Knightley Acadamy 01

by Violet Haberdasher

  With his boots in his hands, he tiptoed through the sleeping minefield of students and crept carefully into the hallway. He didn't know what he was looking for, or what he expected to find. He just knew that there was something off about the Partisan School, and something oddly familiar about their headmaster.

  The corridors were frigid at night, and Henry followed the clouds of his breath down the corridor, toward a faint glow in the distance.

  The glow, when he reached it, turned out to be a spluttering candle lighting the way down a stairwell--a maids' stairwell. He stayed to one side of the stairs so they wouldn't creak. At the bottom was a cabinet of bells and pulleys, each neatly labeled with a corresponding room. And beyond that, a smoky hearth and a threadbare armchair.

  All of the doors were locked, and so Henry crept back up the stairs and went in the other direction down the corridor.

  He'd found the classrooms.

  Scarcely daring to breathe, Henry turned the knob on one of the doors and pushed it open.

  It was just a classroom, nothing special, although instead of desks, the seating was arranged in the style of an amphitheater, in raised levels. The textbooks on the master's table were plain old military history, the same as he'd seen on Lord Havelock's bookshelves.

  Henry sighed.

  He could be caught at any moment, and he had no idea what he was looking for--if there even was anything to be looking for.

  Feeling foolish, Henry closed the door to the classroom and headed back down the corridor in the direction from which he'd come.

  But he could have sworn he'd never passed that suit of armor before, and that it had been a portrait, not a landscape, hanging above the stair. It was late, though, and he hadn't slept ... probably it was just his imagination running wild.

  Henry made the left turn that would bring him back to the servants' staircase.

  And then he panicked. He'd found the entrance to the school library. Which meant that he was completely and utterly lost.

  Trying to keep calm, he went back the way he'd come, attempting to find something he recognized. But the long corridors of endless doors all looked the same, and it was as though the eyes on the portraits followed as he made wrong turn after wrong turn. At every step, he half expected to be caught out of bed--rather, out of sleeping sack--or worse, to be stuck wandering Partisan Keep all night, trying to find his way back to bed.

  Finally, Henry found a part of the castle that he thought he recognized. That door there could have been the supply room from the fencing that morning, and that stained-glass window looked vaguely familiar.

  But what was that?

  What seemed at first to be an innocent-looking decoration in the wall paneling turned out to be a hidden doorway, left ajar.

  The Knights Templar had been fans of secret passages, allowing them a safe getaway from invaders, and clearly Partisan Keep had been built with the same idea in mind. It was probably nothing more than a small hiding chamber barely large enough for two people. Nonetheless, something made Henry push open the panel and step inside.

  The hidden chamber was cavernous.

  A torch flickered in one of the two holders along the far wall, sputtering its last sparks of light, and in the dim light Henry could make out a cabinet full of weapons.

  Not blunt-tipped fencing foils or sabres, but real, true weapons, the kind you saw depicted in gruesome battle scenes on woven tapestries or stained-glass windows. The sorts of weapons that had been illegal for the past hundred years.

  On the left wall: burlap-covered mannequins with red targets painted across their chests. And on the right wall a neat row of charts hung from rusty nails. Henry stared at the first chart, marked hand-to-hand combat, reading the list of names, looking for one he knew. There! Volomir Dusseling, the hulking first year who had beaten Rohan in foil fencing, marked as number six.

  Number six what? Henry wondered, and then he realized what this place was: he'd found a room that wasn't supposed to exist--the place where Partisan students were trained in combat!

  It was illegal! It was beyond illegal; everyone knew that combat training was forbidden by the statutes of the Longsword Treaty, that so long as no citizens were trained in combat, there would be peace between all countries that had signed the treaty.

  And the Nordlands had broken it--this room was definite proof of that.

  His heart pounding, Henry tried to think what he should do. He needed proof. One of those lists should work nicely ... but did he dare take one?

  If he did, it would be instantly obvious that someone knew about the combat training. He could inadvertently start a war.

