Stags 5, p.22
STAGS 5, page 22
Nel and I turned to each other, best friends together, almost with relief. But the relief didn’t last for long because she was on my case straight away.
‘Did you tell him?’
I didn’t need to ask what she meant. She and I had had multiple lengthy phone conversations in the intervening month about the love triangle I’d found myself in. ‘Not yet.’
‘Greer.’
‘I know. But he nearly killed Henry when it had just been a kiss. Imagine what he’d do if he knew I’d slept with him.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said, china-blue eyes wide. ‘You’ve got to tell him. If you’re going to get back together he’s got to have all the information. It’s only fair. You need a clean slate.’ This was an oddly Medieval thing for the Savage Nel to say. She was right, of course. But I feared that if Shafeen knew the sordid details, there would be no way back for us. I changed the subject. ‘How about you and Nathaniel?’ I asked. ‘Everything OK?’
‘More than OK,’ she said, with a cat-that-got-the-cream smile. ‘He’s going back to Oxford, did you know?’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Yes. As a postgrad. Doing his doctorate – a DPhil, they call it there. In Renaissance and Revolution.’
‘Pretty apt for one of the FOXES,’ I said. ‘That’s great, Nel. That means you can finally be together.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’ll just be two students then, so there’s nothing to keep us apart.’ She practically hugged herself. ‘I’ll be in college for the first year, just like you, but if things go well we might get a place together.’
‘Big stuff,’ I said, but I was really pleased for her. My own love life might be egg salad, but it was great to see her so happy. Shafeen came back, carrying the HAWK, checking the rotors almost as tenderly as Henry would check Regina’s prime feathers after a flight. Then, as if just thinking about him could conjure him, Henry appeared. He kissed Nel and me in exactly the same way, coolly on each cheek, and shook Shafeen’s hand. It was all perfectly civil, but it was a relief when Nathaniel joined us.
He looked so different to the half-man, half-fox I’d seen on Lammas Eve. He was pristine in his ceremonial white habit, his brown curls ruffled in the breeze, every inch the correct young Abbot, a gifted teacher promoted beyond his years. I could see that this evening he and Nel were maintaining a certain distance. Tonight, he was her headmaster again, and there could be no intimacy for now. Low-voiced, he filled us in on the progress of the Scotland Yard investigation into the Order of the Stag. ‘The bigger fish are already on the hook,’ he said. ‘My predecessor, Gideon Villiers, the Old Abbot, as well as a number of the other dignitaries who were unmasked as DOGS on Lammas Eve, are already in custody. Next, they’ll be going after the minnows,’ he said, ‘the peripheral actors who colluded in the death hunts.’
I couldn’t look at Henry; that meant him.
‘And for my last night in the teaching profession,’ the Abbot went on, ‘there’s one more group to educate. The young are the future, and we have to teach these sons and daughters of STAGS exactly where privilege can lead.’
He borrowed a spoon from one of the waiters and began to tap his glass until the whole quad fell quiet, including the string quartet. ‘Welcome, graduates of St Aidan the Great School, to the Surroyal Ball,’ he said. ‘This evening represents the end of your school journey. And because here at STAGS we take your education very seriously, we would like to continue the teaching up until the very last minute. Therefore, on the stroke of midnight, we will gather in the Chapel Quad for a very special presentation. Knowledge is the greatest gift you can give, and we have something to impart to you that we hope you will carry forward into your lives. It is particularly important for you to leave with this knowledge, as you are destined to be the men and women who will lead this nation, and with knowledge comes responsibility.’ He clapped his hands. ‘That’s enough of the serious stuff. To paraphrase Epicurus: eat, drink and be merry, and we’ll all meet again at midnight.’
I looked about nervously. The Abbot had set the scene for this big screening at midnight, like some Cinema Paradiso movie night. But there was one crucial player missing: the projectionist. ‘Where’s Ratio?’ I whispered.
Then, like an actor picking up his cue, Ratio entered the White Quad.
