Volume 2Chapter 15

Chapter 15 – The Entrance Exam

Today is the day of the examination at last. I slept soundly and woke clear-headed, and then got on with the morning a little nervous after all. Something in me won’t sit still. It’s like going through the day of my university entrance exam a second time. Though I was far more nervous that day. I was aiming a rank above myself, so passing was borderline. The day the results went up I was in a bad way with nerves. When I found my examinee number I very nearly wept. Set beside that, today is a university student sitting a primary-school entrance exam. Thinking of it that way may take some of the nerves off.

I ate less breakfast than usual so my stomach wouldn’t turn on me, and finished getting ready. Right. Let’s do this. I came out of my room and went to the entrance hall, and the carriage was already waiting, and Lucien appeared in the hall at almost the same moment.

“Lord Lucien. Good morning.”

“Leon, morning. Let us both do our best today.”

We greeted each other briefly and got straight into the carriage. The guards are outside it, so it’s the two of us in here. A short while when we can talk without the formality.

“Leon, we are alone!”

“So we are. There’s always a valet about too, so we don’t get much chance to talk like friends.”

“I should like you to talk like a friend at any time.”

“Hmm. That’d be difficult.”

A commoner like me calling Lucien by his bare name and dropping the formal speech would look wrong, obviously. And if I got into the habit of relaxing in front of other people too, I’m certain it would show somewhere. Somewhere I was meant to know my place, and out comes the bare name. That’s exactly the mistake I’d make, so keeping it to when we’re alone is easier to hold on to and I’m grateful for it.

“Well, quite so. There is no helping it. More to the point, today’s examination is something to look forward to.”

“You’re looking forward to it?”

“Meeting nobles of my own age is something I have not done since the party for the Spring Moon. One can hardly talk at a party, so I am looking forward to it.”

Noble children apparently have almost no contact with anybody their own age until they enroll at the Royal Academy, so looking forward to it may be fair enough. A noble child from a house with a domain spends the whole of their time at the domain, except for coming to the capital for the Spring Moon party. The only nobles without a domain are the ones holding a knighthood, so most noble children reach the age of ten without a close friend.

“It’d be good if you made a lot of friends at the Royal Academy.”

“Yes, I am very much looking forward to it. Though there are also a great many nobles it is better not to keep close company with, so one must take care with those nobles’ children. I am looking forward to meeting the children of our own camp. Leon, you had better take care as well, being affiliated to House Townsend.”

“Right. I’ll be careful too.”

He’s thinking that far ahead already at this age. That part really is the noble’s son. And I do have to be careful. For a start I’ll keep away from the children of houses hostile to House Townsend. If I’m to be friends with anybody it had better be children of our camp, or neutral houses at the very least. Then again I’m a commoner, so whether I can be friends with any noble’s child at all is another question.

I need to be especially careful about the children on the watch-list Lord Richard gave me. He passed me a list of people to be wary of through Roger a little while back. It had the names of nobles who present a danger to me set out one after another, and there were a great many of them. Seeing how many there were took the heart out of me. At the moment I’ve only memorized the houses that particularly matter, and I mean to learn all of them in time.

I talked with Lucien a while longer after that, and then the carriage slowed and stopped. The Royal Academy isn’t far, so by carriage it’s no time at all.

“Lord Lucien, Master Leon. We have arrived at the Royal Academy.”

The coachman opened the carriage door for us. I got down a little nervous, and where we were was a carriage stop inside the Royal Academy’s grounds. There are carriages of every size around it, and children of about my age getting out of them. Coming out of a carriage presumably means most of the children are nobles’ children. I braced myself again.

“When the examination is over, please come back to this place. I shall be waiting.”

“Understood. Then we are going.”

“Thank you. I shall be going.”

“Go safely.”

The coachman bowed low as he sent us off, so Lucien and I walked toward the buildings. The carriage stop is in the space to the left as you come in through the Royal Academy’s main gate. Even from a rough look the grounds are very wide and there are a great many buildings. And the grounds appear to be enclosed by a high wall. There are knights at the gate; nobody but those with business can get in.

