"For what we are about to receive…" muttered Fred to Luke. Luke managed a weak smile in response. The year sevens were a few rows in front, so it wasn't possible for him to see whether they were exhibiting any signs of guilt. He was feeling an element of responsibility for the whole affair which was proving difficult to shake off and the sight of Ned's grave face wasn't helping. When everyone was in the room and standing silently in front of him, the headmaster began to speak.
Safe in the knowledge that Ned knew he'd been nowhere near the fire, Luke listened to Ned's words with a feeling of detachment, as though he was watching a performance in a play. As usual, Ned did not raise his voice, but there was no difficulty in hearing him, or in understanding the depth of his anger.
"…I have persuaded the police that we will investigate this event within the school, although if there is any repetition of such an attack, you can be assured that it will become a police matter," continued Ned. "Arson is a crime. There will be a full investigation and those responsible will be caught. I strongly urge those individuals to admit their involvement to their housemaster immediately so that we can put this situation behind us as soon as possible and ensure that it does not happen again. It goes without saying that if anyone has any information as to the identity of the arsonists, he should communicate it to a member of staff at the earliest opportunity."
With these words, Ned's eyes connected with Luke's. Luke found himself jolted out of his role as Innocent Bystander and framed instead as Key Witness for the Prosecution; a much less comfortable position. He dropped his gaze to the floor, resolving to corner the year seven Romans as soon as possible. This stupid vendetta between them and the Vikings needed to stop, and soon, before things got completely out of hand.
"I don't generally approve of whole-school punishments for the actions of a few as yet unidentified individuals," Ned went on to say. A ripple of dismay passed through the ranks of boys as the headmaster paused, allowing these words to sink in.
"However, it seems to me that giving up an hour of your Sunday afternoon to stand outside in the wind and rain has essentially had that effect," he relented. Tense shoulders all around the room relaxed again. "I hope that this unpleasant experience will encourage you to ensure that such an act is never repeated in this school. Now, go and get into dry clothes."
The boys filed out silently, year by year, as they usually did after assemblies. The year ten Romans headed for the eastern staircase and climbed the stairs to the top floor with the Vikings close behind them. The smell of smoke grew stronger as they got towards the top of the staircase and it was more than just smoke: there was a distinct stench of rotten-egg underlying it.
"Smell that?" said Fred, loudly enough for the Vikings to hear. "I reckon the Vikings were so scared of that fire that they crapped themselves."
A roar of rage rose from the Vikings below them on the staircase and the Romans ran, laughing, to the top of the stairs with the Vikings in full and furious pursuit. The Romans' headlong rush came to an untidy end when they ran into Mr Thomas on the top landing. The deputy head glared at them as they careered to a halt, with the Vikings piling into them from behind.
In retrospect, Luke thought it was probably their laughter that had really sparked off Mr Thomas's rage. His normally peaceful Sunday afternoon had been spent dealing with firefighters, police and the clean-up operation in the Viking's dormitory. The boisterous, exuberant arrival of the group of year ten Romans and Vikings so soon afterwards must have been one provocation too far for the normally laid-back deputy head.
By the time Mr Thomas had finished bawling them out for 1) running in school, 2) unruly behaviour and 3) setting a bad example to the younger students, there was quite a logjam of those younger Romans and Vikings trapped on the stairs behind them, listening to every word.
"After what has happened today, I would expect a little more thoughtfulness in your conduct," continued Mr Thomas. "I will see you all in detention tomorrow evening."
Having relieved his bad mood by transferring some of it to the year tens, Mr Thomas allowed the boys to return to their own rooms. The press of younger students broke free from the staircase and followed them down the corridor in uncanny silence. No-one was daring to speak a word, for fear of sparking off a new explosion of rage in the deputy head.
Luke waited until the Romans were safely behind the closed door of their dormitory before raising the subject that was bothering him.
