The Deciding Vote

The following is a story written without an end. Two sides of a problem are presented with unsatisfactory resolutions for each. It is up to the reader to decide the final issue, determining in his own mind the best solution to the problem.

He sat in the Royal sun-parlour, reclining leisurely in a winged armchair with his coat of arms depicted on it in brocade. It was evening. A fire leapt in the hearth and a dog lay on the thick rug before it, slumbering peacefully. Across the room, which was not a large one, a girl played softly at a piano—some simple air that sounded like an old folk-tune and which she played reflectively and almost pensively.
It was very quiet and peaceful, but the young man in the chair sat with his head resting on two fingers and his eyebrows screwed together in troubled thought. His name was Stanislas Ruelmanov, and he was the king of an obscure country in Eastern Europe. He had only reigned for a short time and had not even been officially crowned as yet. His father had died the previous year and the new king’s coronation had been set for the very day on which our story opens, but for some reason of which he had not been informed, it had been postponed.
The country was not one of those where the monarch is merely a figurehead whose duties consist mainly of greeting foreign dignitaries and signing whatever documents his ministers tell him to. The king of this country constitutionally exercised a greater power than his Prime Minister and, though he was held in check by the Parliament, he in turn had veto power over that assembly. Unfortunately, with the new century had come changes to the old order and the king’s powers had gradually been relinquished to the Parliament until very little was now left him, saving some small civic duties.
The new king chafed under this restraint. He was not at all progressive and he remembered fondly the days when his ancestors ruled ministers and populace with firmness and dignity. Besides this, the party in power at the present time was incompetent and had fallen out of favour, not only with the general public, but also with the class of wealthy businessmen whose opinions carried far more weight. It had been supported by the old king, but now its practically lifeless remains were left defenceless against the rapacious attacks of the opposition.
The young King Stanislas thus brooded over the affairs of the little nation whose responsibilities he had taken upon his own shoulders, though whose fate he had scarcely any control over. It is a sad pass for a king indeed when his ministers will not tell him so much as when his coronation is to be held.
The girl at the piano ceased her playing and let her hands rest on either side of her on the bench. The king looked up with surprise and asked why she had stopped.
“Your majesty isn’t listening,” she said lightly. “Besides, it’s too dark to see the keys anymore.”
“What can I be about? I’ll have the lamps lit at once.”
The girl watched him silently as he crossed the room and rang a bell.
“I wondered you didn’t notice the dark,” she said, as they waited for a servant to appear. “You seemed very thoughtful.”
“I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting you sadly,” said the king.
“Would you mind very much if I didn’t play anymore?” asked the girl when the servants had come and gone away again and the room was a blaze of gaslight.
“No, don’t, if you’d rather not. We can talk, if you like, and I’ll try to make myself interesting, though I confess I’m not much in the mood for conversation tonight.”
She took a seat across from his chair and the dog came up and laid its head in her lap. The king strode over to the fireplace but remained standing, his elbow resting on the mantelpiece.
“Is anything the matter?” asked the girl.
“Just affairs of State,” he replied, his eyes on the dancing flames. “It’s hard to make head or tail of things, that’s all.”
“What things?”
He tore his gaze from the fire and shook his head slightly, as though to clear it. “Never mind,” he said. “I’m in one of my moods, but I’ll try to shake it off and be companionable. I didn’t mean to bother you with my troubles.”
The girl beside him sometimes thought that there was very little of a bonding nature between them. Not that there was any sort of misunderstanding, but the great absence of any sentiment stronger than mutual regard made itself keenly felt in light of the fact that they were to be married shortly after the coronation.
A third party was announced just then and the countenances of both the former cleared suddenly as they turned towards the door with undisguised anticipation. Clearly, the interruption was not an unwelcome one. The man who entered was young—about the king’s own age—very handsome with dark hair and eyes, what they call an intelligent forehead, and a keen, firm manner. He was Sandor Dukonivic, a name that had begun to appear with regularity in the political journals.
He was a member of the Parliament; one of the best speakers in the House. Inspired, determined, ambitious, aggressive at times; a young man whose meteoric rise in politics from an uncertain beginning elicited the attention and interest of his contemporaries and left them wondering at this unflappable zealot who was so suddenly the talk of the House.
Though popular, he was the leader of a small, insignificant, and extremely radical party, which was accused of being surreptitiously socialistic. His peers—or rather the other leaders in Parliament—said with great puffs on their cigars that he could never gain power: his party was too small and unpopular, and he was nothing but a young upstart who needed to be toned down.
