Read The Prince and the Pilgrim Online
Authors: Mary Stewart
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Romance, #Fantasy, #Adult, #Historical, #Adventure
The Prince and the Pilgrim
MARY STEWART
The Prince and
the Pilgrim
First published in Great Britain in 1995 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Mary Stewart 1995
Mapwork by Rodney Paull
The right of Mary Stewart to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781444737578
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3
BH
In this, the fiftieth year of our marriage,
this book is dedicated to my husband,
Fred,
with all my love.
Alexander the Fatherless
In the sixth year of the reign of Arthur the High King of all Britain, a young man stood on the cliffs of Cornwall, looking out to sea. It was summer, and below him the rocks were alive with seabirds. The tide, coming to the full, swept in over the pebbled shore to break in mild thunder on the base of the cliffs. Out beyond the foam-veined shallows the sea deepened in colour to the darkest indigo blue, with, here and there, fangs of rock where the water frothed in angry white. It was easy to believe – and of course the young man believed it – that the old land of Lyonesse lay drowned out yonder, fathoms deep, and that the people of that doomed land still walked – or rather floated, like the ghosts they were – among the buildings where fish swam, and where on still nights could be heard the muffled tolling of the drowned church bells.
But today, with the sun high and the sea as calm as the seas ever get on that cruel stretch of coast, no thought of the old lost kingdom crossed the mind of the watcher on the cliff. Nor was he conscious of the summer beauties round him. With a hand to his brow, he was straining, through
narrowed
eyes, to distinguish something far out to the south-west. A sail.
It was a strange-looking sail, which belonged to none of the ships he could recognise. Nor was it one of the rough-rigged craft used by the local fishermen. This was a foreign-looking rig, with a square, red-brown sail. And as it came clear to the sight there moved behind it another. And another.
And now the ships themselves were visible, riding long and low in the water. No device on the sails; no banners at the mast; but along the thwarts rows of painted circles glinting in the shifting sunbeams. Shields.
Unmistakable, even to him who had never seen a Saxon longboat before. And where certainly no Saxon longboat had any right to be. Then suddenly, as he watched, the ships – there were five of them – turned as one, the way a flight of birds turns at some unheard and invisible signal, to make for the shore and the narrow harbourage of the bay a bare mile to the north of where he stood. Even then the watcher paused, in the very act of turning to run with the news. It was just possible that the ships, so far west of the Saxon Shore, that strip of territory granted to the Saxons long ago, and now the home of a federacy of Saxon kingdoms, it was just possible that the little fleet had been driven off course, and was seeking shelter here for repairs and fresh water. But there had been no storm recently, and – he could see details now as the ships drew nearer – the vessels showed no sign of damage, and there as witness were
those
shields and the thicket of spears above them. So, five Saxon longships, fully armed?
He turned and ran.
The young man’s name was Baudouin, and he was brother to March, King of Cornwall. The king had left Cornwall some three weeks previously, to seek a conference with one of the petty kings of Dyfed, and during his absence the care of the kingdom had fallen on the younger man. Though the king had, of course, gone royally attended, he had not taken with him the main body of his fighting men, so when Baudouin rode out, as he did almost daily to check the kingdom’s boundaries and visit the guard towers, he rode with an armed escort.
They were with him now. They had dismounted beyond a rocky bluff, out of the sea-wind, to rest the horses and share out the barley-cakes and thin ration wine. They were some fifteen miles from home.
Within minutes of the alarm the troop was mounted, and riding hard for the steep coomb that led down into a sheltered bay which the local fishermen used for harbour.
“How many?” It was the officer riding at Baudouin’s side. His name was Howel.
“Hard to say. Five ships, but I don’t know how many men one of their warships will take. Say forty to a ship, fifty, perhaps more?”
“Enough.” Howel’s voice was grim. “And only fifty of us. Well, at least we’ll have the advantage
of
them as they try to beach and get ashore. What can they be planning to do, so far from their own borders? A quick raid, and then away? That wouldn’t avail them much here. There’s only that village half a league up the coomb, poor fisherfolk hardly worth their spears, one would think.”
“True enough,” said Baudouin, “but armed as they are, I doubt if they mean us well. I don’t think they’ll have come so far from their own Shore territories just for what pickings they can find in the villages along this coast. And I doubt if these are outlaws from the Shore. There are other possibilities. You must have heard the rumours?”
“Aye. Stories of landless men putting across from Germany and the far north, and perhaps not finding enough of a welcome on the Shore, and being driven to look for a footing elsewhere? You think that could be true, then?”
“God knows, but it looks as if we’re going to find out.”
“Well, but how to stop them?”
“We can try, with God’s help. And His help on these coasts tends to be very practical.” Baudouin laughed shortly. “They may have been hoping to come in with the tide, but by my reckoning it’s just about on the turn, and you know what that means in Dead Men’s Bay.”
“Yes, by God!” Howel, who had lived all his life on that coast, spoke with fierce satisfaction. “They won’t know those currents. Even our own fishermen won’t try the bay when the tide’s this way.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” said Baudouin, cheerfully, but before Howel could ask what he
meant
, they had reached the edge of the coomb, and pulled up their horses.
The bay was small, where a narrow river, little more than a stream, ran steeply down to meet the sea. As it widened out at the mouth it ran shallowly through pebbled sand, but with the tide high, as it was now, the sand was covered, waves washing right up to the turf. Out in the bay fangs of rock jutted up, each in its swirl of white water.
“Ah.” It was a note of satisfaction from Baudouin. He was leaning forward in the saddle, peering down at the rough jetty of piled stones which served the fisherfolk for a landing-stage. Beached high and dry in its shelter lay four small boats. “As you say, all safe at home.”
He turned to give swift orders. Three of the troopers wheeled their horses, and galloped off inland towards the village that lay higher up the coomb. The rest sent their horses slipping and scrambling down the steep bank to gain the narrow strip of turf above the tide.
The tide being just on the turn, and the breeze light and fitful, the Cornishmen knew that no sails would suffice to bring the longships in. But their oars could; they were powerful ships, and powerfully manned.
“So what’s to do?” asked Howel.
Baudouin was already off his horse. “These are our seas. Let us use them.” And presently, under his direction, the troopers had seized the four small boats that were beached there, and were manhandling them down from their safe moorings and into the edge of the tide. They were barely launched, half afloat, when the three men
who
had been sent to the village came down the little valley at their horses’ fastest pace. On the saddle in front of each man was a bundle roughly tied in sacking. The leading trooper held a blazing torch high in one hand.
A man by the boats gave a shout and pointed. “My lord! There they come!”
Still far out, low in the water, the longships stole round the point. Their sails were furled, and oars flashed in the sunlight. One of the men gave a short laugh. “Hard work, that. Happen they’ll be past fighting by the time they get ashore.”