"I need your help, guys," he said. "This vendetta is getting ridiculous and we need to convince the year sevens to stop pulling stunts like this."
"Why?" asked Fred, who had kicked off his trainers and was peeling the wet socks from his white and wrinkled feet, his face contorted in disgust.
"Because Wilmot's convinced it's got something to do with me," Luke replied. "Perhaps if we all put a bit of pressure on them, they'll give it up."
"What makes you so sure it was them?" asked Taj, his voice muffled as he pulled a clean sweatshirt over his head.
"Who else could it be?" countered Luke.
Taj's head re-emerged from the neck of his sweatshirt and he looked over at Fred and Jay in turn. None of them said anything, but they both went strangely still.
Luke stared at them all in confusion until the meaning of their silence crashed into him like a physical force and he flopped down on his bed, his knees unable to bear the weight of it.
"You are joking," he said, staring at all three of his friends in turn. "You mean that it was you?"
"Shhh!" Fred held his finger to his lips. "D'you want the whole school to hear you?" He looked out of the window as if he was worried that the Saxons in the rooms of the wing opposite them might have been able to catch what Luke had said.
"Why didn't you tell me?" demanded Luke in a fierce whisper. "I thought we were supposed to be friends!"
Taj and Fred looked to Jay, who was rubbing his hair with a towel and scrupulously avoiding making eye contact with Luke. "We didn't think you'd want to do it," he said. "You put us off doing anything about the Vikings last year. And the way you've been acting round Wharton lately, backing off all the time… We thought it was best to go ahead without telling you. We did it today because we knew you'd be going to Pagan's for lunch and Wilmot wouldn't suspect you."
"But he does suspect me," said Luke.
"And you've been too busy anyway, what with Pagan and everything," added Jay.
Luke detected resentment in Jay's voice. Is this all because he's jealous of the time I'm spending with Pagan? he wondered. He remembered the worried look on Ned's face as they drove past the lines of students outside the building and felt a pang of sympathy for his neighbour. "You could have burnt the whole school down!" he said.
Jay lowered the towel and faced Luke. "There you go again, sounding like a teacher. It was just a smoke bomb, not a real fire. Fred lit it, with a length of slow-burning fuse and everything, and it worked a treat." As he recalled the afternoon's events, Jay's resentment faded away and was replaced by enthusiasm. "Luke, you should have seen the smoke pouring out of their window. There was sulphur in the bomb, too. Wharton's dormitory is gonna stink." The other two chuckled at the memory.
Luke felt torn. He was pleased that they had finally got revenge for the Viking's raid on their dormitory last year. But he was hurt at being excluded from their plans and annoyed that he'd somehow ended up being Wilmot's number one suspect even though he had known nothing about it.
"We wouldn't have told you at all," said Taj, "but we couldn't help you torment the year sevens for something they didn't do."
"D'you think the staff will work out it was you?" Luke asked, thinking of Ned's lecture and his determination to track down the arsonists.
Fred snorted. "Not likely. They can't pin it on us. We'll just ride it out. It wasn't really arson anyway, just a prank. There's only a week left of school and the teachers will forget about it after Christmas. The fuss'll die down in no time."
Luke hoped he was ri
ght. He thought about the look Ned had given him in their impromptu assembly just now, letting him know that he was expecting him to report any information he might have about the fire. And when you combined that with Ned's interrogation techniques and Luke's inability to lie convincingly…
The only solution Luke could see was to avoid being anywhere near Ned for the rest of the term.
The last week of any term was always a gradual transition into holiday mode: a time of high spirits as staff and students alike anticipated their forthcoming freedom from the routine of school. Levels of work dropped off and there was a slackening of expectations and a general leniency in regard to the school rules.
