Another Scandal in Bohemia (54 page)

Tormenting Kings is an amusement that quickly wanes, although many of the worst villains of history have not discovered this simple fact.

Some time later, Allegra held up her ivory hand mirror while the King scraped away at his own matted beard. I had never seen a man occupied in this ritual before, particularly when removing a six-month’s growth, and it was not a pretty or unpainful sight.

Wilhelm von Ormstein’s season of penitence was well under way.

When at length his lower face was a reddened expanse of skin nicked here and there, Allegra completed his humiliation and discomfort by tilting a bottle of cologne onto an embroidered handkerchief and bidding him to wipe his abused skin with this bracing potion.

I had never seen a King wince before, but he bore it bravely with only a few moans.

A flutter in the outside chamber made us sternly admonish the King to remain out of sight and silent, and bolt for the outer room.

Despite the stressful events of the night, despite Allegra’s and my perilous assignment to conduct the King to the duel and accomplish a secret substitution between himself and his imposter, the sight of Godfrey that morning was enough to strike us both motionless and mute.

He looked as ever, of course, although a bit sober. Yet we saw instantly the risk he was facing as if that Risk were the shadow of a dour black raven behind him.

While Irene and Allegra and I and the King fluttered at the edges of the scheme, Godfrey—innocent of all the manipulations—must take the only real Risk. He must face Death in the barrel of another man’s pistol. No matter how Irene pulled her puppet strings from the sidelines, no matter how desperately the vile Tatyana maneuvered to save him, he stood four-square in the path if any particle of all our plans went awry.

Irene seemed as deeply aware of his danger, of our desperation, as we did. She stage-managed this visit as she had every event in the past twelve hours since the false King’s challenge. She kept her own fear from falling upon Godfrey like another fold of the dread Raven’s heavy cloak. Her eyes eloquently admonished us to accomplish our roles even as she publicly approved of our resolve to wait at the hotel until the deed was done.

“I had not anticipated your ready compliance with my wishes,” Godfrey told us in some amazement. “Irene, of course”—He glanced at her then, with a sort of tender certainty that wrung my heart—“I had expected to be adamant. I’d also expected objections from you two, and am delighted that you will follow the prudent course and remain here. The duel is a mere formality. Irene and I shall be back in time for breakfast.”

We nodded meekly, through our tremulous tears, and wished Godfrey good luck and ardent prayers, and bid them goodbye like utterly docile ladies.

“We are not even venturing afar afield,” Irene said blithely on the way out of the door. “Only to Vrchlického Park near the Smetana Theater. We will see you shortly,” she added with a significance neither Allegra nor I could ignore, though it skimmed above Godfrey’s head. No doubt his normal acuity was impaired by his forthcoming duel to the death. Yet his manner didn’t show this.

He donned his top hat and gloves, and they left as though bound for the early races.

The moment they were gone, Allegra and I raced for her bedchamber and rushed through the door.

We encountered a massive impediment—the King.

“Why were you lurking behind the door?” Allegra demanded with all the suavity of a fishwife. She was becoming as expert as Irene at taking royalty down a peg.

“You could have destroyed the entire scheme,” I added in my sternest governess tone of outrage.

“I am sorry, ladies,” the King said, shrugging. “I could not resist seeing... him.”

“Him?” Allegra demanded.

Yet I understood, for I had witnessed Irene’s fever to see “her.”

“At least he is not ugly,” the King conceded.

“Ugly?” Allegra was indignant. “Mr. Norton? Irene would never consort with someone ugly.”

“That is some consolation,” said the King, smiling over her head at me.

I was appalled to find myself smiling back. I also forbore to lecture Allegra for her unthinking cruelty to those who might be considered “ugly.”

“I wonder if this English barrister can truly defend himself in a duel,” the King ruminated. “There is only one way to find out, and I’m most anxious to do so. Come, ladies; we must find me suitable disguise, then fetch a carriage. I know Vrchlického Park well. I know exactly where they go.”

I eyed Allegra, as she eyed me. The King was beginning to show the regal quality of decisiveness.

If curiosity had killed the cat, it now made the King eager to go where Irene led him—to the field of honor, where he could watch his own imposter try to shoot and kill his successful rival for Irene’s affections and her very self.

Chapter Thirty-six

ROYAL DOUBLE CROSS

In the
carriage on the way to Vrchlického Park, I attempted to instruct Allegra on the dramatis personae that we would find awaiting us.

His Majesty, Wilhelm von Ormstein assisted me in this process by drowsing with fitful snores beside me, wrapped in his borrowed cloak with such massive dignity that it was hard to believe he wore only underclothes beneath it. I tried not to think of what the King wore—or, rather, did not wear—nor of the sordid task ahead of Allegra and myself should Irene’s scheme actually succeed. So I concentrated on telling Allegra who was who, though she seemed to have difficulty comprehending.

She clapped her hands to the ribbons of her enchanting blue silk bonnet and stopped me halfway through my recital.

“Please, Miss Huxleigh. I have been up all the night and cannot follow such convoluted affairs. You say that Godfrey’s seconds include a Dr. Watson, who is associated with England’s foremost consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, and an obnoxious gentleman whom you met at the ball, who may be Sherlock Holmes himself in disguise—or who may an agent of Tatyana’s, or who may be entirely innocent!”

“That is correct, Allegra. Also no doubt present in various guises will be several of the said Tatyana’s henchmen, who had a hand in arranging the original substitution of the Kings. I believe they expect the ‘King’ to be slain outright.”

“What is to ensure that this does not happen, thus destroying Irene’s scheme to restore the real King to his rightful place?”

“Irene,” I said promptly.

“But she must also ensure that Godfrey is not killed.”

“That is true.”

“And what will we be doing during this critical time?”

