The grand lady raising such a fuss was none other than Grandmother Winter.
“I don’t care if she’s serving supper to the chancellor himself,” she roared. “I want to see her now!”
Compatriot Erasmus winced and raised a hand to his forehead. “Madam, please. Perhaps ye might wait? We can have the girl brought to my office.”
“I have already seen your office, thank you,” she replied haughtily. “Returning to it would be counterproductive.”
Henry never thought he’d be overjoyed to see Grandmother Winter, but at that moment it was all he could do to keep from grinning ear to ear. They were going back to Knightley!
He nudged Adam, and the two of them began making their way to the front of the crowd. Everyone let them pass. They were all wary of the imperious Brittonian woman, dressed in what looked to be mourning, radiating silent fury at Compatriot Erasmus.
And then Garen hurried into the foyer with a bewildered Frankie in tow.
When Frankie caught sight of Grandmother Winter, the color drained from her face.
“That’s her,” Grandmother Winter said, pointing an accusing finger. “That’s my indentured girl, Francine.”
Frankie gawped as Grandmother Winter shot her a withering glare.
“Two years left in your contract,” she thundered. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Frankie bobbed a pretty little curtsy, too shocked to do anything but play along.
“You are coming home with me and returning to your duties at once,” Grandmother Winter said, grabbing Frankie by the arm. Grandmother Winter pushed her way past an astounded Compatriot Erasmus, dragging Frankie after her.
And then she caught sight of Henry and Adam at the front of the crowd. A flash of recognition crossed her face, but then she narrowed her eyes as if in warning and hurried past.
Henry realized in horror that Grandmother Winter hadn’t been sent to get them after all. She had come by herself—to rescue Frankie.
And she was leaving them behind.
Frankie looked back over her shoulder in panic, as it dawned on her that the performance was over and her grandmother had gotten what she’d come for. Her mouth opened, and her face clouded with a storm of emotions as she stared at Henry and Adam.
Henry watched her go. He stood there in the middle of the foyer with Adam spluttering at his side, and he felt for all the world like that scrawny boy back at the orphanage, watching as a family adopted another orphan, and cruel fate had forsaken his happiness once again.
“I suppose we ought to be glad,” Adam said dubiously.
He sat down on the floor of the stone corridor next to Henry, who was staring at a mop and bucket as though he’d forgotten their purpose. “I mean, we did stay to make certain she’d be all right. I thought the three of us would be stuck here for a month, and no offense, but you two mooning over each other would have driven me mental.”
Henry sighed. He felt as though he were leaking despair, poisoning the corridor with his bitterness. He didn’t know how Adam could stand it.
“Here,” Adam said, tossing a hunk of bread into Henry’s lap. “You didn’t eat your supper. I think you confused your spoon for a mop.”
Henry looked down at the bread and began to eat it without thinking. It tasted as though it had been in Adam’s pocket.
Or maybe that was what despair tasted like—the inside of Adam’s pocket.
Henry was suddenly seized with a fit of laughter at the thought. He nearly choked on the bread.
Adam thumped him on the back, staring at Henry as though he’d lost his mind.
“Sorry,” Henry said. “You’re right. We should be happy about Frankie going home.” He climbed to his feet and brushed the crumbs from his lap.
“Are you all right, mate?” Adam asked.
“No,” Henry said, picking up the mop. “But, then, I’m not the only one having a hideous day.”
“Well, look at it this way—nothing worse can happen.”
“Never say that,” Henry warned.
“Or what? The doctor’s gonna get me?”
Adam gave a halfhearted grin and picked up the spare mop. The two boys set to cleaning the corridor in companionable silence. But a new fear was niggling at the dark recesses of Henry’s mind, one that demanded attention. Had everything changed now that Frankie had returned to Knightley Academy without them? Would they still be credited as rescuing her, three weeks after her safe return, or had Grandmother Winter effectively taken away the only thing that stood between them and expulsion? Because if they didn’t find evidence of combat training, what hope did they really have of becoming knights? Henry wondered if it had occurred to Adam that he might be headed back to the yeshiva after all.
“How do you think I’d do as a patrolman?” Adam asked. “I wanted to be a police knight, but I reckon it’s nearly as good.” So Adam had been thinking the same thing.
Henry shrugged, not wanting to admit out loud to the probability of their impending doom. “You’d be all right.”
“I’d get bored,” Adam said. “It’s rubbish work, just patrolling the streets and slapping cuffs on criminals. The police knights get to do the good bits.”
Henry privately agreed. “And you’d probably have to answer to Theobold or someone,” he said.
“Oi, thanks, mate.”
“Sorry. I’m a bit low on optimism at the moment.”
They finished mopping the corridor and returned the supplies to the cupboard. With Isander and Polen assigned to scrub boots for the next two nights, Henry and Adam were done for the night.
“That bloke who was with Grandmother Winter,” Adam mused as they made their way up to the servants’ lodgings, “was he the one who acted funny when you brought the post?”
“Why?”
“Just curious. I mean, Frankie’s grandmother is terrifying, and it hardly bothered him. I just got the impression that he used to be a lord or something.”
