The Spellbinder (Tom & Laura Series), page 9
“You boy, what did you just whisper?” Dr. Snow asked, instantly identifying the culprit.
“He said, ‘Get a royal warrant and do what you want’,” Cam piped up. Tom thought she must have excellent hearing as he hadn’t caught any words of the whisper.
Dr. Snow paced up and down and looked angry.
“You think spies are above the law? That we can be licensed by Royal Warrant to murder citizens of the Empire? That the Empress of a Quarter of-the-World will sanction you to kill anybody you disagree with?” Dr Snow paused, shaking with fury, and he took a deep breath.
“Citizens of the Empire are protected by the law. If there are any assassins in the Empire’s pay, you will not find them in MM3 and never will. You may defend yourself if threatened, and if you have cause to kill another to save lives, you will most probably be pardoned, but you do not have a license to kill. And pray God that nobody in the Empire is ever given that right. That way lies tyranny.”
That was the kind of Empire Tom wanted to serve. It felt good to hear a teacher in a school for spies say it out loud. He had begun to suspect the worse since he became involved with MM3.
There was no break at noon, the lessons carried on relentlessly, teaching normal subjects along with those related to spying. The last two hours of the working day were physical exercises, which Tom was excused, but Laura took part in and found exhausting.
After getting hot and sweaty, she was expected to use the communal showers and have ice-cold water poured over her. Everyone showered naked, split up only by sex, which Laura found slightly disturbing. She also discovered that ice cold water made her nipples stand up, but that it was not at all a pleasurable experience.
Late in the day, the final bell sounded and everybody headed for the dining room. Dining was more civilized than breakfast, the benches had tablecloths and the staff ate with the students, sitting at a table at the front of the room.
Tom and Laura sat with Tompkins as Cam had disappeared after showering. The Headmaster stood up and said grace. No sooner had he finished than Cam entered the room with blood dripping from a horrible wound at her throat before sliding dramatically to the floor. Tom and Laura looked to Tomkins in horror, but his grinning face reassured them. A girl screamed, much to everybody’s amusement.
Cam got up from the floor and took a long low bow to appreciative laughter and the odd jeer. Even some of the teachers applauded her performance. Once again, her makeup had proved a resounding success. She jostled Tom and Laura to make a space between them where she could sit down.
“I think that may have been my finest moment,” she told them breathlessly.
“How did you get the blood to look so blood-like?” Laura asked. She was only slightly put off from her question by the gaping wound around her friend’s neck.
“Trade secret, I’m afraid,” Cam said. She laughed, “Oh, but we are in the same trade aren’t we. I shall tell you when there are no boys around.”
Laura suddenly had a horrible thought and was almost sick as a possibility occurred to her. ‘Surely not even Cam would have used… no, it was unthinkable’. At the very least, Laura was not going to think it, and she decided to avoid being in Cam’s company when there were no boys around. Just in case her suspicions were right.
Chapter 13 Looking
Grades of Magical Power
Magic skills are broken down by the Empire into five grades. The skills users have are complex and the guide below gives only a flavor of the capabilities involved. The rare skills of Telepathy and Reading are not categorized into grades.
Grade 1
Spellbinding:
Binds can last for up to two weeks.
Healing:
Can cure complex diseases like consumption and cancer.
Farseeing:
Can see events as they happen anywhere in the world.
Precognition:
Can see events several weeks in the future and locate them.
Empathy:
Can spot an assassin in a crowd.
Grade 2
Spellbinding:
Binds can last for up to six days.
Healing:
Can mend a broken bone; heal deep wounds and damage to organs.
Farseeing:
Can see events as they happen within a thousand miles.
Precognition:
Can see events up to a week in the future.
Empathy:
Can spot the liars in a group asked a question.
Grade 3
Spellbinding:
Binds can last for longer than a day.
Healing:
Can heal small wounds and conditions like trench foot.
Farseeing:
Can see events as they happen for up to 250 miles.
Precognition:
Can see important events up to three days into the future.
Empathy:
Can detect lying in an individual.
Grade 4
Spellbinding:
Binds can last for at least six hours up to a day.
Healing:
Can reduce swelling and pain.
Farseeing:
Can see important events that matter to them.
Precognition:
Can see important events that matter to them.
Empathy:
Can sense emotional states.
Grade 5
Talents are mostly useless at this level but are still detectable and may sometimes prove useful.
Class A A level roughly ten times as powerful as Grade 1.
- from A Short History of Military Magics by Sir Anthony Barrett
They discussed the school in the common room after dinner. Tompkins had disappeared, but Cam seemed determined to stay with them until bedtime.
According to the ever loquacious Cam, there were 123 pupils at Hobsgate and every one of them had some magical ability. However, with the exception of Tom and Laura, nobody had a lot of it. The Minister of War had ruled that only those with magical skills of Grade 4 or below could be used on such peripheral things as Intelligence.
