The Secret Prince

by Violet Haberdasher

  Frankie laughed. “You don’t count.”

  “Oi, how come I never count?” Adam asked indignantly.

  “Because you’re part of it,” Frankie accused. “You and Henry and Valmont, I’m sure of it. Oh, I could just scream.”

  Before Adam had a chance to react, she flounced away, sniffling. “Girls,” Adam muttered, shaking his head and cramming another biscuit into his mouth. They were absolutely impossible. Always talking nonsense and getting upset without bothering to explain the problem.

  Adam munched the third biscuit slowly, making it last. He’d seen Henry go off to the library after supper. How anyone could spend that much time studying when they already knew all of the answers was completely beyond him. Maybe Henry knew what was the matter with Frankie. And even if he didn’t, he probably wouldn’t mind the interruption.

  But when Adam reached the library, Sir Robert was just leaving, his arms full of books.

  “A good evening to you, Mr. Beckerman.”

  “Good evening, sir,” Adam said. “Er, would you like help with those books?”

  Sir Robert smiled. “That would be most welcome. Walk with me, lad.”

  Sir Robert’s cane was glossy mahogany that evening, with a brass handle shaped like a dragon. It tapped an echoing staccato down the hallway as they made their way to his office. Adam was so busy admiring the cane that he hardly heard what the professor was saying.

  “I’m sorry, sir?”

  “I was just saying that Sir Franklin speaks very highly of you. He says you have a natural talent for ethics.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Adam said, flushing from the unexpected compliment.

  Sir Robert didn’t say anything else as they crossed the quadrangle.

  To Adam’s dismay, Sir Robert had taken over Sir Frederick’s former office. Thankfully, though, the office had been transformed. The shelves were crammed with brass scales, pots of paint, and jars of strange powders. A marble bust of King Victor wore Sir Robert’s fake mustache—and sported an elegant silk top hat tilted at a rakish angle. A large desk was littered with sheet music, rumpled newspapers, and a rather battered violin.

  Making a face at the mess, the medicine master removed a violin bow from one of the chairs and tossed it into a nearby umbrella stand. “Sit, sit,” he said, motioning toward the chair. “If you don’t mind, I’d quite like to have a little chat.”

  Adam frowned as he took a seat. Professors rarely wanted to speak with him. His marks were average, his penmanship sloppy, and the cleverer students like Henry and Derrick usually beat him to answering the questions he did know.

  “No, sir, I don’t mind,” Adam said.

  “I haven’t been able to forget those bruises on your arms the other week,” Sir Robert remarked, and although his tone was pleasant, his eyes were sharp. “They didn’t look as though you’d tripped.”

  “I did, sir.”

  Sir Robert shook his head. “Let us be honest, Mr. Beckerman. The coloration, size, and placement of those bruises are not consistent with tripping.” Sir Robert paused and raised an eyebrow. “I would deduce that you had been in a fight and taken repeated falls—very neatly, I’ll credit. You distributed your weight over the forearms quite correctly.”

  Adam turned crimson. “But—” Sir Robert had it all wrong, Adam thought wretchedly. He tried again. “But, sir, I haven’t been in a fight. I was, er, practicing. Just in case.”

  Sir Robert gave him a very severe look. “Practicing for fights? Someone must have threatened you quite roughly, to prompt that.”

  “Oh, not at all, sir,” Adam quickly amended. “I’m always talking without thinking. Bound to put my foot in it one day, you know.”

  But the medicine master didn’t look convinced. Adam nervously reached for the charm around his neck—a cheap Whitechapel Market replacement of the heirloom chai he used to wear.

  “Hmmm,” Sir Robert said. “I’ve seen you taking notes in class, lad, with your pen poised over the right side of the page. You studied at the yeshiva, I presume? Reading the Torah and the Talmud?”

  Miserably Adam nodded.

  “Your English is quite good,” Sir Robert remarked, watching Adam carefully. “Perfect, in fact. I’d place the dialect as East London.”

