The Princess and the Captain Page 6

  The two girls were having a hard time fighting against the waves. Their fingers kept slipping on their improvised life-rafts, while the salt water got into their mouths and noses and stung their eyes.

  ‘We’re going to die,’ said Malva after a while, shaking. ‘I can’t see land. No one will come to our rescue.’

  Philomena, though she was short of breath, kicked out and brought her raft up to the Princess’s. ‘You made me jump,’ she said. ‘Now I’m going to make sure you survive.’

  For two long hours they encouraged each other to keep going. Philomena thought it would be best to follow the direction of the rolling waves.

  ‘Suppose there are counter-currents?’ said Malva, feeling discouraged.

  ‘Don’t think about that,’ Philomena replied. ‘Keep swimming.’

  The sun rose in the sky, baking their salt-caked faces. Their throats were dry with thirst. Exhaustion was lying in wait for them. They took turns singing to keep themselves awake. Then they fell silent, overcome by thirst and weariness.

  Suddenly, just as she was falling asleep, Malva felt something gliding past her legs. She flinched.

  ‘Philomena – did you feel that?’

  ‘What?’ asked the chambermaid, waking with a start. She had collapsed on her raft, and had nearly fallen asleep.

  ‘I could feel someth—’

  Malva had no time to finish her sentence. She let out a shrill scream, and her face twisted in pain.

  ‘Malva!’ cried Philomena, kicking out vigorously to get closer.

  ‘My leg!’ wailed the Princess.

  Philomena let go of her panel of wood and grabbed Malva’s. She tried to haul her mistress up on it, while Malva groaned in pain.

  ‘Something bit me!’ she wept. ‘My leg … oh, my leg …’

  Philomena was breathing hard. She almost slipped and lost hold of the raft, but she recovered just in time and finally got Malva up and lying across the wooden panel. Blood was turning the water red around her right calf. Philomena’s stomach heaved.

  ‘What happened to me?’ cried Malva in panic. ‘I can’t feel my leg!’

  ‘You’re leg’s there all right,’ Philomena told her. ‘You’re bleeding. It’s nothing much – don’t move. A rock must have scraped it … only a rock.’

  As she uttered these reassuring words she stared in terror at the wound around the Princess’s leg: a deep wound in the shape of a pair of jaws, with the marks of two rows of teeth.

  Philomena put her hand on Malva’s forehead, stroking it. ‘It’s nothing,’ she murmured. ‘You bumped into a rock. I’ll look after you, little Princess. Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.’

  A lump in her throat, Philomena summoned up the strength to sing the lullabies she used to sing over and over again to send little Malva to sleep as a child, when she was afraid of the dark and of nightmares. She sang on for a long time, always expecting to see the head of the monstrous creature that had bitten her mistress emerge from the water at any moment. She still sang on, thinking that they were about to die like this together, lost in the middle of the sea.

  Malva had fainted.

  The sun was beating down so hard on the surface of the water that Philomena couldn’t open her eyes any more. So she didn’t see the shape of a boat in the distance – a boat coming towards them. Just as she felt she was about to breathe her last, two hands took hold of her and pulled her out of the water.

  8

  Funeral of a Traitor

  Within a few days the weather had changed. First the sun gave way to a sky of gloomy and uniform grey, then the wind rose. But instead of chasing the clouds away it had driven them together, piling them up above the country as if they were collecting at the bottom of a bowl, and it began to rain. Rain was unusual in Galnicia at this time of year. Soon superstitious voices were raised, claiming that the unsettled weather predicted more catastrophes to come. Fortune-tellers who read the future in the cards arrived from the neighbouring countries of Armunia and Tildesia, drove their caravans into squares and avenues, and began spinning their tales: fifty galniks to tell your future for the next six months, a hundred to know everything about the years to come, two hundred if you wanted to postpone the fateful hour of your death. Long queues of anxious Galnicians lined up outside the caravans, and no one paid any attention to the more sensible citizens who tried denouncing these charlatans.

