Chapter V. "Silence Is Still the Order"

The Lost Prince

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

They were even poorer than usual just now, and the supper Marco
and his father sat down to was scant enough. Lazarus stood upright
behind his master's chair and served him with strictest ceremony.
Their poor lodgings were always kept with a soldierly cleanliness and
order. When an object could be polished it was forced to shine, no
grain of dust was allowed to lie undisturbed, and this perfection was
not attained through the ministrations of a lodging house slavey.
Lazarus made himself extremely popular by taking the work of caring
for his master's rooms entirely out of the hands of the overburdened
maids of all work. He had learned to do many things in his young
days in barracks. He carried about with him coarse bits of
table-cloths and towels, which he laundered as if they had been the
finest linen. He mended, he patched, he darned, and in the hardest
fight the poor must face--the fight with dirt and dinginess--he
always held his own. They had nothing but dry bread and coffee this
evening, but Lazarus had made the coffee and the bread was good.

As Marco ate, he told his father the story of The Rat and his
followers. Loristan listened, as the boy had known he would, with
the far-off, intently-thinking smile in his dark eyes. It was a look
which always fascinated Marco because it meant that he was thinking
so many things. Perhaps he would tell some of them and perhaps he
would not. His spell over the boy lay in the fact that to him he
seemed like a wonderful book of which one had only glimpses. It was
full of pictures and adventures which were true, and one could not
help continually making guesses about them. Yes, the feeling that
Marco had was that his father's attraction for him was a sort of
spell, and that others felt the same thing. When he stood and talked
to commoner people, he held his tall body with singular quiet grace
which was like power. He never stirred or moved himself as if he
were nervous or uncertain. He could hold his hands (he had beautiful
slender and strong hands) quite still; he could stand on his fine
arched feet without shuffling them. He could sit without any ungrace
or restlessness. His mind knew what his body should do, and gave it
orders without speaking, and his fine limbs and muscles and nerves
obeyed. So he could stand still and at ease and look at the people
he was talking to, and they always looked at him and listened to what
he said, and somehow, courteous and uncondescending as his manner
unfailingly was, it used always to seem to Marco as if he were
"giving an audience" as kings gave them.

He had often seen people bow very low when they went away from
him, and more than once it had happened that some humble person had
stepped out of his presence backward, as people do when retiring
before a sovereign. And yet his bearing was the quietest and least
assuming in the world.

"And they were talking about Samavia? And he knew the story of
the Lost Prince?" he said ponderingly. "Even in that place!"

"He wants to hear about wars--he wants to talk about them,"
Marco answered. "If he could stand and were old enough, he would go
and fight for Samavia himself."

"It is a blood-drenched and sad place now!" said Loristan. "The
people are mad when they are not heartbroken and terrified."

Suddenly Marco struck the table with a sounding slap of his
boy's hand. He did it before he realized any intention in his own
mind.

"Why should either one of the Iarovitch or one of the
Maranovitch be king!" he cried. "They were only savage peasants when
they first fought for the crown hundreds of years ago. The most
savage one got it, and they have been fighting ever since. Only the
Fedorovitch were born kings. There is only one man in the world who
has the right to the throne--and I don't know whether he is in the
world or not. But I believe he is! I do!"

Loristan looked at his hot twelve-year-old face with a
reflective curiousness. He saw that the flame which had leaped up in
him had leaped without warning--just as a fierce heart-beat might
have shaken him.

"You mean--?" he suggested softly.

"Ivor Fedorovitch. King Ivor he ought to be. And the people
would obey him, and the good days would come again."

"It is five hundred years since Ivor Fedorovitch left the good
monks." Loristan still spoke softly.

