The King turned to his son in despair.
“So much the better!” said the Prince with clenched teeth.
“My child! What are you saying! We are losing half our kingdom!” exclaimed the King.
“So much the better!” repeated the Prince more loudly. “Now is the time to hold the wolf by the ears! Now we know the truth, we feel the burn of the whiplash.”
“But they are insulting the throne! The State is as good as lost! There is an uprising in the capital…” grunted the Lord Chamberlain. “They no longer wish to have a monarchy…”
“And who gives a brass farthing about the throne or about the monarchy?!” cried the Prince. “The nation is alive, it is finally awake, and bodily it shall rise, quash the enemies who are trampling the nation’s land! Father, come, now!”
And dragging the King by the arm, he trundled hurriedly down the mountain.
“You, run ahead of us!” he cried to Polycarpus, who was following him. “Go to Miserlix’s workshop, take the weapons that are ready, and bring them all immediately down to the river. That is where I shall assemble everyone.”
Mayhem reigned everywhere. The townsmen were hurling their belongings out of windows, loading them onto carts or on the backs of mules, striving to escape to the safety of the mountains, whereas the villagers were escaping in turn to the capital, there seeking safety.
Everyone had lost their minds; no one knew what they were doing.
“Peace, lads, we have nothing to fear,” the Prince would tell them as he passed them by.
And to the women he would say:
“Go to your houses, and have no fear!”
When he arrived at the square with the King, they saw gathered in front of the barracks a great throng of people, shouting and clamouring for an army. At one of the windows, his hair bristling, eyes bulging, the garrison commander, still wrapped in his blanket, kept screaming back that he had no army, and that they should go and ask for one from the King.
“We have no King. The King has left and has abandoned us. Down with the King! Down with the monarchy!” the throng shouted.
“Oh, do let us go away!” pleaded the King, leaning heavily on his son’s arm. Hear how they abuse us!”
“No!” said the Prince with resolve. “Either we shall die here, or here shall we prevail upon them!”
Making his way through the crowd, he managed to get ahead; he then climbed to the top of the steps reaching the entryway of the garrison tower.
“Countrymen, what is it you seek?” he cried loudly, and his voice was heard clearly, rising strong above the noise, from one corner of the square to the other. “What are you lingering here for, when the enemy is ravaging our land? Have courage in your hearts, lads, and let us all march forward! Follow me! Together we shall drive the enemy away!”
“We have no army! We don’t even have weapons!” cried some in the crowd.
“The army is you! Why do you look for it elsewhere, since you are all gathered here? The tools with which you till your fields will be your weapons and your armaments! In the hands of the valiant, any piece of iron becomes a mighty weapon!”
“We have no leader! The King has fled abroad!”
“Your King is here, among you, ready to lead you into battle!” cried the Prince, pointing to his aged father, who, before the enraged populace, had found once more his ancestral dignity and pride, and was gazing at the angered crowd with arms crossed, his head held high.
“Where is the King? Show us the King!” shouted some.
“Our King has not left? The King is here?” cried out some others. “Then long live the King!”
“If the King is here, ask him first for arms!” called out an angry voice.
“Yes, arms! Give us arms!” repeated more voices.
And the crowd, always ready to follow the last speaker, roared angrily:
“Give us arms! Down with the King! Oust the King and away with him!”
Some, even more brazenly audacious, clambered up the steps brandishing their fists menacingly.
“Give us arms! Down with the King! Oust the King and away with him!” they screamed.
The Prince threw himself in front of his father and with a push sent rolling down a man who was raising his arm to strike at the King.
“When real men have no arms,” he shouted with hot indignation, they go and get them from the enemy; they do not strike out at old men!”
“Here’s to you, my fine lad! Well answered!” sounded a voice.
And the human throng, once again ready to follow the last speaker who had prevailed over it, cried out:
“Here’s to you, fine lad! You lead and we shall follow you! Long live our Prince! Long live the King!”
Wasting no time, the Prince commanded:
“Forwards, then! To the river! There we shall muster our forces, so we may cross to the other side and drive the enemy away! Come on, men! Follow me!”
Exhausted and choking with emotion, the King went up to the garrison commander’s office to rest — while the Prince headed for the river, with the animated crowd shouting and following hard upon his heels.
XIII. Polydorus and Onearm
THROUGHOUT THAT DAY Fright and Turmoil had gone back and forth many times between the two riverbanks, in order to ferry across the villagers from the great plain who were fleeing before the enemy.
When he had brought over the last passenger, instead of marooning his feluccas on solid land and lying in his “chambers” as he was wont to do, the one-armed man set off northwards up the river, pushing his boats with the punt pole.
Illstar the master builder, who was working by the water’s edge, saw him and called out to him:
“Where to, countryman?”
“Secret mission of the State,” replied the one-armed man.
Then he added:
“I am assuming that it is for peacetime that you toil so, master builder?”
“How would you know what I am doing?” asked the master builder.
“Do you think I am blind? You think I can’t see that you are building huge and mighty ships?”
“And by your reckoning, then, these are for peacetime?”
“Of course they must be: you will never finish them afore nightfall; and before the sun has set, our guests will be all lined up across the river.”
The master builder dropped what he was doing and went nearer to the water.
“You know that what you have just said is dead right?” he said earnestly.
“You flatter me, countryman,” replied the one-armed man, going up to the prow and trailing his punt pole behind him.
The master builder was pensive.
“So what do you suggest I do?” he said all of a sudden.
“Build a bridge,” replied the one-armed man.
“A bridge? And do you imagine, then, that a bridge can be built in three hours?”
The one-armed man took his cable and showed it to him.
“With this it can be,” he said.
And pointing at the felled logs piled high on the riverbank, ready to be sawn:
“And with these,” he added.
And he started again on his way, propelling his feluccas northwards up the river and muttering gloomily:
Robbers have taken to the mountains,
Horses will they be a-stealing…
For some time, the master builder remained immobile, following the feluccas with pensive eyes. Then suddenly he slapped his forehead: