Match after match dies, until the box is empty. He closes his eyes. He’s so tired he’s light-headed. He aches to see Claire. Tomorrow he will. He wants to see the Midsummer Game. But does he want her game to be brilliant, or only good? Or does he – the question wafts into the back of his mind like a fetid smell – does he want the Magister Ludi to fail, conspicuously? No, of course not. He loves her, he wants her to silence all her critics, for ever. The way he wanted Carfax to triumph with the Red game. He swallows the taste of guilt. Somehow Claire knows about that; and she thinks he betrayed Carfax. She thinks he did it on purpose, that he’d known that the Magisters would despise the Red game for its daring, its newness, its sheer audacious genius – that he’d known that Carfax would fail … You wanted to win, didn’t you? You would have done anything to win. But that wasn’t why he did it. It wasn’t. He was shocked, wasn’t he, when he saw the marks? He can remember it now, joy – all that sleepless night he’d sat in the Great Hall, full of a dazzling rush of happiness – evaporating into numb disbelief as he saw his own name and slid his gaze down the page: Léonard Martin, Gold Medallist, Reflections— and then nothing. It was only as he scanned the rest of the page – First Class, mostly third-years, Upper Second Class, a few second-years, Paul and Emile, but most of them in the Lower Second Class – that he’d begun to feel giddy and unreal, as if an odourless gas was seeping into his bloodstream. Someone jostled him, said, ‘Get out of the way, will you, you’re blocking everyone else …’ but the voice was muffled, distant. Where was Carfax? Surely … Not in Third Class, and the only name under Pass was Felix. He splayed his fingers against the hessian-covered board, skimming the list again. He must have missed—
‘Bernard will be fed up. Is Martin that cocky second-year? Oh, right.’ A suppressed giggle. ‘Oops, didn’t see him there …’
‘Wow,’ someone said, with a chuckle. ‘Never seen anyone fail before.’
‘Specially not a de Courcy.’
‘Yeah, the Lunatic of London Library’ll be turning in his grave.’
He shut his eyes, and opened them again. At the bottom of the sheet, there was a single line, easy to miss, above Magister Holt’s signature.
Unsuccessful candidates: Aimé Carfax de Courcy, Red.
No. He’d thought – he hadn’t imagined – yes, he’d submitted the wrong game, but … And then he was pelting up the stairs, desperate to explain, to protest that all he’d meant was – he hadn’t – not for a moment had he meant to … But it had been too late. He sees again the scrawled ink on the wall of his room: BASTARD. And when he got to Carfax’s room, he was already gone.
He’d written a letter. It took him most of the next day, while people knocked on his door to congratulate him and speculate about how de Courcy could possibly have messed up so badly … He smiled at them and accepted their compliments and resisted the urge to drive his pen into their eye sockets. When they left he went straight back to his scrawled draft. He’d wiped the wall down as best he could, but while he scraped about for the right words he found himself staring at the smear of grey, and the shape of the word seemed to linger. BASTARD. Yes, he was. A bastard, and an idiot. Please believe me, I never meant to lie to you. I thought … But what had he thought? What if, deep down, he’d known, he’d wanted –? What if, after all …? He squashed the thought. Carfax would forgive him, once he’d explained. I’ll go to Magister Holt and ’fess up, and give them the Tempest instead. They can’t fail you for a game you didn’t even submit … I’m sorry. Honestly. I thought … but he was back to the same sentence, the one he didn’t trust himself to finish.
He started a new paragraph. Last night – I mean, the night before results day. I … The memory made his insides ache with shame and desire and pleasure; but it was a kind of talisman, too, because Carfax had said … Well, that thing Carfax had said – he wouldn’t have said it unless he meant it. And if he’d meant it, then he’d forgive Léo for being an idiot, and a bastard, and a Gold Medallist …
He scratched out that line. It was better to leave it at I’m sorry. After all, once Carfax had forgiven him they could talk about – well, anything. Anything they wanted. He copied the letter out, so it looked as though he’d written it all in one go, straightforward and eloquent, and sealed it up ready to put in the post the next day. He didn’t even know Carfax’s address, he had to ask in the office. Château d’Apre, nr. Montravail … But the next morning all the scholars were called to the Great Hall.
I’m afraid, gentlemen, I have some very bad news …
He can’t remember much about that day, or the one after. Fragments. Felix giving him a sheepish smirk of sympathy, and then flushing scarlet; Freddie, uncharacteristically subdued; the Magisters elusive and sombre. A deadened feeling, as if all the floors were carpeted with felt. Even Emile, who Léo might have expected to be philosophical or sardonic, was dead silent and white-faced. Perhaps it was even the same day that some servant fell from a window. It hardly seemed to matter, by then; it was part of the nightmare, the same motif played in counterpoint. She was taken away before most of the scholars saw her body, but the rumour spread, and there were black jokes about the time of year and the corrupting influence of the grand jeu. Someone suggested that she and Carfax had been having an affair; she’d been pregnant, they said, and that was why … It was a neat story: Carfax, driven to suicide by a bad mark, and his trollop, driven to suicide by being abandoned … Léo turned away, too sick to correct them. He was the only one who knew exactly why Carfax had died; and he didn’t say anything, because it was his fault. He took his library books back and packed his belongings, ready to go home. His diary had gone. He was dully unsurprised at that; he imagined Carfax pounding on his door after he saw the marks, going inside, skimming the last few pages, and then squeezing his fingers into the inkwell to write BASTARD on the wall. He didn’t know why Carfax would have taken it with him – but, now he was dead, what did it matter? Léo would have burnt it, if he could.
Felix knocked on his door while he was slinging books into his trunk, and came in before Léo answered. He frowned. ‘I thought … what are you doing?’
‘What does it look like?’
‘But the Midsummer Game isn’t for two weeks.’
‘I’m not staying.’
‘You’re not staying for the Midsummer Game? You’re the Gold Medallist!’
‘Leave me alone, Felix,’ Léo said. There was a pause. He threw Hondius on top of the other books without looking up, and heard the door close.
He didn’t have the guts to tell Magister Holt. He wrote a letter. It was easier than the one he wrote to Carfax; it was much shorter, for a start. Although I’m honoured to have been awarded the Gold Medal, I regret that, due to personal circumstances, I’m unable to attend. He knew he wouldn’t regret it, not ever. It would have made him sick to sit in the space that should have been Carfax’s. All he wanted was to go home. Maybe he should have told Magister Holt the truth – if anyone would understand, it would be him – and the night before he left he actually got up and tried to write something that wasn’t a lie. But he couldn’t do it. And then he was on the train, and the landscape slid past the dingy glass, and the first thing he saw on the station platform was Dad, striding forward to congratulate him.