The Prince in Waiting

EIGHT

A HEAD ON THE EAST GATE

IN DECEMBER THERE WAS A state visit from Prince Jeremy of Romsey, in return for that of my father’s which had been cut short a year before. He brought his eldest son with him, and they stayed for the Christmas Feast.

Prince Jeremy was a fattish, small, ineffectual-seeming man with a gingery mustache and beard, both delicately trimmed. His polymuf barber was one of the party and he spent an hour closeted with him each morning and came out oiled and scented. To my father he was deferential, almost obsequious, continually seeking his opinion and only offering his own when it was requested. In fact, his opinions were often worth having. Although he looked weak and effeminate his mind was shrewd.

The son, James, was a little older than I but a good deal taller and more adult in appearance; when he sometimes missed being shaved (as I think he did by design rather than accident or slovenliness) his chin was blue-stubbled with whiskers. I was astonished by his attitude to his father, which was one of condescension, almost of contempt, and by the father’s acceptance of it.

To me he offered at first the same condescension. I made it clear that I would not stand for it, and his manner changed to a rather oily affability. I found that he followed me around; little as I cared for his company I could not without rudeness be rid of it for long. And it was not possible to be rude: this was a state visit and I had a duty to perform. I cut him short in his criticisms of his father but had to tolerate the rest of his whinings. He was envious of Winchester’s wealth and prosperity and under cover of praising it continually bemoaned the poverty of his own city and of his father’s palace. They had no painter to compare with Margry, their musicians were inferior, their buildings small and mean against ours—even the dogs no match for our Winchester breed. All this, with its barely concealed jealousy and resentment, was increasingly irritating as the days passed and I grew more and more familiar with his complaints.

But if it was bad enough having to endure his company on my own, it was worse when Martin and Edmund were there. Martin he practically ignored, except for a faint air of surprise that I should associate with a commoner. He gloated over Edmund. It was not done openly—there was no particular thing said to which one could take exception—but there was no mistaking it. He had known Edmund, after all, as the Prince’s son, and he was plainly delighted by the reversal in his fortunes and the family’s present poverty.

Edmund for a time tolerated it, returning an equal but silent contempt which I think James was too stupid to notice. The break in his composure only came when one day in the street we met Edmund’s sister, Jenny. She did not notice James right away and stopped to say something to her brother about a domestic matter: a drain at the house that needed unblocking. It was only after some moments that she saw James and her words faltered. Her face, already pricked to color by the frost in the air, crimsoned further.

James said, his voice cool and it seemed to me with an edge of mockery:

“Greetings, lady. We have met before, I believe.”

The meeting, as we all knew, had been two years earlier and had been the occasion of their betrothal: the daughter of the Prince of Winchester and the heir to Romsey.

She said: “Yes, sir.”

He smiled at her. “Should you ever come to Romsey, you must call on us.”

The tone of insult was unmistakable. Their eyes met and his, in cruel arrogance, bore her gaze down. I had not thought I could be sorry for her but I was. She mumbled something and turned, walking away quickly over the packed snow. James called after her:

“Present my compliments to your lady mother.” Jenny did not reply or look back. “Tell her I regret that I shall not be able to visit her in her new home.”

Edmund, stung at last beyond endurance, started moving toward him, his fist doubling for a punch. I caught his arm and Martin did so from the other side. No provocation could be held to justify striking the son of a Prince who was a guest of the city: the offender must be charged and convicted and publicly lashed. James had seen his move and was smiling.

Edmund said: “Let me go. I’ll . . .”

“No.” I tightened my grip on his arm, making sure I hurt him. “It’s not worth it.” Our eyes locked. He was angry with me as well and I could see why. I said: “Go after Jenny. I’ll see to this.” He still struggled to get free. I whispered: “If you hit him, I must defend him. I have no choice. And then . . . do you want to have him watching while they take the lash to your naked back?”

He gave me a single look. I let go and he walked away. I motioned to Martin to go with him. James said:

“A pity you did not let him try.”

I turned on him fiercely, so fiercely that he started back. I said:

“I did it for his sake, not yours. But if you insult a friend of mine in my presence again it will be I that cracks you, state visit or no state visit.”

I walked away toward the palace. He followed, protesting that it was all an error: he had meant no insult. I did not answer. He caught up with me, and said:

“All the same, do you think you are wise to make a friend of such as him?”

I said sharply: “I do not need advice on choosing my friends.”

He laughed, high and thin. “Of course! But I worry about you, Luke. You are too trusting.”

I kept silent. I wanted no counsel from him, of any kind. Nor was it true. I knew myself well enough to know that with me trust was never constant but something which ebbed and flowed. I might trust a few in my good humor but when my mind was black clouded I trusted no one. This one, though, I would not trust under any conditions.