Henry nearly tripped on the stairs.
“What?”“You know, before the revolution,” Adam said with a shrug.
“But all of the aristocrats were killed. If not in the revolution, then after Mors came to power. He had them hung in a public gallows.”
“Not everyone,” Adam said. “I had to do those extra pages for Lord Havelock, remember? I looked it up. He gave them a choice: renounce their title and give over their property, or be killed.”
“So you think Compatriot Erasmus …?”
Adam nodded. But that still didn’t explain why he’d seemed to recognize Henry … unless … Lord Havelock.
“I’ll bet he recognized me from the Inter-School Tournament,” Henry said despairingly. “He does teach history. He’s probably an old friend of Lord Havelock’s.”
They shuddered at the thought, and then they came to the narrow stairs that led to the attic.
“Are we free for the rest of the night?” Adam asked.
Henry nodded. “Why?”
“I think we should go to the library,” Adam said.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Adam?”
“Oi, shut up! I want to see if I can prove it about that Erasmus bloke.”
“All right,” Henry said. He had to admit that he was curious. After all, he’d grown up in the aftermath of the revolution, hearing news whispered in the streets as Chancellor Mors turned tyrant and enacted horrible laws.
Henry had always thought of the revolution as a marker—the point at which the Nordlands became irreparably different from South Britain. He’d never truly considered what it had meant for the Nordlandic aristocracy after their king was murdered. It was a gruesome choice, to be sure: die honorably for the crime of being born noble, or renounce everything and live in a country built upon the bloodshed and hatred of everything you were.
“Er, where is the library?” Adam asked.
Henry shook his head. “Follow me.”
When Henry opened the door to the l
ibrary, he tried very hard not to think about what had happened there the night before. For all he knew, Frankie was on her way to a foreign finishing school, and he’d never gotten the chance to say good-bye.
And if he was kicked out of the academy, there wasn’t much of a chance for him as a suitor. It was as good as finished. Professor Stratford had warned him, and he hadn’t listened, because he hadn’t fully realized what he had to lose … or that he’d cared for Frankie as more than a friend, and always had.
“Oi, Henry?” Adam experimentally poked him in the side.
“What?” Henry asked irritably.
“I was just checking.”
“Sorry. I know I’m not the best company. I’m a bit off at the moment.”
They turned up the gas lamps on either side of the door and headed for the card catalogue.
“What are we looking for?” Henry asked.
“Blimey,” Adam said, letting out a low whistle. He nodded in the direction of the enormous portrait of Chancellor Mors that hung on the far wall. “His eyes just follow you, don’t they?” Adam made a couple of sudden movements, and then walked in a circle, testing his theory.
Henry nearly laughed.
“What’s back here?” Adam called.
“Back where?”
“Restricted reading section.” Adam was already behind the librarian’s desk, eagerly pushing aside a moldering velvet curtain.
“Wait a moment,” Henry said. “Maybe this isn’t the best—” And then he ducked behind the curtain, and his mouth fell open.
Elaborately carved bookshelves stretched to the ceiling, crammed with old volumes, some of which looked hand-lettered, and others that glittered with gold leaf. A stained-glass window depicting a knight in old-fashioned armor pulling a sword from a stone reflected moonlight in jewel-colored patches.
On one wall was an enormous tapestry of The Moste Noble and Ancient City of Romburrowe. It showed a medieval collection of buildings encircled with seven pylons, all guarded by the stone fortress of Prince Artisan’s Keep upon the highest plateau.
In the center of the room was a circular table inlaid with the school crest, an equal-armed cross inside of a diamond. Henry had seen the crest before, but beneath it was etched an unfamiliar motto: Que mon honneur est sans tache.
“ ‘Let my honor be without stain,’” Henry translated.
“Does it really say that?” Adam asked. “My French must be getting worse. I thought it was ‘My honor is without a mustache.’”
Henry snickered, but then forced himself to be serious, as there was nothing funny at all about the “restricted reading section.” Do you reckon this used to be the library?” he asked. “Before the revolution?”
Adam nodded.
“It’s brilliant,” Henry said.
Beneath the stained-glass window was the perfect bench for reading on a rainy afternoon, and the ceiling was painted with angels and men—scenes from holy Scripture.
The library was a relic of the Partisan School’s former glory, and Henry could almost imagine the rivalry between Knightley and Partisan as it had once been: The boys in old-fashioned frock coats competing to see which school had better imparted knowledge to their students. And before that, so very long ago, the boys in bowl haircuts and tunics, breaking their lances in the jousting ring.
Henry examined one of the bookshelves. It held heavy tomes on physick and biologie and astronomye, the spellings as antiquated as the books’ crumbling spines.
“Henry,” Adam whispered.
“What?”
“Come and see this.”
Henry reluctantly left the books to see what Adam had found. It turned out to be a wall of faded tin daguerreotypes, each of them small enough to fit into his hand. They depicted a dozen or so schoolboys standing proudly behind a banner proclaiming them the INTER-SCHOOL TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS, with the year engraved at the bottom. The last of the pictures was dated just two years before the revolution.
