The Princess Trap (31 page)

“If you’re so clever, Magnus,” Petterson said with a sneer, “why didn’t you think of all this before?”

Magnus ignored him. He unbolted the French doors and stepped out into the gentle evening sunlight. “Margareta!” he called.

They stood together on the balcony from which the kings and queens of Scandia had greeted the cheering crowds for centuries, looking down on the flower bed and to the boulevard beyond, where just a thin trickle of evening traffic streamed. From beyond the garden they could hear the sounds of the city by night, and on the horizon, behind the silhouette of the old city, rose the grim towers of the borderline quarters where the northerners lived. Below them, by the flower bed, a tourist was taking a photo of his sweetheart against the background of the palace and its ceremonial guards. He had no idea what he had got himself into.

“Margareta,” the king said, taking her hand. “I shan’t let them … shoot me in secret.” He turned his head and looked back into the now darkening room. “Everyone will have to witness it, Petterson! You’ll have to do it here on the balcony, in full view of the public, so that later you won’t be able to deny what happened. And the news will spread, Petterson. You can’t turn the clock back, no matter how much violence you use and how much blood you spill.”

Margareta pressed up close to him. Behind them, Petterson was again sitting in the gloom, guarded by the two servants, but outside, the sounds coming from the city had changed. A strange noise was mingling with the hum of the evening traffic, the occasional car horn, and the church bells. An unfamiliar, inexplicable sound.

Magnus pulled Margareta closer to him.

For a second, she wondered if perhaps this might be the right moment to put on her crown. For the first time in her life she would have done so without a feeling of embarrassment.

Then, shocked, she gave a short start. Someone had silently crept up beside her.

“So now we’re three,” said Malena.

D
uring the drive to Holmburg,
Jenna laid her head on Perry’s shoulder. She kept her eyes closed, and didn’t see the strong light of afternoon gradually giving way to the gentle shimmer of dusk. She didn’t see the swallows circling high in the sky. She didn’t hear the high-pitched whine of the dragonflies and mosquitoes.

“Ow!” yelled Perry, slapping his arm. “Bloodsuckers!”

Jenna pretended that she was already fast asleep. She didn’t want to see or talk to anybody. Why did Lorok have to pick up Norlin of all people? Since last year she had managed to put him out of her mind a lot of the time. Now suddenly there he was again, and with him came this feeling of despair.

How pathetic he was! And how humiliating for her to have a father like that!

“Ow! Jeez!” yelled Perry again, jumping in his seat this time. Jenna’s head was jerked back off his shoulder. “Can’t you go and bite somebody else? Jenna, for example. I’m sure she’s absolutely delicious! Or Jonas over there?”

Jenna could feel the draft as he waved off the insects. No one would believe it now if she went on pretending to be asleep. She opened her eyes, and for a fraction of a second found herself staring straight at Jonas — but then he turned quickly away.

“We must be there by now!” Perry moaned. “I count twenty-six bites just on my legs!”

Nahira looked across at him and smiled. “I hear your father wants to send you to the military academy,” she said. “I’m not so sure that would be the right place for you, Peter. Fortitude doesn’t seem to be your strong point.”

A shadow passed over Perry’s face. “Don’t talk to me about my father,” he said. “Has anyone got anything to keep off these mosquitoes?”

Nahira shook her head. One of her phones rang, and once more she gave out her instructions, softly and precisely.

I’ve got to stop thinking about Norlin
, thought Jenna, straightening her back.
Perry’s no better off than me. And what lies ahead tonight is much more important.

“Are they all coming to the dam?” asked Jenna. “How many will there be?”

Nahira shrugged. “Maybe fifty,” she said. “Maybe a hundred? It’s hard to say. There aren’t many of my supporters left.”

“Fifty men against an army?” said Perry with another curse and a slap on his arm. “That’s madness, Nahira.”

“We’re going to block the dam,” said Nahira. “Can you think of a better way?”

Jenna tried to remember the dam, which supported the only land route into the capital from the rest of the country. It was only about a quarter-mile long and centuries old. Long ago the road had been narrow, but over the years it had been continually widened so there was now a six-lane highway passing over the water and into the city. But it was still a bottleneck. Every morning and afternoon there were traffic jams at rush hour. There were plans to build a bridge and a tunnel, eventually. But for now there was no other route that the soldiers, tanks, and trucks could take.

“If there are fifty of us, we can form a chain across the dam,” said Nahira. “If there are a hundred, we can form a double chain.”

“A human chain against tanks?” cried Perry. “Is that the best you can do? Do you all want to be martyrs? You won’t hold them up for a minute!”

Nahira didn’t respond. She glanced across at Jonas, but he merely looked down at his feet.

“Do you want us to think back on today and remember how we never even
tried
to stop them?” she asked wearily. “If I did that, Peter Petterson Junior, I’d never be able to look myself in the eye again. I have to do whatever I can.”

“Yeah, but if you try that, you’ll never look
anyone
in the eye again,” said Perry. “Because you’ll be dead!”

Again Nahira didn’t answer. The pickup truck was now moving smoothly over the paved surface of the highway. “Nearly midnight,” Jonas noted, without looking up.

Jenna realized to her surprise that she hadn’t thought about Jonas for a while. Was there anything left in the world that she
did
want to think about? In the dying light of the summer night, she could see the towers of the city looming black against the sky. They could only be a few minutes away from the dam. “Nearly there,” she murmured.

At this hour, the highway was almost deserted. Every now and then a single car would pass along one of the six lanes, either to or from the city. There was no sign of any tanks. “Stop!” called Nahira, banging on the rear window of the driver’s cab. But Lorok had already started to slow down, and now he let the truck slide slowly onto the hard shoulder of the road. “No one here,” Nahira explained.

For a moment, Jenna stayed sitting in the flatbed of the truck. Here at the dam there were lampposts lighting the road. In their cold white beams the motorway seemed so empty you’d have thought no vehicle ever passed this way. The whole place had an air of desolation.

But on the far side of the water, countless dots of light were twinkling comfortingly: the illuminated towers of the palace and city hall, and a moored ship with a string of bulbs shining in all the colors of the rainbow. A billboard flashed an advertisement for a new model of car, followed by a well-known brand of jeans, followed by something else. And here and there, Jenna could see the friendly glow of lights in living-room windows, where people would be yawning and wondering if they should go to bed, or nodding off in front of the television, or playing a board game with their family.

As if today was just another day
, she thought, slowly getting down from the back of the truck.
How beautiful our capital is, and how peaceful it all seems.

Jonas and Perry were standing by the driver’s cab, ten feet away from each other, both looking back at the forest. They would be coming from that direction if they were heading for the city. Nahira, Lorok, and Meonok all had their phones to their ears.

How beautiful our capital is,
Jenna thought,
and how peaceful it all seems, and how pictures can lie.

A
t first Magnus hadn’t understood
what was going on. Malena, standing wearily beside him, had thrown him a confused and questioning look when the first of them had appeared, heading along the boulevard from the direction of the city. To start with they came on their own, in twos and threes, and in the golden light of the old streetlamps the trio on the balcony saw that some of them were carrying flags stuck under their arms, as if they were embarrassed, and also rolled-up banners.

“What does it all mean, Magnus?” whispered Margareta.

The room behind them was empty now. Bergson and Arinoki had taken the laughing Petterson away. Magnus hadn’t asked where they were taking him. All that mattered was that they had gone, since soon the tanks might be training their guns on the balcony. When they fired, no one must be hit by a stray bullet.

The trickle of people coming along the boulevard slowly grew into a flood. Now there was a dense crowd moving toward the palace, and the astonished, almost incredulous Magnus saw that there were more and more people joining them.

“It’s midnight!” he said. “Where are they all coming from? What do they want?”

Malena looked as if she was on the verge of collapse. “They’re carrying Scandian flags,” she whispered.

No leader emerged from the crowd. No one had told these people what to do, and there were no megaphones, no loudspeakers. Each one individually had made the decision to come to the palace square, but now that they’d reached their destination, they looked around as if they were waiting, hesitating, wondering whether they had done something stupid and should just turn around and go back home. Two men who had begun to unfurl a banner looked around and then rolled it up again. Maybe all of them had expected to be met at the palace, to have someone tell them what to do once they’d arrived. They had certainly thought they were going to do something great, and yet now there was nothing. If there hadn’t been more and more people coming after them, the first arrivals might already have left the square.