  In the Lower Town, some women wore scarves coated with beeswax over their heads, to protect them from misfortune. Down in the harbour, sailors carved mysterious signs in the stone of the quays to keep evil spirits away. The craftsmen’s workshops did a roaring trade in all kinds of amulets, and customers were eager to empty the shelves. Dealers selling the red stones known as cornalinos piled their stalls high with these good-luck charms.

  Night and day, troops of soldiers marched through the town, their hobnailed boots clattering on the paving stones. The Coronador was sure that the Princess had been abducted, since he could see no other explanation for her sudden disappearance. The Archont, of course, did nothing to undeceive him, and encouraged him to send men to search the provinces all the way to the frontier.

  People were beginning to murmur the names of brigands and utter unfounded accusations about conspiracies instigated by this or that foreign country. Ambassadors were sent to Dunbraven, to the kingdom of Norj, even as far afield as Polvakia. The Coronada spent her days saying her prayers before the Altar of the Divinities. The Coronador was beside himself. He trusted only one man to find the Princess: the Archont.

  It was in this tense situation that soldiers returned to the Citadel with the dress that Malva had been wearing on the evening when she disappeared. They had found it near the port of Carduz, washed up on a beach among the seaweed. Some locks of black hair were still caught in its lace collar.

  The Coronador and the Coronada felt stunned as they looked at this relic. They examined it, they touched it. For a moment they refused to admit the truth … yet did this dress not prove that the Princess had been drowned?

  ‘Drowned?’ murmured the Coronada in an expressionless voice.

  ‘Drowned?’ repeated the Coronador in the same tone.

  The Archont discreetly signed to the soldiers to take off their helmets and lower the mouths of their musketoons. Then, with velvet tread, he approached the royal couple.

  ‘We shall long mourn our beloved Princess,’ he murmured. ‘Galnicia has lost a lady of great distinction.’

  The rules of protocol that had weighed so heavily on the relationship between Malva and her parents were now shattered. For the first time in their lives, the Coronador and the Coronada let their feelings overwhelm them. They were prostrated by grief.

  Horribly embarrassed, the soldiers left. No sooner were they out of the Citadel than the news was flying all around town: the Princess, sole heir to the throne of Galnicia, was lost for ever in the waters of the Maltic Ocean.

  A leaden silence enveloped the Citadel for several days. The Coronador shut himself up in his own rooms, and the Coronada would not leave Malva’s. Neither of them wished to see anyone except the Archont, the only man authorised to visit them, as more or less a member of the family. He could be seen pacing the silent corridors and galleries with a frown on his brow, carrying steaming bowls of decoctions to cure headaches and watching everything like a hawk.

  Baffled by the situation, the servants, the soldiers, the Holy Diafrons and the ministers began applying to the Archont directly for instructions as a last resort. At first he promised to take their questions to the Coronador and bring back the answers. But as the Coronador was no longer capable of anything, the Archont had to act in his name. He therefore issued his first edicts:

  Edict 1 – Galnicia was entering a period of mourning of uncertain duration. The frontiers of the country were closed.

  Edict 2 – The precepts of Tranquillity and Harmony were suspended until further notice. No more marriages or funerals could be celebrated, since Malva had not bee
n able to marry and, in the absence of a body, could not be buried either.

  Edict 3 – The only authorised ceremonies were those held to preserve the memory of the Princess.

  The Archont had the portrait painted of Malva on her fourteenth birthday hung in the Hall of Delicacies at the heart of the Citadel, with the dress that had been found in the sea beside it. All Galnicians were invited to come and leave votive offerings there.

  This had all happened very quickly. In less than two weeks the country, which had seemed so firmly established and so serene, had been rocked to its foundations. It was as if, when she fled, Malva had taken with her the pillar on which the whole of Galnicia rested.

  While the first edicts were being put up on the town walls, old Captain Hannibal’s body was slowly decomposing in the McBott house. It gave off a dreadful smell. Plucking up all her courage, Berthilde opened the chest in which her master had left his fortune.

  She knew that no law could resist the allure of gold. She took out a green velvet purse and went to see the Holy Diafron.

