The Prince in Waiting

NINE

BOLD PETER

WHEN I GET HIM,” BLAINE said, “I will have him scourged each day for a week and in between he will lie naked in a salt bed. Then I will have his chest opened and his ribs pulled outward, slowly, till he looks like a bloody eagle. I will . . .”

“Get him first,” Harding said drily. “Then you can show us how inventive you are.”

They were talking about the Sergeant in charge of the East Gate who, it was well nigh certain, had let the Romsey army in. He was a man called Gray who, people now remembered, had fought well against Alton and Petersfield. He had been rewarded with gold but had not thought the reward enough. He had hoped to be ennobled, having an ambitious wife. But ennoblements were rare, however good the fighting, and his wife was disliked and despised by the city’s Ladies.

“Robert should not have trusted him with command of a gate,” Blaine said. “He should have been out in the field with us.”

Greene said: “His wife is with child and the last she had was polymuf. She expects to bear within a month. That was why he asked leave to stay behind, and was granted it. It could not be known that he was treacherous.”

“A Prince should know these things,” Blaine said, “or guard against them.”

“If he was at fault,” Harding said, “he was the first to pay for it.”

We were at our camp, in the conference tent. It was a cold morning and rain had begun to fall, rattling harshly against the canvas. I stood in a corner, unregarded. My skin was clammy with a cold sweat, my mind turned in useless narrow circles, fastening again and again on the sight which, above all, I would have shut out forever from my mind. But it would not be dismissed; the harder I tried the faster and more vividly it winged back.

Greene said: “Being deceived by Jeremy was the greater error. But, by the Great, what a fox he is! Promising Robert that he would give him Andover and using that same trick to take Winchester . . . I would not have thought, with his scents and silks, that he had the guts to try it.”

Blaine said bitterly: “That’s what comes of making a man like that our Prince. You need breeding to be a judge of character.”

“Would you have judged Jeremy better?”

“I never liked him.”

“Nor did Robert,” Greene said. “A Prince does not have to like his allies. And the Spirits favored the scheme.”

“Curse the Spirits!” Blaine burst out. “I would have liked to see Ezzard’s head beside his on the gate. They have betrayed us worse than Jeremy.”

There was a silence. After a moment, Blaine blustered on:

“There are Spirits and Spirits. Remember what Marinet used to say?” He had been Seer before Ezzard, and better liked, though Ezzard had been more feared. “There are Spirits whose delight is to lead men into mischief, which the Great One permits as a means of testing, and of humbling those who puff themselves up beyond their merits. They start with gifts and promises but they end with destruction. Was it not those Spirits who led our ancestors blindfolded to the Disaster? And have they not done the same with Robert? Can anyone deny it?”

Harding said: “It may be.” He was a small, wiry, sharp man, who talked less than Blaine but could usually silence him. “Perhaps we shall have leisure to talk of it during the long winter evenings. But there are more pressing needs. Jeremy has our city. We must decide what we should do.”

“He has ours but his own is ill guarded.” It was Charles who spoke, the brother of Edmund, son of Prince Stephen. “If we rode hard for Romsey we might take it and have something to bargain with. His bowmen are here.”

Greene said: “Not all his bowmen, I’ll wager. If he is fox enough to plan this he will have made his defenses sure at home.”

“We could try at least.”

There was no enthusiasm for the suggestion. An army whose own city was in enemy hands attacking a stronghold . . . it was not a picture to inspire much hope. A Captain called Ripon said:

“Well enough for you. But we have womenfolk at hostage.”

“I also,” Charles said. “My mother and my sister.”

“Mothers and sisters!” Ripon said. “We have wives and daughters.”

During Blaine’s abuse of my father, the cold shock which had stunned me had been giving way to anger. It was against Blaine in the first place, but I knew he was not worth it. It was Jeremy who had tricked my father and slaughtered him while a guest in his tent.

I said: “Why do we wait?”

Their eyes turned to me. Blaine said, sneering:

“The brat has counsel for us. Speak up, then, you that were to be Prince of Princes. What would you have us do?”