40
In the silence that followed the Abbot’s announcement, Rollo de Warlencourt’s eldest son walked under the Honorius arch, with Ty on his arm.
He looked almost entirely different to the Ratio we’d come to know on Skye. His hair had been cut so all the green had gone, and there was just a glittering blond crop. He wore a black tailcoat, which fitted his long, rangy frame remarkably well.
‘Jesus.’ I kissed his cheek. ‘You look so … unlike yourself,’ I said, the surprise making me even less articulate than usual.
He extended his arms and turned around 360 degrees. ‘Do I fit in?’ he asked, somewhat sardonically.
I considered. ‘You look like a de Warlencourt.’
‘So, yes then.’ He grinned. ‘But some things are the same. Look.’ He rolled up his sleeves, Miami Vice style, to show his forearm tattoo of the deer hunt. And in his right ear he wore the antler earring we’d last seen in the Lammas Circle around the wicker stag. ‘Nathaniel got it back from the “police”,’ said Ratio, flicking his earlobe and regarding the Abbot gratefully.
‘It’s your family crest now,’ said Henry.
Ratio smiled at him – a proper, fraternal smile. ‘Yes, I suppose it is. And look.’ He opened his tailcoat to show us that underneath he was wearing, not a shirt with a wing collar, but a faded old T-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘OH, FOR FOX SAKE’.
‘Your favourite.’ I smiled too. ‘Classic Ratio.’
‘Actually,’ he said somewhat shyly, ‘it’s Horatio now.’ He looked at Shafeen. ‘I decided to go back to my given name once I realised what it meant. My father didn’t give me much, but he did give me something really precious, and I’m not going to throw it away. And speaking of precious things …’ He took something from the pocket of his jacket. It was a small book with orange leather covers, and a long tie of the same leather wrapped around it. I recognised it at once: It was Aadhish Jadeja’s diary, the one we’d found in the tiger-skin rug’s mouth and read from cover to cover in Jaipur. Ratio handed it reverently to Shafeen, as if it were the Dead Sea Scrolls. ‘I should return this to you. Thanks a million.’
Shafeen took the book and looked around at the rest of us. ‘I sent it to him from India,’ he explained. ‘I thought he should know who his father used to be, once.’
Henry put out his hand. ‘May I?’ he asked. ‘For the same reason.’
Shafeen regarded him, then passed him the book. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You have a right to know him too.’
This was so typically Shafeen. Kind, considerate. Not something I would ever have said about Henry. Surely that was why I would be better off with Shafeen? But I couldn’t process all that stuff right now. ‘What’s it like to be back at STAGS?’ I asked Horatio.
‘Weird,’ he said, closing his tailcoat again. ‘I hated it so much back then, every stone of the place, and couldn’t wait to leave. But now I’m back, I have to admit, it is beautiful. It was just the people …’ He grimaced and didn’t have to finish the sentence.
‘All set for the projection?’ Shafeen asked.
‘Yes. I’ve been here since yesterday. Nathaniel and I did a recce and found the ideal place to screen the film.’
‘It’s the chapel wall,’ said Nathaniel. ‘The Gospel side is flat and undecorated – the oldest bit before everything got all gothic. It’s rather fitting because it would have been here when St Aidan was alive, one of the first parts of the foundation to be built. Actually … you must excuse me – lots to do. I’ll see you all later.’
And, with a fond but discreet glance at Nel, he strode off, presumably to organise his final act as STAGS’s Abbot.
I turned back to Horatio. ‘And how does it feel to be an earl of the realm?’ The others, of course, now knew all about Horatio’s identity and his change of fortune. ‘You’ll have to see your new home, Longcross Hall.’
‘I’ve been,’ he said.
I looked at Henry with surprise.
‘I invited them,’ he explained. ‘And I had the great pleasure of meeting Horatio’s mother, Lorna.’
‘She came too?’ asked Nel.
‘Yes. They were my guests at Longcross Lodge. I hope that the estate can become a happy place for her now, instead of one filled with bad memories.’
