Chapter XVII: The Beginning of the Coronation

The morning of Barbara's coronation broke soft and sunny; it seemed almost impossible that anything disastrous could happen on a day so fair.

Prior to setting off for the cathedral the princess entertained her ministers at breakfast. She herself occupied the head of the table, with Radzivil at her right hand and Zabern at the left. Dorislas was absent in command of the ten thousand appointed to guard the frontier.

So far no hostilities had occurred. Successive couriers arriving at intervals of every half-hour continued to report that the Russian forces still preserved their position of the previous afternoon,--a position about a mile distant from the Czernovese border. There was no movement on their part suggestive of coming invasion. The more hopeful of the ministers, therefore, began to pluck up courage, and tried to believe that the Czar's army had really mustered for the customary autumn manoeuvres, and not for the purpose of preventing the coronation.

Zabern did not share in these hopeful views; none knew better than he did the magnitude of the peril that overhung Czernova. In reporting the cardinal's death to the princess Zabern had suppressed some details, and hence Barbara was unaware that a dove had flown off to Zamoska bearing a letter, which, if it should reach the Czar's hands, would most assuredly result in her dethronement. From very pity he withheld the fact.

"She will learn it soon enough," he thought. "Why add to evil the anticipation of it?"

During the course of the breakfast many comments were made upon the murder of Cardinal Ravenna.

"A terrible and mysterious affair!" said Radzivil, greatly shocked by the tragedy, and completely ignorant as to its authors. "The physicians assert that there are no less than eighteen wounds upon the body."

"Five less than Julius Cæsar received," commented Zabern irrelevantly.

"You offer a reward, I presume, for any information that shall lead to the detection of the assassins?" said the premier to Zabern, who, as Minister for Justice, was head of the department that took cognizance of crime.

"Not a rouble note," replied Zabern bluntly.

"That's contrary to your usual practice."

"Why should I offer a reward when I know who the--ah!--assassins are? There were three of them to the deed."

"You know them? And yet they have not been seized!"

"I have weighty reasons for deferring their arrest."

"Delay may end in their escape."

"The chief assassin cannot escape from me. The police know him and have their eye upon him whenever he walks abroad. I can put my finger upon him as easily as I now lay hand upon this coat," said Zabern smiling, and suiting the action to the word.

Radzivil was about to press for further enlightenment, but Barbara checked him.

"The subject is distressing to me," she said with a look that confirmed her words.

"Your Highness, I crave pardon," said the premier.

Though Barbara fully believed that no one had ever merited death more than Ravenna, yet the deed lay heavy on her mind. Not even the thought of the many maidens, her own sister among the number, sacrificed to the unholy desires of the cardinal, could blind her to the fact that in sending Zabern to slay him she had committed a crime.

No such scruple, however, troubled the conscience of the marshal, whose only regret was that he had not despatched the duke likewise, while it lay in his power to do so.

Ere coming to the breakfast he had witnessed the execution of the deputy Lesko Lipski and the spy Ivan Russakoff with the feeling, however, that it was but sorry justice to shoot the agents, while the more guilty principal was at large.

"You have no tidings of Bora, I presume?" said Barbara turning to the marshal.

"None--so far, your Highness," replied Zabern. "But, oh!" he added with mingled surprise and satisfaction, "here comes one who should be able to explain the mystery of the duke's escape."

All eyes had turned towards a door which had just opened, giving ingress to a file of soldiers; they were under the command of Gabor, and escorted in their midst Miroslav, the governor of the Citadel.

"Your Highness," said Gabor, advancing and saluting, "I came upon the governor in the act of departing from the city. Thinking that you might like to interview him, I took the liberty of arresting him on my own authority."

"You have done well," replied Barbara; and then turning a cold face upon the governor, she said: "What defence have you to make, Miroslav? You received orders to exercise special vigilance over your prisoner, the Duke of Bora, and yet he contrived to escape."

"And with my connivance, so please your Highness."

"Traitor!" said Zabern, starting up, and half drawing his sword, "you have signed your death-warrant."

"Your Highness, hear my story ere condemning me. At eleven o'clock last night I was informed that a man stood at the gate of the Citadel demanding an interview with me. I sent to ascertain his name and business. 'Carry that to your master,' said the stranger, pencilling a few words on a card, and enclosing it within an envelope. On opening the envelope this is what I beheld."