But not this year. The teachers seemed to have taken the arson attack as a direct challenge to their authority and Christmas spirit was in short supply in the week which followed. Mr Thomas's outburst on Sunday afternoon was just the start of it. If anything, the staff were stricter than they usually were right at the beginning of the year; cracking down hard on even the most minor infringements of school rules. The boys' lockers and possessions were searched for evidence of involvement with the Viking dormitory fire and there was a general sense of oppressive surveillance which subdued everyone's spirits. Even the usually irrepressible year sevens were acting more like it was the week before an exam than the week before the Christmas break.
On Monday evening Luke looked around in surprise at the number of other students who joined the Roman and Viking year tens in detention.
"I think the teachers are having a competition to see who can hand out the most detentions this week," he muttered to Jay as they sat down together for their hour of imprisonment.
The Christmas edition of the school's newspaper, Paper Dart, came out the next day. It must have been hastily re-written on Monday because it now featured the Viking arson attack on its front page. It named no names, but did not hold back from casting suspicion in the direction of the Romans' house.
"History teaches us that the Romans were one of the earliest users of fire as a weapon and, given other recent incidents, we wonder whether the answer to this mystery lies in that quarter of the school." Jay read the article out loud to the other year ten Romans as they sat down to breakfast. "Who writes this stuff? What a pompous arse."
"There's one editor from each house," said Taj. "But you can be sure that it was a Viking who wrote that bit."
"I think we should write a letter of complaint in the next edition," put in Fred, in a tone of moral outrage entirely for the benefit of anyone who might be overhearing them. "How dare they make allegations like that with no evidence? It's just as likely to be the Vikings trying to get the Romans into trouble, or the Saxons and Normans looking to get in on the action."
The newspaper was only repeating the widely held view among the students that it must have been Romans behind the attack but the various searches of lockers and possessions had failed to provide any proof of their involvement and Luke's three room-mates maintained a convincing outward appearance of complete innocence about the whole affair which Luke could only admire. When he couldn't escape to Pagan's house he resorted to hiding in the library as a way of avoiding the speculation and making sure that he didn't run into Ned.
He was glad when his parents arrived on Saturday to take him home. He was going to miss seeing Pagan nearly every day, but the prospect of four weeks of no homework and of not having to be constantly on his guard because of the Roman and Viking vendetta seemed like bliss.
*
The weather turned cold after Christmas and the roads were treacherous with snow and ice. Ned offered to take Luke back to Hawley Lodge to save the Brownlows from having to make the journey themselves. It meant that Luke would arrive at school a day earlier than the other students, but after a month away he was anxious to see Pagan again and didn't mind at all.
On the morning of their departure, Ned kept the car engine running while they loaded it with their possessions, so that the windscreen would defrost and the inside of the car get warm by the time they were ready to leave.
"What is that terrible smell?" asked Luke as he hefted his bag into the back of the car.
"It's just the catalytic converter," Ned replied. "It always smells like that on cold mornings."
"It's as bad as that Viking smoke bomb," said Luke, waving his hand in front of his face and screwing up his face in disgust. He hugged his parents and sisters goodbye and climbed into the passenger seat of the car as his family hustled back into the house to get out of the cold. Ned got behind the steering wheel but did not immediately put the car into gear. Luke looked over at him, wondering why they weren't getting going yet.
"What makes you think that the fire was a smoke bomb?" Ned asked, turning his head away from the road in front and fixing his eyes on Luke.
Luke had a sudden sensation of teetering on the edge of a deep trap, with only the slimmest chance of avoiding falling into it.
"I- I just thought that's what it was," he said, trying to keep his voice light and innocent-sounding and his face neutral under the scrutiny of Ned's stare.
"Indeed it was," agreed Ned, his tone just as light and seemingly friendly. "But to my knowledge, the only people who knew this to be the case were the firefighters, police, and school staff." The briefest of pauses, then the knockout punch. "And whoever set it off, of course."
Luke swallowed and looked down at his hands, deciding, belatedly, that silence was probably the best response. But dumb insolence had never worked with Ned.
"Luke?" Now the harsh edge in Ned's voice demanded an answer.
