Henry, Adam, and Rohan found an empty compartment, and Henry could hardly wait to tell his friends what he’d discovered.
“You’re being quiet,” Rohan said, narrowing his eyes at Henry. “What aren’t you saying?”
“Oh, sorry.” Henry hadn’t realized he was so obvious. “It’s just, I have something huge to tell you.”
And then the door to their compartment opened.
“Hallo,” Edmund said cheerfully, holding a deck of cards. “Luther’s already fallen back asleep. Mind if I join you?”
Henry gave his friends a desperate look. He couldn’t tell them what he’d found out if Edmund was in their compartment!
Rohan, to his credit, cleared his throat in the awkward silence and said, “Feel free, although I should warn you that I’m having horrible indigestion from the Nordlandic food.” Rohan made a pained face and pressed his hands to his stomach.
Henry recognized the signs that Adam was about to start laughing, so he stamped on Adam’s foot.
“Think I’ll pass, actually,” Edmund said, edging toward the door.
When Edmund had gone, Henry breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks,” he told Rohan.
“Don’t mention it,” Rohan said.
Adam made a farting noise with his mouth against his arm and then burst out laughing.
“Pity there wasn’t a competition in that,” Rohan said.
“In what?” Henry asked.
“Pure stupidity.” Rohan rolled his eyes at Adam.
Adam composed himself, only to burst out laughing once more.
“Get over it, Adam,” Henry snapped, and then said, “Sorry. It’s just that I found something quite serious last night.”
“Last night when you were wandering around Partisan Keep instead of being asleep?” Rohan asked, his face impassive.
“You knew?” Henry asked, shocked.
“I heard you get up,” Rohan said. “But I wasn’t going to follow you and get expelled.”
“You could have taken me with you,” Adam whined.
“Well, I didn’t know that I’d find anything,” Henry said.
“We still don’t know what you found,” Rohan said pointedly. “And I’ve just embarrassed myself over it, so this better truly be huge.”
“It is,” Henry said. “I found this door hidden in the wall paneling near that fish statue on the first floor. Anyway, the door led to this huge room full of practice weapons and charts.”
“What, like fencing?” Rohan asked.
Henry shook his head. “The Partisan students are being trained in combat.”
“What?” Rohan practically yelled.
“Shhhhh!” Henry said.
“Sorry.” Rohan lowered his voice. “Proper combat? You’re certain?”
Henry nodded and told his friends the rest of it: what he’d seen in detail, how he’d almost been caught, and how he’d escaped without any proof.
“We have to tell someone,” Adam said.
“Wait here. I’ll get Lord Havelock,” Rohan said dryly.
But then a thought occurred to Henry.
Lord Havelock. Military history.
Yesterday’s quiz question: “At what age did pre–Longsword Treaty conscription laws bind boys to military service?”
And the answer: thirteen.
“Wait,” Henry said, realization dawning.
“I wasn’t really going to get Lord Havelock,” Rohan said with a puzzled look in Henry’s direction.
“No, not that,” Henry said. “Conscription laws. No one’s changed them since before the Longsword Treaty. If we go to war with the Nordlands, every boy over thirteen will have to fight.”
“But I thought those laws were just ancient history,” Adam said nervously.
“Well, that’s what I thought about war,” Henry said. “And now Partisan is training its students in combat. I’m certain of it. And if we tell anyone about this, there’s going to be a war.”
“There’s going to be a war anyway,” Rohan said. “Why else would you train in combat?”
Henry hadn’t thought of it that way. But then he thought of something else.
“I don’t know,” he said, “but do you remember the first lesson we had in military history? Adam got kicked out because he didn’t know the answer and—”
“Oi, watch it, mate!” Adam said.
“Sorry,” Henry said quickly. “But, Rohan, you remember, don’t you? What Lord Havelock said?”
Rohan nodded gravely. “Commoners captured in battle rot in prison cells. Only nobility are ransomed.”
