Once on a Time Part 3

You may send _one_ Stiff Note and then we will declare war."

"Thank you, your Majesty," said the Chancellor.

So the Stiff Note was dispatched. It pointed out that his Majesty of Barodia, while in the act of taking his early morning const.i.tutional, had been severely insulted by an arrow. This arrow, though fortunately avoiding the more vital parts of his Majesty's person, went so far as to wound a favourite whisker. For this the fullest reparation must be made . . . and so forth and so on.

Euralia's reply was not long delayed. It expressed the deepest concern at the unhappy accident which had overtaken a friendly monarch. On the morning in question, his Majesty had been testing his archers in a shooting compet.i.tion at a distant hawk; which compet.i.tion, it might interest his Majesty of Barodia to know, had been won by Henry Smallnose, a bowman of considerable promise. In the course of the compet.i.tion it was noticed that a foreign body of some sort brushed up against one of the arrows, but as this in no way affected the final placing of the compet.i.tors, little attention was paid to it. His Majesty of Barodia might rest a.s.sured that the King had no wish to pursue the matter farther. Indeed, he was always glad to welcome his Barodian Majesty on these occasions. Other shooting compet.i.tions would be arranged from time to time, and if his Majesty happened to be pa.s.sing at the moment, the King of Euralia hoped that he would come down and join them. Trusting that her Majesty and their Royal Highnesses were well, . . . and so on and so forth.

The Grand Chancellor of Barodia read this answer to his Stiff Note with a growing feeling of uneasiness. It was he who had exposed his Majesty to this fresh insult; and, unless he could soften it in some way, his morning at the Palace might be a painful one.

As he entered the precincts, he wondered whether the King would be wearing the famous boots, and whether they kicked seven leagues as easily as they strode them. He felt more and more that there were notes which you could break gently, and notes which you couldn't. . . .

Five minutes later, as he started on his twenty-one mile walk home, he realised that this was one of the ones which you couldn't.

This, then, was the real reason of the war between Euralia and Barodia. I am aware that in saying this I differ from the eminent historian, Roger Scurvilegs. In Chapter IX of his immortal work, _Euralia Past and Present_, he attributes the quarrel between the two countries to quite other causes. The King of Barodia, he says, demanded the hand of the Princess Hyacinth for his eldest son. The King of Euralia made some commonplace condition as that his Royal Highness should first ride his horse up a gla.s.sy mountain in the district, a condition which his Majesty of Barodia strongly resented.

I am afraid that Roger is incurably romantic; I have had to speak to him about it before. There was nothing of the sentimental in the whole business, and the facts are exactly as I have narrated them.

CHAPTER III

THE KING OF EURALIA DRAWS HIS SWORD

No doubt you have already guessed that it was the Countess Belvane who dictated the King of Euralia's answer. Left to himself, Merriwig would have said, "Serve you jolly well right for stalking over my kingdom." His repartee was never very subtle. Hyacinth would have said, "Of course we're _awfully_ sorry, but a whisker isn't _very_ bad, is it? and you really _oughtn't_ to come to breakfast without being asked." The Chancellor would have scratched his head for a long time, and then said, "Referring to Chap VII, Para 259 of the _King's Regulations_ we notice . . ."

But Belvane had her own way of doing things; and if you suggest that she wanted to make Barodia's declaration of war inevitable, well, the story will show whether you are right in supposing that she had her reasons. It came a little hard on the Chancellor of Barodia, but the innocent must needs suffer for the ambitions of the unprincipled--a maxim I borrow from _Euralia Past and Present;_ Roger in his moral vein.

"Well," said Merriwig to the Countess, "that's done it."

"It really is war?" asked Belvane.

"It is. Hyacinth is looking out my armour at this moment."

"What did the King of Barodia say?"

"He didn't _say_ anything. He wrote 'W A R' in red on a dirty bit of paper, pinned it to my messenger's ear, and sent him back again."

"How very crude," said the Countess.

"Oh, I thought it was--er--rather forcible," said the King awkwardly.

Secretly he had admired it a good deal and wished that he had been the one to do it.

"Of course," said the Countess, with a charming smile, "that sort of thing depends so _very_ much on who does it. Now from your Majesty it would have seemed--dignified."

"He must have been very angry," said the King, picking up first one and then another of a number of swords which lay in front of him. "I wish I had seen his face when he got my Note."

"So do I," sighed the Countess. She wished it much more than the King. It is the tragedy of writing a good letter that you cannot be there when it is opened: a maxim of my own, the thought never having occurred to Roger Scurvilegs, who was a dull correspondent.

The King was still taking up and putting down his swords.

"It's very awkward," he muttered; "I wonder if Hyacinth----" He went to the door and called "Hyacinth!"

"Coming, Father," called back Hyacinth, from a higher floor.

The Countess rose and curtsied deeply.

"Good morning, your Royal Highness."

"Good morning, Countess," said Hyacinth brightly. She liked the Countess (you couldn't help it), but rather wished she didn't.

"Oh, Hyacinth," said the King, "come and tell me about these swords.

Which is my magic one?"

Hyacinth looked at him blankly.

"Oh, Father," she said. "I don't know at all. Does it matter very much?"

"My dear child, of course it matters. Supposing I am fighting the King of Barodia and I have my magic sword, then I'm bound to win.

Supposing I haven't, then I'm not bound to."

"Supposing you both had magic swords," said Belvane. It was the sort of thing she _would_ say.

The King looked up slowly at her and began to revolve the idea in his mind.

"Well, really," he said, "I hadn't thought of that. Upon my word, I----" He turned to his daughter. "Hyacinth, what would happen if we both had magic swords?"

"I suppose you'd go on fighting for ever," said Hyacinth.

"Or until the magic wore out of one of them," said Belvane innocently.

"There must be something about it somewhere," said the King, whose morning was in danger of being quite spoilt by this new suggestion; "I'd ask the Chancellor to look it up, only he's so busy just now."

"He'd have plenty of time while the combat was going on," said Belvane thoughtfully. Wonderful creature! she saw already the Chancellor hurrying up to announce that the King of Euralia had won, at the very moment when he lay stretched on the ground by a mortal thrust from his adversary.

The King turned to his swords again.

"Well, anyway, I'm going to be sure of _mine_," he said. "Hyacinth, haven't you _any_ idea which it is?" He added in rather a hurt voice, "Naturally I left the marking of my swords to _you_."

His daughter examined the swords one by one.

"Here it is," she cried. "It's got 'M' on it for 'magic.'"

"Or 'Merriwig,'" said the Countess to her diary.

The expression of joy on the King's face at his daughter's discovery had just time to appear and fade away again.

"You are not being very helpful this morning, Countess," he said severely.