Orpheus followed her as she climbed downstairs. He helped her to put the Hall in order and prepare the registers listing inhabitants of Galnicia, and then went to ask the Coronador to join them for the event. It was the first time since the fall of the country that so many Galnicians had made for the Citadel at the same time.
A few hours later there was a great line of people waiting in the gardens. It stretched from the middle of the Hall of Delicacies to the first streets of the Lower Town. Everyone was shouting, talking, calling out, exchanging news, and making such a noise that the Coronador could hardly make himself heard. Babies were crying and dogs barking, old men sat down on the grass, groaning, to rest their sore feet, tradesmen dumped their handcarts anywhere they could find and tried to sell fruit now overripe after the journey, while soldiers uncorked bottles of Rioro found by some miracle in the cellars. Malva had ordered the wine to be distributed along with food. It was like a carnival.
However, when the people entered the Hall, they all suddenly fell silent and took off their hats. They made their way towards their Princess, eyes wide as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. They had to touch Malva’s hand before they were convinced that she was real. Not only was she alive, she looked almost the same as at the time when the portrait showing her youthful beauty was painted. Just a little thinner, perhaps, and with a graver look, but her amber eyes still enchanted all who saw her.
She had taken her place on a chair hastily mended by Babilas; its seat was still rather unsteady. Beside her, on his faded throne, the Coronador felt a prickling in his nose, and sometimes started when he heard people speak to him. As for Orpheus, he stood back in the shadows, slightly removed from the others, watching the scene with growing emotion. He had always dreamed of seeing the Princess reunited with her people. And this time, he knew, it was for good.
‘We’ve missed you!’ the women told her.
‘We thought you’d died among the barbarians,’ said the men.
‘You can’t think how we’ve suffered!’ wailed the noble Donias. ‘Just imagine – we had to eat roots and wild pigs’ tails!’
They all crowded around her, touching her, weeping, thanking her, and Malva accepted all these marks of affection serenely. In exchange, she distributed houses, workshops and responsibilities among them, and they all set off, reassured that a new life awaited them in either the Upper Town or the Lower Town, whichever they preferred.
The soldiers laid their rusty carabins and musketoons at the Princess’s feet and swore to be faithful to her. The Holy Diafrons murmured blessings into her ears. The tradesmen promised her presents, and when Malva gave the peasants plots of land they shed tears of gratitude. At the back of the room, three menservants wrote down everything she had given in the official registers.
At last an old woman in a black cape, carrying a big bundle, knelt before Malva. ‘I came back in spite of my great age,’ she said to her, ‘hoping you could give me news of someone who set out in search of you. A young man I brought up – he was on the first expedition, the one that set out ten years ago …’
Hearing her voice, Orpheus emerged from the shadow, his heart beating fast. ‘Berthilde?’ he asked hesitantly.
The old woman looked up, recognised him and burst out sobbing. ‘He’s alive! By Holy Tranquillity, he’s alive!’
Since the old lady was clearly in shock, Malva had her taken to the antechamber. In passing, she cast an enquiring glance at Orpheus, who briefly explained who the old woman in black was before going to sit with her. Berthilde was in a state of great excitement, wringing her hands and repeating, ‘Thanks be, thanks be, thanks be!’
Berthilde had always seemed old to Orpheus, but now he saw her so worn out by age and suffering that he thought she might fall to dust before his eyes.
When she was over her first shock, Berthilde was able to sit up, and found the strength to tell Orpheus all that had happened to her: her lonely and interminable wait in Hannibal’s icy house, her despair, the passing of the years, then war with the invading hordes from the north.
‘One morning I heard riders coming, shouting in the next road. I took fright, collected a few things together and left. I wasn’t the only one. The Upper Town emptied all at once, and we found ourselves on the road like beggars.’
‘Going where?’ asked Orpheus.
‘Far away to the frontiers. That’s where I found shelter, in a village built by cave-dwellers and abandoned long ago.’
