The Grandmaster's Tale

Unless he thinks he can inherit ahead of time, I thought, before dismissing the idea as being absurdly complex. There were no shortages of heirs who’d inherited in suspicious circumstances, but most of them had fairly credible cover stories. Walter isn’t daft enough to believe he could get away with kidnapping and murdering his father outright, is he?

I didn’t know. I had relatives who were stupid enough to think they could get away with just about anything, from molesting the maids to lying to their fathers. They’d never faced consequences in their lives, not even a slap on the wrist … naturally, they thought they’d never face any consequences at all. Some of them had been right … others had discovered, too late, that they weren’t immune to punishment or that simply they’d been denied the rewards and prospects offered to others. I wouldn’t have trusted someone so entitled he thought he could get away with anything and many other people would feel the same way.

And then they had the nerve to complain they were being denied the posts they thought were theirs by right, I thought. It had been a rare moment of justice in a family that thought blood was often more important than skill. Walter might go the same way, too.

I kept walking, randomly wandering the corridors. The air felt tense, suggesting trouble … I kept my eyes open, watching for the first hint someone had drawn the short straw and found himself charged with keeping watch for approaching tutors. It was a thankless job, but someone had to do it …

And then I heard the scream.

Chapter 6

I ran.

Jacky popped out of nowhere and opened his mouth. I zapped him with a freeze spell and darted past, hearing his body crash to the floor behind me. The last thing I needed was for someone to shout CAVE before I caught the guilty party in the act. Someone else ran past, her pale eyes wide. I gritted my teeth as I ran around the corner, bracing myself as best as I could. There were few adults with the naked sadism of students. The youngsters tended to lack the awareness of possible consequences that dominated adult thought.

The scene before me was horrific. Alan was bent over, hands clutching his chest. Blood spilled from between his fingers and dripped on the floor. Geraldine stood next to him, frantically casting healing spells that refused to take … she was too frantic, part of my mind realised dully, to properly complete the spells. Walter, Adrian and Stephen stood nearby, faces twisted into leers. Other students were watching, unsure what to do. They scattered the moment they saw me. I was almost relieved. The bullies had gone too far, finally …

“Stand back,” I ordered Geraldine. She was trying her best, but she wasn’t helping. “Let me …”

I cast the freeze spell on Alan, then levitated him into the air. It was hard to get a good look at the wound—his hands covered everything—but judging by the neat tear on his robes his attacker had used a cutting charm. I was surprised Alan was still alive. The charm could have cut his entire body in half, putting him beyond all hope of salvation. I snapped out a pair of spells to clean up the blood—I didn’t want to leave it lying around, not when someone could use it to curse him from a safe distance—then levitated Alan down the corridor. The audience had vanished. I told myself it wouldn’t protect them. I’d seen enough faces to get their owners on the hot seat, then sweat them until they gave up the rest. It wasn’t fun and games, even by a sadist’s standards, any longer. It was attempted murder.

“They tried to grab me,” Geraldine stammered. She was in shock. She wouldn’t have been so open about what had happened if she’d been thinking straight. “Alan tried to stop them, and they cursed him and …”

“Later,” I snapped. Alan had lost a lot of blood. The wound could be sealed easily enough, but replacing the blood would be harder. I caught a passing firstie and sent him to take a message to Mistress Constance, asking her to meet me in the infirmary. She might have to whip up a potion to encourage his body to replenish its blood reserves. “Let me keep him alive first.”