The Prince Commands Read online

  “Kellerman, it appeared, was a former worker for Black Stefan and had betrayed his plans. The Marquisa said that as heir apparent to the throne it was his duty to lead an army against Black Stefan and the Communists. He hinted that the irregularities in my funds would be overlooked if I would talk my Colonel into supporting him.

  “I agreed and returned to tell my Colonel. He ordered me to fall in with the Marquisa’s plans. The Marquisa made me his aide-decamp.

  “On the night of the fifteenth His Grace, the Duke Johann, attacked and took us by surprise. Our men were beaten back from the bridge and the New Town. At dawn His Majesty’s forces took the Fortress. The Marquisa and a small company of officers, of which I was one, took possession of the Cathedral Square. The Marquisa believed that if we kept the reinforcements from reaching His Majesty in the Fortress we could yet win back all we had lost.

  “When His Highness attacked us, the Marquisa and his officers slipped inside the Cathedral. His Grace, the Archbishop, was already there. He begged us to leave as our presence might induce the attackers to turn guns upon the Cathedral.

  “The Marquisa seemed very much disturbed, and as we gathered at the altar, demanded of each of us what he should do. Two of us counseled him to surrender, but the very thought of doing so drove him into a rage inspired by fear. His Grace had remained by the door. All at once he threw down the bar and pulled it open.

  “His Highness stepped inside followed by his men. The sight appeared to drive the Marquisa almost insane with fear. He raised his revolver before any one could prevent and shot towards the door. Whether the shot was meant for His Highness or His Grace I do not know.

  “When His Highness called upon us to surrender the second time, we overpowered the Marquisa and advanced to receive His Highness’s terms.

  “This I swear to be a true account of what happened in the Cathedral. I am making this statement in spite of the warnings of Colonel Grimvich and in the presence of witnesses.

  “(signed) KARL VON LITZ.”

  “This is the statement made before you, Colonel Grimvich?” asked Johann again as he finished reading.

  “It is.”

  “Thank you, Colonel. Does the Defense desire to question the witness?”

  “We do.”

  “Colonel Grimvich, before you accepted com- mand of His Majesty’s Foreign Legion, what position did you hold?”

  “I had the commission of Brigadier General in the Republic of San Pedro.”

  “Are you what is known as a soldier of fortune?”

  “Since the defeat of the White Army of Russia I have been a professional soldier.”

  “As a professional soldier, your services are sold to the highest bidder?”

  “I am loyal to the man who pays me, of course.”

  “Did you, before you accepted service under His Majesty, approach the Marquisa Cobentz for a commission?”

  “The Marquisa made me an offer before I came to Morvania.”

  “Did you accept it?”

  “I did not. I did not care for the proposition he made me.”

  “So you accepted His Majesty’s commission?”

  “I did.”

  “Did you, while fighting in South America, learn various methods of teaching unruly prisoners to answer your questions?”

  “I have never used torture or any other methods of coercion with prisoners.”

  “But you know of such methods,” persisted the lawyer.

  “Any man in my profession does.”

  “This statement was made in the presence of five witnesses?”

  “It was.”

  “Why is it that all five witnesses are officers either in the Foreign Legion or in other regiments of His Majesty’s army?”

  “When the prisoner desired to make a statement, I summoned the five nearest officers as witnesses.”

  “That is all, Colonel Grimvich.”

  The Lords were stirring restlessly in their seats, and Cobentz’s smile grew wider with every question. The Defense was devilishly clever, thought Michael Karl. If they, the Royalists, should lose, their prestige would be gone forever, with Cobentz and his lawyer making them out a bunch of torturers and liars. Michael Karl understood what Urlich Karl had said at lunch for the first time.

  They must win their case and win it not on the battlefield. The time for that was past. But win it in the Court so that the power which Cobentz represented would be broken and discredited forever. A legal victory would have more weight in the outer world than a hundred charges in the Cathedral Square.