Henry squinted at the pictures in the dimness. Suddenly there was a flare of light.
Adam had found a candle and a match, and he was looking rather pleased with himself as he held the light toward the wall of pictures. Henry stared at the tiny images of the boys—from both Knightley and Partisan, he supposed, though the banner obscured their uniforms.
“Poor blokes,” Adam said sadly, shaking his head.
Henry rather agreed. The wall was a haunting reminder of how few of these boys had lived to see their hair streaked with gray.
“Is that? Nah, it can’t be,” Henry said, squinting at a boy who bore a strong resemblance to Fergus Valmont.
“Well, I think I’ve found Compatriot Erasmus,” Adam said, pointing at a picture in the middle of the collection.
Henry looked. He supposed it could have been, but the daguerreotype was old and faded, and there weren’t any names on the pictures. And then another face in the picture made Henry freeze, because the boy holding the left side of the banner could have been his twin.
At first Henry thought he must be seeing things, but the boy in the picture with his old-fashioned slicked-back hair had the same square jaw and large dark eyes as he did. A corner of the boy’s mouth was quirked up, as though he’d just thought of something terribly clever and couldn’t wait to share the joke.
“Blimey,” Adam said, leaning in to investigate. “Is that …?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Henry’s heart pounded. He couldn’t look away. The date on the picture was 1871, more than twenty-five years before.
It was possible. Henry held on to this knowledge. When they got back to Knightley, he could go through the class registers for 1871. He could know the one thing he’d always told himself didn’t matter—because they’d never come back for him—the identity of his parents.
And then they heard voices in the corridor. Adam cursed; they’d left the lights on in the library. “Come on,” Adam said, tugging insistently on Henry’s sleeve.
Henry gave the picture one last tortured glance before following Adam back through the velvet curtain and into the dreary library dominated by the portrait of the chancellor.
They each turned down a gas lamp and stood with their backs pressed against the wall, trying to catch their breath.
The voices and footsteps passed.
The boys waited a few minutes, and then Adam opened the door and they crept into the hall. To the left was the main stairs, and beyond that was the servants’ stairs, which would eventually take them up to the attic. To the right was a long, dark corridor—and the secret room Frankie had found on the map.
For Henry it wasn’t a choice. He nodded in the direction of the corridor.
“Our beds are that way,” Adam whispered, pointing in the opposite direction. And then he sighed. “But who needs sleep?”
They headed down the corridor, Adam still holding the candle to light the way. The castle was drafty at night, and the candle flickered, casting wiry shadows along the stone walls.
And then they heard footsteps. Adam blew out the candle, and he and Henry pressed their backs against the wall, trying not to breathe.
It was Garen. He held a dark lantern and wore a dressing gown as he crept down the corridor, passing within an arm’s length of Henry and Adam.
They watched as Garen stopped next to an ancient stone fountain carved into the wall of the castle, and reached his hand into the basin. The slab of wall groaned and swung aside, revealing a doorway.
Garen stepped primly through, and the slab of stone swung back into place, once again an innocent decoration.
“Come on,” Henry whispered.
“It might be dangerous. We don’t know what’s behind that wall.”
“One way to find out.”
Henry laid his ear against the wall, listening.
He heard voices inside.
Was this it? Had the combat training room been moved here?
Henry motioned impatiently for Adam to join him.
/> Adam sighed and ambled over. And then his toe hit an uneven patch of the stone floor, and the candleholder tipped, spilling hot melted wax onto his hand.
“Aahhh!” Adam cried, and then clapped a hand over his mouth.
But it was too late. The hidden door creaked open, and this time it was Florian who peered into the hallway, holding a lantern.
He grabbed Henry by the arm. “Got ye,” he sneered, hanging the lantern from a peg and grabbing a handful of Adam’s shirtfront. “Now both of ye come inside and explain yerselves.” Florian marshaled them through a short passageway that quickly widened into a large, echoing chamber.
A moth-eaten Partisan School banner hung from the wall, but the chamber held no weapons. Instead there was an enormous round table encircled with a motley assortment of chairs appropriated from different parts of the castle. The table was covered with dozens of candles that formed an equal-armed cross. And seated around this table were Garen, the bespectacled boy who had tripped over the polish bottle, Compatriot Erasmus, and five others whom Henry didn’t recognize. Two were teachers, one looked like a member of the serving staff, and two were students.
Henry tried not to panic.
“Found them spying in the corridor,” Florian said with a painful twist of Henry’s arm. “What shall I do with them?”
Compatriot Erasmus held up a hand. “Search them. And then they will tell us everything.”
Adam whimpered at Compatriot Erasmus’s statement—or threat. Either way, it sounded ominous.
Before Henry could react, Florian was patting him down, as though suspecting that Henry kept knives sheathed to the backs of his legs. Garen had taken hold of Adam and was roughly doing the same.
“Nothing,” Florian said.
Garen nodded in confirmation.
“Henry, wasn’t it?” Compatriot Erasmus said. “Have a seat. I dinnae think I know your friend.”
“That’s Adam,” Garen said. “They arrived together.”
The Secret Prince Page 25