RE-CORONATION
The world was made for Kings:
To him who works and working sings
Come joy and majesty and power
And steadfast love with royal wings!
The preliminary interview with the notables succeeded beyond
expectation. No sign of doubt was displayed anywhere, and the happy
suggestion was made that a re-coronation should take place a few days
later, to coincide with the great Midsummer feast of San Adovani.
Vorza, who had rolled up to the meeting in his superb state coach, was
extremely deferential. Norman detained him after for a private
interview, ostentatiously dismissing even Sforelli.
"Alas!" said the King to him, "that so many years of helplessness have
prevented me from a due appreciation of your untiring energies in the
service of this realm. Be not afraid that I shall ever forget the old
noble houses of Alsander. In you I know I can put my trust, and I will
begin this auspicious day by honouring a tried and faithful servant of
my family and the nation."
This said, Norman clapped his hands, and an attendant entered carrying
on a cushion a collar set with pearls.
"Here are the insignia of the office of Lord Chamberlain," continued the
King, "which I found in an old safe, tarnished with age and disuse. This
I put round your neck and make you master of my household. I pray you
now to arrange the procession. I have made Doctor Sforelli my secretary:
consult with him if you will: he knows all the details. For the
present," continued the King, confidentially, "I have need of Sforelli's
services. For the present," he added in a low voice, with much
insinuation.
Vorza left the presence somewhat mollified but still suspicious.
After this preliminary interview, following Sforelli's advice, Norman
did not show himself abroad till the day of his re-coronation: and heard
like a man imprisoned vague rumours of the stir outside. On the night of
anticipation the young King--for so he shall be styled in future--slept
little, and rising in the first grey of dawn he muffled himself in a
coat and stepped out unseen upon a lofty balcony to look out upon the
waiting crowd. Down there, in the cold misty break of a day that
promised a relentless noontide sun, upturned faces were appealing
stupidly for information to the granite castle walls. Weary men began
to yawn and shuffle, and shifted the drowsy girls that slept upon their
knees. Some were dozing on stools; others, seated on parapets, leant
back uncomfortably against the rusty lamp-posts; others lay carelessly
upon the pavement or on the pedestal of the statue of Kradenda.
"Truly," thought Norman, "they will be stiff men to rule, these people
of Alsander: their heads are all the same shape."
The King was to step into his gilded coach in the company of Vorza and
Sforelli: the guards had already cleared the road with unprecedented
valour, while the amazing coachman perched himself expectantly upon the
box as if he had been born for the task--and indeed the doctor had even
found the family in which the tradition ran of driving this curious
vehicle. Norman, dressed in military uniform, at the appointed hour left
the throne-room, and with great solemnity was handed to his seat by the
Lord Chamberlain, who then took his place in the Royal coach. They left
the castle yard amid a roar of enthusiasm, and moved slowly down the
main street of the town towards the Cathedral square. Such had ever been
the processional route of the Kings of Alsander.
At last the carriage stopped at the grand porch of the Cathedral. There,
after Norman had been robed in those same overpowering and sumptuous
cloths of state that had been stripped from the unconscious Andrea, the
ceremony of re-coronation took place. It proved to be an elaborate
function, invented by an old-time Bishop with a passion for symbolism
and an eye for scenic effect. It consisted of appropriate ritual
minutiae, as, for instance, the re-anointing and replacing of the
crown--which it would be tedious to describe in detail. But the closing
scene of the service was superb. Norman raised himself from his knees,
and turned towards the people, feeling his young body awkwardly stiff
amid the heroic amplours of his purple robes, and in a few sentences
promised to increase the glory of Alsander, making no reference to the
mad years gone by. Idle to reproduce those simple sentences, without the
animate vision of that clear voice, and the humorous, handsome face with
its brilliant blue eyes; without knowing that most wonderful of
Cathedrals, whose Byzantine mosaics seemed no less barbarous and
splendid than the aristocracy, expectant beneath, whose jewels, the
hoard of feudal treasure chests, glimmered and swayed dimly in the
incense-laden choir.
And strange it was how when he made that speech the words of the boy
rang true and sincere. In the glory of the ceremony he forgot the shabby
and grotesque conspiracy: he became for the moment the King of
Alsander: he meant the words he said.
The afternoon was ushered in by a long procession of girls and youths:
the girls carrying little pots wherein grew wheat, cornflowers and
poppies. They passed in Indian file before the Cathedral, and each fair
girl that passed broke her pot against the door, in front of whose
dinted panels soon grew up a little mountain of sherds, and earth, and
fading flowers and corn. Then they passed down to the riverside, and the
King followed them in state. There they found themselves face to face
with the young men of Alsander, many of them in that gorgeous national
costume of which Arnolfo was so fond, who had left them at the Cathedral
door and had run round the bridge and were already facing them on the
opposite bank. The youths threw off boots and socks, if they were
wearing them, and coats, if they possessed them: neither did the girls
fear to display their shapely feet: men and maidens entered the stream,
the men valiantly, the maids demurely, and then, dipping their hands in
the water, they began splashing each other vigorously across the river.
When all were soaked with water many of the men swam over, seized a girl
and ducked her in the stream: this was held to be a most solemn
betrothal. For in the meantime the priests and the Cathedral choir had
assembled on the bridge and young voices began to raise the old Latin
hymn of the Consecration of the Waters, a hymn older than the Cathedral
of Alsander itself, one of the oldest hymns in the world. Swiftly the
tumult was stilled, and all knelt by the shore.
Raised on a platform behind the priests stood the tall King: he did not
seem to share the joy of all the others, and while they knelt he shaded
his eyes, but not for prayer, The first excitement of his adventure had
passed: seeing now all around him in the clear and truthful sunlight
this mock revel given in his honour and in honour of a lie, he felt a
thief and a liar. There was no thrill of triumph in his heart for his
achievement. His fellow conspirators had taken him into their farce as
one might take a spectator from the stalls and dress him up for the role
of King. In the farce nothing mattered--honour or right or manhood. Now
here was reality to face him: he was a King, and an impostor. The
amazing Arnolfo, whose fantasy and youth had given some poetry to the
crude conspiracy, had deserted him. Women, and the fair woman he had
seen in the light of morning--was it a thousand years ago?--were lost to
him for ever. As amid the joyous sunshine of that first morning when he
saw Alsander rise up above her meadows, when, afraid of the world's too
deadly beauty, he had felt more lonely than ever in his life before, so
now when he had achieved this marvellous thing, now that he ruled the
ancient, fair and fabled city, he sank into utter desolation of the
soul. And this time no golden girl would chase the black phantom of
sorrow from his soul.
But as the great final major chords of the sumptuous old song rolled out
above the river new courage came to him. He could not go back. He could
not justify himself ever at any time at all. He realized that the plot
had irrevocably succeeded: and that he was a prisoner for ever.
Nevermore would he tramp the joyful mountains. To no new country could
he direct his steps. To his own country and his own sweet village
nevermore would he return. Love for women--the true, free love of a
boy--henceforward he might never feel. Honest men he might never shake
by the hand again. Severed from friends and the sweet companions of
youth, he must thenceforth talk with wise or portentous or aged men.
Serious and sad, he looked at the beautiful city, shining above the
shining river. He saw new visions, thought out new ideas, of a bitter
and Spartan taste for a boy's sugared fancy. His soul and his
conscience, his peace of mind, his friends, his love, his youth he flung
down as an offering to the city. And like a man, he swore to work.