For all this—and these were facts which the journalists did not in any way mitigate—he was welcome at the palace, for he had been in the cadet corps with the king when they were boys, and there had sprouted a deep friendship between them which had only grown stronger through the intervening years.
He entered, bowed alternately to his majesty and the princess, and, his ministerial duties thus fulfilled, affected a casual attitude on the other side of the fireplace from the king.
“Sandor!” said the king familiarly, extending his hand. “How are you?”
“Quite well,” replied the young enthusiast, and then said in a softer voice, “hello, Marya.”
“Hello, Mr. Dukonovic,” returned the girl with laughing eyes. “We haven’t seen anything of you for ages. What can possibly have been keeping you busy all this time? Not your horrid friends, I hope.” Her pensive mood had fallen from her on the young man’s appearance, as it usually did.
“My horrid friends?” asked Dukonivic, surprised.
“Oh, you know—those men with beards (I hate beards on men) who always come wanting to talk to you in private.They look like Russians or Poles or something awful. I suppose they must be members of that queer party you belong to.”
Dukonivic usually met her gay repartees with equal wit, but tonight he seemed mildly troubled by her words.
“They have kept me rather occupied of late,” was all he said.
“Preparing for elections, I suppose?” asked the king, delivering the idle question with an acute look at his friend’s face.
“So they are.”
“And what line do they intend to take up? It must be a novel one if they’re to stand a chance against the liberal party.”
“I do wish they would let you have some peace some times,” said Marya, as the statesman said nothing. Her eyes darted quickly to his but she immediately dropped them under his gaze with slightly heightened colour.
“Well,” said the king, breaking a pause, “I wish you luck. I suppose you’ll be Prime Minister if your party gets into power.”
“Possibly,” replied Dukonivic with a confused expression as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
The king regarded him thoughtfully. He was accustomed to his friend’s occasional bouts of inscrutability, but this detached evasion surprised him. The princess rose suddenly.
“You two must excuse me, but I’ve a letter to write,” she said.
“I’m driving you away, I’m afraid,” said Dukonivic penitently.
“What if you are?” she said with a laugh. “It’s not the first time you’ve come to discuss politics. Goodnight!”
The two men watched her trip airily out of the room, and the king sank down again into his chair. He motioned Dukonivic to take the one which the princess had vacated and, leaning back, closed his eyes.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to speak to you,” he said. “I’ve missed our talks.”
“You seem worried about something,” said Dukonivic to make conversation.
“So do you, since you mention it.”
“Never mind about me; what’s troubling you?”
“You’ll laugh, Sandor—say I’m an idealist. You always thought I was.”
“You are,” admitted Dukonivic obligingly, “but I like you for it.”
“Do you remember in our cadet days,” said the king, “how I used to tell you what I would do when I became king?”
“Yes; some of them were rather—shall I say—original?”
The king laughed shortly.
“They were rather childish, I admit, but I find over the intervening years that they haven’t really changed very much. I only find their fulfilment further from my grasp than ever. It’s been over a year since my father’s death, and I’ve done scarcely anything since coming into power. I’ve tried, certainly, to make changes, but it’s as if my hands were tied with official tape. My ministers don’t trust me—or they envy me. The only one I ever get news from is you.”
Dukonivic sat with his hands in his pockets, which is an uncomfortable position when reclining in an armchair, but his mind was elsewhere and he seemed unaware of bodily discomfort.
“You’ve quite a few political enemies,” he said. “The trouble is, you haven’t done anything to deserve them. I suppose it’s envy, like you say.”
“But I have done something to deserve them. I’ve taken steps to revoke the emigration law; I objected to the new income tax proposed by the Chancellor of Exchequer; I’ve appeared in the House twice already during session,whereas my father stayed out of it as much as possible during his reign; and I did my best to keep the Prime Minister from passing that industry bill. I’ve done quite a bit to make a nuisance of myself, but I haven’t actually accomplished anything.”
The king got up, as if wishing for an outlet in which to expend his energy, and began to turn down the lamps. There was no longer any particular need for them and it was one of his old-fashioned eccentricities that he disliked gaslight. Dukonivic got up as well (for, despite their familiarity, it is poor etiquette to sit while the king is standing) and walking round behind his chair, leaned on the back of it and gazed meditatively into nothingness.
“It’s a pity that that industry bill was passed,” he said. “It will ruin the small farmers.”