As you walk toward the buildings, the first thing you see is the largest one, straight ahead. In height it’s about three storeys, and it’s enormously wide. A building with lavishness coming off the very look of it, with something of a noble’s mansion about it. To the right of that building is a smaller, plainer one. This looks older. Of course it would be lavish enough if it stood near my house, and set against the central building it’s several grades below. Could the lavish central building be the one high nobles attend, then, and the one on the right be for lower nobles and commoners? Is there a distinction like that? In this country it would hardly surprise me…

And to the left of the lavish central building is one a little smaller but no less lavish. What’s that used for? Hmm, no working it out from the outside. And further left of that there’s a very large building as well. If I had to compare it, it’s like a school gymnasium. A training hall, perhaps? That’s everything visible from the front. There’ll be a tour of the facilities once I enroll, and that’s something to look forward to as well.

So, taking the grounds in as I walked, there were Royal Academy staff directing the candidates. According to them, nobles go to the lavish central building and commoners to the gymnasium-like one.

“Lord Lucien, I shall go over there. I wish you well.”

“Yes, and I wish you well too, Leon.”

“Thank you.”

I parted from Lucien and made for the building where the commoners gather. Desks are lined up at the entrance with several people on reception. I went to a free one and handed over my admission slip, and the person on reception seems to have been checking whether I was on the register.

“Thank you for the admission slip. I return it to you. You are confirmed, so please go into the hall. Show your slip to a member of staff inside and they will show you to your seat.”

“Thank you very much.”

Inside, the hall had much the feel of an exam hall in Japan. Desks and chairs set out at even intervals, about three-tenths of them already filled. It’s quite large, though, so the staff look to have their work cut out. I was taking that in and feeling something like nostalgia when one of the staff came over.

“May I see your admission slip?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Thank you. Master Leon, is it. Your seat is a little way off, so I shall show you.”

I followed the man and my seat was well toward the front. The entrance is at the back, so it’s quite a distance.

“This is your seat. Please sit and wait until the written examination begins.”

“Yes. Thank you very much.”

I sat in the chair I was shown to and looked round the hall. The candidates in their seats are fidgeting and unable to settle. Watching them starts to make me nervous too. Waiting does feel long. I should have brought some study material.

So I fidgeted my way through a while of waiting, and then three staff came in through the front entrance, the hour having presumably arrived.

“We shall now begin the Royal Academy entrance examination. The time is one hour. Leaving partway through is not permitted as a rule, so please take note. Speaking is strictly forbidden, and any violation means failure. The papers will now be distributed.”

The paper handed out was two largish sheets, with the questions and the answer spaces together on them. Rather like a test paper from a primary school in Japan.

“Then, please begin.”

At the word I started on the first question. Arithmetic first. Easy. Extremely easy. I got through the arithmetic without trouble, then the reading and writing, then the history. And I’m finished already. I don’t think ten minutes have gone. I can pass this, certainly. Looking it over roughly, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong.

With an examination of this content I can see why the ducal household talked as though passing were a given. Even so it would be difficult for an ordinary commoner. Most of them can’t read or write to begin with, and even with a little of it, a little wouldn’t solve these questions. Put it this way: it’s like me sitting an exam in Japan where even the question text is in English. This history section, if it were written in English, I’m confident I couldn’t answer a single item. And even if I knew the answer I couldn’t write it in English. That is the state ordinary commoners come to sit this in. Education really does matter. It would be good if commoners had more chance at it.

I turned all that over with about fifty minutes of examination time left on my hands, and then the examiner finally called time.

“The examination is over. We shall now collect the papers, so please do not leave your seats until every one has been collected.”

At the word the staff started collecting papers from the back. There are a lot of candidates and a lot of staff, so the collecting seems to have finished quickly.

“That is the end of the written examination. After this, only those we name will be interviewed. And please note that the magic practical will not be held. Please wait where you are for about ten minutes.”

Most of the staff stayed in the building, and a few examiners went out of it with our papers in their hands. …So the magic practical isn’t happening this year. And the interview isn’t everybody either. What are they going on when they name people?

…Come to think of it, might it be only the people who look likely to pass on a quick check of the papers? That does seem plausible. A commoner candidate staking a thread of hope, or somebody sitting purely for the memory of it: if the paper is blank at a glance, the failure is certain, so an interview would only waste time.

