#Tamhas Samwyl

[isfjmel-phleg]

A Christmas Chapter: Josiah’s POV

With mind-blowing originality, I give you the same story from last month. Only this time, it’s from a different POV.

It was Thursday, the eleventh of December. Josiah wrote it in stiff letters at the top of the page in his composition book. The book had a calendar printed inside the back cover, but he had not needed to consult it. He never forgot this date. It was ten days after his birthday.

And he further knew, without consulting the calendar, that in only a week the term ended and he could go home for the Christmas holidays. He had been marking off the days since October, watching the number dwindle into a single digit.

In only a week, he would be bound for Lienne, and only a few days after that, he would be home in Königshaus, surrounded by familiar faces, admiring questions, and no sign of anyone who enjoyed annoying and humiliating him. He would even be glad to see Ayra.

Most of all, he wanted to see his father. He wanted to present the King with his school report in its sealed envelope and watch the glow of pride wash across his father’s face as he read the perfect marks and the paragraph on Josiah’s faultless conduct. Other boys fretted about their marks; Josiah never did. All his masters returned his work with glowing reviews. 

Nonetheless, he took care with this week’s Latin composition. His master had assigned them the topic of “grief,” something Josiah approached with authority. No matter how obscure the composition topics, he could usually muster the forceful opinions of an expert.

“There is virtue,” he wrote, “in maintaining a placid demeanor even in the most trying of circumstances. To meet the trials of life with dignity rather than emotionality, which like the moon is inconstant, is the mark of the true man of wisdom, for such a one has mastered himself. Some people condemn an outlook of seriousness as a lack of sensitivity, for they believe that one who does not mourn the death of a friend is hard of heart. I, on the other hand, think one must not mourn death.”

A pleasant voice barged into his thoughts. “Good evening, Your Royal Highness.”

Josiah raised his head slowly. He knew that voice. “Good evening, Böllingfurt,” he replied curtly and returned to his work.

The idiot Böllingfurt, who hadn’t the sense to recognize a snub, sat across from Josiah and put on his most solicitous face, one he probably practiced in the looking glass every night. “How are you?” he asked.

“Very well, thank you,” said Josiah between his teeth as he wrote, “For I am convinced that the man of wisdom must utterly repudiate grief...”

“Oh, good, good! I know,” with a studied tremor of the voice, “that this must be an awfully hard day for you.”

Josiah nodded briskly. “My brother’s birthday is always noisier than strictly necessary. He is very young and disappointingly lacking in decorum, but he will learn in time.”

“Well, of course he doesn’t understand that you naturally will have...other things on your mind. I understand. What do you usually do on this day?”

“...for it is a pointless act,” wrote Josiah. “This state produces neither betterment of self or others nor anything of value but rather brings about sorrow, which renders life full of needless suffering.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said.

Böllingfurt smiled tragically. “If there’s anything I can do for you, I’d be happy to be of service. Especially when you’re so far from home. I know.”

Josiah clenched the pen tighter as he wrote, “What does the mourning of a friend benefit one? Can it raise anyone from the dead? Not at all. Can it do the dead any good? Not at all.” 

Since Böllingfurt expected a response, he settled on a distantly polite “You needn’t trouble yourself.”

This must have worked, for Böllingfurt hurriedly said, “Of course you will be otherwise occupied” and excused himself.

The true reason for his abrupt exit soon manifested. Tamett and Elystan, late as usual for preparation, had arrived and immediately claimed in the only places available.

Next to Josiah.

He determined to ignore their whispering and fidgeting and launch into a point on how, furthermore, grief is a feeble emotion unbefitting anyone pursuing bravery. But even his forcible argument could not distract him from the noise, and when he overheard that Tamett was writing a personal letter, he could not shirk his duty to correct such irresponsibility.

He spoke without looking up from his writing, as his father did when he wished to show people that they were beneath his contempt. “Perhaps,” he said, “you haven’t noticed, but this is Preparation. You might have heard of it. It’s the time of the day when we all come together and prepare for the next day’s lessons. I suppose you remember those?”

They didn’t have the common decency to be abashed at his withering sarcasm. Instead Elystan pretended, with much less cleverness than he supposed, to be shocked that Josiah still had lessons. “I thought The Great Intellect knew everything already. They should have sent you home a long time ago.”

Josiah put down his pen and glared straight into Elystan’s smug face. “I’d much rather be home. And by this time next week, that’s where I’ll be. With my family, celebrating Christmas properly, and not having to put up with you.”

“And missing all the theatricals in Loriston. I’ll leave a box of chocolates in the empty chair in the King’s box, in your memory.”

As if that would make anyone envious! “I wouldn’t be caught dead at one of those vulgar entertainments. We will be attending Knopf’s Christmas oratorio, like every year.”

“Perfect. You haven’t been sleeping well, so it’ll be a fine chance to catch up.”

His face burning, Josiah turned back to his composition book. “König der Könige,” he announced, “is a work of genius that captures the essence of the Christmas season in a way no one, not even your Mr. Plackings with his silly ghost stories, has ever been able to surpass. You probably couldn’t even hear it performed in Loriston.”

Elystan exaggerated a yawn. “I wouldn’t want to hear it anyway. I’ll be having too much fun on my way seeing one of those silly ghost stories as a moving picture. My mother promised to take me. What are you doing with your...people?”

The word averted by this last-minute substitution clanged unspoken in Josiah’s ears. He dared not look up from his essay, which had now devolved into frantic scribbling. But he could play this game too. 

“The streets of Königsstadt,” he said, “will echo with bells as my father takes us home from the concert in the sleigh. Every tree is lit until they look like they fell from the night sky, and each shop window has more mechanical marvels than the last. My father takes us every year. But by all means, enjoy yourself in Loriston with your...people, if you can see anything through the fog.”

Not even that could shut Elystan up. He continued to jaw lies about Christmases with his mother, claiming that “Every child in Corege wants to be me on Christmas.”

“How about the rest of the year?” said Josiah. He doubted that even Coregeans were idiotic enough to envy a tiresome child so sickly he had no business lasting this long, with no title and a disgraced father. “Besides, I’m not going to be in Corege.”

“I’ll see you to the ship myself,” said Elystan, with a crocodile’s smile.

Josiah shot him a final glower as he punctuated the final lines of his essay with a flourish: “What does mourning then achieve? Nothing whatsoever, besides to inflict upon oneself unnecessary anguish of the mind. This is a foolish act indeed.” 

#

No one could reasonably be expected to walk two miles. Why Hollingham had to lie so far from Oddington Josiah could not fathom, but he made the journey with the other Hollingham boys on their afternoon off nonetheless, for the third time that term—in the cold! Let the other boys roam the streets on silly errands. He hadn’t come all that way to freeze himself further. Without a glance at the hideous shops and laughable attempts at window decoration, he strode up the High Street toward Urdine’s Tea Room.

Most Hollingham boys frequented Murroe’s, a larger, more informal cafe. Josiah had been taken there once against his will, and the noise was so unbearable he couldn’t finish his tea. He much preferred small, private Urdine’s, among more refined and mature patrons. It was more expensive, perhaps, but worth it to dine in peace.

But no sooner had he arrived at Urdine’s than Böllingfurt violated the sanctuary with his presence. Josiah immediately turned around and marched into Murroe’s out of spite.

In the doorway, he closed his eyes and took a slow breath to steady himself. It might not be so bad. The Hollingham boys had just arrived in Oddington, so the crowds wouldn’t have descended upon the place yet. The brightly lit dining room echoed with chatter, but it remained the polite volume of refined conversation. He could manage this.

Josiah ordered a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits—nothing like ones at home but tolerable, for Coregean cuisine—and found a table at the back of the room where he could read his letters. His father and Mikaiah had written to him, as usual, but Emenor Lockridge’s name appeared on one of the envelopes, and he had been wondering the whole way from school what she could have to say.

He reached for the first biscuit and read:

To His Royal Highness the Crown Prince

Sir,

you probably know that my brother is terrible about remembering to tell people things, especially exciting ones, so I’m sure he hasn’t mentioned it to you, but I had to tell you. I will be attending the conservatory in the new year! I’ll be studying violin of course and learning under Dr. Kneller, which is more than I could have ever dreamt. Thank you for recommending that I apply for the scholarship; it made all the difference. Between you and Mr. Winther I’ve had such marvelously good opportunities this year, and I’m quite grateful. They tell me that the conservatory students have concerts which the royal family attend often, so if that’s true, I would be honored to play for you again. As long as you bring Tamett with you, of course. It seems like forever since I’ve seen him. How soon will you and he be returning to Lienne?

Please extend my respectful regard to your family.

I have the honor to remain

Your obedient servant,

Emenor Lockridge

Josiah took a long sip of tea and shook his head. Why Emenor persisted in writing to him was a mystery. She had started by thanking him last spring for a violin, and he had politely replied with some questions about her technique, which she had obligingly answered. Which meant he had to answer too, and now here he was in a sporadic correspondence with her. Emenor wrote in a bewilderingly breezy tone, as if she forgot partway through that she was writing to royalty, and Josiah should have been annoyed with her. But he found the informality oddly charming.

His father’s letter, starkly official on thick cream-colored stationary with his name and address in script, beckoned. Josiah swallowed the last of his third biscuit, fortified himself with another, and slit the envelope open as if gutting a carcass. The page within bore not his father’s distinctive handwriting, but the spidery hand of one of the King’s secretaries.

To His Royal Highness the Crown Prince

In light of your upcoming completion of the autumn term at Hollingham College, the King will not be able at this time to arrange for your return to Lienne for the Christmas holidays. You and your companion shall remain at Hollingham during that time under the care of the Headmaster, with whom the King has already made arrangements for you.

The King trusts you will conduct yourself honorably, dedicate yourself to your studies, and have a joyous Christmas. He remains 

Your devoted father

Odren R

Josiah set the letter down on the table as respectfully as if it had been the King himself. He read it again in case he had missed something—and again—and backward. Every time it said the same thing: his father didn’t want him to come home.

There was no precedent for this. Every Christmas of his life, even the one six years ago that must never be spoken of, he had been surrounded by family. He couldn’t imagine anything different. No oratorio. No sleighing through the city streets. No cathedral service in his native tongue.

No presentation of his term’s report in person.

