The Lost Prince Read online

  ‘The Samavians of the Iarovitch party are a bad lot and want only bad things,’ said Marco, speaking first. ‘They care nothing for Samavia. They only care for money and the power to make laws which will serve them and crush everybody else. They know Nicola is a weak man, and that, if they can crown him king, they can make him do what they like.’

  The fact that he spoke first, and that, though he spoke in a steady boyish voice without swagger, he somehow seemed to take it for granted that they would listen, made his place for him at once. Boys are impressionable creatures, and they know a leader when they see him. The hunchback fixed glittering eyes on him. The rabble began to murmur.

  ‘Rat! Rat!’ several voices cried at once in good strong Cockney. ‘Arst ’im some more, Rat!’

  ‘Is that what they call you?’ Marco asked the hunchback.

  ‘It’s what I called myself,’ he answered resentfully. ‘“The Rat.” Look at me! Crawling round on the ground like this! Look at me!’

  He made a gesture ordering his followers to move aside, and began to push himself rapidly, with queer darts this side and that round the enclosure. He bent his head and body, and twisted his face, and made strange animal-like movements. He even uttered sharp squeaks as he rushed here and there – as a rat might have done when it was being hunted. He did it as if he were displaying an accomplishment, and his followers’ laughter was applause.

  ‘Wasn’t I like a rat?’ he demanded, when he suddenly stopped.

  ‘You made yourself like one on purpose,’ Marco answered. ‘You do it for fun.’

  ‘Not so much fun,’ said The Rat. ‘I feel like one. Everyone’s my enemy. I’m vermin. I can’t fight or defend myself unless I bite. I can bite, though.’ And he showed two rows of fierce, strong, white teeth, sharper at the points than human teeth usually are. ‘I bite my father when he gets drunk and beats me. I’ve bitten him till he’s learned to remember.’ He laughed a shrill, squeaking laugh. ‘He hasn’t tried it for three months – even when he was drunk – and he’s always drunk.’ Then he laughed again still more shrilly. ‘He’s a gentleman,’ he said. ‘I’m a gentleman’s son. He was a Master at a big school until he was kicked out – that was when I was four and my mother died. I’m thirteen now. How old are you?’

  ‘I’m twelve,’ answered Marco.

  The Rat twisted his face enviously.

  ‘I wish I was your size! Are you a gentleman’s son? You look as if you were.’

  ‘I’m a very poor man’s son,’ was Marco’s answer. ‘My father is a writer.’

  ‘Then, ten to one, he’s a sort of gentleman,’ said The Rat. Then quite suddenly he threw another question at him. ‘What’s the name of the other Samavian party?’

  ‘The Maranovitch. The Maranovitch and the Iarovitch have been fighting with each other for five hundred years. First one dynasty rules, and then the other gets in when it has killed somebody as it killed King Maran,’ Marco answered without hesitation.

  ‘What was the name of the dynasty that ruled before they began fighting? The first Maranovitch assassinated the last of them,’ The Rat asked him.

  ‘The Fedorovitch,’ said Marco. ‘The last one was a bad king.’

  ‘His son was the one they never found again,’ said The Rat. ‘The one they call the Lost Prince.’

  Marco would have started but for his long training in exterior self-control. It was so strange to hear his dream-hero spoken of in this back alley in a slum, and just after he had been thinking of him.

  ‘What do you know about him?’ he asked, and, as he did so, he saw the group of vagabond lads draw nearer.

  ‘Not much. I only read something about him in a torn magazine I found in the street,’ The Rat answered. ‘The man that wrote about him said he was only part of a legend, and he laughed at people for believing in him. He said it was about time that he should turn up again if he intended to. I’ve invented things about him because these chaps like to hear me tell them. They’re only stories.’

  ‘We likes ’im,’ a voice called out, ‘becos ’e wos the right sort; ’e’d fight, ’e would, if ’e was in Samavia now.’

  Marco rapidly asked himself how much he might say. He decided and spoke to them all.

  ‘He is not part of a legend. He’s part of Samavian history,’ he said. ‘I know something about him too.’

  ‘How did you find it out?’ asked The Rat.

  ‘Because my father’s a writer, he’s obliged to have books and papers, and he knows things. I like to read, and I go into the free libraries. You can always get books and papers there. Then I ask my father questions. All the newspapers are full of things about Samavia just now.’ Marco felt that this was an explanation which betrayed nothing. It was true that no one could open a newspaper at this period without seeing news and stories of Samavia.

  The Rat saw possible vistas of information opening up before him.

  ‘Sit down here,’ he said, ‘and tell us what you know about him. Sit down, you fellows.’

  There was nothing to sit on but the broken flagged pavement, but that was a small matter. Marco himself had sat on flags or bare ground often enough before, and so had the rest of the lads. He took his place near The Rat, and the others made a semicircle in front of them. The two leaders had joined forces, so to speak, and the followers fell into line at ‘attention’.

  Then the newcomer began to talk. It was a good story, that of the Lost Prince, and Marco told it in a way which gave it reality. How could he help it? He knew, as they could not, that it was real. He who had pored over maps of little Samavia since his seventh year, who had studied them with his father, knew it as a country he could have found his way to any part of if he had been dropped in any forest or any mountain of it. He knew every highway and byway, and in the capital city of Melzarr could almost have made his way blindfolded. He knew the palaces and the forts, the churches, the poor streets and the rich ones. His father had once shown him a plan of the royal palace which they had studied together until the boy knew each apartment and corridor in it by heart. But this he did not speak of. He knew it was one of the things to be silent about. But of the mountains and the emerald velvet meadows climbing their sides and only ending where huge bare crags and peaks began, he could speak. He could make pictures of the wide fertile plains where herds of wild horses fed, or raced and sniffed the air; he could describe the fertile valleys where clear rivers ran and flocks of sheep pastured on deep sweet grass. He could speak of them because he could offer a good enough reason for his knowledge of them. It was not the only reason he had for his knowledge, but it was one which would serve well enough.

  ‘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 ne
glected, 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 Ratcliffe. 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 wi
th 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?’