BEATRICE THE SIXTEENTH (5)
By:
April 15, 2024
Beatrice the Sixteenth: Being the Personal Narrative of Mary Hatherley, M.B., Explorer and Geographer (1909), by the English feminist, pacifist, and non-binary or transgender lawyer and writer Irene Clyde (born Thomas Baty) introduces us to Armeria, an ambiguous utopia — to which we are introduced initially without any firm indications of its inhabitants’ genders. HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize this ground-breaking novel for HILOBROW’s readers.
BEATRICE THE SIXTEENTH: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13.
THE QUEEN
I instinctively looked at the dress I was wearing.
Ilex laughed slightly. “Oh, we are not particular here; it is not like Kytôna, where you must invest in a Court costume all beetles’ wings before you approach the Golden Palace. No; any decent dress will do; don’t trouble about that. But what I want to tell you is, in short, you will see that it is very unusual that anyone should come here from places we don’t even know the names of. And there are people who are suspicious everywhere, and just now, when things are in a rather critical condition, they are especially likely to take fancies into their heads. So that if anyone who does not know you properly has suggested to the queen that you are really from Uras, you will see it can’t be helped.”
“Is that the general idea about me?” I said, in some surprise.
“No; by no means. I cannot imagine why the queen has sent for you so suddenly, though, unless it is to be satisfied on that head.”
“Would you like me to leave here?” I asked. “Because it must be disagreeable for you to have a suspicious character about.”
“Now, have I really deserved that? Do you think I would let you go if the envoy from Uras himself said you were his spy? Do you think I would believe him, or care whether other people did?”
“Why, what should make you believe in me so? You have only known me a week! Suppose I tell you I am a Uras spy!”
“Nevermind why! And you won’t tell me so! … Still, I want you to make a good impression on the queen. That is I why I tell you plainly what she may want.”
“Is she old or young? What is the Court etiquette? Don’t let me damage my country’s reputation for civilised behaviour.”
“Just be natural, and remember that she has a line of a thousand years behind her, and the responsibility for millions of people on her mind. That’s all. She is the most unaffected person. Oh, she is quite ten years or more older than myself. Will you come now?”
It seemed laughably summary, this process of slipping out after breakfast to interview royalty. The sooner it was over, the better, however; and Ilex and I sallied forth to walk to the palace. No carriages were to be seen in the streets, and though the aristocratic method of conveyance was to be carried in a palanquin, with a train of attendants, for some reason Ilex preferred to go quietly on foot. Nor did we go to the great entrance, but we were admitted by a small private way into a long corridor, and ushered into a cabinet to await her majesty’s convenience.
Almost immediately an officer of the household, with the golden sphinx emblazoned on his breast, took me into the adjacent room — a tiny chamber, all brown wood and flowers. In the centre stood a narrow oblong table; seated at it, facing the light, was a rather small figure. She motioned me to the other side of the table, and I was face to face with Beatrice the Sixteenth.
She half rose, and I saw she was not so small as I thought. But I had hardly attention for anything but her face. It was serious and delicate, with searching eyes that pierced whatever they lighted on, and firm and noble mouth. I never saw anyone whose face seemed such a transparent index of her mind. The complexion was dark, the features small, but not particularly finely chiselled.
I forgot all about the proper salutation, and simply bowed. She smiled very pleasantly, but rather mechanically, and insisted on my sitting sideways towards her, on a low divan.
As I did so, I glanced through the window. A sheer descent led down to the river a hundred feet below.
“You have been some days in this city?” remarked the queen.
“Over ten, your majesty.”
“And you come from far away? It will be interesting to hear all about your country, and it must be written down in our archives. Nobody had any conception there were civilised races beyond the deserts, except the few we know well.”
She talked to me in this strain, inquiring about the climate, productions, and cities of Britain for a few minutes, and then observed:
“It seems so unaccountable to us that, coming across the desert as you were, you should know nothing of Zunaris, — nothing of Lathene. Surely you must have passed through these countries?”
“Unless your majesty knows them by different names, they are places I never heard of. Can your majesty tell me how they dress in Lathene?”
“In Lathene,” said the queen, “the general dress is much the same as ours. They are not like the Kytôna people. But it is very hot there, and the materials are very thin and gauzy.”
Her majesty’s lip curled as she spoke.
“I can’t in the least give a satisfactory explanation,” I pursued recklessly. “For one thing, your climate is far too temperate for the latitude. For another, the stars are all different; and, according to my notions of the world, there ought not to be any big river here.”
“And you cannot tell me how you crossed the Further Desert, nor what is on the other side?”
I was silent. How could I confess my absolute ignorance of the existence of the Further Desert?
Then suddenly she spoke: “Do you know the position of affairs with Uras?”
I know I changed colour. And I stammered as I said: ‘Partly; from conversation, and Ilex has told me something; but I don’t understand well, or, indeed, at all.”