There could be only one explanation for this: He had done something wrong, again. Something so disgraceful that his father couldn’t even look at him. And staying in Corege alone was to be his punishment.

(Tamett would be there, but still. Alone.)

But what had he done? His schoolwork was flawless. He had dedicated himself to all activities, even distasteful ones. He had conducted himself with the utmost dignity despite being obliged to share a room with that beast Elystan. He had done everything he was supposed to.

Perhaps he had forgotten something. 

Josiah sat in Murroe’s far longer than he had intended, pouring himself cup after cup of tea, polishing off the biscuits and consoling himself with another round, and racking his brain. Other boys came and went, shouting and laughing and occasionally glancing at him, but no one sauntered over to ask how he was or take the empty chair opposite him. They didn’t dare; he’d seen to that. They wouldn’t come to him, and neither would any recollection of an incident that could possibly incur his father’s displeasure. 

How would his father know about such a thing? Unless someone had written to him. Masters only did that when one was in disgrace, and Josiah hadn’t been. But someone had spent the whole term writing secretive letters to an uncle of dubious identity.

Because he never existed. Because Tamett, that sneak, was writing accounts of Josiah’s behavior to the King, no doubt richly embellished. Elystan was probably helping him; it would account for their giggling when they thought he wasn’t listening.

The last of the tea had gone cold, and only a few biscuit crumbs remained. Josiah saw no further point in lingering at Murroe’s. The growing din encircled his head and squeezed. He wiped his fingers and shoved the letter in his pocket with Emenor’s.

One more letter lay on the table, forgotten amid the bad news. Josiah skimmed it. The last thing he wanted to hear about was Mikaiah’s drawing a picture for the Christmas Angel and what his toy elephants were doing and when was Josiah coming home?

A few moments later, Josiah had quitted the cafe, but Mikaiah’s letter stayed, crumpled on the table, left to the mercy of a waiter who would surely dispose of it.

#

The sound of giggling greeted Josiah as he trudged down the corridor toward his room after the most painful two-mile walk of his life. He had hoped for solitude on his return, but of course Elystan wouldn’t allow that.

Not only was Elystan lolling on the sofa in one of his garish dressing gowns, with a rug drawn over his legs, the picture of luxurious comfort—but Tamett had the audacity to sit beside him. Like an equal. That would not do.

In fact, Tamett seemed so lost in this delusion of grandeur that he didn’t immediately come when Josiah signaled him to remove the fur coat that had grown so hot and heavy. When Tamett finally got the hint, he took his time. His fingers were sticky and gritty. He couldn’t have looked less professional, and he didn’t care how long he left his Prince roasting in that confining coat. 

“Some of us, Tamett,” said Josiah, as the last of the coat came off, “don’t have all afternoon to waste. You may consider your leisure time over now.”

Tamett neither acknowledged the rebuke nor seemed remorseful. He was probably planning to report this to the King. “What do you require, sir?” he asked.

What Josiah required most at the moment was a cold cloth for his throbbing head and bicarbonate of soda for his curiously burning interior, but he couldn’t demand that in front of Elystan. Instead, he shot Tamett an accusing look to remind him that he was still an atrocious excuse for a manservant and said, “My writing desk.”

Tamett ambled toward the standing desk where Josiah kept his school materials, glanced halfheartedly at it, and said, “Where is it, sir?”

Honestly, how had this idiot stayed in the employment of the royal household so long? Under the circumstances, Josiah was perfectly justified in a display of impatience at such incompetence. “I don’t know!” he said. “Where it always is? It’s hardly my place to keep track of these things. So fetch it already.”

The sooner Tamett brought him the desk, the sooner he could reply to his father. Perhaps there had been a misunderstanding. If he explained how much he wanted to return home, surely the King would change his mind.

But Josiah would need the original letter on hand, and he had left it... “What are you doing taking my coat away?” he said to Tamett, who was grubbing around in the wardrobe as if he expected to find the desk there. “I need it.”

Tamett tossed the coat at him and kept grubbing. Once Josiah had found his letters, he waited to hand the coat back, but Tamett ignored him, so he was obliged to leave it on the floor and hope that its out-of-placeness annoyed Tamett as much as it did him.

Still, Elystan showed no sign of leaving. Josiah grimaced as another wave of burning pain twisted inside him, and he tapped his foot pointedly.

Elystan deigned to acknowledge him. “What’s eating you?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” said Josiah. “It’s nothing to me if my manservant can’t keep track of one simple item. That’s a great deal to remember.”

“What does it look like?”

“It’s a writing desk. What do you think?” Could anyone possibly be so stupid?

Elystan asked something about a bread bin that made no sense no matter how Josiah tried to parse it. When he asked for clarification, Elystan changed the subject.

“Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

“Look here, if you can’t make yourself useful—”

“Oh, you want me to be useful! Try your bedside table. Forgot you left it there, didn’t you?”

Josiah had forgotten. He had sat up late writing an essay in bed by dimmed lamplight. He hadn’t thought that Elystan, who had seemed asleep, would notice. 

Now armed with the desk, he abandoned any polite hints. “You are dismissed now. I wish to be alone.”

Elystan rooted himself further into the sofa with a startling rustle. Josiah hadn’t noticed the striped paper bags, nearly a dozen, surrounding him. “You needn’t be alone on our account while you write,” said Elystan. “You’ll need a couple of experts like us to check your spelling.” 

Josiah had seen both boys’ spelling and wanted no part of it, thank you very much.

“Join us!” Elystan went on. “We were just splitting a bag of mice.” He waved the bag under Josiah’s nose. The scent of sugar—lots and lots of sugar—clogged the air. “Have some.”

Josiah took a step back.

“Never mind those beady little eyes staring into your soul. They don’t really feel a thing. I think.”

Josiah, meanwhile, was feeling all sorts of things, none of which included appetite. “No thank you.”

“Are you sure?” Elystan fished a mouse out of the bag and dangled it by its string tail at arm’s length. “You never know how delicious vermin are till you try. These are good ones. Melt in your mouth.”

Josiah could stand no more. “Are you trying to kill me?” he muttered and strode out, with his writing desk under his arm, before Elystan could think up another impertinent reply. 

#

Crumpled, wasted sheets of paper littered the library floor. All the eloquence and persuasiveness that flooded Josiah’s mind while writing essays had drained away, leaving him with hollow requests that never sounded respectful enough no matter how he rephrased them. He tried asking for an explanation. He tried excusing any mistake he could bring to mind as the possible cause for this punishment. He brought out a dictionary and a thesaurus and used the grandest words he could find.

A letter would take too long. It might be a week before he heard anything from his father, and that might lose him valuable holiday time languishing alone at school.

In this glorious new century of science and advancement, he could contact his father in mere minutes. He might even get an answer that very day.

Josiah sent the King a wire. It read:

“I AM SORRY FATHER PLEASE RECONSIDER.”

#

At dinner, a wire from Lienne lay on Josiah’s plate. He opened it with shaking hands. 

It said, simply, “DISAPPOINTMENT BUILDS CHARACTER,” and was signed, “ODREN R.”

Josiah folded it carefully and tucked it away deep in his jacket pocket. A reply would not be necessary.

#

He was not surprised to be called to the Head’s office early the next morning. So far, he had avoided summons to the dreadful and mysterious chamber, but whatever he had done, Dr. Samwyl must have been informed of it and would now exact discipline. As Josiah waited outside the door, he rehearsed the best explanations he could invent for any infraction. He brought all his excellent marks and refined deportment to the front of his mind where he could easily find them to remind the Head what a model student graced this establishment. 

A voice from inside called. Josiah stood, adjusted his posture, and let himself into his father’s—no, the Head’s office.

The room was unnervingly ordinary. One would think that the Headmaster of Corege’s leading boys’ school would go in for mahogany furnishings, velvet-covered chairs, and antiques, but Dr. Samwyl’s tastes ran more toward that of an ordinary gentlemanly scholar. Sturdy bookcases lined with worn and mismatched books, a plain cross on one wall and a pair of clearly decorative foils over the mantelpiece, unassuming chairs before the desk—a dustless, wide-open, tidy ocean of wood across which sat the reverend doctor himself.

As Josiah neared, he watched the Head warily. Dr. Samwyl’s steady gaze never left him. Like a lion, the Head was probably awaiting the right moment to pounce before ripping one apart. He waved Josiah toward one of the chairs and asked, in a voice Josiah recognized all too well from the pulpit, “Why have I called you here, Your Royal Highness?”

This departure from the expected lecture to something interactive baffled him. “Because,” he said falteringly, “my father must have told you.”

“Indeed. I have been in communication with him, as I assume you also have been. Since we both understand what is expected of us, there is not much to discuss, but I wanted to be certain that he had informed you of the arrangement also.”

“Yes, sir.”

“As soon as the other boys leave, you and Mr. Lockridge may move your things to my house for the time being. Mrs. Samwyl never likes the idea of leaving you boys scattered about the place by yourselves. There’ll be five of you this year, but we’ll find room.”

“If you don’t mind, sir, I would rather not.”

“It is no trouble to us. Mrs. Samwyl lives for this sort of thing. You’ll have dinner and games and all the company you could want. Of course everyone would rather be at home, but we manage to enjoy ourselves nonetheless. Although if you prefer to stay in your room and sulk about what can’t be helped, that is your business.”

“I’m not sulking, sir.”

“Very well then, if that’s understood, you may go now and return to your...not sulking.”

Josiah stood, gazing at the Head in puzzlement. “But, sir…is that all? Did you not want to speak to me about what I did?”

“What did you do?”

“I was hoping you would tell me.”

“I am not aware of any such thing. Unless you have something on your conscience.”

“No, sir, but—if I haven’t—why am I not returning home? My father wouldn’t do this unless it were something very bad.”

“If he wrote to you about it, he must have explained.”

“No, sir. He just said they were unable to send for me. I thought he might have told you more.”

The Head tapped his fingers on the desk absently. “Your Royal Highness,” he said, “I sent a wire to your father after I received his letter and asked him if he might reconsider. In general, we prefer that all the boys go home at this time if possible. Passage to Lienne has been smooth lately, and I saw no reason why you should not—well, at any rate, he was firm in his decision. The school must abide by the wishes of the parent, regardless of our personal opinions.”

