The Future King: Logres Read online

  THE FUTURE KING

  LOGRES

  Volume one: book one

  M. L. MACKWORTH-PRAED

  Copyright © 2015 M. L. Mackworth-Praed

  M. L. Mackworth-Praed asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Any reference to historical persons in this novel is for the benefit of the narrative and is entirely for fictional purposes.

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For Kristof

  The Future King: Logres

  Gwenhwyfar

  Arthur Humphreys

  Logres

  Proverbial Daggers

  Hector Browne

  New National

  The Nutcracker

  Merlin

  Morgan Faye

  Bunsen Burners

  Free Countries

  Lancelot Lawson Lake

  Quantum Models

  The Round Table

  Lower Logres

  Beethoven

  Corrected

  The Disappeared

  Knights

  The March

  Casanova

  Masquerade

  A Proposal

  Tristan

  Emily Mary Rose

  Old Friends

  Anarchism

  The Warning

  The Campaign

  The Oxymorons

  New Moral Army

  Acknowledgements

  Note from the Author

  Gwenhwyfar

  She always liked to watch the rain.

  The pregnant clouds split open to douse the earth below, cleansing the air with fresh scents that leaked through the gap in the passenger window. She inhaled deeply and bit the skin away from her fingernails, the smell of leather upholstery sickly as it mingled with the damp. Past the pane of glass, distorted by racing droplets, figures hurried towards swinging doors. The familiar clipping of boots caught her attention. Her mother strode towards the car under the protection of a designer handbag.

  ‘This will be good for you, Gwen.’ A short hard slam of the car door, and her mother was adjusting herself in the driver’s seat. ‘You’ll see. I’d have loved the chance to go to a new school. Make new friends, meet new people…’ The keys were implanted into the ignition with surgical precision. ‘Besides, it’s all set. Your father’s starting his new job today. Here. I got you your timetable.’ The sheet of paper hovered between them until her mother abandoned it in her lap. ‘Everything’s arranged. You just need to go and find 44B. The receptionist said it was upstairs.’

  Gwenhwyfar examined the alien sheet. The paper scraped over her half-polished nail. ‘Where upstairs?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. You’ll just have to ask someone. I’m supposed to be at the hairdresser’s at half past nine.’ Her mother smiled briskly as she released the handbrake. ‘It’ll be fine, trust me. Just be yourself.’

  With one kiss on the cheek Gwenhwyfar clambered out of the car into the rain, tugging at her new skirt in a conscious effort to make it longer. Her mother offered a wave with a flick of her short blonde hair as the four-by-four glided over the soaked tarmac. Gwenhwyfar turned to the building with the bitter rain pricking her skin. The windows gaped at her until she pushed her way through the stiff double doors. A shrill bell sounded as the morning rush greeted her.

  ‘No pushing in the corridors, Miss Knight!’ someone proclaimed, his voice straining to be heard above the din. ‘Miss Morte! Miss Woods! I said no pushing in the corridors!’

  Gwenhwyfar stumbled as the students barged past her. The teacher shouted again, but the culprits were already halfway down the corridor, sauntering along as a tight-knit trio. Gwenhwyfar consulted her soggy timetable. The teacher hurried by. This was her chance.

  ‘Excuse me—!’ The thin man seemed to deliberately walk faster as she attempted to gain on him, her short legs hindering her progress. ‘Sir? I was wondering—’

  They nearly collided. He looked straight over her head at first, but eventually his eyes found their way down to hers.

  ‘Sorry,’ Gwenhwyfar stammered, ‘but could you tell me where room 44B is?’

  He didn’t quite seem to hear.

  ‘Forty-four B? It’s upstairs, but I don’t know where.’

  The teacher’s shoulders snapped back like the wings of a bird in landing. ‘Ah yes! You must be the new student. Gwenhwyfar?’

  She always had to correct people. ‘Gwen.’

