Vengeance

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The tension easily penetrated the walls of a schoolroom only just beginning the functioning day: running footsteps, occasional raised voices, followed by a full-throated shout of the kind that hinted at major alarm. This made life awkward for the pupils seeking to concentrate on the subject of mathematics, never one to hold the mind of a group of boys on the cusp of manhood, youngsters who hankered to be outdoors playing games or doing military training, rather than ingesting the other three pillars of imperial education: Latin, Greek, and rhetoric.

The sounds of commotion made it seem necessary for everyone in the class to make contact with the others, and in this they were as one – not always the case. As in any group of a dozen adolescents there were as many rivalries as friendships and even the odd relationship founded on jealousy or deep antagonism, not least by an interest in the opposite sex that had gone from indifference, though interest, to the start of rivalry. These were all now set aside by intense inquisitiveness added to an opportunity for exchanged whispers and excessive shuffling.

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