“Do you think it’s because of something I did?”

“I couldn’t say what your father’s motives are. But I doubt it has anything to do with your academic or personal conduct.”

Josiah waited for a well-deserved compliment, but none was forthcoming. He thanked the Head and turned to exit.

“And, Your Royal Highness?”

Josiah paused and looked back.

“Has Mr. Lockridge been informed of this development?”

“Not that I know of, sir.”

“Then you will need to speak to him.”

This day was miserable enough without adding the inevitable fuss Tamett would raise, and Josiah had far better things to do than deliver bad news to the most unreasonable creature of his acquaintance, as much as the little snitch deserved it.

So he said, “Yes, sir.”

#

Presumably Tamett lived somewhere. Josiah had never given it much thought. Companions came when bidden; one did not go to them. But it was Tamett’s morning off, and he wasn’t in the day-room, and when Josiah with perfect civility had requested one of the smaller boys to fetch Lockridge, the child had laughed at him. Josiah threatened to report him to a prefect and flounced off. After a few unsuccessful doors, someone pointed him in the right direction, and for the first time in his life, Josiah set foot in a dormitory.

He had not been missing anything. It was a long, narrow room like a hospital ward, lined with ten beds. Beside each bed were a washstand, a chest of drawers, and a chair, with curtains hanging between them to form cubicles. Josiah tried not to breathe too deeply as he passed by, making a mental note to have a word with the dormitory prefect later.

In the last cubicle on the left, Tamett was cramming belongings into his trunk, humming a martial tune Josiah didn’t recognize. An unsubtle psst from the boy in the next cubicle woke him up enough to notice his visitor. 

“Excuse me, Your Royal Highness,” said Tamett, “have you taken a wrong turn? Your room is—”

Which even for him was a new depth of obliviousness. 

“I know where my room is, Tamett. I came here to find you since no one in this establishment would fetch you for me.”

Entering the cubicle, Josiah had a full view of the trunk. He had never packed anything before, but he was reasonably certain that one did not throw in shoes beside...was that sheet music? Tamett had dropped music lessons at Hollingham, so why would he…?

The music wasn't his. It was for Emenor. Probably her Christmas gift.

“You’re wasting your time,” said Josiah, switching to Liennese. The entire dormitory did not need to know his business. “You do not need to pack. We are not returning to Lienne for the Christmas holidays.”

Tamett looked more confused than wounded, thank goodness, but he still argued. “But, sir, we are. You’ve been talking about it for weeks. Everyone else is going home—well, almost everyone.”

No amount of squinting could make the titles on the music legible, so Josiah bent to examine them. Silly popular songs. He had expected better of Emenor’s taste. 

“Why wouldn’t we go?” asked Tamett.

His sincere bewilderment caught Josiah off guard. Didn’t the snitch know his reports to the King had consequences?

“Certain opportunities,” said Josiah, “for further studies have presented themselves, and I have taken them. They require that I remain here.” It was as good an explanation as any and not entirely false. He would probably be studying quite often during the holiday.

“I don’t have any arrangements like that, sir. So I can still go home, can’t I?”

“My father engaged you as my companion and manservant during the time I am at Hollingham. I will be at Hollingham over Christmas. Ergo, you will be also.”

Tamett shoved his way in front of the trunk, blocking out the sheet music. “What if I choose not to?”

Those words could have come straight from Elystan’s mouth. They probably had, in a sense. This must be quashed at once. 

Josiah loomed over Tamett as if from some invisible dais. “Would you like to write to my father and tell him so?” 

There. Now Tamett knew that he knew. If that didn’t startle a confession out of him, nothing would.

“But sir, I am promised certain holidays in this position. Christmas has always been one of them.”

“Consider it the start of a new tradition. And you will, of course, be compensated accordingly.”

“You couldn’t compensate me enough not to go. My family is already expecting me. I have to be there. Do you remember my sister Emenor?”

Something on Josiah’s shoe arrested his attention. “The little violinistin? Oh yes. What about her?”

“She’s off to the conservatory before the new year, and she’ll stay in Königsstadt over the summer. It’ll be my last chance to see her before next Christmas. And—not that I’m in any hurry, but she really wants to see me. You know how sisters are.”

At least Josiah’s sisters had sense. It didn’t bother them not to see him. No one wrote him weepily longing letters. “Write to her,” he said. “And tell her she will have to wait. It will do her good. Disappointment builds character.”

“Perhaps you should explain that to her.”

“She’s not my sister. I owe her nothing.” Certainly not a reply to that naive letter lying unanswered in his coat pocket.

“Just because you don’t care about seeing your people, it doesn’t mean I do. Perhaps I’ll leave anyway. I don’t need a guard, so Raskvist can stay with you and I can go by myself.”

“How? You really think they’ll let you on a ship alone?”

“Lots of boys do it all the time. Like Böllingfurt.” 

Josiah would not dignify the mention of That Person with acknowledgement. “Assuming you could book passage. All the ships leaving next week will be full by now, I should think.”

“How many people in Corege do you think are clamoring to go to Lienne right now? There’s bound to be something. Even third-class if I have to.”

“Well, enjoy explaining to your people why you’ve returned crawling with vermin. And even if there were something available, how would you pay for it? I know you spent everything in Oddington.” Or probably had, given his history of money management.

A shifty look crossed Tamett’s face. “I can...acquire it. Somehow.”

In the face of such moral bankruptcy beyond even Tamett’s standards, Josiah jolted back to the language of the improving books he had read as a child. “An honest man need never borrow, Tamett. A loan gained is honor lost. Sooner to sweep the streets than to meet the moneylender. Need I go on?”

“I never said I would borrow!”

“Short of stealing, I don’t know how else you can ‘acquire’ anything. You have no pocket money until next month. I can’t help you. And neither will my father. We will spend Christmas with the other boys who aren’t leaving. Dr. Samwyl entertains them every year at his house.”

“There has to be some way I could—”

“I say we are remaining here, and that is final.”

Even Tamett couldn’t argue with that tone. He nodded in resignation, a familiar-seeming gesture Josiah couldn’t place. Something about it made his insides knot.

“You may send your sister my regrets,” he said quietly and turned away before he could see Tamett’s reaction. 

#

“Dear Miss Lockridge, please allow me to express my regrets that your brother and I will not be in Lienne this Christmas season. It was unavoidable, and I hope you will understand…”

Josiah dropped the mental letter and buried his face in his pillow to stifle a cry. No matter how he tried to distract himself, the burning pain wouldn’t go away. It had woken him in the middle of the night, so severe he couldn’t even make it to the window to look out at the sky, as he usually did to console himself when this happened. 

All he could do was lie in bed as the lava inside him roiled. He had mentally recited multiplication tables, dug up half-forgotten verses, and finally drifted into...an imaginary reply to Emenor? He had no idea why. He was cross with her; after all, if it hadn’t been for her brother, he would be home in a few days. For all he knew, she had been reporting him to his father too. She didn’t deserve a reply. And yet...his thoughts kept drifting back to his imaginary letter.

He knew better. He crumpled it up, threw it away, and cleared his mind with a new blank page. “Dear Mikaiah…”

That was even worse.

“Dear Mama…”

What was wrong with him? 

The pain surged, and he couldn’t silence another groan. His heart sank as the bedclothes from the other bed rustled. He held his breath and waited. Perhaps Elystan was just turning over in his sleep. 

A thin, clearly audible voice dashed his hopes. “A decent imitation of a wretched spirit, but it needs more chain-rattling. Now, if there isn’t any more of this surprise performance, I want to go back to sleep.”

“Then do—ohhh…” Josiah wished he could give the pain a piece of his mind. How dare it do this to him? And for no reason. What right had it? It wanted a severe scolding and a sound slap on the face it didn’t have—it could hurt him, but he couldn’t hurt it back, and it wasn’t fair. 

“Look here,” said Elystan sternly. “A joke’s a joke, but this is excessive, even for you. You woke me up. Congratulations. You’re hilarious. Can we pass along now?”

“Or what? You’ll tell Tamett and he’ll write to my father?”

There was a pause. “Well, if that’s what you’d like, we’re happy to oblige you. What’s his address? Or can I just direct it to ‘THE PALACE’ and your post office will understand?”

“You two know perfectly well where to send it—”

“Oh, do we? That’s reassuring.” 

“But, no, that’s not—not what—”

“What shall I tell him? ‘It might interest you, Your Majesty, to learn that your son does a first-rate imitation of a mournful apparition, and you really ought to stop by in the evenings and listen in. He could wake the dead.’ There. You’re welcome. Now will you be quiet?”

“You be quiet! You’re the one who won’t stop talking.”

“Well, if you didn’t want to wake me up and hear me talk, what’s all that noise for? Are you a cow? Or possibly a whale?”

The only thing preventing Josiah from hurling the nearest object at Elystan was the pain. He stuffed a corner of the pillow into his mouth and bit down on it.

The other bed creaked meditatively as Elystan bounced in place. “If you want Tamett,” he said, “I know where he sleeps. After all, what kind of school is this where we don’t creep around the corridors at night? My mother didn’t send me to this establishment to get an incomplete education. Come on.”

“I will not,” said Josiah, as grandly as he could gasp, “require Tamett.”

“He’ll hate to miss out on the fun.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’d hate not to have something new to report in those neverending letters of his. Well, he’ll just have to find something else to tell my father.”

“Do you ever lie awake and ponder how very mistaken people are, all the time? You, for instance. What makes you think Tamett writes to your father?”

“I’d have to be blind not to notice all those letters.”

“What makes you think anyone would voluntarily write to your father if they didn’t have to? That’s like writing to a snowstorm. Tamett’s writing to his cousin or uncle or somebody who wants to know about Corege but can’t or won’t purchase a guidebook. You’re not one of the customs or natural wonders of Corege—and thank goodness, or no one would ever visit—so you needn’t think you’re so special people are always writing about you. You really are the most conceited person I’ve ever met,” said Elystan, as if he wanted to put Josiah in a jar and take him home to exhibit.

“I’m not half as conceited as you are, and I know all about Tamett’s so-called uncle. He’s told me that tale too. As if I’m likely to believe such obvious lies.”