• • •

That evening, talking alone with my father, I asked how much longer they would stay. He said:

“Do you find that young James tries you?”

I gritted my teeth. “Almost beyond bearing.”

He smiled, “I have noticed the effort you made and been proud of you for it. One can see why some lads are unpleasant—this one has ruled his father since he was in the cradle—but one does not dislike them less for the knowledge. But it may prove to have been worth it.”

“I do not see how, sir.”

“No, but I will tell you. The father is a soft man in some ways but at the same time cunning. He has been impressed by our success the last two summers. He realizes that we have the aid and blessing of the Spirits. He wants an alliance.”

“For fear that we might attack him next?”

“In part, but not only through fear. He looks for advantages.”

“What advantages?”

“This, like all things said in this room, is not to be spoken of.” I nodded. “He proposes that next summer we join together in an attack on Andover.”

Andover was due north of Romsey, about fifteen miles distant. The cities were old rivals but in recent years the northerners had been greatly the stronger. Romsey had paid much in tribute and yielded valuable land. I said:

“I can see why he wants our help. But there is not much honor for us in defeating Andover with Romsey’s help.”

“I felt the same. But there is more to it than honor. Or a shared ransom. Ambitions have grown all round since we took Petersfield. He says he can take Andover, as well.”

“How?”

“There is a Sergeant in Andover who will see to it that one of the gates is opened. For a price.”

“But that is treachery! There would be no honor . . .”

“Listen,” my father said. “There are times when the world changes, when the customs of generations shatter and things are no longer fixed. Ezzard has told me we are in such a time. Because of this a man born a commoner became Prince of Winchester. Andrew of Petersfield used machines against us. We in turn took his city; and on the Spirits’ command have kept it. The changes are not yet ended. If Prince of two cities, why not three?”

“But if Jeremy’s army fights alongside ours, if it is he who has the key to the gates . . .”

“He is a timid man. He is shrewd enough but lacks courage. He is a little dog who wants a big dog to run with and will therefore let the big dog take what he wants and be content with the scraps. He offered me the city without my asking; he will be content with Stockbridge and the land around it. And with our friendship.”

I said: “I can think of others I would sooner have as friends.”

“So can I. But a Prince is bound by policy, not by liking. And by the Spirits. Ezzard supports this plan. He has told me: I will be Prince of many cities—you, if you are guided by the Spirits, Prince of all the cities in the land.”

I was silent. I thought of asking: did we want such an empire? But I guessed the answer I would get—that our wanting or not wanting was unimportant. The Spirits required it. They had served us well so far but their wrath, if we failed them, could destroy us as quickly as their benevolence had raised us. We had no choice.

• • •

Edmund kept away for the remainder of the visit, and for a time after. In the end I sought him out at the house in Salt Street, and persuaded him to come with me to the stables. There were just the two of us. Martin was already under instruction to become an Acolyte and busy that morning.

We walked in silence at first. There was constraint between us, the recollection of our last parting. In the end I said:

“I am sorry for holding you back. I would have liked to see you hit him. I would have liked to hit him myself.”

He did not reply at once and I thought he was still resentful. Then he said:

“No, you were right. It would not have been worth it to knock him down. What a toad he is! You would not believe how he fawned on me . . . in the old days.”

I said feelingly: “I think I would believe it.”

“And Jenny—he paid her such elaborate compliments and told her all the time how unworthy he was of her. It was true enough, but you could see he didn’t believe it. She hated him even then but of course had to obey our father. If there is a consolation in what happened it is that the city is rid of that alliance.”

I thought of what my father had told me but was silent. Edmund went on:

“She was saying, after that meeting, that she had only just realized what an escape she had in not having to marry him. She can marry whom she likes now, or not marry if she so wishes. There are advantages in no longer being royal. I would have had to marry for policy, too, and I would have detested it.”

I said: “Does it matter so much? There are more important things.”

“Do you think so?”

“One does not spend all that much time in the company of women. There is riding and hunting, battle, gaming—the company of one’s fellow men.”

Edmund shook his head. “It would matter to me.” He grinned, at last open and friendly again. “It is just as well that you do not mind, since you are going to have to obey the rules. As a matter of fact, Jenny and I were speculating the other day as to who was most likely to be the lady of the Prince of Princes. We were for Maud of Basingstoke.”

She had come to Winchester a few years ago when her father, Prince Malcolm, paid a state visit. She was dark and swarthy and very short in stature. People said that she should have been called dwarf but her mother pleaded with the Seer at her birth and he allowed her to pass for human.

I made a mock punch at him which he parried, laughing. It was good to be back on our old terms. On our way to the stables we gathered loose snow into balls and pelted each other like children.

• • •

Once again spring was late. Beyond the walls the fields lay white until mid-April and the thaw when it came seemed partial and uncertain. There were gray skies and a harsh east wind. Farmers, coming into the city on market day for the Spring Fair, complained that the ground was still too hard for planting; they had never known it so bad.