“It used to be Grade 3 in the old days,” Cam told them cheerfully. “But as the Empire expands the number of talented people remains roughly constant and Grade 3’s are needed with the army and navy. Even then, any Grade 4’s in the Spellbinder and Healer categories are usually reserved for the forces or for teaching.”
“You’re all Farseers, Precogs and Empaths?” Tom asked.
Cam nodded, “Pretty much.”
“And you are a…?” Laura asked.
Cam frowned. “It’s not considered polite to ask. In your case it was up on the notice board so we all know what you are. At Hobsgate a person is judged by all their skills, not just the magical ones.”
Tom changed the subject as Laura looked annoyed.
“When you think about it, Empaths, Farseers and Precogs make perfect spies as all those skills can be really useful in their jobs, even at a low level.”
Cam grinned. “They do. I’m an Empath and right now I am sensing that Laura is angry with me for not telling her. That sort of thing is really useful.”
Laura laughed and punched Cam lightly on the shoulder. The tension that had grown between them vanished.
When they got back to their bedrooms Tom and Laura were exhausted. Tom was feeling the bruises from the kicking he had sustained. He knew he was lucky to be alive and walking, but he didn’t feel the slightest bit lucky. He took a couple of drops of liquid opium from the bottle the doctor gave him and fell asleep within minutes.
Next morning, Laura knocked on Tom’s door before breakfast and let herself in. Tom was still in bed and as he slept naked he pulled the covers up to his neck to cover himself.
“Is there an emergency?” he asked, wondering if he’d have to run outside as he was or did he have time to dress.
“No, I just needed to talk to you alone before we join the others for breakfast.”
Tom relaxed and then was on his guard again as Laura sat on the bed, her body dangerously close to his.
“Tom, we have to start acting as if this is a prison and everyone is a potential enemy.”
“That sounds a little drastic?”
“We have been attacked twice in two days and Snood hasn’t even got here yet. What we need to do is explore, find escape routes. I plan to leave spare parchment and pens in hidden places, maybe food and other supplies as well. So that, if we need to, we can run without having to come back to our rooms. That’s the first place our enemies will look for us.”
Tom mulled this over. He regarded boarding schools as his home as he had spent a lot of his life in them and was already beginning to settle in here, but Laura was right. They could trust no one and they knew they were targets. It seemed best to go along with her scheme.
“All right. When do we start?”
“Today at noon, we don’t have any lessons this afternoon and we should find the escape routes out of the castle and out of the area.”
Cam and Tompkins were waiting for them outside the mess door. Cam was her quite her usual self, there was a big fake bruise on her forehead and she had marked her hands at the wrists so it looked as though her hands had been cut off and stitched back together again.
Cam’s mouth formed an O of surprise as she looked carefully at Tom
“The bruise on your face where you were kicked has gone. That amazing, you must be an incredibly fast healer. Unless…” She stared accusingly at Laura, “You used a bind.”
Laura laughed dismissively, because Cam had stumbled onto something very near the truth. “Binds can’t heal and I’m certainly not a Healer.” Cam continued to stare at her with narrowed eyes and Laura remembered the girl was an Empath. She’d have to be careful about how she felt when talking to her.
“I must have transferred it to you, Cam. That’s a very impressive bruise. Do you want me to heal it?”
Cam grinned. “You know it’s a fake. I can’t let my audience down, you know.”
Tomkins scowled and stamped away from them to join the queue in the mess.
“Whatever’s a matter with him?” Laura asked.
Cam shrugged. “He received some bad news from home. At least I assume it was bad news. He hasn’t told me what was in the letter he got this morning.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t stolen it to find out,” Tom said, only half-joking.
“Watch and learn,” Cam said, ignoring Tom’s insult. She stepped briskly towards the door
Cam hit her head against the side of the door so realistically that Laura wondered if there might now be a real bruise below the greasepaint one.
Staggering forward with the alarming fake bruise on the head, she accosted the girl who had screamed after her throat-cutting trick, but she just laughed when she saw her.
Despite the lack of a round of applause from the breakfast crowd, Cam appeared undaunted and bowed to them anyway. Her dignity was slightly damaged by the bread roll that soared out of the void and hit her on the nose, but she took another bow anyway before rejoining them. She sighed, looking a little upset.
“Sometimes a disguise just doesn’t work.”
By the time they got their breakfasts Cam was back to her usual self.
“Where shall we go this afternoon? You puppies are new and know nothing yet. We can go to the unscalable cliffs and look down on Smugglers Cove if you want?”
She had not taken any breakfast and stole a piece of toast that Tom had just buttered and laced with marmalade. Her left hand appropriated a piece of bacon from Laura’s plate and just missed being skewed by a fork as Laura valiantly attempted to stop her.
“If the cliffs are unscalable, what’s the point of smugglers going there?” asked a puzzled Tom. “Surely they need to get their goods onto land.”
