CHAPTER III
“You think that I have any influence with your King?” asked Madame von Falkenberg.
Her directness did not displease Count Piper; he saw that she was more experienced than he had thought and wise enough to be simple.
“I know you have,” he replied, then added: “His Majesty has never looked twice at any other woman.”
“His Majesty is only eighteen,” said Viktoria; her large dilated eyes looked searchingly at the shrewd, withered face of the minister. “What do you know of me?” she asked.
He had his answer ready.
“I know that you are of one of the noblest families in Gottorp--that you are a very attractive woman, and, I think, ambitious.”
“You know nothing about my husband?”
The question seemed to Count Piper quite irrelevant.
“I know that Baron von Falkenberg was killed in a duel a few months after his marriage, and that that is five years ago.”
She gave him a narrowed glance.
“And so you think that I have influence with your little King?” she demanded abruptly.
Count Piper was surprised into irritation.
“Madame, it is a Viking!” he exclaimed with pride.
Madame von Falkenberg lifted her slender shoulders.
“He seems like a child to me,” she answered, “and if,” she added, “you think so well of him, why do you come to bargain about him with a woman whom you think is a greedy adventuress?”
Count Piper looked at the lady with dislike; her attitude was one with which it was impossible to deal; for all her directness she was hindering him in the object of his conversation; vexation rose in his heart against boys and women and this kind of bed-chamber intrigue; he longed for such a master again as the late King had been.
“Sweden is threatened,” he replied, with some sternness, “and to save her I must use any weapons I can.”
“Even soiled ones,” said the Baroness.
“I have not said so--but I am dealing with a youth, one who has no interest beyond his games and his sports--one who is self-confident, arrogant----”
The lady interrupted.
“And you can do nothing with him?”
“No.”
“And the Queen?”
“He smiles at the Queen.”
“What do you want him to do?”
“What his father would have done,” replied Count Piper--“lead an army against Denmark, Poland, and Russia.”
“I see--you want an antique hero--a Viking, as you say, in this modern age of ours!” She seemed scornful, and her lips shook as she spoke. “And you think that a woman’s smiles can rouse a demi-god from a tipsy boy! You think that he might go to war if he could find me among the spoils of victory!”
Count Piper was silent; he could not understand her mood.
She seemed in considerable agitation and leant against the window-frame, pressing a little handkerchief to her mouth; the sharp eyes of the minister noted the stains of red on the cambric as she rubbed off the moistened rouge.
“You think to find in me an Aurora von Königsmarck--a gilded puppet whose strings you can pull!” she cried.
Count Piper felt bound to defend himself.
“Madame, you have not seemed displeased at the King’s notice.”
“No,” flashed Viktoria, “and the Duchess has told you that she does not like me and that I am a light creature, and so you think you can affront me with impunity.”
“Madame, it can be no affront to suggest that you might be the King’s friend and influence him for good.”
She sighed a little at these conventional words and put her thin hands, with a gesture of weariness, to her fair brow.
“Will you let me see the King, alone?” she asked quietly. “Perhaps I might be able to turn him to what is the wish of all of us.”
The Count did not affect to understand this change of front, but he was eager to grasp at her suggestion.
“His Majesty is now in my cabinet,” he replied.
“I wish to see him when he is sober.”
“When he wakes he will be sober.”
“Take me to him.”
Count Piper glanced at her somewhat doubtfully; if she did become his puppet he did not think that she would be a particularly easy one to manage; so far, at least, she had shown no good-humor and a certain enmity towards himself; he agreed with the King’s sister in not liking her; what charm she had, he decided, lay solely in her rather colorless beauty.
He conducted her to his cabinet without any very great hopes as to the success of his experiment, but, at least, he consoled himself, he had forced an issue that might have hung long and vexatiously, and this interview would decide how much or how little Viktoria von Falkenberg was going to count for in the life of the King of Sweden.
When the cabinet door opened Karl looked round.
He was still in the chair where Count Piper had left him and seemed to have but lately awakened.
The Baroness entered and closed the door. The King at once rose, and stood, with one hand on the back of his chair, looking at her in rather an amazed fashion.
His eyes were clear and his hands steady; he had already thrown off the effects of the wine--an easy matter for his superb and vigorous constitution.
But his hair was still disordered, his dress disheveled and stained with blood, and dirt, and wine.
The lady, in her fair exquisiteness, rose color and silver, her finished beauty and artificial grace, was a curious contrast to the young man in his vigor and careless attire.
