by Mark Helprin
Then, to balance the lion rampant, came gentler things, and things more pleasant, by the millions, but these, too, were a burden. To see every bud that had ever bloomed in England, and every bird that had ever sung. To see each parson talking to himself as he made up his sermon walking down the lane. To be present when Newton and Shakespeare by divine grant opened clear prospects in the confused air of blackness and storm, like spinners who make flowing thread from tangled skeins. Dresses were sewn, blue satin smoothed, and garden paths laid out in numbers great and indeterminate. And then the pace picked up and reddened with the rhythm of industry: more wheels, hammers, and levers than the eye could see, turning, striking, and rocking against a background of fire and flame sometimes as yellow as brass.
Not even a minute had passed, and Bannerman and the boy were aware only that the falcon had once arched his wings as if in preparation, that the king stared into the wind, and that the wind itself was of the densest compression, flowing past with messages all its own.
Freddy looked south past Dundee and Edinburgh, and with most of Scotland at his back let himself fly in a leap over the Trent, the Severn, the Wye, and the Thames, all the way to the Channel. And the strange thing was that, with all that he had ever seen and all he was obligated to see, which had many times overcome him, there was one thing that, finally, his vision came to.
Now he slipped back only a little bit in time. After what he had just been privileged to behold, it was easy to get there. It was something so small and quiet that by comparison it was the most stunning thing of all, for he was brought to see, from a little way above her, a girl of sixteen or seventeen, bicycling on an empty macadam road between ranks of tall trees laden with young green leaves. She was wearing the kind of spring coat that girls used to wear, and her hair was tied back with a velvet ribbon. She was coming up a hill, and stood on the pedals, sometimes pivoting the front wheel to keep the slowly moving cycle upright. In her face was all the beauty of the world and no knowledge of what was to come. He was there, but she thought she was alone. It was, of course, Fredericka.
DEEPLY MOVED and grateful that God had set this seal upon his royal vision, Freddy looked kindly at the falcon. Without words, he said, Lift your wings, and the falcon did, extending them not to be folded again that day. Bannerman and the boy drew in their breaths and did not exhale. Even before the falcon lifted off, they saw Freddy smile. And then, without words, purely by grace, Freddy said, Fly.
The tiercel falcon Craig-Vyvyan, of ancient lineage, took fully of the wind that came soaring up from England, and knowingly changed the camber of his wings until that constant air lifted him from Freddy’s arm and, once clear, he beat the air with all his power and was raised thirty feet above the summit of the mountain, where he paused as if for confirmation, which Freddy gave him straight from his heart.
He had a long flight, and he had started on high. Down he glided, into the blue over England.
EPILOGUE
AS ANYONE NOW LIVING in England knows, all this took place a long time ago. The reign of His Majesty King Frederick has not been uneventful, and he has risen to the full measure of kingship on many an occasion: in the many Middle Eastern wars; in the great destruction during the twelfth year of his reign; in the revival of culture; and in the formation of the English-Speaking Union.
Most difficult for him, and for the nation, was the death of Fredericka, when the Princess Lucia, heir to the throne, was not even twenty years of age. This tore at the heart of the king and country. But we continue, and expect that Lucia’s reign, when it comes, will be as just as that of her grandmother Philippa. For in this she will have not only the blood of her father, but of her mother, too.
When Fredericka died, so much did he long for her that the king asked me to write down the early part of their story together. He wanted, by relating it to me, to stoke the fires of memory. I am astounded still at the detail he has summoned, at his objective recollection, and at the precise descriptions of scenes and sunsets that for many decades have been alive only in memory. Knowing that the truth is greater than any man, he made no attempt to hide his faults or peculiarities, and admitted freely to the desire to justify his acts and views, instructing me to “put a bit on them,” as he said, and verify everything as far as possible in the public and private records. This I have done, and although I cannot confirm incidents and events that no one now living or accessible can second, if the record of those that are indeed subject to proof is in any way representative, this is a very accurate account by a very meticulous king.
