Books by Ian Rogers
Books by Ian Rogers
By Ian Rogers
Crown Prince Hal, the King’s eldest son, reached twenty-one years of age. In those days you had to be twenty-one before you counted as an adult. At 21 you could have your own bank account or buy a house or get married. Prince Hal would be the next king, but while his father lived - and he hoped that would be a long time - he needed an aim in life. He went to talk to his father.
“Your Highness, most noble and puissant (pwee-sant) majesty, gracious monarch - Dad. Now I’m twenty-one and have finished school and university, I’d like a worthwhile job to do. Please could your regal majesty give the matter some thought?”
“Hi, son,” said the King. He didn’t have to use all the Prince’s posh titles - they were quite a mouthful! “You’re a good lad and I’m very pleased with you. Well done to achieve a grade C in Future Kingship. Have you any ideas what you’d like to do next?”
“Well, father, I did wonder if I could be in charge of the canoeing section of the Bowledovian navy?”
“I’ll have to think about that,” said the King. “Have we got any canoes? Have we got a navy? We are a landlocked country! Anyway, I have another task in mind for you. I charge you with a special commission. Go forth to Parcival and restore the fortunes of that unhappy town. Then seek out John Weaverson, wherever he may be, and command him to attend me here.”
The Prince was rather surprised and a little disappointed, but he said “O.K, Dad. Long live your majesty!” He bowed low and walked out backwards as one is supposed to do when in a royal presence. Then he packed his toothbrush, saddled his favourite horse, a big, white stallion, and went off quite cheerfully to Parcival.
The journey took several days. As he neared the town some boys working in the fields saw him and ran ahead with the news that someone was coming. When Hal arrived at the East Gate he was met by a surly and miserable group of townsfolk. Many honest folk had left the town and the few people still there thought this rich aristocrat had come to lord it over them, to crack the whip and to try and knock them into shape. They welcomed him with all the enthusiasm of a tired rhinoceros. Hal’s heart sank into his boots. Grudgingly they showed him to a mildewed room in the Alcaldé’s old house. They took double money to arrange for a maid and growled “Goodnight”.
The next day was worse. The unhelpful louts wouldn’t help clear the streets of rubble, wouldn’t try to build the new bridge - in fact they wouldn’t do anything without being paid quite excessive amounts. The Prince, who hadn’t expected opposition, was very worried. What should he do? He might hire people from another town to come and do the work, but he didn’t have enough money with him to pay them. He didn’t want to go back to his father and ask for help and money, on this his first solo task. He certainly didn’t want to be defeated by a bunch of surly lay-a-bouts.
Eventually, he made a decision. He would offer three meals a day and lodging (in the Alcaldé’s old house) to anyone who would help him build the new bridge. And to show he meant business, he took off his silk hose (that’s socks) and his satin breeches, put on a rough shirt and corduroy trousers, and went out to work. He waded into the river and began to cut away the waterweed from the bridge’s foundations with his silver handled penknife.
The townspeople watched in amazement. They would never have dreamed of doing such a thing. The King himself, when he heard, almost issued a royal command that his son should stop labouring and come home ‑ but he thought better of it.
“Let the lad have his head,” he told the worried Queen. “Let him try his way first.”
“Oh, I do hope he doesn’t catch cold!” the Queen said, and she sent Hal a pile of fluffy towels and some spicy cordial to put in his hot milk drinks.
For a week the Prince worked alone, moving from the river to the rubble choked gateway, loading stone into a hired cart. His pampered white horse shied away from pulling it, but, with firmness and persistence, the Prince got him to haul the loads of stone to the riverside. There he stacked them until, with a little paid help from a master mason, a new layer of stones was added to the foundation of the nearest arch. A crowd of unsmiling townsfolk watched as it rose above water level for the first time.
One man and a horse were dog tired that evening. They ached after their hard work. The Prince’s hands were cut and bleeding and his back hurt more than ever before, even more than after being knocked off his horse in the under eighteens’ jousting tournament. He knew now why labourers’ hands were thick and horny, and the muscles in their arms were like knotted ropes.
That Friday evening he sat in a hot bath in front of a blazing fire, trying to work out how long it would take to finish the bridge.
“Let’s say fifty centimetres of height for each layer of stones,” he thought, “and the bridge needs to be raised five metres above water level. There need to be parapets on each side to stop people falling off. If it has taken a week to lay one course of stones on one side of one arch and there are five arches, then… er, um…” Even the maths bit of the Future Kingship course hadn’t prepared him for a problem like this one. “Bother and blow,” he said giving up on mental arithmetic. A knock on the bathroom door jolted him out of his reverie.
“Supper’s ready, your Honour,” the maid called. She found his titles ‑ Duke of Champignon, Earl of Rue, Privy Councillor, His Grace, the Crown Prince - too long to bother with, but she was a dab hand with antiseptic and sticking plaster, she hadn’t asked for double wages, and the Prince liked her.
“Well,” the Prince thought as he dried himself on one of his mother’s towels, “It’ll take a long time, probably forever, but I can’t stop now.” He rumbled hungrily in his stomach so he swigged down his hot, spiced milk and went down stairs for supper. “Stone-shifting certainly gives you an appetite,” he thought.
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