For a brief moment, the King the Royal Cousin remained speechless. Then very slowly, as though a great truth had been revealed to him, he said:
“Prudentius has risen from the grave!”
And he commanded that they bring to him from his treasuries a golden crown, bedecked with precious emeralds and diamonds, which his father had won as his trophy in a great battle, after killing with his own hand the king who had worn it. He placed it in a beautifully wrought silver casket, sealed it, and handed it to the High Chancellor.
“Take with you immediately fifty of my best guardsmen and go with them to the Prince of the Fatalists, to whom you are to present this crown together with my swift-footed, snow-white mare; you are to ask him to accept the gifts I send him, the most precious possessions that I have in my treasuries, and to tell him that I seek his alliance and his friendship. Go now!”
XIX. The King the Royal Uncle
IN THE MEANTIME, the King the Royal Uncle, after having toiled and struggled for three years, had managed to raise sufficient armed forces to relaunch his war campaign against his nephew, the King of the Fatalists.
He mounted his best steed, he belted on his great sword; his trumpeters were positioned at the forefront, proclaiming their progress through the land with a triumphant military march.
“Onwards, lads,” he cried out to his soldiers. “We shall stroll our way unopposed straight into the palace of the Regent himself.”
They walked for some few hours.
Gazing at the prairies across which he had retreated vanquished and dishonoured three years earlier, the King the Royal Uncle reckoned that this time, on his intended glorious return, he would be dragging behind him King Witless and the Prince, tied with ropes from the saddle of his horse. And he laughed a satanic laugh, and rejoiced in advance at the shame and tears of his nephews.
“Oh! You shall pay so very dearly for that one victory of yours!” he grunted, menacing the open horizon with his fist.
All of a sudden, however, he stopped short, rubbed his eyes. Then he looked ahead once more, then to the right, after that to the left, pinched his arm hard to see whether he might mayhap be dreaming in his sleep, then rubbed his eyes hard a second time.
“But what has come over me, then?” he said uneasily. “Am I dreaming wide awake?”
He thundered:
“General! ”
The General approached and bowed to the ground.
“Your Majesty?”
“Look ahead and tell me, what do you see?”
“A citadel, Your Majesty.”
“You are as blind as a mole! Summon the Major-General!” said the King crossly.
The Major-General came and bowed to the ground.
“Your Majesty?”
“Take a look around you, there, towards the border, and tell me, what can you see?”
“Citadels, Your Majesty.”
“You are an ass!” yelled the King the Royal Uncle wildly. “An ass and a traitor! Order the Centurion to come here at once, and vanish from my sight!”
The Centurion too came, and bowed to the ground.
“Can you make out that mountain over there?” the King the Royal Uncle asked curtly.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“What is that thing on top of it, a pile of rubble or something of that sort?”
“It is not rubble,” said the Centurion, shading his eyes with his hand, “it is a mighty citadel—”
He had no time to finish. With a sweep of his sword, the King the Royal Uncle had lopped off his head.
Then he turned to his soldiers and shouted to them, foaming with rage:
“What is perched up there, lads, will someone finally tell me?”
And the whole army in one voice cried out:
“A citadel, and farther down another citadel, and farther down another citadel; as far as the eye can see, citadels and more citadels!”
Then the King the Royal Uncle hung his head low on his chest and cried with blind fury.
He sent a reconnaissance party ahead, to see what all these citadels were like. But as soon as the scouts even tried to get nearer, a storm blast of arrows greeted them and drove them to mad flight.
They went farther away, everywhere was the same.
They attempted to pass between two citadels, and from both sides so many arrows flew out at them that half the soldiers were left dead on the spot.
As soon as the King the Royal Uncle saw that he could no longer get through, he bit his hands with such rage, and he filled up inside with so much yellow bile, that he was taken ill again and had to return to his palace.
He remained there for some days, brooding with spite, holed up in his rooms. Then he summoned his High Chancellor and said to him:
“Take immediately ten of the best soldiers in my personal guard, go to the kingdom of the Fatalists and tell the Prince to come to me at once, for I wish to give him in marriage the hand of the Princess, my royal daughter. Go now!”
The High Chancellor left with the ten bodyguards, and went to the kingdom of the Fatalists, where he requested to see the Prince.
They led him to a tent. Sitting on a wooden stool, before a roughly fashioned wooden table, a youth was reading some sheets of paper. From the corner of his eye, the High Chancellor saw with bewilderment that these sheets of paper bore the golden seal of the King the Royal Cousin.
The youth wore white woollen clothes, and differed in nothing from the other soldiers who surrounded him, except for a shabby leather money belt that he wore around his waist; a black stain could be seen spreading across it.
And yet kneeling in front of this youth was an elderly nobleman, richly attired in gold-embroidered robes of velvet, holding a precious silver casket in his hands. With profound respect he was waiting for the youth to finish his reading so he could then present the casket to him.
The young man lifted up his head, and saw the envoy of the King the Royal Uncle.
“Who are you and what is your purpose?” he asked.
“I seek audience with the Prince, the son of the King of the Fatalists,” replied the High Chancellor.
“I am he,” said the Prince. “Now, state your business.”
For all that he was so very simply dressed, there was such nobility in his voice and in the way he carried himself that the envoy of the King the Royal Uncle fell on his knees.
“Your Royal Highness!” he said. “The King your Royal Uncle and my liege has commissioned me hither to bid you come to his kingdom at once, for he wants you to marry his daughter the Princess.”
The Prince’s eyes flashed, but he restrained himself.