Blood Royal (17 page)

That in this matter of the warrant he had been Johann’s cats-paw I had no doubt; and though I have never learned the truth, I fancy Duke Paul spoke freely before his servants, and if these were not faithful or did not hold their tongues, I suppose the rest was simple to a man that was ready and active behind the scenes.

It was now near six o’clock, and we were approaching Vigil from a quarter we did not know.

George and Bell and I were wearing overalls which we had bought in a village and fouled in a ditch. Our faces and hands were filthy with oil and grease, and no one, I think, would have known us but for the Rolls. In sacks we had food enough to last us for two or three days.

We three were bound for the passage – to keep our appointment with Grimm at seven o’clock. Rowley was to set us down on the skirts of the town and then withdraw to the country and lay up the Rolls: when this was done, he would return on foot and make his way to the passage as soon as he could.

A farmer we had found was willing to care for the car, and though we were all reluctant to abandon our magic carpet – for that is what she had proved – our brush with the police had, so to speak, put her in balk. She had only to be seen in Vigil to be immediately chased, and, since secrecy was of the essence of the course we were trying to steer, to use her would have been madness, no matter how sore our need.

Now I was far from easy about the walk we must take to reach the fosse. For one thing, we had no map or plan of the streets, and, while it is simple enough to find some prominent feature of any town, the skirts of Vigil were ample and we had no time to spare, yet dared to ask the way of no man, lest such a question should bear us evil fruit: for another, it was broad daylight. Still, the engagement had been made, and I feared that if we did not keep it, Grimm would think we had failed him and shut the door.

My forebodings were justified.

For a full hour we wandered, afraid to loiter, afraid to show undue haste, afraid to consult together, afraid to go different ways, and when at last I glanced through an open house door to look clean through the building and see beyond it the trees of the palace gardens, I could hardly believe my eyes.

At once I told George, who was slouching along, fuming, some two or three paces ahead, and five minutes later we were all looking into the fosse.

The fosse was a natural gorge which many years before had been partly revetted by man. To judge by the ear, water was steadily coursing down all its length, and waterside bushes and plants had come to such luxuriance that at some points the walls were hidden and the fosse was so full of green that none could have told its depth without a sounding-rod. As a matter of fact it was some thirty feet deep, and I think it was something wider, but I cannot be sure. Upon one side ran a pleasant, quiet road with, beyond it, the wall which fenced the palace gardens from curious gaze: on the other, the backs of old houses stood up in some disarray, and I think an artist would have found half a dozen pictures in the little I was able to remark.

Three bridges were spanning the fosse that I could see, all of them weatherbeaten and very elegant, with their piers thick-covered with moss, and lichen on all their stones. The last of the three was marked by a pretty pulpit which rose from its parapet and was meant, I suppose, for a bridge-ward in days gone by: and since George had mentioned this feature, I knew that this was the bridge beneath which the passage emerged.

It had been arranged that we should each enter the fosse at a different place and make our way to the passage by the bed of the stream; and perhaps because I was the most fearful I was the first to disappear.

As luck would have it, there were not many people in sight, but those that were there were of a dangerous kind, for they were about no business but that of strolling and staring and generally taking their ease.

I walked down the road slowly…

Now and again there were little breaks in the wall which was guarding the fosse, and from each of these a path or a rude flight of steps went down very sharp. I afterwards found that these ways led down to old troughs in which the poor women of Vigil had used to wash clothes.

There was no time to be lost: indeed, every moment I was expecting to hear some impatient clock declare the hour: so I laid the sack I was bearing upon the wall and, in taking my seat beside it, struck it as though by accident into the fosse below.

The ruse was slight enough and, for all I know, may have been needless, but it gave me a certain courage, and I started without more ado, to recover my bread and cheese.

A moment later I was hastening along the bed of the busy water, while the bushes which flourished about it hid me from view.

As the clocks of Vigil were striking seven o’clock, I swung myself into the niche; and we were all three in the passage before two minutes were past.

