The Secret Prince (39 page)

And he walked down a hallway with electric lights ablaze, harsh on his eyes after more than a week of old-fashioned gaslight and candles. He squinted, wondering why there were no guards, and then he realized belatedly
that those who came here were meant to escape and carry with them the warning of this place.

No, he didn’t want this main corridor. He wanted some place far worse. The building was small, and there was only one place he could think to look. The basement.

Or the dungeon, he supposed, for when he found it, the subterranean stone tunnel certainly looked like one. The left wall was lined with cells, and there was no guard, no chance to overpower the warden and wrestle away the key, or steal it from his belt as he slept. The doors to the cells gaped open, as though awaiting the embrace of their future occupants.

But one door at the end of the corridor was closed.

“Professor?” Henry called, hurrying toward it.

“Ah, Mr. Grim,” a chilling voice said. Henry looked wildly around the corridor, but could not place the speaker. And then he reached the closed door and gaped in surprise at the occupant of the cell.

“As you can see, Mr. Grim, I have come to rescue you,” Lord Havelock sneered. The military history master had deep circles under his eyes, and his cheeks were hard with stubble. His suit was horribly wrinkled, and his left arm drooped as though it had been pulled from its socket.

“Where’s Professor Stratford?”

“I don’t know,” Lord Havelock said. “We were stopped at the border, but he dosed me first. I was here when I woke, and Stratford had vanished.”

Henry frowned. “But—”

“A special torture has been reserved for me,” Lord Havelock said, answering Henry’s unspoken question. “He wishes me to enjoy every last ounce of his revenge.”

“He?” Henry asked.

“Dr. Von Izembard.” Lord Havelock’s brows knitted together. “Of course, you know him by a different name: Sir Frederick.”

“Sir Frederick?” Henry didn’t think he’d heard correctly.

And then it all made sense. Sir Frederick, who had betrayed them all last term, who had wanted a war so that Chancellor Mors might rule the full of the Brittonian Isles, had talked of opening a hospital. He had asked Henry and Adam to join him.

Just a few months ago Henry had been so certain that Sir Frederick would return to enact his revenge, but he’d never thought that revenge would be meant for
Lord Havelock
.

It made a horrible kind of sense. And news of
Nordlandic medical experiments had surfaced only months after Sir Frederick’s disappearance. No wonder he hadn’t been apprehended; he had fled to the Nord-lands. He had rejoined the chancellor and become something out of a hellish fable: the doctor who cured your health.

“Listen to me, boy,” Lord Havelock growled. “You have to get out of here. Tomorrow, after they—after it is over, Sir Frederick will send my body back as a warning. You must get on that train. They are superstitious of corpses here and will not check the compartment carefully. Do you understand?”

“But, sir, I can’t. There has to be a way that—”

“There is no hope for me, boy. I have been given my medicine, so to speak. But there is small comfort in knowing that some good may come of my demise.”

Henry nodded, not knowing what to say. “Yes, sir,” he whispered. “I understand.”

“Poor Fergus,” Lord Havelock said, half to himself. “The boy’s father was one of the first to go in the uprisings. He rushed in to break up a riot and save the children.”

“I know, sir,” Henry said, his throat dry. “I’m so sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Lord Havelock said harshly. “You must leave before the doctor returns.”

“But, sir—”

“Go,” Lord Havelock spat. “Do not make me tell you to get out of here a third time, Mr. Grim.”

“No, sir,” Henry said with a heavy heart.

As he left the basement, his eyes brimming with tears, a hand closed over his mouth, and his arm was twisted painfully behind his back.

28

H
enry struggled against his captor until a voice
hissed, “Stop that, lad. Ye’ll disjoint your arm.”

“Lord Mortensen?”

“It’s Compatriot Erasmus here,” the schoolmaster whispered, releasing him. “Hurry. We must get ye back to the castle.”

“I don’t understand,” Henry whispered, hurrying after the schoolmaster, but Lord Mortensen shook his head and held a finger to his lips. It was only when they’d passed through the gates to the prisoners’ asylum that the schoolmaster breathed a sigh of relief.

“What don’t ye understand, lad?” Lord Mortensen
asked as they passed by the gallows. He shivered and made the sign of the cross.

“You said it was too dangerous,” Henry said. “And yet you came.”

“Too dangerous for ye, not for an old man such as myself.”

Henry frowned. “But, sir—”

“Don’t argue with me, lad. That was a foolish thing ye did. Foolish, yet noble.”

“I had to see for myself,” Henry said. “I—Oh, God, everything is ruined. I never should have come here.”

“Listen to me, Henry,” Lord Mortensen said fiercely, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. They were outside the gate to the graveyard, and the moonlight glittered on the roof of the old church. “Coming here is the best thing ye could have done.”

“How can you say that?” Henry asked, angrily brushing the hand from his shoulder.

“Come back to the meeting room, lad, and I shall explain everything.”

Adam knew.

That was Henry’s first thought when he saw the look on his friend’s face. Whatever it was that Lord
Mortensen wasn’t saying, he could see the secret threatening to burst from Adam at any moment. Everyone was assembled around the candlelit table, and they went silent as Henry and Lord Mortensen entered. Adam bit his lip and didn’t meet Henry’s gaze.

Was it that bad?

“Sit, lad,” Lord Mortensen urged.

“No,” Henry said, folding his arms across his chest.

“Very well.” Lord Mortensen gave Henry a grave look, and one by one the men around the table rose, even Mauritz, who shot Henry a reproachful glare.

“Why is everyone standing?” Henry asked.

“Because you stand,” Lord Mortensen said.

