The Secret Prince Part 31

"Becky came back," a burly lad called Brander grunted.

"Missing a finger an' with her toes all black!" Isander shrilled.

At the mention of black toes, Adam shuddered and looked down at the purple soup as though just remembering that he disliked it.

"Did she say what happened?" Henry asked.

Brander narrowed his eyes at Henry.

"Aye, she said," he grunted. "Said the doctor came for 'er, and it was him that did it, writin' down note of her ev'ry scream."

At this, everyone s.h.i.+fted uneasily.

"The doctor?" Henry asked with a calculated frown, hoping for an explanation.

"Aye, you know the legend. He come for those unfortunates out after curfew, and when he's done, they scream instead of sleep, and can't bear the dark, and some are missin' fingers or toes, an' some are blackened or blistered, an' no one knows why, but it's the doctor that done it," Brander said, and then he raised his bowl of soup to his mouth and slurped it like coffee.

"So if she came back, where is she?" Henry asked.

"Quit after a couple days," Brander said. "No one had the heart to give 'er the boot, though she worked none and sat by the fire all night so close she nearly burnt the tip o' her nose."

Even though Henry was bursting with questions, he forced himself to keep quiet. After all, tension was running high at the moment, and he didn't want to draw any unnecessary attention. That was all he needed, to be suspected of being an outsider. But there was something oddly familiar about what Brander had said ...

And then it came to him, and he nearly dropped his spoon into his soup in surprise. Back in the kitchens at Knightley, Liza had talked about medical experiments in the Nordlands. What was it she'd said? Henry frowned, remembering: People keep disappearin', an' when they come back, they ain't right.

Well, that settled the question of what had caused everyone to be so spooked. Henry had to admit, he was a bit unsettled himself. No wonder the servants at Knightley had been too afraid to go on the envoy.

As Henry and Adam collected the boots that night from outside the doors of the senior-ranked students, Henry mentioned what Liza had said about medical experiments in the Nordlands.

"So there's a creepy bloke doing creepy things," Adam said. "If you ask me, we should stay well away from it."

"I know," Henry said, grimacing over an absolutely filthy pair of boots that he was forced to toss into the basket by their laces.

"Good," Adam said. "Because I don't want to wind up like that bloke from our expulsion hearing."

Henry stopped short. "What?"

"You know," Adam said with a shrug. "That viscount who came up here after we told him about that combat training room."

Henry stared at Adam in shock but couldn't deny that Viscount DuBeous had gone up to the Nordlands in search of combat training rooms, and had come back with rope marks around his wrist, refusing to say what had happened.

The boys heard footsteps behind them and stiffened. Henry turned.

It was Frankie. She pushed back a few strands of hair that had escaped from her kerchief, and wrinkled her nose at the basket of boots. "Who's been mucking around in the stables?" she asked.

Henry glanced at the basket and sighed. "Everyone, from the looks of it. You'd think they'd be afraid to go outside, what with the doctor on the loose."

"So you've heard the stories too?" Frankie asked, joining their procession down the hall. They quickly compared notes.

"Is it possible," Frankie asked thoughtfully, as they reached the end of the hall, "that what you saw last term was a torture chamber?"

"I think I can tell the difference," Henry snapped, and then he frowned, considering. No, that was impossible. The room he'd seen had been filled with weapons, but also charts, ranking the students in armed and unarmed combat. Besides which, torture wasn't a violation of the Longsword Treaty, strictly speaking. But combat training was. Why disguise a room as the far more dangerous choice?

Henry explained as much.

"I was only supposing," Frankie muttered.

"And torture isn't the same as medical experiments," Henry said, nettled. "Medical experiments are investigative."

"Maybe someone wants to investigate how much it hurts to chop off people's fingers?" Adam asked.

Henry snorted. And then Adam gave a tremendous yawn, nearly dropping the basket of boots. Guiltily Henry remembered his promise to let Adam get some much needed rest.

"I can do the boots myself, if you want to get to bed early," Henry offered.

Adam brightened and then, as though it pained him to do so, shook his head at the offer. "You've been cleaning up after me all week."

"I didn't think you'd noticed," Henry admitted, embarra.s.sed.

"Well, I didn't want to boast about it," Adam said. "Might give you a complex."

"A complex?"

"That I'm so much better suited to the loafish lifestyle of the aristocracy," Adam said.

Henry swung the basket of boots at him, and Adam ducked out of the way, grinning.

"Boys," Frankie said, rolling her eyes. "If you're quite finished?"

"Sorry," they chorused.

In the end Adam did go up to bed, and Frankie kept Henry company in the scullery as he scrubbed and polished. She craned her neck at Henry's task. "How can you stand it?"

They sat side by side on the stone steps, and Henry was scrubbing patiently at a boot that strongly wished to remain soiled. They were alone, aside from the beetles that scuttled along the floorboards. The castle was dark and quiet, and there was a sort of peacefulness to the rhythm of the task that Henry found oddly comforting.

"Because I've done it before, I suppose," he said.

"I just can't picture it," Frankie pressed on. "I've spent five days in the company of the other servants, and all I keep thinking is, *How did Henry grow up doing this?'"

He shrugged. "I didn't, really. It was only a year at the Midsummer School after I left the orphanage. And it wasn't long before Professor Stratford started giving me lessons."

