The Prince and the Pilgrim Read online

  MARY STEWART

  The Prince and

  the Pilgrim

  www.hodder.co.uk

  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 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  * * *

  CONTENTS

  * * *

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  One: Alexander the Fatherless

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Two: Alice the Motherless

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Three: The Knight-Errant

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Four: The Pretty Pilgrim

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Five: Alexander in Love

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Six: Alice and Alexander

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  The Legend

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Also by Mary Stewart

  In this, the fiftieth year of our marriage,

  this book is dedicated to my husband,

  Fred,

  with all my love.

  * * *

  ONE

  Alexander the Fatherless

  * * *

  1

  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.”

  “They will be dead when they get ashore,” said Baudouin calmly, and proceeded to give his orders.

  So it was that the Saxons, rowing their armed fleet into the quiet-seeming bay, found themselves suddenly in the grip of a fierce current that threatened to sweep them straight out to sea again. The strength of the current took them by surprise, driving their ships off course and turning them sideways to the shore. As the rowers, bending to their oars, fought to bring the craft back again, and force them nearer inshore, a shout came from the Saxon lookout.

  Out from the south side of the bay, where the rough jetty had hidden them from view, appeared a small flotilla of boats. They seemed to be unmanned. They bobbed away from the jetty, spun for a few moments aimlessly in the waves, then, as the outgoing current took them, they gathered speed and headed, as directly as if aimed, for the Saxon longships.

  As they bore down on the vessels still helplessly wallowing in the tide-race, it could be seen that smoke was rising from the little boats, smoke which burst, suddenly and vividly, into flame. Then the Cornish boats, well ablaze, were in among the longships, driven against them and held there by the current, while the Saxons, abandoning their rowing, fought to fend them off with oars which flamed and charred and spat fire into their own ships. Three of the Saxon ships, tangled with the fireships into a blazing mass, caught fire and burned. Some of the men managed to scramble aboard the other vessels, one of which capsized. One longship only escaped the fire. Bravely, the men aboard her tried to hold her clear of the blazing wreckage, and pick up the struggling swimmers, but the heavy load and the driving current were too much for them, and at length the surviving ship, overloaded as she was, managed to fight her way back to seaward, and, leaving the smoking wreckage and the despairing cries for help in her wake, vanished once more beyond the point.

  The Cornishmen, thigh-deep in the water, waited for the rest. Barely thirty of them reached the shore, struggling to land only to meet the swords of the troopers. Of the survivors, the first three, by Baudouin’s orders, were dragged alive from the water and bound, to be taken back for questioning. The rest were killed as they reached the shallows, and their bodies thrown back into the sea for the current to take. But first they were robbed of what valuables they carried, and this, too, at Baudouin’s bidding. “For,” said he, “we still have to face our real battle, with the fishermen whose boats I have just destroyed. So take what weapons there are, but set the rest of the takings aside – yes, here beside me. I shall see that none of you is the loser by this day’s work, but the villagers must get their due. Believe me, the loss of their catch, for as long as it will take them to build new boats, will soon seem far more dreadful to them than the chance of a Saxon raid!”

  “Chance! It was real enough!” said one man, pulling a broadsword from its scabbard. “Look at this! These notches! Every one a death, I’ve no doubt!” He handled the sword lovingly, but threw it, with its belt and gilded buckle, down on the pile.

  “A thing is only real once it has happened,” said Baudouin. He looked around him at the troopers who, some of them with outspoken regrets, but all cheerfully, were following suit. “And thanks to your speed and readiness, this did not.” He laughed. “But let us hope that the villagers saw enough of that chance to make them spare their boats to us! See yonder. They’re coming now.”

  A small crowd of villagers was heading down the coomb. Some of the men carried weapons, hastily snatched up, but word must have gone round that the fighting was done, for the women were with them, and even some children, skirmishing and crying out shrilly on the outskirts of the crowd.

  They came to a halt a few yards away, and after some muttering and shuffling one man, presumably the headman of the village, was pushed forward towards the prince.

  He cleared his throat, but before he could speak Baudouin said quickly: “Rhu, isn’t it? Well, Rhu, the danger is past, and I – the king and I – have to thank you for giving us the fire and the tinder.” His teeth showed in a brief grin of satisfaction. “As you see, it sufficed. There were five Saxon longships, fully armed, and God knows what they had planned to do, had they once landed, but you may be sure that by this, not even your children would have been left alive.”

  There were murmurs at that, and it could be seen that some of the women gathered their children closer to their skirts, while eyes went to the sea’s edge, where a couple of bodies bobbed and wallowed in the shallows. A woman called out suddenly, shrill with anger. Two small boys, excited and curious for a closer view of the corpses, had crept from the back of the crowd and started down the shingle. They were caught and dragged back, to smacks and scolding from their mothers, and looks of amused indulgence from the men. In the brief flurry of action, the tension slackened, and Baudouin, seizing the moment, laughed and said, easily: “I’m sorry about your boats, but this should help you build new and better ones, and keep you and your families meantime.”

  At this there was a growl of approval from the villagers, and at a word from Rhu two of the men started to gather up the spoils. “To share fairly, later, for everyone,” said Rhu gruffly, and Baudouin nodded.

  “And no doubt the tides will bring you more. There’s wreckage coming ashore already. The king makes no claim on it. It’s yours.”

  This, too, brought approval and even some rough words of gratitude. Wood was scarce enough in that rocky and windswept land, and the Saxon ship
s had been well built. There would be rich pickings along this shore for some tides to come.

  A trooper brought Baudouin’s horse, and, rein in hand, the prince paused to exchange a final word with the headman. But some of the villagers still crowded close, and among the crowd there were ugly looks directed at the prisoners, and harsh mutterings. “What about those? To let them live? When they would have murdered us all, and burned our houses and taken our women, aye, and killed and eaten our little ones! Everyone knows what these Saxon wolves are like! Give them to us, Prince!” And a couple of the women, armed with what looked like skinning-knives, took it up in a shrill shouting. “Give them to us! Give them to us!”

  “Keep back!” said Baudouin sharply, as the troopers closed round the prisoners. “If you know what might have come to you, then we’ll hear no more from you! For you, this is the end of it! The rest is for the king. As for these three men, for all we know there may be other threats coming to this land of ours, and King March must know of them. So we keep these men alive to tell him what he needs to know. They are not your meat, my friends; they are the king’s!”

  “Then pity help them,” said someone, almost inaudibly, adding, to be heard: “The king your brother should reward you nobly for what you have done this day, Prince!”

  Baudouin, riding homewards, found himself wondering, almost with apprehension, what his brother would in fact say to him. There would certainly be no noble reward. March was a good enough ruler for this wild and remote kingdom; he was harsh, as were his people and their ways, but he was also subtle, and enjoyed plotting and guile, and the besting of other men by secret means. Not for nothing was he known to his peers as King Fox. But cruelty and cunning are not traits that make a man beloved of his people, and the Cornish people had no love for their king. Baudouin, the young man of action, who understood their ways and spoke to high and low alike, he had their love.

  And King March saw, and burned, and said nothing.