The Queen's Messenger
The three interviewers were moving through the candidates faster than they ever had. Was it the size of the field? If only. Two of them were still putting their questions with a reasonable show of care. The trouble was Professor Timothy, seated at the far end.
"You might ask something."
"I've nothing to ask."
Timothy had not put a single question all day. The reason was simple.
"He's failing anyway."
While the other two worked through their questions, Timothy had already written his verdict on the score sheet. The résumé alone had told him everything he cared to know.
Perhaps because the interviews had flown past so quickly, an unplanned break opened up. One of the panel, a former Member of Parliament, came over to Timothy.
"All the same, wouldn't it be better if you asked a question?"
"It has to be unanimous or he fails. Why bother?"
"So your mind is already made up."
"It is. I failed him long ago. Why should I sit here asking hollow questions?"
"Hollow? Isn't that simply courtesy?"
"Courtesy?"
"Half these boys fly in for this one interview. Most of them have spent weeks preparing. If only out of respect for that effort..."
"If that's your worry, then the courteous thing is to send them off quickly."
"I beg your pardon?"
"They haven't a chance of passing. Why pretend to care and feed them false hope? Better to be done with them, don't you think?"
There was no reasoning with him. The former MP had just settled on that and was turning away when Timothy, unasked, added more.
"This interview is ceremony and nothing else. The real passes were decided on paper, weren't they? If you're truly a grown man, don't you have a duty to tell them the world is built that way?"
"..."
"In the end we're only sorting classmates for the Grosvenor house. Pick a few harmless little swots and have done with it. All these questions..."
At that the former MP let out a long sigh. The man had not always been so crooked. He had been upright enough that people spoke of him as the next vice-chancellor of Oxford, which was why he had sat as a Royal School interviewer for ten years. A few years back he had seemed to strike a rough patch, and then he had come apart all at once, so completely it was hard to believe. Social standing, maturity of character—every bit of it.
This will be his last year on the panel. It has to be.
The former MP was wearing that bitter look when a knock came, and a voice with it.
"May I send in the next candidates?"
The theater boy took the first chair. The invisible chair took the second. That left the last seat for me. I sat and looked over the panel at once.
There he is.
Of all places, straight across from me. For better or worse, the professor's eyes were fixed on the papers alone. He never so much as glanced at the students. The other interviewers were different. The man on the far left, especially, took a particular interest in us. He looked first at the invisible chair—Jack "Tiger" Grylls—and spoke.
"There's an animal in your middle name."
"..."
"Did you put it there yourself?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Sounded brave."
"Ha. Amusing."
The interviewer went back to the file. Something in it must have caught his eye, because he asked at once.
"It says your father is Michael 'Bear' Grylls. Is that correct?"
"Yes."
Jack's answer drew a small smile.
"He was our party's leader in the House."
"..."
"Twenty years an MP. A remarkable man. Respected by everyone."
"Maybe in Parliament. At home, he's useless."
"Sorry?"
"His son wants to be a soldier. He keeps pushing Royal School."
The interviewer laughed outright.
"That nerve. No doubting the blood."
The warmth did not last.
"Enough small talk. Let's begin."
The man who had identified himself as an MP looked at the papers.
"Benedict?"
The theater boy stared straight ahead.
"What do you consider Britain's greatest contribution to human history?"
It was not a question with a correct answer. He wanted the boy's values. Benedict gave his without hesitation.
"I believe Britain justified its existence simply by giving the world Shakespeare."
"Oh?"
The interviewer seemed more taken with the manner than the matter. Sure enough, he went straight for it.
"A thoroughly aristocratic accent."
"Is it?"
"Entirely natural. Rather like meeting the young lord of a house a thousand years old."
"I've studied Shakespeare so long the old way of speaking may have settled on my tongue."
Benedict did not seem to think much of it. The interviewer turned a page.
"Your recommendation comes from the Culture Secretary."
"Yes."
"How did that connection come about?"
"I took the grand prize at a theater festival hosted by the City of London. He presented the award."
"A Shakespearean role?"
"Of course."
There was no explaining the boy without Shakespeare. The interviewer must have decided he had heard enough, because he turned to Jack Grylls.
"The same question I put to Benedict."