  But would anyone believe him without proof ?

  Suddenly, Henry heard footsteps in the corridor, footsteps getting louder.

  He pressed himself against the nearest wall, trying not to make a sound. There was a good chance that whoever was coming down the hall would pass right by.

  The footsteps stopped, and Henry heard a flurry of furious whispers:

  "You're certain you dinnae remember to lock it?"

  "Aye."

  "How could you be so stupid?"

  "I thought I heard--"

  "Thought you heard what? Knightley students creepin' up behind ye?"

  Cruel laughter.

  Henry peered out into the corridor.

  Two huge Partisan boys were at the far end, arguing.

  And just a meter away from where Henry hid was a staircase. If he could only make it unobserved ...

  Holding his breath, Henry leaped around the corner and, still barefoot, ran furiously down the staircase.

  It was a mystery to Henry how he finally made it back to his sleeping sack, or how he even fell asleep at all, but the next thing he knew, he was opening his eyes to the gray light of early morning and to the other students packing their belongings.

  Henry rolled up his sleeping sack, his head fuzzy from lack of sleep. And then the past night came rushing back to him: the combat training, the treaty, and how, in the panic of almost being caught, he had left the room with only his word as proof.

  After a breakfast of tasteless porridge, Henry and the other Knightley students weren't particularly heartbroken to board the train back to their school.

  Henry, Adam, and Rohan found an empty compartment, and Henry could hardly wait to tell his friends what he'd discovered.

  "You're being quiet," Rohan said, narrowing his eyes at Henry. "What aren't you saying?"

  "Oh, sorry." Henry hadn't realized he was so obvious. "It's just, I have something huge to tell you."

  And then the door to their compartment opened.

  "Hallo," Edmund said cheerfully, holding a deck of cards. "Luther's already fallen back asleep. Mind if I join you?"

  Henry gave his friends a desperate look. He couldn't tell them what he'd found out if Edmund was in their compartment!

  Rohan, to his credit, cleared his throat in the awkward silence and said, "Feel free, although I should warn you that I'm having horrible indigestion from the Nordlandic food." Rohan made a pained face and pressed his hands to his stomach.

  Henry recognized the signs that Adam was about to start laughing, so he stamped on Adam's foot.

  "Think I'll pass, actually," Edmund said, edging toward the door.

  When Edmund had gone, Henry breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks," he told Rohan.

  "Don't mention it," Rohan said.

  Adam made a farting noise with his mouth against his arm and then burst out laughing.

  "Pity there wasn't a competition in that," Rohan said.

  "In what?" Henry asked.

  "Pure stupidity." Rohan rolled his eyes at Adam.

  Adam composed himself, only to burst out laughing once more.

  "Get over it, Adam," Henry snapped, and then said, "Sorry. It's just that I found something quite serious last night."

  "Last night when you were wandering around Partisan Keep instead of being asleep?" Rohan asked, his face impassive.

&
nbsp; "You knew?" Henry asked, shocked.

  "I heard you get up," Rohan said. "But I wasn't going to follow you and get expelled."

  "You could have taken me with you," Adam whined.

  "Well, I didn't know that I'd find anything," Henry said.

  "We still don't know what you found," Rohan said pointedly. "And I've just embarrassed myself over it, so this better truly be huge."

  "It is," Henry said. "I found this door hidden in the wall paneling near that fish statue on the first floor. Anyway, the door led to this huge room full of practice weapons and charts."

  "What, like fencing?" Rohan asked.

  Henry shook his head. "The Partisan students are being trained in combat."

  "What?" Rohan practically yelled.

  "Shhhhh!" Henry said.

  "Sorry." Rohan lowered his voice. "Proper combat? You're certain?"

  Henry nodded and told his friends the rest of it: what he'd seen in detail, how he'd almost been caught, and how he'd escaped without any proof.

  "We have to tell someone," Adam said.

