Brightly Burning (6 page)

Lan's throat was so tight with anger that he couldn't have gotten out a single word, but his second tormentor, hand still firmly buried in his hair, forced his head to nod like a puppet's while the rest laughed like madmen.

“Very well, Scrub,” the leader said genially, “You're let off this time. Just make sure you stay properly within the rules from now on.”

The one holding Lan's hair suddenly shoved him forward and let go of his head, so that he sprawled at the leader's feet, invoking more peals of laughter. “Now Scrub,” the leader said tenderly, “it isn't necessary to kiss my feet, but that was a good thought and the proper attitude.”

The Sixth Formers dispersed and went back to their chairs as Lan got slowly and angrily to his feet. He made no move to dust himself off, but dropped down into his seat with his head aching from all the anger he was holding in.

“Just do what they say, 'specially what Tyron and Derwit say,” the girl they had called “Froggy” whispered urgently, with a sidelong glance at the retreating backs. “They'll leave you alone, mostly, if you do.”

Now they were turning their attention to Owyn and his friends; Tyron addressed Owyn as “Owly” and demanded “the work.” A moment later, and Tyron was accepting sheaves of paper from Owyn and his friends. “They have the smart ones do their sums and sometimes other schoolwork for them,” Froggy explained, her eyes watering. “But if you aren't smart, they make you do other things for them.”

The Sixth Formers had returned to their seats, where they distributed the papers among themselves and sipped small ale poured by the servants, who ignored the rest of the table. Froggy's eyes burned as she gazed on them.

“Just two more years,” she said, as if to herself, with the longing of a starving man in her voice. “Just two more years, then it will be
my
turn!”

But Lan, as he looked more closely at the Sixth Form group, saw that there was a central core of the group who were the true masters of the rest. These numbered about twenty, enough to give them enough muscle to have their way, so long as the less fortunate remained disorganized. The rest hung about the periphery of the group, ignored for the most part, but occasionally tendered an abusive or scornful comment, occasioning much laughter among the rest. When Tyron or one of the others of his clique gave a careless order, it was one of these hangers-on who jumped to execute it just as quickly as if they were not of the Sixth Form themselves.

Somehow, Lan doubted that it would ever be Froggy's “turn” to be one of the select few.

LAN had the sense to finish his now-cold lunch and retreat to his classroom as soon as the Sixth Form turned their attention elsewhere. He did notice that there were several more girls besides the two in his class and poor down-trodden Froggy among the students. There were even some among the ruling elite, and not all of them looked old enough to properly qualify as being in the Sixth Form. All the girls sitting with Tyron and his clique were among the prettiest in the room, which seemed to be their qualification for belonging there. The girls weren't any better than their boyfriends, though; they didn't initiate any cruel “jokes,” but they laughed just as hard as any of the boys, and were perfectly willing to participate once something was begun.

The rest of the afternoon passed without incident, much to Lan's relief—four more classes, in mathematics, reading comprehension, writing and calligraphy, and accounting. Once or twice one of the boldest of his class addressed him as “Scrub,” but he felt safe in ignoring the insult.

When class was dismissed for the end of the day, however, Lan faced another problem: how to get out without being singled out for more abuse. He felt instinctively that after having been identified by Tyron, others of the Sixth Form would try to impress their superiority on him. When the final bell rang for dismissal, and the rest of the class ran for the door, Lan stayed behind, pretending to read. The teacher said nothing as he left, so Lan supposed such an action was permissible. It would be easier for someone who lived in a large, busy household to study in a quiet room at the school than at home.

So since reading comprehension was clearly one of his weaker points, and it was a great deal easier to feign reading than any other subject, he remained at his desk, slowly turning pages, as the noise from the hall faded and died away. Only then did he rise and move cautiously to the window, which gave a limited view of the courtyard within the school walls.

He saw at once that his guess was correct. As Tyron and his closest friends lounged and watched critically, others of the Sixth Form intercepted selected students and belabored them with insults, shoves, and kicks. Owyn's group was allowed to slip by relatively unmolested except for a chorus of catcalls, but others were not so fortunate.

As the stream of students exiting the building thinned, Tyron laughed and stood up. Lan heard him clearly from the open window where he sheltered, taking care that he couldn't be seen.

“That's enough for today, lads,” he said in that deceptively genial voice. “Who's for a game of court tennis? I'll lay two to three that none of you can play a game without being scored against.”

Others took up his challenge, and the lot of them moved off and out of the gates in a group. From here, Lan could see the street beyond the gates, and he watched to make certain they actually left the vicinity of the school before he made his own way down the quiet halls and stairways and out the door.

Feeling very much the coward, and angry with himself, he peeked around the gates before he ventured into the street. By this time, it was growing dark, and he was getting uncomfortably hungry. He hadn't had much appetite for his cold meal at lunch, and it had been a very long time since then.

