A Pretty Mouth by Molly Tanzer

Author:Molly Tanzer [Tanzer, Molly]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Lazy Fascist Press
Published: 2012-09-30T19:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five: I Will Not Change, As Others Might

Henry could not risk lighting a candle, so it was not until very early the next morning, under the pretense of visiting the jakes before prayers, that he was able, with fingers all a-tremble, to crack the wax sealing the missive and finally—finally!—peruse its contents with his sleep-bleared eyes.

He tried not to be disappointed, but all it said was:

Do not speak or even look at me at all today. Instead, meet me after dusk in the Grove, at the Doric Temple. Come alone. Tell no one.

‘Till then,

I remain,

St John Clement

Even after reading it for a fourth time, squinting in the pre-dawn light, Henry could not make heads nor tails of the letter. Why should St John wish to meet with him if he didn’t want to speak with him? Why in the garden? And “after dusk?” After dusk could mean practically any time—right after dusk? Just before prayers, at eight in the evening? Midnight, technically speaking, was “after dusk.”

The bell calling all students to morning prayers tolled as Henry sat alone in the outhouse, the wood of the seat cutting into the flesh of his bottom. He swore, stuffed the parchment down the front of his robes, and scurried off to chapel. He slunk in the back door just in time, and safely took a seat in the back before anyone noticed him.

Christ was not the lord on Henry’s mind as the priest led them through the usual prayers. He kept glancing up, trying to locate St John’s lion’s mane of curls among the sea of bowed heads—and once he did so, he tried with his eyes and willpower to bore a hole into that well-formed skull in order to discern its contents. Such a strange young man, a chimera in more ways than one … what interest could he possibly have in Henry? Did he want to apologize for his actions? Humiliate him further?

That thought sent a chill down Henry’s spine, and he shivered on his pew. The thought of coming, innocent, to the Temple—only to discover the Blithe Company there, wild and womble-ty-cropt, ready to tear him to pieces like the horde of howling maenads they were …

Henry smiled to himself as he took his feet—Master Fulkerson and Mr. Berry would like that rather classical analogy, would they not? Well, they could expect that sort of intelligence from him from here on out. He’d show them all. Whatever happened that evening—even if St John wouldn’t be his tutor, even if the meeting was an ambush—he had finally found a reason to care about academics: Rochester.

Well, more specifically, eventually obtaining Rochester’s patronage.

But even with his newfound academic motivation and the promise of secret meetings, the day was a rough one for Henry. Never at his best after a sleepless night, the three or so hours he had managed to snatch after returning—and spending not a little time blinking at the darkness in his dormitory, wondering about the contents of St John’s letter—did not exactly increase Henry’s mental acuity.

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