The Tin Princess

  "Oh, German. Strong accent. Fine voice, though. Like a cello at dusk... You'll take a cigarillo? Try these. New line. Come from Las Palmas. Glass of wine?"

  Chapter Ten

  THE MAP ROOM

  During the next few days, a whirlwind seemed to possess Adelaide. She hardly slept. She confirmed the Count in his Private Secretaryship, she created the position of Interpreter-in-Chief for Becky, she made Countess Thalgau a lady-in-waiting; she summoned the Chief of Police and demanded to know exactly what his plans were for catching the assassin, and ordered him to report daily to Count Thalgau on the progress they were making; she oversaw the arrangements for King Rudolf's funeral; she saw all the Palace domestic staff, from the Steward down to the scullery maids, and told them what she expected of them; she planned the first in a series of luncheons to which, after the first period of mourning, she intended to invite leading citizens; she walked bare-headed behind the gun carriage that took Rudolf's body to the Cathedral; she took two hours of furiously hard instruction in German every day, and made really extraordinary progress; she asked the British Embassy for their copy of the Army and Navy Stores Catalogue, seized on it with glee, and ordered every single game, from Animal Misfitz to Zelo, by way of Blinking Dandy, Puffette, Tipple-Topple, El Teb, Guessodor, Cape to Cairo, Wibley Wob, and so on. Following that, she came down with what the Royal Physician called nervous prostration, and slept for twenty-four hours without waking.

  Very soon, the new structure of the Royal Household began to take shape. The Chamberlain, Jim's enemy Baron Godel, couldn't be moved; but he could be by-passed. All Adelaide's decisions were relayed to the Palace and the world outside through Count Thalgau instead. Her personal circle was very small: it was limited to Becky and the Countess, who, if she wasn't the liveliest of companions, was at least safe, as Adelaide said. Becky tried her hardest to learn chess, and made some progress; and, more successfully, made the acquaintance of a chambermaid who'd heard that the stable cat had recently produced kittens. They were sent for; one was chosen, and presented to Adelaide as her Kitten-in-Waiting. It was pitch black, and hence lucky. Adelaide called it Saucepan.

  As Adelaide's German improved, Becky became less of an interpreter and more of a counsellor, and began to learn alongside the Queen. Adelaide's reading was still uncertain, so they practised on official memoranda, learning together about the output of nickel from the Karlstein mines, about the Customs negotiations with Germany, about the projected tax revenues.

  Before long, Adelaide decided to speak to the Chancellor. He was the leader of the Senate, the holder of the highest political office in the country: not that that meant very much, since he hadn't been elected democratically, but appointed by King Wilhelm. He was an elderly man called the Baron von Stahl, and when he met Adelaide, it was educational for both of them. He didn't know how to treat her at first, and patronized her flirtatiously. She soon put a stop to that.

  "I understand that Queen Victoria used to enjoy being flattered by Mr Disraeli," she said to him severely. "That's because she was an old woman. When I'm an old woman you can do the same to me. In the meantime I'm not in the mood, because I'm in mourning, and in any case there are plenty of young men about who'd flatter me better than you're doing. If you want me to respect you, tell me honestly about the Senate, and leave out the soft soap."

  Becky had to render that accurately, because Adelaide's German was quite good enough to follow what she was saying, and with the Queen's narrowed eyes on one side and the Chancellor's pop-eyed amazement on the other, she had an uncomfortable couple of minutes.

  The old man wasn't a bad sort; he soon gathered his wits and spoke more respectfully, and gave the Queen a full and fair report.

  And it soon became clear what the most pressing problem was, as if they hadn't suspected already. Both Germany and Austria-Hungary wanted to swallow Razkavia whole, not for a few vineyards, a dozen castles and some sulphur-springs, but for the nickel in the mines: the Devil's Copper. The mighty steelworks at Essen were hungry for it, and Emperor Franz-Josef didn't want them to have it in case it gave Bismarck and Emperor Wilhelm an advantage. The need to find a settlement was so urgent that it outweighed even the internal questions, such as the vine-blight in Neustadt, the falling revenues from the Casino in Andersbad, and the need to find new investment capital for the Railway Company.

