The Secret Prince Part 9

"Valmont called them *Ministerium brats,' " Henry said. "What does it matter what their fathers do?"

"Well," Professor Stratford hedged, "their families are responsible for the laws that forbid combat training."

"What?" Adam asked, scandalized.

Henry stared at the professor in shock.

"Hadn't you realized?" Professor Stratford asked. "Ah, apparently not. The t.i.tle of *lord minister' is hereditary, pa.s.sed on through the generations along with the responsibility of the post. Lord Marchbanks is the Lord Minister of Foreign Relations, and Lord Flyte is the Lord Minister of Ways and Means, just as their fathers were before them, and just as your friends will be. Ah, come in, Ellen."

The maid entered with the tea tray, which clattered loudly as she placed it on top of the precarious stack of magazines on Professor Stratford's desk. Henry leapt up and only just rescued a wayward platter of scones as it surged toward the carpet. Henry gave her a disdainful look as he placed the scones back onto the tray.

"I'd like to see you try breakin' yer back haulin' tea services up three flights o' stairs," Ellen muttered.

At this, Henry, Adam, and Professor Stratford collectively snorted. Ellen bristled, not understanding the joke, and flounced from the room as though she strongly suspected they were making fun of her.

The tea was lovely, though-fresh hot scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream, and a pot of chamomile tea with honey. Adam munched his way enthusiastically through a second scone while Henry filled Professor Stratford in on their first week of cla.s.ses. When he reached the part about Valmont and Theobold in the common room, the professor seemed oddly troubled by Theobold's behavior.

"I'm proud of you for that, Henry," Professor Stratford said, absently stirring his tea with the jam knife. "It is a good man who stands up for his friends, but an honorable man who stands up for his enemies."

"Who said that?" Henry asked with the hint of a smile, recognizing his old tutor's trick of sounding as though he were quoting.

"I did, just now," Professor Stratford returned with a lopsided grin. "And I know you've had your differences with Valmont, but he could use some friends."

"He has friends," Adam muttered through a mouthful of scone.

"Is he playing in the cricket match?" Professor Stratford inquired.

Henry frowned, realizing that Valmont had been absent from trials. James hadn't invited him.

Professor Stratford nodded knowingly at the boys' silence. "With popularity comes responsibility," Professor Stratford said.

"I know," Henry said miserably, recounting to the professor how he'd accidentally ignored Frankie, and how she'd refused to accept his apology. Adam interrupted a few times, mostly to accuse Rohan of enjoying the debacle. And though Henry was careful to avoid accusing Frankie of deliberately giving them the wrong hour for that afternoon's visit, Professor Stratford seemed to guess.

"I can tell this is something neither of you wants to hear," Professor Stratford said, leaning back in his chair, "but allowances are made for those who need them. If you have become friends with your peers, one might wonder why Frankie is still climbing through your dormitory window-and, yes, I know that's what she was doing."

"I ... well ...," Henry began, at a loss for words. "It was n.o.ble of you three to be her friends last term," the professor continued, "but you need to think carefully here. Do you want to seize this opportunity to fit in, or do you want to mark yourselves as permanent outsiders? Frankie won't be around forever, but friends.h.i.+ps forged during one's school days are everlasting."

"You're on Rohan's side," Adam said despairingly. "There are no sides. There's only what you choose to do," Professor Stratford gently corrected.

"No, Adam's right," Henry said, upset by Professor Stratford's urging for them to abandon, rather than mend, their broken friends.h.i.+p with Frankie. "There are sides, and this isn't about Frankie. You want us to stay out of trouble and ignore everything that happened last term."

Professor Stratford pressed his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he looked tired. "Henry, you are not responsible for what you saw in the Nordlands."

"I thought the truth was supposed to set you free," Henry returned. "But all I see are chains. Don't be friends with Frankie. Stay out of trouble. Keep to the path and make good marks in school and let the grownups handle things."

"Those are the best things you can do right now," Professor Stratford said. "Truly, my boy, I have your best interest at heart. There is nothing preventing you from earning your knighthood. You have this incredible opportunity before you, and I don't want you to lose it chasing after shadows and rumors."

"You didn't seem to mind it last term."

"Last term, someone was trying to sabotage your every move. You needed every ally you could get, and you had no choice but to fight back."

"Just because you think you're out of range doesn't mean you can't still be attacked," Henry said. "It's like what the fencing master said: The unbeatable attack comes when you imagine yourself to be safe, when you've been tricked into letting down your defenses."

Professor Stratford blanched. "I think you need to tell me what else your professors have been saying," the professor said, suddenly wary.

"Oh, good. Does this mean you two are no longer fighting?" Adam asked hopefully.