  “Baker’s Green, sir,” Adam mumbled, nodding. “And we speak English at home, not Yiddish. Please, sir, you’ve got the wrong idea. No one is giving me a hard time about anything.”

  “Not even your roommate, whom I seem to remember sporting a black eye and a split lip earlier this term?” Sir Robert asked mildly. “Possibly your doing?”

  “Henry? He’s my best friend! We were, er, practicing for fights together.”

  “Ah, then it seems I’m mistaken,” Sir Robert said, inclining his head in apology but keeping his eyes trained on Adam. “Although I can’t imagine where you learned that falling technique. Or what possibly prompted the two of you to practice it quite so … thoroughly.”

  Adam sighed. He’d just had to go see what Henry was up to in the library. And although Sir Robert was clearly just trying to be sympathetic, the new medicine master was far too observant for comfort.

  “Just a bit of fun,” Adam said unconvincingly. “And Theobold hates us on principle, so you never know when it could turn out useful.”

  Sir Robert raised an eyebrow and steepled his long, pale fingers. “I was at your expulsion hearing, you know,” he said.

  “I remember, sir.” Adam dropped his gaze and began to fidget nervously.

  “Perhaps I’ve been paying attention to such things because I was most interested in what you said about the Nordlands,” Sir Robert continued. “It takes extraordinary bravery to tell an adult something they don’t want to hear, especially when there is little chance of being believed.”

  Adam continued to fidget with the tassels of his scarf, unsure of how to respond.

  “Do you have family in the Nordlands?” Sir Robert inquired.

  “Cousins.” He hadn’t told anyone, and instantly regetted the confession. “We don’t really—I mean, it’s difficult to know how they’re doing, since Chancellor Mors stopped letting post through the border.”

  “But probably not well,” Sir Robert finished.

  “Probably not well,” Adam agreed. “But that can be said about anyone who doesn’t fit the chancellor’s idea of ‘pure Nordlandic stock.’ I mean, it’s bloody horrible up there, sir. Doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish or believe in the thirtieth flying prophet or have skin the color of cabbage.”

  “Do you know what I think, Mr. Beckerman?” Sir Robert mused. “I think you are going to be a very unusual knight, and I also think that there’s no possible way you and Mr. Grim were practicing to fight anyone at this school. You carry the marks of rebellion, boy. Hide them well, and cover your tracks. Something to think about, hmmm? Now off with you.”

  When Adam returned to his room, Henry was just unpacking his satchel.

  “Where’s Rohan?” Adam asked.

  “Common room,” Henry said, and then looked up and caught Adam’s expression. “What’s wrong?”

  “Sir Robert wanted to have a talk with me.” Adam made a face. “Seemed to think I was a long way from the yeshiva and getting beaten up by my classmates.”

  “Beaten up?”

  “The bruises. You know.” Adam shrugged. “But now I think he’s on to us, with the battle society. I think he’s glad.”

  “Glad?” Henry kicked off his boots and flopped onto his bed, not bothering to remove his jacket or tie. The commotion in the common room seeped through their door, filling the silence.

  “He’s a strange bloke, that Sir Robert. I think he wants to help.”

  “Well, he can’t,” Henry said sourly. “And we don’t need a mentor. Remember what happened last time?”

  “Sir Robert isn’t Sir Frederick.”

  “For all that we know,” Henry said darkly.

  “He was concerned!” Adam shot back. “My arms were all banged up.
He just wanted to make sure I wasn’t being bullied.”

  “Or so he said.”

  “Oi, what is your problem right now?”

  “Nothing. Sorry.” Henry ran a hand over his face. “Frankie. I don’t know. Nothing.”

  “What about Frankie? Is that why she was crying?”

  “She was crying?” Henry asked.

  “Why, what did you say to her?” Adam asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing! It’s what she said to me. I found her down in the basement, swinging around a broadsword.”

  Adam snorted. “You’re joking.”

  “Wish I were,” Henry said. “She’d followed Conrad and wanted to join the battle society. I told her she couldn’t.”

  “Why’d you say that?” Adam asked indignantly.

  “Because she can’t!”