Going down on the north side of Lochnagar that day, when the light at our backs gave us a view of what seemed a world of myth, Bannerman and I felt change on its way. The king had been confirmed, and although that has happened often, sometimes it is a hinge of history, as it was this time. Although it is hard to be a king, it is harder yet to become one. He had been schooled by his own idiosyncrasy and courage to see and insist where others were blind and shy. He had studied both formally and on his own, working like a scholar or a mystic, always with his eye on the truth. He had embraced a life of action as well, learning and exercising physical courage as part of the tapestry of endurance and discovery that is laid out before any man (if he will only make his way upon it) by a divine hand. And, unlike any other English king, he had been schooled in America. There he had discovered that the aim-point of the impossible is the best aim-point of all. He had made his way with only the princess at his side and no advantage other than that which was within them. In America he had learned to be a king, not least because in America he discovered the sacred principle that every man is a king. If no man there is less than a king, then he became a king by right even before his return home and the death of his mother.
And in America he learned forbearance, humility, and something far greater. As he tells it, he pierced the fog that had bedazzled him, saw Fredericka for what she was, and learned to love her as she deserved. Thus giving themselves the chance, by wit and luck they grew up together and made a bond. And in conceiving a child they retreated from the self-spun illusion of primacy. This, which in its totality is called love, saved them.
I mentioned that I was with the king on Lochnagar. I was, for I am the boy Craig-Vyvyan, hardly a boy now, from whose confusions of childhood the king drew me as he left his own. I had thought for a time that—while keeping my name and thus keeping faith with my forbears—I was to be known as the Lord Strathcoyne. But then in her last months Her Majesty Queen Philippa went on a spree of awarding titles and honours, and Strathcoyne and its emoluments went to an already wealthy West End impresario who looks like a lamb chop, and sings like one, too. In fact, despite Freddy’s (I call him Freddy in private, and he has never objected) declaration about the quiver being full, precious little was left by the time it was my turn, and I got Piggleswade.
I use it for formal occasions, and the first name, too. Materially, I am far better off, having received in an instant both Gower Lodge, Mortlake, and a magnificent flat in Belgravia, each free of charges for my lifetime. The problem is buying groceries at a decent price, but I have resigned myself to motoring quite a distance or paying double. As Lord Piggleswade, I was entitled to free tuition and living quarters at Magdalen College, Oxford, and I took it. I wish you could have seen the expression on the face of my late father at the granting of my several degrees, in the presence of the king, who came especially on my behalf. And, lastly, as Piggleswade I am the owner of a flower farm at Hampstead Court, near Syon Lodge. I have five large greenhouses there, and fields for the summer cultivation of peonies, carnations, and roses. Middlemen and taxes take most of what flows through, but in the end I am left with £20,000 to £40,000 a year, depending upon the economy, the weather, fashions, and pests.
That was not enough for Lord Piggleswade, Lady Piggleswade, and their children who have matriculated at various expensive universities here and abroad, so I took to writing books. Books are like flowers. No matter how beautiful or colourful th
ey may be, you cannot tell what they will return to you once you cut the stem and send them into the world. But, though they may return nothing, like flowers, they are a reward unto themselves.
The king now wants me to write of his reign. Because it has been a noble and extraordinary reign, I am sore tempted, but I do not think I will. For this was the book in which he and Fredericka were merely two young people, and in this book their youth and charm were unconstrained by the severity of position. Everyone is interested, it is said, in kings, but I myself am interested in kings before their time. For kings before their time are like us all, and may God bless them for that, and save them, too.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Educated at Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford, Mark Helprin served in the Israeli army, Israeli Air Force, and British Merchant Navy. He is the author of A Dove of the East and Other Stories, Refiner’s Fire, Ellis Island and Other Stories, Winter’s Tale, A Soldier of the Great War, Memoir from Antproof Case, and The Pacific and Other Stories.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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