“I know,” came the king’s voice over his shoulder as he came back into the firelight. “—And I feel as if it were my fault. Perhaps I might have done more to stop it. What a curse it is to be a king with limited power! I’d rather have none at all.”
“Absolute power is worse.”
“I know. I almost wish I weren’t king. There isn’t a privilege I wouldn’t forgo to be free from the burden of it all.”
“Marya?” said Dukonivic shortly.
“Oh, I’d forgotten Marya.”
“Had you indeed?”
“Don’t say it like that. Those other things drove her out of my mind for a moment. Of course, Marya’s different,and I’ve got to marry her whether I like it or not.”
“Whether you like it or not! You’re going to marry her, after all. Doesn’t she mean anything to you?”
“I like Marya very much,” said the king dispassionately. “I suppose you could say I love her, but it’s how I should feel towards a sister. She was chosen for me, you know: I had no say in the matter. –Neither had she, poor girl.”
“Poor girl,” echoed Dukonivic.
The king regarded his friend. He had ample opportunity to do so, for Dukonivic had his face full to the firelight and his usually unintelligible features had written on them quite plainly what turn his thoughts were taking.
“Why,” said the king, a light dawning on him, “Sandor, you—I had no idea...”
“Idea of what?” said Dukonivic, pretending he didn’t know what he meant.
“That you’re in love with Marya.”
“What if I am?”
“I feel as if I’d betrayed you,” said the king repentantly. “I can’t help but feel it, though it was none of my doing. There isn’t a thing in the world I wouldn’t do for you, and yet I’ve somehow managed to ruin your life.”
“If you didn’t exist, I’d be no nearer her,” returned the other. “She’s a princess and I’m a commoner.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said the king, certain instances suddenly coming to his mind. “She loves you, I think.”
Dukonivic was silent so long that the king knew he thought so too.
“If you were king—” Stanislas went on, “Or if there were no king, you could—”
“Stanislas, don’t!” said Dukonivic, gripping the back of the chair as if in sudden agony, and using the name he had called the king in their boyhood.
Neither could speak for a moment. The king gazed on Dukonivic remorsefully.
“Odd the way life works, isn’t it?” he said at last. “You with so much ambition and I with so little. Yet I’m king and you are—”
“—a statesman on the wrong side of the aisle,” replied Dukonivic with a dry smile.
“But you don’t have to be, after all. Why don’t you join the liberal party? They’re almost certain to get into power,and they’d be glad to have your oratorical skills.”
“If I weren’t a fool I would, but I’ve always had a sneaking sympathy with the dark horse.”
“Still, you must have some scheme for success. I don’t think you’d choose obscurity out of sentiment, and I know you pretty well, Sandor.”
“Perhaps you don’t know me so well after all,” said Dukonivic quietly.
The king glanced at his friend in surprise but Dukonivic had turned away and stood with his hands in his pockets and his face shaded from the firelight.
“What do you mean?” asked the king.
In the dim light it seemed to the king that his friend’s shoulders shifted, as if settling a weight on them.
“I might as well tell you what line my party has taken,” he said after a moment’s pause. “They mean to make you abdicate.”
There was a short silence.
“What?” said the king.
“They’ll ask the Parliament to vote and if they get a majority, they’ll ask you to step down.”
“They can’t—”
“Perhaps they can. Parliament has the power and the support. If enough MPs are in favour, there’s not much you can do.”
“Because I have no power or support,” said the king, looking at his friend’s back, which Dukonivic had kept studiously towards him.
“Look here,” said Dukonivic, swinging suddenly round, “don’t think this is my idea. I did everything I could to change their minds and I never helped them once. But it’s been done, all the same. That’s why the coronation was postponed, you know.”
The king said nothing.
“After all,” said Dukonivic desperately, “what have you got to lose? You said you didn’t want to be king.”
“Do you think I ought not to be?”
“I think you are in every way suited to rule this country, but king—that’s different. You can’t stand in the way of progress. The people are ready for a different form of government—the common people, that is, not the rich businessmen who try to run everything. Our party stands for the people, and some of the members feel it their duty to get rid of you. They have nothing against you personally, of course.”
“I know what the people think,” said the king abruptly. He put his hand in his breast pocket and brought out a scrap of paper, ragged on two edges, as if it had been torn from a larger piece, and covered with a large and menacing scrawl.
“Read that,” he said.
It was very brief. “Abdicate or else,” read Dukonivic aloud.