Here Miroslav drew forth a small card, which Gabor conveyed to the princess, who started at sight of the words that were written upon it. She handed the note to Radzivil, whose face immediately expressed the utmost consternation. He tendered the card to Zabern, who in turn passed it to the minister beside him, and thus amid a death-like silence it went the round of the table.

And the words of the note were these,--

_You are herewith commanded to release the Duke of Bora.
Delay will mean death to you._

_NICHOLAS PAULOVITCH
Czar of all the Russias._

"When I saw that signature," continued Miroslav, "I gave orders that the visitor should be instantly admitted. On entering the room he commanded my servant to retire, and then when he had withdrawn the cloak from his face I saw that it was indeed the Emperor Nicholas. 'Have you given command for the release of my kinsman?' were his first words. Vain was it for me to protest that I could receive such an order only from the princess herself. 'I am the suzerain of Czernova, and therefore above the princess,' was his reply."

"Ha!" said Barbara, with a flash of her eyes. "And you acknowledged his suzerainty?"

"Your Highness is great, but the Czar is greater. Who is like the mighty Nicholas?"

"No one on earth, Miroslav; for which fact may the saints be praised!" remarked Zabern.

"Your Highness, I was so awed by the emperor's majestic presence, by his authoritative manner, by the thought of his empire and power that I could not do otherwise than obey him. The marshal himself would have done the like, had he been in my place."

Zabern repudiated the statement with a scornful laugh.

"I brought the duke to the presence of the emperor, and the two withdrew, going I know not where. Fearing your Highness's displeasure, I myself quitted the Citadel, intending to fly from Czernova. I throw myself upon your Highness's mercy."

"It was your duty, Miroslav," returned Barbara, "to retain your prisoner, even at the hazard of your life. In taking orders from a foreign sovereign you have committed an act of treason. Gabor, see that the governor be kept in the palace here till our return from the cathedral. We will then decide as to his punishment."

Gabor saluted, and the troop retired with their prisoner.

"The Czar secretly in our city!" murmured Radzivil, in a tone of dismay. "What is his object?"

"No good to our rule, count," replied Barbara, quietly.

The secret visit of the Czar to Slavowitz, and his act in releasing the Duke of Bora, had so sinister an aspect that the hopeful ones among the ministry returned at a bound to their previous state of doubt. Were they about to witness a coronation or a dethronement? Was the Czar preparing to intervene in the ceremony? Would the solemnity in the cathedral end amid the mockery and the triumph of the Muscovite faction? With a feeling of pity they glanced at their fair young ruler, who for her part showed no sign of fear in this great crisis. They recognized that if she should fall, she would fall with dignity.

The breakfast ended, and Barbara retired to dress for the coming ceremony.

Outside, in the wide extent of ground fronting the Vistula Palace, the long line of the procession was slowly forming under the direction of marshals and heralds.

Part of the procession consisted of a sort of historic pageant; its members, attired in costumes that recalled every period of Polish history, carried trophies and emblems, calculated to stir the patriotic enthusiasm of the populace.

In this pageant Katina Ludovska bore part, by far the most charming of the maidens present, clad as she was in a dainty corselet of silvered mail, above a dark-blue satin skirt flowered with gold. Mounted upon a beautiful bay, she bore proudly aloft a famous historic memorial, a standard captured by King Sigismund at the taking of Moscow, its white silken folds distinctly stamped with the impress of a bloody hand, a ghastly testimony to the struggle that had once raged around it.

In riding along the line of the procession, Zabern stopped and addressed a few words to his affianced.

"Not pasteboard and tinsel, I trust?" he said, with a smile, and referring to the sword by her side.

"Real steel," replied Katina, exhibiting the blade.

"Good! 'Tis well to go armed on such a day as this. We shall be fighting for our liberties ere long."

"Death before submission," replied Katina, with a brave light in her eyes that made Zabern love her the more.

The din caused by the marching of soldiers, the neighing of steeds, the rolling of carriage-wheels, the snarling of silver trumpets, the crisp, sharp word of command floated upward to Barbara's ears as she sat undergoing her toilet at the hands of her ladies. She wondered, as she had wondered many times that morning, how it would all end, for assuredly no coronation could ever have been heralded with more sinister auspices than her own.

Partly with a view to picturesque effect, and partly that the populace along the line of route might have a clear and uninterrupted view of their princess, it had been decided that she should proceed to the cathedral mounted upon a white palfrey.

Barbara had been somewhat disposed at first to shrink from this exposure to public gaze, but had finally consented to the arrangement, won over by the argument that as the people would assemble for the express purpose of seeing her, it would be a disappointment to them to catch but a glimpse of their ruler through the windows of a state-coach.

