Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys

  At 2:00 the bombardment began, and this time it was far greater than anything the enemy had ever seen before. Destruction rained into the city from every side until it was difficult to imagine that there was anything or anyone left within. It continued steadily for about an hour and then, at 3:00, stopped.

  A troop of cavalry under Nicolo’s command began to circle the walls, feinting here and then there, drawing fire and keeping the enemy’s defenses spread over the entire perimeter of the city. At 3:20 the attacks began, pressed forward as if each one were to be the only one. In and out they went, back and forth and around, leaving the defenders confused and exhausted. At 3:45 their work was done and all drew back. For a moment the smoke and dust cleared as Claude stepped forward to see. Except for the sound of his footsteps everything was quiet. Every eye was now on him. He paused for a moment and then raised his sword high over his head.

  In an instant, a thunderous explosion shook the ground and a great section of the wall burst apart as if an enormous fist had smashed through it. Stones, mortar and men toppled over each other and when the debris settled, a large gap remained in the city’s defenses. Towards it, every man and boy now charged.

  “Death to the tyrant!”

  “To victory!”

  “For Elena!” they shouted as they rushed towards the opening. The defenders hurled themselves into the breach and both armies collided in battle. Claude led the main assault, slashing his way forward, while other groups scrambled up and over the mounds of stone to gain the walls with ladders, ropes and even their fingernails. Back and forth they swarmed like two huge beasts in a deadly embrace. Again and again Claude’s arm rose and fell and again and again his shield rang against blows intent on cutting him down.

  4:00 . . . 4:10 . . . 4:15 . . . 4:25 . . .

  4:40. The battle raged on, with neither side gaining a foot nor giving an inch. Claude fought in a fury, forgetting all else, rallying his men and leading them time after time into the enemy line.

  4:45 . . . 4:55 . . . 5:10 . . . 5:25 . . . 5:30 . . .

  5:45, and still they fought—until at last the enemy began to yield and draw back, exhausted and defeated. Claude waved his soldiers into the city and in they leaped. Then before doing so himself, he climbed to the top of the battered wall and looked out once more at all that he had fought for and wanted so much.

  “Tomorrow it will be changed,” he thought. “The city will be ours and Elena will always smile.” Then just as he was about to shout “Victory!” himself and enter the city to claim it, the museum bell once more informed him of the time. That too would have to wait for tomorrow.

  Claude didn’t sleep at all that night. He tossed and turned and paced, was up at seven, dressed at eight-thirty and out by nine-thirty. It was Saturday and the museum opened at ten, but he was at the doors by nine-twenty-five. They were closed and locked, of course. For a few minutes he fidgeted and waited in hopes that someone would let him in, then turned and raced down the steps and around to the side where he found the small door which had been left open for the guards and porters. He tiptoed along the dark service corridor and up the back stair to the main floor. Then, looking carefully to be sure that no one would stop him, he rushed across the floor to the alcove. There was the picture and Elena—but there also, on the floor directly below the painting, was a bucket and a mop with its handle resting against the frame. As he stood in the still-darkened corner, one of the porters walked past slowly and without looking to one side or the other reached down, picked them both up, and carried them away. There where the mop had stood was a small clear pool of liquid.

  Claude was stunned. “They were not tears?” he asked softly, but there was no one to answer. What else was there to believe? “Was it only a dream?”

  He looked at Elena’s face, but now it seemed neither happy nor sad, and the river was only a ribbon of paint and surely no one had ever crossed that bridge, and the victory—what nonsense!

  He sighed, and stood quietly for a moment. “But what does it matter?”

  He turned and left the way he had entered, but had he stayed a few more minutes he might have seen the museum director, who had also arrived early that morning, summon the porter to him. And if he had been a little closer he might perhaps have heard him say how displeased he had been to see a mop resting against one of the paintings. And then also he would most probably have heard the porter apologize for not knowing better, for as he explained most reasonably, it was only his first day at the job.

