Читать книгу Nightcap and Plume - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 18

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Beylon had discovered that Sir John Goodrich had argued and threatened the alarmed Government into a Cabinet meeting, at which both he and the Russian minister had been present; the truth was strongly suspected, Prince Karl was to be recalled from Scania, his messenger, Lieutenant Boltenstjerna was to be found and tortured in order to extract a confession of the royalist intrigues from him; there had even been talk of arresting the King, but Rudbeck had declared that Gustaf was nothing but an effeminate fop, incapable of organising a coup d'état of this magnitude, and had told how on relating his adventure with the revolting garrison of Kristianstad, His Majesty had expressed the most gracious sympathy but continued to embroider a lady's scarf.

"We cannot wait," said Gustaf to Beylon, who trembled but stood firm. "Let the preparations for the opera on the evening of the 18th go forward, that will keep a number of people occupied. Meanwhile I sign all the papers they put before me, I shall agree to everything, even to the re-call of Karl, and you shall go to those officers I can trust with messages from me and I must do what I can with them. Captain Koenig, though so young is daring and skilful, he at least can be relied on. M. de Vergennes has promised the ten thousand ducats, Beylon."

The faithful Reader was silent, for weeks he had been trying to raise this sum or the half of it, but the bullion had not arrived from France and Messrs. Grill still hung back from advancing a loan on the security of this delayed treasure.

"I must have it by the evening of the 18th," emphasized the King quietly. "I do not fool. Beylon, my good and faithful friend, there is, for many of us, more than life on this. Senator Kalling, very resolute against us, has been appointed commandant of Stockholm," he added, "and they have the militia out—yet there is no evidence against anyone. I have, say, a day before the Uplanders can be here, rested and—used."

"It is certainly easier," sighed Beylon, "to act than to wait in suspense."

"Wearing a mask," smiled the King, "that is what fatigues, that and the loneliness. Comfort yourself with a grotesque reflection, Beylon—none of my adherents really trusts me, I who have never been tested, was always the weak link in the chain, now, as it falls out, I have to act alone, and everything—the total hazard—rests on the luck of my throw. That pleases me."

"I should not have used the words 'luck', or 'hazard', sire—but rather heroism," replied the modest Reader with humble enthusiasm.

"The situation," replied Gustaf lightly, "requires, perhaps, both—I trust that neither I nor the gods of chance will fail."