The Lost Prince (5 page)

‘That torn magazine you found had more than one article about Samavia in it,’ he said to The Rat. ‘The same man wrote four. I read them all in a free library. He had been to Samavia, and knew a great deal about it. He said it was one of the most beautiful countries he had ever travelled in – and the most fertile. That’s what they all say of it.’

The group before him knew nothing of fertility or open country. They only knew London back streets and courts. Most of them had never travelled as far as the public parks, and in fact scarcely believed in their existence. They were a rough lot, and as they had stared at Marco at first sight of him, so they continued to stare at him as he talked. When he told of the tall Samavians who had been like giants centuries ago, and who had hunted the wild horses and captured and trained them to obedience by a sort of strong and gentle magic, their mouths fell open. This was the sort of thing to allure any boy’s imagination.

‘Blimme, if I wouldn’t ’ave liked ketchin’ one o’ them ’orses,’ broke in one of the audience, and his exclamation was followed by a dozen of like nature from the others. Who wouldn’t have liked ketchin’ one?

When he told of the deep endless-seeming forests, and of the herdsmen and shepherds who played on their pipes and made songs about high deeds and bravery, they grinned with pleasure without knowing they were grinning. They did not really know that in this neglected, broken-flagged enclosure, shut in on one side by smoke-blackened, poverty-stricken houses, and on the other by a deserted and forgotten sunken graveyard, they heard the rustle of green forest boughs where birds nested close, the swish of the summer wind in the river reeds, and the tinkle and laughter and rush of brooks running.

They heard more or less of it all through the Lost Prince story, because Prince Ivor had loved lowland woods and mountain forests and all out-of-door life. When Marco pictured him tall and strong-limbed and young, winning all the people when he rode smiling among them, the boys grinned again with unconscious pleasure.

‘Wisht ’e ’adn’t got lost!’ someone cried out.

When they heard of the unrest and dissatisfaction of the Samavians, they began to get restless themselves. When Marco reached the part of the story in which the mob rushed into the palace and demanded their prince from the king, they ejaculated scraps of bad language. ‘The old geezer had got him hidden somewhere in some dungeon, or he’d killed him out an’ out – that’s
what he’d been up to!’ they clamoured. ‘Wisht the lot of us had been there then – wisht we ’ad. We’d ’ave give’ ’im wot for, anyway!’

‘An’ ’im walkin’ out o’ the place so early in the mornin’ just singin’ like that! ’E ’ad ’im follered an’ done for!’ they decided with various exclamations of boyish wrath. Somehow, the fact that the handsome royal lad had strolled into the morning sunshine singing made them more savage. Their language was extremely bad at this point.

But if it was bad here, it became worse when the old shepherd found the young huntsman’s half-dead body in the forest. He
had
‘bin “done for”
in the back
! ’E’d bin give’ no charnst. G-r-r-r!’ they groaned in chorus. ‘Wisht
they’d
bin there when ’e’d bin ’it! They’d ’ave done fur somebody’ themselves. It was a story which had a queer effect on them. It made them think they saw things; it fired their blood; it set them wanting to fight for ideals they knew nothing about – adventurous things, for instance, and high and noble young princes who were full of the possibility of great and good deeds. Sitting upon the broken flagstones of the bit of ground behind the deserted graveyard, they were suddenly dragged into the world of romance, and noble young princes and great and good deeds became as real as the sunken gravestones, and far more interesting.

And then the smuggling across the frontier of the unconscious prince in the bullock cart loaded with sheepskins! They held their breaths. Would the old shepherd get him past the line! Marco, who was lost in the recital himself, told it as if he had been present.
He felt as if he had, and as this was the first time he had ever told it to thrilled listeners, his imagination got him in its grip, and his heart jumped in his breast as he was sure the old man’s must have done when the guard stopped his cart and asked him what he was carrying out of the country. He knew he must have had to call up all his strength to force his voice into steadiness.

And then the good monks! He had to stop to explain what a monk was, and when he described the solitude of the ancient monastery, and its walled gardens full of flowers and old simples to be used for healing, and the wise monks walking in the silence and the sun, the boys stared a little helplessly, but still as if they were vaguely pleased by the picture.

And then there was no more to tell – no more. There it broke off, and something like a low howl of dismay broke from the semicircle.

