“What are you all doing standing around when supper is being served?” Magister Flaccus interrupted whatever memories Magister Marcellus was lost in. “And where have you three been all day? You did not attend my lecture.”
Without so much as missing a beat, Magister Marcellus schooled his expression into benign neutrality and said, “They were working on an alternative project at my request, Flaccus.” He turned to the three of us as if we’d delayed whatever he’d been on his way to do and said, “Go along now. You heard the magister, supper is served. I will inform you later if I need you for another special project.”
That was it. We had no choice but to hurry along. I’d been wary of Magister Flaccus from the start, and the way Magister Marcellus lied to him only increased that wariness.
“So how was it?” Darius asked once the three of us had met up with the twins and Lucius at our usual table in the dining hall.
Appius stared at me as if I was the one who should say something, but I didn’t know where to begin.
“The nobles are bored,” Mara said, cutting the tough piece of meat on her plate. “Most of them wanted someone new to talk to rather than having anything truly wrong with them.”
I caught on to what she was doing. As much as I wanted to tell our friends what we’d seen and what I thought it all meant, we couldn’t do that at a table in the dining hall, surrounded by people. There was no telling who was listening and who they would report our conversation to.
“I had an interesting case,” I said, fighting to look casual while trying to figure out how to share what I’d figured out. “It was a new mother with a breast that had become infected from nursing. She lived at the very top of the hill. I got to see what’s on the other side of the hills when I went out to her balcony to fetch some snow to cool her infection.”
“There’s nothing interesting on the other side of the hills,” Darius said with a shrug, reaching for his water glass. “Just trees and cliffs and grass.”
I blinked at him, trying to figure out if he truly didn’t think what I’d seen was significant or if he hadn’t grasped the possibility for escape.
Lucius had definitely caught the potential in what I was saying. Unfortunately, he was less circumspect about how he addressed it.
“Are there no soldiers on the other side of the hills? Could you have just walked out of that estate house and disappeared down the hillside?” he asked.
Mara shushed him with a frown and shook her head slightly.
Lucius glared back at her for a moment. Then he seemed to get it.
“There’s still a fair amount of snow up there,” I said, still trying to pretend to be casual. “Anyone who was foolish enough to try to make it down the other side of the hills would have a hard go of it.”
I hoped my friends would figure out that I was talking about the mountains and not the hills. Because as much potential as escaping over the hills of Royersford had, there was no way we would be able to travel through the mountains yet. And that was if we could even reach them. Snowmelt meant muddy roads, whether it was the frontier or the Old Realm.
“I had an interesting case this afternoon, too,” Appius said, pushing his mashed turnips around his plate, his face going pink. “I was taken to treat this old man named Gabe. He must be close to a hundred if he’s a day, but he’s surprisingly healthy overall. He’s losing his eyesight, though, and his hearing isn’t what it once was. He lives alone, except for his servants, and there aren’t very many of them.”
I nodded as though I was interested, trying to eat my supper, even though it wasn’t particularly appetizing, and I had other things I wanted to think about. I didn’t know where Appius was going with his story, for one.
At least, until he said, “Old Gabe lives up on the crest of the hill too. I wasn’t able to investigate his back garden or anything, but I could tell it had a clear view of the other side.”
I had to reach for my water to swallow the bite I’d taken. The way Appius stared so hard at me made it fairly obvious he was telling me that if we did end up planning an escape over the hills, Old Gabe’s house might be a likely place to start.
Mara nodded in thought as we all contemplated the unspoken plan. “I know who you’re talking about,” she said. “He had two sons, both of whom are dead these many years now. He has grandsons too, and they’re generals, but they aren’t highly ranked. And I’m not sure where they’re serving at the moment.”
“Do you think—” Lucius started.
He was cut off by Magister Titus marching into the dining hall, snagging everyone’s attention, then announced, “There will be an inspection of the college tomorrow morning. All students should be prepared. Classes will be canceled to ensure everyone’s attendance is prompt.”
With that, he turned and stormed out of the dining hall again, leaving us all stunned and gaping.
All I could think about was that the last time soldiers had inspected the college, two innocent men had died.
“Come on,” Leander said, standing even though his supper wasn’t finished. “We need to get the house ready to be turned upside down again.”
I think we all wanted to continue to talk about possible means of escape, but Leander had a point. The house would inevitably be turned inside out on the morrow, and not only did we all need to make absolutely certain the soldiers who “inspected” it found nothing remotely worrying, we had to find ways to keep our more valuable possessions from being ruined in the process.
The inspection was all anyone could think about that evening and the next morning too. We all did our best to make the house as innocuous as possible. That included making absolutely certain all of the chamber pots were empty and clean before we left to line up with the rest of the students and staff in the courtyard in the morning.
The second inspection went almost exactly like the first one. We stood in lines, too far apart to speak to each other, in tense, cold, aching silence for hours. Dozens of soldiers flooded the college. We could hear things being broken behind us as we stood facing the gates and the same general, General Reuben, paced in front of us, playing with a long, shiny knife and grinning at us all with bloodlust.
The wait was painful, and the end of the wait was worse. Just like the first time, once the soldiers all came back and gave their report to General Reuben, two men were called forward, a student and a member of the staff. And just like before, the two men were viciously murdered in front of the rest of us for “treason”, though nothing more specific was offered about what exactly they’d done.