A Royal Affair (29 page)

We reached the city gates, and sounds intensified, hundreds of hooves on cobbles, tiny sparks flying when they slipped, soft whinnying and muttered reassurances, and then the bugles sounded as the head of the parade reached the grandstand. I could not see it yet, but all cynicism about this day vanished on that clarion call. It was a call to arms, to brotherhood, to fealty. I wanted to see the king, wanted to see the pleasure on his face at this great victory. I was even willing to see Prince George—he was presenting the colors, and I wanted to see them.

I was about twenty feet from the grandstand, only catching the occasional glimpse as I bobbed up and down on Xavier’s back, and that only from my superior height, when I heard a creak. I took no notice, as I was admiring the king, who looked quite hale and hearty, which I was glad to observe. He had been my first success in this venture, the war the second. I only had my conquest of Aleksey to go, and my journey to this benighted land would be entirely worthwhile. I was thinking I might put it to the prince in these terms—that he would be my third victory—and see if it helped his decision to acquiesce, when I heard the creak again, only much louder this time. Loud enough to make several of the officers rise in their stirrups to observe the ranks for misconduct. Horses, in my experience, didn’t creak, so I continued thinking my own pleasant thoughts, hearing Aleksey’s outrage at being termed my conquest and picturing our subsequent fight and fall into the tub—which inevitably ended with him sitting on more than my lap this time. I was too engrossed in this, shifting slightly in the saddle, to be interested in the shout that went up from the front of the line.

I could not ignore the scream.

By now I had a full view of the grandstand and wondered for a moment if I had slipped upon Xavier’s back and was viewing the world skewwhiff, until I realized that it was the grandstand—it was slumped to one side. As I watched, fascinated, it swayed and slumped back the other way. Suddenly, like a jellied dish wobbled by a careless servant, the whole edifice began to tremble left to right.

It was wondrous for a moment, until it crashed to the ground, taking king, princes, courtiers, ladies, and servants tumbling to the steps of the citadel under the planks and girders and hastily erected canopies.

There was pandemonium. Sometimes fewer people rushing to a rescue is better than many. The king had his whole army there to rush to help, and rush they did, horses, officers, and soldiers. They fell about each other. They tangled up on the debris. Horses slipped on the cobbles and fell, their riders pinned beneath and helpless. No one took command, for no one could be heard over the screaming and shouting.

I found Aleksey. I think my entire life at that time was devoted wholly to the finding and preservation of that one young man. He was also struggling to reach the collapsed structure. I held him back. I would let the entire world be crushed if I could keep Aleksey safe. Besides, I wasn’t about to be any kind of hero and save the day by dint of a clever suggestion. I had absolutely no idea what we should do, but rushing headlong into such a place of extreme danger was not going to happen. Surprisingly, Aleksey did not fight me. I think that was the second time I saw the new maturity that battle had forged in him. The old Aleksey would have kicked and struggled at my restraint, his desperate desire to help his father outweighing his more rational judgment.

Now, though, he nodded at me and shouted into my ear, “We must try to approach it from above, from inside the citadel.” I nodded that I had understood, and we forced our way through the crowd away from the melee toward a side alley. I was very glad to get Xavier away from the scrum, for he was nervous and jittery and could not tell that this was
not
another time when he should do some killing. Perhaps he saw another medal in the offing. I fastened him and Aleksey’s warhorse to a secure pillar, and we ran up into the building from a side entrance. Once again, I was amazed by the wealth of this city. I had seen nothing in Hesse-Davia to compare to this grand palace, but I had no time to admire more than the frescos and high ceilings before we emerged onto the steps upon which the catastrophe had occurred. Now we could see the true nature of the disaster.

The structure had been more than thirty feet high and built to hold over a hundred people. It probably would have been secure erected in a field, where its weight could have sunk it into the ground. But here on the marble steps of this great building, the weight of people and the movement when they stood to cheer us past had caused it to sway rather than sink. Once the sway started, nothing could stop it. Like a house built of cards on a rickety table, it had fallen, tier upon tier upon tier. Unfortunately, the king had been in the front and bottom row of seating. He had taken the tier upon tier directly upon his head.