“Not stand here talking!” I saw my father’s head again with the Romsey flag slow-flapping over it and the memory maddened me. “We should attack the walls at once and force them! We should have done so right away instead of letting two or three arrows drive us back.”

Blaine laughed. “Attack the walls . . . he’s a merry youngster! Those walls which Stephen built up year after year till they were the highest and strongest in the land. Go and do it yourself, lad—you need no help from us. The Spirits will give you wings or maybe tumble the walls down for you. If you don’t know how to summon them, go to the head that sits on the East Gate and ask him to do it for you.”

I went at him blindly. He smiled and cuffed me, knocking me to the ground. He had great strength and all of it was in the blow: his anger drove him, too. Dazed, I heard Harding say:

“We waste our time discussing fantasies. It makes no sense to do anything until we have heard from Jeremy. I do not think he will keep us waiting long.”

• • •

The herald came an hour later, alone and unarmed, riding a black horse with the white cloth of truce trailing soaked, from its reins. He was brought to the conference tent and stood there, wiping rain from his face with his sleeve.

His name was Grant and he was the best liked of the Captains who had accompanied Jeremy when he came to the Christmas Feast. He had seemed a decent and sensible man, level-eyed and level-headed. He did not look as though he enjoyed his errand. Harding said:

“Greetings, Captain. You will not expect much by way of welcome, seeing what brings you here. Do you have a message from your master?”

“Yes,” Grant said, “I have a message. He bids you return in peace to your city and your homes.”

Harding had been nominated to speak for the rest. He said: “On what conditions?”

“Sergeants and men will be admitted twenty at a time, and unarmed. They will be imprisoned under guard, but only until the peace settlement has been made. Captains may keep their swords.”

“Why? To save our honor?” Grant nodded. “Is there any honor left after treachery such as yours?”

“It is not treachery to forestall treachery. By taking your city our Prince only defended his own.”

“Do you say that we are weasels like you—that we planned to attack Romsey, not Andover? If so, every man here knows you lie, and knows therefore what trust to put in any new promises fat Jeremy makes.”

“Not this year, maybe, but our Prince is far-sighted. Robert took Petersfield last summer and, against all the customs of war, kept it. He was to rule over Andover as well. Where would this have stopped? Was it not said that his son was to be Prince of Princes, ruler of every city in the land? Would Romsey, lying so close to Winchester, have been allowed to escape? Had you been Captains of Romsey you would have had good cause to fear the future. Can any man here deny it?”

Harding said: “And therefore we are to accept the rule of your Prince instead, and of that whining, sniggering son of his after?”

“No. Our Prince restores the ancient customs. There will be tribute, of course, but you may keep your city, choosing a proper Prince to rule it. Petersfield, too, will be free. The Prince of Romsey does not wish to govern lands outside his own.”

Harding did not reply at once. I looked at the faces of the other Captains and found them thoughtful.

Harding asked: “Is that the sum of his demands?”

Grant shrugged. “There will be small things to be discussed. But you get your own city back, and your own Prince. He will promise that.”

I said: “As he promised to fight with us against Andover? As he promised my father friendship?”

Grant glanced at me but did not answer. He looked unhappy, as though what I said had brought him back from the safe neutral ground of arguing policy to the closer, harsher truth of hospitality polluted, confidence betrayed. It was Blaine who said:

“Shut up, boy. Keep silence in the presence of your elders and betters. You are here on sufferance, so do not try our patience.”

Grant asked: “What answer do you give me to take back to my Prince?”

Harding said: “Tell him we have received his message. We will consider it, and send him word.”

Grant bowed. “I will take that news to him. I hope we may soon drink together at the peace feast.”

No one answered him. Blaine said something that sounded like a curse, almost under his breath. Grant left the tent in silence, and we heard the jangle of harness as he mounted his horse and rode away.

• • •

The Captains wrangled until dinner, finding no common agreement. Some, like Blaine, were for defying Jeremy, but could put up no suggestions of how to do this, or none that carried weight. Others, fewer in number, argued that we must accept his terms, having no choice. I managed to hold my tongue, though with difficulty. It was true what Blaine had said: I was there on sufferance and there was nothing to stop them putting me out. It was more important to know what was happening than to offer opinions which in any case I knew would be treated with contempt.

