“You have no choice, Luke, anyway. They will not come out and you cannot make them. Nor can you storm the city. Your father did, but only because they were fool enough to use a machine, which the Spirits caused to blow up and breach the wall. It has been strongly rebuilt and we should have small hope of scaling it.”
“He will come out,” I said. “I will bring him out.”
Edmund shook his head. “How?”
I told him. He listened in disbelief. “You cannot do it.”
“You will see what I can do.”
• • •
I stood with the Captains on a knoll. A little below us and half a mile away were the walls of Petersfield. There was open ground between: grazing meadows and wheatfields. The wheat moved in the wind. I said to Greene:
“Send a squad of men with torches to fire the wheat.”
Greene stared, too staggered for speech. It was Blaine who spoke.
“You cannot do such a thing! It is against all custom.”
Wheat meant bread for the long hard winter. It stood for life itself. No one rode or fought over growing wheat, and if a campaign ever lasted through summer, harvesting put an end to it.
I said to Greene: “You heard me. That field below us first.”
If Greene had hesitated further, the others might have got together and stopped me. As it was they watched in grim silence. There had been no rain for days and the wind had dried the wheat of the mist’s dampness. The stalks caught and smoke rolled down toward the city.
It was after we had put torches to the second field that they came out. I gave them no chance to assemble in battle array but rode down on them in the shadow of their own walls. We lost some men from arrows but once we had closed, the bowmen could not distinguish friend from foe.
I was happy now, feeling the lifting pulse of battle. Hans rode near me, almost of human stature in the saddle, his voice deeply shouting. I saw fat Blaine rise in his stirrups and deal a Petersfield man a blow that almost severed head from body. For all his fatness he was immensely strong. A horseman, a Captain by his blazon, slashed at me. I parried with my sword which, sliding down from his, skinned his arm. I toppled a trooper from his horse with a thrust under the shoulder. Then they were scattering from us and the battle, if one could call it such, was over.
They rode for their gates but we rode with them. We secured the North Gate and after that they were a beaten rabble.
• • •
Michael Smith had been a florid flashy man, a good talker who was proud of his voice and given to merry songs at banquets. He sang well even when drunk. But he was not singing now, or talking. His body shivered as Greene hung round his neck the wooden toys he had sent to me in mockery.
I felt sick myself. I had no stomach for watching a man die in cold blood. But I also was being watched, by my own army and the people of Petersfield.
I had been driven to burning the wheatfields, and the trick had worked. It was not so bad to break the rules as long as one won. And ruthlessness followed on from ruthlessness. He had rebelled against his Prince and slain his Prince’s lieutenant. He had earned his death. I only wished I did not have to see it.
The day was ending with no sign of the sun. The wind had a cold edge and I could have shivered too, but schooled myself against it.
Greene said in a loud voice: “Let all witness the proper end of a traitor!”
He looked at me. I raised my hand and dropped it. Strong arms pulled on the rope that hung from the pulley of the gibbet, and Michael Smith gave a single gasp as his body was lifted up. His legs twitched as he hung there. They twitched for a long time before they were still.
JOHN CHRISTOPHER is a pseudonym of Samuel Youd, who was born in Lancashire, England, in 1922. He is the author of more than fifty novels and novellas, as well as numerous short stories. His most famous books include The Death of Grass, the Tripods series, The Lotus Caves, and The Guardians.
ALADDIN
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Also by John Christopher
From Aladdin
THE TRIPODS SERIES
The White Mountains
The City of Gold and Lead
The Pool of Fire
When the Tripods Came
The Lotus Caves
A Dusk of Demons
The Guardians
THE SWORD OF THE SPIRITS TRILOGY
The Prince in Waiting
The Sword of the Spirits
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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This Aladdin hardcover edition February 2015
Text copyright © 1971 by John Christopher
Jacket illustration copyright © 2015 by Anton Petrov
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Jacket designed by Karin Paprocki
Interior designed by Hilary Zarycky
The text of this book was set in Venetian 301.
Library of Congress Control Number 2014953410
ISBN 978-1-4814-1995-6 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4814-1994-9 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4814-1996-3 (eBook)