Finally, the meal ended and, full of cakes and tarts, the boys streamed out of the Great Hall.
Henry suddenly felt a sharp shove from behind. He lost his footing and stumbled forward, only narrowly avoiding a collision with a suit of armor as he slammed painfully into the wood-paneled wall.
"Hello, servant boy," a familiar voice drawled.
Henry sighed and picked himself up. He'd been expecting this.
"Hallo, Valmont," Henry said, facing the tormentor he thought he'd left behind at the Midsummer School. "I was ever so surprised to see you here, since you failed the entrance exam."
Valmont's eyes narrowed. "I could hardly be expected to concentrate, what with the stench of an unwashed servant filling the exam room."
Henry felt his cheeks go pink. Of course it was a lie, but lies often sting--or stink, as the case may be--worse than the truth.
"So I take it your family connections came through in the end?" Henry said. "Pity you didn't make it in on merit, like the rest of us."
"Fergus, you coming?" Theobold Archer IV clapped his hand onto Valmont's shoulder, and then shot Henry a horrible smile.
"He'll be along in a minute," Henry answered. "We're just catching up, since we're such old friends."
"I didn't ask you, Grim," Theobold said, all traces of his earlier friendliness gone. "It was a good thing you left our compartment on the train ride over. The carriage was a bit cramped, and of course, we hadn't been properly introduced."
"Seemed proper enough to me," Henry said coolly.
"I was so surprised to see you finally learned to use a knife and fork at supper," Valmont said.
Henry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Valmont's insults were many things, but clever and original were not among them.
"You'll be even more surprised when I come out on top in lessons, I'd expect," Henry said. "If you gentlemen will excuse me, I've still some things to unpack."
"Have fun sorting your rags," Valmont snickered, falling into step with Theobold.
Henry watched them go. Only when Valmont was out of sight around the corner did he dare to rub the sore patch on his elbow from where he had fallen.
CHALKBOARDS AND SWORDS
By the time the half-hour bells rang for chapel the following morning, Henry had already washed, dressed, and made his bed. Despite staying up late the night before to swap stories with his new roommates, he had woken at dawn on the unfamiliar mattress, his head thrumming with too much excitement to roll over and go back to sleep.
Instead, he had listened to his roommates' quiet breathing (or snoring, in Adam's case), waited until the sun rose over the roof of the headmaster's house, and then quietly slipped out of bed.
This was it: the first day that he was expected to learn from--rather than scrub--the blackboards. The thought carried Henry through morning chapel, where the other boys stared when Adam sat silently in his seat as everyone else rose for prayer. It carried Henry until breakfast, where he was too nervous to eat anything besides a piece of dry toast.
"Bacon?" Valmont simpered, pushing the plate across to Henry.
"No, thank you." Henry shook his head, while Valmont shook with laughter.
"Didn't I tell you?" Valmont hooted to Theobold, who sat by his side. "None of them will eat bacon. The other two are religious about it, but you know why the servant boy won't?"
"Why?" Theobold asked, and Henry felt himself wondering the same thing.
"Because," Valmont crowed, gasping for breath through his hysterics, "because he used to sleep in the barn with the pigs. Feels sorry for them."
Theobold smiled nastily at this news.
"You know that isn't true, Valmont," Henry said, his cheeks burning.
"Now, now, Grim, there's no need to be ashamed," Valmont drawled, as though there were a very great need to be ashamed indeed. "You needn't be embarrassed that you came to think of that old potbelly sow as your mother, seeing as how you haven't got any parents."
Henry banged his teacup down onto the table--hard. Despite the cup being mostly dregs, liquid poured over the side, soaking the tablecloth.
"Manners, manners, Grim," Theobold said, "or we'll send you back to the barn."
"Blast!" Rohan said. He'd just upset the pitcher that sat between himself and Theobold, sending a tidal wave of pulpy orange juice onto Theobold's half-full plate.
"You oaf !" Theobold sneered.
"Frightfully sorry," Rohan said, calmly forking up a bite of eggs. "I'm just not used to having to serve myself at meals."
