism.

  ‘Rede’s always furious,’ he answered, breaking free of Wick to retrieve his shoes from the jumble at the end of the balcony. ‘What difference does it make?’

  ‘Ah, but he was angrier than usual today.’ Wick lowered his voice as they fell into step with the other novices, filing down the back stairs that connected the buttress to the cloistered courtyard below. ‘He decided to make an example of you. He gave us a long lecture on “the dissipations of youth”. Prissy old white-neck.’

  Father Rede, the Treeology professor, was an Argosian colonial, born and bred in the Eastern Domains. He still carried the stigma of his origins despite all attempts at re-assimilation. Tymon might have sympathised with another victim of social prejudice. But Rede was a tyrannical character, universally despised.

  ‘He was just waiting for an opportunity, I’m sure,’ he shrugged.

  ‘Oh, yes. And what an opportunity. The body is a temple, to be kept immaculate and free from sin.’ Wick’s voice imitated to perfection the nasal tones of the hated professor. ‘He whom the Impure touch of Woman hath caused to sully that temple shall stand shamefaced at the hour of death!’

  Tymon chortled appreciatively. ‘Pompous old fart. I can just see him—in the beauty, Father!’

  The last part of this response was a hasty acknowledgement of Father Mossing, who had overtaken them on the steps. The priest seemed not to have heard their exchange and only smiled vaguely at Tymon as he hurried down to the courtyard, making no reference whatever to his absence at morning ritual. The boy had almost decided that his truancy had been forgiven, or at least forgotten, when he heard the priest calling to him from the bottom of the steps.

  ‘Ah, Tymon. Before it slips my mind. A word.’

  Mossing smiled genially up at him. Tymon’s mood of satisfaction faded. He obeyed the summons unenthusiastically, descending the last few steps shadowed by Wick.

  ‘You were seen outside the seminary this morning, during first prayer,’ admonished the priest. ‘You know perfectly well that all outside duty must wait till after ritual. I’m not one to be too much of a stickler for rules, but we have standards to maintain here. Please be conscious that your actions are noted and judged by the people of this city.’

  The boy nodded with a sinking heart. So the Dean had spotted him in the tunnel, after all. He was sure that he would now be chastised for speaking to the tramp.

  ‘Another thing,’ purred the priest. He nudged Tymon a little further from the students trooping down the steps, and turned his back on the loitering Wick. ‘I understand the fascination of the—ah—military life to young men of your age. It’s a healthy passion and I don’t mind it. But a novice in his Green Year should not be socialising with common soldiers, do you understand? It’s demeaning to the seminary.’

  Tymon nodded more slowly, and with mounting perplexity. He had hardly spoken with the soldiers at all. It was odd that Mossing made no mention of the tramp.

  ‘Anyway, remember your position here. Don’t let it happen again.’ Mossing winked at him, his small eyes almost lost in the folds of his cheeks. He sauntered away in the direction of the monastery gardens. Tymon was left gazing after him in bewilderment. It seemed impossible that he had not been seen with the beggar.

  ‘You got off light!’ drawled Wick, at his elbow. ‘Rede won’t be so easy on you!’

  ‘Rede, Rede. There’s more to life than Rede,’ said Tymon meditatively. ‘I’ll take whatever he has to give.’

  The two boys joined the other novices bound for their afternoon study session, a daily rite of tedium taking place in long drab classrooms on the east side of the Priests’ Quarter. As they marched across the courtyard, Wick pursued his theme.

  ‘What were you up to this morning, anyway? What’s all this about soldiers?’

  ‘Mossing made a mistake,’ replied Tymon. ‘I went to visit Galliano.’

  ‘What? Doesn’t that make three times in a week? What’s so great about the old heretic?’ Wick spoke with emphasis on every other word, his conversation lively to the point of exaggeration.

  ‘We’re building a dirigible.’

  Tymon’s declaration was tinged with a smug note of triumph. He had only briefly considered keeping Galliano’s project a secret: the scientist had warned him not to speak to the professors, but surely there was no harm in telling his best friend?

