Free The Prince Commands: Being Sundry Adventures of Michael Karl, Sometime Crown Prince & Pretender to the Thrown of Morvania by Andre Norton Page A

American sealed.
    Wondering about it, he pushed it into the table drawer for safe keeping and went about answering the rest. As Ericson said, Michael Karl liked to write letters, perhaps because he had never written any before, and was developing a flair for the difficult business. He seemed to know by instinct what to say and how to say it.
    The volume of the American's mail often surprised him. There were so many letters from such queer people. Every one seemed to know that Ericson was collecting unusual facts about the country and its customs, he wanted to do a sort of travel book about Morvania, and they wrote in things that they knew.
    A horse trader in this morning's mail had sent in a long description of some odd points about his trade in the northern mountains. He seemed to be an educated man who noticed everything and Michael Karl enjoyed his letter, and ended by putting it in the basket marked “To be Filed,” for the American kept files of all sorts of odds and ends of information.
    There was a badly spelt and written letter, accompanied by a crude map, all about a little known pass over the Laub Mountains, which joined the horse trader's letter after a careful and more legible copy had been made and clipped to the original.
    One or two circulars from advertising companies were put aside, for Michael Karl had learned that while Ericson allowed him to answer almost all letters he was not to throw away any until the American had seen them.
    The mail was opened and a rough draft of the answer was carefully pinned to each letter, for the typewriter was in the library, and Michael Karl had to wait until noon before he could enter. He believed that Ericson spent the morning working on his book, for he always disappeared in there at nine o'clock and did not come out until twelve, during which time he kept the door locked and every one was forbidden entrance.
    Michael Karl piled the letters neatly and turned to his books. At the American's suggestion he was studying the mountain dialect of Morvania, going over each morning's study with Kanda who was a mountaineer. Also he was reading the history of Rein. The books Ericson had lent him during his enforced stay in bed had given him the desire to learn more about the ancient capital of Morvania.
    He was deep in the mysteries of an irregular verb when Jan came timidly in.
    “Dominde, Dominde Ericson has gone out, he says that you may use the library now if you wish.”
    Michael Karl glanced at the clock on the mantel. “But it's only ten-thirty,” he said in surprise. Ericson had always used the library until twelve before.
    “The Dominde was suddenly called away.”
    “All right.” Michael Karl laid down his book and shuffled his papers together.
    There was a fire burning in the library though the month was May, for these stone-walled houses of the Upper Town with their backs tight against the Fortress rock were cool and damp even on the warmest of days. Michael Karl spread out his papers on the American's clean desk; as untidy as he was in most things, the top of Frank Ericson's desk was always kept neat. Although Michael Karl suspected that he just opened one of the drawers and brushed things in when he was ready to leave.
    His fingers flew over the keyboard of the typewriter. Typewriting was the one modern accomplishment which for some reason the Colonel had ordered him taught. Probably he did it because Michael Karl was the only one who could read Michael Karl's handwriting. The clock struck half past eleven when he finished the last letter and laid them all carefully on the desk awaiting Ericson's scrawled signature.
    He still had the horse trader and mountaineer letters to file and a list to make of all the informative letters which had come in that week. And he was busy at that task when Jan summoned him to lunch. It was not until he passed through the anteroom on his way to the dining room that he remembered the green envelope.
    The table drawer was perhaps not