To Radzivil and Zabern had been given the honor of riding side by side with the princess, though the marshal cared much less for the honor than for the opportunity afforded him of exercising guard over her person, since he was not without apprehension that some fanatic Muscovite might attempt her life during her progress through the streets.

The procession was timed to start at ten o'clock, and as the hour drew near Zabern and the premier rode to the entrance of the palace, and there waited the coming of the princess.

The marshal was mounted upon a magnificent black charger, and made a splendid figure, for he wore the old picturesque Polish costume, and sparkled with diamonds from plume to spur.

"And to think," he mused in the interval of waiting, "to think that Captain Woodville has not yet arrived."

"Captain Woodville?" exclaimed the premier with a start. "Surely the princess is not recalling him?"

"No, but I am; and his non-arrival is a grave matter for us. Were the duke still in the Citadel, Woodville's absence might be borne with equanimity. As it is--but here comes the princess. I must defer my explanation."

Punctually at one minute to ten, Barbara appeared at the entrance of the palace, and descending the marble stairs, she mounted her white palfrey with the assistance of Radzivil.

Zabern at the same moment waved his plumed cap, and immediately a salvo of artillery from the roof of the palace proclaimed to the waiting populace that the princess was about to set off.

Amid the roll of drums, the crash of music, and the pealing of bells from every steeple in the city, the great brazen gates of the palace gardens were flung wide, and there rode forth the head of the procession, the Blue Legion, their lances flashing brightly in the sunlight.

As they moved out, the sight that met their eyes was sufficient to stir the blood of the most sluggish. The centre of the road was empty, but the sidewalks were literally paved with human heads. Every window, balcony, and roof was alive with spectators. All Czernova was there, every citizen apparently determined to find a place somewhere along the line of route. Resolved to obtain a view somehow of their youthful sovereign, men could be seen clinging in mid-air to steeples, pediments, cornices, wherever foothold could be found. From the ground below to the sky above nothing but human faces.

"Sword of Saint Michael!" muttered Zabern. "A pity all have not been trained to use the rifle. We might, then, make good defence, even against the Czar's one hundred thousand."

As soon as Barbara made her appearance, she was greeted with frenzied cheering. Roar after roar rent the air. Rolling along the boulevard, and mounting upward to the sky, the sound was almost loud enough to be heard in the distant camp of the Czar. So great was the enthusiasm that the troops lining the streets could with difficulty prevent the populace from pressing forward to touch her.

If any dissentients to her rule were present along the line of route, they were careful to dissemble their feelings. But who could dissent from a maiden so sweet and fair? Dressed simply in white silk, she looked every inch a princess. Her dark hair was without covering, save for a slender gold diadem, from which there flowed behind a veil of diaphanous lace.

Tears glistened in eyes that had not been wet for years.

Aged men who had seen the great Kosciusko carried off from the fatal field of Macicowice; veterans who, like Zabern, had marched with Napoleon to the fall of Moscow; fugitives from Siberian mines, with bodies scarred by the iron fetters they had worn; Polish patriots, survivors of the ill-starred rising of '30--all were gathered that day in the Czernovese capital to acclaim one destined, so they believed, to revive the ancient empire of Poland. Many a salute did Zabern give, as from time to time he caught sight among the crowd of the face of some old familiar-in-arms.

Barbara, however, though smiling sweetly upon all around, was inwardly unhappy. A secret voice seemed to whisper, "Deceiver! this tribute of loyalty is offered to Natalie Lilieska, the lawfully born daughter of the Princess Stephanie, and not to the Barbara of doubtful origin."

It was too late now to recede from the _rôle_ she had assumed, and so amid shouting multitudes she rode on, her progress from the palace to the cathedral being one continuous scene of triumph, unmarred by anything of a hostile character.

"It is here, then, that we are to look for the Czar's _coup_?" muttered Zabern, as the cavalcade drew in sight of the stately Gothic cathedral of Saint Stanislas, from every tower of which silver-tongued bells were pealing jubilant carillons.

Those in the procession whose duty or privilege it was to enter the cathedral, made their ingress by various doors to their appointed places; the less fortunate remained drawn up in order around the edifice.

As Zabern stood upon the broad flight of steps, carpeted with crimson velvet, and surveyed the vast crowds around, his attention was suddenly arrested by the sight of a horseman at the far end of a boulevard which opened upon the cathedral square. As this avenue was kept clear by the military for the return journey of the princess, there was nothing to impede the rider's progress, and on he came with flying rein and bloody spur.

