The Muckracker's Tale

Chapter 3

“This sucks!”

Aniseed glowered at me. My roommate — and fellow reporter — was a short dark girl, with long black hair and a pretty face that lit up when she smiled, but she wasn’t smiling now. I understood, all too well. Aniseed might not have been caught spying on older students, or caned to within an inch of her life, but she was still in trouble. Juliet had made it clear, over the past two days, that nothing was to be written and printed without her permission. It was deeply, deeply, frustrating to all of us.

I tried not to wince at the anger in her voice. She had every right to be mad. She’d been putting together a story on what our fellow students had been doing, over the summer holidays, and now it had been cancelled. Juliet hadn’t liked the idea, for some reason she hadn’t bothered to share, and so it hadn’t gotten off the ground. I didn’t understand why she’d cancelled the story. It wasn’t as if we’d been spying on our friends over the holidays. Aniseed had asked them what they’d done, then turned it into a story…

“I’m sorry,” I said, again.

“Sorry isn’t good enough,” Aniseed snapped. “What were you thinking?”

I sighed inwardly. Juliet had laid down the law in no uncertain terms. She’d worked hard to ensure that every single story idea was run past her first, no matter how much work my fellow reporters and I had put into them already. The proposal to write something about new opportunities for students in Dragon’s Den had been killed, after Stuart had carried out a dozen interviews and written over a thousand words on the topic. I didn’t blame him for quitting, not really. He’d told his contacts that they’d be able to put adverts in the broadsheet and now he looked like a liar, something no true magician could tolerate. There was nothing he could do about it either. Juliet had squashed ideas, from ones of no real interest to anyone to stories that would rock the school, just to make it clear she was in charge.

And the only thing she wanted to go through without hesitation was a piece of ego-stroking crap about the sports captains and their teams, I thought, sourly. She didn’t try to stop us from doing that.

It was hard not to clench my teeth in frustration. Kings and aristos had a never-ending appetite for praise and demanded it from everyone, particularly those who had nothing better to do than kissing their master’s feet. I’d be ashamed if someone called me the ‘light of the world’ or the ‘bringer of perpetual peace’ or even ‘father to the kingdom,’ particularly if I ruled a tiny princedom that was only independent because my neighbours couldn’t be bothered to seize it, but the aristos didn’t seem to care. Dad had told me, once, that forcing people to crawl in front of their master was an unsubtle attempt to remind them who was really in charge. I suspected it worked very well. If I’d been forced to prostrate myself, and stay prostrated, as long as I was in the aristocratic presence, it would have very definitely kept me in my place.

“She’s probably doing the same to us,” I muttered. “Keeping us firmly under her thumb.”

Aniseed gave me a cross look. “She didn’t like my story on betting rings either,” she said. “She said it would distract from the beauty of the sport.”

I rolled my eyes. Betting — and gambling — was heavily discouraged, but nothing short of mass mind-control spells would be enough to completely stop it. People with money to spare had been gambling since time out of mind, placing their bets on who would win everything from simple jousts to skirmishes and wars. The playing card craze had only made it easier for anyone to get in on the game. Grandmaster Hasdrubal had done his best to limit the betting — and forbidding anyone to bet anything they couldn’t really afford to lose — but it had been an uphill struggle. The betting shops in Dragon’s Den were happy to take the bets students weren’t allowed to place at school.

Idiots, I thought, remembering one of my father’s sharper observations on aristo society. A fool and his money are soon parted.

“You’d think she’d want to get more people involved,” I said, thoughtfully. I’d yet to meet a sports captain who discouraged gambling. I’d been told they saw it as a sign of confidence in their players. Personally, I saw it as a sign the sports captains had too much time on their hands. “If someone was placing bets on the game, surely they’d be invested in the outcome.”

Aniseed scowled. “We have to put up with her,” she muttered. “And it is all because of you.”

I kept my mouth shut — my father had taught me well — as we stepped into the arena and found our seats. The two teams were already on opposing sides of the fields, making rude gestures and shouting insults whenever the referee was looking in the other direction. I saw a pair of boys striking ridiculous poses as they swanned around the field, drawing a mixture of cheers and boos from the gathering crowd. Their captains pretended not to notice, but — even at a distance — I could see their irritation. They wouldn’t have become sports captains if they didn’t think sports were serious business. They saw grandstanding as just another stunt that distracted from the sport itself.

Unless the grandstander does something that wins the match, I thought, cynically. I’d never seen the point of sports myself — it wasn’t as if I’d ever been any good at playing the game — and I found it hard to understand why anyone did. They can get away with anything as long as it wins the game.

