by Antal Szerb
“Your Highness,” the Prime Minister began, “this is a rather delicate matter, and a rather bold step to take, but we believe that Your Highness’ aide-de-camp, Major Mawiras-Tendal, is not a suitable person to be carrying out a duty of trust beside Your Highness in critical moments like these.”
“Mawiras-Tendal not suitable? What possible objection can there be to him? He’s a first-class soldier, and an even better friend.”
“Your Highness,” the Interior Minister interposed, “I’m afraid that—from confidential reports—we are only too well informed of the Major’s political views. He is in contact with the leaders of the opposition press, and, worse, with the fire-eating Delorme himself. He is in regular correspondence with political exiles abroad. Besides all this, he is the grandson of our national hero, whose sole bequest to us as a people was a predisposition to anarchy.
“This would be a highly suitable moment to get rid of him,” the minister continued. “The post has become vacant of Director of the State Mercury Mines. Poor Colowar died the day before yesterday, of poisoning.”
“Mercury poisoning?” the horrified King asked.
“No, alcohol poisoning. Mawiras-Tendal would be just the person to replace him.”
“My dear sirs, we cannot possibly discuss this now. How could you think it? You surely know that I would part with anyone rather than my old Milán. He’s the best person for the job, and my most sincere friend. But if you wish, we can talk about it tomorrow, or the day after.”
“Why only then?” asked the Prime Minister, dumbfounded.
“Because by then so much will have changed. I shall be a married man. But meanwhile we have a duty to perform. Could we please get it over and done with? Let’s swallow the bitter pill, and put our names to this famous treaty.”
Everyone took his appointed place round a large circular table. The Finance Minister once again summarised the significance of the document while the others sat in a bored, restless silence waiting for the decisive moment of signing. Their restlessness stemmed from a shared feeling that the King’s good breeding and seeming impartiality might well conceal some inscrutable, deeply impractical character—some unsuspected trait lurking beneath his general good sense. That he might, at the very last minute, change his mind.
But that did not happen.
Having listened carefully to all they had to say, he asked, in the most natural voice in the world:
“So, you gentlemen are all agreed that the country has no other means of salvation than for us to ratify this loathsome, humiliating treaty?”
“That is so,” the Prime Minister answered. “If Your Highness does not sign it, and we fail to secure Coltor’s advance payment, we might as well close down the Treasury and lock up the Chancellor. That is the stark reality.”
“And you gentlemen are prepared to share with me the odium that will attach to this, that you … to put it politely … ? Well, you know what I am thinking.”
“We shall stand by Your Highness to the last drop of our blood,” the Prime Minister averred.
“We will give our all,” the Minister for the Interior chimed in, “to the last drop of wine and the very last sardine.”
“I do not doubt it. Then I can hesitate no longer. I shall go down in history as the king for whom no sacrifice was too great. Kindly pass the document so that I may sign.”
They watched, each man mouthing a prayer, as the King, very slowly, inscribed his name, and then stood for another moment, gazing in wonder at what he had written.
“So, all we need now is for you gentlemen to put your names to this document, and to send it on to the other signatory. With this I call the Royal Council to a close, and take my leave. Before it gets dark I would like to test-drive my new car, which arrived from Paris yesterday. And so, goodbye.”
“Your Highness … ” the Prime Minister began, hesitantly.
“Well?”
“If you would grant another respectful request from your concerned well-wishers. Your Highness must surely be aware that the population is waiting in a fever of excitement for the signing of the treaty. Sadly, the opposition press has inflamed their feelings. It would seem advisable, in the interests of Your Highness’ personal safety and of public order, that Your Highness should not leave the palace for one moment. At least, not before the wedding. The people will be calmer after that delightful ceremony.”
The King hammered angrily on the table.
“This is outrageous. For two weeks now I have been under virtual house arrest. I can’t go and play golf, because the road runs beside the military barracks. I can’t go to the theatre, because the low light might favour an attempt on my life. I can’t dine in the palace, because the head chef has republican sympathies. I can’t go walking alone on Mt Lilión, or lie under an apple tree reading Dante. To say nothing of this damned coat … Who am I, to be debarred from every pleasure in life that any citizen of Alturia can enjoy? Everyone else can play golf and drive a car. Everyone, except me. So what am I then?”
The Prime Minister rose, bowed deeply, and declared:
“You are the King!”
The King’s face darkened, and he muttered, very quietly:
“Indeed.”
“Your Highness well remembers,” the Prime Minister continued, “those wonderful words of our great poet Montanhagol: ‘duty is not a bed of roses’.”
“Yes, of course. And on the subject of rose beds, I shall stay in tonight. But now I really must leave you gentlemen. My bride is waiting for me.”
With much ceremonial bowing, the ministers departed. Pritanez set off at speed to the Palace Hotel, where Coltor’s emissaries were waiting anxiously to know whether the King had signed or not. The favourable news was like a galvanic charge to their cold Norlandian blood. They shook Pritanez’s hand warmly, and decided to celebrate the happy occasion with an expensive dinner later that evening. Then they talked over the final details of the down payment.