“Ah, Madame von Falkenberg,” said the King, “who do you wish to see--Count Piper?”
“No, sir.”
“This is Count Piper’s cabinet,” replied Karl, with a look of confusion.
“He has been lecturing your Majesty?”
The blood rushed up under the King’s fair skin.
“He spoke to me of the Czar of Muscovy, but I do not rightly recall all he said.”
The Baroness advanced a little; all that there was of light in the dull, small apartment seemed to be gathered in her brilliant figure.
“I also have come to speak of the Czar of Muscovy, your Majesty.”
Karl looked at her doubtfully.
“Oh, yes, Count Piper sent me,” she added, “but I do not come on his errand, but on my own.”
The red still showed in the King’s strange face; he glanced at his clothes.
“You take me at a disadvantage,” he said, with dignity.
Viktoria smiled faintly.
“Ah no, sire--you have all the advantages!”
Karl suddenly smiled also; it changed his face, not agreeably.
“You think I have all I want?” he asked.
“I think that you could have.”
“That rests with you, Baroness,” he replied; now that he was sober it was noticeable that his demeanor was cold and his manners of a freezing haughtiness; only towards this woman his behavior was softened; he was being as gracious as he knew how; his large serene eyes gleamed as they rested on her loveliness; he approved her openly and with a lack of all subterfuge that had something large-natured in it; indeed, it was impossible to associate him with anything small of any kind.
They stood facing each other, and for all that she was tall she was hardly to his shoulder; he stared at her, and behind all his arrogance was a certain shyness.
“Sir,” she said, “it is a pity that you should depend on a woman for anything.”
That seemed to strike a responsive chord in his nature; he drew up his magnificent figure and a look of intense pride darkened his face.
He put his hand to the hilt of the short sword he wore and turned away rather abruptly.
“What could I give you?” asked Viktoria softly.
He looked at her over his shoulder.
“I think you know,” he said rather sullenly.
“But tell me,” she insisted.
The King gave his ugly smile.
“You are such a pretty creature,” he answered, “you give me more pleasure than any fair sight I have ever seen.”
She did not receive his compliment in the usual fashion of blush and confusion.
“I am sorry that your Majesty has seen so few pleasant sights,” she said quietly, “but you are very young.”
“You think of me as very young?” demanded the King, with narrowed eyes.
“What are you, sire, but a boy?” replied the lady calmly. “Ah, when will you be a man?”
“With God’s help, when I choose,” he said shortly.
Viktoria von Falkenberg smiled sadly.
“Sire,” she said, “I do not come to lecture you as Count Piper or the Queen do. I think I have no right to speak at all, save this little right that you have noticed me.”
“I have noticed you,” he interrupted heavily.
“And that others think that I might influence you,” she continued.
“Ah, they think that, do they? Count Piper thinks a woman could influence me!” cried the King. “Forgive me,” he added quickly, “I am not courteous.”
“Indeed,” replied the Baroness, still with that little fixed smile, “your Majesty is more fitted to the camp than the court.”
Again the King flushed, and his eyes were narrowed and gleaming.
“Ah, I am boorish--I know,” he said, then, suddenly, “but I could be gentle to a woman, a woman like you.”
“I want you to be gentle to me now, sire,” she replied quickly, “for what I have to say may try your patience.”
“Nay, that could never be.”
He did not speak in a tone of gallantry or artificial compliment, nor even with any of the confusion or shyness likely in one so young and so unused to dealing in affairs of love, but with a certain hardness and hauteur, the mark of absolute sincerity and complete self-command.
It was impossible to believe that he would ever waste himself in mere pleasantness; he did not trouble even to smile, but looked at the lady gravely with his strange blue eyes that were of so rare a color and so curious an expression.
“You think that I please your fancy,” she said, with a flutter of color in her face.
“I know that you do,” he replied seriously. “You are very wonderful. But Count Piper was wrong,” he added grimly, “when he thought that you could influence me.”
“Yet I am going to try and do so,” said Viktoria.
“Yes?” he seemed faintly amused.
“I want you to forget me, to forget the chase, to leave the wine, and become the man your father was.”
These words were so unexpected that for a moment his composure was disturbed.
“Forget you?” he asked.
“Sire, whether my words have any effect with you or no, after to-day I shall never speak to you alone. I am not the woman your councilor takes me to be. He thinks that I would be your plaything, and that through me he would work his way with you.”
