The Prince in Waiting (15 page)

“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.

W
HEN 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.”