CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE FIRST COUNCIL

At noon precisely a cannon was fired from the tower of the Strafeburg. Simultaneously the royal procession started from the Neptunburg, where the Princess Gloria had taken up her official residence as Sovereign of Grimland! It was a brave sight, for the sky was cloudless and the snow-covered city sparkled into a myriad smiles under the kiss of the winter sun. Every roof wore its gleaming mantle, its shimmering festoons of stainless crystals; and the countless icicles which depended from a thousand eaves glistened like huge diamonds in the vivifying sunlight.

First marched the Guards, their band playing the "Rothlied," which had now become the national anthem. Then came the Red Hussars with their bright uniforms, bay chargers, and gaily-pennoned lances. Then the Guides on skis--a popular contingent, judging from the cheers they drew. Then the Queen's Bodyguard, with Von Hügelweiler at their head. Then the gilt, lumbering State carriage, with its solitary occupant, a pale little figure, bowing to right and left, smiling, nervous, pathetically isolated,--a pearl in a huge gold setting. Next came distinguished personages on horseback, amongst them Trafford on a great chestnut charger, and Father Bernhardt in dead black, seated on a big mare of the same funereal hue. Then Dragoons, then Police with Doctor Matti in dark uniform and cocked hat. More carriages and powdered coachmen; more Dragoons, more Guards, Guides, and Grenadiers, with a strong contingent of Horse Artillery to wind up with.

Nothing was lacking either in the splendour of the procession or the enthusiasm of the onlookers.

Within the cathedral the solemn ceremony of coronation was conducted by the Archbishop of Weidenbruck, who maintained the traditional enmity to Karl exhibited by his predecessor. And the vast Gothic building was crowded with nobles and dignitaries, and a great many others who were very far from being noble or dignified, but who had been admitted lest the many absentees should leave conspicuous gaps on the marble pavement. For there were many of the older families of Grimland to whom the events of the last few days were abhorrent, and who regarded the haste of the coronation as something shameless and indecent. Neither, of course, were there any foreign representatives present. Grimland was not a great power, but its callous condonence of a crime had shocked the moral sense of Christendom. But Bernhardt had insisted on rapidity of action, and for the moment his word was law.

After the ceremony came the State luncheon in the Muschelsaal, an interminable affair of many viands and divers vintages. Trafford,--seated between a Grafinn of aristocratic lineaments and a deputy's wife with plebeian features and a shrill scheme of attire,--ate little and thought much. His eyes were constantly on the white-faced girl who sat on the big gilded chair at the head of the centre table. He wondered if he had ever seen anything so pale and sad in his life. The girl who had faced outlawry and risked arrest with a light heart and laughing lips seemed crushed and smothered by the pomp and circumstance of her present dignity. She talked and smiled and tasted food and drink, but the Princessin Gloria was dead, and a poor substitute sat in her gorgeous coronation robes as Grimland's Queen.

In time the long repast came to its end, the guests departed, and those who were bidden repaired to the Council in the Throne-room.

At this the Queen, Father Bernhardt, Dr. Matti, Von Hügelweiler, and George Trafford were present. The captain of the Guides ignored the American with studied scorn. The latter responded with an almost imperceptible but intensely irritating smile. So far he had triumphed, for he had occupied a post of great honour in the procession, and Von Hügelweiler felt his enemy's insolence like a galling wound.

The men in turn proffered formal congratulations to the freshly-crowned Sovereign. Gloria thanked them with a determined effort at graciousness.

"Most women, my good friends, have one day in their lives," she concluded with the ghost of a smile. "This is mine. I have had my experience. I know what it feels like to drive through a mile and a half of cheering men and women, to sit in a gilded carriage with a myriad eyes focussed on my poor, pale face. I know the solemn moment when the sacred oil is poured on my hair and the golden rim of sovereignty set on my brow. I have dreamed of these things, and the dream was at least as real as the reality. It is a wonderful thing to be a Queen--but--but----"

"But what, madam?" asked Dr. Matti.

