The Secret Prince Part 4

"What's the matter?" Henry asked.

"I just ... I'm not certain that being friends with Frankie is necessary."

"Friends.h.i.+p has nothing to do with necessity," Henry pointed out. "You become friends with someone because you want to."

"Well, last term we didn't have a choice." Rohan paused significantly. "But this term we do."

"What do you mean?"

"We're not outsiders anymore. James and Derrick are perfectly respectable, and quite friendly. We should be sitting in the common room with our cla.s.smates, not boosting ladies' maids through our bedroom window."

"If it means so much to you, go ahead," Henry snapped, and then felt instantly ashamed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

"Well, I did," Rohan whispered fiercely. "I didn't come to Knightley to separate myself from my peers. No one's sabotaging us anymore. We can be normal. We can fit in." Henry heard the yearning in his friend's voice and realized it was different for Rohan. He'd been raised the same as their cla.s.smates, been brought up with private tutors and expensive toys. Rohan only looked like an outsider, and clearly he was tired of being one.

"Just because the other students are being friendly doesn't mean we can fit in," Henry returned. "After everything that happened last term, how can you think that we'd ever be the same as everyone else? You were poisoned and expelled. They played cricket."

"Well, I wanted to play cricket, but no one asked."

"Fine. Next hour free, I hope you do and have a sparkling good time," Henry whispered crossly. "Good night."

Henry stared up at the ceiling, a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. Did Rohan truly resent being their roommate? He knew that Rohan and Adam hadn't always gotten along, but, then, Adam could be ma.s.sively frustrating.

"Henry," Rohan whispered urgently.

"What?"

"I didn't mean it like that."

"How did you mean it?"

"I just thought we could be friends with the other boys. All of us. Well, maybe not Frankie, but, to be honest, she won't be coming round much longer."

Henry didn't reply.

"She has a chaperone now," Rohan continued. "You might not know what that means, but I do. She's nearly sixteen. What will her suitors think if she's climbing through our window?"

"It's her choice."

"It doesn't reflect well on any of us," Rohan said. "What girls will accept our courts.h.i.+p if they think we're spending our nights with someone else, or if they imagine us to be the sort of boys who willingly let girls compromise their propriety?"

Henry frowned. He was relatively certain no girls would be interested in them either way.

"Just think about the future," Rohan whispered in a maddeningly superior tone. "And see if what I'm suggesting wouldn't be the best option over time."

Henry fell asleep still unsure what exactly Rohan meant-about everything.

5.

THE NEW PROFESSOR.

Athin layer of snow coated the grounds the next morning. Henry groaned and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, glimpsing a weary, gray morning that looked the way he felt. He'd forgotten how very early they were expected to wake up at school.

An insistent peal of bells sounded from the direction of the chapel. Adam curled into a ball and clamped his pillow over his head.

Rohan was already fastening his cuffs by the time Henry mustered enough enthusiasm to crawl out from beneath his warm blankets. "Snow's already melting," Rohan said with a tentative smile.

Henry smiled blandly back. No doubt Rohan was hoping to be chosen for cricket during that afternoon's hour free.

With a sigh Henry pulled the blanket off Adam. "Up," he said. "Chapel."

Adam moaned and swatted Henry away uselessly.

"It's snowing," Henry said enticingly, knowing that Adam loved snow.

"Is it?" Adam, suddenly wide awake, dashed to the window. His face fell. "It's only a bit of leftover frost. Already melting."

Even though the snow was mostly slush, that didn't stop Theobold from lagging behind to relace his boots outside of chapel that morning. Henry watched as Theobold smuggled a handful of slush into the chapel, which he slid down the back of Edmund's collar.

Edmund yelped, disrupting the prayer, as every head swiveled in his direction. With a muttered apology he sunk down low in the pew, his face bright red.

Theobold bit back laughter as Edmund s.h.i.+vered through the service.

At breakfast Henry heaped eggs and toast onto two plates.

"Couldn't afford meals over the holiday?" Valmont asked through a mouthful of bacon.

