“Gennady,” Simon said, as they entered the dining hall. “I’d like you to meet one of my friends.”
Gennady looked up and blinked in surprise as a red-headed girl made her way over to meet them. She wore a long robe that covered her curves—a decent woman, part of his mind noted—but her hair was uncovered, and her smile wide and welcoming. Gennady felt a confused mixture of emotions, a faint sense she might be interesting combined with the dull awareness that she hadn’t covered her hair. And ... he told himself, firmly, that it didn’t matter. The newcomer wasn’t Primrose. Gennady would stay loyal to his girl.
“Lyndred, Daughter of Milstein,” Simon said. “This is Gennady, my new friend.”
Lyndred dropped a curtsey. Gennady smiled, almost despite himself. No one, absolutely no one, had ever called him a friend before. He supposed Simon and he were friends, of a sort. They certainly had to work together against Charlus. He bowed in return, feeling oddly unsure. Lyndred was clearly neither a low-born village girl or a high-born aristocrat. He honestly wasn’t sure how to treat her.
They chatted as they ate breakfast, then collected their bags and made their way to their first classes. The Housemaster had set out their timetables, along with instructions for getting from the dining hall to the classrooms, but they were very nearly late by the time they reached the room. Gennady felt his heart skip a beat as he saw Charlus and a couple of other boys sitting at the rear of the room, sneering at all and sundry. It was hard to force himself to turn his back on them. He told himself, desperately, that it was an insult. But, in the classroom, Charlus was unlikely to notice.
And he might not know that turning your back on someone is an insult anyway, Gennady reflected, mournfully. He’s from a whole different world.
He looked up as the tutor, a middle-aged woman with a warm smile, strode into the chamber and looked around. It wasn’t easy to take a woman seriously as a person of authority, but ... Gennady was learning. Sorceresses had personal power as well as positional power. They were hardly as helpless as village girls, who could be bought and sold or stolen as the whim struck their menfolk. And ... he reminded himself, sharply, that he’d been in the same boat until his magic had emerged. He squared his shoulders and listened as the woman—she introduced herself as Mistress Irene—launched into a complicated lecture on charms. Gennady didn’t find it easy to follow.
His heart sank as she started to toss questions, and practical exercises, at the class. Charlus, damn him to the other folk, seemed to know everything. He answered each and every question that happened to be directed towards the rear of the class, showing off for the teacher. Gennady and the other students, the ones who didn’t come from magical stock, found it harder to handle the exercises. Simon had his hand rapped for mixing up his spellwork, creating something that—the tutor informed them—would have caused a disaster if it had actually been tried. The sniggering from the back of the room gnawed at Gennady’s mind. He promised himself, once again, that he’d do anything to shut the bastards up.
“This spell isn’t going to work,” Mistress Irene said, looking down at his slate. “Why not?”
Gennady scowled. He barely followed the notation. He wasn’t sure he understood the link between his diagram and actual magic. His head pounded as he tried to make sense of his work. Perhaps ... he tried to tell himself it didn’t make sense. But it was a straight line ...
Mistress Irene took pity on him. “You’re wasting energy,” she said. “Every step in the diagram costs your spellwork a little more magic. By the time it reaches the end of the line, there will be little power left. You need to compress your spellwork to conserve magic.”
The sniggering grew louder. Mistress Irene looked up. “Do you find something amusing?”
Charlus snickered. “I was merely reflecting on the absurdity of inviting unprepared imbeciles to Whitehall.”
“Indeed.” Mistress Irene’s voice turned cold. “I shall be sure to inform the Grandmaster of your opinion. I’m sure he will take it very seriously indeed. Until he sees fit to appoint you to the admissions committee, you can write me a short essay on the lives of Lord Brentwood, Lady Pelham and Lady Helen of House Ashworth. I’m sure you will find them very interesting indeed.”
The snickering stopped, abruptly. Gennady blinked in surprise, an odd warm feeling flooding through his chest. Mistress Irene had punished them? He found it hard to believe. No one ever punished his tormentors, not ever. Maybe she was more annoyed at the sniggering than the target of their amusement. Or ... he clung to the thought that, perhaps, there was justice after all. Charlus wasn’t laughing any longer. Gennady shared a wink with Simon as the class came to an end. It wasn’t much, but they’d take what they could get.
He was quick to leave the classroom once the bell rang, trying to put as much distance as he could between Charlus and himself before it was too late. He’d known too many people like Charlus. The bastard would seek to make Gennady pay for his humiliation, even though he’d brought it on himself. Perhaps especially because he’d brought it on himself. Simon and Lyndred followed him, half-running to the next classroom. The corridors seemed jammed with students, ranging from boys only a year or so older than them to adults in fancy robes who looked ready to move on with their lives. Gennady felt a stab of envy as he saw a pair of students who were clearly in their final year. They looked so confident, so sure of themselves ... he’d be one of them soon, he promised himself. And then he could go home and be a big man. Everyone would respect him.
Their second class—alchemy—proved to be no better than the first. The alchemist gave them a long lecture on safety precautions, focusing on the importance of following instructions, then taught them how to prepare herbs for the cauldron. Gennady felt oddly unsure of himself as he julienned a plant with an unpronounceable name, torn between the sense that cooking was woman’s work and the grim awareness that alchemy wasn’t cooking. Charlus didn’t seem to have any hesitation in getting to work either. Gennady tried to tell himself that it was proof that Charlus wasn’t as masculine as the bastard would like to believe, even though he knew it wasn’t true. He had little else to cling to as he poured the ingredients into the boiling water and felt the magic surge ...
The cauldron shifted, tilted, and tipped over. Gennady jumped back as boiling liquid splashed on the floor. Faint sparks of magic flared as the charged potion brushed against the remnants of other potions, even though the stone floor had been washed thoroughly between classes. The alchemist had told them it was safe, yet ... Gennady heard the snickering from behind him and knew, with a sick certainty that could not be denied, that Charlus had hexed the cauldron. He’d come far too close to scalding all three of them.
“Stay behind,” the tutor said, as the dinner bell rang. “You can clean up the mess.”
Gennady ground his teeth as the tutor showed the three of them how to demagick the remnants of the potion and wipe it up without causing further problems. It would have been an interesting lesson, and much more practical, if he hadn’t known Charlus had intended to get them in trouble. The alchemist had given the class a whole series of dire threats about what would happen if they did anything stupid in his class. Gennady wasn’t sure if the cleaning up was the punishment or if there was worse to come.
“I saw him do it,” Simon muttered, as they were finally dismissed. “And he got away with it.”