  The five witnesses of the prisoner’s statement were summoned and gave brief testimony, and then the prisoner himself was brought in. He was a slim little chap with a smudge of black mustache on his upper lip and the carriage of a horseman. He repeated his statement and denied emphatically that Grimvich had used any force in obtaining the statement or that he had been bribed. His Colonel appeared to corroborate the story of the missing funds.

  It was growing dark and the footmen had turned on the concealed lights in the ceiling of the hall. Michael Karl shifted in his seat trying to ease his stiffness and wondered how the King could sit there so alert and still. Urich had warned him that it might last until midnight for there could be no more recesses. Urich, himself, was sitting on the steps behind Michael Karl. No aide-de-camp could stand at attention through all those hours.

  Johann was taking frequent sips of water from a glass on the table, and his lazy voice was growing husky. Every once in a while a chair in the galleries would creak as some one shifted his weight.

  “I summon the Marquisa Cobentz,” said Johann hoarsely at last. There was a sudden tension in the air. Cobentz would have a lot, a great lot to explain.

  Cobentz remained seated. His lawyer arose and for the first time he was uncertain in manner.

  “The Defense refuses to testify,” he answered slowly. Urich reached up and clutched Michael Karl’s arm.

  “We’ve got them,” he said with a little crow of pure delight. “We’ve got them.”

  The King leaned forward. “Your refusal to testify, although allowed by law, may harm your case,” he warned.

  “He’s giving him every chance,” Urich whispered.

  Cobentz looked uneasy, but his lips still smiled stonily. He shook his head at the black gowned lawyer.

  “We still refuse, Your Majesty,” the lawyer answered, “but we thank Your Majesty for your graciousness in warning us,” he added and there was reluctant admiration in his voice.

  “Are there any more witnesses to be called, Your Grace?” asked the King.

  “Two, Your Majesty.”

  Michael Karl sat up. There was a note in Johann’s tired voice— Was he going to spring the surprise that his bearing had hinted at all day? The others in the hall seemed to feel it too, and Cobentz straightened in his chair while his lawyer’s wigged head went up like a hound’s on the scent.

  “Heinrich Gottham,” Johann called. A youngster in a wolfhead tunic stepped confidently forward. Michael Karl recognized him as the wolfman who had brought him the Royal Standard just before the taking of the Cathedral.

  “In what capacity were you present at the taking of the Cathedral?”

  “His Majesty sent me with a message to His Highness. I joined His Highness’s command.”

  “How were the officers in the Cathedral armed when they surrendered?”

  “With sabers.”

  “Did any of them carry a revolver like this?” Johann picked up a long-barreled gun from the table behind him.

  The wolfman shook his head. “No. They had sabers and that was all.”

  “Were there any other arms found in the Cathedral after the surrender?”

  “Yes. One of the officers told us that when he and the others overpowered Cobentz they had dropped his revolver by the altar. We later found it there.”

  “Is this the gun?” Again Johann held out the revolver.

  The wolfman looked at it. “It is.”
/>   “Will you swear to that?”

  “Yes. The gun had a small red streak, near the grip, on the barrel.”

  “When Cobentz was surrendered by his men, was he armed?”

  “No. They had bound him.”

  “Does the Defense desire to question the witness?”

  The lawyer at the table shook his head.

  “Professor Rudolph Stadlitz.”

  A small, stooped man who short-sightedly blinked at the world through thick glasses shambled forward.

  “What is your position in Rein, Professor Stadlitz?”

  “I have charge of the Police Laboratories.”

  “An hour ago you sent me a message saying that you had some important evidence. Will you give it now?”

  The Professor began in his thin, cold voice. “The bullet which killed His Grace was fired from that gun.”

  There was a distant rumble like the sea. People in the backs of the galleries were standing to see and hear the better.