“Tell me,” I said, dryly. “Does anyone actually enjoy this sort of thing?”

Aniseed waved a hand at the stands. They were jam-packed with students, parents and scouts — spies — from the sporting leagues. The Grandmaster had gone out of his way to invite everyone he could to watch the games, so keen was he to show that Whitehall was capable of fielding players who could actually win. I suspected he’d forgotten what lurked behind the Craggy Mountains, only a few short miles away. Lady Emily had killed Shadye six years ago, but the rest of his foul kin were still out there. It was just a matter of time before another necromancer moved into his territory and started pressing against the school’s defences again.

“It’s good for morale,” she said, finally. “People like to see their teams play — and win.”

“I’d be happier if they went off and fought the necromancers,” I muttered sourly. “They might actually get something important done.”

It was hard to keep the disdain from my face. The sports captains and their teams had massive egos, and far too many people thought the sun shone out of their arses, but they weren’t that important in the grand scheme of things. Juliet was going to leave her glory days behind when she left school, unless she somehow managed to springboard into a sporting league. I doubted it. She simply didn’t have the contacts she’d need to parlay her time at school into a career. No wonder she had such a bad attitude. She’d committed herself to playing sports and yet, if she didn’t make it this year, she wouldn’t make it at all.

And I might feel sorry for her, I reflected, if she wasn’t such a pain in my rear.

The whistle blew. I reached for my notebook and pencil, resting them on my lap as the two teams rushed into battle. The crowd cheered, even though very little had happened yet, as the ball was launched into the court. I groaned under my breath as the players rushed past, the arena adjusting itself unpredictably to make life difficult for both sides. Being forced to watch the game felt like cruel and unusual punishment.

“Maybe Juliet did it on purpose,” Aniseed suggested. “If she knew how much you hated it…”

“Perhaps,” I agreed. I doubted it — Juliet wasn’t particularly subtle — but it was possible. “Or maybe she just wants to have me under her thumb.”

“Cheer up,” Aniseed said. “She’ll be gone next year.”

I scowled. Sure, Juliet would be gone next year, but I’d be heading straight towards my fourth-year exams. I’d wanted to get the broadsheet well underway before I had to stop devoting so much of my time to my pet project and start concentrating on my exams instead. It shouldn’t have been that hard to recruit newer reporters and editing staff… now, thanks to Juliet, it was going to be a great deal harder. No one wanted to spend their spare time writing puff pieces about sports captains and other pieces of fluff. They wanted to make a name for themselves exposing the truth.

The whistle blew. Something had happened. I tried not to slump in my chair as a player was sent off, a chorus of boos following him. I wondered, idly, what he’d done and then decided it didn’t matter. The player’s gambit, whatever it had been, had failed. If it had worked, the crowd would be cheering instead.

I looked at Aniseed. “How much longer?”

“It’s only been ten minutes,” Aniseed said, amused. “You have an hour or two to go.”

I groaned. “Why couldn’t she have just caned me instead?”

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the game went on and on. The crowd cheered with every goal and booed, mockingly, every time the players came close to scoring, only to miss at the last second. Hexes and curses — some borderline illicit and some very definitely over the line — were exchanged whenever the referee was looking in the other direction; the ball made a raspberry noise as an enterprising player tried to cast a charm on it, then flew right at the idiot and slammed into his chest. The crowd roared with laughter as the stunned player was levitated out of the arena, his teammates looking pissed. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Their teammate’s sin hadn’t been trying to charm the ball. It had been trying and failing.

It’s perfectly legal to turn the other players into small hopping things, I thought cynically, but the gods forbid you try to do anything to the ball.

The referee blew his whistle. Again. I slumped in my seat, thinking baleful thoughts about Juliet as the game resumed. Perhaps sending me to the arena was a subtle punishment after all. I doubted she had the empathy to realise not everyone shared her love for sports… perhaps it had been one of the one of the other sports captains. They’d pegged me as a shirker long ago, and I had to admit they were right. I’d never been the type of person to exert myself on the sports field. It was so much better to just stay on the sidelines and look the other way whenever the ball came near me.

And I didn’t really care if we won or lost, I reflected. What did it matter?

“The REDHAWKS are besting the MAGIS,” the commenter bellowed. I rubbed my ears as the sound echoed around the arena. I’d cast charms to keep the racket to something slightly below a thunderclap, but they’d either been overpowered or simply worn down. “If the MAGIS don’t MAKE points by the END of the match, they have LOST!”

