Читать книгу Nightcap and Plume - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 11

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As the King, unattended as usual, left his mother's apartments, he crossed a chamber where the windows were open to the sun that shines so steadily and with such rich warmth, during the short Swedish summer. There the pages who were to attend the Coronation were resting after having for the hundredth time rehearsed their parts; all of noble Swedish blood, they lay on brocade and velvet cushions in the window place, the gentle salt breeze blowing across acacia blossoms and roses over their pale tight rolled curls; mothers and governesses attended them, feeding them with crisp sugar plums, smooth dragées and tiny porcelain cups of chocolate. The King paused, motioning, with a smile, all to remain at ease; he turned to a little group about the green velvet settee where Madame Pechlin was playing at chess against herself; close to her were seated Countess Ribbing, Countess Horn and Countess Liljehorn, Baroness Bjleke, each had her boy seated, sleepy and satisfied, on the flounces of her rich skirts. The King forbade them to rise; he considered the children with tender pleasure, his pages, then his officers, his nobles and his guards, they represented the Sweden he intended to rescue from Russia, from every foreign power, healthy and handsome in their ceremonial habits, with rumpled locks and sleepy eyes, the well trained children insisted on rising respectfully—Ture Bjleke, the oldest, already a youth, Pontus Liljehorn grasping the skirts of his governess, Ludvig Ribbing, Klaus Horn, the King smiled at all in turn, then spoke to Madame Pechlin, who had got to her feet and was curtseying; she had been taught by her husband to fawn; Gustaf glanced at her chessboard. "Right hand against left, Madame?" he asked.

"My husband, Sire, played black, then he was called away—on your Majesty's business with M. von Engerstrom—from this idle scene. Now I try to defeat him—in vain."

Gustaf supposed she spoke in parables, perhaps in warning—if Pechlin knew of the plot—if Pechlin had any inkling of the plot—the King put out his hand, his lace cuff touched the pieces; he moved the white King.

"It is easy, Madame, check mate to the black Empress."

She thanked him with another curtsey, disconcerted by his unexpected skill; the ease with which he could achieve any elegant accomplishment often baffled and even alarmed those who rated him as a charming marionette. The King asked the name of one of the youngest pages, with dark hair and features, sombre for his age, who, the most distant of the group, remained sprawling and played with a small toy pistol.

"Sire, it is little Jakob Anckarstrom," replied Madame Pechlin; the child, hearing his name, looked round and stared at the King from clouded eyes; Gustaf thought of the pair of pistols he had given to Toll who might be fingering them now in his ride to Kristianstad, and of the missing glove that Madame d'Egmont had worn when she had sat beside him in the Paris Opera House while Iphigénie was played.