  Night was falling when Orpheus heard a knock on his door. He hadn’t spoken to anyone since the morning when Berthilde brought him news of his father’s death. As he hated wet weather, and the rain put him in a bad temper, he hadn’t ventured out of doors. He hadn’t even gone up to spy on the washerwomen from his bedroom window, guessing only too accurately that news from the outside world would do nothing to improve his mood. He had spent his time dwelling on his grievances, and wondering what he was going to do with the rest of his life now that he knew he was perfectly healthy.

  He approached the door with suspicion. After a moment’s hesitation he opened it, to find himself face to face with the lad who had already brought him a message once before. The poor boy was shivering with cold in his wet rags, but he had the same mischievous look in his eyes.

  ‘Still Orpheus, are you?’ the boy asked.

  Orpheus sneezed, hunched his shoulders and replied, ‘Does the message still cost a hundred galniks?’

  ‘No,’ said the boy, ‘it’s two hundred now. All the merchants are putting up their prices. Me too.’

  Orpheus sighed, and searched his pockets for coins to pay the little messenger.

  ‘It’s from the old lady who sent me before,’ the boy explained. ‘She wants me to say it’s this evening at eleven.’

  Orpheus frowned. ‘Rather an enigmatic message. Didn’t she say anything else?’

  ‘No,’ said the boy. ‘And if you ask me, hanging around in graveyards is not a good idea at the moment … don’t you know it’s forbidden?’

  Orpheus easily understood what he was getting at. He added another hundred galniks. ‘I hope that this will buy me your silence.’

  A little colour came back into the boy’s cheeks as he closed his dirty paw on the money. ‘I’ll be silent as the grave!’ he said confidently. And with these words he turned on his heel and disappeared round the corner of the next alley.

  Orpheus sneezed again, and made haste to get back into his sitting room. Hanging on the wall in front of him was the map of the Known World drawn up by the Geographical Institute of Galnicia. He had bought this valuable reproduction five years ago when he decided to set up house on his own. He often stood in front of it looking at the lands and seas whose names made him dream: the Lands of Aremica, the Orniant Empire, the Ochre Sea, the Sea of Ypree, Gurkistan, the Maltic Ocean … the whole of the Known World lay there before Orpheus, from east to west, strung out all along the Great Latitude. Galnicia, at its centre, had always seemed ridiculously small to him. Today, that impression weighed on him more than ever.

  ‘I can’t go on living here,’ he said out loud.

  The old St Bernard growled.

  ‘Something you want to say, Zeph?’ enquired Orpheus ungraciously.

  The dog pricked up one ear and then let it drop again.

  ‘You’d like to leave, yes, of course!’ sighed Orpheus. ‘Nothing surprising about that, but how about me?’

  It was the only hope he had left – but how could he leave Galnicia at the moment? The fleet was requisitioned until further notice, all the borders were closed. The mourning imposed on the Galnicians by order of the Archont prevented any travelling.

  Time was getting on. Night was falling in the alleyways, fine raindrops lashed the windows, but Orpheus would have to go out.

  He went up to his room and sat in front of the mirror. A two-day beard covered his cheeks, and the pallor of his skin emphasised the brightness of his blue eyes. Every time he looked at his reflection Orpheus was surprised to find that he had grown to be a man. In his heart he still felt like a child. It was as if he had never really lived except in a dream.

  He put on black clothes and gloves, placed a hat on his head, and then went back down to the sitting room. Before leaving he slipped the Captain’s logbook under his rain cape. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to read it. What was the point? From now on the name of the McBotts was soiled with shame, and Orpheus needed no further details.

  He was going to close the front door when Zeph let out another growl. The old dog had risen to his feet and was padding into the hall, his tail hanging.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Orpheus, taken aback.

  The St Bernard raised his moist eyes to his master. The look in them left no doubt of the answer: he wanted to come too.

  Orpheus heaved a sigh of exasperation. The old dog would lie flat on the floor for days on end, hardly moving, and now he wanted to go for a walk to a graveyard in the middle of the night, in this foul weather!

  At last Orpheus shrugged his shoulders and let Zeph out. He had long ago given up trying to work out what went on in the dog’s head.