The queen laid her hands on the table, and bent towards me.
“Eight hundred years ago,” she said, “Uras gave Armeria a sovereign. Is it fair, foreigner, for that alone to claim to control our actions, and to have a share in our legislation? Yet that is the demand I and my Council have received from Uras. Armeria is powerful, its people more refined, its arts more polished, its independence unquestioned for eight centuries. Excellency, I should be unfit to rule a country estate if I did not resist pretensions so absurd.”
I bowed and was still silent, uncertain as to whether cordial concurrence or diplomatic reserve would best remove the suspicions which now too plainly existed. My pulse quickened, and it was an effort to listen quietly.
“Uras thinks itself our match and more,” she proceeded. “Oh, I know they think us an effete community! Their blatant chivalry will ride over our levies like a horse in a flower field. That is their idea. But it may be — otherwise. Have they forgotten their war with the Quôsa barbarians?”
She looked interrogatively at me, but, of course, never having heard of the a Quôsa barbarians, my expression was convincingly vacant.
“Well,” she resumed, after a moment’s pause, “Uras has five soldiers to our four. I don’t deny that. Stronger, too, I admit. And they are not too scrupulous. On the other hand, we are better armed, we have (let me say in confidence) better leaders, and we are right!”
“Do your troops believe the same, your majesty? And what do the Uras rank and file think?” I said, as she seemed to wait for me to say something.
“Everyone in Armeria — nearly everyone — is convinced of it. And the Uras people — they will fight when the Queen of Uras tells them: not out of any affection for her, but for sheer love of fighting. Love of the hammer-and-tongs fighting itself, that is, for they take no interest in strategy,” she observed, with a quiet smile, “and particularly love of it against submissive opponents. Oh, it is very fine to see a Urassite give a lesson to a cringing bit of a Gôlam!”
“They have a strong position at a town called Lêtis,” she proceeded, “where their forces are known to be concentrating, and not even myself knows more. There is no chance of assistance from outside. Our troops are not yet in the field, but our mobilisation system is such that it is not necessary. Whatever happens — this is the last thing I want to say to you — if there is war, Armeria will experience a vast amount of harm. Alzôna may be occupied by the Urassites — and we know what that means — and that is only one contingency.
“I want your advice. You are an entire stranger, and you can see things with an unbiassed eye. Three days ago we received a message from the Court of Uras. It was this: ‘That they would abandon all pretensions to control our laws on condition Armeria hands over to them its five frontier towns.’ The minor stipulations are unobjectionable — liberty for Uras to maintain that its claim was well grounded, and only given up in exchange for solid advantage; maintenance of the established laws and customs of the five towns, and so forth. Now weigh well all I have said: think of the certain loss and possible ruin war will bring, and tell me what you think.”
“Your majesty,” I answered, “if the policy of Uras is what you say, it would be wiser to hand them your crown at once, than to accept that offer.”
“If it is —” she returned dreamily. “But if they are sincere!”
“The trend of their diplomacy is best known to your majesty’s advisers. Can you —”
Here my speech broke off. A flash of light appeared on the queen’s arm, and I saw that the silken sleeve of her robe had caught fire. In a moment I had sprung to her, and enveloped her arm in my dress. She treated the matter rather lightly, and smiled gravely, examining the blackened edges with attentive interest.
“I sincerely hope your majesty has not got burnt,” I hastened to say.
“Oh no!” she said deliberately. “I think not.”
“Well, may I be permitted to look? Sometimes one does not feel the bum in the excitement. I am a physician, or I should not presume.”
“I am obliged. But it is not necessary. You have my thanks — my warm thanks — for what you did. Your sleeve is ruined, isn’t it? You, will permit me to make amends for my awkwardness, some day. You are not hurt, are you?”
“I think not, your majesty. In any case, it would be little matter.”
“Let me see,” she commanded; so we discovered two small blisters on my wrist, and her eyes grew soft, and her voice more natural. She blew out the taper that had occasioned the damage with uncalled-for vehemence.
An officer entered. “Tell the Chief Physician to attend! Or stay,” said the queen, “take this lady to the compounding-room. Let her be treated by the physicians there. When you have taken her, send the Lady Ilex to me. Not before, do you understand?”
She held out her hand for me to kiss, and swiftly laid both hands on my shoulders.
“I trust you,” she said, after a second or two. “Say nothing about what I have told you.”
Rather elated at the unexpected success of the interview, I followed the retainer to a large square room fragrant with aromatic odours, and lighted by long, narrow windows, high up the walls. It was the sort of room in which one might expect to see stuffed crocodiles depending from the ceiling, and black cats acting as familiar imps, such was its air of medieval pharmacy. It was, after all, in medical things that the classical traditions were most unchanged in the Middle Ages.
