The Secret Prince Part 30

The members of the battle society listened, and even Valmont had to admit that the Ministerium brat had a way with words. "I know that rumors spread treacherously, and I felt as though everyone in this room deserved to know the truth," Derrick continued. "No matter what cover story Headmaster Winter or our heads of year are going to come up with, that's what happened."

After Derrick had finished, the room was silent, everyone considering what they'd just heard. And then Edmund raised his hand as though in lecture.

"Yes, Merrill?" Derrick called.

"What are we going to do about it?" Edmund asked.

"Beg pardon?" Derrick frowned.

"We're still here, the lot of us. There has to be something we can do," Edmund said.

"What, like hop on the next train to the Nordlands?" a third year asked.

"No," Edmund retorted. "Like keep the battle society going."

Headmaster Winter announced that Henry and Adam had taken seriously ill and had been sent to a hospital in the city, but no one believed it.

Rohan watched the students file out of the chapel that morning, and more than once he caught the eye of another member of the battle society, but no one stopped to speak with him. He asked Derrick about this at breakfast.

Derrick topped off his tea and shrugged. "Well, every one might be thinking that you're a bit of a coward," Derrick admitted.

"A c-coward?" Rohan spluttered.

"Your friends all went off to prevent a war and change the laws, and you sort of ... stayed here and disapproved."

"Of course I stayed here and disapproved. It was the only sensible option," Rohan returned. "I didn't think everyone would consider them heroes for behaving recklessly." And then he caught sight of Theobold, who was straining to hear their conversation from the other end of the table. Theobold grinned. "Feeling a bit under the weather, Mehta?" Theobold asked loudly.

"Not at all," Rohan said.

"If I were you, I'd be terribly nervous about coming down with that awful illness your roommates seem to have caught," Theobold continued, and then he raised his voice even more, to make certain everyone would hear. "I do hope you're not contagious."

Rohan took a bite of a scone, trying to ignore Theobold, who was still watching him with narrowed eyes-or rather, watching Derrick and James, who sat on either side of him. They sighed and tried to ignore Theobold as well. Rohan realized their mistake almost at once, and paled.

"Interesting," Theobold remarked, "how March-banks and St. Fitzroy don't seem to think you're contagious." He paused and took a sip of his tea before ominously adding, "Or maybe they know where your nasty little roommates have really gone."

Later that afternoon, during the hour free, Rohan took a walk around the school grounds. The trees were beginning to blossom, and the weather was, if not wholly pleasant, at least tolerable.

After breakfast they'd had drills for the first time that week, and Admiral Blackwood had pulled aside Conrad and James, the drill leaders. When the boys had returned, they'd s.h.i.+fted the formation, closing the gap in the ranks caused by Henry and Adam's absence. Rohan had pressed James about this at lunch, but James had only shaken his head and shrugged. "Blackwood didn't say why. I think he's nervous because the parade is in three weeks."

But Rohan wasn't sure. Had Admiral Blackwood simply wanted to patch a hole in the formation should Henry and Adam not return in time for the parade, or did he know that they weren't coming back?

Rohan agonized over this as he tramped along the perimeter of the quadrangle, soiling his boots and wis.h.i.+ng he weren't stuck with the largest and loneliest single room on the first-year corridor.

He was fretting over the indignity of Adam having left his things a mess, when a chauffeured automobile pulled up to the front of the headmaster's house. Rohan stiffened and thought to turn back the way he'd come. But then the chauffeur hopped out and ran around the bra.s.s front of the car, opening the door and extending an arm to the pa.s.senger.

It was Grandmother Winter.

22.

LIFE IN THE NORDLANDS.

First days can be disorienting. They are rather like skipping ahead in a trusted textbook, only to find the material impossible to grasp. And yet with perseverance you will wake up one day and find yourself staring at what had once seemed so baffling, and without quite knowing what has changed, you will understand it all without a second thought.