  Adelaide listened carefully and thanked him. As soon as he'd gone she decided to visit the nickel mines, and see what all the fuss was about. Brushing aside Count Thalgau's objection that it was unseemly, that mourning made such visits inappropriate, and so on, she ordered the Royal Train made ready for a visit to Karlstein, and one bright autumn morning, off they chugged the forty miles or so towards Andersbad at the other end of the country, and then up the branch line to Karlstein.

  All the miners and their families were at the station to greet them. The red carpet and the speech of welcome were familiar to her by this time, and the speech she made in reply was very prettily delivered. It was curious, Becky thought, how she'd never managed (never tried) to alter the broad cockney of her native language; when she spoke English her whole nature seemed to relax into a salty coarseness; but when she spoke German, she stood a little straighter, she carried herself more gracefully, she seemed to radiate a quality for which the only word Becky could find was not German but French: chic. She was very chic that morning in Karlstein, and the crowd admired her greatly.

  The Chief Engineer who showed them around was a curly-haired young man called Herr Kopke, who soon found that her interest was genuine, and that he could explain things without having to simplify as for a half-wit. When she insisted on going underground, though, he was nonplussed.

  "But, Your Majesty, we had not prepared for an underground visit - the conditions are hardly those which--"

  She flashed her eyes at him. "If the mine is safe, I shall come to no harm. If it isn't, I want to see what my subjects have to put up with."

  Her answer was all round Karlstein within the hour, and she got a bigger cheer as she waved goodbye later than the one that greeted her appearance on the Rock of Eschtenburg.

  Becky didn't see a thing. Unknown to herself, she'd been claustrophobic all her life, and as soon as the little line of trucks they sat in moved out of the sunshine and into the mountain she felt herself gripped with terror, and shut her eyes tight. Once they were out in the daylight again, Adelaide looked at her severely.

  "I hope you were making notes of all that," she said. "Sulking about in a mood. You ought to show some interest and encourage people."

  The Chief Engineer bowed very low and kissed her hand when they left, and Adelaide gave him a long, sultry look that made him blush; so Becky had something to tell her off about, too.

  Before they left that part of the country to go back to Eschtenburg, Adelaide wanted to visit the castle of Wendelstein, where Walter von Eschten had finally defeated Ottokar II. The castle lay about a mile from Andersbad, up a path through the forest. Count Otto's estate was not far away, and courtesy would normally have required that he appear and pay his respects, but he was thought to be out of the country, on his way to hunt big game in East Africa.

  The old castle of Wendelstein was a ruin now; only the Tower was still intact, but the entrance was choked with rubble. As Adelaide wandered over the grass, with the Count explaining how Walter had enticed the Bohemians on to the broad meadow between the castle and the edge of the forest and then charged them repeatedly with the knights he'd kept in reserve, and then how the Bohemians, their morale broken by months of Walter's guerrilla tactics, broke and fled, Becky looked over the peaceful scene with powerful emotions. Her country; her history...

  The warm autumn sun laid gold over it all. Insects buzzed in the grass; a man was swinging a scythe in the distance; from the railway line through the forest some way below, a train whistled. It was time to go.

  As Becky told her mother in the twice-weekly letter, this was the strangest time she'd ever known. Sh
e and Adelaide had to live through the accreditation of every new official, the speeches in honour of that retiring general or this visiting princeling, the dedications, the openings, the receptions, the services of memorial and thanksgiving... There were times when Adelaide wept tears of exhaustion and rebellious fury, and turned on Becky as if it were all her fault. Then Becky had to remind herself that she was a loyal citizen of Razkavia, and that this was her Queen speaking. Mostly, it worked.

  And all the time there was the contrast between Adelaide the cockney strumpet and the noblemen who treated her with such profound respect; there was the charm with which she inveigled every guest into a game of chess, and the urgent passion with which she played it, the increasing skill and mastery of tactics she showed; there was the gradual growth in her of decision, authority, knowledge. How could Becky help but be fascinated?

  Finally, the diplomacy began; Adelaide invited the Great Powers to send representatives to Razkavia for talks. The officials were appalled.