Twenty-five minutes later Hanbury was fighting his way into a scarlet coat, while Grimm’s son was teaching Bell to powder my hair.

I do not know whether it is generally known that if you can change the colour of a man’s hair, his own mother may be forgiven for passing him by. I certainly never knew it, and when I came suddenly face to face with George Hanbury powdered, for an instant I thought him a stranger, and that is the plain truth. What is more to the point, he made a splendid footman: and, indeed, I think that no one would ever have suspected that he and Bell and I were not in fact royal servants in all their state.

We were fortunate in our livery, for the sergeant-footman had by him nearly a dozen suits which had been made at one time or another for different men and, being in perfect condition, had been kept against the enlistment of footmen whom they might fit. From these we three were equipped, and though the set of my breeches would perhaps have been questioned in Savile Row, the coats we chose might have been stitched upon us, and no one but we could have told that they were uncomfortably tight.

It will be remembered that we had our food with us: we had, therefore, no need to call upon the kitchens for rations, and since there was nothing to take us beyond the private suite, none of the staff would suspect that the footmen whom Grimm had dismissed had been replaced. The physicians would see us and so would the lords-in-waiting, and these would know that there were still four footmen, while the staff were equally sure that there was but one: but I judged that with any luck some time would elapse before these two beliefs came into conflict and that ere the resultant rumour had won to Johann’s ears, the Prince would be dead.

I, therefore, made up my mind that, provided we bore ourselves as lackeys, kept our mouths shut and took our cue from Grimm, we had little to fear: but we spent a broken half-hour rehearsing the manner we should use on entering and leaving a chamber, on opening and shutting a door and other such petty occasions, for, though Grimm and his son were to shoulder as much of our duty as they could, there was watching and waiting to be done by night as by day, and, as I shall show, the service now demanded could not possibly be rendered by only two men.

The Prince’s apartments lay upon the first floor, and, as Sully had said, they took the form of a flat. This flat was cut from the rest of the palace by a broad corridor or hall which ran the width of the building and was laid with a heavy carpet so that no footfalls might be heard. Immediately beyond this hall lay the Grand Staircase with a spacious antechamber on either side. The hall could be reached from either of the antechambers or from the staircase itself, and I learned that double sentries were guarding each of these doors. (Myself I heard the guard changed at nine o’clock.) When I asked if such precaution was usual, Grimm said that in all his service it had never been taken before. The back stairs were similarly guarded, and since access to the private apartments – always an important question – had now become a matter of the gravest concern, I will deal with it here and now.

In the ordinary way two footmen were always on duty in the broad corridor, one at the door from the staircase and the other at the door of the room in which the Prince happened to be. The others would be in their quarters or about some other business, while the sergeant-footman himself was always at hand.

There was an unwritten law that no one should ever be admitted to the corridor without reference to the Prince. To this rule there were four exceptions – the two lords-in-waiting on duty, the heir apparent and the Lord President of the Council. Everyone else, however exalted his position or urgent his case, must wait in an antechamber until the Prince’s pleasure was known.

In view of the Prince’s sickness, this rule had been relaxed so far as the physicians were concerned, and these had immediate access by night or day.

Five days ago, with the connivance of Brooch, the second lord-in-waiting, Johann had been permitted to break this rule, and Grimm had come upon them pacing the corridor. At once he had apprised the Prince, who was much annoyed. Johann had been conducted to an antechamber, and Brooch had been summoned and rated as he deserved.

I think this will show what manner of man Grimm was – strong, fearless and resolute to stand upon his rights. He was answerable to no man, except the Prince. The lords-in-waiting could give him no orders, and the question of access lay with the Prince and with him. If the Prince’s pleasure could not be ascertained, the matter rested with Grimm. His personality was compelling. Men were afraid of him, as of the Prince. There was no doubt about it – the old sergeant-footman was a true tower of strength.

