Ellis Peters - George Felse 12 - City Of Gold and Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

They came like flies to honey, not the heedless junior element, either, but a knot of budding sophisticates in their teens, led by a tall, slim sixteen-year-old on whose walk, manner and style all the rest appeared to be modelling themselves.
    The young teacher, observing this deliberate defection, broke off his lecture to raise his voice, none too hopefully, after his strays. ‘Boys, come back here at once! Come here and pay attention! Boden, do you hear?’
    The boy who must be Boden heard very well. His strolling gait became exaggeratedly languid and assured. One or two of his following hesitated, wavered and turned back. Most of the others hovered diplomatically to make it look as if they were about to turn back, while still edging gingerly forward. Boden advanced at an insolent saunter to the stretched rope. The gardener, suddenly aware of him, reared erect to his full impressive six-feet-two and stood still, narrowly observing this unchancy opponent. The boy gazed back sweetly, forbearing from touching anything, and daring anyone to challenge his intentions. He was a good-looking boy, and knew it. He was pushing manhood, and much too well aware of that, though he believed himself to be much nearer maturity than he actually was. Twice he advanced a hand with deliberate teasing towards the hook that sustained the rope on the posts, and twice diverted the gesture into something innocuous. The gardener narrowed long, grey-blue eyes and made never a move. The boy stretched out a foot under the rope, and prodded with the toe of a well-polished shoe at the edge of one of the ominous cracks in the grass. The gardener, with deliberation, put down the spade he held, and took one long step to circle the obstruction between them.
    The boy gave an amused flick of his head, swung round unhurriedly—yet not too slowly, either—and sauntered away with a laugh, his admirers tittering after him. Distant across the grass, the young teacher, with opportunist alacrity, chose that moment to call: ‘That’s better, Boden! Come on, now, quickly, you’re holding up the whole party.’
    ‘The secret of success with performing fleas,’ said Charlotte’s self-constituted guide startlingly, diverted even from his Roman passion, ‘is to synchronise your orders with their hops. Our unfortunate young friend seems to know the principle, whether he can make it work or not.’
    The gardener stood a moment to make sure that his antagonist was really retiring, then turned back to complete his work. His eye met Charlotte’s, and his face flashed into a sudden brief, almost reluctant smile. ‘Flipping kids!’ he said in a broad, deep country voice, with a hint of the singing eloquence of Wales.
    ‘They give you much trouble normally?’ asked the young man.
    ‘What you’d expect. Not that much,’ he allowed tolerantly. ‘But that one’s a case.’
    ‘You know him?’ the young man asked sympathetically.
    ‘Never seen him before. I know his sort, though, on sight.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know… he’s just flexing his muscles.’ He looked over his shoulder, to where the youthful shepherd was fretfully hustling his flock from the forum into the skeleton entrance of the baths. ‘He’s got a teacher bossing him around who’s about four years older than he is, if that, and a lot less self-confident, but holding all the aces. Not that he plays them all that well,’ he admitted, thoughtfully watching the harried youngster trying to be as tall as his tallest and most formidable charge. ‘And of course,’ he said aside to Charlotte, with a devastating smile, ‘having a girl like you around doesn’t make their problem any easier for either of them.’
    ‘I could go away,’ Charlotte offered, between offence and gratification.
    ‘Don’t do that!’ he said hastily. ‘Each of them would blame the other. And you haven’t seen half what’s here to be seen yet.’ He turned back to the gardener. ‘When did this slip happen?’
    ‘This