6
Carabins and Musketoons

The Lower Town was in turmoil. In every alleyway, every workshop, every house the talk was of nothing but the Princess’s disappearance. Early that morning the rumour had made its way down the terraced gardens, crossed the Citadel’s surrounding wall, and spread through the whole city like a lava flow. Now nothing could contain the clamour rising everywhere.

‘What a terrible thing!’ wailed the young women.

‘Our Princess must be found!’ cried the men.

‘It’s a conspiracy,’ suggested the more suspicious among the Galnicians.

‘Or some kind of practical joke?’ wondered the doubters.

While servants searched the Citadel, the Coronador had sent his guards to look for his daughter. Armed troops patrolled the streets and bridges, combing the city right down to the harbour.

Only Orpheus ignored the general hubbub. Nothing, not even an earthquake, could have taken his mind off his personal cataclysm just then.

He had been prostrate in his armchair since the previous night, unable to move, with his father’s shipboard logbook on his knees. He hadn’t opened it yet. He didn’t have the strength.

His father’s astounding revelations had submerged him in a whirlpool of contradictory emotions. He felt humiliated and angry, but at the same time relieved and confused. All these feelings assailed him in no particular order, making him wonder if he might be losing his mind. How else could you react when you realised that your whole life had been built on an enormous lie?

Lying in front of the hearth, Zeph didn’t move either. There were some scraps of bread on his rug. During the night, seeing that his master wasn’t taking any notice of him, he had gone to the kitchen to look for something to eat. Now, replete and drooling slightly, he was sleeping the sleep of the just.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door.

Dazed, Orpheus raised his head. He wasn’t very sure where he was or what the time might be. However, as the knocking came again and louder, and imperious voices ordered him to open his door, he got to his feet. The leather-bound book fell to the ground with a thud.

He found soldiers standing outside his house, brandishing carabins and musketoons with flared mouths.

‘Let us in!’ said their leader. ‘By order of the Coronador!’

Without waiting for a reply, the soldiers entered the house, their hobnailed boots hammering on the floor. Under the incredulous eyes of Orpheus they lifted the lids of chests, turned over the cushions in armchairs, opened all the doors and searched cupboards. They even checked that nothing was hidden under the carpet. Rudely woken from his slumbers, the old St Bernard showed his teeth, but as his hindquarters prevented him from charging at his attackers he merely changed position. Finally the men stuck their carabins up the chimney, and when nothing but soot came down they went upstairs.

On the first floor, their leader narrowed his eyes, looking suspicious. ‘That bed’s neatly made up,’ he said. He turned to Orpheus, who was following the men from room to room, unable to make out what they were after. ‘Where were you last night? Looks as if you didn’t sleep here.’

Orpheus murmured huskily, ‘I must have dropped off in my chair. What exactly are you looking for?’

The soldiers exchanged suspicious glances. The whole city knew about it. Was this young man laughing at them?

‘Carry on searching!’ their leader ordered, pointing his musketoon at Orpheus. ‘I’ve got my eye on him!’

The others took hold of the mattress, lifted the base of the bed, emptied the wardrobe and drawers. This unceremonious search acted on Orpheus like a cold shower, bringing him back to his senses.

‘I have nothing to hide!’ he said indignantly. ‘What you’re doing is against the precepts of Tranquillity and Harmony!’

‘The precepts of Tranquillity and Harmony are suspended until further notice!’ replied the soldiers’ leader. ‘Until the Princess has been found!’

Orpheus gave a start of surprise, but he didn’t ask for explanations. Through all these years of peace the soldiers’ musketoons and carabins had been in disuse, mere decorations on guardroom walls. But this time there was a whiff of real gunpowder in the air.

After a while, when they had found nothing, the soldiers left, but not without threatening all kinds of reprisals if Orpheus had been hiding anything from them.

‘And seeing as you’re so keen on the divine precepts,’ added their leader, ‘sleep in your bed next time! A night in an armchair is anything but tranquil!’

