Doubleborn (11 page)

“Are you going in?” asked Winny.

“If I don’t?”

“I can show you the other door. It’s quite close. You can leave if you like. But you said you wanted to see the forge.”

Tamrin stepped through.

Tim wished he was somewhere else, anywhere else. Smedge lined up the children outside Frastfil’s office, Tim at the front.

“Remember,” said Smedge. “Tell him.”

They nodded.

He knocked and waited. Tim noted this. He had expected him to go straight in.

“Come in.”

Frastfil sat behind his desk, failing to look important. Dr Duddle stood as far away from the window as he could. Five other teachers looked uncomfortable in the centre of the room. There was Miss Plang, who taught the little ones when they first came to the college; Dr Frescing, the art teacher, who taught picture magic and making clay pots for spells; Mr Fouller, who was a specialist in writing out spells in exactly the correct way so that they meant what they were supposed to mean and nothing else; Miss Makawley, the old-spells teacher and the expert on wizards from the past; and there was Mr Faraway. Mr Faraway had a white coat and he had lost all of the hair on the right side of his head just that morning when a new spell had exploded. He was in charge of the laboratory for dangerous new spells and one had gone wrong. Again.

Smedge closed the door.

“Thank you for coming to the meeting,” said Frastfil. “As heads of departments in the college you need to know about a very serious development.”

They all listened carefully except for Faraway, who was rubbing the bald side of his head and looking at the bookshelves.

“There has been a serious case of bullying,” said Frastfil, “and you need to be aware of it.”

Smedge took over and instructed the other boys and girls to say that they had all seen Tamrin bullying him at different times. Tim tried to keep quiet, but Smedge made him add his account of the block of ice.

“So,” concluded Frastfil, “I tried to expel Tamrin and send her home with her guardian, Shoddle, the tailor, but she ran away from the college and has disappeared.”

“Eh?” said Faraway, as though he had just started listening.

Frastfil frowned.

“So,” he continued, “it is most important that if she returns you make sure I am informed as soon as you see her.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” said Faraway.

“I beg your pardon?” Frastfil glared at him.

“Tamrin. She wouldn’t bully anyone.”

Frastfil pointed at the line of witnesses.

“Did you listen to any of these children? Did you hear what they had to say? They all saw her do it.”

Faraway tapped his finger against his teeth.

“Any of you been bullied by her?” he asked.

They shook their heads.

“Just him?”

He indicated Smedge.

They nodded.

“And you all saw it?”

There was the smallest pause before they nodded again.

Faraway spoke to Tim. Tim had been trying to avoid his eye but it was no good.

“Tim Masrani, you saw her bullying Smedge?”

Tim nodded.

“You sure?”

Tim hesitated. He wanted to explain properly. He felt ashamed at what was happening. He didn’t want to be part of it. Making sure he didn’t look at Smedge, in case he lost his courage, he started to explain that Tamrin was only sticking up for the little ones, helping them against Smedge’s spite and cruelty.

“Woof,” he said.

They stared at him.

Tim felt fur growing on his arms and on his back, under his shirt. He felt his toenails turning to claws. It was hopeless.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just clearing my throat. Yes. I did.”

He saw the look of disgust on Faraway’s face and knew that the man knew he was lying. He hung his head. The fur disappeared, and the claws retracted.

Frastfil finished the meeting quickly.

“Tell all your colleagues,” he said. “We won’t have bullies here. No bullying at Canterstock.”

Tim hated him. Hated the lying. Hated the stupidity. Hated the way Frastfil gave in to Smedge.

Frastfil couldn’t wait to get rid of them.

“Goodbye. Thank you.” He jumped to his feet, coins jangling in his pockets, clapping his hands, grinning and bouncing. “Well done. Goodbye. Yes.”

Tim slipped out first and ran down the corridor. He felt as though he had vomited black sick on the carpet and left it there, stinking and steaming.

Smedge was turning the whole college against Tamrin. She wouldn’t be the strange girl who hung around the place any more. She would be seen as a nasty bully, someone to fear, someone to hate. And Tim was helping. Because he was afraid not to.

