Looking Through Fresh Eyes 7: The Night Has a Thousand Eyes
(Tying up a dangling loose end left hanging at the end of Nature Studies)
A fan pleaded with me to continue this story... how could I not... Episode Seven, in which adolescent complications raise their ugly head.
Looking back on my Assassins' Guild stories, it has occurred to me that my female Assassins - and students - are pretty tough girls. The boys come off as looking wimpy and ineffectual - by comparison. Even though the female of the species is deadlier - and nastier - than the male, male Assassins are also strong and certainly not ineffectual. Time to write in a strong male character who acquits himself well in a tight corner, has strong personal qualities, and who believes a good chap does not drop a lady in the crap to save his own skin. Catherine, I think, would not fall for anything less in a man.
today's title song is from 1963. And a thousand eyes cannot help but see (if you are true to me).
A SLIGHT REWRITE AND EDIT:
To add this episode's bonus song lyric (that catchy Bobby Vee number). To eliminate observed typos. To edit out a little problem that goes against the pesky chronology and restore internal consistency to my timeline! (Or can I invoke History Monks?) to eliminate that glitch in FanFiction programming that chops out lumps of carefully composed sentences and makes me look as if I have the grammatical sensitivity of a drunken chimpanzee.
"We'll cover for you. You know we will." said Chakkie N'Golate. "I mean, this could be any of us in the dorm. But you could get into real trouble if Madame Two-Swords finds out!"
]"Or anybody else." said Penny Venturi. She looked up from cleaning her boots. "At the very least, you are going to have to tell everything when you get back."
"Blow-by-blow account." agreed Maddy Jones. "Nothing left out."
Catherine was aware she was presuming on the goodwill of her dorm-mates. But after humiliating Deborah Rust in a sword-fight, she was aware there was a lot of goodwill floating around that could be exploited. And tonight, she wanted to exploit it.
"Is it wise, Cathy?" Chakkie pleaded with her. "I mean, Downey himself is cracking down on this sort of thing. He said it at Assembly a week or so ago, and you know all the teachers are looking out for it!"
"I know. And no. It isn't wise." she said. She took a deep breath. "But it's something I've got to do."
The other girls looked sympathetically at her. They were disposed to help, if only out of the age-old boarding school thrill of getting one over on their teachers. And because it was a subject they'd all discussed, breathlessly and in low voices, after dark in the dorm. Cathy would be the first of her peers to, you know, actually try it out. This was priceless knowledge, even gleaned at second-hand. And they'd all heard the whispers about students who'd tried it and got away with it... Cathy's name would go on a very discreet and subversive Roll of Honour if she got away with it.
And she wouldn't be the only one...
Madame Deux-Epées prided herself on an ability to read subtle little signs and indicators in her pupils. It was a teacher-skill all members of staff had to a greater or lesser degree. For those teachers tasked with house responsibilities who had to act in loco parentis, it was indispensible. And as Doctor Davinia Bellamy remarked, it was also a parenting skill. Three sons had taught her how to read children, especially in circumstances like "Which of you broke a pane of glass in the greenhouse?" or "Martin, are you absolutely sure that girl Margaret is just a friend from school?" (1)
Emmanuelle might not be adept, but she could read the signs. Outwardly Catherine Perry-Bowen and Gareth ffitzroy-Connor were nothing more than classmates. In fact, if anything they were trying too hard not to be perceived as anything other than members of the same peer group who happened to go to school together and share some classes and approved communal space. But the reactions of those around them were not so restrained. Nudging, giggles, occasional long looks that might have been envious or else knowing in some indefinable way... these were as good as a large wall-poster telling her "Attention! Cathy {{hearts}} Gareth!" Being a capable teacher, she smiled indulgently, took a mental note, and did nothing, waiting for the situation to work itself out. This sort of thing did not happen all the time, but it was frequent enough. She judged that it was not yet time to have a friendly word with Catherine, either of commiseration if the liaison did not work out and there were tears, or else if there were a need for a rather franker chat about the sort of things that might happen if two people of opposite sexes were ever to be alone together.