"But, Father," Marco protested, "even The Rat said what you
said--that he was too young to be able to come back while the
Maranovitch were in power. And he would have to work and have a
home, and perhaps he is as poor as we are. But when he had a son he
would call him Ivor and tell him--and his son would call his son Ivor
and tell him--and it would go on and on. They could never call their
eldest sons anything but Ivor. And what you said about the training
would be true. There would always be a king being trained for
Samavia, and ready to be called." In the fire of his feelings he
sprang from his chair and stood upright. "Why! There may be a king
of Samavia in some city now who knows he is king, and, when he reads
about the fighting among his people, his blood gets red-hot. They're
his own people--his very own! He ought to go to them--he ought to go
and tell them who he is! Don't you think he ought, Father?"

"It would not be as easy as it seems to a boy," Loristan
answered. "There are many countries which would have something to
say-- Russia would have her word, and Austria, and Germany; and
England never is silent. But, if he were a strong man and knew how
to make strong friends in silence, he might sometime be able to
declare himself openly."

"But if he is anywhere, some one--some Samavian--ought to go
and

look for him. It ought to be a Samavian who is very clever and
a patriot--" He stopped at a flash of recognition. "Father!" he
cried out. "Father! You--you are the one who could find him if any
one in the world could. But perhaps--" and he stopped a moment again
because new thoughts rushed through his mind. "Have you ever looked
for him?" he asked hesitating.

Perhaps he had asked a stupid question--perhaps his father had
always been looking for him, perhaps that was his secret and his
work.

But Loristan did not look as if he thought him stupid. Quite
the contrary. He kept his handsome eyes fixed on him still in that
curious way, as if he were studying him--as if he were much more than
twelve years old, and he were deciding to tell him something.

"Comrade at arms," he said, with the smile which always
gladdened Marco's heart, "you have kept your oath of allegiance like
a man. You were not seven years old when you took it. You are
growing older. Silence is still the order, but you are man enough to
be told more." He paused and looked down, and then looked up again,
speaking in a low tone. "I have not looked for him," he said,
"because--I believe I know where he is."

Marco caught his breath.

"Father!" He said only that word. He could say no more. He
knew he must not ask questions. "Silence is still the order." But
as they faced each other in their dingy room at the back of the
shabby house on the side of the roaring common road--as Lazarus stood
stock- still behind his father's chair and kept his eyes fixed on the
empty coffee cups and the dry bread plate, and everything looked as
poor as things always did--there was a king of Samavia--an Ivor
Fedorovitch with the blood of the Lost Prince in his veins--alive in
some town or city this moment! And Marco's own father knew where he
was!

He glanced at Lazarus, but, though the old soldier's face looked
as expressionless as if it were cut out of wood, Marco realized that
he knew this thing and had always known it. He had been a comrade at
arms all his life. He continued to stare at the bread plate.

Loristan spoke again and in an even lower voice. "The Samavians
who are patriots and thinkers," he said, "formed themselves into a
secret party about eighty years ago. They formed it when they had no
reason for hope, but they formed it because one of them discovered
that an Ivor Fedorovitch was living. He was head forester on a great
estate in the Austrian Alps. The nobleman he served had always
thought him a mystery because he had the bearing and speech of a man
who had not been born a servant, and his methods in caring for the
forests and game were those of a man who was educated and had studied
his subject. But he never was familiar or assuming, and never
professed superiority over any of his fellows. He was a man of great
stature, and was extraordinarily brave and silent. The nobleman who
was his master made a sort of companion of him when they hunted
together. Once he took him with him when he traveled to Samavia to
hunt wild horses. He found that he knew the country strangely well,
and that he was familiar with Samavian hunting and customs. Before
he returned to Austria, the man obtained permission to go to the
mountains alone. He went among the shepherds and made friends among
them, asking many questions.