  ‘The old man invented one that flies without the wind,’ he continued, lowering his voice in the crowded halls of the seminary. ‘I think it’ll work, too.’

  ‘No!’ Wick gave a disbelieving guffaw. ‘Where would he go, anyway? He’s a bit creaky for a tour of the canopy!’

  ‘Well, that’s the problem,’ Tymon sighed. ‘I wish he would go somewhere in the canopy. He’s got other ideas.’

  ‘Where else is there to go?’

  This time the boy hesitated before answering. He did not know whether to betray the full extent of Galliano’s eccentricities to Wick and mention the awkward plan of entering the Storm. He thought with a pang of the scientist’s vulnerability, his childlike enthusiasm for questionable ideas. But he was also keen to impress his friend. He told himself that he was still abiding by the spirit of his promise. Wick could keep a secret.

  ‘He wants to see what’s under the Storm,’ he whispered in his companion’s ear.

  ‘How—?’

  Wick was unable to finish his question. They had reached their assigned classroom and the babble of student voices was dying down. But his interest was evidently hooked. His eyes goggled inquisitively, much to Tymon’s satisfaction.

  ‘Later,’ murmured the boy, with a conspiratorial smile, writing with his finger across his palm.

  The study session was the time for note-passing. The novices would remain in the dreary, greywalled classroom all afternoon, seated on straw mats and chanting their lessons in a loud cacophony. There was one desk and chair in the room, reserved for the use of supervising professors. A stream of written communication between the students made the hours of rotelearning more bearable. Tymon and Wick retrieved their psalm books and pens from a pile on the desk and took their places on the floor as the tutor in charge of the session entered the room. To Tymon’s discomfiture it was Rede himself who stalked through the door that day, his dark robes flapping like the feathers of some mournful bird. But instead of calling out the psalm number to be copied and committed to memory, the priest stood silent at the head of the room, a curl of disgust on his lips.

  The Treeology professor was a small, sallow individual distinguished by an air of permanent exhaustion. He fixed the world with a heavylidded stare, the look of a man unappreciated by the vulgar mass of his fellow beings. He always carried a light barkwood switch, which he held behind his back and tapped between his fingers as a deterrent to the wayward. He had a disturbing habit of picking his teeth with the tip of the switch. This afternoon he was particularly sour, allowing the novices to wait in silent suspense for at least a minute before he spoke.

  ‘It has been brought to my attention,’ he announced, finally, ‘that there are those within these walls who prefer a life of debauchery to honourable duty, and who care nothing for the kindness already lavished upon them.’ He paused and leaned forward on his toes, surveying the students as if they were rats upon a garbage heap. ‘There are those who think the seminary is a cheap inn, a place to eat and sleep and come and go from at will, with no higher purpose. I am here to tell you this is not the case.’

  Rede’s telltale colonial accent
, the slight flatness of his vowels, was discernible even after all these years. Tymon glanced surreptitiously up at his professor, wondering if he had no other means of amusing himself than to lecture his charges. He seemed entirely lost in his homily. Turning half away from his tutor, the boy carefully tore a corner off his exercise leaf and scrawled with his pen on the scrap of paper. G. thinks he can survive the Storm, he wrote. He wants to explore under the clouds using the machine. He crumpled the note into a ball and sent it rolling along the mat to Wick. A few moments later his friend flicked an answering scrap towards him.

  ‘This is a place of beauty,’ continued Rede sententiously. ‘A temple of learning. We are all here to learn, even your tutors.’

  His gaze swivelled about to rest on Tymon, who had been on the verge of collecting Wick’s note. The boy hurriedly camouflaged the movement by adjusting the psalm book on his knees. A smile as thin as a lizard’s crossed the professor’s features.

  ‘Master Tymon,’ he observed, dryly. Tymon found himself the focus of a roomful of eyes. ‘It is a real pleasure to be granted the privilege of your company. We were disappointed you refused us that honour today in Treeology class.’