  The city was shivering beneath a moonless sky. Not a lighted candle behind its windows, not a gas lamp burning in the carriage entrances; all was shadows and sadness. Shoulders hunched, Orpheus went along the streets, avoiding the puddles and the ruts dug by cartwheels. In only a few days the whole country had turned fluid and muddy. Galnicia was taking water on board, and Orpheus himself, wet and unhappy, had taken a dislike to Galnicia.

  He saw a faint light on the outskirts of the graveyard and told the dog to hurry up, but Zeph kept trailing behind, sniffing the ground or stopping to get his breath back, sitting on his stiff old hindquarters with a sanctimonious look.

  Berthilde was waiting at the railings outside the graveyard, with four men who had agreed to be gravediggers in return for a purse of gold, and the Holy Diafron, who was clutching a dog-eared old prayer book to his chest. They all greeted Orpheus in silence, with a mere nod of the head. A venture of this kind made everyone nervous.

  Holding two gas lamps, Berthilde went to the front of the procession, while the four men picked up the Captain’s coffin. The Diafron approached Orpheus and put a consoling arm round his shoulders.

  ‘We shall miss your father,’ he murmured. ‘He was a good, patriotic man, one of the Coronador’s most faithful servants. He deserves a funeral with full pomp and ceremony, but today …’

  Orpheus forced himself to smile. Yes, in other times the funeral of Captain Hannibal McBott would certainly have taken place in broad daylight, before everyone’s eyes, and no doubt a crowd of curious onlookers would have made their way to the Sanctuary to watch the ceremony. But knowing what he now knew, Orpheus thought that his father was getting only what he deserved: a clandestine burial. Wasn’t that how traitors ended their days?

  They entered the graveyard, followed at a distance by Zeph, who was panting like an elderly asthmatic. The caretaker of the graveyard was waiting hidden behind the trunk of an almond tree. A hole the size of the dead man had been dug at its foot. The stone on the grave next to it bore the name of Merixel McBott, Orpheus’s mother. It was cracked here and there, and overgrown with moss. Orpheus hadn’t been here to pay his respects for a long time. Merixel had always been a stranger to him, a distant image. He had never known what the word ‘mother’ meant.

  �
��Quick, quick!’ begged the caretaker when Berthilde was close enough to hear him. ‘The patrol could turn up any moment.’

  The maidservant gave him a purse of gold to buy his silence, and then put her gas lamps down beside the hole. The four bearers lowered the coffin into it under Orpheus’s fixed gaze. When the wooden casket touched the bottom of the hole with a dull sound, the Holy Diafron came forward, picked up one of the lamps and opened his prayer book.

  ‘Divinities of the World Beyond,’ he began, ‘tonight we entrust to you the soul of our beloved Hannibal …’

  A north wind had risen. The Diafron was having difficulty making himself heard. Orpheus, head bent, couldn’t concentrate on the words. There were too many contradictory thoughts and inadmissible feelings in his heart and mind. Now and then he glanced at his dog. Zeph was scraping at the earth near the other graves, as if to find the best dead body for his purposes.

  ‘… open your arms to the Captain who commanded his ship courageously all his life, facing storms and tempests while bringing up his son,’ the Holy Diafron went on.

  Orpheus saw that Berthilde was crying, and the caretaker of the graveyard had picked up his spade, impatient to get the hole filled in. The Diafron finally finished reading his address. He turned to Orpheus.

  ‘Anything you’d like to add?’

  Orpheus took a step forward and looked down at the lid of the coffin. He took the volume bound in black leather out from the folds of his cape, and held it above the grave.

  The Captain’s logbook fell heavily on the coffin.

  ‘Is that all?’ the Diafron asked.

  Orpheus nodded. The four men and the caretaker of the graveyard immediately set about filling in the grave. The Diafron went over to whisper a few words in Berthilde’s ear. Orpheus guessed that she was giving him a purse of gold too. Prices were certainly high these days.

  When the earth was well packed down on the grave, Orpheus turned up his collar and prepared to leave, but Berthilde took his arm, detaining him.

  ‘I’ll come and leave offerings from tomorrow onwards,’ she said. ‘I’ll see to everything here … but what about you? What will you do?’