  ‘That’s right, of course! Gwen.’ He pointed a bony finger after the three girls. ‘Just take the second staircase; then go left. It’s at the end of the corridor by the toilets. Can’t miss it.’ He sent her a brief smile that might have been reassuring had he not used it as an excuse to vacate her company. As he left, an onslaught of students streamed past her. Doing her best to ignore the curious attention she found herself receiving, she made a beeline for the second staircase, at the end of the whitewashed hall.

  * * *

  Logres wasn’t as charming as her old school. It felt bare and clinical and had thin discoloured carpets. She wondered why her parents had chosen it for her, but guessed it was for convenience. It was within walking distance of their ugly new townhouse, a large building misplaced in a small cul-de-sac in the suburbs of Surrey.

  She scaled the stairs far too soon for her liking. Forty-four B was dingy and poorly lit, with the once-white walls now yellowed to cream. Tables were clustered, not in rows, and as various friend groups claimed their seats she realised that there was nowhere she could sit that wasn’t in plain view of the rest of the class. Quickly she chose the only empty table. A blonde girl on the table nearest to hers eyed her; then whispered with friends. The three girls who had pushed into her strode into the room. Gwenhwyfar’s stomach dropped the moment their eyes homed in on her.

  ‘You’re in my seat,’ was the comment that she got, her first student-to-student contact of the day. ‘Move.’

  Miss Knight watched her with contempt, her bag strap choked in one hand and her blazer pocket distended with the other. Her lapel was crested with the standing sword and rearing dragon of Logres. Miss Morte and Miss Woods took up positions behind her, like actresses trained to stand on their mark. Both had tried to mimic Miss Knight’s every characteristic, from her carefully applied smoky eyeliner, to the arrangement of her brown hair into a self-conscious and meticulous bun.

  Miss Knight swooped closer. ‘Do you not speak English or something—?’ Her supporting actresses giggled. ‘You—are—in—my—seat. Move.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t know.’ As soon as Gwenhwyfar vacated the chair, Miss Knight was sitting in it, checking her appearance in a pocket mirror. Miss Morte and Miss Woods followed suit, using the fourth chair as a bag dump.

  It was the whispering blonde girl who came to her rescue. ‘Hey!’ she called. ‘Come sit with us!’ As Gwenhwyfar edged towards them the blonde girl scooted over and offered half her seat. ‘You’re the new girl, aren’t you?’ She was petite, perhaps a little taller than Gwenhwyfar, and had blue eyes with arching, scrupulously plucked eyebrows. The blush in her cheeks was a powdery rose pink. ‘I’m Emily, and this is Hattie and Charlotte.’ The two offered a friendly smile. Hattie was almost as blonde as Emily, while Charlotte’s defining characteristic seemed to be the overuse of black mascara.

  ‘I
’m Gwen. Thanks for letting me sit with you.’ She hunched her back as they had done earlier, and immediately all three girls bent towards her curiously. ‘So what’s her problem, then?’

  ‘Viola’s?’ Emily lowered her voice. ‘She’s just angry with the world because her dad ran off with another man.’ Hattie and Charlotte sniggered as Gwenhwyfar failed to conceal her surprise. ‘She still lives with him, though. Him and his boyfriend.’

  ‘I was in the cafeteria the other day, and I heard Rhea saying some pretty nasty stuff about Emily,’ Hattie murmured. ‘She said that she was a snob.’

  This was news to Emily. Her outraged gasp was proof enough of that. ‘She didn’t!’

  ‘She did. And she was spreading rumours that you were secretly going out with Gavin.’

  Emily’s disgust only seemed to magnify at this horrific news. ‘Eww! Gavin who?’

  ‘You know! Gavin Miles. The one who always hangs around with Tom and people.’

  Gwenhwyfar looked to Viola Knight’s table. The three girls were touching up their make up. ‘Sorry, but which one’s Rhea?’

  Charlotte nodded in the direction of Miss Morte. ‘The fat one: with the squashed nose. The one with long hair is Rebecca. She accused Emily of prank-calling her sister, and got her into a huge fight about it. I mean, if Emily had prank-called her sister, why would she have left her name?’

