That was Friday afternoon. On Saturday morning, with gloom in her heart, Walden climbed the spiral staircase opposite the staffroom to reach the funny little loft above the library that housed the school archives. She had promised Laura Kenning a meeting, and a meeting they would have.

The archives were lit only by a small skylight with a slatted blind. The chilly light of the October morning came through in pale stripes. Walden was late, apparently, although not according to her watch; Kenning was already there, and the archivist—Philomela Jones, an older woman in a soft grey dress, occasionally and unwillingly also the assistant school librarian—was talking to her. Or at her, rather. Philomela was always a bit more intense than people expected.

“Now, this is a copy of the royal grant of suspension,” she was saying, “barring Marshals from the site—this is the Tudor period, academic magic occupies a bit of a legal grey area at the time, and the Marshals are sometimes little more than acquisitive thugs—oh, not you, Marshal Kenning, I’m speaking historically. The grant is signed by Henry VII—the original still has his seal but it’s not here, it’s in the Tower of London. The impetus probably came from his mother, Margaret Beaufort. She was a patron of the school, of lots of educational institutions in fact, hence Lady Margaret House which we still have, and the portrait, a small-scale eighteenth-century copy of the famous Wewyck portrait from about 1510, which is hanging in the staff dining room now—it’s not a very good copy, of course, they sexed her up a bit by eighteenth-century standards, but that’s to be expected. Now, this—”

Walden leaned against the doorframe, folded her arms, and tried not to smile meanly. Kenning kept opening and closing her mouth, trying to find an opening. It was basically impossible to get Philomela on topic politely. You just had to interrupt the steady stream of history. “Good morning,” Walden said at last, just as Philomela began “Of course once we beheaded King Charles,” sounding as if she personally had sharpened the axe. “I’m afraid we need to focus it a bit for Chief Marshal Kenning. Shall we start with the Dorking Record?”

“Oh—yes—Headmasters!” said Philomela. “Let me just…”

William Dorking, Headmaster from 1660 to 1682, had kept a meticulous diary, consisting almost entirely of daily summaries of his meals and bowel movements, and a list of women’s names. “Prostitutes,” said Philomela, “is the usual explanation, although I think some of these poor girls were most likely just locals in domestic service. But … here we are, volume fourteen.”