At this, Adam snorted so loudly that Valmont asked if he were actually related to pigs, at which point a proper food fight might have broken out if the second-year monitor hadn't come over to see what was the matter.
By first lesson, Henry was in a foul mood. Valmont and Theobold had nicknamed Henry and his roommates the Three Little Pigs, and sat in the row of desks behind them, alternately oinking and snickering.
Henry could hardly enjoy the sensation of sitting at the handsome wooden desk, or the way the latticed windows bounced sunlight onto the strange instruments that sat on the master's table.
The other students whispered to one another:
"Do you think we'll just use textbooks or also do practical lessons?"
"I heard they broke a boy's leg last year for a demonstration."
"I heard that too. Except it was his arm."
"Rubbish. We're going to learn to brew poisons."
"That's rot. Where do you think we are, magic school?"
"Yeah, I guess not poisons. But maybe antidotes."
Suddenly, it dawned on Henry that his first lesson was medicine--with Sir Frederick! A sense of relief washed over him, and he was finally able to ignore Valmont and Theobold's mocking.
"We've got Sir Frederick!" Henry told Adam.
"All right, of course we have. It's on the schedule," Adam said.
"No." Henry shook his head, realizing that Adam and Rohan sat the exam with hundreds of others and hadn't met the chief examiner as he had. "Well, I know. I mean, he's brilliant. He's the one who let me sit the exam even though--"
The room quieted as Sir Frederick burst through the door, carrying an armload of bedsheets.
"Good morning, boys," Sir Frederick said kindly, his master's gown swishing neatly behind him. The boys stared as their teacher made his way up the center aisle, deposited the bundle of sheets onto his lectern, and turned to face them, hands clasped behind his back.
"I am Sir Frederick, and welcome to Beginner's Medicine. You might recognize me as chief examiner from last May, but as some of you know, I am also medicine master here and head of second year. So you'd best try to get on my good side, since the lot of you will be stuck with me for a long while."
Sir Frederick began to pace, jumping right into that day's lesson.
"Now. The Code of Chivalry requires you to 'defend those in need.' In this course, we will study science, and we will do so practically. I will lecture, and then you will roll up your sleeves and learn by doing."
"Told you it was practical," Henry overheard a boy whisper.
"Medicine concerns the assessment of and defense against disease and pain," Sir Frederick continued. "Hundreds of years ago, the Knights Templar watched their brothers fall in battle, with no one to tend their wounds. Cuts became infected. Limbs were amputated. Disease brought swift and welcome death. A knight who fell in battle died in battle."
The boys stared, pens hovering above blank sheets of paper, entranced.
"But the Knights Templar learned to defend, and as many of you may not know, they invented mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
"You may be thinking, 'We no longer fight wars and battles,' or 'We have surgeons to repair us when we are hurt.' You may be wondering when you will ever use a practical discipline like medicine."
Sir Frederick surveyed his pupils, as though suspecting each and every one of them of entertaining these very thoughts.
"How many of you have considered becoming polic
e knights?"
A few hands went up.
"You are called to the scene of a robbery. A shopkeeper is injured and bleeding. The Code of Chivalry obligates you to help--to bandage his wounds, to assess his injuries and decide whether to send immediately for a doctor or to take a testimony of the crime. Now, how many of you have considered the knight detectives?"
More hands.
"How would you know if a man had died of natural causes or been murdered? How could you tell from a man's demeanor if he told the truth or lied?"
Sir Frederick went on to give more examples: What if a colleague was injured protecting a member of the royal family? What if you could recognize the symptoms of smallpox and noticed an infected child during a street patrol? Would you be able to aid a person who was choking? To determine whether a prisoner was truly ill or faking?
Sir Frederick was a wonderful lecturer, he could make anything sound fascinating, could interest even the most disinterested student. By the time he had demonstrated on shy Edmund Merrill how to correctly bandage a wound, the students were itching to give it a go themselves.
"Partner up," Sir Frederick called, tearing a bedsheet into strips with a rrrrrippppping sound. "Grab some bandages and take turns. Raise your hand for me to examine the work once you are satisfied."