  “I bet no one would mind. And she’s bloody good with a sword.”

  “With a foil,” Henry returned. “She’d get in more trouble than the rest of us if she joined, and really, who would throw punches or swing a sabre at Headmaster Winter’s sixteen-year-old daughter?”

  “So you told her no.”

  “Of course I told her no. And then she told me that we were all going to die in a war,” Henry said sourly.

  Adam winced. “I think I liked it better when she climbed through our window with cake wanting to play cards,” he reflected.

  “I did too, but Rohan seems to think we’re getting too old for that sort of thing.”

  “What does age matter?” Adam retorted. “Boys of thirteen used to be drafted to fight, if you haven’t forgotten.”

  Henry went pale. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” Adam muttered.

  “No. You said that boys of thirteen used to be drafted to fight,” Henry said, his voice rising excitedly.

  “Well, you said it after the Inter-School Tournament.” Adam shrugged. “Something about no one having changed the conscription laws. Although they’ll probably want to fight anyway. I mean, just think of Ollie.”

  Henry cringed at the memory of the scrawny serving boy mopping the corridor with one hand pressed against his cracked ribs.

  “I am,” Henry said. “Don’t you see? That law can be changed. It has nothing to do with combat training or the Nordlands. It’s simply an outdated piece of legislature, left over from the days when boys in the slums were lucky to see eighteen.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not exactly easy to change a law, mate,” Adam reminded him.

  “Conrad’s father is the Lord Minister of Ways and Means,” Henry pressed. “If Conrad could make him listen—just think of the good it would do!”

  Henry’s mind raced with the implications of what it would mean to change the conscription laws—everyone’s little brothers safe at home and away from whatever was coming. No knights knocking on doors and taking away schoolboys who still played marbles, handing them swords and telling them to kill grown men.

  “Conrad’s father barely speaks with him. He’s too important or busy or something,” Adam said, and then he saw the look on Henry’s face. “It’s worth a try, though.”

  Henry gave Adam a grateful smile. “It would be so nice,” Henry said tiredly, “to see some good news in the papers. To have a cause to celebrate even the smallest thing.”

  Until that moment Henry hadn’t considered what it meant to be a Knightley student. He’d thought only of war and fighting, not of command. But they would be commanding common boys, the same way that police knights directed the common policemen. In a war they’d be ordering squadrons of little Ollies to march bravely to their deaths.

  The weight of the last few weeks pressed down on him, and he was suddenly exhausted. Henry shielded his eyes with his forearm, lying there on top of his covers, thinking of conscription laws and boys like Alex from the bakery who hero-worshipped Knightley students, and of Frankie wielding a broadsword as though she thought that if she asked nicely, she too could play.

  15

  TAKING THE FALL

  Henry dreaded the next meeting of the battle society. All through drills he barely listened to Conrad’s orders and nearly marched straight into James’s back. During Protocol, he used the wrong form of address to a hypothetical foreign diplomat. And he only just caught a glaring translation error in languages as he was about to turn in the assignment.

  Henry’s mind was in a lot of places, but mostly he was distracted by worries. What if Frankie showed up at the meeting? What if his idea of changing the conscription laws was met with stony silence? But he kept these fears to himself, and they worried away at him, snatching his attention from whatever task was at hand.

  He supposed he could have spoken with Conrad privately, but everyone had seemed so elated to be rid of exams, and he hadn’t wanted to mar their celebrations. So he had sat and fretted quietly and studied in vain and tried not to think about how, on top of it all, he was also avoiding Professor Stratford.

  It seemed the battle society meeting had scarcely begun when Henry glanced at his pocket watch to find that curfew had come and gone and midnight was fast approaching. The boys began to gather their things, and Henry briefly debated not mentioning it, but as Valmont gathered his satchel, Henry finally gathered his courage.

  “Er, sorry,” he said.

  A few boys glanced over.

  “Sorry,” Henry said again, this time louder. “I was just wondering whether any of you lot have given much thought to the conscription laws?”

  “Ancient history,” Peter called, cracking his knuckles in a way that made Edmund shudder.