Besides, Catherine had attended The Lecture from Matron Igorina, that was mandatory for girl pupils on the brink of puberty. The Lecture was notorious for its graphic frankness and completely knurd honesty regarding all the things that happen when hormones started to kick in. Birds and bees did not figure. Igorina reasoned that as she was providing "personal and social development education" (2) for humans, any consideration of avian or apian sexuality was strictly for Miss Smith-Rhodes to cover in the relevant Natural History class. She began with people and illustrated her talk with lots and lots of detailed lantern slides which she discussed in great detail. The Guild approved of this as a sort of aversion therapy applied to teenage hormones.
Emmanuelle also took note of Catherine and Gareth spending time together in Necros, the trendy coffee shop that had replaced Tarbucks as venue of choice for Guild students allowed the privilege of walking out into the City in small, well-behaved, mixed-gender groups. She smiled, and allowed laissez-faire to take over. Tiens, the girls were only human. As were the boys. This was only to be expected and should be permitted, up to a certain point.
But, mindful of Lord Downey's proclamation to the assembled School, she also shared the information with Gareth's house-master, Baron Striefenkanen. These things needed careful watching in case they got out of hand.
It had been during an evening in Necros that Gareth had raised the issue of how to find private space in a School that was, if not overcrowded, then certainly populated to the point where the only truly private space, overlooked by nobody, was in the privvy. And even then, you didn't know who was likely to be in the next cubicle on either side. Both shared dorms with other students. Not the thirty-to-a-dorm communal barracks of early Guild years: that form of shared Purgatory was for new bods and insects in lower years. As you ascended and numbers, er, thinned out in the natural course of events, you shared dorm space with less and less people. And at the beginning of the Black, the thirty bods they'd started with back in the first year had become ten or twelve. By Upper Sixth, they'd have the privilege of sleeping four, or even two, to a shared and far more comfortable study room. But only senior resident Assassins and post-graduate students got rooms to themselves. House teachers were most favoured of all, as they got a full suite of rooms – but having seen the inside of Madame Two-Swords' personal apartment, Catherine had to admit that even this was not lavish in terms of space. She had to admit that living communally like this took a lot of goodwill and forbearance and it almost forced you to be sociable and gregarious.
"But sometimes," Gareth said, thoughtfully stirring his folgorocinno, "you really, really, need personal space and nobody else around."
And he looked at Catherine in a way that communicated a mix of confidence and apprehension.
She looked back at him, knowing, or thinking she knew, what he meant, and biting back a gulp. Occasional hand-holding wasn't nearly enough. After her moment of discomfort when exposed to the rather greasy sexual magnetism of Mr Scrote Jones, and time to reflect on (and feel appalled by) what it had meant, she wanted more. And she'd felt, yuk, attracted to, yuk, yuk, a man who was ancient, probably nearly fifty, yuk yuk yuk, with a creased and lived in face (she started running out of "yuks"). And she'd wondered about, many yuks, you know, kissing him and letting his hands wander and – lots of yuks – doing the dirty with him, many yuks plus one (3)... at least Gareth was pretty much her own age and it wasn't sick to feel attracted to a boy your own age, was it?
She contemplated doing It with Gareth. It was not an unpleasant thing to contemplate. She felt thrilled, but forced herself to look non-committal.
"OK, silly thought. Spoke out loud. Forget I ever said it." Gareth said, hastily.
"No." she said, hastily. "What did you have in mind?"
He gulped and told her. It sounded mad. And it was against a lot of school rules. They could get into a lot of trouble, maybe even get expelled. But she really, really, wanted to do it.
She fixed Gareth with a confident smile and the full force of her marvellous new eyes. He tried not to flinch.
"Well, I'm up for it." she said, softly and confidently. "Let's do it!" There was a pause, and she added "But... not anywhere involving privvies, perhaps?"
And now it was close to midnight. Catherine pulled the blanket carefully up to her neck and feigned sleep. Not long to go now before Madame Two-Swords, or better, her teaching assistant, did the midnight dorm check and counted heads. After which they'd be left undisturbed until morning.
