CHAPTER XIV
PRINCESS IANTHE
Là il vino, la luce, la nota che freme
Nei nervi, nel sangue, risveglian l'ardor.
Carducci.
Hardly in the history of Alsander, not when the first Kradenda laid the foundation-stone! of the Cathedral and all his warriors clashed their spears, nor yet in the silver age of Basilandron, when the youthful bands, clothed curiously, the women in gauze veils and the men in leopard skins, woke unhallowed revel beneath those sacred walls, when their trumpets blew for the bloodless battle, and the fifes played a prelude to amorous war, hardly in her days of victory or days of loveliness had the old castle square been so clamorous or splendid as on this night of the Royal feast. The sun had just set, and the afterglow was fading from the marble façade of the palace; the Queen of Night was on her throne; the bunting-covered trestle tables were prepared for a great feast which all Alsander was to attend. The wine stood ready in barrels: the huge Parisian carver, a master of his art, bared his bullock arms for the strife; servants staggered out from the castle kitchen with dishes; and already the people were beginning to assemble, for they heard the great horn of summoning blow clear and strong. The old men hobbled in on sticks, the middle-aged sniffed the viands, the young men came joyously along with laughter and the lasses. Seven thousand voices cried "Amen" to the Archbishop's meandering Latin grace: and amid an uproar of delight the Bang himself lit the vast bonfire prepared in the midst, the immemorial bonfire of the feast day, which was to be now a welcome compensation for the vanished light and warmth of the sun.
For the day was to end, as it had begun, with the full glory of mediaeval pageant, and by unbroken tradition each new-crowned King had to give a feast to his townfolk to celebrate his coronation. But this was a specially noble and glorious ceremony – it was more than a coronation: it was a re-coronation – and Alsander expected that amends would be made for the inglorious day when, amid a winter rain, a thin and draggled concourse of spectators watched the closed carriage which they were told contained a King that was no King and a man that was no man. And now, behold, they had a King indeed, who looked strangely unlike a convalescent madman – a King as young and beautiful and strong as a woman's heart could wish to break for – a King of perfect utterance and fine presence whom any loyal gentleman would be proud to serve. A King, moreover, who had already come and lived among the humblest of his people like a simple stranger. What more could Alsander desire?
Happy and blest was the table which enjoyed the company of one of those who had known the King during his stay at the Widow Prasko's. Willing enough were they all to talk, little Pedro, Father Algio, the old Widow Prasko herself, and the rest of them, as fast as they could for eating and drinking the choicer morsels and wines with which they were specially plied by their admiring boon companions. It was wonderful how many people had known the King intimately during those few weeks – with how many he had held long and confidential conversation about the politics of Alsander. It was curious how not one of them had been deceived an instant by his story of being an Englishman. Whoever heard of a foreigner who spoke Alsandrian! Of course, he pretended to speak it badly: how wise and clever and beautiful he was! They had heard to-day how he could speak the language – and so forth, and so forth.
Those who had really known the King were full, too, of the brightest fancies. What honours and rewards would be showered on them for the little services they had rendered? One poor, penniless fellow, who had once shown Norman the way, put on the most ridiculous airs after a few glasses of strong red wine. He was already enjoying the fruits of a fine pension, and wandering through the palace courts in cloth of gold.
Only Peronella sat in absolute silence by her mother's side. Not a word would she answer to any question, despite the harsh rebukes of her expansive parent. She sat and drank rather much and ate almost nothing. All those around her affected to understand her mood and ceased to trouble her with questions. It was plain the King had broken her heart. Well, was it not the high tradition of Royalty to break the hearts of humble women? thought the men of Alsander. Could the King have chosen a lovelier girl? Doubtless the King would see her again and not desert her quite absolutely for ever. The flower-like Peronella was made to be a Royal Mistress. The men of Alsander praised her beauty, her reticence and her air of sorrow, which they conceived to be if not genuine at least most nobly affected, while the women of Alsander were consumed with the most passionate jealousy and envy of the poor girl. But what of Peronella?
Peronella was a girl with a simple soul, but the simplest of souls is, after all, according to the idealists, a more wondrous and complex thing than the mechanism of the latest Dreadnought. A soul, being alive, grows and changes. Peronella had to-day discovered that she loved Norman with all the love her soul could give – and only simple folk like her can give all their souls to love. She had no preoccupation with the world save to find therein; a man to love, and she had found Norman. And now he was gone from her – taken far away. She knew her lover had abandoned her for ever!