  But Claude had gone, and what has happened to him since is something we do not know. It is also hard to say for certain whether or not the events which took place really happened at all, for the one obscure chronicle which might have recorded them disappeared long ago in another and not dissimilar battle, and who else is there to tell us? Whether Claude ever returned to the museum is again a question about which we can only wonder, but it is still there, and if one day you should happen to be in the vicinity you must pay it a visit. Make it a point to see the Dutch collections and the English landscape painters and, of course, the Chinese porcelains. And if you have a moment, stop and look at the “Young Lady in a Make-Believe Landscape,” for she too is still there, in the alcove. Notice the beautiful modeling of her face, the careful balance of the composition, the great sense of space and depth in the background. Look also for the deftly controlled brushwork and the artist’s great understanding of nature. But please—do not look for tears.

  Good King RNP paced dejectedly in the throne room of his palace. That is, if you could call it a palace or for that matter even a throne room. In fact, there was also some confusion as to why he was called “Good,” and beyond that the name RNP itself seemed to raise more questions than it answered. Nevertheless he paced, and as to his dejection there was no question at all, for RNP was the ruler of what was surely the most destitute and miserable kingdom in the world—that is, if you could call it a kingdom. It certainly didn’t look like one.

  The streets were a sea of mud, unpaved, rutted and very difficult to use, except during the rainy season, when they were impossible to use. The buildings (those that were still standing) were in a state of complete disrepair—roofs leaked, floors sagged, doors jammed, and they hadn’t been painted for so long that the original colors had faded past memory. The public fountain had long since run dry, the market shed had collapsed, and the stable roof had disappeared some time back, in a high wind. The weather was almost always too cold except when it was too hot, or too wet or too dry, and the poor farmers had a terrible time scratching a living from the barren, rocky soil. Melons would grow only to the size of grapefruits, grapefruits were no larger than oranges, the oranges were scarcely bigger than lemons, the lemons were merely the size of cherries, and the cherries were so small and bitter that everyone preferred to eat the melons.

  As for RNP himself, things were no better. He was a small man with sad grey eyes and doubtful feet who wore hand-me-down clothes and a hand-me-down expression and no one paid any attention to him at all. For him there were no cheering crowds, no speeches, no victory parades, no medals to give, no babies to kiss, no foreign envoys with precious gifts—in short, nothing. In fact most people had forgotten who he was entirely, and because of his shabby appearance he was often asked to do odd jobs or run errands. Even the dogs were impolite. So he spent most of his time at the palace.

  But the palace was hardly more than a ruin. Its one main room served as the royal sitting room and bedchamber, kitchen and pantry, parlor, exchequer, banqueting hall, council chamber, gallery, grand ballroom, post office, and storeroom for the royal cabbages, which grew, of course, no larger than Brussels sprouts. All that distinguished it from the other buildings were the chipped and faded letters tacked up over the door which spelled out GOOD KING RNP. But why RNP? And then again, why Good? It is certainly about time that someone asked.

  Many years ago, when the old king died, he had left his son as heir to the throne—a pale disinterested boy with no illusions
. On the day of his coronation, when the royal storage chest was opened, it was discovered that along with the cast-iron crown and a somewhat moth-eaten robe, the only official letters left that had not been gnawed by the rats or ruined by the damp were an R, an N and a P. Since the kingdom was as poor then as it is now, there was no money available to buy others and so, after a hurried conference, the boy, who had been brought up to expect the worst, became RNP. (There was a strong sentiment for NRP, but a majority of citizens felt that it sounded a bit foreign.) The GOOD and the KING were added several years later when they were found quite by accident at the bottom of the moat. From that time on, this is how it had been and as far as he knew this is how it would always be.

  And so he paced and sighed, and sighed and paced. And on occasion, he would stop and gaze longingly at the distant mountains and wonder if somewhere in the world it was possible that there was something better, for he had no way of knowing that the same dry and dusty wind that stung his cheek would rise up afterwards into those mountains, freshen itself on the backs of the clouds—gently draw perfume from the tall pines and high grasses—throw off its cares, bouncing gaily from peak to valley to peak, and then drop softly to the broad green plain on the other side and lightly rustle the rich brocaded draperies in the palace of King Magnus the Abundant.