The king was dead. I didn’t need to be a doctor to see this. He had been crushed beyond hope of revival. The old man had already been pulled from the wreckage and laid on a cloak on the steps. Aleksey sat alongside him, not showing any emotion, as befitted his position. I was showing more emotion than he, for I had worked hard to save his father. His broken body reminded me how fragile our hold upon life was, and I felt that great fear that all men must feel at such a time—that I was closer somehow to the losing of all things. I wanted to drag Aleksey away from this place, wrap him up in my arms, and prevent any harm ever coming to him. Irrational fears must be subdued, and I thought mine were irrational.

Prince George could not be found. At first the cry went up that he had not been at the parade, that he was spared. This was not true. I had seen him for myself sitting next to his father, but I did not point this out to anyone. It was the sort of comment that was remembered after an event, and accusations, ridiculous in nature, could be cast at a man when merely truthful words become prophetic.

They found George an hour or so later. Covered by many other bodies, he had been laid to one side with prominent citizens of Saxefalia and not recognized until the final tally was taken. Then there was universal wailing and gnashing of Hesse-Davian teeth, to be sure. Suddenly Aleksey was dragged from his sad vigil by his father’s body. Not literally, of course. You don’t drag a king anywhere. And that is what Aleksey now was: King Christian X of Hesse-Davia.

This changed a great number of things for Aleksey and, by association, for me.

T
HE
FIRST
great change was that Aleksey could no longer be head of the army. It was too dangerous a position for a king. I don’t think he cared one way or the other those first few days. He was in shock and grieving dreadfully. He had genuinely loved his father, but it was more than that, I think. His father had died celebrating Aleksey’s first great triumph, and I think this tainted the whole achievement for him as well as, of course, his ascension to the throne. I had not considered it before, but many such kings and queens in history must have ascended, grief-stricken, to rule upon the death of beloved parents. Perhaps not. Perhaps Aleksey had been freed to love his father by being the second son, and thus out of the shadow of expectation. Who could expect that he would jump two chairs at the dining table at once? Poor King Christian, his shiny medals, of which he had been so proud, were now trinkets that only reminded him of death.

For the first few days after the disaster, I was not sure how the old king’s death and Aleksey’s consequent rise would affect our tentative relationship. Selfishly, I thought the deaths very inconvenient, for I would not have blamed Aleksey if he turned away from me. After all, he was a Christian (here I have to add that all the augurs were predicting a reign favored by God from the advantageous juxtaposition of Aleksey’s name with the fact that he was the tenth such king to rule Hesse-Davia. A cross after his name doubly spoke of his piety, apparently), and Christians always liked to take blame and look for fault and make amends to a God who to me seemed utterly indifferent to what men do or say. I expected him to tell me that our sin had killed his father, or that he needed to make penance for sin and give me up. Or worse, that he must now fulfill his God-given role of king and put such sin and temptation behind him.

Aleksey did none of these things. He looked to me as his friend, his support, his guide, and his counsel. That was the moment he turned from Johan to me, and I took on all the roles that man had played in his life. He saw far less of Johan anyway, as he was no longer a general but a king.

Quite what his new duties entailed neither of us knew.

I spent the whole of that first day helping the victims of the great collapse, as this event came to be known. Rumor was flying around, of course, that the Saxefalians had taken a final and very effective revenge by deliberately sabotaging the grandstand. Their builders had erected it, after all,
but a number of very prominent citizens of their city had been seated with the king and died alongside him, so I doubted this theory myself. Forty-three people died in the collapse and sixteen in the melee that had ensued to rescue the fallen. Over thirty people were so badly injured that their days were numbered in my view. Half a dozen were injured—lost a limb or an eye—but would recover. A handful escaped without a scratch, and one of those had been sitting right behind the king. Life was very tenuous, when all was said and done. That night, King Gregor’s body was laid in state with his eldest son. The king could not, of course, be buried in Saxefalia. He had to lie with his forebears. I found this idea quite affecting and remembered an old man standing on a bea
ch discussing a long-dead king with me. Neither Gregor nor Canute had been able to stop tide or death.