  "Wait here. I'll get Lord Havelock," Rohan said dryly.

  But then a thought occurred to Henry.

  Lord Havelock. Military history.

  Yesterday's quiz question: "At what age did pre-Longsword Treaty conscription laws bind boys to military service?"

  And the answer: thirteen.

  "Wait," Henry said, realization dawning.

  "I wasn't really going to get Lord Havelock," Rohan said with a puzzled look in Henry's direction.

  "No, not that," Henry said. "Conscription laws. No one's changed them since before the Longsword Treaty. If we go to war with the Nordlands, every boy over thirteen will have to fight."

  "But I thought those laws were just ancient history," Adam said nervously.

  "Well, that's what I thought about war," Henry said. "And now Partisan is training its students in combat. I'm certain of it. And if we tell anyone about this, there's going to be a war."

  "There's going to be a war anyway," Rohan said. "Why else would you train in combat?"

  Henry hadn't thought of it that way. But then he thought of something else.

  "I don't know," he said, "but do you remember the first lesson we had in military history? Adam got kicked out because he didn't know the answer and--"

  "Oi, watch it, mate!" Adam said.

  "Sorry," Henry said quickly. "But, Rohan, you remember, don't you? What Lord Havelock said?"

  Rohan nodded gravely. "Commoners captured in battle rot in prison cells. Only nobility are ransomed."

  "We're going to rot in prison cells?" Adam whined.

  "No, we're not," Henry said firmly. "Because there's not going to be a war. Someone will draw up a new treaty and everything will be fine."

  "I don't know," Rohan said. "It seems to me that the Nordlands have been wanting a war for a long time."

  And even though he didn't want to admit it, Henry knew that his friend was right. War was coming with the force of a tempest. War against the Nordlands, the likes of which they had only read about in history books.

  And they would have to fight.

  And so would every other boy over thirteen--unless there was something they could do to stop it.

  "Sir Frederick will know what to do," Henry said.

  Comforted by the thought, he stared out the window at the passing landscape, trying not to picture the frosted ground littered with the fallen bodies of his classmates, or packed fresh with their unmarked graves.

  A STORY WITHOUT PROOF

  Henry, Adam, and Rohan had barely opened the door to their room before Frankie was tossing rocks at their window.

  Exhausted from the journey and the walk back from the train station, Henry wanted to do nothing more than stretch out on his soft bed and fall asleep. Instead, he pushed open the window.

  "Come outside," Frankie shouted merrily.

  It was getting colder on the school grounds, and brightly colored leaves that had crunched under their feet only a week ago were now turning to soggy mulch.

  The four friends met by the bench outside the entrance to the hedge maze, stamping their feet to keep warm.

  "I'm only free until supper," Frankie said hurriedly. "My grandmother's gone shopping and taken Professor Stratford along to carry her purchases."

  "I'll bet he loves that," Henry said wryly.

  "She's never leaving," Frankie said with anguish. "I swear she isn't. Every day I think it's her last but she just stays, like my personal circle of infinite hell."

  "Well, your grandmother is the least of our worries," Henry said, and quickly filled Frankie in on what he'd found.

  "You're certain?" she asked. "Of course you're certain. But what are we going to do?"

  "Personally, I've always wanted to command a squadron of soldiers," Adam joked, and then cringed at the looks everyone shot in his direction. "Sorry."

  "I was thinking that we go to Sir Frederick directly after supper," Henry said. "Tell him what we've found, ask for advice, see what he thinks we should do."

  "What about my father?" Frankie asked.

  "Do you think he'd believe us?" Rohan asked.

  "I'm not sure." Frankie bit her lip, lost in thought. "I just can't imagine ... I mean, everyone's been saying for ages that we're close to war, that Chancellor Mors has secret armies or new technologies to use against us, but I never thought it would be now."

  "My father always says, 'When you expect something, you never see it coming,' " Rohan said.

  "Your father is friends with my grandmother," Frankie reminded him.