Here my wrist was made considerably more comfortable. I sat on a heap of rugs, and chatted with the superintending surgeon, watching meanwhile the preparation of mysterious mixtures and potions by the staff of subordinates. Before long Ilex came. She did not know anything of what had occurred, and wanted to know what the bandage meant. I explained I had managed to injure my hand a little, and she was very much concerned, and wanted to go home at once. The presiding genius of the place, however, made me take a concoction composed then and there with her own hands, assuring me that there was no better remedy for the effects of excitement and shock.
“Have you been much excited? And is there much shock?” asked Ilex, perturbed.
The surgeon gravely murmured something about shock being never entirely absent in such cases; and for my part I laughed rather impolitely at the notion. The medical authority, however, insisted that shock was shock, and should always be treated with the due remedies and precautions. “In fact, the mere sight of your injuries produces in me a certain amount — small, it is true, but appreciable — of genuine shock; consequently, I shall have to break through a rule which I constantly observe, to drink no liquid between just after breakfast and my next meal. I will take a properly proportioned dose — three-fourths of a beaker — of this Syrilis cordial.”
“What! Are you so badly hurt?” said Ilex anxiously. “And how did it happen?”
“My constitution (of which I take every care),” said the doctor, “is very easily disturbed by mental impressions, and —”
“I didn’t mean you, Rôthôr,” interrupted Ilex. “Excuse me. I know how easily affected you are. But what is the matter here?”
“It’s nothing, Ilex,” I said. “I’ll tell you all about it as we go.” So saying, I got up, and with warm thanks to the surgeon, who was, in spite of a few harmless weaknesses, no novice at the work of an Æsculapiad, we made our way to the grand entrance. I told Ilex exactly how my accident happened, and she listened thoughtfully.
“It’s strange,” she said. “Beatrice is not the person to make a slip of that kind. That little taper is always burning on her table, and she ought to be used to it by this time.”
“Did you see her?” I asked.
“I was sent for,” she replied. “But the Kytôna ambassador had to see her on urgent business, with the Arch-Marshal; and she sent word that I need not I wait.”
“Then we can go where we like?”
“Quite. But wouldn’t you like to go home? You must! We will have palanquins, and you shall lie down and be comfortable.”
But I would not hear of I it, and I asked Ilex to take me to the Bronze Walk Square. This was a useful place for a private talk a paved space of moderate size, enclosed by a low terrace on which grew patches of sweet herbs, and quite free from any cover for eavesdroppers. “Listening outside houses” used to be a criminal offence in England once, I understand, and was penalized by indictment at the assizes. Whether the mere listening at keyholes by a person already within the street door was equally strictly regarded, I do not know. But I doubt whether, anywhere, it has ever been held illegal to pick up scraps of conversation from behind trees, and under the shelter of shrubs or garden seats. It irritates one to think of being so easily and innocently overheard, and so I chose the Square.
We talked about indifferent things till we reached the place. Once Ilex began to speak in a cautious voice, when the street was empty but for ourselves. As a stranger turned the corner she had stopped abruptly. Arrived at the square, however, she turned to me quickly.
“Well?”
“Well?” I replied mischievously.
“You know what I mean! How did the queen receive you?”
“Very affably. She asked for and received a good deal of valuable information about my remote country, and the Arch-Registrar is to take it all down — I hope in golden ink. And on purple parchment. Purple would flatter me extremely.”
“But was she pleased that you should remain here?”
“How can I tell? It is to be presumed that she will allow me to remain until the Arch-Registrar is finished with me.”
Ilex beat the long folds of her dress impatiently with her strong, delicate fingers.
“It isn’t that I want to know, Mêrê” — which was the way they pronounced my name. “Did she say anything to you about Uras?”
“We will keep moving about a little, Ilex,” I observed. “Isn’t it as well? It looks suspicious to come into the middle of the square and stand.”
“Well?” said Ilex again, as we slowly moved on.
“Oh, about Uras. Yes, she did mention it told me some interesting facts about its army, government, and so on.”
“And what led up to that?”
“Let me see. I hardly remember, I am afraid.”
“Surely you can.” She struck a pebble lightly with her foot as she spoke.
“I fancy,’ I said, “that she just said it all abruptly, without its being led up to by anything.”
“And nothing was led up to by it?”
“What should be?”
“Very well, you ridiculous Mêrê!” said Ilex. “I see you will only tell me at your own time. I will wait!”
I relented, and made the position as clear as I could to her.
“I think we may be satisfied with what has passed,” I said. “The queen began by inquiring about my country, and expressing the surprise which you all feel at the way I have come here — a surprise which, I needn’t tell you, is particularly keenly felt by my own self. While I was saying something more or less incoherent about this point, she suddenly mentioned Uras, so I am quite certain your surmise was correct. Then she summed up the pros and cons as to war and asked my advice.”
