The Christians sang their chants all the while they were there. They were still singing when the guards released me and led me away.
• • •
It was Murphy who received me in the Seer’s House. He was cold and distant in the presence of the soldiers, but said when we were left alone:
“Well, Luke, I hope they did not give you too hard a time of it.”
I stared at him. I was covered with filth and my head throbbed. The cut beneath my eye was swelling. I said:
“Hard enough, sir. It is kind of you to inquire.”
“Listen,” he said, “you did a foolish thing in going out last night. You were caught, and punishment followed. It is something that must be accepted.”
“I was brought to you. You did not need to hand me back to them, to ask to have me put in the stocks.”
“No? I think we did. You are by your age plainly a trainee, too young to have taken vows and so lacking the protection of our cloth. It is essential for the common people to respect that cloth. Since you disgraced it in their eyes, it was necessary that those eyes should witness your thing. To be made sport of by the mob is another.”
I said: “There are things due to me also. My father was Prince of a greater city than this. Punishment is one thing. To be made sport of by the mob is another.”
“It offends your dignity?”
“I have been trained to fight,” I said, “to face wounding or death, even death by execution. But not to endure the mockery of curs. I saw polymufs grinning at me.”
“Your dignity is not important. That is something you have to learn.”
“But the dignity of the High Seers is?”
Murphy shook his head. “No. What is important is the restoration of human order and human knowledge. Everything must serve that.”
I looked at him angrily, in silence. He said:
“Remember that we made your father Prince and made you Prince in Waiting. We brought you from Winchester when there was a score of men eager to cut you down, confident that the new Prince, your brother, would thank them for it, and glad anyway to see one Perry the less. We have kept you in the Sanctuary and may yet restore you to this dignity which you prize so much.”
“Yet! In what time? Five years? Ten? Fifty, perhaps?”
“Sooner, I hope.” He relaxed and smiled. “How would you like to leave the Sanctuary and go back to Winchester, Luke?”
I shook my head. “Do not mock me, sir.”
“No mocking. I have a Christmas gift for you. Your brother seeks your return and pledges his word to your safety.”
I said, scarcely trusting myself to believe it: “This is not a joke?”
“News came this morning while you were in the stocks. Your brother is married to a Christian, as you know. The man they say was a god was born, they also say, on this day more than twenty-two centuries ago. Perhaps she asked it of your brother; the Christians’ ways are strange.”
I thought of the Christians putting themselves between me and the mob. I wondered if they were still in the stocks, and still chanting.
I said: “It is really true? When do I leave?”
“You are eager to be rid of us,” Murphy said. “We return to the Sanctuary tomorrow and you will leave a few days after that.”
I believed it now and forgot my anger and my bruises. I forgot even the filth with which I was smeared. It was Murphy who reminded me of it. Sniffing, he said:
“A more urgent need is that you have a bath and change into clean linen. Our somber black for a while still. But because of your disgrace you will not appear at any ceremonies, nor sit solemn at the banquet. That is another good thing you get from today’s misfortunes.”
JOHN CHRISTOPHER is a pseudonym of Samuel Youd, who was born in Lancashire, England, in 1922. He is the author of more than fifty novels and novellas, as well as numerous short stories. His most famous books include The Death of Grass, the Tripods series, The Lotus Caves, and The Guardians.
ALADDIN
SIMON & SCHUSTER, NEW YORK
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Also by John Christopher From Aladdin
THE TRIPODS SERIES
The White Mountains
The City of Gold and Lead
The Pool of Fire
When the Tripods Came
The Lotus Caves
A Dusk of Demons
The Guardians
THE SWORD OF THE SPIRITS TRILOGY
The Prince in Waiting
The Sword of the Spirits
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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This Aladdin paperback edition February 2015
Text copyright © 1970 by John Christopher
Cover illustration copyright © 2015 by Anton Petrov
Also available in an Aladdin hardcover edition.
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Cover designed by Karin Paprocki
Jacket designed by Karin Paprocki
Jacket illustration copyright © 2015 by Anton Petrov
Interior designed by Hilary Zarycky
The text of this book was set in Venetian 301.
Library of Congress Control Number 2014953351
ISBN 978-1-4814-1992-5 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4814-1991-8 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4814-1993-2 (eBook)
John Christopher, The Prince in Waiting
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