She really hoped it was the Head of House, Miss Catrharine-with-an-"a" Furbish-Lousewart. Madame often delegated routine jobs to trusted senior students. She wasn't stupid, not by any means – she was tipped to fly through her Final Run , for one thing, and was starred for her expertise in Drainholing (3a) and Plant-Derived Toxins. She simply did not have the practical experience of Madame Two-Swords, and could be fooled easily. (4)
There was an air of subdued excitement in the dorm. Somebody giggled. Catherine winced, and hoped Madame would not get suspicious.
There was a distant clicking of heels in the corridor. Madame Two-Swords was fair-minded, Catherine knew, and liked to announce her presence when on dorm checks, so as to give the girls a sporting chance to discontinue any activity that might otherwise necessitate official involvement. You then had about thirty seconds in between hearing the Heels and being seen to be in bed, asleep, with the lights out. This informal agreement suited both sides: it spared Madame un-necessary paperwork, and allowed the girls some space in which to be mildly rebellious, if they felt a need.
But you had to be seen in bed, sleeping, during dorm check. It was the rules.
She focused on her breathing, pretending to be asleep. She registered a distant brightening in the room as the corridor light briefly shone in through the opened door. She heard the regular clicking of heels up and down the dorm as Madame made her head-tally. This did not take long. The door closed, and the heels were heard clicking up the corridor towards the Sixth Form study-bedrooms. Catherine forced herself to wait until she heard the heels in the corridor, clicking back down towards the House Mistress's apartment. Even then, she forced herself to count to two hundred, adding another hundred for good measure.
And then she was out of the bedclothes she'd pulled up to her neck, over her fully-dressed body, reaching for her boots and tugging them on.
"I still think you're being stupid, but good luck, Cathy." Chakkie said, sleepily.
"Don't forget. You are telling us everything later!" said Maddy Selachii.
Catherine grinned, and moved to the window she'd identified as being best for the purpose. There was a thick growth of ivy on the outside wall which completely circled the window aperture. As she slipped out, trying to ignore the fact she was eighty feet up, she slipped into its cover and used the thick stems and tendrils to help her edificeer her way to the top. She paused underneath the gutter and listened. A couple of feet above her, a roof guard passed on the parapet walkway. She counted to twenty, feeling strangely alive in the cool night air, then silently scrambled over the ornamental capping and the gutter and rolled over the low balustrade. Just basic edificeering and night concealment. The Guild had taught her well. Cloak-wrapped, she moved onto the sloping roof, taking care to stay below its apex and not let herself be silhouetted. After a few moments she sank down just above a dormer window, wrapped herself in her cloak, and sat unmoving. The roof guard had turned and was now moving back down his parapet beat, towards her. Catherine allowed herself to sink into the line of the roof, and waited. After a few moments, the guard receded away, his back towards her. She smiled, and moved quickly to exploit the darker shadow of a passing night cloud as it darkened the moon.
Now, Gareth told me to watch out for a cluster of seven or eight chimney stacks. I've seen them myself on Edificeering lessons. Miss Band called them the Water Babies, for some reason. They should be...
She spotted the silhouette of a guard, unmoving against the sky. She sighed. Whoever it was had forgotten about silhouette. They stood out for miles. But doing this regularly must make people careless, she thought. Nobody had seriously attacked the Guild in its own headquarters. Nobody would dare to. She waited, assessing the still guard. Then, when this guard too stood and moved away from her, she waited a few moments and moved on. And there they were. The cluster of chimneys. As agreed, she carefully and deliberately moved towards them.
And in the centre, hidden by the tall square columns of brickwork, was Gareth. She knew him by sight. And later on, by touch.
"I thought you'd never turn up." he whispered. "Look, lay your cloak out here. Top of mine."
And then, for the first time in her life, on top of the Assassins' Guild under moonlight, Catherine kissed a boy. And found she liked it.
