The School for Thieves, page 12
“That man, Lysander Hoffmann,” said Tom. “He was furious about me being here.”
“Lysander Hoffmann is a pompous, deluded fool. A great family of thieves, the Hoffmanns. His sister Skylar is a living legend. Lysander… not so gifted. Much like his son…” The Corsair seemed to catch himself. “What you need to focus on is making the most of this opportunity. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance you’ve got here. Don’t waste it. But don’t dismiss the warnings you’ve been given either. As the headmaster said: any pupil—any Shadow, for that matter—who fails the Shadow League will be disposed of. You do not want that to happen. Do you hear me?”
Tom nodded.
“Templeton was right—you are going to be up against it,” said the Corsair. “This is all new to you… and the school is full of pupils with long lineages in the Shadow League, who are as pompous and arrogant as Lysander Hoffmann. They won’t like that you are an outsider. Trust me, I know. I had the same experience.”
Crowe’s sneering face flashed in Tom’s mind. “So what am I supposed to do?”
The Corsair clasped Tom by the shoulder, his eyes bright. “You fight, Tom. With every fiber of your being. You work your fingers to the bone. You show every one of them that you deserve to be here. More than that—you show them that you’re the best of them all. You have the talent and the wit and all the intangibles that are needed to rise to the top. I see it in you. I believe in you.”
Tom didn’t know what to say. Was this still part of some game the Corsair was playing? He couldn’t tell. But despite this nagging feeling, he felt emboldened. He nodded.
“Good.” The Corsair released his grip. “Now,” he said, turning back down the alley. “Let’s show you around your new home.”
* * *
Every window of Guile House was lit warmly as they wandered down Half Moon Street, and there was the delicious smell of cooking in the air, which was even more wonderful than the smell of baking bread earlier.
“Dinner will be in half an hour,” said the Corsair, opening the front door for Tom. “Your room is this way.”
They headed across the entrance hall and through a low archway to their right, which led to a narrow, winding staircase. They climbed the rickety stairs to the fifth floor, passing a warren of corridors as they went. The bustle of activity Tom had witnessed earlier had dispersed. “Study time,” explained the Corsair as they climbed.
Halfway up the stairs they met an older boy of perhaps seventeen or eighteen. “Montague, this is Tom Morgan. Tom, this is James Montague. Montague is one of our sixth-grade Apprentices. Top of the school. Are you on house duty tonight, Montague?”
“Yes, sir,” said Montague, eyeing Tom. He looked unimpressed by what he saw. “Just doing the study rounds—everything’s in order.”
“Très bon, I’d expect nothing less.”
As they began to climb the stairs again, the Corsair glanced at Tom. “The senior students have much of the responsibility for running the house. They ensure the younger students stick to the rules, make it to mealtimes, do their homework, don’t wreck the place, and stay in their separated areas of the house. And they can dish out punishments as well, so I’d be nice to them if I were you. No cheek.”
The fifth floor was also the top floor of the building, and the ceiling of the corridor was lower here than on the previous stories. “Tenderfoots and Greenhorns are on the top floor. It’s a long climb, but the views are good.” The Corsair turned down a corridor to his right and headed to the far end, where two doors stood side by side.
“Here you are,” he said, pushing his way through the right-hand door. “Ah, Locke, good to see you.”
They were in a semicircular wood-paneled room, with high, curved windows, a narrow bed, a sink, and a writing desk that matched the bookcase. Tom realized it was one of the turrets he had seen from the street. A shrunken old man was standing by the bookcase, arranging a pile of textbooks along the shelves.
“Herr von Stuppe,” said the little man with an arthritic bow of his head.
“Tom Morgan, this is Atticus Locke, our Guile House scout.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Tom, reaching out his hand.
Locke looked at the hand, surprised, then extended his own, and they shook. “I hope you will find everything in order,” said Locke. “I took the liberty of unpacking for you.”
“You didn’t need to do that,” said Tom, feeling embarrassed. “But thank you.”