The big doctor looked rather more ridiculous as Chief of Police than as a drenched revolutionary in the Cathedral Square. He was the only one present who seemed out of place in the sumptuous Throne-room. Von Hügelweiler was an aristocrat, and a handsome one at that. Bernhardt, despite his wild, black eyes, was a man of breeding and palpable distinction. Trafford, with his bold features, fierce moustache, and picturesque green uniform, might have been a Polish count of bluest blood and innumerable quarterings. But Matti, with his big hands, heavy features, and ungainly figure, was plebeian from the soles of his enormous feet to the tips of his spatulate fingers. The romance of the situation had no appeal for him. He served the Queen, not because she was young and beautiful, but because he honestly believed Karl to have been a cruel and corrupt monarch, and he hoped for a regenerate and better ordered State under his successor. He represented the prose of the revolution, the grim sense of duty which often makes revolutionaries absolutely callous of individual suffering, so long as their concept of human happiness be furthered.

So now he had no sympathy with Gloria's mood of weakness.

"But what, madam?" he repeated.

She laughed a little hysterically.

"I am not sure it is not better fun to be an exile," she sighed.

The doctor winced visibly at her words.

"Life was not meant for fun," he said irritably.

"Mine was, I think," she retorted. "A certain gentleman, by name Herr Saunders, told me I should soon tire of the routine and _régime_ of Queenhood. I laughed him to scorn, but I am beginning to think he knew me better than I knew myself."

"Your position has responsibilities as well as pleasures," pursued the doctor. "For instance, we shall have a stern fight to win the recognition of the foreign powers. The assassination of poor Karl,--a brilliant idea on Herr Trafford's part, and a proceeding of which I thoroughly approve,--will take a little swallowing by the Chanceries of Europe."

"Poor Karl!" Gloria murmured.

"Moreover," the doctor went on, ignoring the comment, "the mere fact of coronation,--important though it may be,--is not necessarily a guarantee of unopposed sovereignty. We have reports from the north-east of Grimland that there is considerable dissatisfaction with the _coup d'etat_ which has just proved fatal to your Majesty's predecessor. They say that the district of Weissheim is in something very like open revolt."

Gloria laughed mirthlessly.

"I am glad to hear of it," she said. "What is the worth to me of the royalty of men who change their allegiance as readily as they change their coats? Karl was a man. He had his faults, his crimes, if report speaks true; but men licked his hand when he was alive, and I honour them if they fight for his memory when he is dead."

"Bravo!" cried Trafford enthusiastically, and heedless of the black looks his interjection drew from Von Hügelweiler and Dr. Matti. "Bravo! That's the spirit I draw my sword for. I liked what I saw of Karl. He seemed to me a gentleman, and a good sportsman. Had I not heard of his cruelty to the late Archbishop, I don't know that I should have cared to take a hand against him."

"The story of his cruelty to the Archbishop was a lie," put in Father Bernhardt. "I ought to know," he went on, in answer to the astonished looks of his hearers, "for I invented it myself. Karl was a humane man and a moral man. Years ago I loved him. Afterwards I loved his wife,--and that made a difference."

Dr. Matti looked deep disgust. He was a family man with strong, not to say Puritan, views on morality. He knew--who did not?--that Bernhardt had eloped some years ago with Karl's consort, but he had always imagined the ex-priest to have been actuated by a disinterested desire to deliver the poor woman from a brutal and tyrannical husband. Bernhardt read the doctor's expression, and laughed.

"The devil tempted me,"--he went on, with a positive delight in shocking the worthy burgher,--"and I fell. The love I had for Karl turned to hatred. I fought against him,--I lied against him,--I swore to effect his downfall, and I effected it; but now that he is dead I wish to clear his memory. Karl was never guilty of inhumanity. He might be stern when occasion warranted. He might be unscrupulous in his methods of suppressing sedition; he would have been a fool had he not been so; but he never stooped to torture. Tell that abroad, my friends. Karl was a clean man, a just man, and if I compassed his ruin it was because that was the price I paid to Satan for the glories of his fellowship."

All were silent at these words, but Gloria put her hands before her eyes and shuddered. Her pallor became, if possible, intensified. She appeared tired out, and as if suffering from a splitting headache.

"It seems we have been fighting under false pretences," she said wearily.

It was Von Hügelweiler who answered her.

"Karl is dead," he said. "I sided against him, not because I hated him, but because I wished to serve the Princessin Gloria von Schattenberg. Long live the Queen!"

