The Grandmaster's Tale

I doubted it. I’d seen enough conspiracies to know that the odds of exposure increased with every person brought into the circle. There were ways to get people involved without ever quite telling them what you were doing—I’d seen that, too—but that upped the chances of someone, quite innocently, betraying the secret. Besides, there’d been no hint Boscha had been training anyone the previous year. He’d only started talking about the future, and our role in it, a few short months ago. In hindsight, I wondered if that was when he’d been brought into the conspiracy.

And they couldn’t have been ready to seize the school then, or they’d have done it with his help, I thought. No, the plan is only just starting to take shape. We have a chance to stop it without major bloodshed.

“We have time,” I said, and explained my reasoning. “But we have to move now.”

“Agreed,” Pepper said. “How do we unseat him?”

I scowled. On paper, there were procedures for the staff to call their master to account. We were supposed to contact the board, make our case, and rely on them to deal with the grandmaster. In practice, I doubted the board would listen. Boscha was their choice for the role and, with at least five of the seven board members involved with the plot, they’d be unlikely to do anything to remove him. It was more likely we’d all be summarily fired.

“He has control of the wards,” Mistress Constance said. She eyed the walls as if she expected them to come to life and bite her. In Whitehall, that wasn’t impossible. “If we challenge him directly, all of us, he can still win.”

“We have samples of his son’s blood,” I pointed out. “We can subvert the wards.”

“Not for long,” Pepper said.

I cursed under my breath. Boscha did have a habit of leaving the school and visiting the brothel, and I was sure I could take him in a straight fight, but catching him would be a problem. The high-class brothels were heavily warded to keep out prying eyes, while Boscha didn’t have to walk down to town and back whenever he wanted to get laid. He could just teleport … I considered a handful of possible ways to assassinate him; but they’d all be chancy, and there’d be no way to hide the fact it was an assassination. Boscha took no chances with his personal safety, from what I’d seen, and anything that might break through his defences would be clearly intentional. I wasn’t even sure I could get close enough to do it. Hell, even if it looked as if he’d gone to sleep one night and never awoken, the board would ask a bunch of questions. And the answers would get us all killed.

I scowled. Perhaps I could kill him, then go rogue …

No, I thought. That would leave his backers free to try again.

“We need to discredit him,” I mused. “And we need to force him to leave.”

“Well, yes,” Pepper said. “We could duel him for the post.”

“These are not the days of Lord Whitehall,” Mistress Constance pointed out, waspishly. It was late and we all had full days tomorrow. “You cannot lop someone’s head off and claim it entitles you to his title, his lands, his wife and whatever else he has!”

I had to agree. “Boscha didn’t get his title because he was the greatest duellist in the school,” I said. “But I think I have a plan. We need to get the other staff involved, too.”

“The ones we can trust,” Mistress Constance said. “Not all are trustworthy.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. There were staff members I trusted to side with me against Boscha, but not against the Supremacists. Approaching them would be asking for trouble. “But I think we can arrange matters to have most of the staff on our side.”

“Right,” Pepper said, doubtfully. “What do you have in mind?”

I took a breath, then started to outline my plan.

Chapter 8

I hated my dress robes. Really, I did. They were bright red with gold tassels and thread, cut in a manner that made me look like I’d been cursed into a walking trifle and then hexed to waddle around the room in a manner that suggested I was on the verge of tumbling over. The only upside, I’d long since decided, was that I could hide quite a few things under my robes. The rest of the staff didn’t look any better, as we assembled in the entrance hall. Even Boscha himself, resplendent in white and gold robes, looked unhappy. I don’t know what he was complaining about. The female staff had it worse. The designer, who’d probably died years ago, hadn’t given any thought to crafting his wares for people who had breasts.

And the Grandmaster could have changed the style years ago, I thought. Why didn’t he?