“Your advice!” said my friend. “I don’t understand that move, quite. Your judgment may be extremely sound, and I am sure it is. Beatrice doesn’t know that! Why did she ask you?”
“She said I was a stranger, and unbiassed. Then she told me one or two State secrets — ah! Perhaps I should not have mentioned that — and that was all.”
Ilex seemed lost in study. Her next remark considerably staggered me.
“You must tell me these secrets, Mêrê!”
It was not said dictatorially, nor imploringly, but in a quiet, matter-of-fact manner, with a note of confidential appeal that was extremely puzzling.
“Ilex!…”
I had come insensibly to depend so entirely on her for guidance in the strange city that it took my breath away to hear her calmly demand the impossible.
She flushed a little, but bent a steady pair of eyes on me, and I saw there was trouble ahead.
“You must!” she repeated, with that reassuring persuasion still in her voice. It was fascinating. I felt almost as if any act would have seemed right, if someone were with those tones to take the blame of it off one’s conscience.
But it could not be — of course, it could not be. Ilex would see that in a moment. I had only to explain.
“Every word she said I would repeat with pleasure,” I began; “but do you know the last words she said to me? ‘Don’t tell anyone what I have said. I trust you.'”
“Nevertheless,” said Ilex, with placid audacity, “you must tell me.”
“Surely it isn’t fair of you to ask me! The queen trusts me; how can I do what you are wanting?”
“Does the queen not trust me, then?”
“Of course she does.”
“Then why object to pass her confidences on?”
“Because they are confidences. She may have any quantity of reasons for —”
“For not wanting me to know?”
“Well, if you put it so.”
We walked on in silence for a little.
The next thing she said was: “If I tell you, Mêrê, sincerely and plainly — ‘water and flame,’ as the children say — that the queen has no secrets from me; that I will stop you the moment you begin (which is very unlikely) to say anything I ought not to know; that I take on myself the whole responsibility of assuring you that you ought to tell me; that my life will be ruined, probably, if you don’t — wouldn’t you do the one thing I ask you? I never have asked you much!”
“Can’t you see it’s impossible?” I replied.
“Why impossible?”
“Because I practically I promised I would not.”
“And do you keep literally every promise you make?”
She said it rather condescendingly, and I answered, tartly enough:
“Your notions of honour — perhaps you don’t use the word in the sense I mean — must be very remarkable here. They are not those of my race!”
“What is the use of getting vexed?”
“Because you seem to think I would be mean enough to think little of a solemn promise,’ I said hotly.
“Was this solemn?”
“Well, it comes to the same thing.”
We turned and walked away from the terrace. The grey slate flags of the pavement succeeded one another with monotonous regularity.
“Would you,” she said quietly, “give a lunatic a knife because you had promised it to the same person when sane?”
I made no reply.
“Or if you knew that to keep a promise would harm the person it was given to, would you keep it?”
Still I said nothing.
“Suppose, Mêrê, someone confided to you her intention of doing a thing that seemed right, but which you afterwards learnt she would regret all her life having done; that you saw no way to warn her; that there was no chance of preventing the evil consequences if the act were done would you not break the seal of literal secrecy?”
“I am not going to enter into a discussion of casuistry,” I said. “Of course, there are cases in which literal obedience is virtual defiance. But this is not one”
Ilex faced round on me, tall, commanding, with a set purpose gleaming in her eyes.
“This is one!” she said, half smiling, but serious in spite of it. “Mêrê, don’t you trust me when I say it is one?”
“And do you say it affects you?” I said doubtfully.
“That doesn’t matter. Certainly it affects me. But, directly, it affects yourself.”
“Me?”
“Tell me, and I will show you.”
“Really, it comes to very little, and how it can affect me I cannot see. The queen told me of a proposal that has just come from the enemy — from Uras — and she asked me whether it was worth accepting.”
“The proposal being that we should give up to them Dioce, Hymlas, Ionitz, Kraga, and Myalia?”
“Yes; or perhaps — where are those places?”
“On the Uras frontier.”
“Then you are right.”
“Now I see,” said Ilex. “And what did you say?” she went on, anxiously.
“Say?” I replied. “It was an absurd proposal, and I told her so.”
My companion’s face brightened.
“That was well!” Then she relapsed into silence, while we strolled towards the streets.
“Now you will tell me,”I ventured, “why this information was so tremendously important. You knew it before.”
“Indeed, I don’t know that I will. I’m vexed… it seemed to me once that you would have taken my word without so much pressing.”
“I never doubted your word, Ilex!”
“No; but you did the same thing. You assumed I was asking you to break the queen’s confidence, that there was really nothing to justify repeating what she said, though you could see I implied there was.”