“Rather odd way of spying on a fellow,” said Elystan. “I mean, avoiding him whenever you can. Doesn’t give you much to work with. Unless Tamett’s been at your elbow this whole term and I just wasn’t paying attention.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point? What are you so afraid he ‘reported’? I thought you were The Model Schoolboy.”

“He has to have fabricated something, or else I wouldn’t be…”

“Go on,” said Elystan encouragingly. “Wouldn’t be…?”

The words scorched Josiah’s throat, wanting to come out, but he gulped them down. His plans were none of Elystan’s business.

“Never mind,” he said.

“Sounds to me as if you have no evidence whatsoever. If you’d ever read Morrick Hopeley, you’d know that it’s a mistake to form a theory without data. Take this up when you’ve got a sounder argument.”

Josiah, too tired to counter this, turned over this information in his mind. Elystan was hardly a reliable source, but what if he were right? What if Tamett were telling the truth? But that would mean his father didn’t know about some forgotten misstep of his, which meant there had to be some other reason to leave him at school, which meant that his father didn’t care—but no, Josiah could never believe that.

It was too much for him to process, especially in his current state. Another cry crept up his throat, but he smothered it before it emerged.

“Are you sure,” said Elystan, “that you don’t require...I don’t know...anybody?”

Josiah rolled over and did not reply.

#

“Well, I’m off!” chirped Böllingfurt, resplendent in his sweeping Liennese-blue coat and gleaming bowler hat. “Shall I see you on the passage over, Your Royal Highness?”

Josiah resisted an urge to roll his eyes. He had selected this upstairs window seat as a refuge during the day his schoolmates departed to whatever unfortunate corners of the world they infested. His presence behind a curtain with his face buried in a book was not an invitation for conversation. He did not know how or why Böllingfurt had tracked him down, but he suspected it had everything to do with rubbing in good fortune.

“No,” said Josiah. “You won’t see me.”

“Oh, yes, of course. The King your father is sending his yacht to fetch you.”

“No.”

“No?” As if he didn’t know, after the Head had helpfully announced the names of those staying behind the night before at Prayers. 

Josiah retreated further into the corner of the window seat. “I’m staying on.”

Böllingfurt pulled his face into such a mask of pity that it made Josiah’s interior crawl. “Rough luck. I wish I could take you with me, but…” He shrugged. “Can’t be helped, I suppose. Is Lockridge stopping with you?”

“Yes.”

“Good, good! Then at least you won’t be all alone.” He pulled out his gold watch and held it out on display longer than necessary to check the time. “Sorry to cut this short, but I really must be dashing off. Have a joyous Christmas, Your Royal Highness!”

“And you,” said Josiah through his teeth as Böllingfurt sprinted down the stairs, dodging someone sitting on a step with his face to the balusters. 

Josiah squinted but couldn’t make out who it was. He heaved himself off his pile of cushions and crept down the corridor toward the top of the stairs. The boy on the step was picking at the greenery on the bannister, ruining a perfectly good Christmas decoration, and—flicking the pieces into the clamoring crowd in the hall below?

It was Tamett. The only other boy he’d seen today who was coatless, hatless, and not surrounded by freshly labeled and packed baggage. Emenor’s brother. His companion.

Comfortable as the window seat had been, Josiah did not return to it. He trudged down the stairs, stopping at Tamett’s step. Tamett jumped at the sight of him but said nothing. His face had never looked more blank.

“May I sit with you?” asked Josiah.

Tamett shrugged. 

Josiah sat, staring at his book as if it contained the correct remark to address to one’s companion in miserable circumstances. He settled on saying, “Tamett?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Is your house on the telephone?”

“Yes, sir.”

Josiah filed that fact away for future reference. “I’m going to send a wire home this afternoon. If you have anything to say to your sister, my sisters can ring her up and tell her.”

If this offer thrilled Tamett in any way, no one would have known. He didn’t remove his face from the balusters but mumbled an offhand “Thank you” as if someone had held a door open for him.

Of course the long-distance call could never make up for not going home. Nothing could. Josiah nearly went back upstairs, when another thought occurred to him.

“You know, the conservatory students perform at Königshaus every summer. I look forward to it every year. Sometimes we bring guests.”

“Oh?”

Was he even listening? “You of course will not be otherwise occupied all summer.”

Tamett turned to him, and Josiah watched him put together that he would have a chance to see Emenor in the summer. Tamett tried to speak but was as inarticulate as ever. Josiah saw no purpose in continuing the conversation, so they sat in silence. The door in the hall swung open and shut as one boy after another left for their homes. The crowd dwindled, a sight no less depressing than that of the full holiday-mad company.

“Going to wire your people on Christmas too?” asked Tamett.

“No, I’ll be too busy studying and…”

Tamett looked him in the eye. “You don’t have to pretend. I know.”

Josiah’s shoulders slumped. Though his face burned, he felt a little lighter. “Who told you?” he mumbled.

“The Head.”

What other personal business of Josiah’s had Dr. Samwyl decided to shout from the housetops? Josiah would need to clarify lest Tamett get the wrong idea about the royal family. “My father probably wishes me to further immerse myself in Coregean culture and customs. Which I could hardly do if I were home. I’m not really missing anything. It’s not as if I were Mikaiah and waiting for the Christmas Angel or something.”

“Or the Goatfriend, like my sisters.”

“The what?”

“The Goatfriend. You know, ‘The Goatfriend comes at Christmas Eve; if you’ve been good, fine gifts he’ll leave’?”

Before Josiah could help it, a laugh escaped him. He clapped his hand over his mouth to prevent further accidents. “You Noriberrian idiots,” he said, so Tamett wouldn’t think he was amused.

He was spared any further indignities by a shrimplike creature in a red coat scrambling up the stairs toward them, faster than Josiah had thought he could move.

“Well,” gasped Elystan, “aren’t you coming?”

“Coming where?” asked Tamett.

Elystan gazed at them as if they had forgotten their own names. “To Rhosemore. With me. Where else would I be going? We’re leaving now.”

Josiah clutched his book closer, trying to wrap his mind around this announcement, which was ridiculous even for Elystan. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never said I’d go anywhere with you.”

“You never said you wouldn’t either. So are you coming or would you rather stay here under the Head’s nose all through the hols?”

“And how exactly is spending it with you any better?”

“An old companion like me? Why not? It’s not as if you have anyone else to go home with. And that motorcar isn’t going to wait forever.”

Elystan had nothing to gain from bringing them home, and he couldn’t be inviting them out of pity, for he was incapable of that. Was this a prank? Another way to humiliate him? A kidnapping attempt?

That fool Tamett immediately said, “We’re coming. Thanks awfully.”

“But—” said Josiah, once again the only sensible person present. They needed to think about this first. 

With surprising strength, Tamett snatched his sleeve and dragged him forward. 

“We haven’t packed for this!” said Josiah. “We don’t even have our coats! We’ll freeze.”

“Oh, you’re practically a polar seal already. You’ll be fine,” said Elystan.

 Glowering at this obviously inaccurate statement, Josiah yanked his sleeve out of Tamett’s grasp and stood his ground halfway down the stairs. “If you really wanted us to come along, you at least could have mentioned it sooner.”

“I didn’t want to bring you home then,” said Elystan. 

“But why now?”

“If I have to put up with my mother and Delclis for the whole holiday, so should you. And you’ll be staying at Rhosemore. Everyone wants to go to Rhosemore, and here’s your chance to get a little further than picture postcards. That’s where you’d be anyway if you were here as a guest instead of a pupil. Wouldn’t your father rather you hang around the Coregean court than this mausoleum?”

Put like that, this offer was more advisable than Josiah had thought. It was practically a state visit to be welcomed into the Coregean King’s home, where he would have considerable opportunity to observe the comings and goings, the casual conversation about Coregean affairs, all the whispers and insights that could prove so valuable to his father’s records. The King had told him before he left for Corege that he was to be an ambassador for Lienne, and Elystan had handed him his chance to put that role into practice. 

How impressed the Queen would be with his manners! He would coax King Delclis into conversation as his sisters never could. And he would keep a careful notebook of everything he saw and said and did and everyone he met, and he would send it to his father as a gift. 

Tamett and Elystan were eying him in exasperation.

“Very well,” he said. “But only because it would not be diplomatic to decline your brother’s hospitality.”

It was the maddest thing he had done in his life, and he knew he would live to regret it. But for now, all he could see as he climbed into the covered automobile was his father’s approving face.

[isfjmel-phleg]

A Christmas Chapter

Merry Christmas!

This chapter is from the as-yet very unfinished and not-fully-planned Book 3 (and I reserve the right to change and adjust it as needed in the context of the full story later), but all you need to know is that Tamett, Josiah, and Elystan have all been at school together for a whole term, and now the Christmas holidays are approaching, which means going home and a welcome break from each other’s company.

Or maybe not?

Tamett shook out his stiff writing hand and wished, not for the first time, for a typewriter. It would spare his hand but lacked the stealth necessary for composing a clandestine letter during preparation. Like it or not, he must grind out his letter to Uncle Adrend by hand behind his Latin grammar.

“After these beastly—I mean, unpleasant—examinations,” he wrote, “we go home for the Christmas holidays. Except they call it ‘hols’ here. Christmas in Corege is not like it is at home. No one’s ever heard of Candle Night or the Goatfriend or rice porridge. Instead they—” 

The sentence broke off in a long blot as Elystan jostled Tamett’s elbow and whispered, “Tell him he needs to invest in a copy of Bellwell’s Guide for the Traveller in Corege. All good bookstores have it. Changed my life.”

Tamett put down his pen. “If you’d rather write this for me, you should just say so.”

“Neither of you should be writing to anyone,” said His Royal Highness from Tamett’s other side, not looking up from his composition book. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but this is Preparation. You might have heard of it. It’s the time of the day when we all come together and prepare for the next day’s lessons. I suppose you remember those?”

“Not if I can help it,” muttered Tamett.

“You still have lessons?” Elystan registered shock. “I thought The Great Intellect knew everything already. They should have sent you home a long time ago.”

“I’d much rather be home,” said HRH. “And by this time next week, that’s where I’ll be. With my family, celebrating Christmas properly, and not having to put up with you.”

“Instead,” Tamett resumed his letter, “they celebrate first on Christmas Eve. Dinner and gifts and that sort of thing. Seems like an awfully—I mean, rather—long time to wait.”