She had become a woman. It was not this sudden Royalty that made her love the boy who so few weeks ago had come to her singing over the mountain height. It was the shock of it all – and the separation. For others might believe this tale. Others – and they became many as the wine flowed round – might whisper dark whispers, and swear that it was incredible that this bright northern-faced boy should be a Kradenda, and hint of a cunning and tremendous plot. But she alone of all the uninitiated folk of Alsander knew with the sure and instinctive knowledge of a woman for an absolute certainty that the re-coronation was a farce and that Norman was no more King of Alsander than she was Queen. And the sorrow on her face was but the genuine reflection of the agony of her soul, but her agony was not for her country's misfortune but for a lover lost.
But meanwhile the feast was progressing, and a clamour arose that made one think more of Flanders and the north and the gross banquets of Jordaens than of southern frugality and moderation.
The King, in the dark green uniform of an Alsandrian Colonel, with Vorza, Sforelli, the nobles, their ladies, our old friend the British Consul (in a cocked hat) and his colleagues, each of whom hoped shortly to acquire the title of Minister to so energetic a Court, were seated, together with a few very distinguished correspondents of great newspapers, who had been invited to the Royal board by special request, at a long table under the open gates, beneath the door of the castle. Arnolfo had not reappeared. The general conversation was lively and elegant: but Norman – whose ostensible knowledge of the world had to be confined to the castle walls, a few books, a few weeks in Alsander, and a year in a "home" in England, hardly dared open his mouth. This need of caution, this forced lying masquerade, and a longing not only for Peronella, but also for the companionship of the strange young man who alone seemed to have the power of turning life into a furious and careless dream made him so gloomy that Vorza was very frightened lest in some uncanny outbreak of revived mania the King should hurl his plate at the head of his newly-appointed Lord Chamberlain. Nevertheless, this sullen reserve which the King displayed suited the part he had to play (as an interesting example of scientific progress) to perfection. When, however, at times he woke up from his pensive and melancholy meditations, he was possessed with a sort of odd! feeling that he must give the newspaper gentlemen some copy, and would talk gravely of the careful reforms he would make in; the drainage of the city, the paving of the streets and the training of the militia, or sigh for his wasted youth with intense pathos, saying, too, how glad he would be when these formalities were over and he could tour round his dominions, "which are, despite a few weeks' residence in the city itself, as strange to me, sir," he said, addressing the special correspondent of the Daily Mail, "as they are to you." Towards the end of the meal, he was seized by an idea which comforted him, and became suddenly so gay that the doctor trembled for his dignity and, pretending to be concerned for his still precarious health, advised him in an audible whisper not to tire himself by too much lively conversation.
After the enormous repast was at length ended, the guests scattered for a digestive interval preliminary to the splendid dance which was to end the day. The doctor regaled some ecstatic Ulmreich medicine men with tales, all in the strictest confidence, of the surprising operations that had been performed on the King, while the King walked round with Vorza, asking the delighted Duke many questions about the government and still more about the evening's ceremonial.
"Of course I rely on you, my Lord Chamberlain," he explained, "for all ceremonial details. Though, alas! you have no experience in your duties, you have, I feel sure, that exquisite tact which as the great Court historian Brasaldo says, is the exclusive birthright of ancient and honourable families."
Vorza bowed.
"Now, I believe there is to be a dance to-night as soon as the tables have been removed."
"The musicians should be here in an hour's time, your Majesty."
"They will be good musicians, I hope."
"I believe so, Sire. They are world renowned."
"Now, my Lord, when the last King was crowned, as I read once in Brasaldo's history – one of the very few books I have read all through…"
Vorza bowed again, in deference, perhaps, to such heroic perseverance.
"The last King – my father, I mean, whom I remember but faintly, for I was such a little boy when the trouble came – danced, I believe, in accordance with traditional custom with several of the fairest maidens of the town."
Vorza was quite reassured by this token of the Royal sanity, and bowed again.
"Now, of course, for me – all thoughts of woman's loveliness have no charm: I am tool inexperienced, alas! What a youth I have had! – I have had none, rather. But since the ceremony is old and picturesque I should like to; revive it."
"But, Sire, between me and your Majesty, you have not had time to learn to dance."
This was unexpected, but Norman rose to the occasion.
"You know little of England and modern curative establishments," he said. "The regime of the whip and straight waistcoat is over, thank God, or you would not have the pleasure of my company to-night. Three days' sojourn is not quite enough for that wonderful country, my lord."
Vorza smiled, but sinister thoughts passed through his heart.
"It must have been a marvellous place indeed, Sire, this home to which the gooch luck of Alsander sent you. But will you never tell the secret of its locality? For it would be only right, between me and your Majesty, to honour the wise director with a national tribute."
"It is not his desire," said Norman, briefly. "But with regard to this dance to-night, I want to know my people. I propose that the dance should be promiscuous, and I will join it myself."