Which raises the question of why so many people sit it when the failure is a near certainty. I looked round the hall again wondering about it. The back half or so is nothing but people dressed the way I usually dress, and there’s no imagining they had any chance to be educated. Even the fare for the shared carriage to get here is money thrown away, and ordinarily I’d think it wouldn’t occur to anybody to sit at all. Then again, my own mom and dad know about the Royal Academy, so its existence has certainly spread among commoners. In that case somebody who really can read and write only a very little may be under the impression that they could pass. A frog at the bottom of a well.

Among commoners, being able to write your own name and read a few of the commonest words is enough to boast that you can read and write, so people like that may be sitting it and going down in flames.

“Here, could you tell what any of it said?”

Behind me people had started muttering to each other, and among them the voice of a boy who was louder than the rest reached me. I found myself listening.

“No chance of understanding words that hard. And nobody told me it’d be this hard. Wasn’t it supposed to be enough if you could read and write?”

“Right? I wrote my own name and that was me finished.”

“I came all this way on the shared carriage. I’d have done better buying a grilled skewer with the fare.”

“Too right. My little brother says he’s sitting it next year.”

“Talk him out of it.”

“But it’s embarrassing, saying you couldn’t do any of it. You want to say you did pretty well and only just missed, don’t you.”

“…True enough. I might say I got about half of it.”

“See?”

That explains it. People who couldn’t do any of it saying they managed some, all that face-saving, and the difficulty of the exam gets misunderstood.

“What’ll you say if somebody asks what the exam was like? I couldn’t understand one bit of it.”

“That’s easy, there were numbers written on it, weren’t there? So it’ll be arithmetic questions, won’t it.”

“You’re a genius! Right, I’ll tell my brother he might pass if he can do arithmetic.”

“That’s the way. Can your brother read and write?”

“He can write his own name, obviously. And he managed another word the other day. What was it? A food, I think it was.”

“That’s something, that is. Your brother might pass after all.”

“If he passes he’ll be on good money!”

Right. I don’t think the brother’s passing either. Without an education this is where you end up. Should I be teaching Marie various things? Though in practice, if you live an ordinary commoner’s life, the system has been built so that not reading or writing isn’t much of a handicap. Still, knowledge can’t hurt, so perhaps I’ll teach her a little.

“Now, only the people whose names are called are to remain where they are.”

The examiners came back with the word, and the hall went quiet again. Then exactly twenty names were called, and everybody else was dismissed. My name was called, of course. That I was nervous enough to feel relief the instant it was called is between me and myself.

“Then those whose names were called, please follow us. We are moving.”

I looked at the clothes of the twenty walking after the examiners, and nearly all of them are wearing what counts as fine clothing among commoners, so you can tell they’re the children of merchant houses and the like. In this country money really does have an enormous effect on education. Except that one of them, one child, is wearing much what I usually wear. I’m a bit curious where that one learned. Not that I can go and talk to them.

While I was in two minds about it we seem to have reached where we were going. There are a number of doors, and we were lined up several to a door.

“Then go into the room in the order you are standing in. One at a time; when the person before you comes out, the next goes in. From the front, if you please.”

I’m second in the queue at the leftmost room. The boy in front of me heard the examiner and knocked and went in. Then, waiting a while, the first candidates at the other rooms came out one after another and the second ones went in. And the boy in front of me still didn’t come out. I was standing there getting tense and rubbed at by a slow, grinding impatience when he finally came out.

I took one deep breath to settle myself, knocked and went in.

“Excuse me.”

Inside was a single round table with two examiners at it. I was offered the seat opposite, so I sat down.

“Then, without more delay: your self-introduction, if you please.”

The examiner who said it looked unexpectedly kind, so I straightened my back, pulled myself together and spoke.

“Certainly. My name is Leon. I was born to parents who keep a restaurant on the outskirts of the royal capital. My family is my father, my mother, myself and my younger sister. Through a connection I have been given the backing of House Townsend, and I have sat the Royal Academy’s examination today.”

At that greeting, both examiners’ eyes went wide with surprise. What surprised them? They’ll already know about House Townsend’s backing, so it must be the speech.