  “Every bullet that is fired bears the signature of the gun which fired it. The bullet taken from the body bears the signature of that gun. Another bullet was fired from it this morning and compared with the one which killed, and the marks on their sides were identical.”

  “Were there any finger prints on the gun?”

  “There were many. Around the barrel was a group of confused and smeared prints but on the butt there were two very fine ones.”

  “Whose prints are they?”

  “The prisoner’s.”

  “Does the Defense desire to question?”

  Again the lawyer shook his head. He looked decidedly unhappy, and Cobentz’s brazen confidence had quite disappeared.

  Johann turned to the throne. “There are no more witnesses, Your Majesty.”

  “We have them,” exulted Urich in a whisper, “We have them on toast and they know it. Look at Cobentz.”

  Michael Karl looked. The sometime revolutionary leader had slumped in his chair like a pillow whose plump feather stuffing had leaked away. His face was as greenish-yellow as it was when the Cathedral surrendered.

  “The Defense may speak,” ordered the King.

  “They’ll make a try of it,” prophesied Urich. “But they’re done and they know it.”

  The lawyer for the Defense did make an elegant speech. But for the testimony of the Professor which he could not explain away, he might have won.

  Johann for the Crown made no long speech but contented himself with repeating the evidence of the Crown point by point. When he had finished, he turned to the table and sat down for the first time in hours. The King arose and, stepping down, took the peeled willow wand from the table.

  “My Lords,” his voice was very clear, “what is your verdict?”

  Reading from a large book he called them one by one, beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest. One after another they arose and, placing their hands over their hearts, answered: “Guilty by my honor!”

  As the steady “Guilty” rang out, Cobentz writhed in pure fear. His pasty face was such a nasty sight that even his own counsel turned from him in disgust.

  At last the youngest Lord seated himself again among his billowing robes. The King hesitated and then asked again, “Do you declare, My Lords, that this man is guilty?”

  With one voice the Lords answered, “We judge that he is.”

  The King stepped back up on the dais holding aloft the willow wand. Then he snapped it cleanly. The hall was so quiet that the popping snap reechoed faintly. And then there was a great sigh as if every one beneath that vaulted roof had breathed deeply once.

  “As in the days of old when the Duke’s Justice sat beneath the tree, so now do we break the willow wand, for the protection of a pleader for justice is no longer yours. Your fellow Lords have judged you guilty of treason against our person and foul murder. Thus on the twenty-fifth day of this month you shall be taken forth and hanged by the neck until you are dead and—May God have mercy on your soul!”

  Cobentz lurched to his feet and stood swaying, then with a dreadful yammering cry he fell forward into the arms of his guards and they, staggering a bit under his weight, took him away.

  Chapter XVI

  Michael Karl Attends A Coronation

  “Thanks to His Grace the revolutionists are distinctly in the soup,” exulted Urich as he watched Michael Karl consume a late but very hearty breakfast. Urich was a great deal more than an ordinary aide-de-camp. Since the hour when the King had called him into the forest hut and presented Michael Karl as his future commander, he had made himself guide, guard, and, best of all, friend.

  Michael Karl thought that without Urich to coach him he would never have been prepared for this day’s duties. For what they had fought and schemed for had come at last, and this was the morning of Urlich Karl’s coronation day. Michael Karl ate a piece of buttered toast thoughtfully.

  “Then we have succeeded?”

  “The American Minister and the Representative of the Throne of Great Britain will attend the services in the Cathedral and present their credentials at the first audience to-night. We are, to borrow one of His Majesty’s American expressions, decidedly sitting pretty.”

  “I shivered in my shoes before Johann sprung his surprise,” admitted Michael Karl playing with his orange peel, an old trick of his. When he caught himself doing it he looked out of the long window with a trace of a frown. The last time he had done that was in the house on the Pala Horn when he was just a fugitive and a secretary and Ericson was—Ericson, not a remote and sometimes rather terrifying person whom one called “His Majesty.” Michael Karl sighed and dropped his napkin on the table.