The girls in the fifth form dorm were consternated when, about half an hour later, Madame Deux-Epées unexpectedly returned, this time wearing light slippers and moving completely silently. Conversation hushed. The girls had no idea as to how long Madame might have been eavesdropping on a conversation revolving around "Do you think she's going to get away with it?"
They watched her move silently down the dorm until she came to Catherine's vacated bed. She did not seem too surprised. There was a dead silence.
"Bien sur." said Madame. "The game, I think, is over. If I may make an observation, half an hour ago you were all lying in bed in a state of excitement, like children at Hogswatch too excited to sleep. I suspected something was amiss, so I made a note to return and check. For now, I do not propose to miss any more sleep than I need to."
She swung herself onto Catherine's bed, and relaxed herself.
"So I propose to rest here and await miss Perry-Bowen's return, and to see what she has to say for herself. That may be some time. Until then, I shall sleep here, amongst you. In the morning I may speak further to all of you. Bonne nuit!"
Eventually, Gareth and Catherine were brought back to reality. They'd been too wrapped up in each other to notice anything happening outside the protective circle of chimneystacks; Catherine in particular had found the experience somewhat absorbing and overwhelming. But the polite, emphatic, cough from very close by was like an icy bath. It was a cough that meant trouble.
She looked up from the shadows. A figure was silhouetted against the moonlight, not bothering to conceal herself. It was definitely a female figure.
"You're both in trouble, I'm afraid." she said, pleasantly. "If it helps, I feel like a complete cow, but I do have instructions and standing orders."
Catherine recognised the voice. Miss Jocasta Wiggs, a final-year student just coming up to her Final Run.(5) Roof Prefect. Senior students had to put in roof patrols on a strict rota, supervised by graduate Assassins or teachers. It helped to sharpen their skills. And Jocasta Wiggs had her usual slightly apologetic air about her, when you looked closely.
"It would help if you tell me your names." she prompted. "I half-recognise one of you, anyway."
Gareth slumped slightly, then squared his shoulders.
"Let me pick my cloak up..." he said, bending down. He gathered both cloaks up in his arms. Miss Wiggs watched him, poised just-so for anything tricky.
"I'm Gareth ffitzroy-Connor. Ragineau's House."
She nodded. "Show me the nametape in your cloak."
As a dark lantern flared, Catherine realised nobody was looking at her. She'd been in shadow. Maybe she still had a hope of making something out of the night... Jocasta inclined her head to confirm the name as Gareth helpfully turned down the collar of his cloak, held in his outstretched arms.
Catherine made a decision.
She turned.
And ran for it.
"Oh, damn!" said Miss Jocasta Wiggs, watching her retreating back. A couple of night guards, with no obvious haste, were following.
"You'd better take me into custody, then!" Gareth said, cheerfully.
At least Cathy saw her chance and got away, he thought. I hope I can keep her out of this.
"I'm sorry." Jocasta said, taking his arm. "Mr Moody's in charge of roof security tonight. And even if I'd wanted to look the other way and forget that I'd seen you both..."
"I understand." Gareth said. He reflected that in another couple of years he'd have to wear a Prefect's badge and help enforce school rules. It would only be petty to be other than cheerful and polite.
"But you might want to mention to the young lady when you see her next that I let you both have a good twenty minutes. I thought that would be long enough to give you a few good memories, when you go in front of the Master for a sherry."
"Don't forget the almond slice." Gareth said, with as much cheer as he could muster.
"Yes. I rather thought twenty uninterrupted minutes might make the almond slice worthwhile. Shall we go?"
Jocasta courteously escorted him along the roof to an access door. Gareth followed. They had his name. It wasn't worth running. In the better light, Gareth could see the senior girl looked both apologetic and amused.