I was too concerned about the new campaign to care much. This year I would not be condemned to look after the baggage train. I was not allowed to be a warrior but I would be a scout, and Edmund with me. We rode our horses far out and practiced the arts of observation on the downland sheep.

The arrangement was that the army of Romsey was to come first to us, to be joined with our army under my father’s command; the combined force then moving north against Andover. They arrived late one afternoon and we saw their tents going up in the Contest Field and on open ground around it. That was the place that had been allotted them for a camp. Prince Jeremy had suggested it himself, saying that even if accommodation for his men could be found in the city it was wiser for them to remain outside. Even though our two cities were allies, conflicts might arise in living at such close quarters. My father, who had had similar thoughts, praised this as an example of Jeremy’s common sense. There was more to him, he repeated, than his fat foppishness would indicate.

Jeremy, with a handful of his Captains, came in for conference. James came as well. He had not improved in the months since I had last seen him; there was the same mixture of arrogance and sly servility, the same hungry envy for what he saw as our better fortune. Our horses were in better condition than theirs and looked faster, our dwarfs forged better swords.

“And our leather, I suppose,” Edmund said to me when I had slipped James’s company one day and was telling him all this, “comes from cows with thicker hides. He disgusts me. You say he is to scout for them? Not along with us, I hope?”

“No,” I said. “I have made certain of that. The armies part company on the second day. They take a line in advance of us and to the east. The idea is that they draw the Andover army onto them. Then we strike north to the city itself where the south gate will be open.”

The plan had been divulged to the Captains so I had felt I could tell it to Edmund; what had been said had been in the Great Hall, not my father’s parlor. He now said, brow wrinkled:

“I do not like it. It is not a good way of fighting.”

It was what I had said to my father and there were still doubts in my mind. Suppressing them, I said:

“The Spirits approve it.”

“Oh, the Spirits . . .!”

There was a noise of someone approaching. We were in the den under the Ruins which bit by bit we had furnished into a sort of comfort, with furniture and rugs taken from unused rooms in the palace and with oil lamps now for lighting. Martin joined us. These days he wore the white of an apprentice Acolyte and his shaved head was covered by a wide-brimmed white hat. I still had not got used to the change in his appearance.

Edmund said: “We can ask the expert for advice. Why is it, Martin, that the Spirits who have in the past told men to fight honorably now urge us to rely on treachery to win our victories?”

Martin said: “No expert. I am not even an Acolyte yet, and will not be for another year.”

“All right. But give us an opinion, as one who is planning to spend his life serving these same Spirits. Have they changed their minds? Has the Great Spirit sent out fresh instructions?”

He said it with a smile but Martin did not smile in return. He said, stumbling but in serious fashion:

“Without knowledge one cannot understand things. And knowledge is always limited. What I mean is . . . it is not so much that things change as that they happen in a different way.”

Edmund said in astonishment: “I believe they have converted him already.”

“I’m not very good at explaining what I mean.”

Edmund said: “But you’ve changed, too, like the Spirits, haven’t you? You take it more seriously.”

“Do I?” His expression showed reluctance. “In a way, perhaps.”

“Then you’ve been told things?”

“Not much. Nothing, really.”

“Tell us. We’ll judge.”

Martin looked more and more unhappy. I said:

“He is bound by oaths and you know it. He must not tell the secrets of the craft and we must not ask him.”

“Let him speak for himself,” Edmund said. “Do you say so, Martin?”

Martin said uncomfortably: “I’ve nothing really to say.”

Edmund looked at him curiously. “You believe in the Spirits now—is that it?”

“Yes,” he said. But it sounded as though the word was being dragged out of him. “I believe in them.”

• • •

We left the city the day before we were to march on Andover and camped in the fields on the far side of the road from the Romsey army. The reason for this was that Prince Jeremy had invited our men to join his at supper on the eve of our campaign together. He said that although it had been wise to keep the two forces from mixing inside the city, it was also wise that they should meet and feast moderately together before setting out. In this way they would get to know and have confidence in each other. My father was more dubious about this than he had been about the earlier suggestion but agreed that it could do no harm. The feasting, he pointed out, would need to be moderate, particularly as far as drinking went, since we were to ride next morning.

When we went over I, of course, found myself saddled again with James. He took me down the lines, denigrating even his men, which I thought unpardonable: they were less stout than ours, he said, but then they did not live so well. I ignored that and asked him about something else which struck me as odd: they had bowmen with them, at least a hundred, I could not understand what they were doing with an army in the field. Bowmen were part of the garrison, a defensive force. James said:

“An idea of my father’s.” He shook his head. “It probably won’t work.”

“I still don’t see . . . Even if they could come up with a troop of horse, the horsemen would gallop out of range before they could do any real damage.”