Pritanez left the hotel in a buoyant mood. His life’s great work had come to a successful conclusion, and he would be a rich man. He was filled with an ecstatic sense of well-being. Everything in the world was wonderful: the ladies in horse-drawn carriages promenading under the palm trees in Montanhagol Avenue, the little coffee houses and their customers sitting outside on the pavements taking their ease, the clouds in the sky … for the first time in his life he noticed the clouds.
In that instant something utterly revolting smacked into his face. Something brown, moist, and excessively putrid. He recognised it from the smell: something horses were wont to leave behind them on the roads of that pre-war age.
Like thunder after lightning, this bull’s-eye hit was followed by a loud yell; then a rotten egg came flying towards him, an onion, and sundry other objects. Confronted by the fact of his unpopularity, Pritanez ducked his head this way and that. But a crowd was advancing towards him with menacing gestures. He barely had time to leap into his car.
He was driven home, filled with disgust at his person and his clothing, which still retained the distinctive smell of each individual greeting in its ripe particularity. His house was a few steps away from the Palace Hotel.
But as they turned into the street where he lived, the chauffeur suddenly braked.
“Look, Your Excellency!”
An already substantial crowd was waiting outside the house, brandishing little flags and yelling. They too had no doubt equipped themselves with projectile materials. A chill went down Pritanez’s spine.
The chauffeur did not wait for instructions. He reversed rapidly, and only after making his three-point turn did he ask where to go next.
“The Royal Palace,” came the reply.
Gradually darkness fell. Huge crowds were milling around in the streets, faces never seen before in the capital. The plain-clothes security men had simply given up and melted into the throng.
In the general stir and bustle no one noticed the twenty conspirators making their way one by one towards
the palace down various streets. There was a servants’ door opening onto a neglected part of the park, used by delivery men during the day. This was where they broke into the building.
No force was actually needed. They knocked and gave the password of the day: The Ides of March. The door opened and a lieutenant of the Twelfth Regiment, armed to the teeth, admitted them one by one. It was not actually the fifteenth of March but the eighth. However, they rather liked the chilling reference to the great conspiracy that ended the life and sway of Julius Caesar.
A soldier led them down a series of dark corridors into the basement area, where they regrouped. An officer was waiting for them in a sort of hall, where he checked that all were present and immediately left.
Sandoval and Delorme were among them. Sandoval knew most of the others, either personally or by sight. They included a couple of rather wild, desperate characters—a newspaper delivery man famous for his strength, and an intensely evil-looking waiter. But the great majority seemed not too grimly aggressive, grim aggressiveness not featuring much in the Alturian character. Sandoval also noticed some of his more intellectual friends among them: a lawyer, a doctor and a writer.
A worrying thought suddenly struck him. It occurred to him that he had in fact received no instructions about what to do once they had broken into the palace. Delorme had said that they would work it out when they got there. At all events, Sandoval had brought his revolver.
“If this thing turns out badly,” he thought, “I’ll shoot myself. Or rather, I won’t shoot myself. Who can say?”
Sandoval was a great raconteur. He had already given thought to the adventure he would narrate once he was free to talk about it at leisure amongst his fellow painters, around the club’s dinner table at the Kina coffee house.
The door opened, and a respectful silence descended as the conspirators were joined by the imposing figure of Major Mawiras-Tendal.
“So, everyone’s here. Follow me in absolute silence. No one must know you are in the building.”
They made their way along a complicated and winding route through rooms and corridors, which the Major had carefully plotted to prevent them meeting a single soul—a feat made possible by the vast size of the palace, with its ancient, long-deserted wings and side-buildings.
Finally they arrived at the foot of a spiral staircase.
“Keep your wits about you,” the Major said in a hushed voice: “This leads directly to the King’s apartments.”
They went up the creaking staircase, stopping and starting, and glaring recriminations at one another. One of them, a man with a permanently startled expression on his face and very little hair, turned suddenly to Sandoval:
“Zizigan. Cardboard box manufacturer,” he announced, choosing his moment rather strangely.
“Torrer. Rubber heel salesman,” Sandoval returned instinctively, preferring not to tell the truth.
“Tell me,” the other whispered: “What are we actually supposed to do, if in fact the King … ?”
“Ssssh!” Sandoval hissed fiercely.
The winding stairway went on forever, leading them to higher and higher levels. Then an iron door swung open and they found themselves in a small room, barely able to contain their number.
Mawiras-Tendal disappeared through a tiny doorway. A second later he was back.
“Come this way.”
They stepped into a much larger room, brightly lit. The Major assigned each man to his place. They were standing in a semicircle before a finely wrought door that opened outwards from the room they were in. As men do in moments of crisis, Sandoval found himself nervously eyeing every detail, no longer able to account for any of them rationally: the imposing marble fireplace, the ornate Renaissance table that bore nothing but a cage, and inside that cage a canary, the King’s favourite …
Mawiras-Tendal opened the door, stood holding it wide, and announced in ringing tones:
“The Nameless Captain!”