“We’re going to rot in prison cells?” Adam whined.
“No, we’re not,” Henry said firmly. “Because there’s not going to be a war. Someone will draw up a new treaty and everything will be fine.”
“I don’t know,” Rohan said. “It seems to me that the Nordlands have been wanting a war for a long time.”
And even though he didn’t want to admit it, Henry knew that his friend was right. War was coming with the force of a tempest. War against the Nordlands, the likes of which they had only read about in history books.
And they would have to fight.
And so would every other boy over thirteen—unless there was something they could do to stop it.
“Sir Frederick will know what to do,” Henry said.
Comforted by the thought, he stared out the window at the passing landscape, trying not to picture the frosted ground littered with the fallen bodies of his classmates, or packed fresh with their unmarked graves.
A STORY WITHOUT PROOF
Henry, Adam, and Rohan had barely opened the door to their room before Frankie was tossing rocks at their window.
Exhausted from the journey and the walk back from the train station, Henry wanted to do nothing more than stretch out on his soft bed and fall asleep. Instead, he pushed open the window.
“Come outside,” Frankie shouted merrily.
It was getting colder on the school grounds, and brightly colored leaves that had crunched under their feet only a week ago were now turning to soggy mulch.
The four friends met by the bench outside the entrance to the hedge maze, stamping their feet to keep warm.
“I’m only free until supper,” Frankie said hurriedly. “My grandmother’s gone shopping and taken Professor Stratford along to carry her purchases.”
“I’ll bet he loves that,” Henry said wryly.
“She’s never leaving,” Frankie said with anguish. “I swear she isn’t. Every day I think it’s her last but she just stays, like my personal circle of infinite hell.”
“Well, your grandmother is the least of our worries,” Henry said, and quickly filled Frankie in on what he’d found.
“You’re certain?” she asked. “Of course you’re certain. But what are we going to do?”
“Personally, I’ve always wanted to command a squadron of soldiers,” Adam joked, and then cringed at the looks everyone shot in his direction. “Sorry.”
“I was thinking that we go to Sir Frederick directly after supper,” Henry said. “Tell him what we’ve found, ask for advice, see what he thinks we should do.”
“What about my father?” Frankie asked.
“Do you think he’d believe us?” Rohan asked.
“I’m not sure.” Frankie bit her lip, lost in thought. “I just can’t imagine … I mean, everyone’s been saying for ages that we’re close to war, that Chancellor Mors has secret armies or new technologies to use against us, but I never thought it would be now.”
“My father always says, ‘When you expect something, you never see it coming,’ ” Rohan said.
“Your father is friends with my grandmother,” Frankie reminded him.
And even though it felt as though they were on the brink of war, as though they weren’t allowed to be happy, the four friends shared a brief smile at the thought of anyone being friends with Grandmother Winter.
Henry knocked nervously on the door to Sir Frederick’s of
fice after supper, suddenly regretting his decision to talk to the medicine master alone. But then, it was his responsibility; after all, he’d been the one to discover the secret room.
“Yes?” Sir Frederick called through the door.
“It’s Henry Grim, sir,” Henry said.
“Come in.”
Henry opened the door and found Sir Frederick puzzling at a slide through his microscope, his desk littered with papers.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you, sir,” Henry said.
“Not at all.”
Sir Frederick waved a hand dismissively and pushed the microscope aside.
“Well,” Sir Frederick prompted, “what did you think of the Nordlands?”
Henry smiled weakly.
“It was different,” Henry said truthfully. “And Partisan seemed much more strict than Knightley. Actually, sir, I wanted to talk to you about something I saw at Partisan.”
Sir Frederick leaned back in his chair, took out his pipe, and told Henry to go ahead.
“Well,” Henry began, “last night I found this room where the Partisan students are trained in combat.”
Sir Frederick choked on his pipe smoke and Henry waited until his professor’s coughing fit had subsided.