  Nervous titters ran through the assembly. The boy put on his best apologetic face.

  ‘I’m truly sorry, Father,’ he replied. ‘I was completing my charity duty this morning and lost track of time. It won’t happen again.’

  Rede’s reptilian smile widened. ‘Ah yes. It is true that charity is the essence of all Treeology, and far more important than any paltry little class of mine.’ Tymon waited for the priest’s sarcasm to exhaust itself, but his tutor was on a roll. ‘I have also learned,’ he rasped, ‘that you gave up ritual for the third time this week, to complete the same august duty! Truly, your self-sacrifice knows no bounds. If we could all treat our fellow man with such compassion! If we could all have such clear priorities!’

  Rede strode up and down the line of mats, borne away by his own oration. Tymon stretched a furtive hand towards Wick’s note. It was just out of reach.

  ‘We must give generously to all in need! For there but for Her green grace, go we,’ sang the professor, quoting scripture. ‘All things in Her sweet embrace, all depend on Her green grace…’

  He spun abruptly around, causing Tymon to jump. His smile was now an open sneer. ‘Of course, Master Tymon, considering your origins, I imagine you’d have plenty of sympathy for the lowlifes in this city,’ he snapped. ‘Like attracts like. I know perfectly well you haven’t been carrying out your charity duty, unless charity includes a visit to the brothel. Don’t lie to me, and stand up while speaking to your betters. I won’t have a bound student giving me such cheek.’

  Tymon scrambled to his feet in surprise and hot embarrassment. It was the second time that day his motives and associations had been entirely misjudged by the priests. He did not mind that he was suspected of worse crimes than he had committed. It was the snide reference to his lack of family, his ‘bound’ status, that cut him to the quick. In Argos, a man’s worth, even the state of his soul, was determined by lineage; a dearth of family was a dearth of virtue. The impression the Fathers had given him as a child was that his antecedents were shameful, a matter best forgotten. He had concluded that his parents must indeed have been reprobates to abandon their own flesh and blood so completely. He would have liked nothing more than to be allowed to forget them. Besides, his tutors were supposed to ignore social differences among the novices, treating all alike in the classroom. But Rede was given to humiliating displays of discipline. The boy stared at the scuffed mat between his toes, mortified.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he mumbled. He did not attempt to justify himself. He knew the exercise was pointless.

  Rede ignored his reply. The switch appeared from behind his back, and he began using it on his teeth. There was an ominous pause. Stifled sniggers punctuated the silence. Some of the other boys leered insolently at Tymon. He wished the floor would open up and swallow him.

  ‘I will not have you flout authority under my very nose, young man,’ hissed the professor, at last. ‘The seminary’s charity is not to be taken for granted! If you miss one of my classes again, you may dispense with your Green Rites this year, as well as your place at the Guild Fair. Do I make myself understood?’

  The hot blood rushed to Tymon’s ears. To lose his chance to go to the Guild Fair over a crime as insipid as missing class was manifest injustice. It was clear that his indenture made him less of a man than the other students. He felt the discrimination keenly, all the more as the insult was delivered by the unpopular Rede.

  ‘Yes, Father’ he answered through gritted teeth.

  ‘I want you promptly at my noon class tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘You may sit.’ Rede released him curtly. ‘Let this be a lesson to you all,’ he spat, glaring over the rest of the room. ‘The seminary will not tolerate laxity in morals. You are given fair warning.’

  He turned on his heel and sauntered back to the desk. Tymon lumped down on the mat, breathing hard.

  ‘Saint Dorit, chapter eight, verses four through seven,’ snapped Rede. There was a general stirring of leaves as books were opened again and the novices went back to their copy work. Voices rose in a ragged chorus, chanting the lesson.

  We are the same branch, the same leaf, the same blood…

  The words stuck in Tymon’s throat. He burned with humiliation. He would rather have been struck with Rede’s switch like a first-year novice than endure the little professor’s bile. Furious tears pricked his eyes. As he sat there, hunched on the mat, his gaze fell on Wick’s abandoned note, now within easy reach. He twitched the scrap into his fingers and waited, fuming, until he could safely glance at the brief message.