“Thank you. You use formal speech remarkably smoothly. Now, we shall give you a topic, and please talk about it as you like. In truth the greeting alone would have been quite enough, but it is the rule.”

The kind-looking examiner smiled at me, and then the slightly gruff one beside him gave me the topic.

“The topic is your family. Go ahead.”

My family… That’s an abstract, awkward sort of topic. But on my family I’m confident I could talk for as long as you like. Because all I have to do is talk about my sister, the most adorable in the world, Marie!

“Then I should like to talk about my sister. My sister’s name is Marie and she is three years younger than I am. Marie possesses an adorableness that would, beyond any doubt, turn the heads of a hundred people out of a hundred, and on top of that her character is bright and kind and honest and clever; she is, quite simply, an angel. My family keeps a restaurant, and the men who come in on the pretext of a look at Marie, with their faces gone soft—you would not believe how many, how very many. At first I was on guard against her being abducted, but such feelings appear not to arise in the face of Marie’s adorableness, and there has never once been an incident. Marie’s smile is unmatched, after all. It draws the poison out of a bad man. And this adorable and splendid sister of mine gave me a slice of her lunchtime steak the other day! When I asked why, she said her big brother looked tired. I was so moved when I heard it that the tears very nearly came… She is a child capable of that much thoughtfulness. I am truly happy to have so splendid a sister. Oh, and when we went to the forest the other day, Marie also—”

“L-let us stop there a moment.”

Cut off, just when I was enjoying myself talking about Marie. Saying any of it to Mom and Dad only gets me a rueful smile, and it’s the same with Nikola and Luke, and this was a fine opportunity to talk about how adorable Marie is.

“Is something the matter?”

“It looked likely to run a little long, so I stopped you. I do apologize. We are obliged to ask a question about what the candidate has said.”

The examiner said that much and then smiled awkwardly. And spoke to the examiner beside him in a low voice.

“I don’t know what to ask.”

“Nor do I.”

Excuse me, gentlemen, I can hear that. And there ought to be any number of possible questions.

“Any question at all is quite all right.”

“Ah, you heard us. I do apologize. …Then, one from me. Let me see. This is awkward to ask, but your, ah, love for your sister? What sort of love is it? No, if you would rather not answer that is quite all right. It is only that a Royal Academy student committing a crime looks badly for us…”

I only talked about how wonderful Marie is. How did we get to crime?

“Why has this become a matter of crime…?”

“No, it is only that, in this country marriage between siblings is not permitted, so if for instance you were to keep after your sister despite her being unwilling, it might become a criminal matter…”

“Marriage? Keep after her? No, no, nothing of the kind. My liking for Marie isn’t that sort of thing at all. It’s affection, family feeling. And the most important thing to me is Marie’s happiness, so if Marie were to marry somebody, I should be sad, and I’d rather not imagine it yet, but of course I should bless it. Though if the man were a brute I would oppose it.”

At that, both examiners looked relieved at the same moment. No, honestly, not about my sister. Being suspected of that had never crossed my mind.

“I am glad of it. Had you answered otherwise, we should have been in some difficulty over how you were to be handled. If it emerged that we had known in advance and done nothing, we ourselves would have to be punished.”

So depending on my answer, failing was a possibility?! Talked about how wonderful my sister is at the interview, got suspected of stalking her and failed: that genuinely isn’t funny. No, I’m truly glad. Glad this examiner is the sort of man who checks with me properly…

“Thank you for checking.”

“Not at all, I am glad we cleared the misunderstanding up on both sides. Then that concludes the interview. The result will be sent to the affiliation written on your admission slip, so please wait for it.”

“Yes. Thank you for today.”

“And thank you. Take good care of that sweet little sister.”

The kind examiner said that at the end. He’s an extremely good sort. I’m glad he was my examiner. Coming out of the room, there were no candidates queuing at the other doors any more. A single member of staff was waiting and indicated the exit.

“Please go out that way and make your way home.”

“Certainly. Thank you for today.”

I made a proper greeting to him too and went out by the exit he’d shown me. Right, over at last. I think I’ve probably passed… though the interview has left me uneasy. Roger did say the written examination decides it almost entirely, though, so it should be all right. Yes, it should be fine. Telling myself that, I set off walking toward the Royal Academy’s entrance.