  "Your Majesty, it is unthinkable -" said the Foreign Secretary.

  "Too late. I've thought it."

  "But there are protocols--"

  "Good. You deal with the protocols and I'll deal with the business."

  "But the official channels--"

  "Official channels are for keeping officials in."

  She wouldn't be told, and still the objections came fluttering up. Finally she lost her temper, and threw an inkwell, shrieking in a way that didn't need translating even if Becky had known the German for pernicated procrastinators and gotch-gutted Goths. The officials bowed hastily and hurried out, and invitations were sent that very afternoon.

  Meanwhile, Jim and the Richterbund were spending every moment they had in the search for the Spanish actress. He had told the Count about the woman journalist and Herr Egger's flat, and the Count had relayed that to the Chief of Police at their next daily meeting; but Jim had little faith in the police, who lacked a detective branch entirely. Spiked helmets, gold epaulettes and maroon uniforms showed that the Razkavian police mind was focused more on splendour than efficiency.

  Jim had little doubt that the Spanish actress was still in the city, though he couldn't have said why he was so sure. Karl, Gustav, Heinrich and the others frequented the cafes and beer-cellars of the Old City, they talked to the porters at the railway station, they hung about the stage doors of the Opera House and the two theatres, they pestered the hall-porters of every hotel, and got nowhere.

  In the end it was Jim who got the first clue, and that was indirect. He found it, of all places, in the Steward's Pantry in the Palace, which formed a sort of common-room for the upper servants. Jim found servants well worth cultivating, and they liked him, too, for his lack of side and his salty conversation.

  He was in the Steward's Pantry one evening when the Under-Steward came in shaking his head.

  "What's the matter?" someone asked.

  "That Godel. He wants a maid especially detailed to look after some old girl he's brought in and put in that empty room in the attic corridor, number fourteen. I can't spare a maid just for that! And if I say we'll need more money to pay the wages of a new girl he'll take it out of ours, damn his eyes."

  "Who is she?"

  "God knows. Some old biddy from Schloss Neustadt, I think. No, I'm wrong: Ritterwald..."

  These were Royal Family estates, Jim knew. Why would Godel be taking such a close interest in an old retainer? He pricked up his ears.

  The Under-Steward was saying to a footman, "Look, I know it's late, and I know you're off duty, but I'm telling you to do it. She hasn't got much - just a trunk and a couple of boxes - take 'em up there and don't argue."

  "Is this for the old biddy?" Jim said. "Let me do it. I always wanted to be a footman."

  The servant was only too pleased to let him, and the Under-Steward merely shrugged and hastened out to arrange for a supper tray to be sent up. Jim slipped on the footman's coat and waistcoat and arranged a napkin hastily into a stock around his neck.

  "Never mind the breeches," he said, "I'll say they're in the wash. She'll have to see my lovely legs another time. Where do I go?"

  The servant told him, and he hastened along the bare lower corridor to the stable entrance, where an impatient carrier was unloading a wicker trunk from the back of a carriage, and handing down a battered dressing-case to the old woman on the steps.

  "Here we are, Granny," Jim said. "Letme give you a hand with that trunk. What you got in here? Lead weights?"

  In fact it was very light; the old woman evidently had few possessions. He took the trunk up to the room the Under-Steward had mentioned, where someone had already laid a small fire and left a candle.

  "Here we are," he said. "There'll be a bit of food coming up in a minute, as soon as they've stirred the maids up. All right for you in here?"

  The old woman looked around and gave a little nod. She was a thin, straight-backed old person, with a brisk bird-like manner and bright red cheeks.

  "Thank you, dear," she said. "Very nice. I shall be comfortable in here."

  "What's your name?" said Jim. "I like to be respectful to my elders."

  "Yes, I can see," she said. "My name is Frau Busch. Who are you?"

  Jim had felt a little shock, like that of electricity.

  He thought swiftly. "Jakob," he said. "That's my name. Anything you want, Frau Busch, you just ask for me. Here's the maid coming. Enjoy your supper!"

  He left the room and lingered for some time on the stairs, trying to think what it was that had given him that little electric jolt. Where had he heard her name before?