Horatio looked at him more fondly than he’d ever done, in a way that was almost … well … brotherly. ‘We had quite a few conversations about Henry’s father. Our father,’ he corrected himself. ‘I found out from Mum that their … relationship … was more of a seduction than an attack. Still totally unacceptable, of course, but we figured that he must have loved my mother and me just a little bit to have agreed to her request to fund me. The short version,’ he said grudgingly, ‘is that he wasn’t all bad.’
‘No one is,’ I said, looking at Henry.
‘We had quite a few conversations about the future of the estate too,’ said Henry. ‘I wanted Lorna to have some say in it all.’ He smiled. ‘What you Savages would no doubt call “agency”.’
I stared at him, trying to process this new Henry. There was hardly anything that I recognised. This was Shafeen levels of kindness and consideration.
‘We’ve been talking about outward-bound weekends for inner-city kids,’ said Horatio. ‘Computer camp for kids who can’t afford tech. Stuff like that.’
‘Sounds very Savage,’ I said jokingly. I turned to Henry. ‘What do you think of all this?’
‘I think it’s a capital idea,’ he said, a very Medieval endorsement.
‘And what about you?’ I said to Ty. ‘Countess of Longcross? How funny if you become mrs_de_warlencourt after all.’
She laughed. ‘It’s not Jane Austen! I’m only eighteen. I’ve still got a year at STAGS, if it stays open. But if things go well –’ she looked fondly at Horatio – ‘then one day, who knows? There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be a very good lady of the manor.’
‘No reason at all,’ I said, smiling.
‘So funny,’ she said, smiling too. ‘From east London to Northumberland. We used to call Limehouse Estate “The Manor”. The irony, hey?’
I laughed. Then I bumped on something she’d said. ‘Hold on, back up. What d’you mean, if STAGS stays open?’
Henry said, ‘A bigger question than what to do with the estate is what to do with this school. STAGS is on the earldom’s land and the de Warlencourts have always had a controlling interest in the running of the school. Didn’t you know that?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Just how much land belongs to you?’
‘Belongs to him,’ he corrected, nodding his head at Horatio. ‘You can walk from here to Longcross without ever leaving de Warlencourt land.’
‘So what are you thinking?’ said Shafeen to Horatio. ‘About the school, I mean.’
‘I think it should be a state school,’ said Horatio, without hesitation. ‘The facilities are great – theatre, pool, all that.’
‘No more lordlings and ladies?’ asked Nel. ‘No more Honourable this or that?’
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said Horatio. ‘There’s no reason why privileged kids can’t come here – it’s not their fault they were born rich, any more than it is a poor kid’s fault that they’re born poor. The wealthy can apply like everyone else. I just think local kids should have access to all this stuff. It should be for everyone. The only way to get rid of the cancer of class that rots this country is if rich kids and poor kids mix together, become friends.’
I looked from one brother to the other – the one who’d been brought up in a mansion and the one who’d been brought up in a council flat. ‘I hope it happens.’
‘Who can stop it?’ Henry asked. ‘If we both agree?’
And then, as if she’d been waiting for her cue too, Cass walked into the quad.
41
She looked amazing, and was wearing, as was her style, male evening dress.
With her cropped blonde hair and slight frame, she carried off the white tie and tails as well as either one of her cousins. She marched right up to them, as if she were joining some sort of gentlemen’s club. She, Henry and Horatio stood in a triangle looking at each other, like the three Spider-Men meeting each other in the Multiverse.
I was so fascinated by their similarities and differences that it took me a second to register that Cass wasn’t alone.
At her back were a couple of the snottiest-looking, Mean Girls-esque resting bitch-faces you couldn’t wish to meet. A little behind them were three guys who looked like Burberry models. All six of them looked us all up and down as if we were dirt on their handmade shoes.
‘Let me introduce my friends,’ said Cass, all politeness. ‘This is Athena, India, Jock, Will and Christof.’
I heard her with something like despair. Was there no end to this cycle? Was history destined to repeat itself? Not one of her little cohort smiled; they all looked down their noses at us. My heart sank. I didn’t need any introductions. I knew who they were.
