The Prince in Waiting Read Online Free Page B

secrecy before we parted; if anyone asked, we had spent the day in the farmhouse, penned in by the rain, gambling with dice. Of the dwarf groom, Murri, I asked the same confidence. Seeing to the ponies with me, he said:
    â€œYou could have lamed them, Master.”
    â€œBut did not.” I gave him money. “A good bran mash tonight, with strong ale in it, and tomorrow the best oats you can find. They will be all right for the afternoon?”
    â€œThey will be all right.” He looked up at me, grinning. “I will cheer for you, Master Luke.”
    â€œWill you back me?”
    â€œNo.” He wagged his broad head. “We dwarfs are men of heart, as is well known, but we do not let our hearts rule our minds. And we are no believers in miracles.”
    I nodded. I think I was too tired to smile.
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    It was my intention to slip quietly into my home and get the servants to fill me a bath. But as I crossed the courtyard my father called from his window and I had to go to him. He said:
    â€œWhere have you been, Luke? The others were back by mid-morning.”
    â€œWe went out to the farm, sir. Cooper gave us food.”
    â€œYou stayed the whole day there?”
    â€œIt was raining. There seemed small point in coming back.”
    â€œDoing what?”
    â€œDicing. And talking. Idling, I suppose.”
    He looked at me through the open window. “Was that the best way you could find of passing the time on the day before the Contest?”
    â€œI am sorry, sir.”
    â€œYou are a strange lad. You keep your own counsel, even from me.” I waited. The lamp was behind him but I saw him smile. “You cannot see yourself, can you? Or smell yourself. If you roll in muck long enough your nose grows accustomed to it. You are covered not just in mud but cow-dung. Did you dice out in the fields, in the wet? And has idling bowed your shoulders?”
    â€œSir . . .”
    He cut across my words. “I will not keep you in the rain. But listen to one thing. It is proper to be ambitious but do not overreach yourself. Yesterday you had been passed over for the Contest. Today you are one of the four Young Captains and tomorrow you will ride out with your men to the Field. I only ask that you acquit yourself well. Do not hope for too much and risk the bitterness of disappointment. You know how it takes you.”
    â€œI will do as you say, sir.”
    The smile had gone. He stared at me a while longer, then said:
    â€œGet yourself washed and changed. We will meet at supper.”
    He closed the window and turned away.
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    I awoke in the small hours of the night, the sweat chilling on my exposed flesh where, in my dream, I had pushed the covers back. The dream was with me still, and vivid. I was alone on a vast field, far greater than the Contest Field, and my enemies were chasing me. I had no help, no hope and no courage to do the one thing I knew I must do: turn and face them. They overhauled but did not quite take me and I knew that this was because they did not wish to yet, because they were playing with me, cats with a terrified mouse. All round and it seemed from the sky above came the mocking roar of the crowd, urging on my enemies, laughing me to scorn.
    I lay there, sweating and trembling, and then got up. I fumbled in the dark for my pitcher of water, and drank. Then I went to the windows and pulled them open. The rain had stopped and the night was very still, black except for the glow behind the western hills that marked the Burning Lands. A dog barked far off, once and no more.
    It had been a nightmare, a vexation, as Ezzard would have told me, of the unguarded mind by those Spirits who ruled the domain of sleep. I had eaten too richly the night before—in my hunger I had devoured half a loaf of bread and a huge chunk of cheese. Apart from that I could pay a penny to the Acolyte, to ask the Spirits who