  Then he had it. Gustav, on the night before the Coronation, telling what he'd discovered in the newspaper files about Prince Leopold: the one witness to his death had been a huntsman called Busch.

  And it had happened at Ritterwald, where this old lady had come from.

  Next day, Becky made a discovery too.

  Whenever she had a spare hour or so, she liked to go to the Map Room. Old King Wilhelm had been keenly interested in geography - had travelled widely in his youth - and he'd collected with a passion. The Map Room held drawer upon drawer - wide, shallow mahogany drawers with bright brass handles - of maps and charts from all over the world, and a vast table for examining them on, together with various globes both terrestrial and celestial, a little Gregorian telescope on an equatorial mounting, and sundry items of navigational equipment in baize-lined rosewood boxes.

  The room was dusted and polished, but hardly anyone went there any more. Becky used it as a retreat, liking the quiet, the smell of beeswax polish, the precision of the maps and instruments.

  On the afternoon of the day before the Talks began, she spent a few minutes looking through the telescope, but couldn't get it to focus. Then, idly, she thought she'd look for a map of London, to see if it showed the street she lived in; but it occurred to her that there wasn't a catalogue. How did the old King look for a map of West Africa, say, if he wanted one?

  Her tidy mind fretted at the question, and then she remembered that in the little office that led off the Map Room, there was a cabinet she hadn't examined. Perhaps that was it.

  She opened the door and went in. Unlike most other doors in the Palace, this one wasn't hung very well, and swung shut slowly behind her, so that when (after a few minutes' searching through the index cards that were indeed in the cabinet) Becky heard voices in the Map Room, she realized that the incomers didn't know she was there.

  She had no intention of hiding, but it hardly seemed necessary to cough or stamp or drop a book on the floor and let them know she was there, for surely their purpose was as innocent as her own. Indeed, one of the voices, she soon made out, was the Count's. But it had a tone in it she'd never heard before: a sort of half-curt, half-anxious urgency. The other man spoke in the precise pedantic way of a narrow schoolmaster. By the time Becky had heard a little of what they were saying, it was too late to stop listening.

  "I understand, Herr Bang
emann, that you have a rare talent," the Count said. "I'd like to see it displayed, if you wouldn't mind. I have a document here." The sound of a drawer being opened, a stiff paper being unfolded. "How long do you need for the first page?"

  "Only as long as to read it through. Shall we say a minute?"

  "Very well. I'll time you."

  Silence, in which Becky couldn't help counting. Evidently she went more slowly than the Count's watch; she had reached fifty-five when the Count said, "Time's up."

  The paper rustled again, and Herr Bangemann cleared his throat daintily, and began to speak.

  "A Report on the Expedition to the Headwaters of the Orinoco and Rio Bravo Rivers, carried out under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society of Razkavia, 1843-44..."

  It went on for some time. It was clear that he was reciting it from memory.

  "Remarkable," said the Count. "Word for word. Now, how much can you carry in your memory?"

  "Some not inconsiderable amount," said Herr Bangemann modestly. "I have not had occasion to commit more than sixty pages of foolscap to memory, but I am tolerably certain that I could, if required, carry more than that."

  "And you need just one look at it?"

  "That is correct. I had a blow on the head when a child, and the gift arrived, as I suppose, in recompense."

  "Extraordinary... Now, I gather you're a family man."

  "I have five daughters, Your Excellency. All good, clever girls. But, ah, undeniably, they are a strain on the purse. The salary of a clerk..."

  "Quite so. Well now, Herr Bangemann: I need someone with your particular talent. This is of the nature of a private, not to say secret, commission..."

  He broke off. Becky's heart leapt; had he heard her? But she heard the sound of the outer door opening and closing again, and the Count went on more quietly: "As I say, a highly discreet commission. No one is to know of this, you understand."

  "You may rely on me entirely, Count Thalgau."

  Their voices had sunk to a murmur. Becky found herself straining to hear, and then blushed: she'd never eavesdropped before, and wasn't enjoying it. The men in the Map Room spoke for a further minute or two, but she heard nothing clearly except, at one point, the clink of coins.