"Barely," Henry said, his voice strained. "And if you must know, Admiral Blackwood has us doing marching drills for some b.l.o.o.d.y parade, Lord Havelock's doing a study of failed revolutions, and Lingua has us reading about Troy."

Professor Stratford ran a hand over his face and stared solemnly at Henry and Adam. Henry could see that his former tutor was very troubled by this news indeed, and that, in his own excitement over becoming friends with the other boys in his year, Henry had ignored hints of something quite serious.

"It seems I owe you an apology," the professor said slowly. "I didn't realize it had already progressed this far. I didn't know they were preparing you for ..."

Henry raised an eyebrow, waiting for the professor to say that horrible, forbidden word.

A knock sounded at the door.

They all jumped.

"Professor? Is my poetry book on your desk?"

"Er, no, Francesca, I don't see it," Professor Stratford called back.

"You never look properly," Frankie complained, pus.h.i.+ng open the door. When she saw Henry and Adam, she stiffened. "Oh, it's you two."

"Good afternoon, Miss Winter," Henry said, trying to pretend that they'd been having a pleasant, light conversation, possibly about the weather.

"There!" Frankie fairly yelled, pointing an accusing finger at Henry. "You see? Exactly like that." She looked to Professor Stratford, who was suddenly quite preoccupied with his pocket watch.

Henry glared. "Don't talk to him about me," he said hotly.

"Don't make me want to hit you," Frankie returned.

"Go ahead," Henry challenged. "Hit a knight. That's a brilliant plan."

"You're not a knight," Frankie practically screamed. "You're just an infuriating little boy."

"Blimey, someone laced her corset too tight," Adam muttered.

"Stop!" Professor Stratford said sharply.

Henry flushed guiltily. He hadn't meant to quarrel in front of the professor, but now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember why he'd ever wanted to be friends with Frankie in the first place. He didn't understand her at all.

"You've been brought up to behave better than this," Professor Stratford said, and then, with a glance in Henry's direction, he winced a bit at his choice of words. "No more yelling, no more fighting. I don't care who did what-"

"He kissed my hand," Frankie complained.

"She gave me a black eye," Henry accused.

"I don't care," Professor Stratford continued mildly, daring them to interrupt him again. "This is not how ladies and gentlemen conduct themselves, and it needs to end now, before you two wind up scandalizing each other's reputations and are forced into an ironclad engagement."

Adam choked.

Henry's teacup clattered loudly against his saucer. Frankie pouted.

"I'll take your silence to mean that everything is forgiven and behind you," Professor Stratford said with a sense of finality. "And now, Francesca, would you care to join us for a short and pleasant visit before our guests depart?"

Frankie shook her head. "No, I'll-Er, I have some French to finish. Sorry about your eye, Henry."

"It was an accident," Henry muttered diplomatically.

"And, Adam?" Frankie said, her hand on the doork.n.o.b. "If you ever accuse me of being laced too tightly again, you'll wish you didn't sleep in the bed right next to that ground-floor window...."

With a wicked grin at the look of horror on Adam's face, she slammed the door.

9.

THE MYSTERIOUS MAP.

For the remainder of the weekend, a dismal atmosphere settled over the dormitory. The first years had lost appallingly at cricket, and, to make matters worse, Jasper Hallworth had taken bets on the match.

Henry tried to listen sympathetically to Rohan's outraged play-by-plays, as he felt guilty for missing it, but by Sunday afternoon his sympathy had worn thin. As soon as lunch ended, Henry ducked off to a quiet corner of the castle, built himself a fortress out of his textbooks, and settled in for an afternoon of reading.

Twenty arduous pages of Latin later, Henry abandoned the dry recounting of the Trojan War and stared across the way at the antique suits of armor, idly wondering if knights really had worn them in battle.

Well, they certainly weren't an art installation, he thought, noticing one suit of armor that would have easily encompa.s.sed even Professor Lingua's enormous girth. But if there were so many suits of armor, what had happened to the weapons? Henry frowned, remembering his visits last summer to the Royal Museum. He didn't recall any collections of antique halberds and crossbows, although he had seen a prototype of an ancient firearm-nonworking, of course-beneath a thick panel of gla.s.s. He'd been fascinated, as firearms were known to be the most evil weapon ever invented, although he suspected Frankie would have argued a fair point for corsets or irregular verb conjugations.

Verbs. Henry sighed, staring down at the dense print of his Latin textbook. He returned to his homework until the sun was slanting through the latticed windows and his legs had gone stiff from sitting.

To everyone's horror they had drills first thing Monday morning. Admiral Blackwood spent a painful hour rotating the students alphabetically as drill leaders, all the while scribbling notes on a clipboard.