‘You … you lived in the caves?’ asked Orpheus in amazement.
The old woman nodded. She had stayed there for over two years with other Galnician refugees. Yet cold, hunger and the fear of being discovered, attacked and killed could not overcome her determination.
‘I always looked after what was yours,’ she told Orpheus proudly. ‘I wouldn’t give up hope of seeing you again some day, and giving back what you left me when you went away.’
She bent down, opened the bundle she had brought with her, and took out some knick-knacks that Orpheus recognised: objects of no great value, but part of his childhood and youth. Then she opened a small casket. Orpheus went pale. It contained Hannibal’s jewels and gold.
‘This is only a small part of your fortune,’ said Berthilde apologetically. ‘I couldn’t carry it all, and I suppose the rest was stolen. I am so sorry.’
Amazed, Orpheus was staring at the casket.
‘I know you didn’t want to accept anything from your father,’ Berthilde murmured. ‘But this gold is all that’s left of him. Please take it.’
Feeling very awkward, Orpheus dared neither refuse nor accept it.
‘Hannibal loved you,’ the old woman added. ‘I watched him with you over the years, and I know how much he thought of you. He loved you more than anything in the world.’
Orpheus looked into the depths of Berthilde’s eyes, and thought of all that had happened to him since the two of them last saw each other.
‘I will take it,’ he said.
Berthilde smiled.
‘And now you must rest,’ added Orpheus. ‘We’ll find you a room.’
The old woman shook her head. ‘It’s kind of you, but no. If you will allow me,’ she said, taking a bunch of keys from her pocket, ‘I’ll sleep at home in the McBott house.’
She had kept the keys too! Orpheus couldn’t get over it, but he was quick to agree to her request. He called some servants and told them to take the old lady to the big white house at the foot of the Campanile.
‘And I’ll come and see you tomorrow,’ he promised, kissing Berthilde’s lined forehead.
47
A Last-Minute Visitor
The procession through the Hall of Delicacies went on for a week. Galnicians came to the Citadel from everywhere, and the constant crowd tired the Coronador so much that after three days he said he wasn’t going to leave his bed again; his daughter could cope with everything very well by herself.
The crowd came and went in a state of great excitement, thronging the streets and squares, the banks of the River Gdavir, and going all the way to the harbour, where ships from every point of the compass were loading and unloading cargoes.
One evening when Orpheus was out, Malva was about to rise from her chair and go back to her own room when a final visitor turned up. She heard one of the menservants sigh, and she almost sent the late-comer away, but she sat down when she saw the state of the man. He moved through the Hall of Delicacies with a crutch under each arm, back bent and breathless with the effort. His bare feet showed under the folds of a monje’s robe, dirty and bleeding. He must have suffered a thousand torments before reaching the Citadel, and although she was exhausted herself Malva didn’t have the heart to turn him away.
‘Come here,’ she said, ‘and tell me your name.’
The man dragged himself over to the chair where Malva was sitting. His face was hidden under the wide hood of his robe, and only some locks of grey hair escaped from it. This must be a very old monje.
&nb
sp; ‘My name,’ said a trembling voice, ‘my name is Miguel. I have come from so far away to see you, Princess.’
‘I’m listening,’ smiled Malva, leaning forward in an attempt to see the monje’s face.
‘May I speak without fear in this place?’ the voice asked again. ‘I have something to tell you in confidence, and …’
Malva assured him that the servants wouldn’t hear anything.
‘I have come from so far away,’ the man repeated.
‘From the frontier?’ asked Malva.
‘Much further than that! I have crossed a sea, I have passed through unknown lands …’
‘What kind of lands?’
‘Lands from which no one ever returns,’ replied the shaking voice.
Malva felt a shudder run down her back.
‘And it is of all that,’ said the man from under his hood, ‘that I want to speak to you. I know you will understand. Your intelligence and wisdom are famous. But what about these servants?’