  That’s heresy! it said.

  Dusk had fallen when the students re-emerged from their classrooms and trooped back to the cloistered courtyard. The smell of food greeted them from the refectory beneath the dormitories. After the scene with Rede, Wick had mollified Tymon’s rage with a few eloquent looks cast over the edge of his copy-leaf; now, as the two boys entered the dining hall, safely out of earshot of the professors, he exclaimed: ‘The brute! Imagine threatening to bar you from the Rites like that, in front of everyone, when he’s less than half a man himself—a white-neck, a louse-lover!’

  Tymon contented himself with giving the refectory door a savage kick to express his feelings.

  ‘It doesn’t change anything,’ he muttered. ‘I just have to be more careful.’

  The professors ate separately in the College and the refectory was the boisterous, vocal province of the novices. Tymon and Wick wound through the crowded tables and benches to their usual places at the back of the room, choosing a table occupied by Bolas and a scrawny, chinless novice in his fourth year.

  ‘Long live Tymon the Disappeared!’ called the scrawny boy as they sat down. ‘You missed a sore day in Treeology.’

  ‘And garden duty,’ growled Bolas. ‘I got your shift, but you’re going to have to warn me in advance if you pull this kind of stunt again.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Bolas,’ Tymon replied penitently. ‘It was important. Charity duty.’

  The prefect waved the excuse away. ‘Is that all you can cough up in the way of an explanation? Come on, Ty. I had to tell Mossing you weren’t feeling right and I’d let you stay in the dorms. What did you do all morning?’

  ‘He fell asleep in a vine-field,’ put in Wick, as he helped himself to the pot of stew in the middle of the table. ‘Cloud-head here dozed off on his charity run and forgot to come home on time. Believe me, I’ve already grilled him on the subject. I was hoping for a better story.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Bolas grumbled to Tymon. ‘You made me hoe a double shift because you needed a morning snooze? Typical.’

  Tymon only managed a pained smile in response. The explanation was unflattering, but as it was Wick who had come to his rescue he swallowed his objections and went along w
ith the story. He gave his attention to the stew. Bolas turned to Wick.

  ‘Did you get your Fair ticket yet?’ he asked. ‘Mine arrived this morning. Special courier and all. I wasn’t expecting it so early. I thought, well, it’ll be the families of Council members first, followed by the sons of important folk, like your father, Wick—meaning no disrespect—and us simple freemen last of the lot. But I was wrong.’

  Wick shot Tymon a brief, conciliatory smile before responding to the prefect. It was on the subject of the Guild Fair that the greatest divide existed between a bound-boy and his fellows. Most of the novices had families or sponsors who bought them tickets, with or without the approval of the seminary: if their connections permitted such luxuries, the students might even attend the event before completing their Rites. Wick was younger than most of his friends and had not yet entered his Green Year, but his family would still be sending him to the Fair. The discrepancy rankled with Tymon. He tried not to listen to the rest of the exchange between Bolas and Wick and stabbed at the contents of his plate with his fork. The chinless lad craned forward to catch his eye.

  ‘I for one don’t believe you were on charity duty,’ he gloated. ‘So, tell us! Why was Rede so angry?’

  ‘I made a pact with a demon,’ mumbled Tymon. He did not care one way or another for the younger boy’s interest, but felt somehow betrayed by the conversation taking place at the other end of the table. ‘I can do whatever I want but I mustn’t talk about it, not even to you, Piri.’

  This answer drew a snort of frustration from the fourth-year student. ‘Go on,’ he wheedled. ‘You owe us after leaving us to survive Rede on our own.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We know what the bound-boy was doing!’ shouted a mocking voice from the next table, shattering Tymon’s composure. ‘Hoi, freak! Did you say hello to your Nurry friends in town today? Care to place bets on the fodder?’