"That is quite in accordance with the best traditions of Alsander, your Majesty," said Vorza, and he promised to make the announcement in due form.
Vorza left him, and for a moment he stood alone and looked round on the scene of revel, and at that moment the uproar of gross feeders and drinkers seemed to pause a second, drowned in the vast fullness of the jasmine night. Then the musicians began from their bower among the shadowy plane trees – glorious musicians, and so glorious a music that not a man would dare to dance to it, for all that the orders were that none should wait for the Kong. All listened immobile: only the Japanese lights and those further lights the stars dared to start off dancing to such a tune. All the new power and subtlety of modern music seemed to have blended with the grand traditions of olden days to make this lovely melody: yet the melody was a waltz – a waltz-tune that the simplest could understand and that set the body dancing. Another instant and the spell broke: the music became human and the whole square which the carpenters had turned into a vast dancing floor, was alive with couples, and seemed itself to turn.
And the great sense of the unreality of the world again took possession of Norman. It seemed to him that he was a King indeed but a true King, the King in a fairy story, and might do what he will. If he was to play this splendid part, he would not play as a modern King – a tired, frock-coated slave of wearisome Ministers. He would be a King of Yvetot, of Atlantis, of the Indian Isles. He would; dance with Peronella – was it not the old! custom that he should dance with the fairest of his subjects? Would he not be the more beloved for his boldness? If he were not, what matter? The girl should be his mistress that night; to his great golden room he would lead her, and for one night he would celebrate Aphrodite. Was it not for this that she had been sent by destiny to meet him – swinging her pails beside the spring on that immortal morning? Was it not for this one night that he had played the supremest farce that ever a man played?
He started to find her, motioning away those that would accompany him. He soon caught sight of her, a little way off seated alone on a bench, as though she awaited him, and looking towards him with her eyes shining in the light of the lamp. His heart beat, and he trembled as he had never done through all his play-acting. He knew still that to steal a maiden's honour was a greater enterprise than to ravish a throne. He knew he had but one step further to take toward the girl, who sat there trembling with love to receive him. His foot was light on the ground to take that step – for what to a King is all the world?
Yet at that moment a hand was laid on his arm to arrest him. He looked round, and saw Arnolfo. The boy was clothed as ever in Alsandrian dress but of a darker hue: he was cloaked, and the silver buckles of his belt gleamed beneath the rich and sombre mantle. In this raiment, at such an hour, he looked paler than the moon, and strangely moved, yet resolute as death.
Norman knew why Arnolfo had laid the hand on his arm: he saw the will and determination on the boy's face: he knew that his scheme was known, and that it was to be frustrated. He swung round on his heel. "Leave me!" he said with passion, but his voice was not that of a King who rules the world, but of an angry boy.
"Did I not tell you to keep from women, my King," pursued Arnolfo. "Surely I am only just in time."
"It is too late! Your dramatic interventions are useless. I go where I please. You should not have left me in the lurch all these days if you wished to remain my mentor. I am master now. Leave me: we are not unobserved: you are making me ridiculous before my subjects."
"My Bang, I implore you as a friend, come away with me," said Arnolfo in a voice strangely passionate.
"A friend are you? You have made a fool of me for ever. I have got to play-act all my life. You have stolen from me my love, my liberty and my youth. You have left me alone to carry through the most perilous portion of this mad enterprise, and now, when I want to rescue a few moments of joy from the ruin of my life, you say, 'Friend! Friend!' Let me go, I tell you! Let me enjoy the glory of existence for one hour before you shut me in your dismal prison of lies for ever!"
And Norman pointed to the grim, dark, towering walls of the palace of Kradenda.
But Arnolfo, with that magic power that never failed to influence Norman – to influence him so deeply that it seemed able at times to sap his very manhood and honour – for, after all, he had suffered the utmost degradation at this boy's command – Arnolfo had already drawn Norman away and Norman was following him, why, he knew not, towards the palace.
"Come, Norman," said Arnolfo, in that low and honeyed voice of his, "a friend is better than a lover, as love is better than lust."
"For Kings!" exclaimed Norman, but whether as a question or in bitter acquiescence was not certain from the sound of his voice.
"O come with me a minute," said Arnolfo, pretending still to plead and drawing Norman further and further at each step from Briseis. "All your happiness may depend on that. Will you ruin yourself and Alsander for a pretty face? Are you going to play tyrant and drag her from the arms of her lover?"