For all that, Grimm was a servant, and if Johann chose to crush him, it was within his power. Both of them knew this. But to touch so stout-hearted a man required a purpose which Johann could not summon, and I fancy he waived the matter as one which would lose its importance the moment the Prince was dead. If I am right in this, I think his decision was sound, for with the Prince’s death Grimm’s authority must plainly fall into abeyance, if not come to an end.

When I asked him whose orders he would take when the Prince had breathed his last, he hesitated a moment and then replied “Those of Duke Paul,” but I think he saw that, on the death of a monarch, there must be goings and comings which no one man could control and that, the circumstances being extraordinary, rules and regulations would have to be honoured in the breach.

Grimm’s invaluable loyalty had been bred in the bone. He was deeply attached to his master, but he worshipped the latter’s office as his father’s father had worshipped it seventy years before. In his eyes the succession was sacred. To tamper with the royal tradition was the unpardonable sin. For better or for worse, Duke Paul had been born to the purple – and there was an end of that.

The sergeant-footman was, of course, perfectly right. Maybe his simple outlook was out of date; but so are many honest ways of thinking, and the world would be the richer if there were more spirits of his sort. The man was faithful, cared not at all for himself and, keeping his eyes upon his duty, looked neither to right nor left.

The doctors were lodged in a room which lay directly beneath the royal suite, and, in the event of a crisis, one of the nuns had only to touch a bell to summon them up.

Now, as is the way of an old, commanding nature that has never known a day’s sickness for fifty years, the Prince detested the doctors and looked askance at the nuns. He suffered them, because he was helpless, but Grimm was his rod and his staff, and the presence of his old servant comforted him more than all the ministrations of the strangers about his bed. By skilfully exploiting this preference, Grimm had taught the nuns to look upon him as their chief, and I think they told him more than they told the doctors, who were less content to listen than to judge for themselves: since one of the nuns had had much experience of sickness, it follows that Grimm was constantly well informed and knew better than anyone else the actual condition of the patient and the course which his illness was shaping from hour to hour.

Such knowledge was, of course, above price, for unless the Prince were to be taken off by another seizure, the nuns were sure to be able to discern the approach of the end and so to give us that notice of which we had so much need.

At a quarter to nine that evening I took my stand in the hall. My post was at the door of the bedchamber. On the opposite side of the hall young Grimm, half-dead with fatigue, stood to the door from the staircase, with his eyes on the red-glass telltale, which served as a bell. In an easy chair, some twenty paces away, one of the lords-in-waiting was slumbering peacefully.

I have said that I had made up my mind that we had little to fear. So, I think, had we all. But, looking back, I know that this was a fiction by which we sought to cheat our understanding and steady our nerves.

To be perfectly honest, if I had known the nature of the duties which we should have to perform, I should no more have engaged us to undertake them than I would have engaged us to scale the cathedral towers. In my ignorance of the state which royalty keeps, I had imagined that George and Bell and I could watch by night, clean the rooms at cockcrow and hover in the background throughout the day. I had actually wondered what four footmen could find to do. And now, within two hours of my arrival, I was upon parade, at the beck and call of the sleepy lord-in-waiting, who might any moment awake, waiting to usher three doctors into the Prince’s room. More. But for the fact that I did not know them by sight, George would have been where I was and I should have been standing at the door which led to the stairs, for, as I have said, young Grimm was at the end of his tether and moved like a man in a dream.

It was, indeed, only the physical exhaustion of himself and his son that had induced the sergeant-footman to consent to adopt my plan. He had done so in desperation and verily believing that, unless he did so, the two would fall asleep standing before six hours were out. “And there,” said he, “would have been a nice state of affairs. Not a door in the place I can lock or so much as bolt. The holy women lied to – told I was out of the suite: no one to tell you to send for the Lord Sully: and the corridor full of soldiers before we knew where we were. It’s a dreadful thing, sir, to lean on a treacherous crutch.”