  “Well,” he turned to Urich, “what is the bad news? What part in this show am I slated for?”

  Urich stood up and brushed the wrinkles out of his tunic with a careful hand. He had a passion for being neat. “I thought,” he answered slowly with a mischievous gleam in his brown eyes, “that the Chamberlain informed Your Highness yesterday of your role.”

  Michael Karl rumpled up the smoothness of his hair with an impatient hand. “He mentioned some rot about my wearing armor. I’m not going to wear anything that I have to use a can opener to get out of and that’s flat.”

  Before Urich could answer, one of the powdered footmen, a ghost of the impressive but vanished Kanda, opened the door with polished smoothness and announced in his low voice:

  “His Excellency, the Chamberlain, with His Highness’s coronation robes.”

  Urich winked at the worried Michael Karl as the fat little man, a Jan of the nobility, entered with fussy pomp, a small train of footmen and at least one valet in his wake. He bowed very low to Michael Karl, favored Urich, whom he disapproved of, with a brief nod, and gave a stream of orders as to how his helpers’ precious loads were to be disposed of.

  “If Your Highness will be so kind,” he said at last to Michael Karl. The valet at his signal held up a suit of soft white doeskin made to fit tight to the body. Michael Karl stared at it in bewilderment, he had no idea that he was to be officially introduced to Rein as a sort of an Indian. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  In spite of all his protests, over the leather jerkin and leggings went fine chain mail, supple as silk and light of weight. Golden spurs were snapped on his heels and a silken surcoat dropped over his head to be fastened with clasps of gold on the shoulders. Last of all, Urich girded him with a jewel-studded sword belt whose sheath contained the ponderous two-handed weapon of the Middle Ages.

  “Well,” Urich stepped back to survey their handiwork, “I must say that you make a romantic figure. Here,” he took Michael Karl by the arm and led him over to face the full-length mirror on the dressing room wall, “take a look at yourself, Sir Gareth.”

  Michael Karl looked. It was as if one of the recumbent figures in the Cathedral, who marked the tombs of the crusading knights, had come to life. Only, thank goodness, his chain mail was decidedly lighter. He hoped frantically that it wasn�
�t going to be a hot day.

  Thinking of that possibility, Michael Karl turned to his aide-de-camp.

  “I hope,” he said viciously, “that you’re doomed to something like this too.” He indicated the mail and surcoat weighted down with his sword.

  Urich lost his grin. “I am,” he said dismally as he departed to dress.

  Michael Karl paced nervously back and forth, leaving long scratches on the polished floor as he went. For five hundred years or more the Princes of his House had left similar scratches on the floor of that room in Rein Castle. He was slowly but surely losing what little nerve he possessed.

  He stepped to the balcony window-door and looked down upon the city. The color of flags, flowers and banners flashed through the darkness of the centuries-old buildings. Rein was clad in her gala dress to-day. Even though it was yet very early, he could see the mass of moving heads struggling for places along the Avenue of the Duke where the coronation procession was to pass on its way to the Cathedral.

  This then was the end of adventuring. After Urlich Karl received his crown, he, Michael Karl, would be free to go. But somehow he no longer desired to leave Rein’s frowning Fortress and crooked streets. He watched the scene below a bit wistfully.

  “Your Highness is ready?”

  Michael Karl turned a bit stiffly on account of his mail. Urich stood within the doorway. Like Michael Karl he wore leather leggings and a leather shirt covered with a short coat of mail. A short sword and dagger hung from his metal studded belt and a smooth helmet covered his head. He might have been an illustration out of Quentin Durward. Resting on his hip he carried a great visored helmet with three plumes, yellow, red, and black, waving from its crest.

  “I don’t have to wear that too, do I?” demanded Michael Karl in some dismay, surveying the helmet.

  Urich laughed. “No, I have to carry it. It’s just for show. The Court is waiting, Your Highness,” he ended formally.