Her regal calm had given place, all at once, to an irritable vexation, which contracted her brows and quickened her footsteps. I felt a difficulty in knowing what to say. I could not admit that I had behaved otherwise than the strictest code of ethics dictated — unless in giving way to her — and yet I felt, somehow, that I had not treated her as I should.
“I wish you could see things in my light,” I told her. “I only did my duty — what I considered to be my duty… We are brought up in England to fulfil our pledged word to the letter, and —”
“And in presence of that mechanical duty you forget the prior pledge that is in the keeping of those you know… and love!”
She was too impetuous to argue with. We passed through an archway in a blank yellow stone wall, and found ourselves in a rich garden of tall flowers, colonnaded by a gilded series of slender pillars, above which soared a vision of cream and gold fresco. Ilex plunged into the midst of the yielding grasses, and lay down with her face on the dry moss.
“Do you mind,” she said, “waiting here a little? I should like to rest.”
“Of course I shall be very glad to do just as you like,” I told her.
I could not quite lie down, so I stood with my arm round a strong reed that grew near. Before long she started up, and proposed to me that we should go. But before I could answer the most extraordinary sight I had yet seen came before my notice.
Two and two there came a white-robed procession, the first twelve or twenty playing instruments — flutes, some of them, and others harps and viols — and the rest singing with a rapt, unconscious air. The music was weird and sweet, going off into halftones and enharmonics more than any I had heard. It was not Oriental, either: there was too much definite purpose in it. The words I could not make out. After these came two torch-bearers, dressed in yellow brocade, and carrying links of burning wood, which sent forth a powerful and scented vapour. The most peculiar figure in the whole line followed immediately — a tall, bent form in black silk robes enveloping the wearer far more completely than was usual, and embroidered with fantastic devices, which somehow seemed familiar. A cap, furnished with two brazen wings, increased the strange figure’s height. Behind, there was borne by an attendant a silver I staff. I saw with a thrill — I don’t know why — that this was in the form of a serpent. Other attendants followed, each with some object in charge it might be a golden stiletto or an ivory box filled with sand.
“It is the Grand Astrologer,” said Ilex, as the seven small children who brought up the rear passed. “Apparently the queen has requested the geomantic experiment to be made.”
“Do you believe in magic, then?”
“I can hardly say we do. But these ceremonies are very ancient, and they satisfy some minds.”
The Astrologer’s procession, chanting, wound its way up exterior staircases, until it reached the summit of the building surrounding the garden. Then the musicians and torchbearers descended a little distance, and the attendants, depositing their magic implements, did likewise. The silver staff was delivered into the Astrologer’s own hands, and he was left alone on the highest level.
“Well, let us go,” said Ilex. “They may be hours before they are finished.”
“Who are they?”
“The players and singers are the College of Minstrels. They live in common — I must show you where — on a very grand scale. The others are the Court Magicians.”
As we passed, a burst of penetrating pathos reached us from above, and died away after a few bars. So we left the rites of magic in progress, and walked mutely through the streets until suddenly we met the genial and blunt presence of the Princess Iôtris.
“Where are you two off to? Ilex, I have a piece of news for you: the Lady Phanaras is coming back to Alzôna. Then you can resume the attentions that were broken off so suddenly last year. There is an opportunity for you!”
Phanaras! Somehow I felt an I uncomfortable gauche sensation, and a kind of fear of this being of whose existence, two minutes before, I was not aware. Fear? It seemed ridiculous. What was there to be afraid of?
I glanced at Ilex. Her colour was heightened, and she seemed embarrassed and did not speak. I broke the silence.
“Is she so very attractive, then — this lady?”
“Well, not to most of us. Ilex is the lucky person who sees the beauty none of the rest of us can discover. It is like mashed dates and cheese, or the seven epics of Tathylis — a sealed glory to all but the elect.”
Ilex struck quickly in:
“Have you heard whether the Constable of Uras is visiting Cylos, as they said last night in the Forum? And — oh, I had nearly forgotten could you, some day, lend Darûna your sceptre? She wants to make a drawing of it for her collection. I dare say you know she has a whole gallery of them — sceptres and maces and such things and she would be immensely obliged. And another thing I want to say: do you know that Sethys’ chief cook has got to go? Sethys could do no longer with never being allowed to have what she ordered for meals. She put her foot down yesterday, and told her precious cook that it wouldn’t do — said that the law did not actually compel a city senator to take braised chestnuts when she wanted stuffed cucumber. The cook, bless you! Did not think it necessary to pay any attention, so, when barley soup was called for, lentil porridge was produced. Sethys, in that dry, apologetic way of hers, sent for the despot.
“‘I am so very sorry, Mil,’ Lyx tells me she said; ‘it is most unfortunate. It is impossible to get what I want. In my busy life I cannot stand vexations like these.’
