The Historical Nights' Entertainment, Rafael Sabatini [freenovel24 .txt] 📗

even the agitation that had possessed him

when first he entered the palace.

 

Gustavus, a slight, handsome man of a good height, was standing

before a cheval-glass when Bjelke came in. Francois, the priceless

valet His Majesty had brought back from his last pleasure-seeking

visit to pre-revolutionary Paris some five years ago, was standing

back judicially to consider the domino he had just placed upon the

royal shoulders. Baron Armfelt whom the conspirators accused of

wielding the most sinister of all the sinister influences that

perverted the King’s mind - dressed from head to foot in shimmering

white satin, lounged on a divan with all the easy familiarity

permitted to this most intimate of courtiers, the associate of all

royal follies.

 

Gustavus looked over his shoulder as he entered.

 

“Why, Bjelke,” he exclaimed, “I thought you had gone into the

country!”

 

“I am at a loss,” replied Bjelke, “to imagine what should have given

Your Majesty so mistaken an impression.” And he might have smiled

inwardly to observe how his words seemed to put Gustavus out of

countenance.

 

The King laughed, nevertheless, with an affectation of ease.

 

“I inferred it from your absence from Court on such a night. What

has been keeping you?” But, without waiting for an answer, he

fired another question. “What do you say to my domino, Bjelke?”

 

It was a garment embroidered upon a black satin ground with tongues

of flame so cunningly wrought in mingling threads of scarlet and

gold that as he turned about now they flashed in the candlelight,

and seemed to leap like tongues of living fire.

 

“Your Majesty will have a great success,” said Bjelke, and to

himself relished the full grimness of his joke. For a terrible

joke it was, seeing that he no longer intended to discharge the

errand which had brought him in such haste to the palace.

 

“Faith, I deserve it!” was the flippant answer, and he turned again

to the mirror to adjust a patch on the left side of his chin.

“There is genius in this domino, and it is not the genius of

Francois, for the scheme of flames is my very own, the fruit of a

deal of thought and study.”

 

There Gustavus uttered his whole character. As a master of the

revels, or an opera impresario, this royal rake would have been a

complete success in life. The pity of it was that the accident of

birth should have robed him in the royal purple. Like many another

prince who has come to a violent end, he was born to the wrong

metier.

 

“I derived the notion,” he continued, “from a sanbenito in a Goya

picture.”

 

“An ominous garb,” said Bjelke, smiling curiously. “The garment of

the sinner on his way to penitential doom.”

 

Armfelt cried out in a protest of mock horror, but Gustavus laughed

cynically.

 

“Oh, I confess that it would be most apt. I had not thought of it.”

 

His fingers sought a pomatum box, and in doing so displaced a

toilet-case of red morocco. An oblong paper package fell from the

top of this and arrested the King’s attention.

 

“Why, what is this?” He took it up - a letter bearing the

superscription:

 

To His MAJESTY THE KING

SECRET AND IMPORTANT

 

“What is this, Francois?” The royal voice was suddenly sharp.

 

The valet glided forward, whilst Armfelt rose from the divan and,

like Bjelke, attracted by the sudden change in the King’s tone and

manner, drew near his master.

 

“How comes this letter here?”

 

The valet’s face expressed complete amazement. It must have been

placed there in his absence an hour ago, after he had made all

preparations for the royal toilette. It was certainly not there

at the time, or he must have seen it.

 

With impatient fingers Gustavus snapped the seal and unfolded the

letter. Awhile he stood reading, very still, his brows knit.

 

Then, with a contemptuous “Poof!” he handed it to his secretary.

 

At a glance Bjelke recognized the hand for that of Colonel Lillehorn,

one of the conspirators, whose courage had evidently failed him in

the eleventh hour. He read:

 

SIRE, - Deign to heed the warning of one who, not being in your

service, nor solicitous of your favours, flatters not your crimes,

and yet desires to avert the danger threatening you. There is a

plot to assassinate you which would by now have been executed but

for the countermanding of the ball at the opera last week. What

was not done then will certainly be done tonight if you afford

the opportunity. Remain at home and avoid balls and public

gatherings for the rest of the year; thus the fanaticism which

aims at your life will evaporate.

 

“Do you know the writing?” Gustavus asked.

 

Bjelke shrugged. “The hand will be disguised, no doubt,” he

evaded.

 

“But you will heed the warning, Sire?” exclaimed, Armfelt, who had

read over the secretary’s shoulder, and whose face had paled in

reading.

 

Gustavus laughed contemptuously. “Faith, if I were to heed every

scaremonger, I should get but little amusement out of life.”

 

Yet he was angry, as his shifting colour showed. The disrespectful

tone of the anonymous communication moved him more deeply than its

actual message. He toyed a moment with a hair-ribbon, his nether

lip thrust out in thought. At last he rapped out an oath of

vexation, and proffered the ribbon to his valet.

 

“My hair, Francois,” said he, “and then we will be going.”

 

“Going!”

 

It was an ejaculation of horror from Armfelt, whose face was now as

white as the ivory-coloured suit he wore.

