‘Do you know about . . . about . . . my talent?’ Charlie was unsure of putting this question and found himself stuttering.
‘Of course!’ Señor Alvaro gave one of his heartwarming smiles. ‘I’ll see you on Friday, Charlie. Usual time.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Charlie left the room.
When he closed Señor Alvaro’s door he felt slightly dizzy. Perhaps it was the darkness of the passage, coming so soon after the bright lights in the music room. He closed his eyes for a moment and a rushing, foggy grey seeped behind his lids; it was the sea, and in the churning grey waves there was a small boat bobbing among the foam. Charlie saw this boat in his mind’s eye whenever he thought of his parents, somewhere on the ocean, watching whales. But today he could just make out a name on the side of the boat: Greywing.
Charlie opened his eyes. Why had the name come to him so suddenly? Did anyone else know about it? His grandmother Maisie? Uncle Paton? The company that arranged his parents’ whale-watching holiday?
‘Charlie!’
Gabriel came running down the passage just as the bell went for lunch. ‘Can we talk outside, Charlie, after lunch?’
‘Why not now?’ asked Charlie.
‘I can’t explain. It’s too complicated,’ said Gabriel.
‘Give us a clue!’
‘It’s about the Red Knight.’
‘Now I’m really interested.’ Charlie hurried into the hall where the usual crowd of children were rushing to their cloakrooms: blue for music students, purple for the actors and green for the artists. Gabriel hovered beside Charlie while he washed his hands and then they walked together across the hall and down the corridor of portraits towards the blue canteen. As they passed Ashkelan Kapaldi, Gabriel nodded at the portrait and whispered, ‘I saw him today.’
‘I think I saw him last night,’ Charlie whispered back.
Gabriel rolled his eyes. ‘What’s going on?’
Charlie shrugged.
Fidelio had kept two places for them at a corner table. While they ate their macaroni cheese, Charlie bent close to his friend and, as quietly as he could, described the swordsman both he and Gabriel had seen outside his portrait.
‘I wouldn’t be in your shoes,’ Fidelio remarked with a grin.
‘What do you mean by that?’ Gabriel asked in an offended tone. ‘This man isn’t after me and Charlie particularly.’
‘Sorry.’ Fidelio often forgot how touchy Gabriel Silk could be. ‘But you’re both endowed, Gabe. These weirdos are always after you lot; by and large they leave normal people like me alone.’
Gabriel had to admit that this was true. He realised that he would have to take Fidelio into his confidence as well as Charlie. Best friends always stuck together during break.
After lunch the three boys jogged round the grounds. It was one of those dreary March days when the sky is a dark grey slab and the cold air sneaks into your very bones. Sixth-formers were allowed to stay indoors, but the rest of the school, almost three hundred children from eight years old to sixteen, were trying various ways to keep warm.
Some of the boys were playing a rather half-hearted game of football, others were being violently active in an athletic kind of way, and yet more were doing formal exercises, presided over by an enthusiastic outdoor type called Simon Hawke.
Most of the girls were walking around in pairs or large groups. Someone had put up an umbrella, even though the rain wasn’t more than a damp mist. It was a very bright umbrella, printed with red and yellow butterflies. The girl beneath it had almost white hair and wore a scarlet coat. She was holding her umbrella high enough to cover the head of a very tall African.
‘Is that Lysander?’ Gabriel pointed at the boy beneath the umbrella.
‘Must be,’ said Fidelio. ‘Who’s the girl?’
‘Never seen her before,’ said Charlie.
The girl turned towards them and Charlie recognised Olivia Vertigo. He had never seen her as a bleached blonde before. Her hair colour changed frequently from purple to green to indigo – she’d even gone stripy – but never white. He wondered why she and Lysander were together. They were both endowed, but they had little else in common. And then he remembered that their best friends were both missing. Lysander was seldom apart from Tancred Torsson, while Olivia and Emma were practically inseparable.
Charlie waved at Olivia and she leapt forward, catching Lysander’s head in her brolly. ‘Ow!’ he yelled. Olivia flapped her hand at him and came bouncing over the grass in her red fur-tipped boots. Lysander stood looking around for another companion for a moment but, finding none, he followed Olivia over to the group.
Gabriel groaned to himself. Now he would have to tell his story to four people instead of one. It was such a small incident, it might mean nothing or everything. He hadn’t wanted to broadcast it this way; in fact, he decided, he probably wouldn’t tell anyone at all, because what he had seen wasn’t that important. His mind had simply exaggerated its significance.
‘We’ve been talking about the Pets’ Café,’ said Olivia, obligingly closing her umbrella, ‘and you – know – who.’ She glanced at Lysander.
‘Shhh!’ Lysander looked over his shoulder as the Branko twins passed behind them.
The Branko twins were now lingering just within earshot. They had pale, impassive faces and the fringes of their shiny black hair touched the tips of their long thick eyelashes. The eyes beneath those lashes were dark and inscrutable. If the twins were to get the slightest hint that Tancred was still alive, they would pass the news straight to Manfred, and that would be a disaster. The Bloors would be furious that his survival had been kept a secret, and Dagbert might even make a second attempt on Tancred’s life.
‘Let’s move,’ Lysander suggested, nodding at an ancient wall standing at the top end of the grounds.
The massive red walls surrounded a castle built by the Red King nine centuries ago. It had been a vast and beautiful building but today it lay in ruins, its thick walls crumbling, its stone floors lined with moss and weeds, its roofs fallen and its once sturdy beams mildewed and rotting. But just inside the great arched entrance was a paved courtyard surrounded by thick hedges, and facing the entrance were five smaller arches, each one leading into the castle. Four were like the mouths of dark tunnels. Only one gave a view of the green hill beyond.
‘Smells a bit fusty in here,’ said Olivia. She planted herself on one of the stone benches placed between the arches.
The others squeezed in beside her, but Fidelio suddenly jumped up and ran to the entrance. He stood beneath the arch where he could get a good view of the rest of the school. ‘Don’t want any snoops,’ he said.
A low grunt came from beneath the bench beside them. Everyone stared at it until a grey paw emerged, followed by a long-nosed, overweight, short-legged dog.
‘Blessed!’ they cried.
Olivia held her nose. ‘I might have known.’
‘He can’t help being smelly,’ Gabriel reproved her.
‘He looks so sad,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m sure he misses Billy.’
At the mention of Billy’s name, Blessed waddled over to Charlie, wagging his bald tail. Charlie stroked the dog’s rough head, saying, ‘Billy will come back, Blessed, I promise you.’
The dog grunted