“Good man, Locke,” said the Corsair, and he slipped a few coins into the top pocket of the old man’s coat. “You can get away now. See you in the morning.”
Locke bowed again and shuffled out.
“So, here you are,” said the Corsair again, staring around the room. “I hope you find it comfortable.”
A wave of emotion suddenly overcame Tom. He had a room of his own. A room like this, in a place like this. He wiped his eyes, and the Corsair carefully busied himself examining the book titles on the shelf.
“Yes, it looks very comfortable. Thank you,” said Tom at last. He looked around the room again and then at the thick door. It had a huge iron lock, but there was no key anywhere in sight.
“When I first came to the school, they would lock all the doors at night,” said the Corsair, following Tom’s gaze. “It was a bit like a cell, to be honest.”
“Does that still happen?” asked Tom in alarm, his thoughts returning at once to the horrors of his cell in the Rawlock.
“No.” The Corsair barked a laugh. “They stopped doing it a long time ago because there was really no point—no thief worth his salt would be kept back by something as trivial as a locked door.” His eyes misted over slightly. “Shame, though; they were great days—sneaking out at night after picking the lock or scaling out of the window or tunneling through the wall or down through the floor. It was a great challenge to try to beat your friends to the rooftop or out into the street and keep how you did it from the teachers and the prefects. Great days. Ah, well.”
The Corsair strode out of the room and rapped his knuckles on the adjacent door. After a few moments, a boy of Tom’s age appeared. He was tall and slim, with dark skin and large brown eyes that stared in alarm at the Corsair.
“Herr von Stuppe!” he exclaimed. “I heard you were back, sir. Er… is everything all right?”
“Yes, yes, everything’s fine, Enzo,” said the Corsair, clapping the boy on the shoulder. “I want you to meet your new neighbor. This is Tom Morgan. Tom, this is Enzo Jag.”
The two boys awkwardly shook hands. Tom had never been so formal with someone his own age before.
“Show him around, Enzo,” instructed the Corsair. “Give him the lay of the land and take him down to dinner. Look after him, all right?”
“Yes, sir,” said Enzo, although he clearly wasn’t thrilled by the prospect.
“I’ll see you both in the dining hall,” said the Corsair, heading back down the stairs. He glanced at his watch. “Fifteen minutes.”
“So…,” said Enzo, dragging out the word for several seconds. “Welcome.” He cleared his throat. “You, um, have a nice journey here?”
“It was… interesting,” said Tom.
Enzo nodded politely.
There was a silence.
“I met Mr. Locke,” said Tom eventually.
“Old Atticus?”
Tom nodded. Enzo added nothing more.
“What is he?” said Tom. “I mean, what’s a scout?”
“It’s a sort of housekeeper.”
“Right.”
Enzo studied Tom’s face. “You not had one before?”
“A scout? No. Never heard of them. That’s why I asked.”
“No, I mean a housekeeper. Your expression went all funny when I said it.”
Tom smiled, but there was no humor in it. “No,” he said. “I’ve not had a housekeeper before.” He squared his shoulders. “I’ve not ever had a house, come to that.”
He was preparing for Enzo to laugh at him—and was ready to plant his fist right in the middle of the boy’s face if he did. But that’s not what happened. Instead Enzo just nodded. “Yeah, sorry—I heard. That was stupid of me to ask. Sorry.”
“You heard?”
“Some news came through about you arriving.”
Tom, still on the edge of throwing himself into a fight, gave an inarticulate grunt in reply. The idea that everyone had heard of him—like some kind of fascinating oddity—gnawed at him. He didn’t want to be thought of as a special or exceptional case. He’d never shown any remarkable abilities that merited such a distinction. He was like a stray dog that the Corsair had taken pity on.
He needed to change the subject. “So, how long have you been at the school?”
Despite no actual invitation being made, the two boys had drifted into Enzo’s room, which was a mirror image of Tom’s. They sat down—Tom at Enzo’s desk chair, Enzo on the end of his bed.
“This is my second year,” said Enzo. “I was homeschooled until I was eleven, like most kids here. Well, when I say most kids, I mean pretty much every kid—except you.”