He found his way down the steps to the store areas. He needed to tell Vengeabil what had happened. He pushed aside the curtain and saw that the door was there. He could go through to the passageway that led to the kitchen. He put his hand to the door and drew away again.

The thought of telling the man what he had done was too much for him. He climbed the stairs slowly, back to the damp corridors and stinking staircases of the college. Back to lessons. ||

on to the fire. Solder ran round the back of the furnace and pumped the bellows, shooting jets of air into the embers. They glowed with new life. More charcoal. More air. More heat. Tamrin was attracted to the fire and repelled by it at the same time. It fascinated her and filled her with dread.

“Why is it so hot?”

She felt it was a stupid question and wished she could take it back. Smith smiled.

“You’re right,” he agreed. “It’s not like a normal fire, is it? The forge concentrates heat, builds it up so that the iron melts.”

He thrust an iron bar into the depth of the fire to demonstrate.

Tamrin had never felt so useless. She had always learned everything so easily that it was not like learning at all, more like remembering. She couldn’t learn how to use the forge, how to strike the metal, how to twist the hot iron.

Smith stood back and folded his arms.

“I’ve never seen anyone so bad at it,” he said.

Tamrin clamped her teeth tight shut to stop herself from saying something angry.

“No magic,” he had said. “Not in here. If you try, it will hurt you. Badly. Understand?”

“Of course I understand what you’re saying. I just don’t understand why you’re saying it.”

And now they looked down at the things she had fashioned without the aid of magic. They were hopeless. Poor, twisted and uneven things. However hard she tried the hot metal would not move the way she wanted it to. It seemed to twist away from her like a snake. The hammer was heavy in her hand. The heat from the furnace made her brow sweat and turned her face red. Her hair grew wet and stuck down to her head. She looked and felt wretched.

Smith leaned his backside against a workbench and tapped a file against the top.

“You’re like a cat in a river,” he said.

Tamrin had had enough of failure and was in the mood for an argument.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He didn’t laugh at her.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not judging you. Cats are good creatures, but they can’t swim. They can run and hunt. They can fall from a tree and land on their feet and be all right. They can climb where dogs can’t. But, put one in the river and it’ll be dead in no time. Cats and water. That’s you and fire. It’s not a good thing or a bad thing.”

“I tried.”

“You did. You tried hard. But it’s never going to work.”

Tamrin searched for a reason that would be to her credit.

“It’s because of the magic,” she said. “If I hadn’t got such strong magic I could do it.”

This time he did smile.

“I don’t think so.”

He moved to a row of shelves.

“Come and look at these,” he said.

He handed her a small iron bird, perfect in simple design and the very barest of detail, yet Tamrin had never seen anything that so perfectly captured what it was to be a bird. He gave her a frog, in one way just a casual sweep of curves and lines, yet the most exact impression of what it is to be a frog. A snail. A flat, curved object that was handle and dull blade of a letter opener all in one unbroken line. A spoon, the bowl perfectly rounded. Tamrin held them one by one, loving the perfection of what they were, their simplicity, grace and accuracy.

“So?” she demanded. “You’ve been making things like this for years. It’s your job. And anyway, you haven’t got any magic.”

She reluctantly allowed him to take them from her and replace them on the shelf. She longed to keep one, to own it. The frog, perhaps. No, the bird, wings folded, head down, like an egg in her hand.

“I didn’t make them,” he said. “A girl did. A girl your age, on her first day at the forge.”

Tamrin shrugged.

“I’m not just a girl. I’m a wizard. It’s the magic that stops me.”

Smith looked for something else on the shelf. Tamrin kept her eyes on the bird, wondering if she couldn’t just borrow it for a while. He need never know.

“So was she,” he said. “She was full of magic. It poured out of her, into the fire and back again into the iron, hot as hate, soft as love. Everything she touched she formed into something wonderful. She made things on her first day at the forge that I’ve never been able to make in a long lifetime.”

“You said I couldn’t use magic in here.”

“Nor you can. Nor did she. Her magic was fire. Yours isn’t. That’s all there is to it. She wasn’t using magic, it was using her. Ah, here we are.”