When it was Henry's turn, he couldn't quite bring himself to shout orders at his cla.s.smates. "Er, halt," Henry mumbled, embarra.s.sed.

Conrad, who was leading the drill along with Henry, snorted. "You have to be more forceful, Grim," he said. "First years! Halt!"

Everyone came to a neat stop.

"Good, Flyte!" called Admiral Blackwood, scribbling a note. "Now swap out, lads. Next three!"

Conrad, Henry, and Pevensey jogged back into formation.

Finally the last of their cla.s.smates had rotated through commanding the drill, and Admiral Blackwood called them all back to the thatch-castle thing.

"Right, lads. Let's see how you do marching with flags."

Two school servants struggled into the quadrangle, carrying a dozen heavy wooden poles between them. Each pole ended in a sharp point, like an old-fas.h.i.+oned jousting lance, and featured a dingy flag made from what looked suspiciously like a mended tablecloth.

Derrick snickered and muttered something to Luther about knights waving table linens.

"These are practice flags," Admiral Blackwood said, hefting a pole from the top of the pile and unhooking the tablecloth. "A bit st.u.r.dier than the real thing, I daresay. Good for building muscles. You'll be learning the basics first, but I suppose an advanced demonstration couldn't hurt." Admiral Blackwood began to whirl the practice flag with surprising agility for a man of nearly sixty. Henry and the other first years watched in awe as the drills master went through a complicated series of twists and turns that were anything but laughable.

Henry had been half-expecting a feeble display of flag waving, but Admiral Blackwood's demonstration was far tougher and more intimidating than he'd imagined. It was almost ... warlike. As soon as he thought it, Henry realized why Admiral Blackwood had really come to Knightley Academy. On the first night of term, Headmaster Winter had warned them about changes to the curriculum. Henry had thought Headmaster Winter had simply meant that the professors would be teaching them about war, but this was far more serious than the fencing master's offhand lesson about the strategy behind an attack. Because Admiral Blackwood wasn't preparing them to march in a parade any more than Professor Lingua was preparing them for a fulfilling career composing Latin verse. No, Admiral Blackwood was instructing them in combat-combat disguised as flag twirling.

Henry watched Admiral Blackwood whirl the pole through an elaborate defensive pattern and knew that he was right. He glanced over at Derrick, who was no longer snickering or making snide comments about flag twirling knights. Derrick's expression was quite sober indeed.

By Monday afternoon a full-blown cold front settled over the school, and the eaves dripped with icicles.

"It's nearly February," Adam complained at supper.

"I thought you liked the snow," said Rohan.

"This isn't snow," Adam pointed out. "It's ice and slush."

He was right. It was ice and slush, and rather a lot of it. The threat of snow hung over the castle's thatched roof and clung to the turrets of the surrounding cottages, but each morning brought nothing more than frigid wetness.

No one ventured outdoors if he could help it, and drills were canceled for the rest of the week, much to the chagrin of Admiral Blackwood. The fencing master grudgingly allowed students use of the armory for open bouts during the afternoons-but of course the second and third years quickly laid claim.

And so Henry and his friends spent a few restless afternoons playing cards and checkers in the cramped common room before Derrick suggested they explore the castle. Conrad, who was good at art, copied maps of the main building from a book he'd found in the library.

"We've got two maps," Derrick said, taking charge as usual. "I'm claiming the upper floors and towers. Who's coming with me?"

"I will," Henry said, and was surprised when Rohan decided to join them.

They spent the better part of an hour following the map through the upper cla.s.srooms. More than once their conversation lapsed into uncomfortable stretches of silence. Henry wondered how Conrad, Edmund, and Adam were fairing.

And then Rohan opened the door to an odd tower cla.s.sroom, and they stepped into what appeared to be an immense wardrobe. There was an entire shelf of nothing but top hats, ranging in material from the most expensive silk to the cheapest felt. Below that was an a.s.sortment of spectacles: half-moons and pince-nez and wire-framed with the lenses tinted bottle green. A rack of opera capes sat next to a selection of worn traveling cloaks, and one table was covered with pots of what looked suspiciously like ladies' cosmetics.

"Brilliant," Derrick said, scribbling a note on the map.

"What is this place?" Henry asked, fascinated.

Rohan had wandered over to the cosmetics table and was frowning at the jars of pigment.

"You know how we choose a specialty at the end of our second year?" Derrick began.

"We don't truly choose," Rohan corrected. "They make us sit an exam."

"Of course," Derrick said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "But it's supposedly rather obvious which answers correspond with which specialty. Anyhow, I'd wager this is for those studying to become knight detectives. Looks like the art room."

"As in *art of disguise'?" Henry asked, holding a fake handlebar mustache above his lip.