“And,” said Elystan, “missing all the theatricals in Loriston. I’ll leave a box of chocolates in the empty chair in the King’s box, in your memory.”

HRH rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t be caught dead at one of those vulgar entertainments. We will be attending Knopf’s Christmas oratorio, like every year.”

“Perfect. You haven’t been sleeping well, so it’ll be a fine chance to catch up.”

“Elystan,” continued Tamett’s letter, “is going home to his brother the King and their mother. That’s all he can talk about. His Royal Highness doesn’t seem to like hearing about it.”

“König der Könige,” announced HRH, “is a work of genius that captures the essence of the Christmas season in a way no one, not even your Mr. Plackings with his silly ghost stories, has ever been able to surpass. You probably couldn’t even hear it performed in Loriston.”

Elystan yawned. “I wouldn’t want to hear it anyway. I’ll be too busy seeing one of those silly ghost stories as a moving picture. My mother promised to take me. What will you do with your...people?”

Josiah’s pen slowed, but he did not look up. “The streets of Königsstadt,” he said, “will echo with bells as my father takes us home from the concert in the sleigh. Every tree is lit until they look like they fell from the night sky, and each shop window has more mechanical marvels than the last. My father takes us every year. But by all means, enjoy yourself in Loriston with your...people, if you can see anything through the fog.”

Even Tamett understood how much that was meant to sting, but Elystan betrayed no sign of offense. “I have every intention of enjoying myself,” he said, a little too loudly. “My mother always sees to it that I have a splendid Christmas. They write about it in the papers every year. Mother keeps the clippings in a scrapbook I’m not supposed to know about. It takes up a whole society page. All the gifts and the contents of the stocking and the size of the tree. Every child in Corege wants to be me on Christmas.”

“How about the rest of the year?” said HRH. “Besides, I’m not going to be in Corege.”

Elystan gave him a gracious smile. “I’ll see you to the ship myself.” 

“Coregeans are very enthusiastic about Christmas,” wrote Tamett, “but it seems to me there’s not enough of it to bother with, and it’s mostly noise. Are you coming to Aunt Editte’s party this year? I hope you come so I can meet you. I’ll be in Noriber next week. Or you could visit our house. Father and Mother won’t mind. I’ll be there. Unless I’m out sledding or skating with the girls and then you’ll have to wait.”

Nothing more remained to say, but Elystan and HRH continued to quarrel over his head. Since only he was separating them enough to prevent a fight, he couldn’t budge. On another sheet of paper, he wrote, “I am not actually writing anything” in his very best handwriting, over and over.

He could, of course, have practiced Latin vocabulary with the same visual effect, but some occurrences are too miraculous, even for Christmas.

#

The slush sloshed over Tamett’s boots as he trudged through the gate into Oddington’s High Street the next day. By now, a thick coating of crisp, glittery snow would have enveloped his hometown. But Corege couldn’t manage more than this patchy mush mingled with mud. The shops tried to appear festive with greenery over their brown bricks and timbered plaster, but this was as convincing as the bedsheets pinned with paper cutouts that Tamett’s sisters used to hang for theatrical backdrops.

He checked his pocket again for the letter from Emenor that the prefect distributing post had handed him on his way out. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to read it yet. Whatever she’d written, it wouldn’t be the same as the amusing commentary on Oddington that she would have provided if she were with him.

Instead, he had plodded along silently in HRH’s equally silent wake as the Hollingham boys on this half-holiday had walked into town in a cluster.

“Will you require my company, Your Royal Highness?” Tamett asked. HRH glanced over his shoulder and announced that he would not. Before he could change his mind, Tamett dashed off. A mission beckoned.

He had hoarded his pocket money for the past two months—which is to say, he had spent only about two-thirds of it—for gifts for his family. After wandering through half a dozen shops, he found sheet music of popular song for Emenor, a new landhockey ball for Lovisa, a pincushion shaped like a chicken for Cille, and a wind-up tin frog for Zella. Only a few coins were left for his parents’ gifts, besides another coin that wasn’t truly his.

Elystan hadn’t joined the group heading to Oddington but had asked Tamett to pick him up some sweets. Then he had produced a gilded pocketbook that clinked like chimes as he extracted a shiny gold monarch, worth as much a whole year’s pocket money for Tamett.

“Will this be enough?” Elystan had asked.

And Tamett had said he thought it would be.

Now, as he fingered the raised design of the coin inside his pocket, he couldn’t imagine how many sweets it could buy. Elystan clearly didn’t know either. He might not notice if there were somewhat fewer sweets than a monarch’s worth, and the change—well, surely he wouldn’t mind if Tamett pocketed it? Not as theft, of course, but as a sort of tip for purchase and delivery. Tamett could practically hear Elystan’s voice giving him permission. He withdrew the monarch and clutched it at the ready in his hand.

But curiosity overcame him first, and he stopped outside a shop with his feet in the slush, as pedestrians who refused to step aside bumped into him, and read Emenor’s letter.

Emenor wrote enthusiastically about her upcoming recital, the scarf she was knitting for her music teacher, the Candle Day preparations, and what the cook was baking. She chatted about the younger sisters’ various escapades, an encounter with a neighbor’s cow, and most of all, her upcoming first term at the conservatory in Königsstadt.

“I’m so glad you’ll be here soon,” she wrote, “because I’ll have to leave early to participate in the New Year’s concerts. I’ll have to skip going home at Easter for the same reason, and then in the summer I’ll be working in the city, and you’ll be at home, so this is our one chance before next Christmas. Oh, I have so much planned for you! Everything that’s never the same when you’re not here. Don’t bother about the gifts; there’s nothing any of us really need besides a giant hug from you. And perhaps a holiday at the seaside, but—no, just bring yourself!”

Emenor’s voice in Tamett’s head, louder than the imagined permission from Elystan, asked pointedly where the money for Father’s watch chain and Mother’s brooch had come from. Tamett fingered Elystan’s monarch again and tucked it back deep in his pocket.

On the way to the sweetshop, an enticing smell of tea and cinnamon distracted him. He had forgotten Murroe’s was on this route. He had been to the cafe a few times, and he was tempted now to go in and order something. The dining room, seen through the window, swarmed with Hollingham boys fortifying themselves with hot breads and even hotter drinks. Perhaps an acquaintance would stand him something.

A scan through the faces turned up no one recognizable enough to expect such a favor from—until Tamett’s gaze fell on a table in the back, occupied by a boy in furs: His Royal Highness.

The prince sat alone, his only companions a cup of tea and a half-eaten plate of biscuits. He was absorbed in a stack of letters and did not see the face gawking at him through the window.

Breathing in a last whiff of the unattainable delights, Tamett walked on to the sweetshop.

#

An hour later, panting and achy, Tamett flung open the door of Elystan and HRH’s room. After a two-mile walk and a stampede up the stairs, his crammed satchel had never felt heavier.

Elystan lifted his head from the sofa cushion at the noise and brightened at the sight of his visitor. “Did you get it?” he asked eagerly.

Tamett nodded. “You should have been there.”

“I told you. If I wanted to waste my afternoons tramping all over the countryside, I would have taken up athletics.”

Tamett unwound his scarf. “You know, you really are the laziest chap I’ve ever met.”

“Perhaps, but which one of us spent a monarch without becoming a human icicle?” Elystan flopped back into the cushions. “So where is it?”

Dripping slush across the rug, Tamett approached the sofa and dug a striped paper bag out of his satchel, and another bag, and another, and another...until Elystan was laughing himself speechless at the small mountain lying in his lap.

“You weren’t expecting that much?” said Tamett, rubbing his shoulder.

Elystan shook his head.

“Sweets are two-narry for a quarter pound, and you gave me a monarch. That’s twelve and a half pounds of sweets.”

“Is it?” gasped Elystan.

“You should have seen the look on the shopkeeper’s face.”

Elystan peered into the bags. “Perfect. Exactly what I wanted. Just not these. Or these or these. Or those. You can have them.” He began sorting toffees, humbugs, chocolate limes, acid drops, wine gums, liquorice allsorts, clove rocks, violet lozenges, caramels, and butterscotch into piles and shoving the offenders aside. 

Tamett perched on the other end of the sofa, dodging Elystan’s feet, and took a handful of aniseed balls.

“What else did you do?” asked Elystan. “Unless you spent three hours in the sweetshop?”

Tamett gestured toward his satchel on the floor. “Gifts for my people. Mostly my sisters.” He had settled on toffee for his parents with the last of his coins. That left nothing for Uncle Tamett or any of the other relations he shouldn’t offend, which had bothered him for half a moment before he realized he didn’t really care.

“Oh right, you have those. How many?”

“Four.”

Elystan bit the head off a sugar mouse and pretended to collapse in shock. “And they’re all horrid, I expect?”

Tamett shrugged. “They’re not bad kids. This one’s for the five-year-old.” He brought out Zella’s frog and wound it up. 

Elystan lifted a disdainful nostril but let the friendly creature hop into his lap while he meditatively sucked the last of the sugar mouse.

Tamett’s ears burned. “It’s silly. But it’ll keep her busy while Emenor and Lovisa and I climb the big hill and sled off. This year we’re going all the way to the top.”

Elystan shoved aside the piled sweets, imprisoned the frog between his crossed legs, and wound it again. “You Noriberrians do know how to live. Rolling around the snow. I hope the thrill of it all isn’t too much for you.”

“We like it,” said Tamett, helping himself to a strawberry drop. Elystan, consumed by more pressing concerns, didn’t notice. “And there’s the snowball war too. Me and Lovisa against Emenor and Cille. Lovi and I are getting back our title this year, see if we don’t.”

The frog had sprung straight into Elystan’s hand. He turned it on its back and watched it futilely try to hop away into empty air.

“But I suppose you’ll have a much better Christmas at the palace with your brother.”

Elystan contorted his face into a tight-lipped smile. “Delclis lives for the opportunity to inform the general public of the properties of Dullplantus evergreenica or the genetics of Hollia whocaresa. Highlight of the season. And if I don’t want to hear him, I can always sit with the mater and discuss my pulse.”

“Your people are odd,” said Tamett through a mouthful.

“They’re not so bad. If you like lunatics. I’m probably the only sane one left—oh hullo! Return of the snow beast.”