"Can you just forget I said that?" asked Luke, a note of desperation creeping in as he met Ned's eyes again.
"So you do know who was responsible."
Luke nodded, his face mutely begging Ned not to ask him to reveal what he knew.
"Were you involved?" Ned's glance was penetrating.
"No!" Luke replied vehemently. "I didn't find out until afterwards." He couldn't suppress the hint of bitterness in his voice and it did not escape Ned.
"You sound disappointed," he observed, acidly. But he must have been at least partly satisfied with Luke's reply, because he turned his attention back to the road, put the car into gear and pulled away from the kerb.
Luke found the rest of the journey awkward. Ned needed all his concentration to keep the car on the icy roads and avoid collisions with other vehicles. Luke kept quiet, furious with himself for his slip of the tongue and weighed down with a general sense of guilt and an uncomfortable feeling that Ned was unlikely to leave the matter there.
Chapter Nine
The snow on the roads was deeper in the Chiltern Hills and when they finally arrived at Hawley Lodge, Ned turned off the engine with a sigh of relief and rolled his arms around to ease the stiffness in his shoulders. A journey that would normally take two hours had taken them closer to four.
"I wouldn't want to do too many trips like that. We got some bad winters in New England, but at least in America you can put winter tyres on the car. And they plough the roads properly." He turned to look at Luke. "You and I need to have a talk, but not right now. My first priority is to get some food and a cup of tea." Ned looked at his watch. "We've missed lunch, so I'll get the kitchen staff to send up some sandwiches to my office. You go and drop your stuff in your room and meet me there in half an hour."
"OK," said Luke, unethusiastically. They unloaded their things and Luke trudged a path through the snow to the door of the east wing, while Ned headed off round the front of the building to his cottage.
It was eerily quiet in the school as Luke climbed the stairs to the top floor. He called home to let his parents know that they had arrived safely and then unpacked his things. Pagan was already back at school, so he wouldn't be able to speak to her until later in the day. Snow had started to fall again and Luke leaned against the window of the year ten dormitory, watching it drifting down into the courtyard below and fondly remembering the snowball fight he'd started the previo
us winter with a well-aimed shot at Wharton's head. The whole Viking/Roman feud could probably be dated back to that one event, he reflected. But even if he had the chance of going back in time and changing his actions, there was no way he'd give up the opportunity of reliving in his mind's eye that glorious moment when the snowball exploded over the head of his tormentor.
It was mid-afternoon and already getting dark. There weren't many lights on in the rest of the school but down and to his right he could see that the four windows of Ned's office were illuminated. Luke checked the time on his phone. Half an hour had passed already. He looked around at the empty beds of his three roommates and felt a surge of guilt at his unguarded words to Ned. "Don't worry guys," he told the room. "I'm not going to grass you up."
In the corridor known to the students as Death Alley, the door to Ned's secretary's office was open and Miss Croft was adding some papers to a filing cabinet just inside. Last year, the way she had greeted Luke had proved to be a reliable measure for the warmth of welcome he could expect from the headmaster.
"Hello Luke! I hear you had a terrible journey to get here. Go on through, the food's just arrived. You must be starving."
She was smiling and friendly enough today, Luke thought, but he wasn't sure that this was a good indicator of Ned's opinion of him at the moment.
Inside the office he found Ned standing at the table in the centre of the room, sorting through a pile of mail with one hand and holding a cup of tea in the other.
"Help yourself then come and sit down," he said, gesturing towards a pile of egg-and-cress sandwiches, a pot of tea and a jug of orange juice at the other end of the table. Luke poured himself a glass of juice and loaded a spare plate with food. He squeezed into the green leather chair opposite Ned, who had now divided his post into two piles. Junk and non-junk, Luke presumed; or maybe urgent and non-urgent. Ned refilled his cup from the teapot, picked up some sandwiches for himself and sat down next to Luke at the other end of the table. He didn't mess around with small talk.