The Secret Prince

by Violet Haberdasher

  “Medicine is a practical discipline,” he said, “but the skills you learn in this classroom are not limited to the assessment of and defense against disease and pain. Just now you have observed a previously unknown subject—myself. You must learn to observe for yourself, to question the world, and to deduce the partially hidden answers.”

  Slowly and painfully Sir Robert climbed to his feet.

  “Your first assignment,” he said, “for I am loath to call it homework, has no due date. If you wish, you may choose to ignore it entirely. Your assignment, lads, is to ponder what you see and challenge what you believe. For under scrutiny you will find that even an open book can have a surprise scribbled in its margins.”

  With a flourish Sir Robert pulled off his mustache.

  “Horse hair and spirit gum,” he said, trying and failing to hide a smile. “There. You see, lads? You are dismissed.”

  That afternoon the great hall was filled with whispers about the new medicine master.

  “I knew all along that mustache was a fake,” Valmont drawled, picking the crusts off his sandwich. “Rather a showy move, wouldn’t you say?”

  Edmund, who was seated across from Valmont, shrugged.

  “I thought he was brilliant,” Henry said.

  “Well, no one asked you, Grim, did they?” Valmont shot back.

  “Henry?” Edmund said with a grin. “What did you think of Sir Robert?”

  Valmont shot Edmund a nasty glare.

  “Actually,” Henry said slowly, “I’d never really given it a thought what it must have been like to attend Knightley during the Nordlandic Revolution.”

  “Me neither,” Rohan said, “but everyone must have been terrified. There were so many Nordlandic sympathizers, and all of those riots…. Police knights were killed trying to break them up.”

  “Shut your face,” Valmont said hotly. “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “Right, because it’s so difficult to read a history book,” Rohan returned.

  At that moment there was a burst of raucous laughter from the second-year table. Jasper Hallworth had stuck two sizable carrots up his nose and was apparently imitating some sort of wounded sea creature.

  “Really,” Rohan said, shaking his head in disapproval, as Adam reached eagerly for two carrots to try it himself.

  Military history that afternoon was just as horrible as everyone remembered. Lord Havelock seemed unaware that a new term had begun. He burst into the room, his master’s gown billowing, his expression as sour as ever. Without so much as a “Welcome back,” he seized a piece of chalk and began to write out an assignment on the front board.

  “You have until the end of class,” Lord Havelock intoned, “to demonstrate whether you have completed the assigned reading or whether you had more important things to attend to over the holiday.”

  At the desk next to Henry’s, Adam swallowed nervously and fiddled with his pen.

  “If I were you,” Lord Havelock said, his eyes glittering as he surveyed the terrified students, “I would be ashamed to hand in anything less than three sheets of paper. Your prompt is on the board, gentlemen. You may begin.”

  He stepped aside to reveal, in spiny, slanted writing, the question: “What strategies might the French aristocracy have employed to prevent revolution? Would those same strategies have worked against the Draconian party in the Nordlands? Why or why not?”

  With a sigh Henry reached into his bag for his pen and ink. Lord Havelock had been the only professor to assign reading over the holiday—a particularly expensive and hard-to-find book called Revolution Through the Ages: From Catastrophe to Strategy. Thankfully, Henry had discovered a copy in Mrs. Alabaster’s shop. Whenever business was slow, he’d hidden the book beneath the counter and read a chapter or two.

  All around Henry the other students produced copies of Revolution Through the Ages from their satchels. With a sinking feeling, Henry turned his attention to the blank sheet of parchment on his desk.

  As he finished the first sentence of his essay, a shadow fell over his page. He looked up. Lord Havelock glared down at him with his signature Havelook of Doom.

  “Sir?” Henry asked, his throat dry.

  “Forgotten something, Mr. Grim?”

  “No, sir,” Henry whispered. “I read the book. I just—er—had it on loan.”

  “Couldn’t afford to buy one, Grim?” Theobold asked nastily.

  Henry bit his lip and said nothing. Lord Havelock hadn’t told them to purchase a copy, just to read it. And yet, though he’d followed the assignment to the letter, Henry still felt as though he’d turned up with his homework unfinished.