Henry snorted. That didn’t make any sense. Experimentally he took a seat.

“Thank ye, lad. The walk has tired me,” Lord Mortensen said, lowering himself into a chair with a grimace.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Henry demanded.

Lord Mortensen reached into his pocket and removed a daguerreotype, passing it to Henry. It was the picture from the restricted library, the one with Lord Mortensen as a boy, and with the youth who looked so like Henry.

“This is my father,” Henry said.

Lord Mortensen nodded.

“You knew him?” Henry asked.

Again Lord Mortensen nodded.

“So this was back when he was a student at Knightley,” Henry said.

Lord Mortensen smiled sadly and shook his head. “Turn it over, lad.”

Engraved on the back of the picture was a list of the champions.

“I don’t know his name,” Henry said.

“Will,” Lord Mortensen said. “Wilhelm.”

“But—,” Henry began, and then he saw it, like some cruel joke.
ORATORY CHAMPION: WILHELM GRIMAULDI. PARTISAN SCHOOL
. “What?” Henry said. “No. I can’t be Nordlandic.”

“I dunno, mate. You are rather tall,” Adam said with a shrug.

“Thanks,” Henry said, rolling his eyes. He appreciated Adam’s attempt to lighten the mood, as he suspected there would be nothing more to laugh at for a long while.

“So my father went to Partisan,” Henry said, and then he looked up. “He’s dead, isn’t he? He and my mum?”

“Aye, lad. I’m sorry,” Lord Mortensen said.

“How—,” Henry began. “How long have you known who I was?”

“I suspected,” Lord Mortensen continued. “They had a son called Henry. He’d be your age, and the resemblance is striking. You’re left handed, for one, and that speech you made was so like your father. And the way Adam called you ‘Grim.’ Your dad went by the same.”

“It isn’t a nickname,” Henry said. “That’s my name. It’s Henry Grim.”

“Grimauldi,” Lord Mortensen corrected gently.

“No,” Henry said. “I have a birth certificate. ‘Baby boy found on church steps’ or something.”

“Have ye seen this certificate, lad?”

“Well, no,” Henry admitted with a frown. “But the orphanage said they had a copy.” And then a thought occurred to Henry. “If I’m Nordlandic, why was I brought to an orphanage in South Britain?”

“Ah,” Lord Mortensen said, lacing his fingers. “Good, lad.”

Henry glanced at Adam, who squirmed in his chair, still unable to meet Henry’s eye.

“Your father was a speech writer,” Lord Mortensen
continued. “A scholar. He preferred the company of his books to the applause of an audience. Does this sound familiar, lad? We were all fighting against the rise of the Draconian party, but speeches are dangerous things, and words have a way of being traced back to their maker. Before your parents died, they told me they were taking ye where your life might not be touched by the revolution. They were killed just days after they returned without ye. It was a profound loss.”

“Thank you,” Henry murmured, overwhelmed. He had never known his parents, and yet the story Lord Mortensen told made Henry feel as though he were staring at their freshly packed graves. And then Henry realized why his parents had hidden him away—to save him. After all, Midsummer was little more than an hour’s train ride from the Nordlandic border. And if his father had attended the Partisan School … If his family had died during the revolution …

“My father was a lord,” Henry said, looking to Lord Mortensen for confirmation.

“No, lad,” Lord Mortensen corrected. “Your father was an earl.”

Back at Knightley, Professor Turveydrop had tested them on the different levels of the peerage in a protocol
exam. An earl, Henry knew, ranked below a duke but above a viscount.

“But you said that everyone was killed,” Henry accused. “The royal family and the dukes and earls and barons and their heirs.”

“Aye, and the lesser lords could renounce themselves and live in shame,” Lord Mortensen said sadly. “So ye see, lad, we are fortunate ye have come.”

At this Mauritz sighed loudly and rolled his eyes once again, and Henry realized with sudden, horrible clarity exactly what was going on.

“No,” Henry said, pushing back his chair.

One by one the men around the table did the same.

“Stop that,” Henry cried. “I can’t—I’m the—No. This is absurd. I spent my whole life scrubbing floors and dreaming of becoming a knight, and I finally got the chance to attend Knightley. Not Partisan.
Knightley
.”

Henry sunk back into the chair, burying his face in his hands. He’d worked so hard to learn all he could so that he might have the chance to rise above his miserable lot in life. He’d never even dreamed he would be admitted to Knightley, much less that he would excel at his studies and find friends among his aristocratic classmates.

Even now, the thought of Derrick and Conrad helping him to smuggle a picnic out of the dining hall, of nights playing chess in the common room, of midnight forays to the kitchens with Adam and Rohan, of Frankie climbing through his window—even of Valmont and the battle society. He was painfully aware of how wonderful all of it had been, and how much he didn’t want it to end.

“What happens now?” Henry asked dully.

“We go forward in our plans to do away with Yurick Mors and his men. We restore the monarchy,” Lord Mortensen said.

“You mean me.”

“Yes, lad. Mauritz is the younger son of a minor viscount. You supersede him in his claim as the heir presumptive to the Nordlandic throne.”

Henry glanced accusingly at Adam, who shrugged and bit his lip.

“If we are successful in removing Chancellor Mors and his Draconians from power,” Lord Mortensen continued, “ye would ascend the throne. And if we are too late, or we dinnae succeed and the chancellor invades South Britain, there would come a great and terrible war, which the chancellor must not win. But do ye
think old King Victor would want the responsibility of rebuilding this country? And I dinnae think the Nord-landic people would let him rule in protectorate, when they could have their independence restored under their own monarch.”