The Prince in Waiting Read Free

as they were or as they seemed to be.
    In appearance he was tall, broad-shouldered, fair, resembling my father much more than I did. I was of no more than average height, stockier, swarthy in my looks. I suppose I was more like my aunt, who was no blood kin to me, than either of my parents. Peter, like my mother, had no enemies, and for much the same reason. But unlike her he was warm in his affections. He went on talking, saying too much was made of the Contest. He had not been chosen and what difference had it made? Digby, who won the jewel in that year, was giving up soldiering to marry a merchant’s daughter and turn shopkeeper.
    What he did not understand was that I was different from both him and Digby. It had not mattered that he had not got a place because he had not minded, but I did. It only made it the more bitter that someone like Digby, willing now to give up being a warrior, should have had the chance to win the jeweled sword. If Peter did not resent it, he ought to.
    But he soothed me enough for the smell of Aunt Mary’s stew to tempt me back into hunger and I ate my dinner. There was apple pie to follow, made from apples picked in the autumn, then peeled and ringed and hung to dry on long lines in the attic. Afterward we sat in front of the fire in the living room until the clock on the mantel struck two. At that Peter yawned and stretched and stood up, his fair head almost touching the low whitewashed ceiling.
    â€œTime to be back. More formation training. I think we must be the best formation riders this side of the Burning Lands. We may not fight, but we ride very well.”
    He spoke in jest but there were others who said much the same and more sourly. The city had been five years at peace and men were restless.
    In this we had separated ourselves from the customs of the civilized lands. The summer campaigns were a part of the pattern of living, as much as the feasts of spring and autumn and mid-winter. In the yearly challenge to its enemies a city maintained its pride, and through pride purpose. This was, moreover, the source of all honor. The dwarfs might be content with their crafts and trades, but for a proper man in his youth and strength the only true glory lay in fighting for his city. If he was killed his body was brought back to lie with the other heroes in the Citadel; if he was crippled his Prince cared for him as long as he lived. And if, as was more often the case, he returned unscathed or with minor wounds he had his fame; and stories to tell, boasts to make during the long idleness of winter.
    The Prince’s father, Egbert, had been a great fighter; it was under him that my own father had been ennobled in a savage battle against the men of Basingstoke. Our new Prince was very different. Each year he found some reason for not taking our army into the field. From the beginning there had been doubts of his valor and the doubts had grown as summer succeeded summer with fresh excuses. He was a big man with a black curling beard but had a strangely empty look, like a vessel that had missed being filled.
    There was a tale which had never been forgotten of a wrestling contest when he was a young man. It was that form of wrestling in which the object is not to throw one’s opponent to the ground but to lift him off his feet and hold him in the air. Stephen, though even then big for his age, had chosen the smallest of the group to contend against, presumably because he doubted his chances with the others. And after a great struggle this one, though inches shorter and narrow of chest, had lifted him not once but twice, the second time carrying him helpless round the ring.
    So his excuses now—an illness of his Lady, the weather being unpropitious or the crops needing special attention, once a warning from the Spirits in a dream (he said) of disaster to the city if the troops went forth—were suspect. Last year he was supposed to have injured his back, so that he could not ride