  King Magnus sat contentedly in one of his nine royal dining rooms, eating breakfast. He nibbled daintily at each of the forty-three delicious courses prepared by the royal chefs and served with grace and elegance by the twenty-seven footmen and waiters carefully trained for just such employment. The bright morning sunlight streamed into the room, pausing only to acknowledge the leaded windowpanes before leaping joyfully from the gold and silver plates to the jeweled goblets, to the crystal chandelier, along the delicately carved moldings which lined the walls and ceiling, and finally spilling in great golden splashes onto the polished marble floor. Magnus smiled. If ever a king had reason to smile, he did. And then he laughed, and if he had reason to smile he surely had as much reason to laugh, for it would be hard to imagine a wealthier king or a richer and happier kingdom. From the palace itself if you were to look in any direction as far as the eye could see, and then from that distant point look again as far, and then look once more, you would only begin to understand the extent of this favored realm.

  It was a land of bountiful orchards, fat farms, busy workshops and happy people, and in order to make certain that everything remained so, the seasons themselves seemed to be in competition to see which could be most splendid and helpful. The summers were warm and bright and busy. The autumns, amber and ample. The winters, crisp and sharp and full of steamy laughter, and the spring, shy and gay, smelling of recent rain. The roads were smooth and broad and they dipped and rose lazily with the easy rolling ground, curving gracefully back and forth through fields and woods as if reluctant to hurry through the lovely countryside before coming, finally, to the city itself.

  And what can be said of the city? That the sun shining off its bright tile roofs made each street look like a necklace of precious jewels could be seen by anyone who had ever come down the road on a fine morning. That flowers hung at every window and that everything was freshly scrubbed and brightly painted and then scrubbed and painted again was obvious, surely, to everyone. That the streets were made of the finest cut stone, fitted with such skill that it was possible to run the length of any of them with a full glass of water and not spill a drop could be proved by anyone who had run the length of one with a full glass of water. That the palace contained eight hundred and twelve rooms, three thousand four hundred and fifty-eight windows, and forty-seven balconies was easily verified by anyone who cared to count, and that King Magnus at that very moment had just stepped out onto one of those balconies to greet his subjects was more than confirmed by the deafening shouts and cheers of the crowd below.

  Magnus the Abundant was loved, as his father had been loved and his father before that and his father before that and back for a thousand years. Everywhere he went the crowds gathered to cheer him on his way or on his return, or to listen enthusiastically to a speech or a holiday oration. Banners were waved, songs sung, parades held, games staged, and always on everyone’s lips was the name MAGNUS, MAGNUS, MAGNUS—or as many citizens of longer memory preferred, MAGNUS, MAXIMILIAN ALEXANDER (after his father), ROLAND, BENTIVOGLIO (after a distant relation who had distinguished himself in a long-forgotten war in a manner that no one could recall), HILARY, MANFRED, CHRISTOPHER, APOLLODORUS (the contribution of a maiden aunt who was fond of the classics), NICHOLAS, ADRIAN, FREDERICK, DIEGO ACOSTA Y RODRIQUEZ (after an uncle who had been lost once in Spain), AUGUSTUS, ALFRED, SEPTIMUS (after a seventh cousin), BENEDICT CHARLES, GODFREY, LLEWELLYN, GILBERT, EDWARD, RALPH—which was, of course, his full name and could be shouted only during long parades or on afternoons which were not overly busy.

  And so he stood on the balcony, as broad as his smile and as tall as his troubles were short. The ermine-trimmed cape he wore fell softly from his shoulders and the ruby and emerald crown sat on his head as lightly as only rubies and emeralds can. At his right hand was the beautiful Queen Goode and to his left, sturdy Prince Paragon and little Princess Ultima who, it was said, was so gentle and knowing that she could hear the flowers grow. Again and again he raised his arm and waved. “How happy,” he thought, “how indescribably happy.”