“Mil was most profuse, Lyx says, in assurances that all would be well from that day thenceforth, and that bygones would be past, never to return. Sethys listened a long time, until the end of the discourse. Then she very deprecatingly observed:
“‘I am afraid I am letting you waste your time, Mil. You may have a good many things to do, and — I have applied to the supervisors to transfer you!’
“Mil, struck dumb, found, when capable at length of utterance, that Sethys had discreetly withdrawn, and, as discreetly, she declined any further interviews. So you can have Mil for the asking — and there isn’t a better cook in Alzôna.”
Iôtris laughed with undisguised enjoyment.
“I will try and get an invitation from Sethys,” she declared. “She used to be so proud of her festival-dinners. I wonder how she will evade me.”
We smiled sedately. A Princess might take a licence in angling for invitations which in anybody else would be highly indecorous.
Pleased with he joke, Iôtris left us, with a chuckling nod.
“Don’t forget Phanaras, Ilex! What is more to the purpose, remember — she certainly won’t forget you! You lucky individual!”
Ilex shook her slender frame as a swan shakes its wing-feathers. However, she said nothing until we had traversed a street or two. She suddenly observed:
“Mêrê, I dare say you were right… I shouldn’t have expected you to have such confidence in me. I am a stupid thing — always was!”
“I am so sorry,” I said, “that you should have been vexed with me. I owe you —”
“Vexed with you! No; I was — but I stopped you?”
“No.”
“I was just like a child that has come against a door in the dark — shaken and feeling injured, with nobody to blame. It feels inclined to tear about and H break things, and I am afraid I tried to break your respect for me — if you have any.”
I felt remorseful at once. But what could I say? Except to link my arm in I hers, there seemed nothing to be done to mend matters. Her proud carriage softened instantly into a gratified acceptance of the caress, and we went on, regardless of the fact that occasional worthy citizens found it remarkably interesting that Ilex should be on such terms with her ultra-barbarian visitor.
She talked more freely now, and listened with great attention to my minute account of the interview with the royal Beatrice.
“She asked your views on the point of politics — you can see why? — It is plain enough to me, or anyone who knows her. If you were an emissary from Uras, don’t you see what a splendid chance it would have been of giving fatal advice in the innocent garb of an unprejudiced stranger! No spy in his senses would have hesitated to give a delicate and duly modest push to the royal mind in the right direction — unless he were playing a very deep game indeed.”
“Do you think so?” I said doubtfully.
“I quite think so. And,” she added abruptly, “I should not be surprised — don’t start — if the incident with the candle was deliberate on her part.”
“To see if I would let the palace be destroyed? That seems rather like firing a house to roast the pig, as a writer of ours says.”
Ilex knit her brows. “No. I hardly meant that. I can scarcely express what is in my mind. Still, I do think that in all probability Beatrice lit that sleeve on purpose.”
“Considering the danger she personally ran,” I objected.
“She is not accustomed to stick at trifles,” said Ilex inconsequently.
After this day I spent more and more time at the palace. On the next occasion I happened to be there four or five of us were indolently seated in the shade of the beeches which grew by the side of an extensive lawn, reminiscent of England and tennis, when the queen, with two of her ladies, appeared near us.
We did not rise; it was not expected or liked. But the wonderful eyes of the queen fell on my strange face, and with great friendliness she smiled and talked to me, about flowers — which she loved like myself — and of poetry and war. I told her of Virgil and Spenser, the innocent worldliness of Horace, and the clang of the “Iliad,” of the formless melancholy of Ossian, and of Elizabeth Browning’s clinging melodies. And she told me a great deal, too, though she listened more than she spoke. A concourse of her ladies gathered round us, and among them was the Arch-Minstrel, a poet and (what does not follow) a judge of verse.
“Achla,” said the queen to her, when I had recited — vilely — a bit of the “Æneid” (which, after all, I maintain is better work than the equally artificial Idylls and Bucolics) — “isn’t that fine? But why is Thekla not here to listen? Every time I have sent for her lately, the messenger has brought back word that she is not at her house. Is she studying the crags of the Piraethal Mountains, or steeping herself in the lakes and brooks of Lasen?”
“Literally, your majesty?” inquired Cydonia, who was present.
“Literally or artistically — it makes no difference,” returned the queen, who made no practice of descending to an encounter of repartee.
“Nobody has seen Thekla,” declared Iôtris, “for a fortnight.”
“I haven’t,” said Chloris.
“I haven’t,” added another courtier.
The queen turned sharply on her heel.
“Why didn’t I know?” she demanded.
We looked at one another with raised eyebrows. “Really, it never occurred to us to compare notes,” said the Arch-Minstrel. The Palace Warden and the Signet-Bearer had strolled off.
“We thought Thekla had something on hand to keep her away,” remarked Chloris.
“But what can be the reason?” again demanded the queen. “Did none of you inquire whether she was away, or ill, or what?”