One night around a forest fire he heard the songs about the Lost
Prince which had not been forgotten even after nearly five hundred
years had passed. The shepherds and herdsmen talked about Prince
Ivor, and told old stories about him, and related the prophecy that
he would come back and bring again Samavia's good days. He might
come only in the body of one of his descendants, but it would be his
spirit which came, because his spirit would never cease to love
Samavia. One very old shepherd tottered to his feet and lifted his
face to the myriad stars bestrewn like jewels in the blue sky above
the forest trees, and he wept and prayed aloud that the great God
would send their king to them. And the stranger huntsman stood
upright also and lifted his face to the stars. And, though he said
no word, the herdsman nearest to him saw tears on his cheeks--great,
heavy tears. The next day, the stranger went to the monastery where
the order of good monks lived who had taken care of the Lost Prince.
When he had left Samavia, the secret society was formed, and the
members of it knew that an Ivor Fedorovitch had passed through his
ancestors' country as the servant of another man. But the secret
society was only a small one, and, though it has been growing ever
since and it has done good deeds and good work in secret, the
huntsman died an old man before it was strong enough even to dare to
tell Samavia what it knew."

"Had he a son?" cried Marco. "Had he a son?"

"Yes. He had a son. His name was Ivor. And he was trained as
I told you. That part I knew to be true, though I should have
believed it was true even if I had not known. There has always been
a king ready for Samavia--even when he has labored with his hands and
served others. Each one took the oath of allegiance."

"As I did?" said Marco, breathless with excitement. When one is
twelve years old, to be so near a Lost Prince who might end wars is a
thrilling thing.

"The same," answered Loristan.

Marco threw up his hand in salute.

" `Here grows a man for Samavia! God be thanked!' " he quoted.
"And he is somewhere? And you know?"

Loristan bent his head in acquiescence.

"For years much secret work has been done, and the Fedorovitch
party has grown until it is much greater and more powerful than the
other parties dream. The larger countries are tired of the constant
war and disorder in Samavia. Their interests are disturbed by them,
and they are deciding that they must have peace and laws which can be
counted on. There have been Samavian patriots who have spent their
lives in trying to bring this about by making friends in the most
powerful capitals, and working secretly for the future good of their
own land. Because Samavia is so small and uninfluential, it has
taken a long time but when King Maran and his family were
assassinated and the war broke out, there were great powers which
began to say that if some king of good blood and reliable
characteristics were given the crown, he should be upheld."

"His blood,"-- Marco's intensity made his voice drop almost to a
whisper,--"his blood has been trained for five hundred years, Father!
If it comes true--" though he laughed a little, he was obliged to
wink his eyes hard because suddenly he felt tears rush into them,
which no boy likes--"the shepherds will have to make a new song --it
will have to be a shouting one about a prince going away and a king
coming back!"

"They are a devout people and observe many an ancient rite and
ceremony. They will chant prayers and burn altar-fires on their
mountain sides," Loristan said. "But the end is not yet--the end is
not yet. Sometimes it seems that perhaps it is near--but God
knows!"

Then there leaped back upon Marco the story he had to tell, but
which he had held back for the last--the story of the man who spoke
Samavian and drove in the carriage with the King. He knew now that
it might mean some important thing which he could not have before
suspected.

"There is something I must tell you," he said.

He had learned to relate incidents in few but clear words when
he

related them to his father. It had been part of his training.
Loristan had said that he might sometime have a story to tell when he
had but few moments to tell it in--some story which meant life or
death to some one. He told this one quickly and well. He made
Loristan see the well-dressed man with the deliberate manner and the
keen eyes, and he made him hear his voice when he said, "Tell your
father that you are a very well-trained lad."

"I am glad he said that. He is a man who knows what training
is," said Loristan. "He is a person who knows what all Europe is
doing, and almost all that it will do. He is an ambassador from a
powerful and great country. If he saw that you are a well-trained
and fine lad, it might--it might even be good for Samavia."

"Would it matter that I was well-trained? Could it matter to
Samavia?" Marco cried out.

Loristan paused for a moment--watching him gravely--looking him
over--his big, well-built boy's frame, his shabby clothes, and his
eagerly burning eyes.

He smiled one of his slow wonderful smiles.

"Yes. It might even matter to Samavia!" he answered.