Such went life for Henry, Adam, and Frankie in the servants' quarters and kitchens of the Partisan School. The days fell into a routine of tasks: They polished boots, prepared and served meals, washed dishes, scrubbed floors, brought coal for the schoolmasters' fireplaces, and did any other odd jobs that might be sent their way.

Henry and Adam were frequently set to the same work, which was fortunate, as Adam was rather hopeless. Although, to his credit, he did try. And though Henry and Adam spent their days a.s.signed to the same tasks, Frankie worked separately, in the staff kitchens and the laundry. Oftentimes they saw one another only in the evenings and, of course, at night.

The three friends met after the other servants had gone to bed, despite their own exhaustion. For the past two nights they had explored the castle systematically by candlelight, starting with the attics. They were determined to find evidence of combat training-the dummies with targets painted on, the halberds and crossbows, the equipment Henry had seen all those months ago, during the Inter-School Tournament.

And yet they had discovered nothing, except a mutual distaste for missed sleep. By Wednesday morning everyone was in low spirits.

"I think I'd rather sleep tonight, if you don't mind," Adam said after breakfast while they scrubbed the tables in the dining hall.

Henry wiped his hair back with his sleeve and continued scrubbing. "Fine," he said.

"What do you mean, *fine'?"

"If you don't want to come, don't. And by the way, you've missed a spot in the corner there."

"Blast the spot!" Adam said.

Henry couldn't help it, he grinned. "You sounded like Derrick."

Adam went over the spot he'd missed, and both boys were quiet for a long time, as scrubbing and thinking go well in hand.

"I miss school," Adam admitted.

Henry glanced around nervously, but the other boys cleaning tables that morning were at the opposite end of the hall.

"Me too," Henry said. "And I keep wondering after our marks on the half-term exams."

"I don't," Adam said with a shudder.

"I thought you were doing better this term." Henry wrung out his washrag.

"I am. I was hoping for an *excellent' in ethics," he confessed. "Sir Franklin's never read the Talmud. He thinks I'm a b.l.o.o.d.y genius."

Henry snorted.

"I've been thinking," Adam went on, "about what I'm going to do if we're expelled."

"You'll go home to your family, I'd expect," Henry said sourly.

"Are you mad? After a disaster like this?" Adam dropped his voice to the barest of whispers. "They'll send me back to the yes.h.i.+va. No more fencing lessons, but extra mathematics and private Torah study to make up for the year at the goy school."

Henry winced in sympathy. He hadn't thought about what would happen to Adam if he went home, about what it meant to have a family that expected things of you.

"That won't happen," Henry said with as much confidence as he could muster. "Tell them you want to try for a scholars.h.i.+p somewhere for next year."

"It's not about that," Adam said. "I took the exam behind my parents' backs, and when they found out about Knightley, they said I wouldn't last a year. If they're right, I'll never hear the end of it."

"It could be worse," Henry said.

"Worse how?" Adam asked.

"You could be Rohan." Henry tried very hard to keep a straight face. Though he felt awful about it, he couldn't pretend that it wasn't funny. He could just imagine Rohan's panic at having two missing roommates and only Valmont and Derrick to confide in.

"Reckon he's upset?" Adam asked innocently.

"Nah," Henry said. Both boys grinned.

As they dumped the dirty buckets of water outside the kitchen, Henry took a good look at Adam. They were both exhausted, but it showed more on Adam somehow, the lack of sleep and irregular, meager meals.

"Are you still looking forward to going to bed early tonight?" Henry asked.

"Would you be upset?"

"What? If you were tired, or if you left me alone with Frankie?"

"Oh, that's right. You two loathe each other."

"We don't loathe each other," Henry snapped. And then he couldn't resist adding, "She's far more tolerable now that she's stopped wearing a corset."

One of the serving boys was missing.

This was all anyone talked about in the kitchen that afternoon. Henry and Adam silently sliced beetroots, listening to the news pa.s.s worriedly among the kitchen staff.

