When he pointed to the board, silently asking for another turn, Khalila shook her head. ‘No, I’ve got more work from Scholar Zhao to do.’ As soon as she said it, he saw the flash of contrition in her eyes; she had additional study, and she hadn’t meant to rub that in his face. ‘Sorry.’
‘Maybe Brightwell’s not just stupid. Maybe he paid Wolfe off, and that’s why he’s got no tutoring,’ Portero said as he rattled his dice. He’d taken Hallem’s place across from Dario. ‘Though I doubt a scrubber like him has two Romans to rub together.’ The official coinage was a geneih, but everyone called it a Roman, for the portrait of Julius Caesar on the face.
‘Maybe he’s giving a different service,’ Dario said. ‘Have you finished licking our esteemed Scholar’s arse yet, or are you merely pausing for breath?’ There was an edge to Dario’s voice, and Jess understood why. He’d seen Dario vulnerable, when his Codex was stolen. They’d hardly exchanged a word since, unless it had that sort of confrontational teeth embedded.
Khalila looked up sharply at him, frowning, and Thomas dropped a wrench loudly on the table.
Jess poured himself a glass of wine from the decanter on the sideboard. ‘Sorry, was I taking your turn polishing his apples?’
Dario’s smile was a flash of teeth from a dangerous animal. ‘Honestly, Brightwell, I don’t know why you keep trying.’
‘Dario,’ Khalila said. ‘Please shut up.’
Dario shrugged and leant back, spreading his arms extravagantly wide. One of the other students was passing, and jostled him. Predictably, that focused Dario’s attention. The boy who’d trespassed was a quiet one, pale, with light flaxen hair and eyes more silver than blue. From America, Jess remembered, but with a very French name.
‘Pardon,’ the boy said, and moved on.
‘Danton, isn’t it? You’re related to the famous French Burner.’
‘I’m American.’
‘No, you’re a pitiful French expatriate. Do you go to Paris for the re-enactments? The mass beheading of the Burners?’
Danton had no readable expression on his face, but his body language was guarded. ‘I’ve never been.’
‘Very educational. Living history. No stomach for watching your ancestor’s head coming off?’
‘Dario,’ Glain said, and shut the book she was reading. ‘Leave him alone. Someday, someone is going to teach you a real living history lesson. It’ll hurt.’
‘It’s all right,’ Danton said. His voice was as level as ever, and as unsettlingly calm as his expression. ‘It’s common knowledge. He didn’t have to dig far to get to a sore spot. But then, Master Santiago never works very hard at anything he does.’
‘I was just pointing it out. Burner sympathies run in your family,’ Dario said. ‘I’m sure they’re keeping a close eye on you, Guillaume. Feeling nervous yet?’
‘Maybe you’re nervous,’ Jess said. ‘Where are you in the class ranking now, Dario? Number ten?’
‘And where are you? In my shadow. As usual.’
‘Rankings change. I’m in for the long run, not the sprint.’
‘Yes, of course, you would be a runner,’ Dario said, and Jess felt cold inside. Dario had resources, and he valued whatever dirt he could dig on all of them … but he relaxed as Dario went on. ‘You would be a runner because you don’t have the stomach for a gentleman’s fight.’
‘Your version of a gentleman’s fight means a knife in the back, so no, I don’t fight like a gentleman,’ Jess said. ‘I fight to win. Want to play?’ He gestured at the Go board, eyebrows raised. Dario pushed back from the dice table, gave him a long and measured look, and then shrugged.
‘Why not. Portero’s almost bankrupt, anyway.’
Portero’s faint ‘No I’m not!’ was generally ignored. Danton, released, pushed away and towards the back of the room, where he sat beside Glain. Dario stood up, stretched, and settled into the chair across from Jess … all without breaking the steady, measuring stare.
‘I’ll take red,’ Dario said. That wasn’t a surprise.
What did surprise Jess was how acutely smart Dario Santiago was at the game. Jess was good, he knew he was, but it felt almost as if Dario could see directly into his mind. Every clever move he made, it seemed Dario had seen it two moves before. Jess thought he could almost feel the young man’s intelligence at work. Dario had left his ego to one side, which made it an interesting match indeed.
They worked in silence. No barbs. Jess became aware that others had moved to observe. Even Thomas gradually stopped fiddling with his bits of metal and stood motionless as he watched.
Gradually, Jess became aware of vulnerability in Dario’s approach. It was subtle, and Dario played fast and fierce to draw Jess’s attention away from it, but at last, Jess had him. He heard an indrawn breath from the crowd around them as he sprang the trap; one single stone placed in exactly the right place, and Dario’s strategy collapsed. Now, Jess was the aggressor, Dario the defender, and as Jess played through the moves in his head, there was no possibility that Dario would win.
Dario came to the same conclusion. Jess saw the flash of recognition go over his face, followed by a swift wave of anger … and then it was gone, and Dario played it out to the bitter end until he’d no more moves to make.
Then he rose to his feet, bowed slightly to Jess, and said, ‘Well played.’
Jess stood as well and bowed in turn. ‘Well matched.’
They stared at each other for a moment, and Jess had the feeling that for the first time, Dario was actually seeing him … not as an obstacle, or a victim, but as someone worthy of notice. He wasn’t entirely sure he liked it.
Dario must not have, either, because he smiled an entirely too brilliant smile. ‘Doesn’t make us friends.’ He turned on his heel and walked from the room. His usual acolytes fell in behind him, but some cast glances back, as if recognising that the balance of power seemed to have undergone a subtle shifting.
Thomas clapped a large hand on Jess’s shoulder. Not gently. ‘That was impressive,’ he said, and sank down in the chair that Dario had vacated. ‘How did you learn to play this game?’
‘My brother taught me,’ Jess said. ‘So he could beat me at it.’
‘I’m surprised he could.’
‘I didn’t say it turned out the way he planned.’ Jess swept the board. ‘Let’s play.’
They were twenty postulants when he went to bed, yet somehow, when Jess woke the next morning, there were twenty-one in Ptolemy House. He’d adjusted to sharing schedules with Dario, and the advantage of taking his bath in the evening before bed meant that he could go straight to breakfast and be there first.
But not today.
Today, there was a girl there that he’d never seen, writing in her personal journal. When she saw him, she put her pen and book away.
She was pale-skinned, with lustrous brown hair pinned up tight in a style he hadn’t seen since leaving England, and she was wearing an English dress too heavy for Alexandrian weather. He was struck by the shape of her, trim and smoothly curved, and by her eyes, which were a striking light brown. She looked intelligent and guarded … and deathly tired.