In a silence haloed with mystery, a man entered the room. He might have been in uniform, but all that could be seen of it were the patent leather boots and high gold-braided collar: the rest could only be surmised under the large, white, theatrical cloak that covered it. His face was masked. For a few moments he looked at the conspirators in silence.
“I greet you, brave men,” he said at last, in a quiet, almost ceremonial voice. “You have, every one of you, taken an oath of allegiance to me without knowing who I am. For that you have my special thanks. The time has now come for us to convert our ideas into reality. Within the hour the general uprising will have begun. We have worked on every smallest detail, and events will unfold precisely according to plan. Gentlemen, you are the ones who stormed the Royal Palace.”
A frisson of delight ran down Sandoval’s spine. They had indeed ‘stormed’ the royal palace, as people would later read. It was a shame, perhaps, that the ‘storming’ had proved so much less romantic than he had imagined. But he had learnt to live with the fact that life was never as colourful as his fantasies. Zizigan, from the look of him, was almost overcome by the fact that he too was one of the ‘storming’ party. The consciousness of it had so completely overwhelmed him that he turned pale and had to steady himself by grabbing the back of an armchair.
“The demonstrators will march past the palace,” the Nameless Captain continued. “We cannot say precisely how the inmates will respond to this, or whether they will offer resistance. Your role will be to act as my bodyguard. Major Mawiras-Tendal will give the necessary orders.”
Zizigan gave a deep sigh, and sank dizzily into the chair. The Nameless Captain stopped speaking and stared at him for a moment, then, as if suddenly remembering where he was, continued:
“Gentlemen, there is no cause for alarm. I can personally guarantee that not a hair of your heads will be harmed. This whole process is in fact nothing more than a formality.”
Zizigan turned to the canary, with a bewildered expression on his face.
“Cheep cheep,” he murmured, like a man on the point of death.
The Nameless Captain seemed about to burst out laughing behind his mask, and he quickly turned his face away towards Mawiras-Tendal. The Major remained deadly serious, his expression one of the refined disdain a gentleman officer might feel for the civilian volunteer.
“Now I must leave you to yourselves,” the Nameless Captain concluded. “Be quiet, and patient, until it is your turn for action.”
As he left, it suddenly struck Sandoval that the voice and enunciation were familiar. But no way could he recall where he had heard them before.
King Oliver made his way through to Princess Ortrud’s apartment.
The princess had now resided in Lara for a week, but because of the general situation she had scarcely been out of the palace, and she was intensely bored. And yet she was very fond of Alturia and its people. Norlandians were invariably attracted to countries more colourful and exciting than their own, and those who had the means to do so were forever escaping abroad.
Since a child, she had always yearned for romantic Alturia, and now here she was, and they wouldn’t allow her to go anywhere other than the palace park, where there were no fishermen in traditional costume to be seen, no picturesque cottages or folk dances—nothing of the wonderland she was so familiar with from her reading. She drew comfort from the fact that she was able to be with Oliver so often. She was sincerely and naively in love with him, as romantically as perhaps only a young princess can be.
Oliver found her in the company of Baron Birker, her country’s ambassador. He kissed his fiancée’s hand and greeted the visitor.
“How beautiful you are today, Oliver,” she said, in a voice filled with emotion.
“And you too, Ortrud, you too,” he replied absent-mindedly, and turned to the ambassador. “How are you, how are you, my dear Baron?”
“Your Highness, the people’s behaviour is becoming more and more alarming. In the outlying suburb of Mahal, I hear it’s come to violent
clashes between the mob and some soldiers.”
“Serves them right. Why do the military have to poke their noses into everything?” the King remarked apathetically.
“The university students placed a Boer’s hat, in the national colours, on the head of General Mawiras-Tendal’s statue, and unknown perpetrators poured tar over the image of General Larcas who put the revolution down. I’m afraid there could be further atrocities.”
“I know all this, my dear Birker. The King’s first duty is to watch over the happiness of his people. The inhabitants of my capital are indeed restless, but they tell me the excitement of the wedding will restore calm. But at all events I must advise you to go home immediately, and to lock yourself away in the ambassadorial residence. I’ll make sure that my most loyal regiment, the Twelfth, is on guard at the palace tonight. So please, get back quickly: this is not the time for a gentle stroll.”
There was no arguing with a royal command, even from so frivolous a king as Oliver VII. Birker took his leave and departed, seething with anger.
“Thank heavens you’ve sent that tedious man away,” the Princess remarked. “I was already bored enough by your absence. It’s horrible the way they keep me prisoner. At home I always had some source of amusement. I once had to inspect a hospital, and I was asked to open a flower show, and a sort of general assembly for a society for the protection of animals … ”
“I’m bored too, Ortrud: let that thought comfort you. And I’m bored not only when I’m a prisoner in the palace, as now, but also when I open flower shows and animal protection meetings: in fact, even more so on those occasions.”
“But why? I love to be out among people … ”
“Me too. But not like that. Sitting on a platform, with a smiling face, full of envy for those seated below. I would love to be down there, Ortrud, right down there … among the people.”
“But we could never do that. What would they say at Court?”
“Of course. So let’s just leave it there. From tomorrow, everything will be different.”