“And so you will have none of me?” asked the King quietly; “I could have loved you.”
“Sire, I have done with love. And I was never ambitious.”
“But I,” smiled Karl, “I have not even begun with love. And I was always ambitious.”
She flashed at him with sudden animation and force.
“Then if you are ambitious leave love alone. Turn your back on women until you take your Queen--be the one King in Europe who is not ruled by a petticoat. Be a man like the hero of antiquity, feared, obeyed, revered by _men_, not cajoled, flattered, led by women!”
He gave her a dazzling look.
“And if I wished I could be such a one,” he said strongly.
“And do you hesitate? There is a man’s work--a King’s work ready to your hand--a nation that your forefathers left great looking to you for help against three terrible enemies, the world before you in which to win glory.”
“And if I wished I could win it,” said Karl, in the same tone.
“Sire, first you must conquer yourself--to-day you were intoxicated.”
The King flushed hotly.
“You came to the Queen’s table blood-stained from the chase. You dragged the cover to the floor with your spur in the cloth. You insulted me in the corridor.”
Karl looked at his disordered clothes.
“Before God,” he said in broken voice, “I am sorry.”
“And because of these things Count Piper resorts to a woman to influence you.”
“I am ashamed,” said the King. “I am ashamed. Yes, I was drunk. I went into my grandmother’s presence like any stable boor--I remember now. And Count Piper led me here--and I fell asleep when he talked politics.”
He hid his face in his strong hands, resting them on the back of the chair, his tangled curls falling over the dark tapestry.
Viktoria Falkenberg had not known him long, but she was quick to perceive that he was moved to emotion rare in such a nature.
She came quickly up to him, and laid her thin hand on his bowed shoulder.
“Sire, what does it matter? You are young and splendid. Think what may be before you--think what you have in your hands. What is the chase compared to war? What is wine-drinking compared to the joy of victory? What the pursuit of women compared to the pursuit of nations?”
He raised his strange face that was now quite pale.
“You are right,” he said. “You are very right. I have always thought like that. Yet there seemed nothing to do. And I amused myself with games,” he added simply.
“There is now plenty to do,” said the lady, with a faint smile. “You must give your brother-in-law back his duchy--humble Denmark--subdue Poland--hold the Czar in check.”
“You think that I could do that?” he asked quickly.
“Sire, you come of a race that has done such things.”
He looked at her with an intensity almost painful.
“You are interested in me, but yet you do not care about me.”
“I do not love you, sire,” she replied quietly. “I loved once. It was enough. I loved my husband and he did not love me. For the sake of another woman he was killed soon after our marriage.”
She drew from behind the silver lace on her bosom a golden locket which she opened, and showed no portrait, but a fragment of blood-stained rag.
“That I cut from above his heart the day they brought him home,” she said. “It is all I care for in the world. I--I have suffered so much that it is as if I had died. That is why, sire, I can speak to you so coldly now.”
The King looked at her calmly; by contrast with her own words she herself appeared insignificant, his fancy for her, which she might have formed into the strongest passion his cold nature was capable of, had died on the instant before the images her words had evoked.
No one had ever spoken to him directly with strength and sincerity; the sneers of his grandmother he had always despised and everyone else had been his inferior, not daring to tell him plainly that which men thought of him and his actions.
Never before either had he been so degraded as to-day when he had returned to the palace intoxicated and shown himself so before women, and in the revulsion of shame and disgust that he felt the words that this lady had dared to speak to him made the deeper impression.
He looked at her with respect and a slight amazement; she seemed thin and pale and artificial in her gorgeous stiff gown, very different from the heroines of his beloved sagas--yet she had shown qualities that were admirable in his eyes.
“Enough,” he said suddenly. “I think I have done with childish things. I have had my dreams--maybe some of them I can realize. I thank you, Madame, for your timely speech.”
He offered her no compliment nor courtesy and his expression, as he gazed at her, was hard, but she believed that she had accomplished her purpose and she did not care how soon he forgot her; she had very truly done with the emotions of love and vanity.
“I thank you for your attention,” she replied gently. “I have, sire, no more to say.”
With a little curtsey she left him; he did not give a sigh to her going, but turned with brusque eagerness to study the map of North Europe that hung above Count Piper’s desk; with intent blue eyes and a steady finger he traced the positions of those provinces his three enemies wished to wrest from Sweden.