The Secret Prince by Violet Haberdasher

hired. But worse, Henry rather suspected he was taking on much older—and larger—opponents.
    “Well,
you
shouldn’t be in the kitchens,” the boy pointed out. “But ain’t neither of us goin’ to turn the other in.”
    Henry laughed aloud, and the serving boy suddenly remembered he was talking to one of the students. “Right, sir. I’ll be gettin’ back now, but if yeh need any-thin’ else, just ask for Ollie.”
    The boy called Ollie dashed back down the corridor, leaving Henry to find his own way back to where he belonged.

8
FLAG TWIRLING KNIGHTS
    T he first years were scheduled for drills the following
morning with Admiral Blackwood, to meet directly after breakfast in the quadrangle behind the thatch-castle thing. It was a typical blustery January morning, and while a few students shivered inside their coats, the cold felt good on Henry’s black eye.
    The night before in the library, some of the boys had come up with a dirty Latin translation from one of the exercises, and they now laughingly repeated the joke as everyone waited for their professor to arrive.
    Just as Derrick was saying the dirtiest bit rather too loudly, Admiral Blackwood burst out of the back doorway of Throgmorten Hall. His silver muttonchopwhiskers bristled, and his black boots were shined to perfection. He wore a safari hat and khaki explorer’s outfit that stretched across his stomach, suggesting that he’d been much younger—and thinner—when it had been issued.
    “Form a line,” the admiral commanded.
    Henry and the other first years shuffled into a scraggly line.
    “Double time, lads!” Admiral Blackwood ordered, growing red in the face as his orders caused a chaotic scramble, during which Edmund bumped front-on into a freckled, scrawny boy called Pevensey.
    “In the future,” said Admiral Blackwood, “you shall greet me with a salute and the phrase ‘Good morning, Drills Master.’ I shall expect to find you at attention,
alphabetically
.”
    Another frantic scramble.
    By the time they had it right, Admiral Blackwood was very red in the face indeed. He made them salute twice before he was satisfied. With a sour frown he paced the line, calling roll. Everyone tried very hard not to fidget, and although the cold weather caused a lot of desperate sniffling, no one quite dared to reach for a handkerchief.
    “Grim?”
    “Here, sir!” Henry called, saluting smartly.
    “How’d you get that black eye, lad?”
    “Cricket, sir,” Henry fibbed, while the other boys snickered.
    The admiral harrumphed loudly and continued with his role call.
    For the rest of the morning, Admiral Blackwood had them marching in formation back and forth across the field. Henry, who was stuck in the back of the ranks, tried to scrunch down without being obvious about it, as he was visibly the tallest and didn’t fancy being singled out again.
    Finally Admiral Blackwood called them back into line outside the thatch-castle thing. “Next time, lads, we’ll try you with the flags.”
    Everyone stared blankly.
    “Flags, sir?” asked Derrick.
    “You’ll be marching in the King Victor’s Day parade in the city this April,” Admiral Blackwood explained, as though it were obvious. “Three boys leading the drill, three with flags, and the rest with peacekeeper’s batons.”
    At this, Derrick snorted and whispered somethingabout “flag twirling knights” to Luther, who grinned broadly. Even though Henry also found the idea of their marching in formation and twirling flags to be absurd, it prickled at him worryingly during ethics. Why would a man like Admiral Blackwood come to Knightley to instruct them on marching in a parade?
    Frankie pointedly ignored Henry at supper, and disappeared the moment chapel ended the next morning. Well, Henry thought, at least Adam had warmed to the idea of being friends with Derrick and Conrad.
    Everyone was relieved to have fencing first thing Friday morning. As Henry helped Adam do up the back of his fencing