Dean nodded. “I like him, though he talks funny some of the time.”
“You don’t mind wearing the uniform?” This was simply a light colored shirt and dark jeans. There were blouses and skirts for the girls. “Seems comfortable.”
“Guess so. How do I get it?”
“Brody said you’d have to see the housekeeper, Mrs. Miggens, in the morning and she’ll provide you with everything you need. Clothes and pens and books and stuff.”
“How are you paying for all this, Dad?”
Ryan smiled at him. “That’s for me to know and you to guess, son.”
“Must be a shitload of jack.”
“I wouldn’t use too many expressions like that, if I were you, Dean.”
“Sorry, but”
“Don’t worry about the jack. I’ve been careful over the last few months. Took it where I found it.”
“Stole it, Dad?” Dean sounded shocked.
“Let’s just say that Mr. Brody is content with the arrangements for payments, and so am I.”
“Fine.”
“You got any questions, Dean?”
There was a long pause. Somewhere outside the room an electric bell rang twice.
“Must mean supper,” the boy said, standing.
RYAN WAS SHOWN to a seat at the head table in the dining room, with the members of staff of the school. He found himself settled between the middle-aged lady with the tweed skirt and a young man with slightly slanted eyes.
He saw Dean led by Brody to one of the pupils’ tables and introduced to the boys on either side of him.
But he was distracted by the woman touching his arm. “I’m Natalie Davenport, and I have the singular delight of pounding mathematics into these eager young skulls.”
“Ryan Cawdor. That’s my boy, Dean.”
The man on the other side joined in. “Chris Akemoto. I do what I can with the sciences. How old’s your son?”
“Eleven.”
“Good age to come here. Give us a year and you won’t recognize him.”
Natalie smiled. “Probably what Mr. Cawdor fears, Chris. But we are not like the Jesuits.”
“The who?” Ryan asked, feeling the ground turning to water beneath his feet.
“They were a strict religious order. Their boast was that if they were given a child at, I think it was ten, then he would be theirs for life. We make no such claim.”
Nicholas Brody had taken his place at the head of their table, and he tapped a spoon on a water glass. Everyone, staff and pupils alike, rose to their feet, Ryan a mere half beat behind everyone else.
“We welcome a new pupil, Dean Cawdor, to our community. We will all make him welcome and offer him the hand of friendship. “Let us pray.” Ryan closed his eye and bowed his head. “Merciful Lord, bless this our home and these our endeavors. Let us render to no man evil for evil. Strengthen the fainthearted. Let us learn justice and loyalty. And let us relish this our supper. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, now and forever, amen.”
“Amen.” Ryan joined in the chorus, squinting from beneath the lowered lid to watch Dean, seeing that the boy had taken his part in the small ritual.
TO RYAN’S GREAT RELIEF, the conversation around the top table wasn’t at a high intellectual level. Quite the reverse. The staff was far more concerned with the institutionalized trivia of who had done what and said what. Through it all, Natalie had endeavored to bring Ryan into the talk whenever more general topics arose, and he felt that he had been able to avoid letting Dean down.
But Chris Akemoto had been largely silent. He spoke little through the main course, which was buffalo stew, the coarse-grained meat well cooked, with a rich variety of fresh vegetables, waiting until the dessert was served, which was thick slices of delicious steamed treacle pudding covered with creamy custard.
Then he leaned across to Ryan, pitching his voice low so that nobody else could hear. “You said you were a general sort of a trader, traveling all over the place, Mr. Cawdor.”
“Sure.”
“Forgive me, but I think the key word in that story is the word ‘Trader,’ isn’t it?”
“I don’t understand, Chris.” Though he did, resisting the automatic reaction, when threatened, to reach for the butt of the SIG-Sauer.