Writing Prompt: He could hear the singing.

Ah Friday at last, let’s see what the last prompt of the week brings. Fifteen minutes on the timer and off we go.

I think this may be my favorite of the week.

Friday, May 9^th: He could hear the singing.

He could hear the singing. He was only going to be in his room long enough to grab his satchel before leaving.  He looked to the clock.  If he hurried he would have plenty of time to look over the shelves in the back of the room before class started. Then he heard the singing. It was ethereal, light and delicate on the air. It was like nothing he ever heard before. He leaned forward listening. 

Gradually he realized he couldn’t actually understand the words. 

‘Maybe I’m too far away,’ he thought. He shifted, moving closer to the window.  His gaze lit on his clock and he swore when he saw the time, the spell cast by the singing shattering.  How had so much time slipped passed?  Instead of being early, he was going to have to race to not be late.  He grabbed the satchel and bolted from the room.  He swung the strap over his head and tried to shake the effects of the song from him.  His mind felt hazy, like a low lying cloud descended to cover his brain.

‘Not enough sleep,’ he told himself as he raced down the corridor.  The exertion helped push back the fog.  He took every short cut he knew through the ancient stone corridors.  Many of them he was certain were once servant’s corridors and dated from a time when the grand edifice was used as a castle.  He knew it was one of the border barons rather than a king who once owned it. 

‘But then the baron challenged the king.’ 

It hadn’t turned out so well for the baron.  After the king had him beheaded and confiscated his lands, the castle was turned into an academy of sorts.  The king didn’t want any of his lords attempting to plot his demise from afar, but he did have plenty of students he wished out from underfoot. 

Half the time he wondered if some of the academy’s teachers weren’t plotting the downfall of the king as well.  They didn’t seem to like him much and often complained that they were shunted out here to instruct the misfits rather than taking up cushy positions in one of the universities in the cities. 

It was considered the low point of their careers to be sent out to teach at the academy.  It was a sign they were either so poorly regarded academically that their peers were happy to get along without them, or that they had done the king and court some sort of grievous harm and were sent out to do penance.  As Daniel raced through the corridors he wondered if any of the court even remembered his teachers.  Many of them made a big deal over the cause of their banishment but he was beginning to suspect that ineptitude and poor scholarship were the cause most of them had the posting, rather than royal feuds. 

It wasn’t something he could ask, just a general feeling.  When the Testers arrived to give their six month exams they always seemed shocked when anyone passed them and tended to look sneeringly at the teaching staff.  It added to Daniel’s feeling that they weren’t that well regarded.  He made it into the classroom with seconds to spare.  He slipped into one of the back seats and forgot all about the song he heard before as he tried to figure out if he would be able to linger after the lesson and thus check the book cases after class instead of before. 

There was a chance, he decided as he saw that todays lecture was being taught by Professor August Wigglesworth.  He tended to pontificate the entire hour and then dramatically stride from the room.  ‘Possible,’ Daniel thought.