  “And, Mr. Beckerman,” said Lord Havelock. “What is your excuse?”

  “Er—forgot mine,” Adam mumbled.

  Belatedly Henry remembered Adam insisting that he’d get around to the reading eventually, probably on the train. And yet they’d read silly magazines and chatted with Edmund and Luther the whole way.

  “Such a pity … and did you enjoy the engravings, Mr. Beckerman?” Lord Havelock asked innocently.

  “Yeah, loads,” Adam fibbed.

  Henry winced.

  “There were no engravings in Revolution Through the Ages,” Lord Havelock whispered, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop.

  “No, sir,” mumbled Adam.

  “You may leave the room, Mr. Beckerman,” said Lord Havelock. “Tomorrow I shall expect a five-page essay under the door of my office before chapel. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Very clear, sir,” mumbled Adam, packing his things.

  “And you, Mr. Grim,” Lord Havelock continued. “If you will be requiring a charity fund to purchase books in the future, I trust that you will notify the headmaster well in advance.”

  Henry blushed furiously. With enormous effort he turned his attention back to the essay and did not let his mind wander until class was dismissed.

  * * *

  Henry had been looking forward to visiting Professor Stratford during his hour free, but the moment Protocol ended, Adam whined so piteously about Lord Havelock’s essay that Henry found himself agreeing to help—or at least to keep Adam company in the library instead.

  “Don’t worry about the essay,” Henry said as they walked through the first-floor corridor with the suits of armor that grasped for invisible weapons, long since removed. “Lord Havelock just wanted to make an example of you.”

  “I’m not worried about the essay.”

  “You haven’t said a word since we left Turveydrop’s classroom,” Henry pointed out.

  Adam was suddenly fascinated by a bit of loose thread on his blazer pocket. “I … I heard you and Rohan talking last night.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Dunno.” Adam shrugged. “But if that’s how Rohan feels about Frankie, he can go off and be friends with Theobold and that lot.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Henry said.

  “Yeah, I do.” Adam glared. “It’s as though he wants to forget about everything that happened last term and pretend that our biggest problem was being unpopular.”

  “Well,” Henry said, considering, “Rohan was already back home when everything happened with Sir Frederick. He didn’t go up against the board of trustees and tell them the truth about the Nordlands. And he didn’t spend his holiday in the city. Maybe he feels as though we’re leaving him out and he needs other options.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Adam muttered stubbornly. “And anyway, I’ve decided to be cross with him no matter what.”

  “He did lend you his copy of Revolution Through the Ages,” Henry said as they turned the corner and the great wooden doors to the library came into view.

  “While he went off to play checkers with James.” Adam made a face.

  “What’s wrong with James?”

  Neither of them could help it—they burst out laughing. James, while friendly enough, talked of nothing except sports. Ever.

  Adam had
tested this theory at the end of last term, asking James an innocent question about Latin grammar, which had hilariously started him off on a long-winded metaphor with a central theme of winning at cricket.

  Still chuckling, Henry pushed open the door to the library, expecting the place to be empty. However, there was hardly an unoccupied chair to be found. The third years sat hunched over sheaves of notes, intimidating in their blue and white ties. Quite a few of them glanced up as Henry and Adam stood awkwardly in the doorway.

  “Well, come on,” Henry whispered, prodding Adam.

  Adam clutched Rohan’s pristine copy of Revolution Through the Ages to his chest and vehemently shook his head. “Nope. Changed my mind. Going to study in the er—armory.”

  Henry was intimidated by the third years as well, but he wasn’t going to let it show. After all, he and Adam had just as much of a right to use the library as they did.

  “Come on,” he insisted, tiptoeing up the spiral staircase to the balcony level while Adam followed like a cringing puppy.

  Henry impatiently threw open the door to the study room, and three boys in blue and white ties looked up haughtily from their notebooks.

  Henry gulped. “Er—sorry—I thought that …” Henry trailed off miserably.

  “What appalling manners,” one of the third years drawled in an oddly familiar way.

