The Muckracker's Tale

Chapter 5

“Perhaps you should wear a maid’s uniform,” Aniseed suggested, the following weekend. “They’re easy to clean.”

I scowled. Telling her about my assigned punishment had been a mistake. I was a student magician, not a servant, and making me clean a suite of rooms as if I were nothing more than a common-born maid was cruel and unusual punishment. And yet, Juliet had played her cards very well. She hadn’t struck me — or sent me to the Warden, which might have landed her in hot water if the supervising tutors thought she’d overreacted — or anything that might have pushed her authority to its breaking point. I was going to be a laughingstock when the story got out and, worst of all, it had been my fault.

“I’ll wear my casuals,” I said, sourly. There were limits. If Juliet thought I was going to dress up as a maid for her, she could think again, “And you’d better report on the game too.”

“Of course.” Aniseed put on a mocking tone. “It’s the most important game since the last one.”

I nodded and stepped in front of the mirror, looking myself up and down. The rough shirt and trousers looked too big— they’d been passed down from my father — but they were decent as well as easy to clean. Juliet would make the job as dirty as possible or my name wasn’t Jane, Daughter of Gerald. I wondered, idly, just how far she’d go. It was rare for students, even seniors, to have someone else clean their rooms. They were supposed to handle it themselves. I’d only ever heard of one student having an assigned servant and that had been through finding a loophole and exploiting it mercilessly.

And the princess who had the servant was mocked relentlessly, when the rest of the school figured out what her parents had done, I reflected. If she couldn’t take care of her own room, how could she be expected to take care of anything else?

The thought mocked me as I left the room and headed to the senior dorms. It was a weekend, and the school was nearly empty, students either making their way to town or gathering in the grounds to wait for the arena to open. Juliet — damn her — had been telling everyone she expected to see them at the game, picking her words carefully to make sure it was taken as an order while giving her room to deny it if someone challenged her. I doubted anyone would. A word from her in the right — or rather the wrong — set of ears could make someone’s life a misery. Or keep them off a good sports team.

Oh, how terrible, I thought. It was hard not to dawdle. I didn’t want to get to her rooms. How many of the sporty players are going to keep playing well into adulthood?

I made a mental note to research it — it might be interesting to see what the figures actually were — as I made my way into the dorms, then down to the Captain-General’s suite. I didn’t try to fight the surge of jealousy as I looked at her door. I had to share a room with two other girls, while Juliet got three rooms all to herself…? It wasn’t fair. I would have loved some actual privacy. Aniseed and Suzie weren’t bad roommates — I’d had worse — but we were living in each other’s pockets, and clashes were inevitable. We’d all be happier with rooms of our own.

The door opened. I rolled my eyes — I hadn’t even knocked — and stepped inside, looking around with undisguised interest. Juliet had a comfortable armchair, a sofa, a large writing desk, a trunk, a private bathroom… her rooms were so far superior to mine, both at school and at home, that it took me a moment to realise she wasn’t alone. Blair and Thomas sat on the sofa, wearing their sporting outfits. They looked at me and laughed. I flushed, despite myself. I looked like a poor commoner, not a student of magic.

Juliet stood. “I see you’re dressed for the part,” she said, with a sniff. “You’ll find cleaning supplies in the bathroom, under the sink. I want every last inch of these rooms cleaned so thoroughly I can’t find a single speck of dust, or you’ll regret it.”

Blair accidentally knocked over his glass. It fell to the ground and shattered, splashing a dark red liquid everywhere. “Oops.”

“Clean that up too,” Juliet said. She didn’t try to hide her amusement. “I do trust you’ve been keeping up with your domestic spells?”

I gritted my teeth, not trusting myself to answer. I had, but admitting as much would only open me to more mockery. Domestic spells were looked down upon by almost everyone, save for the domestics themselves. It was odd — a spell to clean windows had quite a few other uses — but no one seemed interested in trying to improve their reputation. I looked around instead, trying not to wince as I noticed the mess. It looked as if Juliet hadn’t bothered to so much as wipe the tabletops, let alone mop the floors and change the bedding, in the months since she’d started her final year. I hoped she was just a slob. If that was true, she’d be in some trouble if the housemothers noticed.

And she’s left dozens of papers on the desk, I thought. Textbooks, notes, chat parchments — some primed, some still sealed — it was so messy I had no idea how she thought she could find something when she needed it. How does she plan to pass her exams?

