“Please,” I said. “Go easy on her.”
The Grandmaster frowned. “On Juliet?”
“On the firstie,” I said. I knew what it was like to be picked on by someone who thought power or birth gave them the right to boss me around. “Juliet wouldn’t have given her a choice.”
“No.” The Grandmaster studied me for a long moment. I thought I saw a flicker of approval in his eyes. Or maybe it was just a trick of the light. “I will do what I can to keep her name out of the affair. The betting shops knew nothing about the affair and cared less, as long as they got their money. There’s no reason for anyone to know what she was doing and why. She will get a stern lecture, but nothing further. I don’t think she’ll cause any further trouble.”
I nodded, feeling a twinge of relief. “Thank you.”
“And that leaves us with two final questions,” Grandmaster Gordian said. “First, why did you… run naked across the field? Why didn’t you bring the word to me?”
“I…” I swallowed. “Can I refuse to answer the question?”
“I’d really rather you didn’t,” Gordian said, in a pleasant tone that carried a hint of threat. He could use truth spells on me, too, if he wished. “Please.”
“Juliet insisted you’d cover up and bury the whole affair, if you could,” I said, bracing myself for… something. If he took it as an insult… I hoped, desperately, there were people who’d draw the right conclusions, after my disappearance, and asked the right questions. “I wanted to make sure it couldn’t be buried forever.”
The Grandmaster looked pained. “And so we see her essential immaturity. Nothing ever remains buried forever. The truth would have come out, sooner or later, and I would have been disgraced. To admit my choice for Captain-General, and the student most likely to have a successful career in the sporting leagues, had been cheating would be embarrassing, but the consequences for covering it up would have been a great deal worse.”
He sighed. “Still, she is by no means the first person to think authority will put expedience ahead of practicality,” she said. “Or to follow short-term interests at the expense of long-term stability.”
“Why…?” I took a breath and started again. “Why did she do it?”
“Money.” The Grandmaster looked down at his hands. “Money and reputation. She thought she could portray herself as more than just a team captain, but as someone who uplifted all the teams. And she might have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for a meddling student and some bad luck.”
He met my eyes. “And that leads to a second question,” he said. “What should we do with you? Besides, I suppose, a stern reprimand for being improperly dressed?”
I flushed but refused to allow myself to be distracted. “I want my broadsheet back,” I said, firmly. “And I want official accreditation and complete editorial freedom.”
“Indeed?” The Grandmaster raised his eyebrows. “And you don’t think there should be consequences for misdeeds? Deeds like spying on private meetings and poking through private property? Or even printing something that isn’t actually true, or taken out of context, or even deliberately misleading?”
“Yes,” I said. “But those consequences shouldn’t be used to silence the truth, when it is embarrassing or awkward for those in power. And if…”
I took a breath. “If I hadn’t been so devoted to the truth, sir, Juliet would have gotten away with her scheme long enough for it to be a serious embarrassment when it really came out. What would have happened then?”
“Point.” The Grandmaster leaned back in his chair. “And I take it you intend to run with the story of how you exposed Juliet first?”
“Yes.” I looked back at him evenly. “If I don’t, I’ll be remembered as something else instead.”
“Quite,” the Grandmaster said.
He said nothing for a long moment, then leaned forward. “Two conditions,” he said. “First, I expect you to come up with a proper code of conduct, both for what you consider fit to print and how you go about collecting the news. You may not have broken any written rules over the last few weeks, but you broke a number of unwritten rules and that will come back to haunt you if you keep doing it. Second, I expect you to make room for others to join your broadsheet staff or, if they wish, to set up broadsheets of their own.”
“Yes, sir,” I managed. It was better than I’d expected. “I’ll do you proud.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “And I hope, I really do, that you got what you wanted.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
Epilogue
more or less, was how The Whitehall Times became a permanent part of the school.
It wasn’t easy. I wrote the story — a detailed exposé of Juliet, who was never seen again after her family withdrew her before she could be expelled — and printed it for everyone to read. It seemed, for a time, as though everyone wanted to become a reporter, submitting stories and ideas for stories and articles on subjects from the sensible to the mind-numbingly boring. I had problems sorting out the truly interested from those who just wanted to jump on the bandwagon — ironically, Juliet’s first-year accomplice became one of the former — and wound up assigning make-work tasks in a bid to keep staff numbers manageable. We went back and forth from one edition a week to three a week and then back again, as sales went up in the wake of the scandal before falling back to their original levels.
But hey, we could support ourselves. I never had to ask for money from the school.
It wasn’t so easy for me either. Everyone knew what I’d done to make sure no one could bury the truth and whispers followed me wherever I went, both about the streaking and about how I’d spied on Juliet’s meetings. My father was proud of me — he understood how far one had to go, sometimes, to get the truth out — but everyone else? Not so much. I was in the odd position of being both adored and admired and yet shunned and loathed, a person everyone wanted to know and yet didn’t want anywhere near them. They invited me to their gatherings and yet kept their mouths firmly closed, whenever I was near. It shouldn’t have surprised me — my father got the same treatment, in town — and yet it did.
They’re happy I exposed Juliet as a cheating fraud, I thought sourly, one evening. A great many things had happened, between then and now, yet my treatment hadn’t changed. But they’re also concerned about what I might expose about them.
And they gave me a nickname, one I wore as a badge of honour.
Muckraker.