“Ouch,” I muttered. I had no idea what charm he was using, to boost certain words above the others, but it worked far too well. The crowd roared — some delighted, some angry — as the game entered its final moments. I was sure I saw money and gambling tokens changing hands already. “Can they just get on with it?”

“It’s nearly over,” Aniseed said, in a tone that suggested she’d had enough of my grumbling. “Just a few more moments.”

I forced myself to sit up as the losing team launched a desperate play, two-thirds of the team charging their opponents and hurling hexes in a bid to distract them from the players who were snatching control of the ball and tossing it from player to player to keep it from putting them in the sin bin for the last few seconds of the match. A hex lanced at the referee and exploded a moment or two before it reached him, the flash blinding him long enough for the losing team to push through the chaos and try to score. I sensed the anticipation building, the crowd leaning forward in unison — it looked as if they were all under compulsion spells — as the two teams clashed one final time. Hope rang through the air — the gamblers exchanged more money and tokens — before flicking and dying as the winning team stood its ground. It was such a simple tactic that even I could understand it. They were already winning. They didn’t need to score any more points. They just had to keep the other team from scoring enough points to turn their defeat into a draw.

Aniseed leaned forward — I felt a twinge of disappointment from her — as the two teams clashed an instant before the whistle blew one final time. The fighting was already out of hand. The referee blew again and again, but the teams refused to engage. I tried not to laugh at the sight of magicians brawling like mundane apprentices, throwing punches instead of hexes as the wards around the arena started to come down. The crowd laughed and egged the two sides on as the referee tried to restore order. I found it impossible not to laugh, too, as I saw Hector — the snobbiest snob in the school, which was quite a remarkable feat — punching Callam in the face, only to be kicked in the chest by Diamond. Hector was likely to be in some trouble when he got home, I decided. There was little difference, as far as I was concerned, between hexing and punching someone, but the magical families disagreed.

I grabbed my notebook and scribbled notes as the referee battled to restore order. The two teams were too close together for him to simply separate them, not unless… I felt magic flaring through the air as he changed his tactics, freezing the players in place. Silence fell, so heavily my ears rang. The referee didn’t hesitate. He levitated the players out of the field — half of them were going straight to the healers, from what I could see — and ordered the watching audience to leave the arena. I stood slowly enough to take note of more money and tokens exchanging hands, then followed Aniseed back to our bedroom. I wasn’t going to hang around for the post-game party, if indeed there was one. The referee might have already ordered the party cancelled.

Not that it will stop them from having one in Dragon’s Den, I thought. It was early afternoon. The players and their supporters could easily get to the town and have some fun before they had to return. Unless they’re all put in detention…

I put the thought out of my mind as I wrote a story about the game. It bored me — and, even looking at Aniseed’s notes, I couldn’t recall much about it. The players were average players playing a very average game, enlivened only by the fight at the end of the match. I made it the centrepiece of the story, doing my best to detail who had punched who and praising the referee for ending the fight before someone got seriously — and permanently — hurt. Magic could heal almost any physical wound, I’d been told, but only if the healers had time to work their spells. A surprisingly high number of kings and aristos had expired on the battlefield because they couldn’t get to the healers in time. The nasty, cynical part of my mind suspected their fellows had dawdled long enough to make sure their former masters couldn’t recover and reclaim their power.

Dad wrote a story about someone who might have done just that, I reflected, as I made my way to the office. And they shouted so much you’d think he accused them of incest or oath-breaking.

I’d hoped Juliet wouldn’t be in the office, but no such luck. She was there, sitting in my chair and writing on my desk. I tried not to grind my teeth as she looked up at me. We normally had three or four student reporters in the office on the weekends, writing stories or simply chatting about their plans for future articles. Now, Juliet was alone. I wondered, numbly, just how many of my reporters had already checked out mentally, deciding there was no point in trying to do their jobs with Juliet peering over their shoulder and micromanaging them to the point of absurdity. How many of my staff did I have left?

Not mine any longer, I thought, bitterly. Hers.

“You’re late,” Juliet said. Her lips twisted into a sneer. “Where have you been?”

I swallowed a sarcastic response that would probably have landed me in even more trouble, if that was possible. “I was unaware we had an appointment,” I said, carefully. “Did we?”

“I told you to have the story ready as soon as possible,” Juliet said. “We want it in the Sunday edition, don’t we?”

I swallowed another sarcastic response. We only published one broadsheet a week. I’d have loved to do more, like my father and the rest of the broadsheet writers and editors, but it simply wasn’t possible. Not here. We simply didn’t have time. I kept that thought to myself as I leaned forward and passed her the story draft. If she liked it…

Needless to say, she didn’t.