‘Aw!’ they protested, ‘it ’adn’t ought to stop there! Ain’t there no more? Is that all there is?’

‘It’s all that was ever known really. And that last part might only be a sort of story made up by somebody. But I believe it myself.’

The Rat had listened with burning eyes. He had sat biting his fingernails, as was a trick of his when he was excited or angry.

‘Tell you what!’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘This was what happened. It was some of the Maranovitch fellows that tried to kill him. They meant to kill his father and make their own man king, and they knew the people wouldn’t stand it if young Ivor was alive. They just stabbed him in the back, the fiends! I dare say they
heard the old shepherd coming, and left him for dead and ran.’

‘Right, oh! That was it!’ the lads agreed. ‘Yer right there, Rat!’

‘When he got well,’ The Rat went on feverishly, still biting his nails, ‘he couldn’t go back. He was only a boy. The other fellow had been crowned, and his followers felt strong because they’d just conquered the country. He could have done nothing without an army, and he was too young to raise one. Perhaps he thought he’d wait till he was old enough to know what to do. I dare say he went away and had to work for his living as if he’d never been a prince at all. Then perhaps sometime he married somebody and had a son, and told him as a secret who he was and all about Samavia.’ The Rat began to look vengeful. ‘If I’d bin him I’d have told him not to forget what the Maranovitch had done to me. I’d have told him that if I couldn’t get back the throne, he must see what he could do when he grew to be a man. And I’d have made him swear, if he got it back, to take it out of them or their children or their children’s children in torture and killing. I’d have made him swear not to leave a Maranovitch alive. And I’d have told him that, if he couldn’t do it in his life, he must pass the oath on to his son and his son’s son, as long as there was a Fedorovitch on earth. Wouldn’t you?’ he demanded hotly of Marco.

Marco’s blood was also hot, but it was a different kind of blood, and he had talked too much to a very sane man.

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘What would have been the use? It wouldn’t have done Samavia any good, and it
wouldn’t have done him any good to torture and kill people. Better keep them alive and make them do things for the country. If you’re a patriot, you think of the country.’ He wanted to add ‘That’s what my father says,’ but he did not.

‘Torture ’em first and then attend to the country,’ snapped The Rat. ‘What would you have told your son if you’d been Ivor?’

‘I’d have told him to learn everything about Samavia – and all the things kings have to know – and study things about laws and other countries – and about keeping silent – and about governing himself as if he were a general commanding soldiers in battle – so that he would never do anything he did not mean to do or could be ashamed of doing after it was over. And I’d have asked him to tell his son’s sons to tell their sons to learn the same things. So, you see, however long the time was, there would always be a king getting ready for Samavia – when Samavia really wanted him. And he would be a real king.’

He stopped himself suddenly and looked at the staring semicircle.

‘I didn’t make that up myself,’ he said. ‘I have heard a man who reads and knows things say it. I believe the Lost Prince would have had the same thoughts. If he had, and told them to his son, there has been a line of kings in training for Samavia for five hundred years, and perhaps one is walking about the streets of Vienna, or Budapest, or Paris, or London now, and he’d be ready if the people found out about him and called him.’

‘Wisht they would!’ someone yelled.

‘It would be a queer secret to know all the time when no one else knew it,’ The Rat communed with himself as it were, ‘that you were a king and you ought to be on a throne wearing a crown. I wonder if it would make a chap look different?’

He laughed his squeaky laugh, and then turned in his sudden way to Marco:

‘But he’d be a fool to give up the vengeance. What is your name?’

‘Marco Loristan. What’s yours? It isn’t The Rat really.’

‘It’s Jem
Rat
cliffe. That’s pretty near. Where do you live?’

‘No. 7 Philibert Place.’

‘This club is a soldiers’ club,’ said The Rat. ‘It’s called the Squad. I’m the captain. ‘Tention, you fellows! Let’s show him.’

The semicircle sprang to its feet. There were about twelve lads altogether, and, when they stood upright, Marco saw at once that for some reason they were accustomed to obeying the word of command with military precision.

‘Form in line!’ ordered The Rat.

They did it at once, and held their backs and legs straight and their heads up amazingly well. Each had seized one of the sticks which had been stacked together like guns.

The Rat himself sat up straight on his platform. There was actually something military in the bearing of his lean body. His voice lost its squeak and its sharpness became commanding.