  And even though it felt as though they were on the brink of war, as though they weren't allowed to be happy, the four friends shared a brief smile at the thought of anyone being friends with Grandmother Winter.

  Henry knocked nervously on the door to Sir Frederick's office after supper, suddenly regretting his decision to talk to the medicine master alone. But then, it was his responsibility; after all, he'd been the one to discover the secret room.

  "Yes?" Sir Frederick called through the door.

  "It's Henry Grim, sir," Henry said.

  "Come in."

  Henry opened the door and found Sir Frederick puzzling at a slide through his microscope, his desk littered with papers.

  "I hope I'm not disturbing you, sir," Henry said.

  "Not at all."

  Sir Frederick waved a hand dismissively and pushed the microscope aside.

  "Well," Sir Frederick prompted, "what did you think of the Nordlands?"

  Henry smiled weakly.

  "It was different," Henry said truthfully. "And Partisan seemed much more strict than Knightley. Actually, sir, I wanted to talk to you about something I saw at Partisan."

  Sir Frederick leaned back in his chair, took out his pipe, and told Henry to go ahead.

  "Well," Henry began, "last night I found this room where the Partisan students are trained in combat."

  Sir Frederick choked on his pipe smoke and Henry waited until his professor's coughing fit had subsided.

  "Go on," Sir Frederick said. "You think you--ahem! Ahem! Sorry about that--found a room where Partisan trains its students in combat?"

  "I don't think, sir," said Henry, "I'm certain of it. There was a wardrobe filled with weapons, and practice dummies with painted-on targets, and charts ranking the students in different forms of fighting."

  Sir Frederick was very quiet for a long while after Henry finished explaining what he'd seen. Finally, when Henry was afraid Sir Frederick would continue to sit there and say nothing at all, the professor cleared his throat and said, "I assume you have proof ?"

  Henry's cheeks flushed. "No, sir."

  "Is it possible," Sir Frederick asked, "that you simply had a bad dream and woke up believing it was true?"

  "I know what I saw," Henry said stubbornly.

  "But you have no proof."

  "No," Henry said again, staring at his lap.

  "And you've told your fr
iends about this, I'd assume."

  "Yes, sir."

  "But no one else?"

  Henry shook his head.

  "Here is what I think," Sir Frederick said, tapping his pipe on the edge of his desk. "I think the Partisan students wanted you to believe they were being trained in combat. I think it was a prank."

  "It's not very funny, sir. No offense."

  "Nordlandic humor," Sir Frederick said with a shrug.

  For a moment Henry considered that it could have been a prank. That the students had set the whole thing up just to see who might be gullible enough to fall for it.

  But of course that was ridiculous. It had been real. Henry knew what he'd seen. Those mannequins painted with red targets had been used--and recently. The lists were too meticulously kept to be anything but real. And those weapons. Even now, the gruesome blades made Henry shudder just thinking of them.

  "I don't think it was a prank, sir," Henry said. "The Nordlands have broken the Longsword Treaty. Partisan is training its students in combat. I'm certain of what I saw."

  "Henry," Sir Frederick said kindly. "I want to believe you. Truly, I do. But what you're telling me is that you just happened to be wandering around out of bed, and you just happened to walk down a corridor and find a room full of weapons, and you don't have any proof or any witnesses, but according to you, the Nordlands are preparing to go to war against us."

  Henry sighed. He knew it sounded impossible, but he'd thought Sir Frederick would believe him. "Basically, yes," Henry said.

  "I'm sorry," Sir Frederick said, "but it's just a lot to accept based on a schoolboy's testimony."

  "But it's true," Henry insisted.

  "I know you think you saw this room," Sir Frederick said, "but if you ask me, they've been working you boys too hard to prepare for the tournament. You look exhausted. Get some sleep. Think on it. Maybe in the morning you'll change your mind about what you saw."

  "Maybe," Henry muttered, although he doubted it.

  Henry stared dully at his prayer register the next morning, not even bothering to mouth the words.