A mass of fur stalked into the room. It fixed Tamett with a stony glare and extended its arms expectantly.

At that familiar signal, Tamett jumped up to unfasten the fur coat, remove the hat, and untie the scarf as His Royal Highness stood motionless and glowering.

“Some of us, Tamett,” he said, “don’t have all afternoon to waste. You may consider your leisure time over now.”

Tamett assumed a safely blank expression. “What do you require, sir?”

HRH looked at him with incredulous reproach. “My writing desk.”

The table where the portable writing desk was kept contained tidy stacks of papers, books, and inkwells at right angles, but nothing else.

“Where is it, sir?”

“I don’t know! Where it always is? It’s hardly my place to keep track of these things. So fetch it already.”

Tamett, the furs still over his arm, opened the nearest cupboard to rummage.

“What are you doing taking my coat away? I need it.”

The eagerness with which HRH had abandoned the same coat moments before would have fooled anyone, but Tamett handed it back and resumed the search while HRH retrieved his letters from a coat pocket. Finding Tamett too occupied to stand at his elbow and retrieve the coat, he deposited it on the floor and stood with his arms crossed over his middle and his foot tapping.

“What’s eating you?” asked Elystan pleasantly.

“I’m perfectly fine,” said HRH. “It’s nothing to me if my manservant can’t keep track of one simple item. That’s a great deal to remember.”

“What does it look like?”

HRH scoffed. “It’s a writing desk. What do you think?”

“Is it bigger than a bread bin? Assuming, of course,” said Elystan, “that one has ever seen a bread bin. And I haven’t.”

“Bigger than a what?”

“Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

“Look here, if you can’t make yourself useful—”

“Oh, you want me to be useful! Try your bedside table. Forgot you left it there, didn’t you?”

HRH snatched the desk from Tamett and waved a hand at both boys. “You are dismissed now. I wish to be alone.”

Elystan nestled deeper into the sofa. “You needn’t be alone on our account while you write. You’ll need a couple of experts like us to check your spelling. Join us! We were just splitting a bag of mice.” He held out a bag. “Have some. Never mind those beady little eyes staring into your soul. They don’t really feel a thing. I think.”

HRH wrinkled his nose. “No thank you.”

“Are you sure? You never know how delicious vermin are till you try. These are good ones. Melt in your mouth.”

HRH shuddered. “Are you trying to kill me?” he muttered as he stalked out with his writing desk under his arm.

“I think, Tamett,” said Elystan, watching him go, “that we will sadly be obliged to dispose of these between ourselves.”

#

In moments calling for solitude or relaxation, Tamett sought out his dormitory. Nine other boys shared it with him, but within his cubicle, he had peace he could find nowhere else, for His Royal Highness never followed him into the noisy, crowded, vaguely odorous room. Here, the morning after the excursion to Oddington, Tamett began to pack, as if that could hasten his departure. 

He adopted the efficient, if not orderly, method of dumping his personal effects in large batches into his trunk and shoving down the lid until they fitted. The gifts for his family lay between a sedimentary layer of shirts and a topsoil of bent notebooks full of mathematical problems for Cille. He was about to add a stray hat when the boy in the nest cubicle called his attention to a shocking sight.

HRH had entered the dormitory.

Despite the solid evidence, Tamett couldn’t fathom it. Here he was supposed to be free. Here he could peel off the companion role to be simply Lockridge, a boy among boys. HRH had no imaginable reason to encroach on Tamett’s privacy like this. 

His first instinct was to shoo him out like a dog who had wandered into a church.

“Excuse me, Your Royal Highness, have you taken a wrong turn? Your room is—”

“I know where my room is, Tamett. I came here to find you since no one in this establishment would fetch you for me.”

That should not have surprised him; even the youngest Hollingham boys knew they didn’t have to run messages for their elders.

Tamett stood at attention beside his open trunk as HRH entered the cubicle. The unmade bed and cluttered bureau top would surely provoke comment worse than that of an inspecting prefect. But only the trunk attracted HRH’s attention.

“You’re wasting your time,” he said, in Liennese. 

Since coming to Corege, HRH had resorted to their native tongue only when especially exasperated. Tamett steeled himself.

“You do not need to pack. We are not returning to Lienne for the Christmas holidays.”

“But, sir,” said Tamett, “we are. You’ve been talking about it for weeks. Everyone else is going home—well, almost everyone. Why wouldn’t we go?”

HRH bent to survey the trunk with disdain. “Certain opportunities for further studies have presented themselves, and I have taken them. They require that I remain here.”

“I don’t have any arrangements like that, sir. So I can still go home, can’t I?”

“My father engaged you as my companion and manservant during the time I am at Hollingham. I will be at Hollingham over Christmas. Ergo, you will be also.”

Heart pounding, Tamett stepped between HRH and the trunk, as if to protect it.

“What if I choose not to?” he said before he could stop himself.

“Yes, sir” was the correct response, the one he ordinarily would have given. But this time those words wouldn’t come.

HRH stiffened to his full height. His voice was dangerously calm. “Would you like to write to my father and tell him so?”

Death would have been preferable to direct communication with the King, but Tamett wouldn’t have admitted it to that smug face. “But sir, I am promised certain holidays in this position. Christmas has always been one of them.”

“Consider it the start of a new tradition. And you will, of course, be compensated accordingly.”

“You couldn’t compensate me enough not to go. My family is already expecting me. I have to be there. Do you remember my sister Emenor?”

HRH inspected an audacious speck on his shoe. “The little violinistin? Oh yes. What about her?”

“She’s off to the conservatory before the new year, and she’ll stay in Königsstadt over the summer. It’ll be my last chance to see her before next Christmas. And—not that I’m in any hurry,” he lied, “but she really wants to see me. You know how sisters are.”

Judging from his expressionless face, Josiah’s sisters must have never been in a hurry to see him. “Write to her,” he said. “And tell her she will have to wait. It will do her good. Disappointment builds character.”

“Perhaps you should explain that to her.”

“She’s not my sister,” said HRH. “I owe her nothing.”

“Just because you don’t care about seeing your people, it doesn’t mean I do. Perhaps I’ll leave anyway. I don’t need a guard, so Raskvist can stay with you and I can go by myself.”

“How? You really think they’ll let you on a ship alone?”

“Lots of boys do it all the time. Like Böllingfurt.” 

HRH’s expression hardened. “Assuming you could book passage. All the ships leaving next week will be full by now, I should think.”

“How many people in Corege do you think are clamoring to go to Lienne right now? There’s bound to be something. Even third-class if I have to.”

HRH recoiled, as if Tamett had suggested traveling among livestock. “Well, enjoy explaining to your people why you’ve returned crawling with vermin. And even if there were something available, how would you pay for it? I know you spent everything in Oddington.”

“I can...acquire it. Somehow.”

“An honest man need never borrow, Tamett. A loan gained is honor lost. Sooner to sweep the streets than to meet the moneylender. Need I go on?”

“I never said I would borrow!”

“Short of stealing, I don’t know how else you can ‘acquire’ anything. You have no pocket money until next month. I can’t help you. And neither will my father. We will spend Christmas with the other boys who aren’t leaving. Dr. Samwyl entertains them every year at his house.”

“There has to be some way I could—”

“I say we are remaining here, and that is final.”

Tamett recognized that tone, an echo of the King’s, and knew better than to argue. 

“You may send your sister my regrets.” HRH turned on his heel and swept out of the room as abruptly as he had entered it.

The boy in the next cubicle poked his head over, hoping for an explanation of the torrent of Liennese he had overheard. Tamett pretended not to notice. He returned to his bureau, pulled out another armful of possessions, and threw them in the trunk.

#

Tamett pointed to the mound of striped paper bags abandoned on Elystan’s desk. “You said I could have some of these, didn’t you?” The boys had finished one bag between them the day before, until Elystan had grown bored and Tamett became otherwise occupied.

Elystan barely glanced up from his book. “What? Oh. Yes.”

“How much?”

“Take it all. I don’t know what all the fuss is about. It wasn’t even the good sort.”

Tamett recalled no objections yesterday, but as long as the inconsistency profited him, he wouldn’t question it. 

“Going to distribute it among the sisters?” asked Elystan.

Tamett shrugged.

“Oh, did you hear that Our Mutual Burden isn’t leaving for the holiday after all?” 

Tamett said he had heard something about that.

“Can’t say I’m surprised. If I were his people, I wouldn’t want him back either.”

Tamett shook his head. “It was his choice. Something about further studies?”

“Who in their right mind stays at school over the hols to study more? But then, this is The Great Intellect we’re talking about, so…” He rolled his eyes. “Not impossible. Oh well. At least it’ll spare you the agony of having to travel with him, won’t it?”

“Yes,” said Tamett. “Yes, I won’t be traveling with him.” He bundled the bags into his satchel and headed for the junior day-room.

His fellow pupils—the ones with sufficient pocket money, at least—were about to experience a Christmas come early. And, if all worked out, so might Tamett.

#

If Tamett thought about it any longer, he would lose his nerve. All he had to do was knock and get the ordeal over with. The door wasn’t intimidating, nothing like the one to the King’s study, but nonetheless he shrank from it as if it were a portal to a torture chamber instead of the last barrier between him and the Rev. Dr. Tamhas Samwyl, headmaster of Corege’s most prestigious school. He had seen the Head before—everyone had, if not in passing, then in church every Sunday—but of course had never dared approach him. Like the King, the Head existed only to exact punishment on wrongdoers.

But Tamett’s conscience was clear. Mostly. He had no choice. He raised a shaking hand and knocked.

Briefly the relief of no reply shot through him, but a flat “Come in” soon followed, and Tamett cracked open the door and entered.

As he had expected, the Head’s office was lined with books and free of clutter. The Head didn’t seem to bother much with personal effects like pictures and objets on his nearly bare desk. But Tamett had not expected a pair of crossed foils to hang over the fireplace, and staring at these as he entered, instead of at the man behind the desk, emboldened him to walk in further.

A crisp voice interrupted his observation. “Mr. Lockridge? Do you have a question for me, or are you contemplating a duel? I warn you I am prepared for either, as long as you can keep it under ten minutes.”