  “We’re leaving now. Sorry,” Henry said, starting to shut the door.

  “Did I say you could go?” the boy asked.

  “No, Arch, I don’t think you did,” said a larger boy with bushy black eyebrows, who grinned maliciously at Henry and Adam.

  “Good heavens,” Arch said, raising an eyebrow. “I think we’ve caught ourselves those little commoners who’ve been bothering my brother.”

  Despairingly Henry realized that this had to be Theobold’s older brother. They had the same Roman nose, dark hair, and nasty smirk. Behind him Henry could hear Adam edging toward the staircase.

  “Get back here, you nasty little heathen,” Theobold’s brother said sharply.

  The command echoed through the library. Henry saw that they’d attracted the attention of the rest of the third years, who were staring up through the gaps in the wrought-iron balustrade. He took a deep breath to steel his nerves.

  “As I said before,” Henry began in his most posh tones, “we’re terribly sorry to have disturbed you, as we’d assumed the room was unoccupied. We’ll let you return to your studies now. Good day.” Without waiting for a reaction Henry closed the door and scrambled down the stairs after Adam, startled by his own daring.

  At the bottom, however, Henry was surprised to see that many of the third years were grinning in his direction, as though they had very much enjoyed watching an ickle first year stand up to their intolerable classmate.

  When the peal of bells, signaling half an hour before supper, echoed through the domed library, Adam didn’t look up from Revolution Through the Ages.

  The third years noisily gathered their notes, laughing and occasionally staring in Henry and Adam’s direction.

  Henry glanced up from his back issue of the Tattleteller. He’d gotten the idea to dig up old gossip magazines from what Sir Robert had said about the Nordlandic Revolution. So far he hadn’t found anything worthwhile, but he had discovered a rather entertaining series of knight detective stories.

  “Plan on washing up for supper?” Henry whispered.

  “Five whole pages,” Adam moaned, propping his forehead in his hands.

  “It would have been three if you’d done the reading,” Henry said with a shrug. “And don’t glare at me like that. You know I’m right.”

  “I was going to read it tonight—honestly. I didn’t think the old vampire would quiz us on the first day back.”

  Henry raised an eyebrow. “All right. I hoped he wouldn’t quiz us on the first day back. Mum nearly disowned me when she saw my marks last term. Go on to supper without me. I’m not leaving the library until I emerge triumphant, essay in hand.”

  “I’m guessing you want me to smuggle some food back to the room for you?” Henry asked.

  “Only if it’s too much trouble to smuggle it into the library.”

  “You’re unbelievable.” Henry grinned as he shouldered his satchel.

  “Unbelievably brilliant, more like,” Adam corrected, accidentally dribbling ink onto Rohan’s book.

  6

  THE LORD MINISTER’S SONS

  Henry arrived slightly late to supper and found Rohan at the most crowded part of the table, deep in debate with James over fencing grips. Rohan looked up briefly and then returned to the argument. Feeling slightly hurt, Henry took an empty seat near Derrick and Conrad, two inseparable boys whose fathers held prominent positions in the Lords’ House at the Ministerium.

  “Hallo, Grim,” Derrick said, passing the basket of rolls.

  Henry, who’d barely exchanged two words with Derrick over the past term, nodded his thanks and took three rolls, stuffing two into a spare napkin. Conrad and Derrick pretended very obviously not to notice. Henry realized his mistake immediately.

  “Adam’s stuck in the library,” he explained. “You know—Lord Havelock’s essay. Didn’t want him to—”

  “Right, of course,” Derrick said hastily. “Lord Badluck’s punishment for skipping the reading.”

  “Lord Badluck?” Henry grinned.

  Conrad leaned in conspiratorially. “It’s rather fitting, isn’t it? We overheard some second year using the name.”

  “In any case, we can’t let Adam starve in the library stacks, can we?” Derrick said, tucking a spare napkin into the empty bread basket. “I don’t think this will be missed. Now, Grim, what did you do with those rolls?”

  They cobbled together some sandwiches from the roast beef, and after they’d packed up a neat little picnic for Adam, the boys turned their attention to their own suppers.

