The Sports Captain's Tale полностью

And we would lose again, sooner or later. I knew it to be true. There’s no such thing as an ever-victorious team and the player who claims never to have lost a match or been on the losing side is either a liar or someone careful to ensure he only played against inferior competition. Blair, whatever else could be said about him, was testing himself against the best the school could offer. It made me wonder if the outside teams were doing the same. Probably. There weren’t many schools that couldn’t field at least four teams … if they had enough interested players. Just because I was obsessed with games didn’t mean everyone shared my obsession.

“You turned everything around, last game,” Jane said, as we sat and watched the next match. “Do you think you can do it again?”

I said nothing, my eyes following the players as they raced around the field. I was discomfited to note that one of the other teams had copied our tactic – really, it shouldn’t have surprised me. But then, it did require one or more players to stay in the rear while letting the others get the girls and the glory. Everyone wants to be the chap who scores the winning goal, not the chap who passes him the ball and certainly not the poor bastard sitting on the substitute bench when the goal is scored. I’d been lucky in that respect, if not in others. Mildred and the others who’d stayed at the back didn’t care much for glory.

“Of course,” I bragged. I didn’t really feel it, but half of being a team captain is pretending to be confident even when the score is so heavily slanted against you that you just know the referee is biased. It could be worse. I’d watched a team lose twenty to one and the ref had been on their side. It should have been at least thirty to one. “We’ll romp to victory once again.”

“The betting is in your favour,” Jane said. “That may change today, of course, but …”

I shrugged. The Grandmaster had laid down the law, in the aftermath of Juliet’s scandal, and forbidden team captains from placing bets on pain of expulsion. I wasn’t allowed to bet on myself and I certainly wasn’t allowed to bet on anyone else. There were probably some underground betting rings that had escaped his notice, but I knew nothing about them. Of course not. Besides, I didn’t have the money to gamble. Blair, damn him, had all the money in the world.

He doesn’t, I reminded myself. It just feels that way.

Jane leaned forward. She wore simple robes, but I knew what she looked like underneath … I bit off on that thought, hard. She was three years behind me and showing even the slightest hint of interest would get me in real trouble. Rules were rules, particularly when the staff were looking for ways to get rid of particularly troublesome students. I’d thrown everyone’s calculations for a loop when I’d formed a team and taken it onto the field, then won the second match. If Juliet had still been in charge, she would probably have come up with an excuse to bar us from the field.

“You came up with a new trick,” Jane pressed. “Are you going to rely on it again? Or are you going to come up with something new?”

“We’re going to run onto the field stark naked,” I said. There was no way I was going to tell her the truth. Jane wasn’t a bad sort, but she couldn’t keep secrets to save her life. Her father was worse. From what I’d heard, it was a minor miracle the muckraker was still alive. “The enemy teams will all be struck blind and we’ll romp to victory.”

Jane’s expression didn’t change, but I saw two red spots on her cheeks. “Are you sure they won’t keel over laughing, instead?”

“We’ll still win,” I said. I’d taken part in a game where tickling charms had been used to discomfit the other players. It was a shame it was the kind of trick that rarely worked more than once. Still … I made a mental note to consider it. Blair wouldn’t expect us to try and we might be able to sneak it through wards that would keep out nastier hexes and jinxes. “It doesn’t matter how we win, as long as we don’t break the rules.”

“We shall see,” Jane said. She gave me a wink that would have landed her in hot water in a more conservative kingdom. “I’m betting on you, for what it’s worth.”

She stood and walked off before I could come up with a response. It was a vote of confidence, I supposed, although I was nowhere near as confident of victory as I pretended. We’d played two games and only won one … sure, I could and did tell myself that Blair had rigged the first game against us – and he had – but we’d still lost. And we’d won the second game through outthinking the opponents … that trick, too, wouldn’t be as effective the second time around. Blair certainly wouldn’t let it work twice.