“No, sir. Sorry, sir,” gasped Tamett, turning to face the Head. He had expected the looming surpliced figure that intoned sermons from a lofty height every week. But the gray-haired man seated at eye level with him, raising an eyebrow, seemed strangely human, despite—or perhaps because of—the severity of his manner. It struck Tamett for the first time that the face he had been picturing for the mysterious Uncle Adrend was very like the Head’s.

Tamett took a breath and said quickly, “I don’t want to spend Christmas with you, sir, there’s been a mistake.” 

Those were not the right words. He knew it as he said it.

The Head frowned. “Oh? Something about my hospitality is distasteful to you? The only mistake is an ungrateful attitude, Mr. Lockridge. But you are welcome to spend the day in your dormitory if that is more to your discerning taste.”

“No, sir. I mean, I’m not supposed to stay. I don’t need to. My family is expecting me.”

“I am not aware that an authorized representative of His Majesty has come to fetch you.”

“No, sir, I need to book my passage, and that’s why I’m here.” The Head opened his mouth, but Tamett blazed on. “I can pay for it. I have—” He poured his store of profits onto the desk. “I have nearly one monarch. I know it’s not enough, but I thought perhaps you could take out some from what they gave you for my upkeep and finish it off. My father would pay it back. Or my uncle. I know we would. Please, sir.”

The Head examined the coins. “This can’t be all from your pocket money. I trust you acquired it honestly.”

“Trade, sir,” said Tamett quietly. He was not ashamed, but Hollingham considered that means of wealth common.

“I commend your enterprise, Mr. Lockridge.” The Head handed the coins back. “But I cannot accept this arrangement. Legally, I cannot send you anywhere without express permission from your guardian. You’ll have to suffer through my presence during your holiday. Mrs. Samwyl already has a series of parlor games planned that will no doubt horrify you.”

“Thank you, sir, but I have a letter from my mother, and she makes it awfully—I mean, quite clear that she expects me to come.”

“Express permission, Mr. Lockridge. Not the implications of a personal letter. Everyone’s mother writes that sort of thing; it means nothing. And of course it was not your parents who sent you here. It was the royal household of Lienne. Officially, you are a ward of King Odren, and it is his permission that you need. Has His Majesty been in communication with you?”

“No, sir. But His Royal Highness told me about the arrangement. He said I had to stay too. That can’t be true. I don’t need to. He’s the one staying to study, not me.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, boy; studying has nothing to do with it.”

“His Royal Highness said we’re staying because he’s had ‘opportunities for further studies.’ Some kind of special tutoring, probably.”

“You must have misheard him. Because His Majesty did write to us—” The Head went to a cabinet and fished out a letter from a file. “He was quite clear. ‘Please be informed that I do not wish my son Josiah to return to Lienne for the Christmas holiday. The head of my household will make the arrangements to board him and his companion at Hollingham as usual during that time.’ He said nothing about special studies. And—unless the staff is keeping secrets from me and I need to make a few dismissals—we do not offer such things outside of term time. This is a public school, not a crammer’s.” He laid the letter on the desk for Tamett to see.

Tamett immediately recognized the bold strokes and thick lines of the King’s handwriting. The emphatic words “I do not wish my son Josiah to return” dominated the message, while “his companion” was so crowded it seemed an afterthought.

“I don’t understand,” said Tamett. “Why didn’t he just say the King didn’t want us to come back? It would have made more sense.”

“That’s something you’ll have to ask him yourself. But if you ask me, he’s the sort who would rather stain your carpet than show you the wound.”

What on earth did that mean? “So there’s no hope of getting home at all?” Tamett hazarded.

“I have been in communication with His Majesty on the matter, and unless there is further word from him, no. There is not. I couldn’t say what the man’s purpose is, besides being a—at any rate, he is not receptive to my advice, and the school must abide by his wishes.”

Tamett’s shoulders slumped. “I’ll have to write to my family,” he said quietly. “My sister won’t be happy.”

“She will recover. So will you. Now back to work. You have examinations to study for, and we don’t want your parents to receive another letter of bad news concerning your report.”

Tamett stole one last look at the foils.

“Yes, I still use them,” said the Head, without looking up from his paperwork. “Only occasionally. I make no promises that they will make an appearance at Christmas, but at the very least you may hear a certain fascinating story behind them.”

“Thank you, sir.” He trudged out, trying not to plan out his letter home, not in front of all the older boys he would have to pass on the way back to his day-room. 

#

Elystan’s rumpled head poked out from the bedclothes and scowled. “As a matter of fact, I am not awake and don’t want to be. So if there are no further questions...”

“You said you needed help packing,” said Tamett. He would much rather have been in bed at seven in the morning too, but Elystan had pleaded and cajoled the evening before until Tamett had conceded that extra work would be a welcome distraction. Four days later the bad news still stung.

Elystan growled and rolled over. “Come back tomorrow.”

“You’re leaving tomorrow.” Tamett stormed Elystan’s wardrobe and tossed hanging garments over one shoulder.

“Honestly, what do you Liennese have against the sight of anyone else sleeping?” Elystan propped himself up on one elbow, ignoring Tamett’s automatic insistence that he was not Liennese but Noriberrian. “Between you and Josiah groaning all night—where is he?”

HRH’s bed was empty and neatly made.

“Must have already gone out,” said Tamett. He didn’t much care what HRH did or where he went anymore as long as he didn’t have to see that liar any more than necessary. HRH had at least had the decency to mostly make himself scarce for the last several days.

“Thank goodness for one thing going right today. I’ll be glad not to have to bother with that for a while, won’t you?”

“I wouldn’t know. We’re staying here.” Tamett returned Elystan’s sardonic look with a solemn one of his own.

Elystan raised his eyebrows. “Now, now, Tamett,” he said. “He might stay here, but not you. You’re too clever for that. You’ll find a way home. Have you booked passage for a ship leaving in the dead of the night?”

“No.” Tamett flung a shoe into the trunk with a thud.

“Then you’re stowing away?”

“No.”

“Bribed someone to give you a lift?”

The other shoe missed the trunk and collided with Tamett’s foot. “No!”

“Taking a balloon? Or an aeroplane?”

Tamett reached for the smashed foot and winced. “Look here, I’m not going home. At all. By any means. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Elystan dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “Well, who really wants to go home anyhow? All you get is your mother fussing at you and a lot of stupid siblings crowding around. Same old musty ornaments, same old dinner, same old conversations, and only the best parts ever change. Then people give you a lot of stupid gifts and expect you to be grateful for them when the one thing you really want is what they’ll never give you. I think you’re well out of it.”

Tamett deposited another armful of Elystan’s belongings into the trunk with a crash. “That is the most inaccurate description of anything I’ve ever heard.”

“My poor child,” said Elystan, “there’s so much in life you don’t understand.”

Tamett slammed the trunk lid. “I understand I want to see my people. Everyone does. I think you do, even if you won’t say so. So does His Royal Highness. But his father doesn’t want to see him, so we’re both stuck here, so shut up about how miserable you’ll be at home.”

Elystan shrank back. “His father doesn’t want to—really?”

“Saw the letter myself.”

Elystan shook his head. “His own father…” He laughed abruptly. “Well, I was right, wasn’t I? But his father can’t have said anything about you. You can too do something about it.”

“No. That’s just the way things are.”

“Why would you let a little thing like that stop you? People change their minds all the time. All they need is a little nudge in the right direction. Talk to the Head about it. Make him see that having you around all through the hols is the last thing he wants.”

Tamett plucked shirts from their hangers at a pace dangerous to the fabric. “Must be nice to be a King’s brother. To demand things from grown-ups and expect to get them. Companions don’t have that privilege. It’s my place to accept whatever my king requires and…” He wadded a shirt and tossed it in the reopened trunk. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Like a good, dutiful servant,” mimicked Elystan. “Oh, Tamett, I thought you were better than that. I thought we had decided you weren’t going to listen to him anymore if you didn’t want to.”

“You decided that. Not me.”

“You’re welcome! Somebody has to look out for you, if you won’t yourself.”

“What are you going to do? Write to the King and order him to bring me home?”

For this Elystan had no answer.

Tamett crumpled up a brocade dressing gown with an intricate ivy pattern, crammed it in a corner of the trunk, and did not pursue the conversation further.

#

As boys left Hollingham, one by one, bound for carriages and trains and ships, they never noticed, while they waved goodbyes to friends whose good fortune was still en route, that they left school with pieces of greenery on their hats or shoulders. If they had bothered to look up, they would have seen a face peering between the balusters and expertly flicking pieces of the evergreens decorating the bannister at them like resentful confetti. 

Tamett didn’t mind being overlooked. At moments like this he preferred his anonymity. Even the boys of his form and dormitory had forgotten him in their excitement. Some of them sat on a bench, swinging their legs and earnestly discussing what they were going to eat first when they got home. There was room on the bench, but Tamett didn’t sit there. Another lot stood in a clump by the fire, comparing sizes of their perhaps nonexistent sleds. Tamett had nothing to contribute to this. Neither did he run out to join the snowball fight outside the front door. 

Sitting on the stairs and perfecting his aim on unwitting victims suited his present requirements far better. Böllingfurt was sailing out bestowing his parting greetings with a gracious wave toward his countless warm friends. Tamett had just pitched a pine cone at that peerless creature’s bowler without his turning around, when His Royal Highness trudged down the stairs. 

He stopped beside Tamett, who prepared himself to tune out a lecture on the ungentlemanliness of sitting on stairs. But HRH only said, “May I sit with you?”

Unsure what to make of this civil question, Tamett shrugged. HRH lowered himself onto the step beside him and stared fixedly at the book he clutched to his chest.

“Tamett?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Is your house on the telephone?”

“Yes, sir,” said Tamett proudly. The Lockridges would not have had a telephone without his earnings.

“I’m going to send a wire home this afternoon. If you have anything to say to your sister, my sisters can ring her up and tell her.”

Tamett knew exactly the uproar that would ensue in the Lockridge household if the palace telephoned them long-distance and how Emenor would write describing it and thanking him.

“Thank you,” he said simply, keeping his face between the balusters.

HRH did not reply. The step creaked as he shifted in his seat.

“You know,” he said, “the conservatory students perform at Königshaus every summer. I look forward to it every year. Sometimes we bring guests.”

“Oh?” said Tamett. What did that have to do with anything?

“You of course will not be otherwise occupied all summer.”