  Gwenhwyfar inspected the two. Rhea looked no fatter than Rebecca, and in all honesty, neither of them seemed bigger than Charlotte herself.

  ‘I heard Rhea left that message and just pretended it was me, because she thinks some guy she likes fancies me,’ Emily smirked, glancing to the other table again. ‘How pathetic is that?’

  ‘Pretty pathetic,’ Hattie agreed. Gwenhwyfar hadn’t noticed that a teacher had entered the room, and was trying to get the class to quieten down. ‘Then again, you can hardly blame her. No guy could possibly like her. She’s vile!’

  ‘Viola doesn’t even like them.’ Emily was sitting straight now, inspecting her perfectly painted nails for blemishes. ‘She just lets them follow her around for her own amusement. I mean it’s not like you ever see her with them at lunchtime—’

  ‘Emily Rose, I said quiet!’ The shock of being scolded hit home for a moment, but then the three girls were snickering again.

  ‘Sorry miss,’ apologised Emily, though the smile quirking her pink lips told Gwenhwyfar that she wasn’t. Rhea and Rebecca were glaring at their table with suspicion, trying to pick up the tail ends of the conversation that had obviously been about them.

  * * *

  Registration was quick, though Gwenhwyfar had enough time to scan the room and learn a few names. She picked out Morgan Faye, a milk-skinned, doe-eyed girl with chestnut curls. There was a moment of horror when the teacher, Miss Ray, singled her out as new, but no introduction was asked of her and she was spared the embarrassment of stating where she was from and what she liked doing. The heavens wept outside, complementing Gwenhwyfar’s sense of rising dread. People her age were like hyenas, and in this instance, involving alpha female Viola especially, Gwenhwyfar felt much like a limping gazelle.

  The repetitive chime of the bell disrupted her thoughts. Emily stood up, forcing Gwenhwyfar to do the same.

  ‘So where are you from, Gwen?’

  ‘Swansea.’ Viola’s glare of contempt had just managed to subdue hers. She swept her chocolate-brown hair away from her eyes. ‘You know, in Wales?’

  ‘Wales?’ Emily frowned at her. ‘You’re not one of those rebels, are you?’

  ‘Rebels?’

  ‘You know, separatists.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Gwenhwyfar replied, insulted. ‘Swansea’s pro-union.’

  Emily’s frown vanished. ‘So why did you move?’

  ‘My dad got a new job.’

  ‘Won’t you miss your old school? What was it like?’

  ‘All right. Everyone knew each other. There were only two hundred students. It was pretty exclusive,’ she added. Maybe Emily was the right hyena to hang around with, the one that would protect her, the gazelle, from the rest of the pack. ‘This place is huge compared to it.’

  ‘Really?’ Emily seemed bemused. ‘Logres isn’t even that big. St. George’s across town is almost twice the size.’ They paused in the corridor, where Emily parted from Hattie and Charlotte with a quick conversation identifying where they would meet for break time.

  It was hard to keep up with Emily as she weaved through the massing students, daunting in their hordes. The year sevens looked like mere children, too young to be in secondary school, and from year eight to year ten it appeared that ties became shorter and attire scruffier. The year elevens wore their uniform with an obvious amount of pride, and though Gwenhwyfar failed to conform to their generous tie length, her peers didn’t seem to notice. The occasional sixth-former pushed through the crowd in their own clothes, their relaxed dress envied by others. Gwenhwyfar was doing her utmost to avoid pushing into any of them, though such a task became difficult as people began to congeal around doors.

  ‘Any idea what room you’re in first?’ Emily called to her.

  Gwenhwyfar pulled her crumpled timetable out of her pocket. ‘Twenty-seven H?’ All these room numbers sounded so alien.

  ‘History?’

  ‘Looks like it. Where’s that, then?’ She dodged a group of young boys loitering by the windowsills.

  ‘That’s in the other building.’ Emily paused a moment to allow Gwenhwyfar to catch up, her ponytail swishing. ‘I can walk you, if you like. It’s on the way to my lesson. I’ve got Chemistry with Mrs Brolstone. Vile.’