I had assumed the army that had marched into Saxefalia and won such a great victory would now became the escort for the dead king back to his own land, his bearers to the next life. It would be a long, sad funeral train, and I saw it in my mind’s eye: new black cavalry uniforms on handpicked officers, black mounts against the snowy white landscape. Aleksey, of course, would accompany his father. It was the first duty he would perform as king.

Unfortunately, I had let my imagination run away with me, thinking about Aleksey all decked out in black and riding sadly but bravely in front of the slow march. The old king and his son were going home by boat. The flagship of the Hesse-Davian navy was summoned to carry them. Gregor was to sail home as his forebears might once have come upon the shores of Hesse-Davia. This was all very well, but it put something of a damper on my plans to accompany Aleksey.

Gangplanks were still gangplanks, even on flagships, and I could not cross one. Not only would I be assailed by my old affliction, this unmanning would then be witnessed by the whole of Hesse-Davia—well, the one part of that country that mattered to me. Aleksey.

He knew nothing of my dilemma, and I wanted to keep it that way. As far as he was concerned, I’d been very close to leaving by ship many times—indeed, I had threatened it on more than one occasion when annoyed with him or sulking, or when I wanted to bring his attention back to me. I had never intended sailing back to England, but now I was regretting my impulsive, disingenuous declarations.

I could not even step aboard a ship to steal medical supplies while it was fastened sure to a dock. My day crossing of the Channel had been fraught with horror, and I had huddled sick upon the deck, not from the movement of the sea but from the memories the ship conjured.

How would I fare on a voyage of some weeks?

I spoke nothing of my fears to Aleksey at first. He was overwhelmed enough with his new role without me adding to his worries. It was a great change to go from second son to king in one moment. Everything had changed. He had been in many ways a very free agent before now. He’d come and gone and run around, pretty much doing as he liked for twenty-three years, but now he was surrounded by people day and night. He
was
Hesse-Davia. Ministers, counselors, priests, and servants—he was constantly at the center of a scrum of people seeking approval, decision, command. Our blossoming intimacy had come to a rather abrupt end—the physical side anyway. Emotionally, we became closer than ever during those few days, waiting for the return to Hesse-Davia.

Aleksey had never had to cope with grief before, and now he was coping with it whilst thrust into a role in which he could not show it. He had to talk about his father all day but only about funeral and coronation arrangements. It was all about
him
now, his father’s legacy being washed away in order for the new to be brought in. How were the coins to be reminted? The flags altered? The heads of state of Europe to be informed… and so on. He needed me, but I did not know how to help him. I had only a child’s experience of grief: fear overwhelming sadness very effectively. It was not every five-year-old boy who had to face his mother’s hair hanging from a lance.

Women think men think like them, and if they can only find the right button to press we will unleash all the emotion we carry around inside us. Men do feel things as deeply as women, but our first recourse is not to let this emotion out in speech, tears, or tantrums. We lock it down and let it fester inside us until it comes out in violence, bravado, anger, and cruelty. If a woman had been treated as I was treated on board the whaler sailing to England, I do not believe she would have reacted as I did. She might have cried and begged for relief, as I did during the very worst of it, but she would not have waited her opportunity and then murdered the entire crew, just in sight of land. These painful memories plagued me as I watched Aleksey suffer, powerless to help him. I knew he was feeling things very deeply but also knew he would not cry or rail against his fate.

But I did not want him to burst out one night and murder everyone.

Something had to be done. And in trying to do something, Aleksey discovered my secret—that I was not sailing with him—which then achieved what I had been trying to do in the first place.