The Sports Captain's Tale полностью

I was shocked. Blair was an asshole, but … that sort of asshole? It was cheating … wasn’t it? I’d read the rules from cover to cover and honestly, there was nothing preventing a temporary alliance between two teams, but three? He had gotten three teams to do it, I was sure of it. Two to catch us between them and the third to ambush us when we fled. He knew me well enough, too, to guess which way I would go. We’d been teammates for years.

Despair washed over me. We’d lost, badly. We were going to be the laughingstocks of the school. And if we lost the second match, my dream was done.

“Well,” Sergeant Wills said. “That was an interesting disaster, wasn’t it?”

I tried not to glower at him. We’d been left in the arena, unable to move, until the three remaining teams had whittled themselves down to one. The sergeant and his crew had tracked us down, freed us from the binding spells and directed us back to the common room, where hot chocolate and biscuits were waiting. I’d been in too black of a mood to appreciate his consideration. The only upside to the whole affair was the announcement that Drusilla had been kicked off Blair’s team and put in the stocks. Apparently, she’d been the one who’d cast the blinding spell.

Blair probably had to dismiss her on the spot, I thought. The sergeant might have done worse to him if he hadn’t, pointing out that the team captain was responsible for his players. But she won’t suffer any worse consequences … will she?

I scowled. A week in the stocks could be nightmarish, if one happened to be a poor and friendless commoner, but Drusilla was an aristo who had a small army of cronies and supplicants. They’d probably surround her, just to make sure her stay in the stocks wasn’t any more uncomfortable than strictly necessary; anyone who tried to hurl rotten fruit or eggs or anything else would be driven away, then have their names noted for later revenge. I suspected it wasn’t going to do her any favours in the long run, but who knew? The experience might be good for her.

“Blair won,” Sergeant Wills continued. “He had four players in the field when the other three teams were wiped out. The remaining …”

My mind raced as he blathered on, telling us what we already knew. Blair had won. He’d earned so many points that he’d have a clear shot at victory, unless he lost the second match so badly his score plummeted back down to single digits. The other two teams hadn’t done too badly, although … I looked at the two captains and knew they wouldn’t be signing up with Blair again, not like that. He hadn’t quite knifed them in the back, but from his victory it was fairly clear he’d positioned himself for the endgame. It would have been quite impressive, I conceded sourly, if he hadn’t won against me.

Sergeant Wills cleared his throat. “Kai? Are you paying attention?”

“Yes, Sarge,” I lied. A titter ran around the room. “We lost.”

“Quite,” Sergeant Wills said, coldly. “Your team will take part in the third match, unless you wish to back out.”

“Better had,” Blair called. “You don’t want to embarrass yourself again, do you?”

The titters grew louder. I clenched my fists. Blair had a face in need of a fist and … I bit down, hard, on that impulse before it overwhelmed me. The sergeant would not be amused if I smashed my fist into Blair’s face and …

“If you win, you’ll still have a chance to come out ahead,” Sergeant Wills said. “But you’ll have to win by a quite considerable margin.”

I nodded, sourly. The points scoring system was arcane – no one knew why; the joke was that the original rulebook had been lost long ago – but we needed to up our score by a lot next game or we could win and yet lose by not having enough points to proceed to the final match. Blair would never shut up about it, damn him … I wondered, idly, if he’d try to poach one of my players to replace Drusilla. It would be one more knife in the back for me.

“Good,” Sergeant Wills said. “You may go.”

“And don’t come back,” Blair called. His team brayed like mules. “You lose like that again, you’ll be naming your team the Losers!”

I gave him a completely sweet, completely fake, smile, then led the way out. Jane was standing outside, writing in her notebook. The Whitehall Times would have a full analysis of the match tomorrow, if I was any judge. I wondered who she’d get to write it. She had quite a bit in common with Mildred, starting with the fact she’d little real interest in games. I hoped she chose well. Asking Blair or any of the other team captains to write the analysis would not end well.

“That could have gone better,” I said, once we were in a meeting room and the door was firmly closed. “But we did better than I feared.”

“Hah,” Karen said. Her eyes looked as if she’d come off worst in a fistfight. The sergeant had done what he could, but there were limits. “We got our asses kicked.”