"Fifth form? You're still in dorms, aren't you? No privacy. Look, can I give you some practical advice?" Jocasta lowered her voice and looked both ways to see if she was being overheard. Satisfying herself, she said, close to his ear:
"Fifth is the last year you spend in big dorms. If you make it to Lower Sixth, you get study bedrooms. You might even luck out and get one of the detached Hall of Residence places up at Mollymog. There's a big advantage to sharing a study bedroom with at most three other people. You can, er, keep each other's secrets better, when you're four and not twelve or thirty. You can agree among yourselves for three of you to be somewhere else for an hour if one of you, er, wants a guest over. Do you get my point? Another night, you return the favour for somebody else, and go to the student lounge or the library for a couple of hours. My advice is.. you and... Catherine, wasn't it? - wait a year till you're both in Sixth. It gets easier then."
Gareth did not react, apart from to say "thank you."
"I never saw her face and she didn't speak. I can't identify her." Jocasta added, as if speaking to herself. "Mr Moody will really shout at me for not doing my job properly. Can't be helped, I suppose."
He smiled. Cathy was safe, for the moment. Provided she made it unseen back to her dorm...
Cathy ran quickly along the roof, keeping her head below the ridge, retracing her steps. There would be a corner where two walls met at a nearly right angle, where the concealing ivy grew thickest. She sensed the nearness of a roof guard and thought quickly.
"Intruder on the roof. Probably a student out after curfew. She went that way!"
She pointed towards the maze of chimney stacks where she and Gareth had been caught, and waited while the roof guard, another senior student, obligingly headed off towards them. She pretended to follow, then turned and slipped off towards her dorm and safety. Senior students and prefects could be so easy to fool. Just project authority towards them and they were conditioned to obey... Madame had called this "the Überwaldean Fire Drill"(6), hadn't she...
She slipped over the balustrade. After a while there was a rustling in the ivy, as of some small nocturnal animal...
Baron Striefenkanen was not a happy man. Roused from sleep to interview an absconding student, he loomed and intimidated. Lord Downey was not too pleased either. The only School tutor to look smugly happy was Mr Moody, who had at last caught one. He'd been looking forward to this for ages. Such a shame the Wiggs girl had allowed the girl pupil to escape...
"You did the correct thing, Mr Moody." Downey reassured him, biting back a yawn. "Any intrusion on Guild premises after dark should be treated as a priority security concern and I should be present to deal with it personally."
He gave Gareth a long cold look. The Master's body language was saying there would be consequences for a night's interrupted sleep. It was not reassuring. The Master's study was designed to be a subtly intimidating place for any student caught red-handed in the breach of School rules. At one in the morning it was a place of shadow and sinister candle-light flickering.
"Especially when the intrusion comes from within, Master." Mr Moody said, unctuously. Downey nodded, grimly. He privately did not care too much for Moody, a primly fussy little man who taught things like Social Graces and Etiquette. The students nick-named him Mr Nuggan after an especially officious God. Even his colleague Joan Sanderson-Reeves, who taught social graces like Deportment and Elocution to the pupils and who could be expected to have much in common with him, dismissed him as a ghastly odious little twerp. Joan's teaching was largely pragmatic and addressed a need; she suspected he taught the pupils out of social snobbery and some sort of arriviste need to be seen as cultured and graceful. (7)
"Indeed, Mr Moody." Downey said, looking intently at Gareth. "Our roof patrols are not only senior students on the Security module. They are taught to exercise common sense and discretion and to evaluate a situation correctly before responding."
He nodded at Jocasta Wiggs, approvingly.
"Which teaching, Miss Wiggs has applied impeccably and admirably tonight. Well done, Miss Wiggs. I will ensure your housemistress, Miss Band, is informed."
Jocasta reddened slightly at the praise.
"Experienced graduate Assassins are also deployed to night security, to direct, guide, and back up student prefects. Unlike the students, who may only use force in clear self-defence, full Assassins may at their discretion employ escalating applied violence up to and including inhumation."
He paused to let the point sink in.
"And any regrettable confusion of that sort entails paperwork. And breaking the sad news to your parents. Quite apart from this, Guild porters also patrol at night. They are strictly prohibited from killing, except in clear and demonstrable self-defence. But they carry large batons and I'm reliably assured their boots incorporate steel toecaps. They also have this in common with University Bledlows, with whom they share many common qualities, in that they do not tire easily and are quite implacable. They are also loyal to a man to the Dark Council. Splendid fellows, I do not know where we would be without them."