  Conrad regaled Henry and Derrick with a particularly funny story about his sister’s suitors and the over-active bladder of his mother’s prized terrier. Henry glanced up, his face red with stifled laughter, and caught Valmont glaring in their direction.

  “Speaking of overactive bladders,” Derrick said, nodding his chin at Valmont.

  “Sorry?” Henry asked, puzzled.

  “His room’s next to mine,” Derrick explained. “Up twice last night, that one.”

  Henry laughed, delighted. He’d expected Derrick and Conrad to be horribly snobbish, with their plummy accents and the way they always clubbed together, but they weren’t at all. In fact, they rather reminded Henry of his own roommates, how they gave nicknames to their head of year and told inappropriate stories.

  Henry had always considered the other students largely uninterested in becoming friends with anyone whose family didn’t keep a Regent’s Hill town house. Now, however, he wondered if his impression hadn’t been an unfortunate combination of Theobold and Valmont’s bullying and a lot of unsure-what-to-make-of-the-common-students moments in the first few weeks of term.

  After all, Rohan, whose perceptions were usually bang on, had named Derrick as one of the boys they ought to be friends with. Henry had instantly dismissed it, but perhaps Rohan had seen what Henry hadn’t—that Henry and his roommates weren’t outcasts at all. They had simply never tried to make friends.

  Derrick offered round the mashed potatoes before spooning the last of them onto his own plate. “How was your holiday, anyway?” he asked Henry.

  “I’m sure it’s none of our business,” Conrad said with a meaningful glance at Derrick, as though he suspected Henry might be embarrassed to talk about his life outside the academy.

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” Henry assured them. “Actually, I got in a fight with Valmont at Lady Winter’s holiday party. Lord Havelock caught us.”

  “Do tell, Grim,” Derrick said gleefully.

  And so Henry found himself once again telling the story of the boys down the alleyway, and of Frankie’s grandmother finding him in her kitchen
, and of his brief but disreputable appearance at the holiday fete. Somehow the tale had become immensely funny, and Henry was aware of quite a few boys laughing along with Derrick and Conrad whenever he performed impressions of Lady Winter, Lord Havelock, and especially Fergus Valmont.

  After supper Henry picked up Adam’s makeshift picnic basket and made his excuses to Derrick and Conrad—and Luther, who had joined them over dessert.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Grim. We’ll come with you,” Derrick said, clapping a hand to Henry’s shoulder.

  “Yes, of course,” Conrad said, tucking a notebook under his arm and sniffling, in what was undoubtedly a very good impression of someone Henry had never met. “You’ll need a knight’s escort. Can’t have an important political figure such as yourself gallivanting about unprotected in such trying times.”

  Derrick hooted with laughter, and even Luther cracked a smile. Henry was puzzled, until he realized that every group of friends has their own private jokes and references. Well, at least they wanted to come with him.

  They found Adam fast asleep and drooling onto the pages of Revolution Through the Ages, which set them all off into hastily muffled hysterics.

  Holding a finger to his lips, Henry tiptoed behind Adam and, in a terrifying impression of Lord Havelock, bellowed, “Ah, Mr. Beckerman, does my assignment bore you?”

  Adam snapped awake, his face white. He turned around and found Henry, Conrad, Derrick, and Luther doubled over laughing.

  “Aaahhhh!” Adam complained. “That was horrible. My heart stopped, I swear it did.”

  “Brought you something.” Henry held out the basket.

  “Better be a five-page essay in there, to make up for that,” Adam complained, taking the basket. “Oh, sandwiches! Thanks.”

  “No problem,” Henry said. “Just dropping them by. Finish your essay so I don’t have to bring you breakfast as well.”

  “That would be a job,” Derrick mused, “smuggling scrambled eggs out of the dining hall. Wonder how you’d do it.”

  “That’s easy,” Adam said, his mouth full of sandwich. “Use a teacup.”

  “Now, there’s an idea,” Derrick said. “To the common room, lads. This library makes me feel as though I’m supposed to be whispering.”