A tap on Henry's shoulder. He turned.
"We'll be partners," Valmont announced, his lips curved into a nasty smile.
Henry felt as though his stomach had rolled over and was playing dead. He glanced over at Adam and Rohan, who had already partnered together.
With his mouth dryer than the toast he'd eaten for breakfast, Henry collected a handful of bandages from the front table.
"I'll do you first," Valmont said, snapping the bandage like a whip. "Give me your arm."
Mournfully, Henry rolled up his right sleeve.
All around him, other boys did the same.
Maybe, Henry thought wildly, maybe nothing bad would happen, and Valmont would wrap the bandage the way Sir Frederick had demonstrated.
Right, and maybe Lord Havelock would knit them all matching scarves as a surprise.
"Here, hold this," Valmont said, putting the bandage roll in Henry's fist just as Sir Frederick had taught them.
Henry watched Adam sloppily roll the bandage while Rohan looked on and sighed.
Suddenly, Henry's arm began to burn as if it were being poked with hundreds of sewing needles. Valmont, his jaw clenched with the effort, was rolling the bandage as tight as it would go.
"Is it too loose?" Valmont asked, faking concern.
"I am going to destroy you for this," Henry muttered.
"Tighter, then," Valmont said, as though taking part in an entirely different conversation.
Henry's arm throbbed. Black spots danced in the corners of his vision. He felt dizzy, and so he closed his eyes.
"What are you doing?" Sir Frederick thundered, rushing over to Valmont and Henry. "Are you trying to hurt him? Take that bandage off now!"
Valmont scowled and, as slowly as he dared, unwound the strip of bedsheet from Henry's forearm.
The dizziness faded. Henry flexed his arm as it flooded with warmth. The bandage had left angry red creases that spiraled upward toward his elbow.
Sir Frederick slammed a ruler inches from Valmont's fingers. Valmont flinched.
"Are you stupid, boy?" Sir Frederick hissed, his voice dangerously low. "I don't ever want to see anything like this asinine, immature, dangerous display of idiocy in my classroom again, do you understand me?"
Valmont nodded.
Sir Frederick raised his ruler again but did not strike.
Valmont flinched.
"From now on, you are my little helper. Every demonstration, for the rest of the month, you will practice only on me, until you learn proper respect for what I am teaching. Is that clear?"
Meekly, Valmont inclined his head.
"I said, is that clear?"
"Yes, sir. It's clear, sir," Valmont mumbled.
Adam snorted, and Rohan somehow managed a straight face as he offered up his monogrammed handkerchief to muffle Adam's enormous grin.
Military history with Lord Havelock was next, to everyone's terror--except for Valmont's. When Henry, Adam, and Rohan entered Lord Havelock's austere and windowless tower classroom, they were surprised to find Valmont and Theobold seated in the center of the front row, grinning hugely.
"They're mad," Adam murmured, claiming a seat in the second to last row. "Couldn't pay me to cozy up to Havelock."
Henry shrugged and took out his notebook, enormously glad that Professor Stratford had tutored him so thoroughly in military history. They were to receive their textbooks at the end of the lesson, but Henry was fairly certain that his strong background in the past hundred years of military history would impress even Lord Havelock.
Valmont reclined in his chair, pillowing his hands behind his head as he chattered with Theobold, but he snapped to attention when Lord Havelock swept into the room.
"We meet again, first years. I trust that you are not deficient of memory, that neither I nor my subject require reintroduction."
With a Havelook of Doom, Lord Havelock yanked a map down from the ceiling and removed a pointer from a fold in his master's gown.
He smacked the pointer across the map.
"Examinations," he began, "will be given whenever the mood strikes, so you must always be prepared. For instance, I wonder how many of you are prepared ... now."
With a wicked grin, Lord Havelock struck the pointer against his palm.
Henry half expected it to draw blood, but Lord Havelock didn't even wince as he asked, "What was the name of the revolutionary party which Yurick Mors headed to overthrow the Nordlandic monarchy?"