He put the dozen lads through the drill as if he had been a smart young officer. And the drill itself was prompt and
smart enough to have done credit to practiced soldiers in barracks. It made Marco involuntarily stand very straight himself, and watch with surprised interest.

‘That’s good!’ he exclaimed when it was at an end. ‘How did you learn that?’

The Rat made a savage gesture.

‘If I’d had legs to stand on, I’d have been a soldier!’ he said. ‘I’d have enlisted in any regiment that would take me. I don’t care for anything else.’

Suddenly his face changed, and he shouted a command to his followers.

‘Turn your backs!’ he ordered.

And they did turn their backs and looked through the railings of the old churchyard. Marco saw that they were obeying an order which was not new to them. The Rat had thrown his arm up over his eyes and covered them. He held it there for several moments, as if he did not want to be seen. Marco turned his back as the rest had done. All at once he understood that, though The Rat was not crying, yet he was feeling something which another boy would possibly have broken down under.

‘All right!’ he shouted presently, and dropped his ragged-sleeved arm and sat up straight again.

‘I want to go to war!’ he said hoarsely. ‘I want to fight! I want to lead a lot of men into battle! And I haven’t got any legs. Sometimes it takes the pluck out of me.’

‘You’ve not grown up yet!’ said Marco. ‘You might get strong. No one knows what is going to happen. How did you learn to drill the club?’

‘I hang about barracks. I watch and listen. I follow soldiers. If I could get books, I’d read about wars. I
can’t go to libraries as you can. I can do nothing but scuffle about like a rat.’

‘I can take you to some libraries,’ said Marco. ‘There are places where boys can get in. And I can get some papers from my father.’

‘Can you?’ said The Rat. ‘Do you want to join the club?’

‘Yes!’ Marco answered. ‘I’ll speak to my father about it.’

He said it because the hungry longing for companionship in his own mind had found a sort of response in the queer hungry look in The Rat’s eyes. He wanted to see him again. Strange creature as he was, there was attraction in him. Scuffling about on his low wheeled platform, he had drawn this group of rough lads to him and made himself their commander. They obeyed him; they listened to his stories and harangues about war and soldiering; they let him drill them and give them orders. Marco knew that, when he told his father about him, he would be interested. The boy wanted to hear what Loristan would say.

‘I’m going home now,’ he said. ‘If you’re going to be here tomorrow, I will try to come.’

‘We shall be here,’ The Rat answered. ‘It’s our barracks.’

Marco drew himself up smartly and made his salute as if to a superior officer. Then he wheeled about and marched through the brick archway, and the sound of his boyish tread was as regular and decided as if he had been a man keeping time with his regiment.

‘He’s been drilled himself,’ said The Rat. ‘He knows as much as I do.’

And he sat up and stared down the passage with new interest.

chapter five

‘silence is still the order’

They were even poorer than usual just now, and the supper Marco and his father sat down to was scant enough. Lazarus stood upright behind his master’s chair and served him with strictest ceremony. Their poor lodgings were always kept with a soldierly
cleanliness
and order. When an object could be polished it was forced to shine, no grain of dust was allowed to lie undisturbed, and this perfection was not attained through the ministrations of a lodging house slavey. Lazarus made himself extremely popular by taking the work of caring for his master’s rooms entirely out of the hands of the overburdened maids of all work. He had learned to do many things in his young days in barracks. He carried about with him coarse bits of tablecloths and towels, which he laundered as if they had been the finest linen. He mended, he patched, he darned, and in the hardest fight the poor must face – the fight with dirt and dinginess – he always held his own. They had nothing but dry bread and coffee this evening, but Lazarus had made the coffee and the bread was good.

As Marco ate, he told his father the story of The Rat and his followers. Loristan listened, as the boy had known he
would, with the far-off, intently-thinking smile in his dark eyes. It was a look which always fascinated Marco because it meant that he was thinking so many things. Perhaps he would tell some of them and perhaps he would not. His spell over the boy lay in the fact that to him he seemed like a wonderful book of which one had only glimpses. It was full of pictures and adventures which were true, and one could not help continually making guesses about them. Yes, the feeling that Marco had was that his father’s attraction for him was a sort of spell, and that others felt the same thing. When he stood and talked to commoner people, he held his tall body with singular quiet grace which was like power. He never stirred or moved himself as if he were nervous or uncertain. He could hold his hands (he had beautiful slender and strong hands) quite still; he could stand on his fine arched feet without
shuffling
them. He could sit without any ungrace or
restlessness
. His mind knew what his body should do, and gave it orders without speaking, and his fine limbs and muscles and nerves obeyed. So he could stand still and at ease and look at the people he was talking to, and they always looked at him and listened to what he said, and somehow, courteous and uncondescending as his manner unfailingly was, it used always to seem to Marco as if he were ‘giving an audience’ as kings gave them.