"Long live the Queen!" echoed Dr. Matti without enthusiasm. "If Karl was a good man, he is in heaven. _Requiescat in pace_. We must accept facts, and our first duty is to pacify the country."

"That means an expedition to Weissheim," put in Father Bernhardt. "The district is in a ferment. However, our friends Von Hügelweiler and Herr Trafford, with a few regiments of sharp-shooters, will put that right in a few days."

"More bloodshed!" sighed Gloria.

"The authority of the new Government must be respected," declared Dr. Matti. "We must have no false sentimentality."

Gloria rose from her seat with a look of a new-born resolution on her ashen face.

"There must be no more fighting," she said imperiously. "I am a Schattenberg, I know, and come of a race accustomed to hold life as a little thing. I plotted against Karl, because my father and brother met their death at his hands. But Karl is dead, and his death is a horrible and ghastly memory to me. The men of Weissheim are my subjects, and I will not have their blood on my hands. Our Government must be respected, you say? We will win respect by mercy and tolerance, then, not by the cannon and the shambles!"

Dr. Matti's countenance was a picture of contemptuous irritation. Bernhardt's head sank on his breast, as if he were deep in thought. The silence was broken by a loud rap at the door. Von Hügelweiler strode across the room and opened it.

There was a moment's whispered consultation.

"A messenger with urgent news, your Majesty," said Hügelweiler at length.

"Admit him!"

A man in plain clothes entered. Trafford recognised him as one of the waiters of the Hôtel Concordia.

"Your news, Gottfried, quick," said Bernhardt. "You are interrupting the Council."

The man bowed low to the Queen.

"I am head of the Intelligence Department, your Majesty," he began, "and I have just received news of such import that I felt it necessary to interrupt your Majesty's Council in order to impart it."

"Proceed," said Gloria with a slight inclination of her head.

"Your Majesty, there is much trouble at Weissheim. The _burgherschaft_ has declared against your sovereignty. The troops refuse to take the oath of allegiance, and the young Prince is cheered wherever seen."

"We know all this," said Bernhardt in some irritation.

"Snow forts are being erected at every strategic point," the man went on, "and heavy pieces of ordnance are being put in position."

"Naturally," said Bernhardt. "We did not imagine they would conduct civil war with popguns."

"Is that all?" demanded Von Hügelweiler.

"No, excellency. There is a report,--a strong report,--that the King is not dead; that he escaped with General Meyer and Herr Saunders, and has made his way to the Palace of the Brunvarad at Weissheim. The wires are cut, and the railway has been blown up in three places, including the great viaduct over the Niederkessel at Eselbruck. It is impossible to obtain direct confirmation, but the rumour is gaining ground even here that Karl somehow escaped our clutches and fled to Weissheim."

At a sign from Bernhardt the man bowed and withdrew.

"A ridiculous rumour, as we have reason to know," said Dr. Matti, appealing to the others.

"We cannot produce his corpse," said Trafford.

"No," said Bernhardt; "that was an oversight on our part. After consigning Karl to the embrace of the Iron Maiden we left his body to his friends. We should have occupied the Neptunburg there and then, and drowned old Meyer in the Palace fountain. As it was, our consciences got the better of us, we fled from the scene of our handiwork without completing our task."

"We should never have begun it," cried Gloria. "I shall never forget the moment when Karl stepped forth and faced the shrieking rabble. The man was a lion among wolves. What followed will haunt me to my grave. And now Father Bernhardt tells us that Karl was a humane man and a moral man, and that it is necessary for us to butcher those of his late subjects who are true to his memory."

"We must forget the past and look to the future," said Dr. Matti sternly. "To display weakness now would only be to increase the sum of human suffering. This expedition must start at once."

The Queen turned in despair to Bernhardt.

"You have heard Gottfried's report," said the ex-priest. "There must be no delay. The expedition must start at once."

"The expedition must start at once," echoed Von Hügelweiler.

Gloria turned to Trafford.

"Yes, yes," said that gentleman absent-mindedly. "By all means let the expedition start at once. I will accompany it."

The Queen rose from the throne.

"The expedition _shall_ start at once," she said in tones of unutterable bitterness. "I command that it be so. Gentlemen, I leave you, thanking you for your loyal counsel. This is the day of my life, the dreamed-of day on which I call myself, 'Gloria, Queen of Grimland.'"