The Secret Prince Part 17

"Well, I do."

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 bra.s.s 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, flus.h.i.+ng 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 bra.s.s 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 penmans.h.i.+p 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 cla.s.s, lad, with your pen poised over the right side of the page. You studied at the yes.h.i.+va, 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 ta.s.sels 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 yes.h.i.+va and getting beaten up by my cla.s.smates."

"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 bas.e.m.e.nt, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 s.h.i.+elded 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-wors.h.i.+pped 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 a.s.signment.

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, s.n.a.t.c.hing 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?"