“Go on,” Sir Frederick said. “You think you—ahem! Ahem! Sorry about that—found a room where Partisan trains its students in combat?”
“I don’t think, sir,” said Henry, “I’m certain of it. There was a wardrobe filled with weapons, and practice dummies with painted-on targets, and charts ranking the students in different forms of fighting.”
Sir Frederick was very quiet for a long while after Henry finished explaining what he’d seen. Finally, when Henry was afraid Sir Frederick would continue to sit there and say nothing at all, the professor cleared his throat and said, “I assume you have proof ?”
Henry’s cheeks flushed. “No, sir.”
“Is it possible,” Sir Frederick asked, “that you simply had a bad dream and woke up believing it was true?”
“I know what I saw,” Henry said stubbornly.
“But you have no proof.”
“No,” Henry said again, staring at his lap.
“And you’ve told your friends about this, I’d assume.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But no one else?”
Henry shook his head.
“Here is what I think,” Sir Frederick said, tapping his pipe on the edge of his desk. “I think the Partisan students wanted you to believe they were being trained in combat. I think it was a prank.”
“It’s not very funny, sir. No offense.”
“Nordlandic humor,” Sir Frederick said with a shrug.
For a moment Henry considered that it could have been a prank. That the students had set the whole thing up just to see who might be gullible enough to fall for it.
But of course that was ridiculous. It had been real. Henry knew what he’d seen. Those mannequins painted with red targets had been used—and recently. The lists were too meticulously kept to be anything but real. And those weapons. Even now, the gruesome blades made Henry shudder just thinking of them.
“I don’t think it was a prank, sir,” Henry said. “The Nordlands have broken the Longsword Treaty. Partisan is training its students in combat. I’m certain of what I saw.”
“Henry,” Sir Frederick said kindly. “I want to believe you. Truly, I do. But what you’re telling me is that you just happened to be wandering around out of bed, and you just happened to walk down a corridor and find a room full of weapons, and you don’t have any proof or any witnesses, but according to you, the Nordlands are preparing to go to war against us.”
Henry sighed. He knew it sounded impossible, but he’d thought Sir Frederick would believe him. “Basically, yes,” Henry said.
“I’m sorry,” Sir Frederick said, “but it’s just a lot to accept based on a schoolboy’s testimony.”
“But it’s true,” Henry insisted.
“I know you think you saw this room,” Sir Frederick said, “but if you ask me, they’ve been working you boys too hard to prepare for the tournament. You look exhausted. Get some sleep. Think on it. Maybe in the morning you’ll change your mind about what you saw.”
“Maybe,” Henry muttered, although he doubted it.
Henry stared dully at his prayer register the next morning, not even bothering to mouth the words.
Sir Frederick hadn’t believed him.
Of course, it was a lot to believe, but he had no reason to make up a story like that, nothing to gain from false accusations or lies.
Henry watched Theobold deface his prayer register with a pen from his school bag until the service ended.
Breakfast had never smelled as good as it did that morning.
The table was piled high with smoked fish and scrambled eggs, pots of jam and plates of toast, and fresh-baked scones with little mounds of sugar crystals on top.
As Henry buttered a hot scone, he thought about the Nordlands, and how the students had probably been up for hours, awaiting inspection. He thought of them eating lumpy porridge and then going off to learn combat in their secret training chamber, preparing for war, believing so strongly that their way of life was the only way—the right way—that they had to fight for other people to see it.
Henry hardly paid attention in medicine, and he practically sleepwalked from Sir Frederick’s classroom to Lord Havelock’s military history tower.
But he forced himself to attend to Lord Havelock’s lecture, in which Lord Havelock held up crumbling artifacts like black-tipped spearheads and statuettes and spoke of what they could learn about past military conquest from archaeological digs.
Lord Havelock passed the artifacts around, and they were no more interesting up close, but Henry turned them over in his hands anyway, taking notes as he was expected to do.