"A year is a long time," Frankie argued. "Think where we might be a year from now."

Henry grimaced.

Frankie winced slightly and picked at a stain on her skirt. "I didn't mean it," she said. "Back at Knightley, about your dying in a war."

"I know. But at least you were brave enough to say the words. No one else seems to be able to."

Frankie nodded. She stared at Henry, who was intent on scrubbing the muck off those old boots, as though the task was in no way beneath his dignity. His hair was falling into his face again, but then he looked up, shook back his hair, and grinned, showing that all was forgiven.

"I don't know how we're going to stand a month here," Frankie said.

"It could be less. You did leave your bag on the train. Someone might have found it. Maybe the board of trustees is arranging a rescue mission at this very moment."

"Or an engagement party, more like," Frankie said mischievously. "I wonder, which of you boys should I claim as my corrupter?" She'd started off joking, but somehow the cold seeping from the bas.e.m.e.nt walls and the way they had unconsciously sat so close to each other on the stairs made the joke into something quite serious.

"Are you finished yet?" Frankie asked with a pout.

"Almost."

"I think Garen sounds perfectly hilarious when he speaks," Frankie insisted a bit too loudly, scooting over on the step so that her skirts weren't quite so near to Henry.

Henry considered this as he buffed a pair of boots. "You're right, actually. It's like his grammar is studied, but backward."

"Backward?"

"He's deliberate about his mistakes, not their corrections."

"I just meant that he sometimes bleats when he's nervous," Frankie said.

Henry grinned. "That, too."

"Well, you can do a Nordlandic accent perfectly. I've heard you speaking to the other serving boys," Frankie said.

"I pick up languages quickly." Henry shrugged. "Accents, too. Adam's been ribbing me for spending too much time around Derrick."

Frankie snorted. "Oh, frightfully sorry," she said, her blue eyes mocking. "Please forgive that hideously improper lapse in behavior."

Henry shook his head. "He doesn't sound as bad as that."

"Who said anything about Derrick? I was doing an impression of you," she said innocently. "And how do you find the weather, Mr. Grim, this time of year?"

Henry threw a rag at her.

She spluttered indignantly before realizing it was one of the spares.

Henry finished with the boots soon after. His back ached as he stretched, and he wanted to do nothing so much as crawl into bed, but Frankie was wide awake, her blue eyes s.h.i.+ning in antic.i.p.ation of that night's adventure.

"I have an idea," Frankie said as Henry scoured his hands in the scullery sink.

"Just for the record," Henry stated, "I have come to fear all of your ideas in advance, simply from having endured enough of them."

"Be glad you weren't on the receiving end," Frankie said with an evil grin. "But I think you'll like this one. I propose that before we spend another night aimlessly wandering the castle, we go to the library and see if we can find some blueprints."

Henry stared at Frankie in surprise. That wasn't a horrible idea at all. In fact, he should have thought of it days ago.

"You don't think Adam will be disappointed that we went to the library without him?" Henry asked with a hint of a smile.

"Oh, he'll be furious." Frankie grabbed Henry's hand. "Come on."

The library, when they reached it, had closed for the night. The gas jets were turned low, thrusting the contents of the bookshelves into shadow. But even in the dimness Henry could tell that the library was a disappointment. Without standing on tiptoe he could reach the top shelves, and the room was anything but cozy.

There were two long tables where students could study, and uncomfortable-looking chairs pockmarked with graffiti. On the wall across from the study tables was an enormous oil painting of a glowering Chancellor Mors.

"Come on," Frankie said, pulling Henry over to the card catalogues, past a trolley piled so high with unwanted books that it looked ready to topple. "We need books on the school."

They looked up the section number, and then squinted at the shelves, searching for the section. When they found it, Henry turned up the nearby gas jet.

"You don't think anyone will see, do you?" he asked nervously.

Frankie shook her head. "There aren't any windows."

She sat down on the floor, her back against a collection of farmer' almanacs, and began to page through one of the most likely volumes. Henry sat with his back against the opposite shelf, his legs cramped by the narrowness of the aisle.

He'd forgotten how hard it was to sit and read books at the end of a long day's work. He didn't know how he'd done it every night back at the Midsummer School.

"I loathe this thing," Frankie said, taking off her kerchief. "It makes me feel like a country milkmaid."

"Those poor cows," Henry said, picking up the next volume in the stack and flipping to the index. They sat for a few minutes, paging silently through their books.

"Here, I've found a map," Henry said, spreading the volume, a bulky folio, across his knees.

Frankie scooted closer to have a look.

"This is the hidden room where I saw the weapons last term," Henry said, tracing the corridor with his finger.

"How can you tell?"

Henry quickly explained about the hidden door.

"I just look for a room that has a door pretending to be a wall?" Frankie asked, and Henry nodded.

She scowled at the book on Henry's lap, her hair falling forward over her shoulder. Henry gulped.

"There," Frankie said, pointing.

"Hmmm." Henry frowned at the page. "I think you're right. Where is that?"

"Looks like it's near the library, actually," Frankie said.

"Do you reckon we should take a look now? Or should we wait for Adam?"

"He'll never forgive us," Frankie said solemnly.

"No, he won't," Henry replied just as seriously.

And before either of them knew what was happening, they were kissing.