“It’s from a secret anarchic organisation that has sprung up of late,” said the king. “I don’t like threats. They make me want to ignore them and see what happens.”
“I doubt you’d want to ignore this one,” said Dukonivic. “I know somewhat of this organisation and they mean what they say. Have you taken any precautions?”
“I’m not afraid of them, Sandor,” said the king. “And I’m not going to abdicate unless the Parliament forces me to. It’s my duty to rule this country to the best of my ability for as long as I’m permitted.”
“It’s not only your career that’s in danger, but your life is as well,” said Dukonivic earnestly. “You must be cautious.”
“Why?” asked the king pettishly. “You as much as said earlier that you’d prefer the monarchy to be abolished. Why do you care what happens?”
A softened look came into the statesman’s habitually guarded countenance and his reserve fell away.
“Stanislas, you’re my friend. In many ways you’ve been more than a brother to me. You befriended me when I was nobody, defended me against everyone else, and always trusted me without question. I’ve never been able to repay you—never shall. Believe me that I do care what happens to you.”
“Thank you, Sandor,” said the king quietly. “You have repaid me. You’ve been the only true friend I’ve ever had.”
“I wish I deserved your good opinion,” said Dukonivic.
“But of course you do. I’ve always depended on your judgement.”
“Then let me advise you now. You must not throw your life away on a lofty impulse.”
“Then you think I should abdicate.”
“You can’t fight them forever,” Dukonivic said quietly.
“You wouldn’t have said that a year ago,” said the king. “You always supported me in everything. Something’s come between us. I’ve lost your confidence.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I’m sure of it, Sandor. There’s been a difference in you. I’ve done something you disapprove of—tell me what it is.”
“Why did you dismiss Borislav?” Dukonivic asked at last. “—Not that it’s of such great importance, but I’ve wondered all this time. The old man was high in your father’s esteem, and you sacked him without any satisfactory explanation. It looked bad, I thought.”
“Oh,” said the king, after a pause. “He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”
“He was a friend of my father’s,” corrected Dukonivic. “And yes, he’s been kind to me many times.”
The minister’s kindnesses had consisted chiefly in aiding the young man politically, but to do him justice, Dukonivic was fond of the old man more out of gratitude for his goodwill than for any worldly interests.
“I thought,” said Dukonivic suggestively, “that you might be able to explain to me something you couldn’t tell the public.”
“He wasn’t suited for the position, in my opinion,” replied the king shortly.
“And you think the minister you appointed in his place is?”
“In some ways, yes—more so, at least.”
“What do you mean? What has Borislav done?”
“Never mind Borislav; he’s done with, I tell you!” cried the king impatiently. “I had my reasons—now, are you quite happy?”
“Yes, quite,” said Dukonivic, his open countenance shutting like a steel trap and his usual guarded demeanour taking its place. “Thank you, your Majesty. I’ve taken up a good deal of your time, I’m afraid, and if you’ll be so good as to permit me, I’ll bid you goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” echoed the king, and the friends parted.
The king stood for several minutes, regarding the door through which Dukonivic had disappeared. Then suddenly,with a sort of penitent recklessness, he crossed the room, turned up the gas in a bracket on the wall, sat down before a desk that stood beneath it, and commenced writing feverishly. The paper, when he had finished it six minutes later, was blotted, blown upon, and carefully read over as the king leaned pensively back in his chair.
Dear Sandor,
I shan’t keep anything from you. The truth about Borislav is this: for a great part of his life, my father had a dreadful secret that he kept hidden. Somehow this man discovered it and, for years, tormented my father with the fear of exposure. That secret was the key which Borislav used to unlock every door in the corridors of power. Through his influence with my father, he made his way into the Ministry of the Interior and was quite successful in amassing a personal fortune. I learned of all this—never mind how. On my father’s death one of my first duties was to remove this black-mailer. My respect for my father (whether or not he merits it) has kept me from exposing Borislav, and a yet deeper consideration prevented me from telling you the whole story this evening—that he is a friend of yours, that is.

His impetus suddenly gone, the king laid the paper down and leaned his head on the high back of his chair. He shut his eyes, but the last line of the letter seemed written across the insides of his eyelids in white ink. He sat upright at last, with a little shake of his head, and knew that he could not do it. Crossing to the fireplace, he consigned the paper to the leaping flames and watched meditatively its demise. For a moment the fire sprang up, throwing a strong light on his face as he stood there, solitary, silent, and inflexible, and all his royal progenitors from ten centuries seemed for one moment embodied in his resolute figure.

