Page 54 of The Black Table
“I do,” I murmur.
“Do you?” my father says, rubbing his brow. “Because you do nothing,nothing,it seems, but keep me in a bind. I’m at Emrys’s beck and call to source these manuscripts. Smugglers. Kingpins. Ungodly amounts of money. All so he’ll deign to allow you tointerpret, and only so long as you’re the worthiest of all scholars,which you must be.”
My chest tightens, the back of my neck going stiff.
I know I must. I know that I must stay in Dr. Emrys’s good graces and be an exemplary scholar. I know I must stay pure of heart and spirit and body. And I know I must never lose to another swordsman.
Something my father could never quite manage.
The dark, silken void of the eye patch is testament to that.
“What if I’m not?”
Now my father goes cold. “What if you’re notwhat?”
“What if I’mnotthe worthiest of all scholars?” I say. “What if someone else is?”
“What,” he says, the word pointed and dark, “do you mean by that?”
I stand straighter.
“There’s this new student in Emrys’s class who’s…”
Unstable. Unpredictable. Brilliant. Challenging.
Christ in heaven. It had to be the same person. The center of all the student unrest and the standout pupil in the most competitive class.
I clench my fists, my abdominals, my shoulders to my calves.
“What makes you think,” my father says slowly, “that you have any right to be less than the top? Do you not know what is atstake?”
Of course. Of course I know. I have never not known.
This is the quest of all quests. The burden that outlives the bearer. The last true charge of the broken church.
“It…doesn’t work like that,” I say, weakly. “You know how Emrys is. He’s…” I cast around for the right word. “…mercurial. I think he’s taking a liking to?—”
“And that’s why you want to quit?” my father interrupts. “Simply because now there’s a challenge? A challenger?”
No, I think.That’s not it.It’s that, it’s that…maybe for the first time there’s someone else who can do this crazy thing, who could figure out where it’s been hiding all these years. Who can think like Emrys, in riddles and puzzles, in contradictions as well as facts and records.
“Listen to me,” my father says through clenched teeth. “Look at me.”
I don’t want to, but I do. He clasps one shoulder in a broad hand, his one good eye boring into me.
“This is about more than you,” he says, slowly and carefully. “This is about all of us, about everyone, the good of humankind. This could change, could fix…”
He doesn’t have to say anymore. I push his hand from my shoulder.
“I understand,” I say. Too sharply, I realize.
“Do you?” he says again. “If this new student is as good as you say, you think Emrys is taking some sort of shine to him, then you dog his steps. You keep tabs on him. You don’t let him uncover a single thing without you looking over his shoulder.”
Him. His.
Too late, I realize I didn’t mentionwhothis student is.
Whosheis.
