Brightly Burning (10 page)

But struggle as he might, his eyelids closed on their own, and all he managed was to hear a few words of the Healer's explanation.

“. . . often come on in adolescence . . . not common, no, but not abnormal . . . girls more often than boys . . . stress, upset . . .”

It was on that last word that the medicine overcame Lan's determination to stay awake, and he lost his hold on consciousness.

He slept, woke in darkness to gulp down more medicine to kill the pain, and slept again. He woke again and repeated the dose, as much to avoid having to talk with anyone as to numb his head. If he was asleep, no one would bother him, and right now, he didn't want to have to explain himself.

But by the next evening, the time for the inevitable interview with his mother arrived.

He woke clearheaded, though apprehensive, for at some point during his slumbers, he had managed to form a decision. Tyron's suggestion—practically a demand—that he
steal
the velvet had been the final pebble that starts an avalanche. He had to at least try to reveal what the Sixth Formers were doing to the rest of the school, himself included.

After the scullery maid took his supper tray away, he heard his mother's footsteps on the stairs, and braced himself. Nelda entered the room and took her seat on a chair that had been placed beside his bed and folded her hands in her lap, looking at him gravely. The candles arranged around the room gave a soft and wavering light that was very flattering to her, making her seem not much older than her son.

“Well, she said, after a lengthy pause. “The Healer tells us that this illness of yours is something he calls ‘dazzle-headaches.' He has a medicine that will help prevent them, although he tells me it can't be counted on to work all the time.”

“Dazzle-headaches?” Lan replied. It seemed an innocuous name for something that hurt so much. “But why did I get them in the first place?”

His mother frowned. “He
says
that it is probably stress, or emotional strain that brought them on, though what you have to be stressed about, merely going to school, I can't imagine. . . .”

“I could stay home and study!” Lan exclaimed hopefully, taking advantage of her momentary pause. “The teachers said I did so well that I was ahead of the—”

“Out of the question,” Nelda said sharply, interrupting him with a frown. “That might work for a few days' absence, but under no circumstances will that do as a permanent solution. You're going to have to decide not to allow your emotions to get away from you, that's all.”

That's all? Is she insane? How does she think I'm supposed to do that?
In mounting anxiety and desperation now, unthinking, he shook his head violently and blurted out the story of his ongoing persecution, ending with Tyron's demand for the velvet. It didn't matter that this situation was humiliating; it didn't matter that he looked a fool. All that mattered was that she see that he couldn't go back to that school—not unless he had the open protection of the adults, so overt that even Tyron would not dare harass him anymore.

His mother listened, openly growing more skeptical with every word, right up until the point where Lan related Tyron's demands. At that point, she threw up her hands in disgust.

“Lavan Chitward, I cannot make up my mind if you are a coward, stupid, or a liar!” she said, her tone dripping with contempt.

“I'm
telling you the truth!
” Lan groaned. “Why won't you believe me? Why would I make any of this up? Send to ask any of the others, they'll tell you!”

But would they? Would they dare risk the anger of the Sixth Formers if they tattled?

Nelda snorted. “If you aren't a liar, you've allowed these boys to bully and tease you, and you made no attempt to stand up to them.” Her lip curled. “That makes you a coward; Sam would never put up with this sort of nonsense.”

“But—” Yes, and Sam was tall and strong and no one would
dare
shove him around!

Nelda went on as if she hadn't heard his weak protest.

“And as for that last tale of yours, well!” She shook her head. “Tyron Jelnack's father is the Grand Master of the Silversmiths' Guild, Lavan; why would he do anything like you claim he's done? First of all, I cannot believe that a boy from that fine a family would behave the way you have been describing, and secondly I
do not
believe he would ever dream of making that kind of extortionate demand!”

Lan listened to his mother in a state of shock, numb with incredulity. She
still didn't believe him!
He had thought that she would cover him with scorn for “not standing up for himself,” but he had never, ever, thought that she wouldn't believe him!

“The only possible explanation is that they've been making a goose out of you,” she scolded him. “Since I can't believe that you would try to lie about all of this, that is the only conclusion I can come to. These boys have been pulling an enormous joke on you, and
you
were too dense to see it!”

She shook her head again, oblivious to his shocked gaze. “Lavan, you are more trouble than all of your brothers and sisters put together. Why can't you be like the rest of them?”

With that, she rose and left him, leaving him alone with the flickering candles and a feeling of complete despair.

Never had he felt so completely alone.

His last possible refuge had been closed to him; his own mother thought he was exaggerating and being duped. Nothing would be done, and he would have to go back to school knowing that he had no other choice but to endure whatever Tyron decided to deal out to him.

No point in trying to tell his father about this; Nelda would give him her own interpretation, and that would be that. Archer would hear no further appeals from Lan.

As for the velvet . . . if Tyron
didn't
forget, the velvet might as well be on the moon. Lan could never get it for him. He had no money to buy it, and his father would never let him have it. As for stealing it—out of the question. Velvet was kept in a locked room at the warehouse, every thumb's length of it measured and accounted for.

