Free The Prince and the Pilgrim by Mary Stewart Page A

kingdom safely and peaceably bestowed.
    His eyes met Clotilda’s. Assuredly no fool, the old queen. She nodded, as if in answer to his thought.
    “Well, we shall see,” she said.
    And here, to the duke’s relief, dinner was announced, and a steward sent to summon the two children.

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THREE
The Knight-Errant
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10
    Alexander’s mother did not marry again, though her youth and beauty – and perhaps the snug little property that was hers now in the Wye Valley – brought a few hopeful gentlemen to her door. But all were disappointed. The Princess Anna remained there unwed, living in comfort and a slowly growing contentment. Theodora and Barnabas were unfailingly kind; the former was happy to have Anna’s company, and the latter, relieved as time went on of the fear that Anna, with a new marriage, might bring in another claimant to Craig Arian, devoted himself to their welfare. With the help of this good and gentle man Anna soon learned to manage the affairs of the small estate, which she and Barnabas did together in Alexander’s name.
    As is the way of things, she recovered in time from the shock and grief of her husband’s murder, but she never abated her hatred of King March, nor her determination that some day he should be made to pay for his foul deed. She took care, as the boy grew up, that he should learn what kind of man his father had been, and learn also to be proud and glad of that inheritance. Men called him, in pity, Alexander the Fatherless, but in fact the child did not lack the father’s presence as much as he might have done, because Barnabas saw to it that he learned the skills he would need, those of a fighting man, and of the master of an estate, albeit a small one. So Alexander grew up in safety, and even in happiness, for the place was a peaceful one, and ‘the High King’s peace’ was a reality in the gentle valleys he knew.
    That happiness was not marred by any knowledge of his father’s death. When, childlike, he had first asked about it, Anna told him merely that he had been born in Cornwall, where Prince Baudouin had served his elder brother King March, and that Baudouin had died when his son was two years old. Since Baudouin, as a younger son, would have had no claim to land in Cornwall, Anna had (she said) decided to leave and stake her own and Alexander’s claim to Craig Arian. And rightly, she would add, since King March, though he had no child of his own, was still living, so for both her son and herself there was a better life and a better future in the rich valleys of the Welsh border.
    “He must be an old man now,” said Alexander one day, when they were speaking of it again. He was fourteen, tall for his age, and considered himself a man grown. “And he has no son. So soon, perhaps, I should travel into Dumnonia and see Cornwall and the kingdom that may one day be mine?”
    “It never will,” said his mother.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You would be better to forget Cornwall and all it holds. It can never be yours. King March is not your friend, and even if he were, and left you the ruling of the kingdom, you would have to fight for every foot of its barren soil. Since Duke Cador died, who used to hold Tintagel, his son Constantine has ruled there. I am told that he is a hard and cruel man. March clings to what is his, but when he dies it will be a strong man and a fortunate one who keeps his stronghold after him.”
    “But if it is some day to be mine by right, then surely the High King will support and help me? Mother,” said Alexander eagerly, “at least let me go to Camelot!”
    Anna refused, but he asked again and again, and each time it was harder to find a reason, so that at length she told him the truth.

    It happened one day, in the spring of Alexander’s eighteenth year, that he rode out with Barnabas and two other men – they were the castle’s retainers, not strictly fighting men, but ready, as men were in those days, to defend themselves and their