Dinner was brought to us at the middle of the day. It was hard tack: soup, salt beef, hard biscuit, a small measure of ale. The army had its rations but in no great abundance. We had looked to living off Andover’s land. It would not make us popular to raid our own farmers. The rain had set in heavily and ran in rivulets between the tents; the horses stamped miserably at their tethers and the men were full of gloom and grousing. A raw breeze blew chilly from the city whose walls, once our safeguard, now mocked us.

When talk resumed, there was a change in atmosphere. Harding talked more. After the herald left he had listened for the most part, sounding out the others for their views. Now, with patience and skill, he was trying to influence the Captains to his own way of thinking. And that way, it became more and more clear, favored acceptance of Jeremy’s offer.

“And if we do,” Blaine shouted angrily, “what guarantee do we have with our men disarmed and guarded? He will leave us our swords, will he? And what good are twenty swords against an army? Even that fool of a boy”—his small eyes darted in my direction—“could see that. Jeremy’s promises are worth nothing. Nothing! Is he to swear by the Spirits? When he has already defied them?”

“He has defied the Spirits that led Robert Perry astray,” Harding said. “So he is favored by other Spirits who are more powerful. Or else Robert was abandoned and it is all a game. You said yourself that there are Spirits and Spirits. But if he swears by the Great Spirit Himself, I do not think he will break his oath; or if he does that his men will follow him.”

There was a murmur of agreement: an oath made on the Great Spirit must be binding. Harding said:

“We must not deceive ourselves: he has us in the hollow of his hand. He speaks softly now because he hopes for peace, on his own terms. But if we defy him I would give nothing for the safety of our womenfolk. And the men will not be easy with the thought of a Romsey army walking their streets unchecked. If we choose to fight I would not be sure that they would follow us. And how can we fight? Blaine has said it: the walls Stephen built are the strongest in the land. We would only break our bones on them.”

He spoke calmly and reasonably, therefore persuasively. I saw some nod their heads, among them Greene. Harding went on:

“If we surrender now we do not surrender for all time. He lets us keep our swords, but I do not think any of us will forget what happened this morning. There will be a time to fight again. Not for the sake of a Prince whose ambition is well ended, but for our honor.”

“He may bind us in a treaty of peace,” Greene said.

“No doubt he will. And we will keep it as long as they do. But who has ever known a treaty of peace that the other side could say they kept in everything? And if they break it, we are free.”

He was winning them, and not to his plan of action only. His aim, I saw, was deeper. The city lacked a Prince and he was advancing his claim. Blaine had shown himself rash and the Captains, smarting from being tricked, wanted a man of guile and caution. They had chosen Harding to speak to Jeremy’s herald. If they followed him now they would acclaim him even before the men of Romsey rode away.

He had been cunning, too, after stressing the inevitability of surrender, in raising hopes of revenge. Ripon said:

“They will break it! And by the Great, when they do . . .”

Other voices rose, on the same note of resentment but also with new assurance. Then one said, strongly:

“Wait!”

It was Peter, my cousin. He had not spoken in all the previous talk. Looking at him I had thought him stunned, perhaps even more than I was, by what had happened. But he spoke now with strength and confidence. On that single word they listened to him.

He said: “I can show you how to win back the city and not lose a man.”

Blaine began to say something but stopped. Harding said:

“This one has gone mad. We know what blood runs in his veins.”

Ignoring him, Peter said to the other Captains:

“Or would you rather bend your knees to Jeremy, pay him gold, watch him drive off Winchester cattle and load his carts with your women’s jewels?”

“If you are not mad,” Greene said, “tell us how.”

“I have conditions first.”

“You name conditions!” Blaine said. “A Perry, commoner born, naming conditions to us . . .!”

He stared at Blaine. “Yes, I name conditions.”

His voice was level, without anger but with certainty. Greene said:

“If this is a jest, Perry, you may find the laughter cut short. Say it quickly.”

“There are two,” Peter said. “The first is that a ransom is paid, but not to Romsey. We will pay gold to the Christians so that they can build a church to their god.”