 

“What else? Am I to be intimidated out of my pleasures?” Yet that

his heart was less stout than his words his very next question

showed. “Apropos, Bjelke, what was the reason why you countermanded

the ball last week?”

 

“The councillors from Gefle claimed Your Majesty’s immediate

attention,” Bjelke reminded him.

 

“So you said at the time. But the business seemed none so urgent

when we came to it. There was no other reason in your mind - no

suspicion?”

 

His keen, dark blue eyes were fixed upon the pale masklike face of

the secretary.

 

That grave, almost stern countenance relaxed into a smile.

 

“I suspected no more than I suspect now,” was his easy equivocation.

“And all that I suspect now is that some petty enemy is attempting

to scare Your Majesty.”

 

“To scare me?” Gustavus flushed to the temples. “Am I a man to be

scared?”

 

“Ah, but consider, Sire, and you, Bjelke,” Armfelt was bleating.

“This may be a friendly warning. In all humility, Sire, let me

suggest that you incur no risk; that you countermand the masquerade.”

 

“And permit the insolent writer to boast that he frightened the King?”

sneered Bjelke.

 

“Faith, Baron, you are right. The thing is written with intent to

make a mock of me.”

 

“But if it were not so, Sire?” persisted the distressed Armfelt.

And volubly he argued now to impose caution, reminding the King of

his enemies, who might, indeed, be tempted to go the lengths of

which the anonymous writer spoke. Gustavus listened, and was

impressed.

 

“If I took heed of every admonition,” he said, “I might as well

become a monk at once. And yet - ” He took his chin in his hand,

and stood thoughtful, obviously hesitating, his head bowed, his

straight, graceful figure motionless.

 

Thus until Bjelke, who now desired above all else the very thing he

had come hot-foot to avert, broke the silence to undo what Armfelt

had done.

 

“Sire,” he said, “you may avoid both mockery and danger, and yet

attend the masquerade. Be sure, if there is indeed a plot, the

assassins will be informed of the disguise you are to wear. Give

me your flame-studded domino, and take a plain black one for

yourself.”

 

Armfelt gasped at the audacity of the proposal,

 

but Gustavus gave no sign that he had heard. He continued standing

in that tense attitude, his eyes vague and dreamy. And as if to

show along what roads of thought his mind was travelling, he uttered

a single word a name - in a questioning voice scarce louder than a

whisper.

 

Ankarstrom?

 

Later again he was to think of Ankarstrom, to make inquiries

concerning him, which justifies us here in attempting to follow

those thoughts of his. They took the road down which his conscience

pointed. Above all Swedes he had cause to fear John Jacobi

Ankarstrom, for, foully as he had wronged many men in his time, he

had wronged none more deeply than that proud, high-minded nobleman.

He hated Ankarstrom as we must always hate those whom we have

wronged, and he hated him the more because he knew himself despised

by Ankarstrom with a cold and deadly contempt that at every turn

proclaimed itself.

 

That hatred was more than twenty years old. It dated back to the

time when Gustavus had been a vicious youth, and Ankarstrom himself

a boy. They were much of an age. Gustavus had put upon his young

companion an infamous insult, which had been answered by a blow.

His youth and the admitted provocation alone had saved Ankarstrom

from the dread consequence of striking a Prince of the Royal Blood.

But they had not saved him from the vindictiveness of Gustavus.

He had kept his lust of vengeance warm, and very patiently had he

watched and waited for his opportunity to destroy the man, who had

struck him.

 

That chance had come four years ago - in 1788 - during the war with

Russia. Ankarstrom commanded the forces defending the island of

Gothland. These forces were inadequate for the task, nor was the

island in a proper state of defence, being destitute of forts. To

have persevered in resistance might have been heroic, but it would

have been worse than futile, for not only would it have entailed

the massacre of the garrison, but it must have further subjected

the inhabitants to all the horrors of sack and pillage.

 

In the circumstances, Ankarstrom had conceived it his duty to

surrender to the superior force of Russia, thereby securing immunity

for the persons and property of the inhabitants. In this the King

perceived his chance to indulge his hatred. He caused Ankarstrom

to be arrested and accused of high treason, it being alleged against

him that he had advised the people of Gothland not to take up arms

against the Russians. The royal agents found witnesses to bear

false evidence against Ankarstrom, with the result that he was

sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment in a fortress. But the

sentence was never carried out. Gustavus had gone too far, as he

was soon made aware. The feelings against him which hitherto had

smouldered flamed out at this crowning act of injustice, and to

repair his error Gustavus made haste, not, indeed, to exonerate

Ankarstrom from the charges brought against him, but to pardon him

for his alleged offences.

 

When the Swedish nobleman was brought to Court to receive this

pardon, he used it as a weapon against the King whom he despised.

 

“My unjust judges,” he announced in a ringing voice, the echoes of

which were carried to the ends of Sweden, “have never doubted in

their hearts my innocence of the charges brought against me, and

established by means of false witnesses. The judgment pronounced

against me was unrighteous. This exemption from it is my proper

due. Yet I would rather perish through the enmity of the King than

live dishonoured by his clemency.”

 

Gustavus had set his teeth in rage when those fierce words were

reported