He had often seen people bow very low when they went away from him, and more than once it had happened that some humble person had stepped out of his presence backward, as people do when retiring before a sovereign. And yet his bearing was the quietest and least assuming in the world.

‘And they were talking about Samavia? And he knew the story of the Lost Prince?’ he said ponderingly. ‘Even in that place!’

‘He wants to hear about wars – he wants to talk about them,’ Marco answered. ‘If he could stand and were old enough, he would go and fight for Samavia himself.’

‘It is a blood-drenched and sad place now!’ said Loristan. ‘The people are mad when they are not heartbroken and terrified.’

Suddenly Marco struck the table with a sounding slap of his boy’s hand. He did it before he realised any intention in his own mind.

‘Why should either one of the Iarovitch or one of the Maranovitch be king!’ he cried. ‘They were only savage peasants when they first fought for the crown hundreds of years ago. The most savage one got it, and they have been fighting ever since. Only the Fedorovitch were born kings. There is only one man in the world who has the right to the throne – and I don’t know whether he is in the world or not. But I believe he is! I do!’

Loristan looked at his hot twelve-year-old face with a reflective curiousness. He saw that the flame which had leaped up in him had leaped without warning – just as a fierce heartbeat might have shaken him.

‘You mean –?’ he suggested softly.

‘Ivor Fedorovitch. King Ivor he ought to be. And the people would obey him, and the good days would come again.’

‘It is five hundred years since Ivor Fedorovitch left the good monks.’ Loristan still spoke softly.

‘But, Father,’ Marco protested, ‘even The Rat said what you said – that he was too young to be able to come back while the Maranovitch were in power. And he would have to work and have a home, and perhaps he is as poor as we are. But when he had a son he would call him Ivor and
tell
him – and his son would call
his
son Ivor and tell
his
– and it would go on and on. They could never call their eldest sons anything but Ivor. And what you said about the training would be true. There would always be a king being trained for Samavia, and ready to be called.’ In the fire of his
feelings
he sprang from his chair and stood upright. ‘Why! There may be a king of Samavia in some city now who knows he is king, and, when he reads about the fighting among his people, his blood gets red-hot. They’re his own people – his very own! He ought to go to them – he ought to go and tell them who he is! Don’t you think he ought, Father?’

‘It would not be as easy as it seems to a boy,’ Loristan answered. ‘There are many countries which would have something to say – Russia would have her word, and Austria, and Germany; and England never is silent. But, if he were a strong man and knew how to make strong friends in silence, he might sometime be able to declare himself openly.’

‘But if he is anywhere, someone – some Samavian – ought to go and look for him. It ought to be a Samavian who is very clever and a patriot –’ He stopped at a flash of recognition. ‘Father!’ he cried out. ‘Father! You – you are the one who could find him if anyone in the world could. But perhaps –’ and he stopped a moment
again because new thoughts rushed through his mind. ‘Have
you
ever looked for him?’ he asked hesitating.

Perhaps he had asked a stupid question – perhaps his father had always been looking for him, perhaps that was his secret and his work.

But Loristan did not look as if he thought him stupid. Quite the contrary. He kept his handsome eyes fixed on him still in that curious way, as if he were studying him – as if he were much more than twelve years old, and he were deciding to tell him something.

‘Comrade at arms,’ he said, with the smile which always gladdened Marco’s heart, ‘you have kept your oath of allegiance like a man. You were not seven years old when you took it. You are growing older. Silence is still the order, but you are man enough to be told more.’ He paused and looked down, and then looked up again, speaking in a low tone. ‘I have not looked for him,’ he said, ‘because – I believe I know where he is.’

Marco caught his breath.