"...?"
"What do you consider Britain's greatest contribution to human history?"
"The birth of the Commandos. Nothing else comes close."
"The Commandos?"
Here Jack Grylls went on, fierce as the tiger in his name.
"Our special forces. Raised by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The model for the modern unit. These days the word itself just means special forces."
Left alone, he would talk about nothing but the army. The interviewer nudged the question aside.
"Anything besides the Commandos?"
"Home of rugby. That's a serious achievement."
Rugby, with rowing, is a sport that stands for elitism itself. Perhaps that was why the interviewer's face brightened for the first time in a while.
"Why does rugby matter?"
"You take the ball and charge the enemy line. The look of it is..."
"...?"
"A trained airborne unit. Rugby is military drill. Near enough."
"If I had the authority, I'd sign your enlistment on the spot."
"You've only got the authority to admit people to Royal School."
"And even that is a thirty-three percent share."
Jack let out a small sigh. I nearly laughed. The interview was not going badly. The two ahead of me were so peculiar that I was starting to look positively wholesome. The only snag was Professor Timothy, sitting opposite, and for some reason the man had not opened his mouth once. He was not even listening to his colleagues. His eyes never left the papers.
Then:
"Jihun?"
"Yes."
The interviewer who had named himself an MP looked my way.
"What question do you think I'm about to ask?"
"What Britain's greatest contribution to human history was..."
"Correct. You're third, so you've had plenty of time to prepare. Let's hear it."
I was about to answer.
"Wait."
The voice came out of nowhere. Professor Timothy, across from me. It was so rare a thing that his fellow interviewers turned in surprise. Whatever they thought, he went on with a sour face.
"The last one ought to get a different question. Otherwise it isn't equitable, is it?"
He fixed his eyes on me. The tremor in them told me everything. He knew who I was. Of course he did. Anyone who had read the résumé could not have failed to know. He smacked his lips the way a lion does before it takes the innards. That was how he looked to me, poised on the edge of the question. Sure enough, he lifted the corner of his mouth.
"And what contribution have you made to humanity?"
"You do know how old I am?"
"About the same as the boy beside you. And the one beside him."
He sniffed.
"Third question. It would hardly do to repeat it."
So he was asking a sixteen-year-old what he had done for humanity. That was the game. I met his eyes without a flicker and answered, perfectly calm.
"I gave humanity an unpublished work by da Vinci."
"...What?"
"I took a painting that was about to be buried in a warehouse, brought it into the world, and proved it was his."
His face twisted. Let it.
"Along the way a new art of authentication was born. The most objective kind there is, grounded entirely in science."
I kept the rest short.
"To anyone married to the old methods, it must have come down like a thunderbolt. What can you do? A carriage was never going to beat a motorcar."
Timothy looked dumbfounded. When groveling would scarcely have sufficed, here was the boy lunging at him. At first he could not believe it. Then he read the sincerity in my eyes, and the truth settled in. Anger that arrives a beat late burns all the fiercer for the delay.
"Are you saying that for me to hear?"
"Of course. You asked. Naturally I'm answering so the interviewer can hear it..."
"Are you playing games with me?"
"...?"
"Where did you learn manners like that, you insolent—"
Even his colleagues startled at the heat of it.
"Failed! Get out, now!"
"What on earth has gotten into you?"
The former MP hurried to restrain him. Timothy was already gone, a wild horse that would not suffer a hand.
"So long as I sit in this chair—"
"That's enough..."
"A wretch like you will never set foot near Royal School! Remember that!"
"Why are you doing this to a student..."
"Science, is it? Data caked in fraud, and not a shred of shame!"
"Is there no one outside?"
Only then did the shut door open, and an attendant came in. The former MP begged him to calm Timothy, while Timothy bellowed that the failed brat was refusing to leave and someone had better drag him out. I was just starting to wonder whether this was an interview or a street market when the door jumped under a pounding fit to break it.
"Silence, all of you!"
A grave voice burst from beyond the door, and the uproar inside went still as if the noise had been a lie. Even Timothy, raving a moment before, stopped. There was no mistaking the authority in that shout.
Then came footsteps. Steady. Drawing up to the door. At last the owner of the voice called out again.