Читать книгу Nightcap and Plume - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 13

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Where the King went so often privately was a solved puzzle though he went disguised in a cloak of midnight blue colour that blended with the shadows, and a plain tricorne, without a cockade, pulled over his brows; while he was Crown Prince his mother's spies had followed him and reported these furtive movements in which he was accompanied by his younger brothers, before her jealous suspicions had been awakened, the able and vigilant Chief of Police, Baron Liljensparre had put some of his strictly trained men onto shadowing the Prince. The Queen Dowager had long since ceased to concern herself as to these secret visits of her sons to a modest house in a back street, and Baron Liljensparre had them followed merely as a matter of routine, in case they became involved in some incident not conformable to the dignity of royalty, though he had not much fear of that, Stockholm was an orderly city, there was little crime or vice among an easy going people with a tolerant religion and not much money to spend, besides, Baron Liljensparre was most efficient in his duty, that he followed strictly, without heed to politics.

At first Ulrika Lovisa had feared a secret woman; Kings sometimes found their favourites in the gutter as the detestable example of Madame Du Barry had shown, at first the police had thought so, too; now both knew that the brothers went to visit an ancient seeress, Madame Arfmedsson, who affected to be the widow of a country parson, but who was nothing of the kind, but an adept in every kind of occultism, of obscure origin.

Baron Liljensparre had a complete dossier under her name, knew most of her tricks and colleagues and the medley of what he termed rubbish that she dealt in, compounded from the new doctrines of those fashionable madmen, Swedenborg and Mesmer, darlings of the salons and the ancient witchcraft of remote sorcerers hidden in the morasses of Finland and Lapland the eternal sources of all wizardry.

Ulrika Lovisa had felt contemptuous on discovering the superstition of the sons whom she had carefully trained in the doctrines of Voltaire, but had controlled herself from upbraiding them, for she supposed that this secret might some day be useful; a careful espionage had discovered nothing but nonsense in these meetings where the crone read fortunes in coffee grounds. Karl acted as an intermediary between this world and the invisible world and Gustaf and Frederik tried to raise spirits, still, a weak spot had been discovered in the characters of the young men, one of which they, who posed as sceptics, were ashamed, and their mother hoarded her knowledge sharing it only among a few intimates. The Chief of Police was silent because of respect and discretion, the royal amusements seemed to him harmless even decorous, even amiable weaknesses compared to the insane licence taken by the King of Denmark and his blackguard hangers-on, who rioted nightly in the streets of Copenhagen.

Both the Queen Dowager and Baron Liljensparre were privately amused by the cordial terms under which the three brothers met at the wise woman's house, for in general they took very little notice of one another and the two younger were believed to be jealous of the King; no doubt Madame Arfmedsson, to secure high fees had persuaded the Princes that there was a blood tie between them that would help them in their attempts to storm the mysteries of the unseen and unheard powers.

Baron Liljensparre expected the King would consult the sorceress the evening before his Coronation as to the auguries for his reign, and though the Chief of Police, whose work was not political, knew nothing of any plot in particular, he took it for granted that as the state of the country was so wretched, the government so crazy, busy intriguers like Pechlin and Fersen so powerful, the Queen Dowager so artful a schemer, the court so frivolous and irreligious, there were likely to be dangerous people and perhaps dangerous plans abroad. Moreover the careful official considered the new monarch a most uncertain quantity, though popular because of his obviously brilliant qualities, he had certainly raised many enemies in the Riksdag and perhaps only saved his throne through consenting after a long struggle to sign the humiliating Coronation Oath; probably, Baron Liljensparre thought, Gustaf Adolf III would make exactly what the Riksdag wanted an admirable King "do nothing", in which case no one would interfere with him or his pleasure, but, the prudent Chief of Police considered, it was always possible that someone might fear the new sovereign sufficiently to try an attempt on his life at this critical moment of his history, so on this evening of the 28th of May 1772, it was Baron Liljensparre himself who kept watch at the corner of the narrow street named after the Black Monks, standing, in his dark habit, blotted in a doorway. The pale Northern night was glittering with stars radiant as Amsterdam cut diamonds and their coloured rays struck a faint gleam from the copper domes of Stockholm; passers-by, intent on the splendid business of to-morrow that would concern all the estates of the realm, could see their ways without flambeax or lanterns and the number of these people, all absorbed in the prospect of the rare spectacle that they must either assist in or stare at, helped Liljensparre to move from doorway to doorway and to pass and repass the quiet, shuttered house of Madame Arfmedsson. He did not observe any one else loitering near, all went along briskly, with open speech or laugh; only the shrewd expectant eye of Baron Liljensparre could have picked out from this hurrying press the three young men who emerged from a side lane, one well behind the other, and who sauntered past the doorway where Liljensparre was concealed, one twirling a cane, one humming an aria, one silent, all in cloaks of midnight blue and ordinary pattern; the skilful watcher knew them, though they were most similar in their persons, tall, slender, elegant, with an upright carriage and an agile step, with blond locks showing like flax in the starlight on their shoulders. It was Karl who touched the door thrice with his cane, it was Frederik who followed him in silence when it was opened, it was the King who hummed an operatic air by M. Gluck.

The door closed. Watchful, the Chief of Police kept guard; two of his men strolled the other side of the street, the embers of their pipes showed red in the silver twilight. Liljensparre believed that his charges were safe when in the house of Madame Arfmedsson; he had warned her sternly and often, she was closely watched and certainly never meddled in politics; the Chief of Police considered her ignorant, half witted, but cunning as to her own advantage, she would keep within a law that could at any moment, throw her into a torture chamber, Liljensparre was satisfied that nothing of importance passed between her and her visitors, he had tested her and her fellow mystagogues. The Princes visited her in order to try to raise the spirits of the Vasa Kings and to learn of the future. That was all their own private business.

The Chief of Police, on his patrol that he made appear so casual, smiled with a scornful pity, to this degradation, he thought, does a man come who is educated without religion, better an orthodox Lutheran, sheltering comfortably in church, than a free thinker reduced to cantrips at once childish and blasphemous—"wiser to believe in Martin Luther's God, than in the Devil of a half imbecile, half fraudulent old woman descended from mythical Finnish witches."

Baron Liljensparre resigned himself to a long watch; doubtless, on the Coronation eve, there would be a lengthy consultation of the powers of darkness; he was too well trained to yawn, but he sighed with tedium, as he watched keenly for any suspicious lurking figure—he felt gratified when he saw no one; the royal secret had been well respected, save, perhaps by the Queen Dowager and her favourites, whom it no longer interested, and he, the Chief of Police had done his work so skilfully, that the brothers had never suspected they were spied on; the King had blandly given Liljensparre duties that would have occupied him elsewhere had he not relegated them to a subordinate.