There was a confusion of protest, laughter, incredulity. I heard Harding’s voice: “Mad, as I said. Do you want more proof?” Peter let them run on for some moments. Then he said, and they went quiet as he spoke:

“This will be done because it is through the Christians that the city will be regained.”

“How else?” cried Blaine. “We had forgotten those warriors of ours. I can see them, driving the Romsey men down the High Street with their crosses!”

Peter ignored him. He said:

“You know that in Winchester men despise them, but do not harm them. It is not so everywhere. In some cities they are harried by Seers who have them tortured or killed for refusing to worship the Spirits. And even where they are safe for the moment they have no confidence that the safety will last. If Ezzard does not persecute them, the next Seer of Winchester might. So they take their precautions.”

He paused before going on. He had all their attention, even Blaine’s.

“I have considered this all day. As you will guess, I have it from my wife. She was bound to keep the secret, but told me. Her trust in me binds me also. If I break it, as I think I must, then I demand a tribute for her god, to turn away his wrath. Do I get this from you?”

Harding stared at him with cold, appraising eyes.

Greene said: “If it is worth it, you get it.”

“It is worth it. A tunnel that goes under Stephen’s great walls. Cramped and dirty, but men can crawl through it. It was the way of escape for the Christians and can be a way in for men who will take the North Gate and open it to our army. I know where it starts. Will you give them gold and the right to build their church?”

“By the Great,” Greene said, “I will! And I do not think any will refuse.”

I heard voices speak approval and none opposing.

Peter said: “That is one condition.”

Blaine asked: “And the other?”

“My father is dead. He died by treachery, murdered by his host. Jeremy dies for this. There will be no ransom for the Prince of Romsey.”

They roared assent, and he put a hand up to stop them.

“That is not the condition. I did not think any of you would let him live. My father was a great Prince. His Spirit requires more than just revenge; it needs his own blood to follow him in power, his son in the Great Hall.”

I saw them look at me. Blaine said:

“He is a boy, too young to govern himself, let alone a city like ours.”

Peter looked at me, too, and smiled. I saw the smile but could not read what lay behind it. He said:

“You mistake me, Blaine. My father had two sons. I was first born. I claim his place.”

There was silence again and his unwavering, confident gaze went round their faces. Then Greene broke out:

“Do as you say, Perry, and you have my voice!”

The rest followed. Even Blaine and Harding were forced to an assent. Blaine gave it grudgingly but Harding showed no emotion in his voice.

• • •

The rain stopped toward evening. The sky above the city was painted in scarlet and orange. Clouds hung huge over the walls, first red then purple, at last black against a deep-blue sky. Occasionally one saw a head silhouetted above the battlements, one of Romsey’s men. It was not until full darkness came that the army marched, quietly and by a circuitous path, to take up its position outside the North Gate.

I watched with Edmund. Peter, with two other Captains, one of them Greene, and a band of picked men, had left for the hut, a broken-down shack thought to be abandoned years before, under whose floor the tunnel started. They would come out into the house of the Priest, as the leader of the Christians was called, near the North Gate and from there it would be easy to fall on the Romsey men defending that gate from behind. Our army waited for the sign, a torch flourished in the gateway, which would tell them the way was open.

Time dragged by—minutes, hours it seemed. We did not speak much. We were each occupied with our own thoughts. Mine were confused and bitter. This morning the thought of seeing Jeremy’s head set up in place of my father’s would have been a joy to override anything. It was so no longer. The blackness of despair was back in my mind, the sense that all was useless: one could not live without hope, but always hope betrayed.

It was cold even though the rain had stopped. I started to shiver but I think it came more from melancholy than from the night air. I tried to stop it, not wanting Edmund to notice, but could not. He shifted beside me, and said:

“Luke.”

“Yes.”

“When this is over, what do you plan to do?”

“Don’t know.”

I answered shortly so that he would not hear my teeth chatter. He said:

“If you thought of leaving the city, going north perhaps, I would go with you.”