"A courier! a courier!" cried the people, instinctively divining that he was the bearer of weighty tidings. "What news? What news?"

To their cries, however, the rider remained mute.

"By heaven, it's Nikita!" muttered the marshal.

As the quivering steed drew up at the foot of the cathedral-stairs, Zabern sprang to meet his orderly.

"Now, marshal," said the latter, "play the Roman, and fall on your sword's point, for the end has come."

"A good many men shall fall by this blade ere it reaches my heart," growled Zabern. "What new trouble do you bring?"

"The chanting of the monks hath ceased; or to be plainer, the Russian standard is floating over the Convent of the Transfiguration."

"Speak you from hearsay merely?"

"I speak of what I have seen."

"The cardinal laughs at us from hell; this is the first result of his letter. The Russian invasion has begun, then? Pretty generalship on the part of Dorislas to let the enemy steal thus upon his rear! And where are the monks, that they have not fired the powder-magazine, and sent themselves and their foes flying into the air? They have sworn an oath to do it rather than let the convent fall into the hands of the enemy. There would not now have been one stone upon another if old Faustus had been there."

"It was when on my way back from the camp of Dorislas that I caught sight of the Muscovite standard on the tower of the convent. I immediately rode near and perceived the bayonets of the Paulovski Guards moving to and fro along the battlements. And who should be in command there but Baron Ostrova, the duke's former secretary--he whom the princess banished from Czernova. I at once galloped back to our camp with the news. Dorislas instantly set off with a thousand men; he has invested the convent; his artillery are ready planted for shelling the place, and he now awaits orders from you."

"'Orders'?" repeated Zabern with contempt. "My orders should be, 'Consider yourself cashiered for incompetence.' How many Russians do you suppose there are in the convent?"

"I cannot state the number, marshal--sufficient evidently to overpower the monks, and to hold the place in case of siege."

"And the rest of the Czar's forces?"

"Are abiding quietly in their camp on the other side of the frontier."

"Gladly would I come, Nikita, to direct operations, but that I dare not leave the side of the princess, for there is more danger to be apprehended here than before the convent. Dorislas shall see me with all speed as soon as the coronation is over. Meantime here are his orders."

And the marshal wrote upon a slip of paper: "Maintain cordon till my arrival. Do nothing unless attacked.--ZABERN."

Taking the note, Nikita rode off, his breakneck pace along the boulevard again exciting the wonder of the populace.

"This holding of the coronation while the foe is on Czernovese ground might seem a jest to some," murmured Zabern; "yet if, as I am hoping, the ceremony should tempt the Czar to come forward personally to oppose the princess's rights, then all may yet be well. Since Nicholas has chosen to make an armed raid upon our territory, let him not complain if he should find himself a prisoner of war. And with the Czar in our hands we shall be masters of the game."

On turning to enter the porch, Zabern was met by the chief court official, to whom had been committed all the arrangements connected with the coronation.

"Marshal, the cathedral is full to overflowing, and yet there are hundreds at the northern porch clamoring for admittance, and all provided with proper orders."

"Very bad arrangement on your part."

"Not so, marshal. The tickets issued did not exceed the seating accommodation."

"Ha!" said Zabern, alive to the significance of this statement; "you mean that there are several hundred persons within who have no right to be there?"

"That is so, marshal. The whole body of the northern transept is filled with men who, I am certain, have gained entrance by means of forged orders. Among these men I recognize many Muscovites, not ruffians from Russograd, but Muscovites of the nobler and wealthier class."

"So!" murmured Zabern. "Their plot of the barricades having been forestalled and thwarted, the enemy are resorting to new manoeuvres."

"Some are in uniform, and some in court dress, and hence they are armed with swords. If we should attempt to expel them there will be opposition, tumult, possibly bloodshed. What's to be done?"

"At present, nothing. Let us, if possible, avoid a riot. If they choose to remain orderly, good; but if it be their object to oppose the coronation by armed force, then their blood be upon their own heads."

"And the multitude at the northern porch?"

"Will have to remain there, I fear," replied Zabern, shrugging his shoulders.

He passed from the porch to the interior of the edifice.

The scene within fairly dazzled the eye. The rich dresses of the ladies, the splendid military costumes of the men, formed a picture glowing with color; on all sides were to be seen the sparkle of jewels and the gleam of scarlet and gold.