"Damnation on duty and on you and all this farce!" replied the King, muttering low as he turned for a last look at the girl who, still visible, was now standing with bowed head, her arm around a young sapling – and still alone. "Were it not for your fool's mummery I might have had that girl in my arms. Look at her: is she not beautiful enough for you, my artist? Are not these lips red enough for the Sultan of the Indies? Where is the lover from whose arms I should drag her? Leave me, Arnolfo. Must I forget my youth."
"Give me one half-hour – alone – in the palace. After that, you shall be free of my interference for ever and return to your love If you so desire. I swear it. But come now. There is … danger. Ah, Norman, can you not read sincerity in the eyes?"
Involuntarily Norman looked at the boy and saw in his eyes a light so strange that he was troubled. The charm of Arnolfo had already compelled him: but now his very passion surrendered to it. Without more complaint, he broke with him through the crowd, which opened to let him pass.
None ventured to attend them. The guards seemed to Norman to show as much deference in their salutes to Arnolfo as to himself. They went alone together to a little room in the tower, where a lamp was hanging – simply to aid in the general illumination, for the room was empty and unfurnished.
"Well," said Norman turning on his friend with some fierceness, "tell me your story."
The boy flushed a little. "There is no story," he said.
"But you said there was danger in what I intended to do. Not that I mind, but tell me what you meant."
"You neither were nor are in any danger."
"Then why, in God's name," cried Norman "did you bring me Here?"
Arnolfo put a finger to his lips and leant over the stone window-sill to gaze at the crowded square. "You ask why I brought you here, King of Alsander," he whispered toi Norman, who stood over him. "Oh, can you not yourself discover why? Can you draw no inspirations from the world around you? Will nothing but brutal speech make you understand? Cannot music suggest to you the truth, or the rustle of leaves, or the murmur of men down there that makes audible the silence of the stars? Is there no subtler essence in nature or your own soul ready to vibrate? Has not the Universe a dumb but smiling mouth to say why I brought you here?"
"Heavens, what weird nonsense you are talking," said Norman, catching the boy's arm, "Can you not speak straight? Or what new web of perplexity are you weaving for my destruction?"
"Leave me," said the boy with a gasp, as though Norman's clutch on his arm had hurt him. "Leave me: I will go: you shall never see me again. Keep your peasant girl, Norman Price: who shall blame you? Real kings have fared far worse."
"I want to know what you meant about the silence," said Norman looking curiously into his friend's pale face and expressive eyes. "And what my peasant girl has got to do with you."
"How can you stand almost touching me!" cried Arnolfo, leaping up from the window and facing Norman with a sort of indignation. "How can you put your hand on my arm and still not know and still be such a fool! And they talk of instinct! I am ashamed at my failure. Ah, how did I dare bring you here?"
And turning again to the window Arnolfo buried his face in his hands and wept.
"Why, you strange creature, what have you got to weep for?" cried Norman in dismay. "You trouble me with your strange ways to-night. I swear if you are unhappy I will do my best to comfort you; but do speak straight out, and do above all be a man."
The boy looked up, and through his tears he smiled, and then through his tears he laughed. And then he simply laughed very prettily and held out his right hand.
"Look at my hand a minute," he said.
Norman took the proffered hand and examined it with great embarrassment and wonder. "It is a very small hand," he said; "but I don't see what is the matter with it."
Then at last suspicion flashed across his mind. "Ah, you don't mean that!" he cried, suddenly dropping the hand and starting back.
"Good God," laughed Arnolfo rather wildly. "I can't think of any more hints to give you, barbarian! Must I strip to the waist?"
Norman gasped. "If you really are a woman, Arnolfo," he exclaimed, "I would much prefer that you did."
Then he stood motionless before her and for a time the two faced each other without a word, the King with his hand on the hilt of his sword, and the woman clasping across her body the great mantle, as though to preserve even at this hour, the virginity of her disguise.
"I am the Princess Ianthe," she said at last, with a dignity which the travesty could not obscure.
"You are a very beautiful woman," rejoined Norman, bending to kiss her hand. Then, looking at her with a rather inscrutable smile which strangely aged his youthful face, he added: "but I bitterly regret the loss of Arnolfo."
The Princess hung her head a little and seemed almost the boy again. "Is that all you have to say?" she murmured, "and yet there is nothing I would rather you had said than that."
"It was for Arnolfo I adventured on this enterprise," pursued the King gravely, "for his friendship I ruined my life to become a mummer and a thief. And now the pantomime continues – and there is no Arnolfo."
"But you have Ianthe's friendship," cried the Princess, "as you had Arnolfo's."
He shook his head. "Friendship with a woman is not a sport for kings."
"But such a friendship as ours," she rejoined, "cannot be broken by an epigram."