As Josiah’s meaning sank in, Tamett caught his eye. He wanted to say something appropriately grateful, but nothing would come. If Josiah knew what Tamett was thinking, his face didn’t betray it, so the boys sat in silence, watching more of their schoolmates leave.

Tamett spoke up first. “Going to wire your people on Christmas too?”

“No, I’ll be too busy studying and…”

Tamett unplastered his face from the balusters. “You don’t have to pretend. I know.”

To his surprise, Josiah didn’t seem angry. His rigid posture slackened a little as he mumbled, “Who told you?”

“The Head.”

Josiah’s stiff, expressionless self returned. “My father probably wishes me to further immerse myself in Coregean culture and customs. Which I could hardly do if I were home. I’m not really missing anything. It’s not as if I were Mikaiah and waiting for the Christmas Angel or something.”

“Or the Goatfriend, like my sisters.”

The corner of Josiah’s mouth twitched. “The what?” he said in a strangled voice.

“The Goatfriend. You know, ‘The Goatfriend comes at Christmas Eve; if you’ve been good, fine gifts he’ll leave’?”

“You Noriberrian idiots,” said Josiah from behind his hand, shoulders shaking. If he hadn’t been HRH, Tamett would have suspected him of laughing.

Before such an indignity could occur, the boys were interrupted by a slight figure in a red coat with black fur stampeding up the steps toward them.

“Well,” gasped Elystan, “aren’t you coming?”

“Coming where?” asked Tamett.

Elystan eyed them both bemusedly. “To Rhosemore. With me. Where else would I be going? We’re leaving now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Josiah. “I never said I’d go anywhere with you.”

“You never said you wouldn’t either. So are you coming or would you rather stay here under the Head’s nose all through the hols?”

“And how exactly is spending it with you any better?”

“An old companion like me? Why not? It’s not as if you have anyone else to go home with. And that motorcar isn’t going to wait forever.”

Josiah hesitated, but Tamett said, “We’re coming. Thanks awfully.”

“But—” said Josiah. Tamett grabbed his sleeve and dragged him, still clutching his book, down the stairs after Elystan. “We haven’t packed for this! We don’t even have our coats! We’ll freeze.”

“Oh, you’re practically a polar seal already,” said Elystan. “You’ll be fine.”

 Josiah stopped halfway down and refused to budge. “If you really wanted us to come along, you at least could have mentioned it sooner.”

“I didn’t want to bring you home then,” said Elystan airily. 

“But why now?”

“If I have to put up with my mother and Delclis for the whole holiday, so should you. And you’ll be staying at Rhosemore. Everyone wants to go to Rhosemore, and here’s your chance to get a little further than picture postcards. That’s where you’d be anyway if you were here as a guest instead of a pupil. Wouldn’t your father rather you hang around the Coregean court than this mausoleum?”

Tamett could have fetched his coat and hat and packed a small bag in the time it took Josiah to reply. “Very well,” he said at last. “But only because it would not be diplomatic to decline your brother’s hospitality.”

And that was how Tamett found himself in a closed motorcar moments later, speeding away toward the station while Elystan assured him and HRH that they could send for their belongings later. Which, it struck Tamett, would also alert the school that they had left the premises without express permission of a guardian.

But that was another problem for another time.

[isfjmel-phleg]

OC Questions: 4, 10, 19, 50

Thank you!

4. A character you rarely talk about?

I couldn’t decide. Here are three.

The Rev. Dr. Tamhas Samwyl is headmaster of Hollingham while Elystan, Tamett, and Josiah are there, and the boys all have more than a few run-ins with him. He’s no-nonsense and strict but ultimately fair-minded--although the fact that he oversees one of the most elitist institutions in Corege complicates that.

Rietta-Coleinette Brammage (not to be confused with Rietta Valencourt--Faysmond is full of girls named for the Queen, including a cousin of Rachel’s), daughter of the Duke of Normorot, the head of Queen Rietta’s regency council. When the Queen has to choose her dame d’honneur--her head lady-in-waiting--Rietta-Coleinette is presented as an ideal choice, and, regardless of what’s decided, she is going to play a role in the Queen’s (and Rachel’s) life henceforth. Most of that is still TBA, but I can tell you that she does not live up to the Queen’s expectations, and she will shake up the Rietta-Rachel dynamic.

Olvaine Parlen is only nineteen when she gets a place in Queen Bethira’s household. She doesn’t much care for the Queen, whom she sees as cold and judgmental, so she’s relieved to find someone around who is kind to her and encourages her taste for lively activity in her spare time. He’s handsome and charismatic and makes her feel very special. Of course, he’s a bit older than her, but that doesn’t seem to matter because he’s quite her age at heart. She looks forward to every minute she can spend with him, but it’s never quite often enough. After all, King Talfrin is a busy man.

10. Introduce an OC with a complicated design?

I don’t think anyone qualifies for this? I think the characters I have developed a look for are fairly straightforward, and everyone else...well, I don’t really draw anyone any more. Unless I’m misunderstanding and you’re looking for another answer?

19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you (and explain why)

As much as I’ve been dragging my feet on doing much with Rachel, planning an OC who is essentially the worst version of my teenage self has been helpful in trying to process some things and for mulling over the nature of friendship and its complexities, especially when it’s between people who have significant differences on major things that matter a lot to them. Rachel and her family and situation are a lot more personal than most of the other elements of these stories, and it will be a challenge to approach this with nuance and--dare I hope?--insight.

Besides, literature needs more female protagonists who are relatable to those of us who aren’t bold, spunky, assertive, and effortlessly competent. Hopefully this is something that can be pulled off.

50. Give me the good ol' OC talk here. Talk about anything you want

it’s so open-ended, I don’t know what to do

Um...the next short story I’ll be writing is about Elystan, a Halloween party on his tenth birthday, and his relationship with Delclis before Delclis’s ascension changed everything. I tend to lazily think of the half-brothers as having always been on bad terms--Delclis distant and indifferent, Elystan deliberately annoying and superior. But is there more to it? They grew up together and thus, despite the differences in their upbringings, have a shared experience of life that no one else in their world has. And that experience has included shared happiness along with the more negative things. It’s more complicated than simply not being able to stand each other. As much as Elystan torments Delclis, deep down it kind of comes from a place of desiring his brother’s attention. And while Delclis doesn’t often have very deep investment in most people, have there been times when he has welcomed his brother’s company and found what he has to say interesting and not entirely irrational?

...that sounds good, but now I have to figure out how to write about it.

[isfjmel-phleg]

I should have been working on the next chapter this week but got distracted by life in general and planning things, namely facts about the school that will be the setting of Book 3. The intention is to give it the feel of an elite Edwardian public school, so yes, with my usual originality, I’ve stolen a lot from my sporadic research into Psmith’s school background. There’s a lot of potential drama putting Tamett, Elystan, and Josiah into such a setting, arising from both their personalities and social statuses, and hopefully I can get a full plot worked out eventually.

In the meantime, this is a starting place, and I reserve the right to change any of this information at any time.

Hollingham College

Location: Oddington, Corege (Central Corege, about two hours by train from Loriston)

Type: Independent day and boarding public school.

Motto: Vincit qui se vincit.

Religious Affiliations: Church of Corege.

Established: 1591.

Founder: King Marbert III.

Provost: The Duke of Merrox (father of four sons who currently attend the College).

Governors: Twenty-five peers (12 appointed by the monarch, 12 by provost, 1 hereditary post).

Head Master: The Rev. Dr. Tamhas Samwyl.

Gender: Male.

Age Range: 11-18.

Enrollment: ~500 (350 boarders, 150 day boys): 75% Coregean, 10% Faysmondian, 5% Liennese, 10% Others.

Capacity: 500. Although expansion is feasible, the College is committed to being a highly exclusive establishment.

Student to Teacher Ratio: ~8:1, ~67 masters.

Houses: 10 (35 boys per house), currently not in use due to fire damage/remodeling.

Colors: Hollingham green and old gold.

Song: “Hollingham Hymn.”

Publications: The Marbertian Annal, the Firefly (highly unofficial).

School Fees: 420 monarchs per annum (~$44,876 or £37,000).

Alumni: Old Marbertians.

School terms: Three “Quarters”: Christmas (September-December), Easter (January-April), and summer (April-June).

Uniform: Black tailcoat (short coat for pupils under 5’4”), pinstriped trousers, white high-collared shirt, white bowtie (variations for prefects and other distinctions), green waistcoat (gold for prefects).

Teaching: Classical (30%), Modern (25%), Science (20%), Political (25%,); Lower Fourth (ages 11-12), Upper Fourth (12-13), Remove (13-14), Lower Fifth (14-15), Middle Fifth (15-16), Upper Fifth (16-17), Sixth Form (17-18).

Classes: For Classical: Greek, Latin, Coregean Literature, Divinity, History, two electives. For Modern: Faysmondian, Liennese, Coregean Literature, Divinity, History, two electives. For Science: Botany, Chemistry, Geology, Physics, Mathematics, Divinity, one elective. For Political: Political Economy, Constitutional Law, Coregean Literature, Faysmondian, Divinity, History, one elective.

Societies: Numerous clubs for almost every interest and activity, such as debate or chess or fencing. The most powerful, important, or socially regarded pupils are admitted into a club called The Circle.

Grants and Prizes: Annual scholarships to seven deserving boys, annual awards for best work in various subjects, annual awards for citizenship/deportment etc.

Prefects: 50, 1 Head Boy.

Incentives and Sanctions: Excellent work, depending on the quality, can be honored by one’s form-master, the headmaster, or the entire school (displayed on a particular wall and preserved in the archives). The student might be awarded a prize (such as a book), an extra holiday, or a certificate or plaque. Poor work can be derided in front of one’s form and may result in extra work and/or a visit to the Headmaster’s office. Exams occur at the end of every quarter. Academic punishments include detention, writing lines, and early morning chores (for tardiness). Punishments for other infractions range from warnings to fines to canings by a prefect, master, or the Head.

Sports: Wickets, rugball, athletics, fencing, gymnastics, boxing, shooting, rowing, equestrian.

Music and drama: Choir, orchestra, ensembles, one theatrical production per quarter.

Celebrations: End of Quarter, King Marbert’s Birthday (February 15), Parents’ Day (June 25), Sovereign’s Birthday (September 26).