Henry nearly sighed with relief; he knew this.
"Rohan Mehta?"
"The Draconians, if I remember correctly, sir," Rohan answered.
"If you remember correctly?" Lord Havelock simpered. "Is there something wrong with your mem-ory?"
"No, sir. The correct answer is the Draconians, sir," Rohan said.
"Obviously," Lord Havelock said, unimpressed. "And in what year did the Sassons divide the Isles into four distinct territories?"
Henry bit his lip. It was ancient history. Were they truly expected to know the exact year?
"Adam Beckerman?"
"Somewhere around fourteen-something, I'd expect," Adam said cheerfully.
"You may leave the room, Mr. Beckerman," Lord Havelock said. "The correct response when one does not know an answer is, 'I don't know, sir. I am unprepared.' Cheek is never acceptable."
"Yes, sir," Adam said, going red.
"Pack your things," Lord Havelock said. "I shall not ask you again."
With every eye on him, Adam picked up his notebook and disappeared into the hallway.
"Now," Lord Havelock said, pressing the tips of his fingers together so tightly that his knuckles went white, "who can tell me the name of the knight after whom our peace treaty is called?"
Henry almost laughed. A child's question!
"Fergus Valmont?"
"Sir Arthur Longsword," Valmont answered promptly.
"Excellent. Someone here knows his history." Lord Havelock smiled.
Is he mad? Henry scrawled in his notebook, tilting it toward Rohan.That question was so simple!
Rohan shrugged.
"Now, who can tell me what was the fate of a nobleman captured in battle, and how did it differ from the fate of a commoner?" Lord Havelock asked, and without even pausing to consider, said, "Henry Grim."
Henry gulped. This wasn't a date or a name; it was a proper essay. And even if he had known the answer, how could he have given it without saying either too much or too little for Lord Havelock's satisfaction?
No, Henry thought wryly, this wasn't an interrogation, it was an execution. Lord Havelock intended to break him, to kill his confidence. Humility was his only chance.
"I don't know, sir," Henry
said, as Lord Havelock had instructed. "I am unprepared, sir."
"Pity," Lord Havelock said. "And I had harbored such high hopes for you, Mr. Grim."
Henry was certain Lord Havelock had done no such thing. The question was impossible.
"A nobleman captured in battle," Lord Havelock intoned as the boys all scribbled in their notebooks, "had the right to be ransomed, and as such, was treated in a manner befitting his station. A commoner, however, had no such right. Commoners who were not killed outright were thrown into dungeons called oubliettes, where they faced starvation and, often, torture."
Five pages of detailed notes later, Lord Havelock dismissed the class.
"How are we going to manage to read three chapters by tomorrow?" Rohan complained, flipping through a copy of their new textbook.
"We'll do it together," Henry said. "A study group. You, me, and Adam."
"I suppose," Rohan said doubtfully, "although Adam still has to copy the notes he missed."
"Isn't Uncle a brilliant lecturer?" Valmont boomed. "It's a pity your friend had to miss it."
Henry and Rohan turned.
"Uncle?" Henry asked, hoping he'd misheard.
"Yes, my dear Uncle Havelock. Absolutely illuminating lesson, wouldn't you agree? I mean, imagine if we still went to war ... why, if we were captured, I'd sleep on a pillow mattress while my family paid for my release. But you lot, well, you'd be tortured in a dungeon."
"My father is--," Rohan began.
"Dead, and such a pity," Valmont simpered as Rohan clenched his hands into fists.
"You deserve to be captured in battle," Henry said. "And if you're anything as horrible toward your family as you are toward my friends, they'd refuse to pay your ransom and leave you to rot."
"Easy, Grim," Valmont said. "I was only supposing. Temper, temper. I wonder if I should tell my uncle how much his class upsets you?"
"If you have a last wish," Henry retorted.
"Oh, I do," Valmont assured Henry. "But I wouldn't want to keep you up at night with terror, so I'll spare you the specifics."
As Valmont left, Rohan shook his head.
"I don't understand why he's so horrible," Rohan said.
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