Malva turned to the three poor fellows half-asleep over the registers, and felt sorry for them. ‘That’s all for today,’ she told them. ‘You can leave us now.’
The three servants didn’t wait to be asked twice. They put their quills down and left the Hall of Delicacies. Malva was alone with the monje.
‘There’s no one else here now,’ she said.
‘No one else here!’ breathed the monje. ‘You and I, alone. How glad I am!’
‘So what lands did you want to tell me about?’ asked Malva, her curiosity aroused.
The monje straightened up. He dropped his crutches, which made a dull sound as they fell to the polished floor. Malva was going to lean down and pick them up, but a sudden doubt stopped her. All at once she leaped to her feet. The monje flung back his hood to reveal his face.
In spite of his long hair, Malva recognised him at once. Those piercing eyes, as grey as metal, that triumphant smile …
‘The Archont!’ she murmured, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
He immediately drew a sword that had been hidden under his robes. She screamed.
‘Let me tell you, then, about the Archipelago,’ snarled the Archont, moving forward with the sword held in front of him.
Malva knocked her chair over as she retreated, shouting, ‘Orpheus!’
‘He won’t hear you,’ snapped the Archont. ‘We have all the time in the world to talk, like the old friends we are! Let me tell you what I have endured to reach the end of our story at last, Princess.’
He slashed the air with his sword and it whistled in Malva’s ears. She was shaking. The terror flooding through her took her breath away, but suddenly she remembered the secret passage. Its entrance was in the back wall of the room just a few steps behind her.
‘Let me tell you about the sailors whose Nokros I stole so that I could hold out … they lost their heads, all of them, as you, Princess, are about to lose yours now!’
Malva retreated further and further until her hands were touching the wall. Her fingertips felt for the way into the passage.
‘I thought you’d died in the Immuration,’ she said, trying to gain time. ‘I was so happy to think of you undergoing Catabea’s tortures!’
The Archont, smiling, advanced on her. ‘As you see, Catabea let me go! I followed the Law of the Archipelago, I explored my true self. All my hatred, and even beyond it …’
Malva felt the slight recess marking the entrance to the secret passage beneath her fingers. She pushed with all her might. The door gave way, and Malva fell backwards. Taking advantage of the Archont’s surprise, she rose, turned, and began running down the narrow passage. It was bathed in darkness.
Behind her, she heard the Archont crying, ‘You won’t escape that way a second time, Princess! This isn’t Temir-Gai’s harem. I know these secret passages as well as you do!’
And he set off in pursuit of her, uttering demented cries.
48
At the End of the Passage
Orpheus felt the need to walk in the Citadel gardens for a little while. It was not warm, for a north wind had risen, but the sky was clear, and fountains played cheerfully in the basins. He turned up his collar and was wandering along the garden paths at random, hands in his pockets. As he walked he thought of his father. He no longer felt revulsion or anger towards him. He even told himself that he would ask Malva to go to the graveyard with him that evening, and they would place flowers on the graves of the Coronada and Hannibal together.
It was at this point in his reflections that he began to feel cold. He sneezed once, then a second time, and decided to go in.
When he was within sight of the sycamore avenue he met the servants who had been at work with the Princess in the Hall of Delicacies all day. ‘Is the audience over?’ he asked them.
One of them explained that there was a single visitor left, a poor cripple, but Malva was talking to him alone and had told them to go. Orpheus frowned. Without quite knowing why, he didn’t much like the idea of Malva alone with the stranger. He turned back to the terrace and entered the great hall through its glazed door.
There was no one there at all. A vague fear seized him.
‘Princess?’ he called.
There was no reply. He moved forward, and saw the overturned chair … and the pair of crutches lying on the floor. His heart leaped in his chest.
‘Malva!’ he shouted.
At that moment he saw that the door of the secret passage in the back wall was open. This final clue convinced him that something had happened. He stepped inside the entrance to the passage and called again. Holding his breath, he listened. There was no reply but silence.