Finally, Lord Havelock had them pass the artifacts up to the front of the room.
We should talk to Professor Stratford during our free hour, Henry wrote out on the bottom of his notebook and tilted the page toward Adam and Rohan.
His friends nodded.
Up at the front of the room, Lord Havelock frowned.
“I have only thirteen artifacts, what has happened to the fourteenth?” Lord Havelock asked.
Everyone shuffled through the things on their desks, but no one could find it.
“This is not a game,” Lord Havelock sneered. “We will all sit here until the talisman is returned. And yes, I am aware that you will be missing your luncheon.”
But five minutes later, no one had made any move to return the missing object.
“Stand up!” Lord Havelock barked. “Behind your chairs, all of you. Satchels open on your desks, jackets off, trouser pockets turned out.”
Feeling foolish, Henry turned out his trouser pockets and stood behind his desk like the rest of his classmates.
“What do you think’s going on?” Adam whispered.
Henry gave a tiny shrug in response.
Because the truth was, Henry half expected that Lord Havelock would find this missing object inside of his own bag. After all, there was no reason for their saboteur to suddenly stop his efforts toward getting Henry and his friends kicked out of the academy just because he hadn’t struck while they were away at Partisan.
There had been so much going on with the tournament and discovering the combat training room over the past few days that Henry had nearly forgotten that he and his friends still didn’t have any idea who might be out to get them—besides Lord Havelock, that was.
Lord Havelock glared inside of Theobold’s bag and then came to Henry’s row.
Henry held his breath as Lord Havelock rifled his satchel, which contained nothing but notebooks, pens, and embarrassingly, half a scone left over from breakfast, wrapped in a napkin.
“Saving this for a rainy day, Mr. Grim?” Lord Havelock asked with a mocking smile.
Henry’s cheeks reddened.
Bu
t mercifully, Lord Havelock moved on to Adam’s bag, which was stuffed full of chewed pen nibs, scraps of paper, a handful of pennies, crumbs, a tattered envelope, notebooks, pens, textbooks, and a deck of cards tied together with Frankie’s blood-splattered hair ribbon from all those weeks ago.
“Nice one,” Henry whispered to Adam about the hair ribbon, not caring that Lord Havelock could hear him. Adam made a face and shrugged.
Lord Havelock was stopped in front of Rohan’s desk, peering into Rohan’s satchel.
And then Lord Havelock’s expression changed to a dangerous sneer as he removed his hand from Rohan’s satchel, his long, pale fingers closed tightly into a fist.
“Mr. Mehta, would you care to explain this?” Lord Havelock asked.
“Explain what, sir?” Rohan asked, puzzled.
Lord Havelock opened his fist.
Lying in his palm was a tiny obsidian statuette, the missing artifact.
“I didn’t …, ” Rohan began, “I mean … you can’t possibly think that I would … this is absurd.”
Lord Havelock stared down at Rohan, his mouth a thin, hard line, his eyes glittering treacherously. “Mr. Mehta, I think that you should come with me. The rest of you are dismissed.”
“He didn’t do it, sir,” Henry said. “I was here the whole time; I would have seen something.”
“Are you implying that you helped Mr. Mehta to steal this object?” Lord Havelock asked.
“No, he didn’t,” Rohan put in quickly. “Henry, Adam, go on. I’ll be all right.”
Henry gave Rohan what he hoped was an encouraging smile and trudged out into the hall along with Adam.
Neither of them ate anything in the dining hall that afternoon. Henry sat staring at the doorway, waiting for Rohan to walk through any moment and say that everything had been sorted, and did anyone happen to save him a roast beef and cress sandwich?
But he didn’t.
Finally, with just ten minutes before they needed to leave for their next class, Henry and Adam slipped out of the dining hall and opened the door to their room.
Rohan was inside, standing over his open school trunk, eyes puffy as though he’d recently been crying.
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