Downey smiled, seraphically.
"So you were fortunate in that Miss Wiggs opted to employ a gentle, more feminine, approach to detaining you. The night could have been far worse."
Gareth winced slightly. Some of the younger porters were class-conscious and would view catching one of the Gentlemen on a dark night, in a place he had no business to be, as an opportunity to fight a skirmish in the ongoing class war.
Baron Striefenkanen coughed. He meant it to be gentle and deferential, but from a man his size, it still made a window rattle slightly. Built to a very large scale and extravagantly bearded, in Assassin black he looked like a better class of more stylish pirate. Well-founded rumour said he was part werewolf, although nobody had ever seen him Change.
"Herr Baron?" Downey invited him.
"We should, I think, seek to conclude this quickly." the Baron said. His voice had a slight tinge of Überwald to it. "I am sure we all have full working days tomorrow."
Downey nodded.
"Mr Moody?"
Moody's voice, in comparison, was thin and higher-pitched.
"My roof guard patrol had cause to detain this student for being outdoors after curfew with no legitimate cause. As a girl pupil was known to be with him, who unfortunately was allowed to escape..." he glared at Jocasta, "...we can perhaps safely assume another serious breach of school rules was in progress. The Herr Baron will no doubt wish to pursue a seperate charge of this student, a member of his house, absconding from his dormitory without due permission. Three breaches of school rules, Master."
"Has the young woman been apprehended?" Downey asked, as the Baron shot an irritated glare at Moody. Nobody likes to be reminded they have slipped up.
"No, Master. Not as yet." Moody admitted.
"That may be just as well. Our Housemistresses are inclined to be irritable if deprived of their beauty sleep. Best not involve them yet. Besides, we need only speak to one of them. Not all four."
Even the Baron shuddered slightly at the thought of Alice Band or Lady T'Malia roused in the middle of the night to answer a disciplinary case against one of their girls.
"Have we any clues as to her identity?" Downey inquired.
"The boy might perhaps be so kind as to tell us?" Moody inquired. He glared at Gareth. "It's already looking bad for you, boy. Do not let it become worse."
Downey motioned him to silence.
"Well, Mr ffitzroy-Connor?" he inquired.
Gareth took a deep breath and shook his head.
"No, my Lord." he said, firmly.
"No?" Moody repeated, incredulous.
"No. Sir." Gareth repeated. He tucked the rolled cloak further under his arm, feeling four again and in need of a security blanket. He decided he really didn't like Mr Nuggan.
The Baron smiled, faintly.
"But you know you may be able to mitigate punishment by giving us her name, jünge." he said.
"At the price of seeing her punished. No, Herr Baron."
Gareth took a deep breath and assembled his thoughts.
"My lord, Herr Baron... sir... you have caught me breaking school rules. I knew I was breaking school rules. I have no defence and I will accept whatever punishment you choose to mete out. That is fair. But I would dare to suggest you did not catch my accomplice. It is not for me to give you her name. It is for you to catch her. That is also fair. My lord."
Downey thought back to when he had been a pupil. Not a model one, certainly. He had done things against both the letter and the spirit of school rules himself. Havelock Vetinari could and did remind him, often in inventively subtle ways. But the young man standing in front of him, although scared, was acting in the spirit of one of the deepest and most embedded school rules of all. Do not peach on others. Do not go running to Teacher with tales. Somewhere deep down, a sixteen year old Donald Downey was cheering with approval.
Baron Striefenkanan was thinking back to a recent discreet discussion with Madame Deux-Epées concerning two of their pupils. He recalled young ffitzroy-Connor had been one of the two. He thought he now knew who the accomplice had been. But the Baron had also once been a schoolboy...
"This is not acceptable!" Moody burst out. "You know this girl's name. I demand that you tell us!"
Gareth looked at his teacher with fear. And dislike. A calm inner voice prompted him.
