Tales of the Zodiac - The Goat's Tale Read Online Free

us a whack of his fist. As I approach the door, he stares through me as though not realising that I am wearing only my underclothes. The stare lasts only an instant before he realises.
    “What’s this, Goat?” he spits. The sports master takes great pride in calling almost every boy in the school by some derogatory nickname or other. In fact, he is even responsible for inventing some of them. However, the fact that he is so horribly, relentlessly fair in his brutality makes him rather less offensive than he would be were he a more discerning bully. Indeed, as I’ve grown older, I no longer see him as the demon he once was, more as a vaguely unpleasant feature of the school environment. Like the cold stone walls or damp wooden doors.
    “Forgotten my kit, sir,” I mumble, head down, wishing I could shout it at him. He knows as well, if not better, than I do where my kit has gone, and knowing this makes my own sheepishness stick in my throat. However, to say anything else or to say it any differently would be futile. Any claim that my kit had been stolen would fall on ears as deaf as mine were when I was told to let the prince win. This is nothing more than the price I pay for refusing to listen. I would contest that it is worth it. The honourable path is never the easy one.
    “Forgot your kit?! Well, that was frutting stupid of you,” he seethes.
    The man is a peasant like my father. And me. Not an ounce of him is given to fat, just lean brown muscle and flint hard eyes. This common identity, even when surrounded by sons and scholars from the pale classes, has never meant anything to the man. I’ve no doubt that he resents the king, the nobility, academia, just as much as he appears to resent the children he teaches. I’ve also no doubt that the identity of the winner of The Prince Libran Cup means as little to him as it does to the wild animals that stalk the hillside. Yet I still expect no help or sympathy from him. The man is a monster. Watching a sixteen-year-old boy run barefoot through a rainstorm is probably his idea of an evening’s entertainment.
    “Sorry, sir,” I grunt.
    “Aren’t you going to ask me for some kit?” He is one of those authority figures whose idea of a good time is saying ‘no’ to people.
    “I don’t feel I deserve kit, sir,” I lie, denying him the opportunity.
    “Don’t come the frutting sob story with me, boy. Ask me for some kit.” His hard, black eyes hit me. I am no more afraid of this man than of any other but I will not argue today. I understand the fragile thread by which my future at the school hangs and will not sacrifice it to the whims of a sadist.
    “I will be fine, sir.”
    “Then you won’t be frutting running, boy. I don’t have my boys running around like that. They’ll hang me for a frutting perv.”
    Now I see it even clearer: layers upon layers, traps upon traps, the system will not let me win. In anger, my eyes flash to his and, for an instant, I feel I’ll fight him.
    “So be it,” I grunt, controlling the urge. They may strip me bare, use every trick under the stars to prevent me running, and I shall accept it with stoicism. However, what I shall not do is show them how I feel. Even on the rare occasions that my emotions move beyond indifference, I still am able to feign it masterfully. He will not know the pain I feel at having my competitive edge blunted. I turn my back on him.
    It is in this moment, as close in my life as I shall ever get to blind fury, that I am saved by a squeak.
    “If he is not allowed to run then I shall not be running either,”
    The prince, all of a sudden, sounds a man. A man with undescended testicles, it is granted, but with the command of a monarch. The sports master does not reply immediately; his primitive peasant brain seems unable to respond to such an unexpected problem.
    “I’m serious. I’m sick of it. It’s not fair. This all stops. I don’t care a jig for what my father has to say or what Vesta has to