* * *

A low murmur pervaded the House along with a heavy sense of expectancy, rising occasionally as a member would enter from one of the outer offices, lay a slip of paper on a table in the central aisle, and take his seat. MPs conferred in low tones and leaned over the benches to whisper private communications to other party members. Secretaries scurried in and out with briefcases and brandy. The speaker sat solemnly in his chair at the head of the hall, while his secretary sat in the aisle at a small table, painstakingly counting votes and jotting tallies in a notebook. The House was going to vote on a very significant matter—whether or not their country would continue as a monarchy.
Although it was the king’s constitutional right to be present in the House while it was in session, he had chosen to stay away today and be informed of the decision by his aide de camp, who sat to the right of the speaker watching all that went on with interest.
At length, the murmurs died down, and the MPs began to look towards the speaker in expectancy. The secretary glanced up, saw the full benches and the closed doors, took up a paper before him, and handed it to the speaker who cleared his throat and looked over it.
“Gentlemen,” he declared at last, “it is a tie. The votes for both sides are equal.”
There was a silence; for most of the members, a disappointed one. Suddenly someone spoke.
“It cannot be a tie,” he said in a small, dry voice. “There are an odd number of members, and the House is full today.”
A murmur spread through the room, acknowledging the statement. The members looked at each other, searching for someone missing.
A small group of men who sat together in one corner began to grow agitated.
“Dukonivic!” said someone. “He isn’t here.”
At that moment the double doors leading to the outer chambers opened, and the dark-haired man entered. His features were flushed, his temples were wet with perspiration, and he breathed heavily as if in the throes of some supreme effort. For a moment he stood there as if recovering his poise. Then, with a sudden firmness, he strode forward. All eyes in the room were upon him and an unnatural hush hung over the assembly. Dukonivic reached the little table at which the secretary sat and paused, running his eyes over the company. Suddenly, he threw his head back as with a great resolution and taking a paper from his pocket, laid it on the table.

Knight Rupert: IV

Chapter IV.

From their castle-walls a man may see
The mountains far away.
-Hilaire Belloc

THE FOLLOWING morning dawned calm and blue, for the storm had spent itself in the night and left, as storms generally do, fair weather behind it. Sophia had been quite worn out by her long journey and slept late. When she awoke and found the sun so high in the sky, she was surprised that no one had come to call her and wondered whether she ought to go downstairs on her own. She waited for several minutes but, hearing no sound in the castle but the crowing of the chickens in the courtyard, she dressed in a fresh frock and opened the little door.
She first went down a little flight of four steps which led down from the tower. After that there was a narrow door which opened into a long corridor.
It was a queer corridor. At the end of it was one tall, narrow window through which the morning sunlight shone in. Down two sides were doors in the wall: three on one side and two on the other. Some of the doors were wide, some were narrow, and one was so small that it looked as if it must have belonged to a cupboard. The corridor was full of odd things—broken chairs, old chests, a hat-tree, and in one corner a rusty battle-axe. On the walls hung old tapestries so faded that Sophia could not tell what the pictures on them were meant to be of.
Sophia went down this corridor, gazing around her at all the odd things and at the end of it, by the long window, she found a staircase leading downwards. She went down it and it led her into another corridor, but this one was wider and the ceiling was higher. There were doors along the wall—all shut—and more odd pieces of furniture and old weapons. The castle had a smell that old houses generally have—a smell of old furniture and old books and old things in general.
Not a soul was in sight and except for the crowing of the chickens outside everything was as silent and still as if the castle had been deserted for many years. But there were two dusty pairs of boots in the hallway and, as Sophia stopped to inspect them, she thought she heard a muffled snore from behind one of the doors which they stood beside.
In the daylight the castle did not seem so frightening, but it was very strange and mysterious still. It felt to Sophia like an enchanted castle and everything in it seemed to be waiting for something—perhaps for someone to come and break a spell. Sophia felt almost as if she had gotten into one of her story-books.
She could not remember the way she had come the night before when she had followed the woman because everything had become mixed up in the dark and now that she could see things, it seemed a different castle entirely. There were many doors and windows and passages that she had had no idea were there when she had come up last night. The corridors ran into each other confusingly, or else stopped dead against a stone wall. Sophia ran into several of these dead-ends and the only comforting thing about them was that there was almost always a window in the wall, sometimes looking out on a courtyard within the castle walls, and sometimes out to the outside of the castle where mulberry trees bumped green-budded branches on the glass.