"You demand, sir? But this isn't in line with what you said in your Social Graces lecture the other week. I clearly recall you lectured Fifth Form boys in the social skills of gentlemanly conduct. You stressed that whether it involved a Duchess or a downstairs maid, a gentleman never tells. That it was the height of caddish behaviour to betray a lady's confidences or good reputation. And right now there is a young lady whose good reputation is compromised. Sir. But not by me. Sir. And I cannot be blamed for adhering to principles of gentlemanly conduct that you yourself taught me. Sir."
Gareth stepped back, aware of Jocasta Wiggs trying hard to keep a straight face, and wondering if the third un-necessary "sir" had been a sarcasm too far. But if he was doomed, he'd go down fighting.
Downey broke the silence.
"Go and wait outside, Mr ffitzroy-Connor." he invited Gareth. "You too, miss Wiggs. Stand guard."
He waited for the door to close and exhaled.
"The boy has a point." the Baron admitted. He had privately decided not to name any names.
"Indeed." Downey agreed. "His attitude and reasoned defence do him great credit. Without being unduly insubordinate and disrespectful, he stood up to Authority. While clearly frightened, he was not intimidated and acquitted himself well."
"There still has to be a punishment." Moody insisted.
"Oh, indeed, Mr Moody. Indeed. And punishment, judiciously and intelligently applied, is corrective. I do not propose to expel. A written warning should suffice, together with some strongly suggested ways in which he can harmlessly burn off surplus energies in his spare time. Monitored, of course. I believe I have just seen a first-class young Assassin in the making and I do not propose to lose him to expulsion. And because we are not fools, we observe the young man to assess which young ladies in his peer group he is closest to. Should we not detain her tonight, we can deduce who the... accomplice... was, and her Housemistress can give her a private word of warning later. Without losing any sleep over it. Now call him back in, if you please?"
Catherine, after a short and dusty scramble down the ivy, found the open window looming up to her left. She cautiously brought her head up through the foliage to see if she was being observed. Then, assuring herself it was safe to do so, she swiftly rolled in over the sill, landing on her feet on the inside. She ran for her bed, pausing to start to tug her boots off. All the pursuit would see would be a sleeping student. And then, to her horror, the shape lying on her bed resolved itself into Madame Two-Swords, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side.
"Catherine. Cherie. So nice of you to drop in." her teacher said, with dry irony. "Is it possible there is something I need to know?"
Madame stood, as cold horror trickled down Catherine's back. She paused, then put a finger to her lips.
"Into the bed. Vite! Pretend sleep. Toutes vitesse!"
As Catherine pulled the covers over herself, she saw Madame making her way to the open window.
"I'm sure it was this one." a male voice whispered. "Somebody climbed in through here."
"It's a dorm." said the other.
"Indeed it is, gentlemen." Madame said. "May I inquire as to why you are at the window of a girls' dormitory, disturbing the sleep of my students?"
The voice had just a hint of outrage and indignity to it.
"Although I am sure your reasons are honourable. May I remind you this is a female-only space and there are the strictest rules about men entering it?"
She rested her hand on her hip, just above the pommel of her sword.
"There is an intruder, Madame. We thought we saw a black-clad person enter through this window."
"Then allow me to reassure you. I have been here for most of the last forty-five minutes. Had anyone entered this room through this window, I would have been completely aware of it. You have my full assurance of that. You may wish to direct your search elsewhere. Now if there is nothing else, gentlemen? Bien. Bonne nuit!"
Strictly speaking, she told the absolute truth, Catherine reflected.
Madame closed the window with a very Quirmian thud, an emphatic gesture of offended dignity. She stood in the silence for a moment or two, in deep thought.
"Catherine, you will have the kindness to report to me first thing in the morning. The rest of you. Do not think you will not also be spoken to. For now, we all require rest and sleep. Especially me. Bonne nuit, restez tres tranquille!"
She left, closing the door behind her. Catherine eventually drifted off to sleep, thinking that could have been worse! And I wonder what perfume Madame uses? My pillow smells of it. I want some. And Oh my Gods! I forgot my cloak! And it's got my name sewn into the neck!