  Meanwhile, though, many miles and many moods away, King RNP still paced in his one squalid room.

  “How sad,” he was heard to mumble, “how utterly sad.”

  “It could be much worse,” answered a melancholy voice from the corner. It was Goom, the Prime Minister.

  Now, while Magnus had scores of ministers, generals, admirals, ambassadors and servants, RNP had only Goom, who was the most miserable and pessimistic of all his subjects. His mother’s name had been Gloom and his father’s name Doom and since he was at least as unhappy as they were together, he was named for them both. Besides being Prime Minister he was also Foreign Secretary, Keeper of the Royal Seal, Minister of the Interior, Game Warden, Commander-in-chief of the Army and the Navy, Postmaster General and everything else, for each of which he was paid the same salary—nothing. It was also Goom’s house which was the palace and so he lived there with the King, who, as was only proper, cooked and cleaned to earn his keep, and whenever RNP complained or grew too disconsolate Goom was there to cheer him up.

  “It is never so dark that it can’t get darker,” he would grumble, or, “Whatever happens today is always better than what will happen tomorrow.”

  “There is no one who has as little as I,” RNP would reply bitterly while clearing the dishes or mopping the floor, for it was this suspicion which made his unhappiness so much the sharper. “Somewhere there must be a king who has more!” And then Goom would again express his doubts, and as Minister of Finance go back to figuring how much money they didn’t have in the treasury or as Royal Meteorologist return happily to predicting three weeks of continuous rain.

  But today, in some mysterious way, it was different. A deep and irrepressible yearning had come over RNP. It had begun a long time ago as a small spot of uncertainty which drifted only occasionally into his thoughts, but now had grown and spread until he could think of nothing else. Back and forth and back and forth he paced with it, until suddenly he stopped and said in a soft voice, “I shall take a trip and see.”

  Goom looked up, and the surprise that appeared on his face was only matched by the dismay in his heart.

  “I must find out what lies beyond those mountains,” RNP continued, and Goom knew from the tone of his voice that he meant to do just that. No amount of argument could discourage him. Cries of “Nonsense!” and “Under no conditions!” were hardly even heard. Assurances of disaster or, at best, calamity couldn’t change his mind. No guarantees that he would be “Eaten by bears!” “Waylaid by bandits!” “Drowned in a cataract!” or “Buried in an avalanche!” had any effect whatsoever, and the very next morning they lef
t.

  RNP had packed all his possessions in an old handkerchief and Goom, who was going along only to protect the King (since who knows how much worse the next king would be), brought little more than a frown. As Minister of Transportation, though, he was able to find a small, rather smelly mule which naturally he rode while the King walked slowly behind. As they carefully picked their way along the muddy street, RNP paused to wave goodbye to the few uninterested citizens they passed.

  “Farewell, loyal subjects, I shall return. Farewell, farewell.” But as usual there was no response—except from a small boy who inquired softly, “Who’s he?”

  And so they traveled, under a grey and cheerless sky, and within a few hours their own poor kingdom had disappeared behind them. Only the mountains lay ahead. When they had finished their lunch of slightly stale bread and barely moldy cheese, RNP unfolded the old map he had found stuffed in a crack in the palace wall. He studied it carefully for many minutes, and when he finally made his decision and said “Here!” his finger was pointing almost exactly at the spot where Magnus the Abundant then stood.

  Magnus too was thinking, and amidst all his happy and contented thoughts was one which caused the slightest shadow to cross his mind. “This should not be,” he thought. It was not fitting for him to have grave thoughts. Wasn’t his every wish instantly gratified? Wasn’t there always something new and exciting to do? From early morning when two valets drew his bath (one for the cold water and one for the hot) till late in the evening when the court musicians finished their last lullaby, weren’t all his needs taken care of immediately? Didn’t his chamberlains and ministers and generals assure him constantly that “Things couldn’t be better,” or that “One couldn’t ask for more”? All this was true, but hard as he tried to dismiss it from his thoughts, the doubt persisted—like a weed which, once rooted, can grow in the darkest, most inhospitable places.