“Perhaps you could let me borrow her, after the match.” Blair leered at me. “Seeing she’s so keen on following orders…”

“If she does a good job.” Juliet didn’t seem amused by his remark. It was probably the one thing we’d ever have in common. “If not, we will see…”

Thomas cleared his throat. “I hate to remind you, but you did promise to buy the drinks for the party last week and…”

Juliet cut him off. “It was an unfortunate mix-up when the orders were placed,” she said, stiffly. “I will pay you back later today.”

“See that you do,” Thomas said. “My family was not pleased.”

“Families are never pleased,” Juliet muttered. I heard a hint of bitterness in her tone. “But I will be paying for the drinks this afternoon, after the game.”

She let the words hang in the air as she stood and peered down her nose at me. “We’re off to the arena,” she said. “I’ll be back after the match. If you do a good job, you can go. If not… I’ll be supervising your every move until the room is spotless.”

Blair and Thomas stood and headed for the door, making sure to splash through the puddle as they moved. Juliet’s lips thinned as she followed them, closing the door behind her. I felt a flicker of magic a moment later, effectively locking the door. I guessed she wanted to rub my punishment in a little more. It wasn’t as if I could run out on her, unless I chose to leave school completely. She’d track me down and then…

I gritted my teeth as I turned slowly, surveying the room. I wasn’t unused to menial chores — I’d been my father’s housekeeper well before I’d been accepted at Whitehall — but it was still humiliating to be assigned to clean her room. There were schools where younger students were expected to serve their seniors, in exchange for private tuition and patronage… I tried not to grimace at the thought. Whitehall wasn’t one of those schools, and it was all the better for it. I’d barely had any time to myself as a firstie. It would have been so much worse if I’d been expected to wait hand and foot on an older girl.

She really is a slob, I thought, as I stripped the bed and mattress, piling the dirty covers by the door. Juliet would have to hand them to the cleaning staff… no, unless I was very much mistaken, I’d get that job too. It was lucky there were spares in her cupboards. Did she think to collect them, or did she simply never change her sheets since coming into the rooms?

I put the thought aside and kept working, muttering a handful of domestic spells to clear away the dust and juice from the floor. The spells were surprisingly low-power, but they needed constant tendering to ensure they didn’t fade back into nothingness or turn into miniature tornadoes. I’d half-expected Juliet to fiddle with her wards, purely to make it harder for me to use spells in her lair, but the magic worked normally. There weren’t even any spying spells watching me. I guessed she didn’t really want me here that long. Who knew what I might find?

Good question, I thought. Let’s find out.

It cost me a pang to look at her desk drawers and trunk and start considering how best to open them. We had so little privacy at school, even in our later years, that we jealously guarded what little we had. To break into someone’s warded trunk was no better than flipping up someone’s robes to expose their underwear, something no one would take lightly even if it was committed against the school outcast. I’d become the outcast if they knew I’d poked through her trunk and yet, the temptation was almost overpowering. I inched forward, carefully reaching out with all my senses. Dad had arranged for me to have proper — advanced — lessons and…

I recoiled in shock. Juliet had been careful. Very careful. Her trunk was so heavily warded I doubted even one of her peers could break in, not without risking life and limb. I wondered, as I turned my attention to her desk, if she’d deliberately baited a trap for me. She hadn’t climbed all the way to Captain-General without a certain willingness to take risks — I’d discovered that through researching her career — and if she’d caught me violating her privacy I would be thoroughly screwed. I sensed a handful of very nasty spells coiling just under the wards, waiting for me to break into the trunk. If I’d tried, I would have wound up an inanimate object — or worse — until she came back and freed me.

If she ever did, I reflected. She could try to argue I did it to myself.

I scowled, silently thanking all the gods my father had been so careful. A normal second-year student would be… something… by now. As it was… I felt my scowl deepen as I turned to the desk. The drawers were as heavily warded as her trunk, while the papers on the desk itself were nothing more than lecture notes. They didn’t look to be written in her handwriting. I guessed she’d hired someone else to take notes for her. Was she even attending the lectures? She was a senior student. No one would scold her for not attending. They’d let her exam results do that.

My lips quirked. She’s old enough to know better, really?

A sharp knock ran through the room. “Come in,” I called, automatically. I caught myself a second too late. It wasn’t my room, and the door was locked… wasn’t it? The door opened a moment later, revealing a shy first-year girl. She was only a year or so younger than me, and yet she looked so young I was tempted to inspect her lips for milk. My suspicious mind sounded the alarm a second later. What was a first-year girl doing in a senior girl’s room?

“I…” The girl stared at me. “Are you one of her friends?”