‘Father!’ He said only that word. He could say no more. He knew he must not ask questions. ‘Silence is still the order.’ But as they faced each other in their dingy room at the back of the shabby house on the side of the roaring common road – as Lazarus stood
stock-still
behind his father’s chair and kept his eyes fixed on the empty coffee cups and the dry bread plate, and everything looked as poor as things always did – there was a king of Samavia – an Ivor Fedorovitch with the blood of the Lost Prince in his veins – alive in some town or city this moment! And Marco’s own father knew where he was!

He glanced at Lazarus, but, though the old soldier’s face looked as expressionless as if it were cut out of wood, Marco realised that he knew this thing and had always known it. He had been a comrade at arms all his life. He continued to stare at the bread plate.

Loristan spoke again and in an even lower voice. ‘The Samavians who are patriots and thinkers,’ he said, ‘formed themselves into a secret party about eighty years ago. They formed it when they had no reason for hope, but they formed it because one of them discovered that an Ivor Fedorovitch was living. He was head forester on a great estate in the Austrian Alps. The nobleman he served had always thought him a mystery because he had the bearing and speech of a man who had not been born a servant, and his methods in caring for the forests and game were those of a man who was educated and had studied his subject. But he never was familiar or assuming, and never professed superiority over any of his fellows. He was a man of great stature, and was extraordinarily brave and silent. The nobleman who was his master made a sort of companion of him when they hunted together. Once he took him with him when he travelled to Samavia to hunt wild horses. He found that he knew the country strangely well, and that he was familiar with Samavian hunting and customs. Before he returned to Austria, the man obtained permission to go to the mountains alone. He went among the shepherds and made friends among them, asking many questions.

‘One night around a forest fire he heard the songs about the Lost Prince which had not been forgotten even after
nearly five hundred years had passed. The shepherds and herdsmen talked about Prince Ivor, and told old stories about him, and related the prophecy that he would come back and bring again Samavia’s good days. He might come only in the body of one of his descendants, but it would be his spirit which came, because his spirit would never cease to love Samavia. One very old shepherd tottered to his feet and lifted his face to the myriad stars bestrewn like jewels in the blue sky above the forest trees, and he wept and prayed aloud that the great God would send their king to them. And the stranger huntsman stood upright also and lifted his face to the stars. And, though he said no word, the herdsman nearest to him saw tears on his cheeks – great, heavy tears. The next day, the stranger went to the monastery where the order of good monks lived who had taken care of the Lost Prince. When he had left Samavia, the secret society was formed, and the members of it knew that an Ivor Fedorovitch had passed through his ancestors’ country as the servant of another man. But the secret society was only a small one, and, though it has been growing ever since and it has done good deeds and good work in secret, the huntsman died an old man before it was strong enough even to dare to tell Samavia what it knew.’

‘Had he a son?’ cried Marco. ‘Had he a son?’

‘Yes. He had a son. His name was Ivor. And he was trained as I told you. That part I knew to be true, though I should have believed it was true even if I had not known. There has
always
been a king ready for Samavia – even when he has laboured with his hands and served others. Each one took the oath of allegiance.’

‘As I did?’ said Marco, breathless with excitement. When one is twelve years old, to be so near a Lost Prince who might end wars is a thrilling thing.

‘The same,’ answered Loristan.

Marco threw up his hand in salute.

‘“Here grows a man for Samavia! God be thanked!”’ he quoted. ‘And
he
is somewhere? And you know?’

Loristan bent his head in acquiescence.

‘For years much secret work has been done, and the Fedorovitch party has grown until it is much greater and more powerful than the other parties dream. The larger countries are tired of the constant war and disorder in Samavia. Their interests are disturbed by them, and they are deciding that they must have peace and laws which can be counted on. There have been Samavian patriots who have spent their lives in trying to bring this about by making friends in the most powerful capitals, and working secretly for the future good of their own land. Because Samavia is so small and uninfluential, it has taken a long time but when King Maran and his family were assassinated and the war broke out, there were great powers which began to say that if some king of good blood and reliable characteristics were given the crown, he should be upheld.’

‘
His
blood,’ – Marco’s intensity made his voice drop almost to a whisper, – ‘
his
blood has been trained for five hundred years, Father! If it comes true –’ though he laughed a little, he was obliged to wink his eyes hard because suddenly he felt tears rush into them, which no boy likes – ‘the shepherds will have to make a new song – it will have to be a shouting one about a prince going away and a king coming back!’