He handed her a pair of scissors. She slipped her fingers into the handle and flexed them.

“Careful. They’re sharp.”

“Did she make these?”

“Mostly. She didn’t have time to finish them. She made the two halves. I sharpened the blade and I riveted them in the centre. You can have them.”

“I’d rather have the bird.”

“I know you would, but you can’t. You’ll have these or nothing.”

Tamrin handed them back.

“No, thanks.”

Winny laid her hand on Tamrin’s shoulder.

“Take them,” she said. “You’re on a journey and they’re a gift. Take them.”

Tamrin reached out her hand, took them without thanks and pushed them into her pocket. Smith edged the bird to the back of the shelf and led her away.

They stepped from the forge into the yard. It was growing dark. Tamrin shut her eyes in disbelief and opened them again.

“What’s happened?” she asked.

“You must be hungry,” said Winny. “Let’s go and eat.”

“But it’s nearly night,” said Tamrin. “We were only in there about an hour.”

Solder came out of the forge last and closed the door behind him, checking it was locked. Smith took Tamrin’s elbow and escorted her back to the house. There were four places laid at the table.

“You can stay for dinner,” he said. “It’s too late to set off now.”

“You’re keeping me prisoner,” said Tamrin. “You’ll lock me in again.”

“Not tonight,” said Smith.

He stirred the fire.

“How could we have been in there so long?” she asked.

“You’re a wizard and you don’t know that time goes differently in different places? I don’t believe it.”

Tamrin didn’t know that and thought some very bad thoughts about Vengeabil for not teaching her.

“There’s one time for the outside,” said Smith. “And another time for the storeroom, and another time for the forge,” he explained, without explaining anything.

“And the room of mirrors?” she said. “What’s the time for there?”

Smith gave Solder a stern look and the roffle grinned back, unconcerned.

“You weren’t supposed to go in there,” said Smith. “Not today.”

“Why not? What’s so secret about there?”

“Let’s eat,” he said.

“It strikes me,” said Solder, when he had eaten more beef stew than Tamrin thought anyone could manage, “that you’d want to run away from this tailor, rather than run after him.”

“Roffles like their food,” said Winny, noticing Tamrin’s amazement at the way he’d cleared his dish. Tamrin blushed.

“I wouldn’t want to get closer to someone who seemed to want to harm me,” the roffle continued.

“If there was a wolf circling the village,” said Smith, “attacking at night, picking out small children in their beds, killing for sport as well as hunger, what would you do? You wouldn’t run away, would you?”

“I would,” he said.

“No, you wouldn’t. You’d arm yourself, go out and hunt the wolf. You’d take the battle to the enemy, not just bar the doors and hope you’d be safe. Not just run away. Wolves run fast and they can scent their prey.”

Tamrin laid down her spoon and listened. Nothing seemed to upset Solder. No rebuke or scorn or teasing. He took it all in his stride, grinning back.

“You do right,” said Smith to Tamrin. “You need to hunt the tailor down. Or he’ll be more dangerous when you do meet.”

Solder wasn’t easily put off.

“But why do they need to meet at all?” he said. “She could just stay away from him.”

“He came to the college to find her and she ran away,” said Smith. “He won’t give up. He may have gone home now, but he’s still looking.”

“He’s got something I want,” said Tamrin.

She had held on to this secret for so long that it was difficult to let it go. But once she loosened her grip on it, talking made it easier.

“I’m a twin,” she said. “At least, I think I am. As long as I can remember I’ve known that I am. And I feel it. Sometimes I feel that there’s a person out there that I’m part of, that I was born with.”

She stopped and let the kitchen absorb this fact. It had grown full dark while they ate. The lights of candles were reflected in the windows.

“I met him once,” she continued. “He came to the college, just for a few days, and then he left.”

“Was he glad to see you?” asked Solder.

“He didn’t know.”

The roffle stared at her.

“What do you mean, he didn’t know?”

Tamrin tried to smile. She failed.

“No one had ever told him that he was a twin as well. He just didn’t know.”

“Didn’t he feel it, the way you feel it?”

“That’s enough, Solder,” said Winny. “Give me your dish.”