Henry snorted. "At least I don't insult people's manners with my mouth full of food," he said, pa.s.sing the second plate to Edmund, who had just run breathlessly into the dining hall.

"Thanks," Edmund said, sliding into the seat next to Henry and fastening the cuffs of a dry s.h.i.+rt. "I thought everything would be gone."

James, who was having only a blueberry scone, reached for the saltshaker. He fiddled with it for a moment, while staring wistfully at the eggs, and then put it back down. "Are the eggs still overcooked this term?" he asked Rohan.

"Unfortunately," Rohan said, and Henry frowned as he swallowed a mouthful of perfectly cooked eggs.

Two seats down, Theobold grabbed for the salt-shaker and tipped it over his plate. The cap flew off, landing in his tea. A mountain of salt emptied onto his breakfast.

James's shoulders shook as he held back laughter. Rohan nearly choked on a sip of juice. Adam grinned broadly and asked Edmund to please pa.s.s the last of the eggs.

"You should finish the sausages. They're excellent this morning," Edmund said, dumping the remainder of the hot breakfast onto Henry's plate while Theobold fumed.

Medicine was the first cla.s.s of the morning.

Ever since Sir Frederick's betrayal, the cla.s.sroom had felt sinister to Henry-haunted, almost, by horrible memories. But that morning the eerie atmosphere seemed to have gone. Winter sunlight flooded through the latticed windows, and the radiator in the corner clanged impatiently. The shelves behind the master's desk, which had once housed human skulls and rolls of bandage, were now crowded with jewel-stoppered apothecary bottles, upright magnifying gla.s.ses, and a rather battered set of scales.

Henry, Adam, and Rohan chose seats in the middle. All around them students whispered about the new professor: "... a knight detective, I heard."

"... graduated in my cousin's year. Top of the cla.s.s."

"... can't be more than thirty."

Henry had just removed a fresh notebook from his satchel when their new professor limped into the room carrying a black medical bag with a dozen bra.s.s buckles, and leaning on a worn mahogany cane. His master's gown had clearly been made to fit someone a great deal shorter and wider, and his tweeds, though very fine, were thin with wear. With the help of his cane the new medicine master slowly made his way to the front of the cla.s.sroom, deposited his bag on the front table, and raised an eyebrow at his students.

"Well," he prompted, "what can you deduce?"

The students stared.

"No need to raise your hands, lads. Just shout it out."

Edmund, who sheepishly raised his hand anyway, said, "Your name is Sir Robert."

"No, no!" their new professor cried. "I did not ask what you already know-what you have been told. I stand in front of you. What can you perceive, here and now?"

No one dared to speak.

Finally Henry cleared his throat and called out, "That gown wasn't made for you, sir."

"Excellent! What else?" the professor asked.

Encouraged, other students began to call out: His cuffs were frayed; his hair was inexpertly trimmed; he favored his left leg.

The professor raised a hand for silence. "Well done, the lot of you! You have keen powers of observation. And, yes, by the way, my name is Sir Robert." He nodded in Edmund's direction. "You were quite right about that. I am also a knight detective, which means that not so many years ago I, too, attended Knightley Academy." Their new professor took a seat on top of the master's desk, which caused some whispering.

"I sat in the same desks, studied in the same library alcoves, and fell asleep in the same chapel pews, but, like you, I also worried over something of far greater importance.

"At the end of my third year, we began to hear news from the Nordlands, news of a brewing revolution. We watched the rise of the Draconian party with horror, fearing what a similar uprising here in South Britain would mean for our families. Those were dark times, boys. Times of great doubt, and of terrible rumors."

Sir Robert paused significantly.

"Medicine is a practical discipline," he said, "but the skills you learn in this cla.s.sroom are not limited to the a.s.sessment 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 a.s.signment," 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 a.s.signment, 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 a.s.signment on the front board.

"You have until the end of cla.s.s," Lord Havelock intoned, "to demonstrate whether you have completed the a.s.signed 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 a.s.sign 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 a.s.signment to the letter, Henry still felt as though he'd turned up with his homework unfinished.