‘It isn’t guilt. The Magister Ludi—’
‘Do you remember when a servant threw herself off the Square Tower?’ he asks, cutting Léo off. ‘In our second year. It must have been about the time Carfax cut his throat, as I recall.’
‘What has that got to do with this?’
‘I knew her a little. Actually, quite well. We had a few nice times together. Then she told me she was pregnant. Obviously it wasn’t my problem, and frankly I doubt I was the only one, but – well. At the time, I felt to blame. But the point is, she would have done it anyway. It wasn’t my responsibility. I could have let it ruin my life. But I didn’t. That’s our way, isn’t it? We have to be strong enough not to be dragged down.’
Léo clenches his jaw. Emile is so matter-of-fact: as if this is something they have in common, having driven someone to suicide. With a sudden incredulous relief he remembers that Carfax didn’t die – or rather, that it wasn’t his Carfax and not his fault. For a fraction of a second he almost tells Emile the truth. ‘That’s not why,’ he says instead. ‘It’s got nothing to do with Carfax.’
‘Then why are you being so …’ Emile stops. ‘Oh,’ he says, rolling his eyes, ‘please tell me it isn’t that.’
‘What?’
‘Claire Dryden? Really? My dear boy, I thought your taste had improved since Carfax. But I suppose … each to their own. Does the de Courcy blood hold some particular attraction?’
Léo wants to hit him. ‘I don’t want to fuck the Magister Ludi,’ he says, ‘and I don’t want to be the Magister Ludi, either. Now, will you go, please?’
There’s a pause. A veil of smoke hangs in the dead air. Faint voices rise from somewhere below, laughing as though it’s a normal day. Emile stands up straight and brushes a speck of dust from his sleeve. ‘You’re doing yourself an enormous disservice.’
Léo doesn’t answer. It’s true, of course.
‘If you don’t want to be Magister Ludi, someone else will.’
He shrugs.
‘You idiot,’ Emile says. ‘You’re throwing away the greatest opportunity of your life, for nothing.’
‘Not for nothing.’
‘You want to commit political suicide? I can’t help you if you do.’
‘I’m not asking you to.’
‘Stop being such a prig, Léo.’ Emile steps towards him. His cheeks are blotchy, and his hands in his pockets are pulling the fabric taut. ‘You’ll do the fucking job, and be grateful.’
‘Why do you care so much?’ But as soon as he says it, he knows the answer. Because Emile has told everyone in the Ministry – and the Chancellor, the Old Man, and everyone else – that he’s the one who can manage Léo. He thinks Léo will be tractable and naïve – or that he’s already so unscrupulous that he’d sabotage Claire’s game without a second thought, out of self-interest. Emile thinks that this arrangement will give him control of Montverre. The grand jeu itself. How long has he been machinating for this? And perhaps it never even occurred to him that Léo might refuse. ‘No,’ Léo says, before Emile can answer. ‘I’m not doing it.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘You can’t make me,’ he says, and almost wants to laugh. They’re two grown men, for pity’s sake.
Emile takes a deep breath; it seems to last for ever. Then he crosses to the window. The colour in his face has spread to his chin and his jowls, but when he speaks his voice is softer. ‘Simon Charpentier,’ he says. ‘Someone helped him evade the police. It doesn’t matter,’ he continues, raising his hand, ‘I don’t care whether you helped him or not. If I say it was you, it was you. Your girlfriend was a Christian, wasn’t she?’
‘Emile—’
‘Hasn’t being here taught you anything at all? I can destroy you. You wouldn’t even face trial unless I wanted you to. If I give the word, you’ll disappear. An accident, a suicide, a brief illness. No one will care.’
He feels his head spin. It’s like looking down and seeing cracks spread out under his feet, branching further and further until nothing is solid.
‘And there’s your mother, of course. I’d hate for her to be put under any … pressure.’ Emile taps gently on the window, as if he’s testing its strength. ‘Or perhaps … it would be a shame if Magister Dryden’s temperament turned out to be as fragile as her brother’s.’
‘Fuck you,’ Léo says. It’s like a sudden draught of oxygen, to be angry: it gives him a rush of energy, leaving no room in his body for fear. ‘I don’t care what you do.’
‘Really?’
‘If being here has taught me anything, it’s that I don’t care any more. The Party can fuck itself. The Old Man can go and fuck himself, too.’ He’s running out of breath, but the words keep coming. ‘I’ve had enough of them. And you. I’m not your creature. I’m not doing what you want. So do your worst.’
Emile looks at him, his eyes very level. They’re enemies now; with a distant sense of shock Léo wonders if they always were. ‘Oh, I will,’ he says. ‘By all means. And with pleasure.’
Léo walks to the door and opens it. He holds Emile’s gaze, and waits.
Emile nods. He moves to the door, passing closer to Léo than he needs to. He pauses, his face a hand’s breadth from Léo’s. ‘Goodbye, traitor,’ he says, and smiles.
39: the Rat
After the black ones leave, the corridors should be quiet. But this year there are people, new people, chattering and rustling like termites, spilling into the courtyards and wandering at night. They aren’t black or grey or white ones, they are brown and green and stone-coloured. They murmur. They get lost; once, catching sight of her at the far end of a narrow gallery, one called out to ask her where the lavatories were. He had glasses that glinted moonlight; when she froze, he took them off and peered at her. She ran away, and he didn’t follow, but that feeling of visibility stuck to her skin like grime. He thought she was human. She’s not human.
She doesn’t know what to do. A rat would eat when it was hungry, rest when it was tired, shit and scratch and yawn without thinking. But the world has changed. She can’t stop wondering about Simon, and whether he’s still alive and huddled in the room under the eaves; and about the dark-headed dangerous one, the one she recognised. They lurk at opposite ends of her mind, so whichever way she looks she is afraid. She tells herself that soon they will be gone, and it will be quiet again: the long, quiet, lonely summer, when the grey ones lock doors and cover furniture in white sheets. When the building is empty, her head will be, too.
Then there is a morning when the bell rings on and on. It isn’t an alarm. Although it’s daylight she creeps out to look. More men than she’s ever seen are crowded in the courtyard; slowly they clump and ooze through the doorway to the Great Hall, until there are hardly any left. Black shiny vehicles arrive purring and spit out some more. These new ones are fatter and smoother. They bray and gesticulate as they follow the others. Finally a single straggler hurries across the black-and-white, and disappears after them. Not long afterwards the bell stops chiming. She imagines them in rows on the benches, surrounding that silver-edged panel of stone. But there is no way of knowing why, or what they are trying to achieve. She waits, hunched in the warmth of a windowsill, but the door is closed. Whatever arcane human mystery takes place in that hall, she is shut out. Dust swirls in the courtyard. Nothing else moves.