We looked at each other again.
“Well, one inquired of the porter, and all that was said was just that she wasn’t in.”
“Somebody must go round and see,” said she, with what I thought unnecessary anxiety. She would have despatched an attendant, but Achla volunteered to go.
A light breeze was blowing, and driving up clouds from over the palace turrets. Someone discovered it was likely to rain, and we turned towards the building in a long, brightly tinted procession.
Chloris determined to escort me home, and we settled to call at Thekla’s house on our way.
The stately, cold façade looked gloomy to me for the first time. Chloris went boldly up to the porter and inquired for the mistress. She was “not within.”
“Then she was away?”
The porter shifted his glance, and observed that he rather thought she must be.
“Her intendant must know,” said Chloris. “Will you ask Trysë?”
“Her ladyship’s intendant, secretary, and warder have all been at her country house for ten days or more.”
“And she is not there?”
“I believe not. Her ladyship frequently goes into the country, painting, without leaving word with her slaves where she is.”
“Yes, I know,” said Chloris; but, turning to me as we went, she added: “All the same, ten days! — That’s a long time, Mêrê, to make an impromptu dash into the country without leaving any message for anybody. A day or two’s different, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t much like the porter’s look,” I confessed.
“They can’t have killed Thekla, and be waiting a chance of getting away abroad?” suggested Chloris, with plaintiveness in her voice.
“Of course not. That’s entirely absurd,” I assured her, from my intimate knowledge of the customs of the place.
“Why is it absurd?” — rather hopefully.
“Well, wouldn’t the intendant, or — what do they call her? — the warden, come back from the country, and inquire into things before very long? Wouldn’t they have cleared out at the earliest chance long before this before ever Thekla’s affectionate friends (like us) came round interfering?”
She yielded promptly to the pleadings of optimism.
“Of course they would,” she said. “Mêrê, I wish you would stay here always and clear up mysteries: you do it so beautifully.”
“I haven’t the least objection, if the city will only pay me a good salary,” I returned.
“But you seem so clever at it,” said she, quite seriously, “that surely you would like to do it, whether you were paid or not?”
“It hadn’t occurred to me to look at it in that light,” I admitted; “and you will agree that, if I must exercise my talents somewhere, I might as well do so amongst my own people at home.”
“I am sure you do come from very long-way-off foreign country, as you a say you do,” interposed Chloris, eagerly and with conviction. “Because, either that or else you are a great poet. Oh, I am a girl of sixteen, I dare say, but I know decent writing when I see it. And those bits of Virgil (Virgil, isn’t it?), they’re very fair indeed! If you made them up, you must be a celebrated poet; if you didn’t, you must come from unheard-of places.”
“Isn’t there a third alternative? That I am out I of my senses?”
“Now, I put it to you,” said Chloris, with indignation, “if any insane person could write like that! I don’t believe it. You know, it is all so strong, and calm, and measured I can’t find the proper expressions. Eminently sane, I should I call it. And, besides, I know you.”
“And know me incapable of writing anything so good!”
“Now, I didn’t mean that. But, if it is any satisfaction to you, I am perfectly convinced that it would be malignant cruelty only that would doubt your sanity.”
Since our interview with Iôtris, a few days before, I had heard nothing of the Phanaras she mentioned. I refrained, with a foreboding which I could not well account for, from speaking on the subject to Ilex or any of her household. But it now occurred to me to ask Chloris. I did so cautiously.
“Have you many visitors to the city, Chloris?”
“Oh, plenty, Mêrê! They come from all parts; and I think,” with shy pride, “they like to come. There are plenty of things going on here, and we try to make them enjoy themselves. And, Mêrê, I’ll tell you one thing you can do. I’ve never told you yet, but I’m sure you would like it.”
“Thank you; I shall be glad to know about it, I said. “But, Chloris, tell me this. Do strangers form part of the society of the place, then?”
“Oh, yes, always. They, many of them, have family ties with us, and then they generally stay in our homes. Or they may stay at inns; or occasionally they hire houses. If they do not know anyone here, they generally apply to the queen for recognition.”
“I see. Such a visitor as Phanaras, for instance, where would she stay?”
“Phanaras? Oh, now I remember who it is! She isn’t a visitor. No, she’s native, and has her own house. But she is constantly abroad. Alzôna is too respectable for her; she pretends it is too dry. She goes to the sea-coast towns, the hills, the sacred wells, everywhere but here. Anywhere, so long as she can make an old idiot of herself, with trains of people surrounding her, whom she thinks her devoted admirers. Really, they are all making fun of her. And the airs she gives herself! As if she were a — a camel!