She had gone down two more staircases—the last one quite wide and slightly curved with a stone ballistrade—and opened a door at the end of a long, wide, windowed passage before she at last found herself in the great hall.
It was deserted like the rest of the castle. The fire on the hearth had burnt out and the trestle table was bare except for some crumbs and wine-stains. Sophia walked to the further end of the hall which had been so dark the night before. The windows at that end pierced the outer wall of the castle and so were narrow and had bars in them to keep out invaders in the old days when castles used to be stormed. The windows along the side of the room looked out into some sort of garden, for green vines hung over them, shutting off much of the sunshine and keeping the room in a sort of twilight even during the daytime.
Sophia found among the weapons and elk heads several portraits hanging on the walls. They seemed, by the clothes which the people in them wore, to be very old. One was much older than the rest, for the man in it was in armour and carried a lance. Because it was so old, or perhaps because it had once hung in a very smoky place, the knight had grown very dark and had black shadows beneath his brows. His hair was black, his beard was black, and his eyes so black and shining that they startled Sophia. He looked stern and cruel, and—oddly enough—rather sorry for looking so. Sophia gazed at him in wonder until a door suddenly opened at the other end of the room.
It was the door to the kitchen and the servant Jacob entered with a broom. He spied Sophia and, though he did not say anything, he gave her a look which said, ‘What are you doing here?’
Sophia crossed the room to him.
‘Please,’ she said, ‘may I have some breakfast? I’m dreadfully hungry.’
Jacob said nothing save, ‘Where’s Gertruda?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sophia.
‘Come along, then,’ he said and led her into the kitchen.
There was a pot of porridge warming by the fire and he took some in a bowl and gave it to Sophia with a wooden cup of milk. A black cat jumped up on the table and tried to put its nose into the cup, but Jacob caught it by its scruff and put it out by a door into the courtyard. He took up his broom once more and went into the hall to finish his sweeping and Sophia, who didn’t want to be left alone, took her bowl in one hand and her cup in the other and followed him.
He paid her no mind and only went on with his sweeping as if she weren’t there at all. He seemed to be thinking about something else. There were a great many questions Sophia wanted to ask but she didn’t know how to begin, or even if he would answer her if she asked them.
‘My name is Sophia,’ she began at last, because she didn’t know what else to say.
He was so surprised by this that he looked up from his sweeping and stared at her. But all he said was, ‘Is it?’ and went back to his work.
‘Am I going to live here?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied.
‘Do you live here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘Like what?’
‘This castle. Is it a nice place to live?’
He looked as if he didn’t know what to say. ‘It’s a good enough place,’ he replied slowly. ‘There’s many worse. I don’t live here because I like it.’
‘Why do you?’
‘Never mind why.’
Sophia was silent for a little while after this, but at last she could not help asking another question.
‘Who was it sent for me?’
‘I suppose you’ll be told if they want you to know,’ was the mysterious answer.
‘Is it someone who lives here?’
‘Nobody lives here but the servants.’
Sophia was very confused, but she dared not ask him any more about that subject. She tried another.
‘Is the man with the scars on his face still here?’
‘Who?’ asked Jacob, turning again to look at her.
‘The man who brought me from England.’
‘Oh, you mean Muncaster. He left this morning. When you’re finished with your breakfast you can put the dishes on the kitchen table.’
Sophia fell silent and finished her porridge. When she had done as Jacob had instructed, she came back into the hall.
‘Where in the castle am I allowed to go?’ she asked.
‘You can go wherever you like, provided it’s inside the castle,’ he replied.
‘Thank you,’ said Sophia.
She didn’t want to stay any longer in the keep. It was too quiet and gloomy, so she went out through the kitchen door into the stable yard. She hoped she might find the cat.
The sunlight filled the courtyard and felt wondrously warm to her after being so long in the cold stone keep. A flock of chickens, yellow and brown and speckled, ran about pecking in the dust and two horses stood in the stalls, eating hay and brushing their tails at the flies. Everything was neat and tidy, except where a few wisps of hay that had blown from the haystacks. In the centre of the courtyard was a round well, very narrow and very deep, and when Sophia looked down into it the water far away at the bottom like a silver penny.
Beside the stables was a square stone watchtower. Sophia would have liked to explore it but the door was fast locked. In the wall between the tower and the keep there was a postern gate but it was also locked and a heavy bolt was drawn across it.