As Zabern slowly made his way towards his allotted seat in the choir, he did not fail to notice certain mocking glances cast at him by the occupants of the northern transept. Mischief was evidently the object of their assembling; but inasmuch as they were inferior in number to the Poles present, and as a word on his part could instantly set in motion the military both inside and outside the cathedral, Zabern viewed this Muscovite gathering without any alarm.

The chancel, elevated considerably above the general level of the cathedral-pavement, was the cynosure of all eyes.

On the altar were the sacramental vessels, the princely regalia, and the document supposed to be the original Czernovese Charter, never publicly exhibited, except at a coronation.

To the left of the altar was an oaken chair in which the princess would sit, till the time came for her to take her place on the throne.

Respectively north and south of the altar, and each vying with the other in splendor of vestment, stood the two ecclesiastics who were to officiate in the ceremony, the Greek Archpastor Mosco, and the mitred Abbot Faustus; the latter a good man, and a stern old patriot, quite capable, as Zabern had said, of blowing himself to fragments, if Polish interests should require such sacrifice.

While Zabern from his place was intently studying the occupants of the northern transept, under the belief that the Czar was concealed somewhere among them, a small door in the left wall of the choir opened, and Barbara entered, bare-headed, and clothed in her coronation-robe,--a vestment of purple velvet, bordered with ermine, and gleaming with pearls. Four ladies attended her as train-bearers.

Awed by the solemnity of the occasion, she was very pale, and with the glory of the sunlight illumining her figure as she moved forward with slow and majestic pace, she seemed to her adherents afar off like a fair vision from another world.

According to the prescribed ritual, the first part of the ceremony consisted in reading a chapter from one of the Four Evangelists, a duty which by previous arrangement fell to the lot of Mosco.

As soon, therefore, as Barbara had taken her place in the oaken chair, she glanced at the archpastor as a sign for him to begin.

Now great importance was attached both by the Poles and the Muscovites to this reading of the Gospel. The lection was neither appointed beforehand nor chosen by the ecclesiastic officiating; it was left to the guidance of chance, or rather, as the Czernovese themselves believed, to the will of the Deity. The lector, following a usage of mediæval times, was required to open the holy volume at random and to read the first chapter upon which his eye should happen to light. It was believed that the portion thus hit on would contain something applicable to the person crowned or even prophetic of the character of the reign.

As Mosco with dignified bearing moved to the lectern, he passed close to Zabern, whose quick ear instantly detected a peculiar sound beneath the archpastor's brocaded and jewelled cassock,--a sound which the marshal could liken only to the trail of a steel scabbard.

"As I live the fellow is armed," he muttered. "A holy prelate with a sword beneath his gown! There's treason here."

Zabern's first impulse was to spring up, and tearing off Mosco's gown, to expose him to the assembly as an armed conspirator.

It might be, however, that, like himself, the archpastor anticipated that there would be rioting and fighting at the coronation, and hence he had as much right as others to carry arms for his own defence.

Zabern therefore refrained from violence, but his keen eyes were attentive to every movement of Mosco.

On the brazen lectern, which stood upon the edge of the choir, directly facing the assembly, lay a volume of the Four Evangelists, closed and clasped.

Mosco unfastened the clasp, and then evidently wishing to be thought clear of all suspicion of designedly choosing his lection, he turned away his head, and with nimble fingers threw open the volume; and yet in spite of this, Zabern was impressed with the belief that the Greek prelate knew beforehand at what page the book was open. He had not forgotten that this reading of the Gospel had been selected by Mosco himself as his part in the coronation-ceremony, and he recalled the archpastor's peculiar smile at the time of his choosing the office. Was the mystery about to be solved?

Turning his eyes upon the opened volume, Mosco began to read. The lection obtained by this _sors sacra_ proved to be the opening chapter of the Fourth Gospel.

With a curious anticipatory interest the assembly listened to the reading, prepared to catch at any verse which might be twisted into some allusion to the princess and her reign.

Mosco, in a magnificent bass voice and with majestic delivery, read through five verses. Then, making a momentary pause, he resumed, changing his tone to one of peculiar emphasis,--

"'_There was a man sent from God whose name was John_--'"

"And there he is!" cried a voice that rang like a clarion all over the cathedral, the voice of Feodor Orloff; "there he is! John, Duke of Bora. People of Czernova, listen to the voice of God."

Scarcely had the words been spoken when the Duke of Bora was seen emerging from the northern transept.