Panic took hold of him. He raced back into the Hall of Delicacies, snatched up a musketoon from the weapons handed in by the soldiers, and thus equipped made his way into the secret passage.
It was dark, but he had only to follow the narrow passage, guiding himself by its walls. Malva had already taken him there to show him the way she had escaped the night before her wedding. Orpheus remembered the turns in it, the flights of stairs, the marks she had mentioned to him. Musketoon held before him, he began to run.
The further he went, the more he feared that something terrible had happened. Who was this cripple who could chase someone without his crutches? An impostor, of course!
‘The Archont?’ Orpheus asked himself out loud.
The possibility chilled him to the bone. He had so much wanted to believe that the man had died in the Archipelago. Was it possible that he too had escaped?
Orpheus reached a place where the passage branched, and stopped. To his right, it went up to the apartments. To his left it skirted the kitchens. He hesitated, listening carefully to the confused sounds that came to him, but none of them resembled sudden cries or running footsteps. He opted for the passage on the left, remembering that it was the one along which Malva had guided him.
He ran on into the darkness, his throat dry, his eyes strained until he thought he saw light at the end of the passage. Yes, a door was open to the air outside! That was the way Malva had gone!
Orpheus cocked the musketoon. As he reached the open door he slowed down. He heard horses pawing the ground with their hooves; this was the way to the stables. A gust of cold wind blew back his hair. The smell of the horses filled his nostrils, and he felt like sneezing. He pinched his nose very hard with his free hand to stop the sneeze.
At last he put his head through the opening. There was Malva, hiding behind heaped bales of straw. She was breathing fast, and perspiration ran down her face.
Orpheus took another step. Now he saw the Archont, sword in hand, prowling round the bales of straw, snarling.
Orpheus’s vision blurred slightly, the result of fear and strain. His hands were sweating on the butt of the musketoon. And his nose was itching so badly!
Holding his breath, he raised the barrel of his firearm to eye level and tried to take aim at the Archont. But the man kept moving, bending down, st
raightening up. He drove his sword blade into the straw with a hideous smile on his lips. At last Orpheus made up his mind to push the door further open; otherwise he couldn’t do anything. The draught was stronger. Orpheus pinched his nose even more tightly. He raised the musketoon again, and suddenly the Archont was in his line of fire.
He crooked his forefinger on the trigger of the weapon.
There was a little click.
The Archont turned to look at the door, and saw Orpheus holding him at bay. A flash of surprise showed in his grey eyes. But just as Orpheus pulled the trigger, he sneezed so hard that the trajectory of the bullet was deflected.
He sneezed again, twice, losing control of the situation. And suddenly he felt the sword blade pass through his chest, and heard the Archont’s exultant voice.
‘I’ve run you through once before! This time it’s for good!’
Orpheus opened his eyes. The Archont was standing over him. He had taken advantage of the sneezing fit to leap in and disarm him. Orpheus felt such pain that he thought he was exploding inside. He fell to the ground without even uttering a cry.
Then he heard nothing but the beating of his heart pulsing in his skull. He saw a bale of straw fly through the air and come down on the Archont. He saw Malva pass in front of him and straighten up with the musketoon in her hands. He saw the Archont retreat, open-mouthed.
He didn’t hear the shot, but he realised that Malva had fired.
The Archont staggered and fell back, his chest bloody, his face wrecked by the bullet, and then disappeared from Orpheus’s field of vision.
Head back on the straw, Orpheus smiled at Malva as she leaned over him. How beautiful she was! Her face, her amber eyes, her black hair … but why was she crying? Why was her mouth moving like that? What was she saying?
She’s saying my name, Orpheus told himself. She loves me.
Those were his last thoughts.
They buried Orpheus three days later.
At the head of the funeral procession the Coronador, Berthilde and Babilas supported Malva. The young Princess, looking dazed, could not take her eyes off the coffin. Behind them came a crowd of silent Galnicians.
The Princess and the Captain Page 34
