The Prince in Waiting Read Free Page B

low and grain too in short supply. There would be more cattle slaughtered unless the cold spell broke soon, and probably some horses.
    My name was called from behind. I knew the voice and involuntarily shivered. I turned and saw Ezzard striding toward me, his black cloak wrapped tightly round his tall lean frame. I waited for him to come up, telling myself I was no longer a child to be frightened by the Seer. His Spirits did not venture out of the Seance Hall, and anyway I had done nothing to offend them.
    But he was a man who in himself inspired awe. Taller even than my father, he had a craggy face with a beaked nose and black bushy eyebrows. His eyes were set deep and close together and were cold and blue. His skin was very white, as though he spent all his time in darkness and not just the hours when he was communing with the Spirits. In the summer when the light was stronger he wore spectacles that were darkly tinted; even without these there seemed a strange blankness, an emptiness, in his look.
    He said: “Where are you bound, boy?”
    I did not care for being addressed as “boy,” and even though it was the Seer I answered a little stiffly. But his eyes, staring into mine, made me drop my gaze.
    He said: “You respect the Spirits?”
    â€œYes, sire.”
    â€œThere are some, of your age, who do not—who mock foolishly.”
    I said: “I have seen the Spirits and heard them.”
    He nodded. “Remember that. Remember another thing: that the Spirits take care of those who show them proper reverence. The fools who mock at last are mocked. And they are fools all along.”
    â€œYes, sire.”
    He raised his hand in the blessing, though as Ezzard gave it it was almost menacing.
    â€œAway to your skating, then. Make the most of it. It will be your last of the winter.”
    I did not need to seek a meaning to that riddle. The Spirits foretold the weather to him. The thaw was coming and by tomorrow the ice would be too weak to bear. I was flattered that he should have told me this, as though I were one of the Prince’s messengers. I nodded and turned to go. As I did his hand grasped my shoulder.
    â€œPerhaps your last indeed.”
    I shivered again. One skated until one became a man, and one was not a man until fifteen. There were times when the Spirits prophesied a death.
    But he was smiling, his face improbably drawn into a grin.
    â€œGo your way, Luke. The Spirits go with you.”
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    I found Martin and we took our skates to the river. In the morning he had been busy with duties; his mother was a widow and too poor to afford even a single polymuf servant. We skated for a couple of hours and by the end of that time one could tell the change that was taking place: the wind had swung from north to west and there was mildness in it. I told him of Ezzard’s words as we walked back. He said:
    â€œHe is right often enough. But how?”
    â€œThrough the Spirits. How else?”
    â€œBut how?”
    Martin was not even as tall as I, and slim with it. He had a girl’s skin, delicate, almost transparent, and his brown eyes were big like a girl’s. We had become friends when I rescued him from other boys who were tormenting him. The biggest of them was someone I very much disliked, and it was more through this than through a desire to help Martin that I had taken him on and given him a beating. It was only later that I grew to like Martin. His mind was curious, odd in its way of thinking, restless and speculative. Sometimes absurdly so. I said:
    â€œThe Spirits know the future as they know the past. And they tell Ezzard because he is the Seer. There is nothing difficult about it.”
    He did not answer, and we did not pursue the matter because there was a horseman riding toward us, along Burnt Lane. I recognized horse and rider. My father called:
    â€œGreetings, son! I was told you were down at the river and I came out