I did not answer and he did not speak again. I was too bitter and wretched to realize what he was offering: that having weathered his own grief and disappointment he would still go into exile with me as a companion to me in mine. Later I understood. Friendship meant much to him, more than it could ever do to me.

We waited and my limbs shook. I set my jaw until it, my neck, my whole body ached with the strain. Then the light shone ahead, the dull tramp of feet went past us, and soon, following after the army, we heard the distant sounds of the struggle. Not for long. We had the advantage of surprise and our men were fighting in their own streets. Inside half an hour the last of Romsey’s warriors had laid down his arms. Inside an hour fat Jeremy’s head topped the palace gate.

• • •

I went back that night with Edmund to the house in Salt Street, though I did not sleep. Next morning, after breakfast, I slipped away without a word and went to the palace. Because he would have insisted on coming with me I said nothing to Edmund. Whatever I faced was mine, mine only, and I would face it alone.

I stood for a while in the crowd that stared at Jeremy’s head. They were in a festive mood, many drunk already, and from time to time they roared for their Prince, Peter, to come and show himself. I saw Christians there and men slapping them on the back as comrades while they looked dazed and disbelieving. A player was singing a song made up for the occasion:

“Under the walls bold Peter came—

Took the gate with a torch of flame—

And so made good his father’s shame . . .”

A new roar drowned it as Peter came out on the balcony. I slipped away and in at a side door. I passed polymuf servants; some of them bobbed to me but others did not. Two soldiers stared at me and one laughed behind my back. I went to my room and waited for whatever was to happen.

Martin found me there, staring blindly out of the window at wet roofs under a gray sky. He said: “Luke,” and I turned.

“Ezzard wants you.”

“He will find me here.”

“The risk is too great.”

“Poor Ezzard.”

“For you both. You must come.”

“No must,” I said. “I have had enough of must from Fate itself.”

“Remember what the High Seers said: that you have a mission and when the time comes you must obey. You promised it.”

“I never told you that.”

“But I know.”

“And you still believe that nonsense?”

“More than ever.”

There was passion in his thin face. The tricks by which Ezzard had won him over must have been good ones. I argued for a while but he had more conviction than I, who was waiting for I knew not what except that it could not be good. I went with him, through the palace and out into the street. Someone jeered after us. He did not lead me toward the Seance Hall but along a side street. We stopped at a house near a tavern and, after a quick look round, he drew me in.

Ezzard was waiting in a room upstairs. He looked more white and gaunt than ever. He said:

“Well done, Martin. Leave us now.” As the door closed, he added: “We must get you out of here, Luke, and quickly.”

I said: “I came for one thing, sire. To curse the Spirits who led my father to his death, and the Seer who spoke for them.”

He showed no anger. In a quiet voice, he said:

“Curse if you will, but do as I say. Your life is not worth a halfpenny here. Even if Peter does not order it, someone will have you killed, thinking to please him. You were named heir and Prince of Princes. Alive, you challenge his power. Things may be different later but these are days of doubt and murder. Leaving Peter out of it, there are enough who would rather see one Perry left than two. Your only hope is in flight.”

“I will not flee.”

“Listen, boy. You are a fool but not a complete fool or you would not have been chosen. Even though he is dead, would you do your father’s will?”

“If I knew it. Are you to tell me? But for you he would be living still.”

“Did he fear death?” I hesitated. “You know better. He thirsted for it. If the Spirits guided the assassins’ knives he thanked them for it with his last breath. Is this not true?”

I was silent. He said: “Your father lived to do his duty and prepare for your succession.”

“My succession!” I laughed. “As Prince of Princes.”

“Yes. And the prophecy lives while you do. The Captains know that. So does your father’s Spirit. Can you deny it? If you will not ask me what he would have wished, consult your memory of him. It is fresh still.”

In my mind I saw him, sitting in his armchair in front of the painting of my mother. His eyes were on me. Was everything a waste, all hope and effort, did everything shatter and fail? I could not think otherwise but he had, and perhaps had died with that belief outweighing the pain and betrayal. I owed him something.

I asked: “Where would you have me go?”

“To the Sanctuary. Where else?”

I nodded. “As you wish, then, sire.”