"Maybe he's run off," someone said.

"He ain't. He's been taken."

"Be careful, talkin' like that, or the doctor'll getcha."

"'S the truth," one of the younger boys protested, wiping his nose with the back of his hand before going back to the dough he was kneading. "He went out, and then he never come back. Same as the rest."

At this, Henry's stomach lurched, and not from the delicious aroma of raw beetroot.

This was the reason he and Adam and Frankie had been hired so quickly. The reason there were empty beds and the other servants seemed spooked to go outside after dark, even just to the coal stores or the pump.

"Same as the rest," Henry whispered to Adam.

"I b.l.o.o.d.y loathe beetroot," Adam muttered in response.

"One of the boys is missing," Henry whispered, pulling Frankie aside. He'd volunteered to run to the staff kitchen for some onions.

"Cort, wasn't it?" Frankie whispered with a superior smirk. "I found out hours ago. One of the girls is sweet on him, and she's been sobbing into the b.u.t.ter churn all morning."

"We have to find out what's happened to him," Henry said. "Everyone keeps saying that he's disappeared *same as the rest,' as though this has happened before."

Frankie sighed. "I'll ask some questions," she promised.

"Thank you," Henry said.

"Now take your onions and get out of here. Common kitchens and staff kitchens don't mix," Frankie joked.

"You say that"-Henry put his hand to his heart as though wounded-"but when I disappear, it'll be you sobbing into the b.u.t.ter churn."

Supper that evening was a solemn affair. Cort still hadn't returned, although one of the boys had optimistically set the table for fourteen, which left an empty place, where everyone tried very hard not to look.

As Henry had been sweeping one of the hallways that afternoon, he'd overheard two of the students talking. They had been laughing and joking the same as the boys at Knightley, but the words had been different, and worryingly so. One of the boys hadn't written his essay for their history course, which was due the next day.

"Ye should buy a paper off Carrow down at the Dragon's Inn. Graduated last year. Keeps a collection o' the things."

"Wouldn't Erasmus know the difference?"

"He might, but d'ye think he'd say anythin'?"

"S'pose not. But I'm not goin' down to Romborough meself, not after dark."

"What's the matter, think the doctor's gonna getcha?"

"Shut yer mouth, Soren."

The students had drifted away after that, ribbing each other and joking, without so much as a backward glance at the boy their age who had been sweeping the corridor.

As Henry slowly worked his way down the corridor with his broom and dustpan, he'd puzzled over that conversation. The boys back in the kitchen had said the same thing. "The doctor's gonna getcha." At first he'd thought it was a servant's superst.i.tion, but then he'd caught sight of the white stripes on the boy called Soren's sleeve, and the badges gleaming on both boys' coats.

The white stripes, Henry knew, marked the senior-ranked students-those boys who had earned distinction at sport or academics, and were granted certain privileges because of it. They were the boys whose boots Henry s.h.i.+ned, the boys who left such a mess in their private study room in the library, and who spent Friday nights eating in the staff dining room with the professors.

And though the Nordlands pretended not to keep a cla.s.s system, even after four days, Henry could tell you that they did. Men whom Yurick Mors had put in power gave power and privileges to others for dubious distinctions, and denied it to others for reasons just as murky.

Henry was still puzzling over this at supper, as they bent their heads and Cook recited a prayer over the meal. After the prayer everyone bit hungrily into hunks of coa.r.s.e bread, their eyes avoiding the empty place at the table the same way pa.s.sersby would avert their gaze from a drunkard on the city streets.

They talked of the weather (overcast and gloomy as always) and of the students (haughty but manageable) until finally the conversation turned sinister.

"Happens without warnin'." Cook growled, his mustache dripping with purple soup. "One day yer there, and the next, no one's seen 'ide nor 'air of ye."

"They always go out to Romborough first," the youngest boy, who was called Isander, said. "An' then they never come back. That's what happened to Becky and Parl."

Everyone at the table stiffened at the mention of those names.