“They’ve seen it on television,” said Magnus. “Or maybe they found out online.”

Malena looked at him. Suddenly her expression was alert, even excited.

“They’ve come to protect Scandia,” she said. “Papa! Of course! They’re all here because they know that a coup has been planned and they don’t want it to happen! And they’re South Scandians, Papa. Look, most of them have got fair hair!”

Magnus nodded. “They won’t be able to stop it,” he said wearily. “Once the tanks roll in, they’ll be in terrible danger.”

“But they know that!” cried Margareta. “Do you think they’re so naïve? And will their own countrymen fire on them? Magnus! You must speak to them!”

Magnus looked at her. “And what should I say?” he asked.

Margareta’s eyes flashed angrily. For a moment it seemed that she had forgotten her daughter, the abduction, Petterson, the treason. “What should you say?” she cried. “Everyone down there would know what’s to be said! But someone has to
say
it! And you’re the king!”

“I haven’t got a microphone,” said the king, taking a pace backward. “Or a loudspeaker, or a megaphone!”

Margareta stepped toward the front of the balcony. Seeing her, the moving mass on the square below seemed to freeze, and then wild applause broke out, people cheered, and suddenly the flags were unfurled.

She looked back at her brother. “When this palace was built, there were no loudspeakers,” she said. “But the kings of Scandia always addressed their people from here all the same. If you won’t do it, I will!”

Malena came to stand beside her.

In the square the cheers and applause redoubled. The people had seen them now. Someone had brought along a bugle, and blew it as if he was on parade. Banners were unrolled:
Scandia United!
;
Our Goal
:
Equality — Quality — Jollity
;
Two Islands, One Country, No Limits!
Margareta remembered these banners from the elections last year: Now, in this grim moment of crisis, they seemed out of place, and yet at the same time just right.

“People of Scandia!” she cried out. A hush fell over the square.

“She wants to say something!” people said to one another. “Quiet! Princess Margareta is going to speak!”

“Scandians from the north and Scandians from the south!” she said, but her voice was too soft. She cleared her throat.

“Scandians from the north and Scandians from the south!” repeated her brother from behind her, and it carried over the whole square. Once again there were cheers and loud applause.

“The king!” they shouted. “It’s the king!”

“We stand here together …” said Magnus. There was total stillness in the square. Not even the flags fluttered. “… to avert a danger we hoped would never again threaten our country. Never! I am proud of all those Scandians who have come here tonight in order to defend the belief we all share: that only a just and united Scandia can be a happy Scandia. A country in which every citizen feels responsible for his or her fellow citizens, regardless of whether they come from the north or the south. Only in such a country can there be a prosperous and peaceful future for all.”

The silence was so complete that any cough or sneeze in the square could be heard up on the balcony.

“I am proud of each and every one of you,” Magnus stressed, his voice trembling slightly. “And I am grateful to be king of such a wonderful nation. But now I must ask all of you to consider. You know what is coming. You know that the tanks that are about to roll into this square are not part of some computer game. They are real and they are deadly.” He drew a deep breath. “So I beg you to think carefully whether you wish to remain here. Think of your children, of your families. When the tanks arrive, some of you will pay for your courage with your lives, and none of us can know who will make this ultimate sacrifice. To leave now will not be an act of cowardice. You must think seriously about this.”

Now there was movement in the crowd — a new sense of unease and annoyance. “We know the risks!” shouted a young man. “We know this is no game! And when they see all of us here”— instead of addressing the balcony, he now turned to look at the crowd —“the soldiers, they won’t dare to shoot! Not at us, their own people!”

There were murmurs of agreement on all sides. Magnus waited until the crowd had quieted down again before continuing. “That is what we all hope,” he said. “But we can’t know for sure. These things can happen. These things do happen, and
have
happened, over and over again in the world. Brother shoots brother”— he paused for a moment —“friend shoots friend. No one can be certain. So there is no shame in leaving here now.”

No one moved.

“But my sister, my daughter, and I will stay,” said Magnus. “And we shall wait. With you.”

There were thunderous cheers. If the tanks were now rumbling toward them from the dam, the people’s shouts would have drowned out the sound.

Then someone started singing, and others joined in until the whole square was filled with their song. It was a North Scandian song of summer, but a song they also loved in the south.