Cam sniffed dismissively. “A trifling detail, child. There are local legends, and if you have met our housekeeper and staff you will have realized they are all one bread roll short of a breakfast. Ah bread roll.” Cam stole Laura’s roll and was off. With the roll in her mouth she ran out of the room.
“She has remarkable consistency,” Tom said as she disappeared from sight.
“So I have noticed,” Laura agreed.
Laura noticed that they were being watched by a youth in their class with blonde hair and blue eyes. She thought his name was Damon. He was looking in their direction with contempt, but whether it was aimed at Tom or her it was impossible to tell. He saw her looking at him and went back to eating his breakfast.
Laura had been making a list of all the other pupils and made a note against his. The list read as follows:
Tompkins, Arnold
Idiot, seems harmless and wants to be friends.
Burns, Cam -
Mad as a hatter. I am already firm friends with her.
Jones, Emma -
School swat, knows everything.
Wendleforth -
Tall, very strong, looks as though he may have been born without a brain.
Damon -
Blonde handsome, goes around with Dearforth. Why the look of contempt?
Dearforth -
Small fat boy, slave to Damon?
Dane -
Small timid girl, goes around with Williams
Williams -
Tall quiet girl, the teachers like her
Out of the twenty-two people in her class, this was as far as Laura had got, but she was pleased with her progress. Things had been hectic.
The whole morning was devoted to a mathematics lesson taught by Miss Pruitt, a woman as dried up and withered as her subject. She was so thin it looked as though she was starving and her sallow complexion made her look like a corpse. Laura though she might expire any minute though she was probably only in her thirties.
Miss Pruitt filled board after board with what might as well have been gibberish as far as Tom and Laura were concerned. The average age of their class was twenty and the lesson went far beyond anything they had been taught.
Eventually Miss Pruitt ground to a halt, a little like a wind up toy might slow down and stutter to a stop. The noon bell rang. Tom and Laura ran out to breathe in the fresh air of the corridor. Tom was sure Miss Pruitt had sucked the oxygen out of her classroom as she taught.
Tom and Laura dropped their books off in their rooms and made their way down to the entrance hall. As they approached the main door, they heard a shout and Cam ran across the room closely followed by two other students from their class.
Cam introduced her friends as Leon Daniels and Daisy Drew, and took charge of their expedition almost as if using a magic not listed in Newton’s books. She led them out of the castle and towards the cliffs.
The cliffs were less than quarter of a mile away from the back of the castle. Cam told them that even now the castle had working guns pointing out to sea.
‘Just in case the Frenchies try anything’, she said. In theory there was supposed to be an army watch and a small guard squad in the school, but a few months ago the Headmaster had had them removed. His stated reason was that their presence disrupted discipline in the school.
“I think the soldiers had been tupping some of the girls,” Cam told them. “One of the senior girls left here unexpectedly, probably gone with child.”
Daisy gasped and pushed Cam hard on the back.
“Don’t say such things. Hannah would have been more careful.”
“People do leave Hobsgate for reasons other than being up the duff,” Leon pointed out. “Missions abroad and such like.” This was the first time he had spoken since they were introduced. Everybody left the talking to Cam as she was so much more proficient at it.
Tom had believed at first that Leon was going with Daisy, but something about the way he put his hand on Cam’s shoulder made him wonder if he had got that wrong.
Cam smiled at Leon. “That’s true. Seniors often vanish without warning. But it doesn’t completely explain the way she was sick in the lavatories every morning or her sudden increase in weight around the girth.”
Cam had lots of views on just about everything. Tom and Laura decided to go with the flow and keep their eyes open as they walked. The two youths with them said very little. Daisy blushed whenever Cam said something sexual or outrageous, which was pretty well most the time.
They reached the cliffs and Tom and Laura stepped back quickly as they realized how abruptly the land fell away. The view was amazing, but frightening. The cliffs fell vertically to the sea, dropping several hundred feet. They formed a large bay and the sea below them looked rough. Now they were near the edge the sounds of the waves breaking on the rocks was close to deafening. What had been a mild breeze became a gale as gusting winds were funneled up the cliff towards them.
A series of needles of granite rising from the water blocked the entrance to the bay. Any boat trying to get in would have to navigate between those rocks and who knew what lurked in the water below?
Cam shouted over the sound of the wind and the waves to tell them that the rocks were known as the Devil’s Teeth. Hob was another name for the devil, so the castle’s name meant Devil’s Gate.
Laura tried to see a beach below, but couldn’t because the top of the cliff overhung the water below.
“Come on you lot!” Cam shouted, and dropped onto all fours to crawl even closer to the edge. Tom decided he wasn’t going to bother, when Leon and Daisy dropped to the ground and crept after her. Tom looked at Laura, who shrugged and went down on all fours before setting off after them. He noted she gripped the long grass tightly enough to make her knuckles white. Sighing, he got down and began to crawl after them.