“I suppose I work for her,” I managed, trying to keep my puzzlement off my face. I couldn’t understand Juliet having any interest in a mere first year, unless the girl was astonishingly good at sports. No, it was unlikely. Promoting a complete newcomer into a team would raise hackles, even from students who would normally be on her side. “What can I do for you?”

“Can you give her these?” The girl passed me a sheaf of parchments. “Please? I’d stay for her, but… I have to report to Professor Lombardi and…”

“Of course,” I said, feeling a twinge of pity. What had the poor girl done to earn a detention from Professor Lombardi? “I’ll tell her you popped by.”

The girl nodded and retreated. I frowned as she closed the door. Nothing about the affair made sense. It was beneath Juliet’s dignity to pay attention to first years, no matter how good they were at sports. I wondered if she even knew the girl’s name. I didn’t. And yet… I forced myself to concentrate on the memories, replaying the brief conversation in my mind for clues. The girl was common-born, or I was a ninny. She certainly hadn’t displayed the tasteless confidence that came with being able to buy one’s way out of trouble, an attitude — I’d discovered — that most aristos went out of their way to cultivate. I hadn’t sensed her magic either, which meant she was either masking very well or she simply wasn’t that powerful. It really didn’t make sense.

I stood by the bed and started to pick my way through the parchments. The spells on them were minor, enough to protect them from mundanes and first-year students, but no one else. I knew how to unpick the spells without destroying them, allowing me — at least in theory — to put them back after I’d read them. It should be impossible for anyone, even Juliet, to tell I’d read her mail…

My eyes narrowed as I parsed the messages. Betting slips?

For a moment, I refused to believe it. Juliet was betting? Gambling?

She can’t, I thought, slowly. Can she?

I wasn’t sure. It didn’t seem legal, but… I stared down at the slips, slowly working out the messages. Juliet — through her messenger — had been placing bets in town. Proof, if I needed it, that she was bending if not breaking the rules. Why bother recruiting an agent, and one so beneath her, if she could do it herself? My senses tingled as I kept going, sure I was on the verge of something. Juliet seemed to be a pretty good gambler. She’d won more than she’d lost.

She always does, I thought, coldly. The sums on each of the slips were low but put together, they were a decent income. Dad had always called gambling rings taxes on stupid people — and I was inclined to agree — yet Juliet was far from stupid. What is she doing…?

I stared at the slips. Something was nagging at my mind. Something I’d missed. Something… I looked at the last dated slip — last weekend — and knew. Juliet was betting on her own games. I’d watched the game myself… worse, I’d written a detailed report on every last play and counter-play. Juliet had lost and yet, according to the betting slip, she’d won?

For a moment, I refused to believe it. She bet on her own team to lose?

My mind spun in circles. I held the majority of sports-mad students in absolute contempt. I wouldn’t trust them to add two and two together and get four. And yet, I was sure Juliet had a higher opinion of her fellow players. And yet… I skimmed back through the slips, silently blessing my father for forcing me to develop my recollection skills. The pattern came into focus very quickly. Juliet had bet against her own team, repeatedly, and made a considerable sum of money doing so.

I swallowed, hard, as I recalled how intensively she’d planned the last game, the one I’d watched her lose. Is she throwing the games to make money?

It was a distasteful thought. I’d understand someone rigging a game to win, but to lose…?

“She’s mad,” I said, out loud. “She can’t get away with it, can she?”

I wasn’t sure, in all honesty, that was true. The plan was surprisingly simple. Put out a plan that would leave plenty of opportunity for the opposing team to score and force your team to stick to it. If you knew the other team very well, and Juliet did, it would be easy to predict what they’d do. And then bet against your own term, working through a proxy to ensure your name was never mentioned. I worked my way through the figures and frowned as I noted another pattern. On the surface, Juliet — or rather her proxy — had won some and lost others. A deeper look showed she always won when serious money was at stake. I was surprised none of the gambling rings had noted the pattern…

If she went to a handful of different betting shops, I mused, they might not notice anything unless they compared notes.

I slumped against the bed, feeling as if I’d gone fishing for minnows and wound up catching a shark. This was serious. This was… I looked down at the slips, wondering if they’d be enough to prove Juliet was rigging the games against herself. And yet… I swallowed hard. It was difficult to believe… if someone had brought the story to me, a few hours ago, I wouldn’t have believed it. How in the name of all the gods did she intend to get away with it? When word got out, and it would, she’d be lucky if she was merely kicked out of the sporting leagues. The leagues took sports seriously. They’d try to brand her an outlaw and harry her from her home.

“She’s mad,” I said, again. “Why…?”

The door opened. Juliet stepped into the room.

I froze. I was dead.