Kings-at-Arms

A lady, haughty and fierce in her natural character, but schooled to at least the outward show of a cold patience by long years of training in submission to the wills of men, sat in a little private dining-room of her palace at Stockholm and frowned with an air of discontent and pride at her companion, a gentleman, elderly but much younger than herself, who stood by the fireplace and looked on the ground; he also had an air by no means well satisfied, but though he was only a minister and she was a Queen he had never been as much in the background as she, nor so forced to subdue an imperious spirit, for she was a woman, and women had never counted for much in Sweden.

They did not like each other, Count Piper, the late King’s minister, and Eleanora Edwiga, the late King’s mother; she knew that she owed to him her forced retirement from the brief-prized power that she had held as Regent, and he thought her very presence in the palace was vexatious and that her place was in retirement with her prayer-book and her embroidery, but for the moment they were in the same position and might be useful to each other, therefore, tacitly ignoring mutual dislike, they became allies.

“I do not know,” said the Queen, “why we talk about these things, for, of course, the King will do as he wishes.”

She spoke with a certain chill triumph, and Count Piper knew that her words meant, “If I cannot rule my grandson, neither can you”; he also knew that she spoke from pure malice, and that she found every use in discussing the affairs that composed her life.

“Naturally, Madame,” he answered quietly, “the King will do as he likes. It is for us to find out what he does like.”

The old woman gave him a long and rather bitter look.

“Do you not know?” she asked.

“No, Madame,” smiled Count Piper.

“Well, I do,” replied the Queen sharply. “He likes just what any boy of eighteen likes,” she glanced at the table with covers for three, elegant but not splendid. “And he is late for dinner,” she added, and the love of old age for trifles showed in her acid tone.

Count Piper seemed faintly amused.

“It would be strange if His Majesty should be ordinary--considering his lineage,” he replied. “And he was very carefully trained.”

The Queen was hit through her pride in her husband and her son.

“Karl’s breed will show later,” she said stiffly, “for the moment he is--as I said--eighteen.”

“A good age,” remarked Count Piper, a little sadly. “I wish I was--eighteen----”

“Or King of Sweden at any age,” snapped the Queen. “You always were ambitious, Count.”

“Only to serve,” he answered meekly.

The Queen glanced from the table to the door; expectancy and vexation showed in her face; she was tall and still upright, spare and haggard, a Dane, and of a pure Northern type; she had been handsome in a cold, hard fashion, and was now rather terrible in her gaunt colorlessness, her sunk blue eyes, her pinched nose, her lipless mouth; all the long structure of her face showed and the flesh seemed polished on the temples, the cheek bones, and chin.

No look of wisdom nor compassion nor resignation softened this countenance; her glance was still that of a fighter who has grown bitter in the struggle.

Her dress, of gold and purple brocade, was rich and in tolerable imitation of the fashion of Versailles; a lace headdress crowned her white curls and she wore some costly rubies on her knotted fingers.

The room of this Northern Princess, which was situate in that portion of the Royal Palace of Stockholm that had been saved from the great fire of two years ago, and that was filled with the distant sound of the workmen rebuilding the edifice in a style in keeping with the increased grandeur of Sweden, was simple, yet in a way splendid; the dark paneled walls and ceiling gave the apartment a somber air, as did the inlaid and heavy furniture; it was a cold day in early spring and the sky was gray; from where the Queen sat she could see this grayness reflected in the water from which the palace rose, and the bridges, houses, and waterways beyond all colorless in the cold light of the sad midday.

Count Piper kept his glance on the dark rug at his feet; he was tingling with thoughts of great issues and large events; it was the eve of big affairs for his prosperous and successful country which was menaced by many and powerful enemies eager to seize the chance to despoil a youthful King; Count Piper felt himself equal to dealing with these concerns--but he was only a councilor of state, and must wait the pleasure of that same youthful King who even now was keeping him waiting for his dinner.

A slight impatience with fate darkened his thin clever face; it seemed so cruel a blow for Sweden that the late King, stern, wise, just, should die in his prime leaving his heritage in the hands of a boy and an old woman.

The Queen suddenly broke the prolonged pause.

“I seldom or never hear the truth, of course,” she said abruptly. “But you, Count, must have means of knowing many things. Tell me,” and her tone betrayed an anxiety she would never have owned to, “what do the people say of Karl?”

Count Piper knew perfectly well what was the general opinion of the young King--that he was considered idle, haughty, obstinate, and autocratic--the public was not likely to take any other view of one wholly devoted to amusements, and who gave no sign of being of the breed of his heroic father and grandfather beyond the imperious pride with which, on several occasions, he had asserted his position.

But Count Piper attached little importance to this verdict of the world and did not choose to repeat it to the ears of the Queen Dowager.

“His Majesty,” he replied, “has already given tokens of a spirit such as the Swedes love, and they await his manhood with many hopes.”

“He has spirit enough for ordinary impudence,” remarked the old woman drily; she was thinking how, as a boy of fifteen, he had removed her from the regency and assumed the government himself, and how, at his coronation, he had snatched the crown from the archbishop’s hands and placed it on his brow himself. “Has he spirit enough to go to war, and wit enough to be successful if he does?”

The statesman looked grave.

“I count upon his ancestors,” he replied.

The Queen would have returned a sharp answer, but the door opened noisily and the subject of their talk entered the room with an unsteady step and dropped into the chair with arms at the head of the table.

He wore a very rich hunting suit of violet velvet laced with silver; this was torn and muddy, his lawn shirt and his wrist ruffles were bloody, as were his hands and the sheaths of the long knives he wore thrust into his belt.

“Am I late?” he asked. “I had a mind not to come back at all. It was pleasant in the woods.”

The Queen rose with a glance of disgust for his attire and his condition; he had never yet appeared before her so soiled from the chase. And he was obviously intoxicated. She hesitated for a second, then rang the silver bell by her side and took her seat opposite to her grandson, at the end of the table.

Count Piper came quietly to his place between the King and Queen.

“There is much business for you to-day, sir,” he said.

“Business?” said Karl; he laughed, dragged at his napkin and sent over a glass.

The lackeys entered with the dinner and there was silence in the somber little room; both the Queen and Count Piper were looking covertly at the young King.

His appearance, even in his present dishevelment and intoxication, was most remarkable; he did not need his kingship to make him conspicuous--in any company, on any occasion, he would have been noticed.

He was then in his eighteenth year, fully and perfectly developed, tall and vigorous above the common even in a nation of tall and vigorous men, graceful with the grace of health and strength, and easy with the ease of one born to occupy always the place of command and power.