"It is broken," affirmed the King. "The days of friendship are irrevocably over. And I have no reason to think, Princess, although you singled me out to rule your country, and although I, when I found you a woman, was stirred with something that was not only wonder, that the halcyon days are near. And yet – I am speaking to you straight, Princess, in the English way – if you do not think we shall become more than friends I shall leave you and Alsander to-night for ever, and see what fresh adventures await me in the teeming world. Maybe some other country will greet me as its King and a princess only a little less beautiful than you, in a realm a little more fabulous than Alsander, will offer me her heart and hand. But I will simply laugh and go back home to England. One day of kingship has been enough for me."
"And is that all you have to say to a woman who has given you a Crown and to a people who are awaiting their King? Have you no fire, no pride?"
"I have a sense of honour," replied the King gravely. "For listen to me. You have given me a crown of gold, and it is a crown of thorns. You have made me a mock King. I am already weary, unutterably weary. What care I for Alsander? Is not a hedgerow in my native land lovelier than all its cypress trees? What care I for ruling – save to be the master of a straight young woman, and lord of a country farm? On one condition only will I consent to endure this foolery one more day, and that is on condition that you – the heiress of Alsander – become rightfully my Queen, for all that I am an English grocer boy. I am no fool, Princess, and I may dare to hope that you will accept this condition, for I think some such project has been in your mind all the time, through all this queer history. But I have a second condition, which is harder, and that condition is this: that if you love me, I will be your King. If you love me with all your heart and soul, as I love you, and only in that case, then we will rule our land together. And if not, Ianthe, bid farewell to me to-night – for you will never see me again. The masquerade is over: speak truth to me at last."
"You are right!" said the Princess. "Must we talk like fanciful children and waste words, we on whom depends the fate of thousands, we the rulers of Alsander! You have made your conditions: I accept the first. I will be your Queen, in name and in deed, if you will. The Princess Ianthe, O King of Alsander, has also a sense of honour. I have made you a false King – I alone can make you a true King, the consort of the legitimate Princess of Alsander. I offer to be your Queen."
"But my second condition – your love, Princess Ianthe?"
"What do you mean by love? Is it my body you mean by my love? I owe it to you if you desire it. It shall be yours – I have promised to be your Queen. Or is it that, together with my true and loyal friendship you desire? That also shall be yours, though you have rejected it, for all my life long."
"I want your love, your true love, your deep love, the love of all your soul," said the King in a low voice, gazing into her brown eyes.
"Ah! that is not mine to command."
"Will it never be mine to command, Ianthe? Speak truth. If it will never be mine, I will not be King of Alsander."
"You are almost wooing me," exclaimed the Princess, laughing a little nervously, "and I rather wish I were dressed for the part. But is it not rather fantastic to claim my love without offering your own? And is it not rather insolent," she added abruptly, as though a flash of memory had caused a flash of rage, "for a man who has given his heart to a peasant girl to demand the love of a Princess?"
"You are insincere in your reproaches," replied the King. "You know from the very sound of my words that I have forgotten all the women of the world but you. You know I stand on the threshold of Love's house: but how do I know if you will ever join me, to enter side by side?"
Ianthe laid her hands lightly on the King's shoulder. "You will not win me before you woo, ungallant heart!" said she. "But if the day comes when you decide that I am worthy of your attentions, remember that my love, like that of fairy Princesses of China or of Ind, must be won by high achievement. It may be that I could, like a woman without shame, cry out this very hour, 'I love you,' were it not that my heart is lost already, pledged to a passion which surpasses all love I can feel for man. My body's love I will gladly give to whoever, like you, is beautiful and young, my friendship to whoever, like you, is gentle and wise, but my soul's love is my love for the Holy City of Alsander. There is not a court or a garden, not a stone of the cobbles of Alsander over which I would not slaughter the lover of my body or the friend who kept my thoughts if that would keep these holy streets from pollution and slavery. I love this country as no one has ever loved it before, save he who made it, my forefather, the great Kradenda. Its air is to me a more pellucid air, its rocks more ancient, its sea more blue, its flowers more fragrant than other airs and rocks and seas and flowers. And if a man would desire to have part of this deep love – and even with a part of it to be loved as no hero was ever loved in days of old by the great-bosomed women of the Greeks, then that man must become part of Alsander. He must fight, work, strive, for the glory of the kingdom. He would have his reward: for I am not a capricious woman but one whose heart is true, girl as I am.
"But do not answer me now: the minutes are flying on: your subjects will miss you: we must go out again into the square. Quick! I hear no more the dancers laughing and the splendid music has ceased sighing among the stars; they are waiting for their King to join them. Listen! The Cathedral bells of Alsander are tolling the midnight hour."