Tyron didn't want the velvet. He just wanted another excuse to bully Lan.
He'll just flog me,
he tried to tell himself.
What's a few stripes? He won't kill me.

No, but the pain and the humiliation . . . and worse than that, the certain knowledge that every student in the school would look down on him the way his mother did now . . . how could he bear that? And there would be years more of this, of being beaten and humiliated, of being bullied and treated as less than the lowest ragpicker.

What he wanted to do was to howl his anguish like an animal, but what came out of his throat was a strangled whimper.

If only he could just drink enough of the potion to sleep forever. . . .

He lay flat on his back as the candles burned out, one by one, a bleak cloud of depression weighing him down. Slowly, silently, tears ran down his temples, leaving behind cold trails on the skin and soaking into his hair.

Finally the last of his candles guttered in a pool of its own wax, and he reached despondently for his medicine. There wasn't enough left in the bottle to let him sleep forever. If only there was!

Well, if it helped with the pain in his head, perhaps it would help with the pain in his heart.

DRUGS only brought an end to the physical pain; they did nothing for his despair. He lost his appetite, but now that he was no longer suspected of having a fever, apparently no one noticed that the trays came down almost as full as when they went up. He took his medicines in apathetic silence, and found a strange refuge in the books he used to despise.

This time it was the Healer who had put a time limit to his retreat; the Healer had said that he should be ready to return to school in three days, so in exactly three days, there was another visit from his mother.

She appeared with the supper tray, and actually gazed on him with a hint of approval.

“Your teachers are extremely pleased with you,” she said, neutrally. “You're going to be quite ready for school tomorrow.”

He wouldn't look into his mother's eyes. He knew there would be no reprieve.

At breakfast, Nelda handed him a small glass containing some thick, unidentifiable liquid.

“What's . . . this?” he asked, staring at it dully.

“The medicine that will keep you from having those headaches from now on,” Nelda replied, with a tart edge to her voice. Now that was
not
what Lan remembered; as he recalled, the Healer had not put things with such certainty.
It will
help
prevent them,
was what Lan remembered. But it was obvious that Nelda was determined that the inconvenience of the headaches would no longer be occurring to disrupt the household schedule.

And if they do—obviously it will be because I did something wrong, that I didn't take enough of the medicine, or didn't take it at the right time,
he thought bitterly, his throat closing with a painful lump.
Or because I'm faking it.

The medicine was nowhere near as bitter as his thoughts, and he swallowed it down without a grimace for the taste. Then he gathered up his books, wrapped himself in his depression as well as his cloak, and trudged off through the bleak half light of a gathering storm to what he could not help but feel was his doom.

He didn't try to hide in a crowd this morning; why bother? Tyron would find him no matter where he was.

Bundled in his cloak, with the hood pulled over his head, perhaps they didn't recognize him. He didn't make his usual sprint, he walked—or, rather, plodded—straight to the door. And no one stopped him, or even interfered with him.

But this did nothing to give him his lost hopes back again. In fact, all it did was increase his feeling of impending doom. With leaden steps he climbed the staircase to his floor.

Silence fell over the classroom as he entered, took off his cloak, and hung it on his peg near the door with the rest.

He sat down at his desk without a word to any of the others. He didn't think it was his imagination that painted expressions of pity in their eyes, mingled with a kind of gloating relief. (“He's going to be picked on, not me!”)

The morning classes went far too quickly, and the nearer the time came to lunch, the more Lan's stomach knotted and the less he felt like even seeing food. But it wasn't until the rest filed out of the room and he put his aching forehead down on the cool wooden surface of his desk, that the answer to his unspoken prayers broke into his mind.

I don't
have
to go down to lunch! There is no reason why I can't just stay here!

It was so simple, and so perfect, he could hardly believe no one had ever thought of that solution before. Perhaps it was only because hunger overcame fear around lunchtime; but more likely, it was because the students were used to following routine. The students had always gone down to lunch in the Hall at noon; hence students always would. He had
no
appetite anyway; if he didn't go down to the Hall, there was no way that Tyron and his cronies could reach him! It was strictly forbidden for any student to be on any floor that was not that of his own Form during the school day, and not even Tyron was immune to that rule. He
did
have a sanctuary after all!

I don't care about today,
he thought with a sigh, putting both arms up on his desk, closing his eyes and resting his head on his crossed arms.
My stomach's in knots anyway. Tomorrow I'll bring some bread in my book bag.
There was always water to drink in an urn in the back of the classroom, and although bread and water was supposed to be punishment fare, not even all Lan's favorite dishes lined up in a row in the Hall would be superior to plain bread in peace.

And if anyone asked why he stayed here—well, he could just plead an uneasy stomach and a fascination with something he was reading. Illness combined with scholarship should be equal to any adult objections.

As his head eased, he got himself a drink and then went back to his desk to pillow his head on his arms. It was so peaceful in the quiet classroom that Lan actually dozed a little, and started awake at the sounds of the others returning to class.

He sat up and opened his book as the rest of his class came in. And he noticed that his classmates eyed him with curiosity. There was no doubt that his absence from the Hall had been noted.