“It’s something to do with a scheme for luring the enemy into an ambush where the bowmen would shoot them down. As I say, it will very likely prove useless.”

“But meanwhile your own walls at Romsey are undefended.”

He gave a high laugh. “The women can toss slop buckets down on anyone who attacks. Apart from that, they can take their chance. The bowmen are defending the one Romsey skin that is precious. In my father’s eyes, at any rate.”

I said in annoyance: “I do not think that is true, unless it is your own skin you mean. Your father is concerned for you more than himself; and more, perhaps, than you deserve.”

“What does he deserve? Does a weak man deserve anything?”

“A son owes a duty.”

“You can say that,” he said bitterly, “with a father such as yours.” He looked at me with hatred for once showing instead of the usual ingratiating affability. “You can respect your father.”

It was not worth responding to the remark. We went on down the lines and he showed me the horses, drawing attention to their weak points. But he came back to the subject just before we parted. He said:

“You will grieve, I suppose, when your father dies?”

“Yes, but I do not expect to do so for a long time to come.”

“It could happen in this campaign. He fights in the van, doesn’t he, not from behind like the Prince of Romsey?”

“But fights well. It would take a good man to unhorse him.”

He laughed, but it was more a titter, mirthless.

“Good warriors have been brought down before now by cunning lesser ones.”

I said nothing, but left him.

• • •

The feasting was moderate as Jeremy had promised: extremely moderate. The meat was barely enough to go round and the ale, which for some unfathomable reason they called the Strong, was thin and sour compared with what our men were used to. There was some grumbling but our Sergeants controlled it well and got the men back to their own lines fairly early on the promise of a measure of decent ale there. It was not a particularly auspicious start to a joint expedition, but it could have been worse: there had been no fighting or even quarreling.

My father did not come back with the rest of us. Jeremy asked him to stay the night in his tent, an ornate affair four times the size of my father’s own and lined with silk: in this respect, at least, James could not bemoan Romsey’s poverty. Jeremy said he wanted to have a final private discussion about the campaign. I think my father thought he was nervous and needed reassuring. At any rate, he agreed to stay.

In our camp there was for some time a buzz of noise, part of the excitement which always attends the first few days in the field. Gradually it died away as the night drew on. I myself lay awake for a long time, turning restlessly despite my weariness. It was not the hardness of the ground which caused this—I had grown accustomed to hard living the previous summer—but a fit, for which I could find no cause, of my old melancholy. When I did sleep I had bad dreams: I could not remember what they had been but twice I woke in fear, sweating despite the chill of the night.

After that I slept heavily, exhausted. Edmund had to shake me into consciousness. I blinked up at him, and asked:

“What is it?”

“They’ve gone . . .”

“Gone? Who? What do you mean—gone?”

I was aware of a hum of talk and shouts outside; it had an anxious disturbed note like that of a hive broached by a clumsy beekeeper.

“The Romsey army. They have left camp in the night.”

“My father . . .?”

“I don’t know.”

I pulled clothes on and ran out, Edmund with me, to find the Captains. They too were agitated and most of them talking at once. They paid me no attention. It was some time before I could piece things together. The Romsey tents were still there, with their baggage train and heavy gear. But there was no sign of men or horses. Except for six men. My father’s bodyguards lay outside the Prince of Romsey’s tent with their throats slit. Of my father there was no sign.

Blaine said, above the others: “They cannot have got far. We can be up with them before they reach home.”

“If they are heading for home.”

That was a Captain called Greene, a man who did not say much but usually talked sense.

“Where else?” Blaine asked.

“They have left their tents and gear,” Greene said. “Would they do that unless they were sure of exchanging them for something better?” There was a silence in which I heard a rooster crowing distantly through the dawn air. “The plan was to take one of the Andover gates by treachery. There are gates nearer than Andover.”

As he spoke we knew it was true. Blaine cursed but quietly, not with his usual bluster. Then Greene called one of the Sergeants to form a troop. The Captains rode with it and I also. I was not invited but no one told me I must not. We rode, in near silence, along the road to the East Gate, past the abandoned Romsey camp.

Light was beginning to come into the sky behind our backs but it was difficult to see much. We had almost reached the East Gate before Blaine, with an oath, halted his horse and pointed upward. The pole above the gate carried a flag, and its colors were not the blue and gold of Winchester but the yellow and black of Romsey. We stared at it. While we were doing so the air hissed and a man cried out; his horse reared and dragged him away, an arrow in his throat. We knew now why Jeremy had brought his bowmen.

Blaine called a retreat. We went, but not before I had seen something else, stuck on a spear over the gate, flapped over by Romsey’s flag. It was a man’s head. At that distance and in the half light one could not see the face but there was no doubt whose it was. It wore the spiked helmet of the Prince of Winchester.