“Last year,” Chloris resumed, being fond of a spice of gossip, “she came here for a month or two. Nobody is quite so ill-natured or frivolous in Alzôna — at least, of course, they may be, but they daren’t show it — as to make a joke of the poor thing; and therefore she considered us an appreciative lot. She singled out Ilex, and pretended indeed, I think she believed it,” said the girl, with a hearty burst of laughter — “that Ilex was dreadfully fond of her, and too shy to say so. And, after a fortnight, Ilex simply had to give in and go to Norene — for change of air, which means peace and quietness. It is a very dry climate, so Phanaras could not consistently go there, too, and left the city soon after.”
“And is she nice-looking?”
“She’s not bad-looking. But her nose and lips are hard, and she is painted and powdered and wigged. Ugh! Keep me from her!” said Chloris.
“Perhaps Ilex was really impressed, and felt it hopeless to admire too much natural and artificial charm.”
“That’s one of Phanaras’s faults. She is as proud as a hill. Nobody is her equal in rank and accomplishments! And, really, Ilex is twice as rich, twenty times as cultured, and two hundred times as good.”
“But has nobody a prior prescriptive right to Ilex’s attentions?”
“Nobody. Surely you can see that for yourself.”
She eyed me more curiously than I cared for, and I changed the topic of conversation.
“That pleasure you promised me just now — what is it, Chloris, please?”
“It’s a splendid thing!” said Chloris enthusiastically. “You shall consult the Royal Astrologer! And we’ll do it today.”
“About what?”
“About your country, and where it is, and how to reach it. Would you go at once, though, if you knew the road?”
“I don’t think I would,” I answered. “Not until I saw how you manage the Uras difficulty.”
“Oh, we’ll soon give a good account of them,” said Chloris comfortably. “Very well, then, so long as it doesn’t mean our losing you, you may see the Astrologer anytime. Only let me go with you; because I proposed it, didn’t I?”
“Certainly you did. But do you fancy the magicians are any good? Can they really tell?”
“Some things they can; not everything. And the more extraordinary a thing is, the better explanation they can give of it. I could tell you lots of remarkable things.”
Here she launched out into a long recital of occasions on which the magicians had proved their powers, and hardly ended until we were back at the house of Ilex.
She left me with a wave of her little brown hand, whilst I passed indoors and sought my rooms. Both Lyx and Nîa stood at the entrance to the courtyard with drawn swords. I felt puzzled, and passed rapidly between them, when I saw, to my utter astonishment, the queen and Ilex talking together. It seemed such a little time since I had left the palace, that for a while I could not understand how the queen could be before me; and her presence, in any case, was quite unaccountable.
“Here she is!” said Ilex.
For the moment I felt that surely this was some other lady, resembling her majesty; but she spoke.
“You used to see a good deal of my Thekla! The week or two before last, did you see her?”
I thought for a second or two, and I remembered that, altogether, I had not been long in the town. “Yes, several times.”
“And did she ever mention the idea of going into the country or away?”
“No; not to me.”
“Or seem ill or unhinged in mind?”
“Not the least, my queen. She was always very kind and rational.”
The queen’s face wore a set, yearning look, as she turned to Ilex, with a wan smile.
“There’s nothing for it but — the worst,” she said.
“Your majesty — no, not that!”
“You do not know what I know! All last week there have been rumours brought to my cabinet of underhand work going on. I expected some coup, but it was all too vague to do anything against. I strengthened the arsenal, I put an extra guard at the treasury. We replaced the sentinels at the inner gates by officers of the Prime Watch.
“But I never thought of this! She knows all our plans and counsels, and she is shy and timid, so the wretches have secured her, somehow — somewhere.”
Then she began to speak in quicker tones.
“Understand, they will do themselves no benefit. She will tell them nothing. But they may do all sorts of things to her. One does not know — hardly kill her! But she was so easily frightened, and those —”
Here the queen’s voice was more broken and agitated. She stopped speaking, and we also stood silent. The night had sunk, and a thin crescent moon shed a fitful light on us. Beatrice’s breath came heavily once or twice.
“Oh, my Thekla! My Thekla!” That was all she said, but the words seemed to tear her heart with them as they left her lips. Then her placid dignity came back, in appearance, at least, and, summoning her palanquin bearers, she returned to the palace, escorted by a dozen slaves of Ilex’s with torches. Chloris had called for me and gone again.
The confusion and stir of a royal visit, instead of masking, heightened the tragic impress which the events of the evening had left on my mind. The courtyard seemed haunted, and sleep was long in coming, though it came at last, as one gets to learn it will come, like other blessings, to those who do not seek it.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague | Rudyard Kipling’s With the Night Mail (and “As Easy as A.B.C.”) | Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Poison Belt | H. Rider Haggard’s When the World Shook | Edward Shanks’ The People of the Ruins | William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land | J.D. Beresford’s Goslings | E.V. Odle’s The Clockwork Man | Cicely Hamilton’s Theodore Savage | Muriel Jaeger’s The Man With Six Senses | & many others.