  “Actually, mate, they’re not,” Adam corrected.

  Now everyone was staring curiously at Henry. “It occurred to me,” Henry continued, “that if—er, when—we go to war with the Nordlands, everyone over the age of thirteen will be required to fight.”

  “Thirteen?” Geoffrey scoffed. “I have a brother who’s twelve. He comes up to my waist.”

  “Here’s the other thing,” Henry pressed. “Laws can be changed. I can think of a few students who wouldn’t be here if change were impossible, myself included. So there’s no reason why the conscription laws can’t be abolished. I just know that year sevens shouldn’t be made to kill grown men, especially without training.”

  “So why do we have these laws in the first place?” Luther asked.

  “They’ve been around for hundreds of years,” Derrick said, shaking his head. “Boys used to be apprenticed off at eleven or twelve to ancient knights. They already had combat training by thirteen, and were entering tournaments to fight one another for fun.”

  “Glad I wasn’t alive back then,” Rohan muttered.

  Henry snorted. Secretly he agreed. Because from what he’d learned translating Pugnare and paging through the other books he’d found in the forgotten classroom, ancient knights had fared far worse than their modern counterparts.

  “I only brought it up,” Henry continued, “because I thought it was important. We should be able to discuss things here. After all, battles aren’t won by skill but by strategy.”

  “My strategy is to be skilled,” Jasper called jokingly, making a neat pass with a broadsword.

  “This isn’t a joke,” Derrick said to Jasper. “Henry’s right about that law needing to change. I have a younger brother as well. I don’t want any of you lot handing him a crossbow in the near future—or any Partisan students aiming one in his direction.”

  “It’s a dashed good idea,” Conrad piped up, and everyone turned, knowing that it was Conrad’s father who needed to be convinced. “But it won’t work. My father wouldn’t listen. And even if he did, changing an ancient and technically useless law without reason isn’t exactly a priority at the Ministerium. Not to mention that we need the support of a majority of the House of Lord Ministers to have the law brought up for review. Getting enough signatures could take ages.”

  Henry’s spirits fell. He’d been so certain that this was one thing they could really do—that finally the
headlines would speculate on something good for a change. But he hadn’t thought about getting signatures, or any of the procedures involved in changing a law. It was far more complicated than he’d imagined.

  Everyone drifted out of the basement training room a little less hopeful than before. What good was learning to fight if they were going to lead one another’s younger brothers and cousins onto the battlefield?

  Henry gathered the sabres and waved good-bye to the other battle society members, wondering bitterly if it was even worth trying. He asked Adam as much while they gave the room a final sweep for armory blades.

  “It’s always worth trying if you feel strongly enough,” Adam said, shifting his armload of sabres. “That’s why we took the Knightley Exam, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” Henry said, unconvinced.

  And then a deep voice made them stop cold.

  “Francesca?”

  Henry and Adam exchanged a look of panic before realizing that they were halfway down the corridor from the stairwell to the armory door and had nowhere to hide. Please be Professor Stratford, Henry thought desperately.

  But it wasn’t. Headmaster Winter, in his dressing gown and worn-through bedroom slippers, had reached the top of the stairs. He frowned at Henry and Adam in the feeble circle of light from his lantern.

  “Ah,” Headmaster Winter said unhappily. “You two.”

  Henry gulped. Adam cursed under his breath.

  “Good evening, sir,” Henry mumbled.

  “If you’d be good enough to return those sabres to the armory,” the headmaster said mildly, “I’ll be here when you return.”

  Numbly Henry and Adam pushed open the door to the armory.

  “Bloody hell,” Adam whispered as they opened the weapons cabinet. “We’re in for it.”

  “No, we’re not,” Henry whispered fiercely. “I’m the one who started this. Just agree to whatever I say, and you’ll be fine.”

  “Absolutely not,” Adam protested. “I’m just as guilty as you are. I’ve been hauling weapons all over the school.”

  “Well, we can’t tell him that!” Henry returned.

  “Boys?” the headmaster called. “I think you’ve had enough time to put those blades back in their proper place.”