The Giant's Almanac by Andrew Zurcher (black female authors .txt) 📕

day you attend your lessons. But you are tested by night. The call comes suddenly, and the rules are unclear. But the case set for you to solve always requires the same skills: the merciless ferocity of the Rack, the organization of the Sweeper, the knowledge of the Registrar, the resources of the Commissar, the creativity of the Keeper, the cunning of the Jack. But above all you require this knowledge of the game, the play of the Master.’

Fitz was almost surprised that Dina didn’t snort again.

‘A problem. A challenge. A riddle. An adventure. The case takes many forms, but it always has this quality, that all the Apprentices must compete with one another, and yet no one can reach the prize alone.’ The Master pulled the board towards him, and replaced the pieces in their felted nests. ‘We must work together, against one another. That is the essence of play,’ he said, closing the case. ‘And the nature of any game.’

‘The game is already ended,’ said Dina, almost to herself, with satisfaction.

‘And so is Feeding, unless you’re quick about it,’ said the Master. The clock struck then, and Dina jumped to her feet as if a cat, and startled. ‘Go.’

Walking outside, on their way to dinner, Dina put her hand to Fitz’s arm and stopped him.

‘You know that there is disagreement among the Officers,’ she said. It wasn’t a question.

‘What sort of disagreement?’ Fitz asked.

‘Some of the Officers don’t think the Master should have brought you here in the first place, or that he should have a second Apprentice. You can see why.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Fitz saw swifts in the sky, combining long arcs of graceful soaring with fast bursts of manic fluttering.

‘No,’ he said.

‘It sets us against one another,’ Dina said. ‘We can’t both train to become the Master. There is only one Office.’

Fitz looked at Dina full in the face. She still appeared to be upset about something. She had begun this conversation; he knew he should wait for her to end it.

‘That’s why we haven’t met with the Master until today. Ever since you arrived. The other Officers wouldn’t allow it.’

‘The Jack doesn’t seem to mind,’ said Fitz. He was thinking of the little toilet in the leafy square outside the British Museum, in another world, where Arwan had covered the walls with equations. It was a rash thing of him to say, and he regretted it the moment that he said it – regretted that he had mixed that other world with this one. Into his mind, very suddenly, flashed the image of Mr Ahmadi on that night, hurrying through the square beneath the trees, watching in every direction, as if – as if he were being hunted.

Dina smiled a cold smile that had no kindness in it. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Now that I think of it, the Jack doesn’t seem to mind.’

Dina said nothing further to him while they walked together to Feeding, nothing in the Porch while they gathered with the other Prents, and nothing, almost, in the hall. The conversation among the others started out entirely a Navy affair, good-natured and erratic, and Dina had no trouble withdrawing into her own private thoughts, chewing her way with muscle through First and Second Feeding without missing a scrap. But her tension like stench in the room affected them all, and as the meal wore on they all, finally, succumbed to it. Fingal was the first to break.

‘So,’ he said, taking up one of the increasingly protracted silences, and addressing Fitz from across the table, ‘how are you two getting on? Which one of you will be the Master, and which one of you is going to get posted to the bottom of the sea?’

Everyone looked at Fitz, except Dina.

‘It’s not a competition,’ she said, as she wiped her plate with a crust. She didn’t look up.

‘Of course it’s a competition,’ said Fingal. ‘Everything’s a competition in this place. Only the strongest will survive, eh, Dolly?’

Whatever this barb meant to Dolly, and to the others, Fitz could see right away that it had stuck fast, and rankled. She put down her fork, and looked at her plate as if she had forgotten why she was eating.

‘Oh, come on,’ said Fingal. ‘This is not news. We all know they’re watching us all the time, testing us every day in ways we haven’t even imagined. Dolly’s been given a second chance; good for her. Whatever. But there’s no way this runt is going to stack up to Dina.’ He looked around. ‘Don’t even pretend you haven’t all been thinking it.’

Runt.

‘What’s your game, Fitzroy?’ sneered Fingal, turning to Fitz again. ‘What do you actually think you’re doing here?’

‘Enough, Fingal,’ said Dina. Again she didn’t look up, just helping herself to more bread as the Serfs began to lay Third Feeding.

‘Come on, out with it. What special plan have you and the Master cooked up for the rest of us? What are you really doing here? You go to lessons, sure, wander about looking dreamy and never asking any questions. You act like you own the place, and you’ve only been here a month. What do you know that we don’t?’

‘I said enough,’ repeated Dina. She glared at Fingal, and for a second – but only a second – his face fell.

‘You know you’re only picking on him because you’re still sore about your Black Wedding,’ said Navy. ‘He has every right to be here. He was enrolled same as the rest of us.’

Padge, Russ and the others were watching carefully, none of them bold enough to take on Fingal in one of his moods, or Dina at any time.

Fingal blew air through his lips. ‘Maybe he enrolled. But what is he good for? What can he do? Did you know, newbie, that Padge has just published two papers on seismology, dealing with complex fluids in unstable topographies? And Russ, he doesn’t look like much, but he’s doing mathematics I don’t even understand.