The street held plenty of others hurrying home to their meals, and Lan let out a sigh of relief as he melted into the crowd.

Half of him wanted a confrontation; he kept thinking of all the clever things he should have said, or how he should have stood up for himself. They wouldn't have dared start a fight in the middle of the school, would they? Surely the teachers would have stepped in—

Or would they?

The Sixth Formers seemed very, very confident that no one would stop them. Maybe the teachers already knew about this petty tyranny and didn't care.

After all, they could very well feel that their responsibilities toward the students ended at the classroom door.

That only made Lan angry all over again, and finally he took the only outlet he had for his emotions. He broke into a run, and much to the astonishment of those making their decorous or weary way home, he ran all the way to his own front door.

He paused long enough to catch his breath, then opened the door. One of the servants met him there and took his bag of books; the family was already at dinner, and Lan joined them without a word.

Sam had been in the midst of describing some experiments with new dyes, and took up the thread that Lan's entrance had interrupted. Lan was grateful to Sam for once, for taking all of the family's attention away from him. He concentrated completely on his food, driving all the anger and tension of the day out of his mind. And perhaps that was the only reason why, when he excused himself from the table and his mother asked him how his first day of lessons had been, he was able to look her in the face, and say calmly, “All right.”

And before she could continue questioning him, he retreated upstairs to his room. Books had never been his friends, but tonight they were better and safer company than any other alternative.

L
AN wondered if highborn children were as arrogant as Tyron and his coterie. The Sixth Formers certainly couldn't possibly be any
more
arrogant.

Now in the second week of his attendance at the school, Lan's strategy of avoiding his tormentors was having mixed success. By slipping into the Hall behind a clot of taller boys and keeping his head hunched over his food, he had managed to keep from being spotted at meals while the Sixth Form was busy stuffing their own faces. But in order to get out before they got bored and started really looking for amusement, he had to bolt his own lunch like a starving badger, which made for an uneasy stomach during the next class. They
usually
got bored with hanging about and left the entrance before he ventured out to go home, but he couldn't avoid them on coming in, without taking the risk of being seriously late. Tardiness brought its own set of problems, not the least of which was the humiliation and pain of having his hand caned by the teacher.

Lavan had made another major mistake in his first week; he'd tried, shyly, to make up to one of the pretty girls in Fifth Form. How was he to know that she was the girlfriend of one of Tyron's hangers-on?

She'd rejected him quite out of hand, and he'd overreacted by withdrawing from all the girls. Now the Sixth Formers had another name for him.

When he'd found out what it meant, he'd tried to disprove it, but of course by then it was too late. Now there was another reason for Tyron and his friends to bully him.

After being shoved around like a game ball and then thrown sprawling for three mornings in a row, he decided that his best protection was the presence of the other persecuted. So for the past week, he'd waited for a group of the underdogs to arrive for classes, and ducked into their midst. With so many available targets, no one person got excessive abuse.

At least, that was the case so far.

But the whole situation made him so angry he sometimes thought he was going to choke. It didn't help that he always turned a brilliant scarlet with suppressed rage whenever one of the bullies so much as looked at him. They seemed to find that terribly amusing, and went out of their way to put him in that state.

This very morning he had arrived at his desk with his face still flaming, his skin feeling slightly sunburned and tender—and all from his own anger.

“You looked like you were going to have an apoplectic fit this morning, Scr—I mean, Lavan,” Owyn whispered as they took their seats for the first class of the morning.

“Is that why you got between me and Loathsome?” he whispered back. Owyn had begun to warm up to him, since he had never once called him by the hated name of “Owly”—and since the one piece of cleverness he
had
managed was to come up with names of his own for their tormentors. “Loathsome” for Loman Strecker, “Tyrant” for Tyron Jelnack (that was really too easy), “Dimwit” for Derwit, and so forth. It gave the younger students a crumb of comfort to have contemptuous titles for their persecutors, though they took care that the Sixth Formers never heard those names.

Owyn nodded solemnly. “You went purple, almost, and your eyes had a funny look to them, like you weren't there anymore.”

Lan didn't have to reply to that, because just then the teacher entered the room and all discussion stopped. That was just as well, because he realized that he didn't actually remember Owyn getting between him and his tormentor. He just didn't remember anything from the time that Loathsome had started shoving him repeatedly into the wall, and then to his partner, Dimwit—only that someone had taken his arm and was pulling him out of harm's way while Owyn distracted the Sixth Former with some questions about the work he'd been ordered to do. Between the moment that Loathsome and Dimwit began shoving him back and forth between them and the moment that he found his feet on the stair, there was a blank.

Or, not precisely a blank, but a passage of time filled with such fiery rage that he couldn't even see or hear, much less think. Whatever had come over him, had turned him briefly into something less than an animal, into pure anger and hatred.