Tom couldn’t help but smile. “Well, there’s a surprise.”
“It’s just the way it is. There are so many legacy pupils waiting to come here now that they don’t look for new recruits much these days.”
“How was it when you first came here?”
Enzo shrugged. “A bit of a shock initially, but you get used to it. And I’d been on quite a few summer camps organized by the League. That’s where they do all the tests to determine which school you’re going to go to.”
“So, you didn’t make the grade as an assassin?”
“No, not quite psychotic enough, I’m afraid.”
They laughed, and for the first time in Tom didn’t know how long, he felt himself relaxing a little. The edginess had evaporated. He liked Enzo.
“So you’re a legacy pupil. What did your family do?”
“Both Mum and Dad are from long lines of thieves. You tend to follow in your parents’ and ancestors’ footsteps—although not always.”
“Yeah, I met Valeria Novgorod earlier. I heard one of her parents was a spy, but she became a thief.”
“Novgorod…” Enzo shuddered. “She freaks me out. It feels like she can read my mind.”
Tom nodded. “Yeah, those eyes.”
They both pulled faces, their eyes staring wide at one another, their faces taut, and then they collapsed into laughter.
“So what grade are you at?” asked Tom eventually. “How old are you?”
“I’m thirteen—”
“Same as me.”
“And I’m a second-grade Greenhorn. I passed my exams in the summer. You’ll be a Tenderfoot as you’ve just arrived.”
“I can always steal someone else’s homework—it’s probably encouraged here. That should help me catch up!” said Tom with a laugh—but Enzo didn’t join in.
“Did Herr von Stuppe not tell you the school rules?” he asked, his voice suddenly serious.
Tom stopped laughing. “Rules? No. Why?”
“Rule one,” said Enzo, crossing to his bookcase and pulling down a notebook. “It’s the most important rule you need to know while you’re here.”
He pointed to the cover. The leather had been embossed with the words HONOR AMONG THIEVES. “While at the school, no pupil must ever steal from another. If they do, they’ll be hung from the town walls by their thumbs for two weeks and by their big toes for a further month without food or water. If you somehow manage to survive this, you’re unlikely to regain the level of dexterity you need to graduate through the school exams, so you’ll be expelled. And you know what that means.” Enzo wriggled his fingers against one temple, rolled his eyes back, and flopped his tongue out.
“Oh, come on, that can’t be serious?”
“You want me to take you to see the skeletons hanging from the Traitor’s Wall? The ones that don’t survive the six-week hangings? They’re left there as a warning. Hanging from thumbs and toes. I’ll show you.”
Tom frowned. It sounded ridiculous, but Enzo appeared deadly serious. “And that applies to schoolwork as well?”
Enzo considered this for a moment. “Yeah. You can’t steal another pupil’s work and pass it off as your own. But I could help you—if I choose to—that’s allowed.” He sighed. “I suppose I can give you a hand with some bits and pieces while you settle in.”
“That’d be great,” said Tom quickly. “I’ll take any help I can get. How many first-grade Tenderfoots are there?”
Enzo shrugged. “There’s usually a dozen or so students per grade in each house, sometimes as many as twenty, depending—”
He was interrupted by a light knocking on the door. They looked up to see another boy standing there. Like Enzo—and Tom himself—he was tall and slim. He had gray-blue eyes and tanned skin and was dressed in the same dark gray open-neck shirt and trouser ensemble worn by everyone else in town. The only flash of color was a blue Guile House headband that kept his messy dark hair away from his eyes.
“All right, Enz,” said the boy with a relaxed drawl. “What’s happening?”
“Just filling in Tom here on some of the school rules.”
“Ah, the newbie!” exclaimed the boy, striding into the room, hand extended. “Jericho Fox. How are you doing?”
Tom shook his hand. “Tom Morgan.”
“I was just telling him about the Traitor’s Wall,” said Enzo.