I had agreed thoughtfully, for I was inwardly wondering what was the difference between a treacherous crutch and a broken reed…

The telltale glowed suddenly, turning its wine-red glass to the colour of fire.

Instantly young Grimm stiffened, and I realized with a shock that the palms of my hands were wet.

I pulled myself together and took a deep breath.

The door was ajar, and young Grimm was looking to see who it was that had ‘rung’. Then he stepped back and swung the mahogany wide.

As the physicians entered, I knocked upon the bedchamber’s door.

A moment, and this was opened by one of the nuns.

“The doctors?” she whispered.

I nodded, and she let the door go. I set it open at once and stood to one side. As the three physicians passed in, I regarded them carefully. The impulse to look elsewhere or at least to lower my head was most insistent: but it was all important that I should know them again. Two passed me by as though I did not exist, but the third looked me up and down, frowning, till the hair rose upon my head. The truth is, I think, that he mistrusted himself and so sought to allay my suspicion that he found the ways of the mighty in any way strange: but I could have spared his endeavour which seemed to me but the prelude to my denouncement.

Then at last he was gone, and I shut the door.

The visit lasted five minutes, but before they left the sick-room, the lord-in-waiting awoke and strolled up to young Grimm.

“Did I hear the doctors?” he said.

“Yes, my lord.”

He was not wearing uniform, and I made up my mind that it was Brooch. It was, of course, mere chance that he had not accosted me.

With the tail of my eye I watched him take out his watch and start to pace up and down…

My door was suddenly opened, and the doctors emerged.

Brooch came to meet them at once.

For a moment or two they stood talking. Then they passed to the door to the staircase, and the janitor opened it wide.

To my inexpressible relief, Brooch followed the doctors out.

“As usual,” he said to young Grimm. “If the doctors should have to be summoned, ring also for me.”

“Very good, my lord.”

The next moment the door was shut.

By one consent, young Grimm and I met together in the midst of the hall.

“Well done, sir,” said he. “You see, it is easy enough. Will you know the physicians again?”

“Yes,” said I. “Will anyone else come tonight?”

“I do not think so. Possibly General Kneller. Him you can never mistake. His moustache is white and flowing, and he is very bald.”

“In uniform?” said I.

“Yes. Azure, by day: by night, the Army blue. But as a General, he always wears a red sash about his waist.”

“Will the doctors return?” said I.

“Not till tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”

If only to keep him beside me, I could have questioned the lad for another hour, but to prime me as I should have liked would have taken a week, so he left to fetch George Hanbury, and I took his place by the door that led to the stairs.

When George came, Grimm came with him.

“The Grimms,” said George, “are going to take their rest. They won’t undress, of course. Bell will be round the corner.” He nodded in the direction from which he had come. “From where he stands he can watch the back door as well as the second door of the Prince’s room. When the nuns want the sergeant-footman, they always go to that door – not this. If we’re in trouble, one of us will have to fetch Grimm.”

He spoke in English, but that Grimm understood his last sentence was plain enough.

“No trouble will arise, sir,” he said. “I am there, of course, if you need me; but no one will seek admission for another ten hours.”

The next moment he was gone.

With my eyes fixed upon the telltale, I took my seat upon a bench, while George fell to pacing the hall.

And here once again George Hanbury’s rare intelligence pulled the fat out of the fire.

I fear I should make a bad servant, for I might have viewed disorder a hundred times and never conceived the notion of setting it straight: but George knew better. The chair which Brooch had been using caught his critical eye…

At once he ordered its cushions and folded up the papers which sprawled by its side. As he did so, a pair of spectacles fell to the floor.

I saw George look at them and finger his chin.

Then he came to my side and set them upon a salver which lay on a little table beside my bench.

“Did you see who was there?” he said.

“Brooch,” said I.

“Forewarned is forearmed,” said he. “He’ll be glad of those back.”

Half an hour perhaps had gone by, when, to my indescribable horror, the telltale glowed.

I think the sight of that signal – silent, angry, inexorable, took a month from my life.