  ‘Who’s Mr Caledonensis?’ Gwenhwyfar checked her timetable once more, just to see if she also had a teacher who was ‘vile’.

  ‘Mr who?’

  ‘Mr Cal-e-don-en-sis,’ she felt her way around the name again. ‘Is that how you say it?’

  They passed through double doors into the rain. Emily produced a pink umbrella to protect their hair. ‘I think so. He’s a bit strange. Most people just call him “sir”.’ The umbrella opened, and Emily raised it above their heads. Gwenhwyfar moved close and followed her across the grounds.

  There were so many buildings. At the top of the steps leading to the dismal block they had just left, there was a smaller building past a courtyard with benches to the right, a mobile classroom just forward and to their left, and ahead of them, some way on, a large cafeteria with huge windows and at least fifty tables. As they hurried along the path, Gwenhwyfar noticed that the cafeteria was attached to another food hall, which angled to the left. What looked like a groundskeeper’s hut sat left past some concrete, and then beyond that there stood a rather out-of-place looking house that seemed as if it were lived in. Only when they walked past it did Gwenhwyfar realise it was a nursery, flanked by two concrete tennis courts lined with rusting wire. After a sharp left over some speed bumps they seemed to suddenly be in a sea of cars and bikes, all parked outside what had to be the main building, red-brick and huge, stretching the whole length of the car park, nursery, tennis courts, and beyond into a giant school field overlooked by a colossal sports hall.

  For some reason they weren’t heading for the oldest doors of the building. Emily was guiding her around the back, past a bike shed and into an annex, which revealed, through the gap opposite, even more mobile classrooms, grassy banks and sports-grounds. Left were the girls’ toilets, so they pushed their way right into the old smelly building. As Emily shook off her umbrella Gwenhwyfar took a moment to look around, noting the stone floors curved at the walls, the blue and grey pattern vanishing under cream paint in places, though most of it was left bare, shielded on occasion by rows of lockers which better suited the brown and beige palette of the other building. ‘Is this it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yep.’ Emily followed her inside. ‘Wormelow. This is the Maths and Science end of the building. The other end is English, Geography and History. That’s where you need to be.’

  She was going to get
lost, she knew it; how could she not, somewhere so huge? Before Gwenhwyfar had time to fully absorb all the picture frames on the wall she was pulled forward by her hand, round a corner, through some doors and then left down a seemingly never-ending corridor. ‘The other building is called the Badbury Building. The one next to it is the Art block—the Sixth Form block. Then there’s the sports hall, but you’ll see that later. Everyone has to do P.E. I hate it.’ Her upturned nose crinkled. ‘It’s vile.’

  ‘Vile’ seemed to be the word of the moment at Logres. Grateful that she hadn’t been left to fend for herself, Gwenhwyfar listened intently, taking in every feature worth noting.

  ‘This is the medical room and reception,’ Emily added, almost bragging, as they passed the doors they had avoided earlier. ‘And that’s the library. Upstairs is I.T. and Science.’

  ‘Won’t you be late?’

  ‘No,’ was the careless answer, ‘and if I am it doesn’t matter, I’ll just tell them I was showing you around.’ She sent her a brilliantly pink smile. ‘Oh! And left is the way to the English classrooms. You can use that way to get to the back of the assembly hall. We’ll have that after lunch.’

  There was so much to take in. Once they passed the English corridor, the building suddenly modernised and they were walking through a white hallway past a huge trophy cabinet. There were students massing in the lobby, complaining about the downpour. As they approached yet another pair of double doors she was shown the main entrance to the assembly hall, empty for the beginning of the day.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ was what she had been waiting to hear, though now, faced with the prospect of being abandoned by Emily, she wished they weren’t. The next corridor went on for some way, the end opening out onto the grassy banks up to the sports field; but near the exit they angled left. There were stairs at the end of this corridor too, but Emily didn’t divulge where they led. Some students were already going into their classrooms. Gwenhwyfar’s heart was pounding. She wanted to drag Emily in with her.