They were the New Medievals.
Cass smiled pleasantly at Nel. ‘I hear our dear Abbot is leaving,’ she said, cocking her head on one side. ‘That’s so sad.’ She pouted her lips like a little girl. ‘But don’t worry. Some of us will still be here to keep the home fires burning.’ She looked at Horatio pointedly. ‘I’m sure we can … guide the new Abbot and acquaint him with the rules. Luckily, some members of the de Warlencourt family can be relied upon to keep the old traditions alive.’ Now she shot a poisonous blue glance at Henry. That one look conveyed that she felt utterly betrayed by him and now hated him as much as she’d once loved him.
He ignored the look and smiled tightly. ‘How’s your mother?’
‘Perfectly fine, thank you,’ she almost snapped. ‘We’re entering a new age at Castle MacLeod. The age of the matriarchy. Mama, me, and Nanny of course. Things are running like clockwork.’ I shivered, thinking of those three up in the remote Highlands, like some weird multigenerational reboot of Macbeth’s witches.
‘Going to be quite something, being top of the school, isn’t it, Ty, darling?’ she cooed. ‘Great that you’ve got another year too. We are thinking about putting on a revival of The Isle of Dogs in the Michaelmas term. Such a shame just to act it once, don’t you think, when it was lost for 400 years? Maybe you’d like to reprise your role as Queen Cynthia?’
Suddenly, tragically, I realised where she was going with this. ‘Cass,’ I said, low-voiced, clutching her arm. ‘You’re not actually planning to try to bring Louis back from the dead, are you? Because that’s …’ I searched for the words. ‘Breathtaking in its batshittery.’ I was appealing to the girl we’d all liked, the girl who’d acted with us in the first production of The Isle of Dogs, who’d taken us all to Longcross, who’d helped us find the lost play in the tomb of her ancestors. I knew she was in there somewhere. And she was. She looked at me, quite like the old Cass. ‘Why not?’ she asked plaintively, tears standing in her eyes. ‘It worked before.’
Now I felt real pity. I toyed with the idea of reminding her that Henry had been alive all along, that he’d done the Dead Man’s Drop dive from the top of the waterfall, the dive they’d both practised as kids. But there was no arguing with Cass’s skewed logic, and I was relieved when the dinner gong sounded and we all made our way to the Refectory to eat.
42
There was the most sumptuous banquet laid on in the Refectory, but we rebels picked at our food.
I sat next to Shafeen, as technically we had come to the ball together, but we had this weird, stilted conversation. He told me about his time in India with his parents, and I told him about my three weeks in Manchester with my dad. I’d been to India with him before, and he’d been to Manchester with me, but the differences between the two experiences only served to emphasise the new gulf between us. I wondered if it could ever be crossed.
There was one person, though, who was more miserable than us. I looked over at Henry, who was tactfully sitting a good distance away from me. Morosely, he was pushing his food around his plate. I think I knew the reason for his misery. He had escaped death a second time only to feel the prison bars clanging shut on him, but I thought an even bigger issue for him was that Gemma Delaney had not turned up. He hadn’t been given the opportunity to apologise or atone, which he so desperately needed to give himself peace before he took his punishment.
After the meal we all went to the Paulinus Quad, where the ball proper was to be held. The string quartet struck up once more, and Shafeen led me onto the dance floor, which had been laid down across the quad. As we whirled around I was always aware of Henry, drinking heavily, standing on his own. As the night wore on his isolation was compounded by the fact that Ty was dancing cheek to cheek with Horatio, I was constantly in Shafeen’s arms and even Nel managed to have a discreet dance with Nathaniel. There were loads of distractions – an ice-cream cart, fireworks, traditional fairground games like a coconut shy and a strongman’s hammer, but nothing seemed to divert Henry. He stuck by the Paulinus well where the Medievals traditionally gathered, as if glued, chain-smoking and dropping his cigarette butts down the shaft. He’d obviously started smoking again, but I thought under the circumstances it was understandable.