Then he went out, laughing uproariously and leaving Orpheus in disarray. His house looked like nothing on earth – or rather like the mirror image of his mind, all confused and topsyturvy.

Now that he was fully awake, Orpheus heard the cries and lamentations out in the streets. So it was true: the Princess had disappeared! How could such a thing have happened? When he went up to his bedroom, intending to tidy it a bit, he saw the washerwomen gathered on their rooftops opposite. They weren’t at work as usual, but standing on tiptoe, trying to see what was going on in the Citadel.

Orpheus quietly opened his window.

‘They’re draining the water from the basins!’ cried one of the women.

‘Oh, Holy Harmony!’ moaned another. ‘Let’s hope the Princess hasn’t drowned!’

‘Look, there’s the Archont himself!’ said the eldest washerwoman, pointing to the west facade of the palace. ‘He’s questioning the servants.’

‘They’re in trouble,’ commented another woman. ‘The Archont must be dreadfully anxious!’

‘Look over there!’ called the youngest woman. ‘There’s some horse-drawn carriages coming!’

‘That’ll be the Prince of Andemark’s party,’ confirmed a tall, thin washerwoman. ‘What a disaster! Oh, just think of the ceremony being called off!’

‘If the Princess isn’t found we’ll all be put to shame,’ sighed the eldest. ‘Dear me, I see sad times ahead.’

Orpheus had heard enough. He closed his window again.

Sad times ahead. That last remark had a strange effect on him. It was as if, by some unfortunate chance, his own and his country’s destiny had been thrown off balance together in a single night.

Suddenly there was more knocking on his door. Orpheus felt perspiration run down his back. Had the soldiers come back to arrest him? Did they suspect him? In his overheated mind, everything was happening so fast that he even wondered if the truth about his father might have reached the Coronador’s ears.

He ran downstairs and went to get the poker from the hearth. If the soldiers wanted to take him away they’d have to fight him first! Orpheus approached the door and flung it open abruptly, brandishing his improvised weapon.

But there was no soldier on the doorstep, only old Berthilde, waiting there transfixed, with a black scarf over her grey hair.

‘Holy Tranquillity!’ she cried. ‘Whatever are you doing?’

Orpheus quickly put down his poker and mumbled an excuse. The old servant’s face was sad, and he knew at once why she had come.

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

Berthilde nodded. ‘He died in the night,’ she breathed. ‘Only a few hours after you left.’

Orpheus stood there for a moment in the fresh air with his arms dangling. He shivered, and sneezed twice. Since last night, in spite of the mild summer weather, he couldn’t seem to get warm.

‘What’s to become of us?’ wailed Berthilde, choking back her sobs.

Orpheus looked gravely at her; he had known her all his life, yet he felt as if he were seeing her for the first time. At that moment he realised that there was no one left for him to rely on. He had never made friends, his father was dead, and now the great gulf created by that lie lay between him and Berthilde.

‘I had a word with the Holy Diafron,’ the old woman told him. ‘Nothing’s certain now, what with the incidents in the Citadel – the Coronador’s forbidden all ritual ceremonies. But I managed to arrange for the funeral to be held all the same. It won’t be for a few days, not until things have calmed down.’

Orpheus nodded. With the precepts of Tranquillity and Harmony suspended, the whole organisation of the country was upside down.

‘What about everything else, though?’ Berthilde persisted. ‘What’s to be done with the house? And the furniture, the books, the mementoes? Of course your father has left you everything.’

‘I don’t want it,’ Orpheus calmly replied.

‘But … but there’s his fortune. It’s a large one. Who’s going to deal with it?’

‘Do what you think best with it,’ said Orpheus. ‘Keep it all if you like.’

Poor Berthilde had difficulty in keeping back her tears, but she did not reproach him. ‘You’ll come to the graveyard?’ was all she asked.

‘Tell me when it is and I’ll be there,’ said Orpheus. ‘Leave me now.’

He sneezed again and then closed his door, leaving the old woman to return to the Upper Town in her grief.