(1) Martin Bellamy's slight flush and guilty aversion of eyes had spoken volumes. Davinia had then shared the little nugget of information with her colleague Johanna Smith-Rhodes, Margaret's housemistress. A well-run school staffroom is also an Intelligence hub where information is collected, fact-checked, rated for accuracy, and shared with other professionals over hot tea and a smoke.
(2) "personal and social development" - the educational establishment's professional euphemism for "sexual education". Igorina provided this mercilessly and The Lecture was capable of traumatising sensitive young girls to the point where they staggered out vowing to be celibate for the rest of their lives. PSD, in the opinion of other teachers, was vital and utterly necessary as a part of the curriculum. Just so long as somebody else taught it, thank you very much. Emmanuelle had forestalled previous episodes of Boy Trouble by sending susceptible girls back to Igorina to sit The Lecture again. It saved on paperwork, was off the official record, and averted bad publicity in the form of teenage pregnancies or enraged parents.
(3) In certain specialised circumstances, humans can count like trolls, generally when the higher centres fuse and shut down and really emotional things are asserting themselves.
(3a) A late entry. Sorry, renumbering everything is a bit of a bore. A quick note. Edificeering involves climbing up things; a sort of urban mountainering. Drainholing involves the opposite direction and can be thought of as urban spelunking, utilising Ankh-Morpork's extensive underground network and Undercity. The first Dwarf pupils at the Guild School would excel at this.
(4) Catharine Furbish-Lousewart was from a family of herbalists and came to the Assassins' School with a sound grounding in the medicinal and other uses of plants. Davinia Bellamy wanted her to stay on as a post-graduate, hence her TA status. The betony family of plants includes the lousewart, which as its name implies is a useful preventative against parasite infections. Also called woundwart, it was used in antiquity as a salve on open wounds that had useful antiseptic and disinfectant properties. Furbish's Lousewart is an endangered species found only in parts of Maine, New England, and was the subject of long debate as to how far we should go in preserving endangered species. Some people thought going to that extent just for a goddam weed was downright silly, as opposed to, say, a cute cuddly panda or a red squirrel. Plants do not have the same high-powered PR as pandas, evidently.
(5) This is part of the chronologically ordered back-story, which precedes both Jocasta's graduation as an Assassin and the attack on the Guild by were-leopards (see my other stories The Graduation Class and Whys and Weres). Getting them all in time-order is a bit of a bugger...
(6) On this world, capitalising on people's innate and conditioned obedience response to get them to do your bidding is often called the ''Bavarian Fire Drill". When you think about it, this is the reason why TV prank shows of the Candid Camera, Trigger-Happy TV or Game For A Laugh variety work... speak to somebody with sufficient authority and most people will do as they are told. It also explains the Stanford Experiments...
(7) Joan also knew that Moody's father was a dunnikindiver in Pseudopolis. This was blackmail gold, as Moody made out that his parents were well-off bourgeousie in a respectable trade involving interior design, comfort and ease. Which was true, for a given value of "true". She had made it clear to him, privately, that she was sure the rumour about his having been apprenticed to his father's trade, shortly before winning a Scholarship to the Guild School many years before, was just so much, shall we say, organic fertiliser derived from bovine animals of the male gender?
This episode's bonus lyrics:
They say that you're a runaround lover CHORUS You say that you're at home when you phone me CHORUS One of these days you're gonna be sorry 'cause the night has a thousand eyes So remember when you tell those little white lies
Though you say it isn't so
But if you put me down for another
I'll know, believe me, I'll know
'cause the night has a thousand eyes
And a thousand eyes can't help but see if you are true to me
So remember when you tell those little white lies
That the night has a thousand eyes
And how much you really care
Though you keep telling me that you're lonely
I'll know if someone is there
'cause your game I'm gonna play
And you'll find out without really tryin'
Each time that my kisses stray
And a thousand eyes will see me too
And no matter what I do
I could never disguise all my little white lies
'cause the night has a thousand eyes
That the night has a thousand eyes
(Bobby Vee: The Night Has a Thousand Eyes)