Jericho held out his hands and did a little dance with his thumbs, grimacing. “You should go take a look. It’s disgusting. There are some shackles there that just have thumb bones in them—they came away from the hands!”
Tom pulled a face. “That’s worse than a full skeleton!”
“Dunno about that, but it’s still pretty nasty.”
“Yeah, but they’re also really old,” said Enzo as if in reassurance. “They haven’t hung anyone from that wall in years.”
“You guys are definitely kidding me,” said Tom skeptically. It felt like the kind of joke reserved for newcomers.
Jericho held his hands up, as if in confession. “All right, all right, they may not be old pupils hanging there—although there are rumors. It’s more likely that they’re skeletons of adults who’ve betrayed the League. But still, you never know. We’ll take you to see them sometime.”
“All right, let’s do that,” said Tom, still unconvinced. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” He stared around the room and shook his head. “Like this place in general. I heard stories about this school. But I never thought there was any truth in them—or that I might actually be here one day. I’m only just beginning to believe it now that I can see it and touch it and smell it.”
“It must be quite a shock,” said Jericho. “Especially the way Enzo stinks.”
Enzo punched Jericho on the arm. “I was born here,” continued Jericho. “It’s pretty much all I’ve ever known.”
“Jer’s mum is a teacher,” explained Enzo.
“Zadie Fox,” said Jericho. “She’s the money genius. Brilliant at financial scams. Her classes can be a bit dull, to be honest—but don’t tell her I said that!—a lot of math. Obviously.”
Tom nodded and smiled tightly, starting to feel overwhelmed.
“You all right?” asked Enzo. “You’re not about to throw up, are you? After that flight?” He started to usher Tom toward his sink.
“Nah, nah, I’m all right…,” said Tom, blinking back into focus and pushing Enzo away. “I was… I was just thinking about everyone I left behind. Wondering what they might be doing. How they are.”
“It must be hard for them,” said Jericho softly, “in the workhouse…”
Tom frowned. “How d’you know they ended up in a workhouse?”
Enzo paused. “I told you—we heard a little about you before you arrived.”
There had been something there. It had lasted just a fraction of a moment. A little look between the two boys.
“The Corsair sent word about me?” asked Tom.
“Herr von Stuppe,” corrected Enzo. “Or Master von Stuppe. You can’t call him the Corsair around here.”
“Well, you can between us,” said Jericho conspiratorially. “But not in class and not around other teachers. Insubordination! They’re harsh about cracking down on anything they think of as insubordination. My mum is one of the worst, actually, so watch out for her.”
“I’ve got a lot to learn, don’t I?” said Tom, puffing out his cheeks.
“Yeah, but everyone does when they first arrive,” said Enzo. “Don’t worry about it.”
A gong sounded somewhere beneath them. “Excellent,” said Jericho, his face lighting up. “Dinner! I’m starving.”
* * *
The large, wood-paneled dining hall was on the ground floor. An enormous marble fireplace stood in the center of one wall, surrounded by portraits of former Masters and draped in blue Guile House wall hangings. Tall windows overlooked a walled garden at the back of the building, which was filled with shrubs and plants, flowers and trees, and bisected by narrow paths that led to vegetable and herb patches.
Tom followed Enzo and Jericho to one of the five long tables that filled the hall and sat between them on a bench. Pupils were spilling in, and soon most of the tables were filled. Tom felt like every head was turned toward him, every eye staring beadily at him. And he was right.
At the head of the hall by the fireplace was a table with three large, comfortable-looking chairs reserved for staff members, but only two were occupied—one by the Corsair and the other by a man dressed in a dark gray tweed suit and a green tie. He was older than the Corsair, but his face was so animated that it retained a youthful air.
Tom saw the Corsair mutter something to the tweed-suited man, who turned and gave Tom a hearty wave. Tom smiled nervously and waved back.
“That’s Master Pemberley,” said Enzo.
“Teaches escape and evasion,” added Jericho. “He’s a good laugh. Likes to hide during lessons and then spring out on you. He’s the Master of Duplicity House, but he and the Corsair are old mates. They often eat together.”