I sighed. “We must lurk nearby, in the carriage, watching and waiting.”

“You mean that we will be helpless to do anything.”

“That is always true, Allegra, at most grand junctures in life, only most people are not so aware of their impotence.”

Beside me, the King started awake, blinking his Delft-blue eyes. “Impotence? You say the Pretender is impotent? I will slay him myself for ruining my reputation—”

I stared at him in horror for uttering this impropriety in front of ladies, even if he was half-asleep, but Allegra’s nimble young brain leaped into the breach.

“No one is impotent, Your Majesty,” she said, patting his royal knee. “Least of all you in a few hours when you regain your throne. You must rest now, and save yourself for the coming strain.”

He nodded as if to agree, then nodded until his chin crashed to his chest, and slept. Allegra sat back and drew her cloak closer against the morning chill. “We will have our hands full keeping King Willie quiet until he’s needed.”

“Indeed, but Irene depends upon us.”

I had told our driver that we were going to a duel. Though this statement elevated his hairy eyebrows to the brim of his battered top hat he slowed when we reached the park and traveled the winding paths until he found the party we sought.

I nodded to Allegra to lower her veil and stared out the window through my own black tissue of netting. Though I am not infected by Irene’s inborn taste for the dramatic (indeed, I shun it), I could not help feeling this morning that I observed some vast and intricate operatic set, that Allegra and I were supernumeries in the background, with a secret mission to send one of the two principal players into a startling new role, a major transformation, so to speak.

A heavy fog haunted the park, weaving among the trees. The grass was still emerald-green, and glossy with dew and damp, yet the sere gold of fallen leaves lay upon it like a blight.

I was relieved to note several carriages drawn up among the trees, all black as soot, with their horses blowing geysers of steam into the autumn air.

Such a hellish scene it was! Those sinister vehicles poised at the fringes of the wood, their restless dark chargers puffing smoke like the very halitosis of Hades itself. The gathered men added to the sober ambiance, with their trouser-clad legs as long as chimney pots and their tall plush-velvet beaver top hats gleaming under a patina of dew. All wore funereal black, save the women.

I had not appreciated the morale-building effect of Irene’s choice of dress that morning. Now her full, camel’s-hair ivory cloak edged at wrist, hem, high neck, and cape with silver ostrich feathers shimmered like an Angel of Mercy’s robe in the misty air. Oxidized silver cord traced elegant swirls over the cloak’s fabric, and her hat was as angelic: gray felt trimmed with silver galloon and gray ostrich feathers tipped in black.

Of the three men in her group—two tall, one less so—I could easily pick out Godfrey and his unlikely second, Dr. Watson. Irene clung to Godfrey’s arm, tilting her captivating bonnet to lean up and whisper, whisper in his ear for a long time. I wondered what endearments or encouragements she murmured, or if she only warned him of the coming events.

The other woman present wore a full cloak of ruby velvet and brocade, caught close to define her formidable figure. Sable bordered her wrists, neck, and hem and swathed her bonnet, turning it into a kind of bloated crown.

So now Irene was the White Queen, and Tatyana the Red. White was the color of Hope, I remembered, and also the shade of mourning chosen by the contrary French. And red? Red was passion and blood, with which Tatyana was well supplied.

I had predicted the personnel well. A small coterie surrounded the false King, who wore his most dazzling military uniform, a scarlet boast of broadcloth and wool braided and buttoned with constellations of brass.

Of the many men in his camp, I recognized not one, save they all looked determined and dangerous.

Allegra crowded beside me at the carriage window as I peered past the velvet curtains—no wonder the entire affair seemed like a stage exercise!

We watched as Godfrey and the King marched to a middle meeting point, their seconds at their backs. The King’s men presented a box that looked like it might hold the family silver. I knew its contents. In a moment, each man had lofted a gleaming pistol of polished wood and metal. The seconds stood aside from the field of fire.

One of the King’s party held a gold pocket watch that glittered like a small sun through the wispy fog.

Godfrey and the King stood back to back—my, what a long back even the substitute King had; I was glad that Godfrey had not chosen swords.

At a command Allegra and I could not hear, they stepped away from one another, each with a pistol held upright in his hand. How unreal it was to watch such a scene with no sound! I felt that I could end it with one clap of my hands, but didn’t dare try, for fear I would distract Godfrey to his death.

Why would men do such a thing? Try to kill one another over a trifle? For a moment I pitied the false King, who was soon to have a great fall. He had lived his role not wisely, but too well. He believed that Tatyana should live her role as his mistress also; that she loved him; that he could command or win her regard simply because he pretended to be King; that he was not a tool but an inevitability.

As for Godfrey, he was caught in a Great Game between fencing nations and meddling bankers, between two willful women who gave no quarter—to each other or to anyone else.

If Godfrey died—I should, I should....

Allegra clutched my shoulder. Clearly the duelists had strode a good seven or eight paces apart. Even one as sheltered as I knew that the call of ‘Ten” was the command to turn and fire and find out who stood and who fell.

Neither man might be hit. Both might be mortally wounded. One might stand, wounded, while the other perished. Each might be wounded. The possibilities were agonizingly fluid.

I did not hear the call of the fatal number ‘Ten,” but I saw the counter’s mouth move.

I saw the King whirl a fraction of a second before the counter’s mouth opened, and sight down his endless blood- red arm, his medals winking lewdly in the vague light.

Godfrey was turning swiftly, as if waltzing madly with the fog, in time with the counter’s dropped mouth. Godfrey was playing fair, but the King had not. He had turned before time, and now Godfrey’s turning broad back was a black blot of target for his leveled pistol.

Smoke charged from the shining barrel. A sound shredded the silence as if ripping the rough-painted canvas of a backdrop.