Sophia wandered out through an archway on the opposite side which led into another courtyard a little larger than the first. This was the courtyard Sophia had come into the night before with the strange man. On the far side of it was the great gateway through which they had entered the castle. The two leaves of the gate were now locked and barred and Sophia realised that Jacob was right and that she was allowed anywhere inside the castle, but she was not allowed out. She was a prisoner.
The big oaken door of the keep, which seemed to be the front door, stood opposite the gate, by the archway Sophia had just come through. Next to it ran a wall, but Sophia knew it was not the outer wall of the castle, for she could see a square stone tower beyond it like the one in the stable yard. She thought there might be a garden inside, for she could see bits of green leaves peeping over the top. At one end of the wall there was a door.
‘It’s sure to be locked,’ said Sophia to herself.
But it was not locked. The latch lifted easily and she went in.
It was indeed a garden, but it was rather a disappointment otherwise. The leaves belonged to several rose trees but there were no roses to be seen, nor any other kind of flower. Although the rest of the castle was kept so neat, it seemed that no one ever tidied up here at all. There was a fountain in the centre of the garden but it had dried up and was covered with moss and lichens. The whole place had an air of desolation about it.
The garden had a wall on three sides and on the fourth side was the castle keep. In the keep’s wall were three tall windows and Sophia saw that they were the outsides of the windows she had seen in the hall that morning and that the vines growing over them were more roses.
‘I suppose whoever planted the garden must have been very fond of roses,’ said Sophia. ‘It’s a pity that none of them are blooming now.’
It was a great pity, for the vines climbed all over that side of the keep and if they had bloomed, it would have been a glorious mass of flowers.
In one corner of the garden stood the square stone watchtower which Sophia had seen from the other side of the wall. The door was locked like so many of the others, but the bolt was so rusted that it came off entirely when Sophia shook it and the door opened with a dusty-sounding creak.
Inside, the tower was full of cobwebs and piles of dust that had once been mouse nests. In one corner a ladder stood against the wall, leading up to the second level and Sophia, who wasn’t afraid of mice or spiders, climbed it. The upper part was where soldiers once stood to defend the castle in olden days, but there had been no need for soldiers for years and years and the tower had been left to fall into disrepair. The roof of the tower was dilapidated and falling in and the blue sky shone in through several large holes. There were wasps’ nests on the underside of the shingles, but they, like the rest of the castle, were deserted and forgotten.
There were four loopholes in the upper part of the tower—one in each wall—for archers to shoot from. They were very narrow, but they were just wide enough for Sophia to put her head through and look out. She looked out of the one which faced westwards and saw above her the low eaves of the watchtower roof, on either corner of which were two rainspouts shaped like gargoyle heads, their mouths issuing dead leaves and moss. Below her lay a low, grassy bank and beyond that a small meadow full of flowers that ran up to a shady wood.
‘Sophia!’
It was the first time Sophia had heard her name spoken since she had left Mrs. Huxley’s. It was strange how warm and familiar her own name sounded to her. The great empty castle had given her such a lost feeling that it almost seemed as if she had left the little girl Sophia behind somewhere and she was someone else entirely.
But her name made it all right again. She scrambled down the ladder and ran through the garden into the courtyard where she found the woman-servant Gertruda looking for her.
‘Here I am,’ she said. ‘I was in the garden.’
The woman looked startled, as if she were not used to calling that part of the castle by the word ‘garden’, but quickly recovering herself she said,
‘You are going to learn to do some tasks so that you will not be so great a burden.’
‘I’d like to,’ said Sophia. She had often helped Mrs. Huxley with the housework, for in a boarding house there is always a great deal to do.
Gertruda led Sophia into the stable yard and showed her where to find corn for the chickens, how to draw water from the well for the horses, and how to search for eggs among the piles of hay and the thatching of the stable roof.
‘You’re not afraid of them, are you?’ asked Gertruda, who seemed rather surprised to see Sophia climb up the side of the stall and perch on the back of one of the horses.
‘I like them,’ said Sophia. ‘I know how to ride, too. What makes them grow long hair on the backs of their necks?’
‘I don’t know. What does it matter?’
‘Is it to hold on by?’
‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t think so. Why do you ask me?’
‘There isn’t anyone else to ask but Jacob and he doesn’t talk.’
‘Humph!’
‘Whose horses are they?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘Won’t you answer any questions at all?’ asked Sophia.
‘No,’ said Gertruda shortly and went into the kitchen.
It was noon by that time and although her breakfast had been late, it seemed to Sophia as if she had had it a very long time ago. She followed Gertruda into the kitchen and found Jacob getting dinner for two men who sat in the hall. The men wore tall boots and military uniforms and one of them, like Muncaster, had many scars on his face. They were doing justice to the meal and playing at cards at the same time. Gertruda took her dinner at the table in the kitchen (Jacob had already had his) and Sophia sat across from her with a plate of bread and butter.
Jacob had left the door between the two rooms open so that he might go in and out as he did his work, and Sophia could overhear what the men said as they talked together.
‘It’ll be a long day, I’d say, Stefan,’ said Bastein.
‘So it will be,’ said Stefan (whose last name was Demerov). ‘Nothing to do but sit about and twiddle our thumbs. If only we could get away from this confounded castle!’
‘Perhaps we could take a jaunt this afternoon. Nothing could happen in a few hours.’
‘What would the count say to that?’ asked Jacob, who was waiting on them.
‘Ah, this place gives me the creeps,’ said Demerov. ‘What’s the count worried about, anyhow, that he wants us to guard this old ruin?’
‘He has his own reasons, you may be sure,’ said Bastein. ‘He’s not one to take chances.’
‘Not as long as the trouble falls to someone else, he doesn’t. I wonder what he thinks could happen?’
‘Maybe he knows something we don’t.’
‘Who knows? That man is a like black pit for having something in him and no one ever knowing it.’
Sophia had heard the count mentioned several times now, and began to wonder if he could possibly be the one who had sent for her.—And if he had, what did he want her for?
She helped to clear up the kitchen after dinner, setting the food away in the buttery and sweeping up the crumbs with the besom. The cat had managed to get back inside and sat on the bench by the wall, washing its dinner off of its face. Sophia, watching it, suddenly remembered her pigeon and ran up to the little tower room with a piece of bread for it. The pigeon was not at all upset at having been forgotten the entire morning and perched on the window-sill, pecking bits from the bread and making contented bird noises.
Sophia set herself to unpacking her trunk. Mrs. Huxley had taught her to always be neat and tidy and Sophia liked putting things in order. As she took out her belongings, she found things that Mrs. Huxley had packed in the trunk as presents—a coloured glass bottle, several crocheted tidies, an embroidered scarf, a picture in a wooden frame, scented soaps, and a wash towel with Sophia’s initial in the corner.
For a moment Sophia felt quite homesick. It seemed a very long time since she had last seen Mrs. Huxley and her other friends, and there was no one who was friendly to her here. Besides, the castle was so different from what she had imagined her new home would be like! But she was determined to be happy despite her surroundings, and sang a little song to cheer herself up. It was a song she had sung often in England:

There is not in this wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.
Oh, the last rays of feeling and life shall depart
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

And the next minute she was really cheered up, for as she arranged her books on the window-sill nearest the bed, she saw such a lovely sight that she paused, rested her elbows on the wide stone sill, and gazed through the open window out over the glorious view beyond.
The land spread out on every side and because the little tower was at the very top of the castle, Sophia could see in all directions at once. To the east lay the great river she had seen from the mountain pass, placidly winding between its steep banks. It was silvery-green now, but Sophia thought she would always imagine it all pearly with the sunset colours as she had first seen it. On the far side of the river was a deep forest of pines and fir trees that stretched away as far as she could see. Southwards were fields of wheat and rye with a few small cottages and thatched stables between them. Among them wound the white road on its way to the capital city whose spires showed faintly over the treetops several miles away to the south.
To the west and north were the lofty sky-coloured mountains over which Sophia had come on her journey. She could see the little notch in the mountains where the road came through. At the foot of the mountains and partly up their sides were thick forests, broken up sometimes by meadows or rockslides, or places where foresters had cut down the trees. A brook came rushing down between two wooded hills and joined the river just above the castle. A cloud of rooks flew out of the forest nearby and a bird in the mulberry trees beneath the tower began to sing.
Sophia had often thought that there was no place in the world so beautiful as her old home in the countryside in England, but now she knew that even that was not so lovely as this place. She almost felt it was wrong to think so, for she thought that one ought to love best the place he was born in. The truth was that her father had been born here and that he had always loved the little country of Waldovia best of all the countries in the world. That was the reason (though she didn’t know it) why Sophia felt that she had come home at last.
She wanted to go out and explore the wood just across the little meadow outside the castle. It looked wondrously mysterious and she could see that the meadow was full of flowers.
‘But it’s no use,’ she said, ‘for I can’t get out.’

* * *