The Breaking Point (28 page)

The most fearful of all were the workmen from the Grandos factories.‘Don’t touch the snow, it’s contaminated, poisoned, don’t touch the snow . . .’ They came running from the villages, running from the plains, men and women, boys and girls, running to the capital of Ronda. ‘Help us, save us, the snow is poisoned!’

In Markoi’s headquarters, the offices of the
Ronda News
, Markoi was handing out to his followers the big knives used in the Rondese vineyards to prune the vines. He had handled these knives as a boy, and he knew their cutting powers. For weeks now he had been collecting them from every vineyard in the country.

‘There will be no issue of the
Ronda News
today,’ he said. ‘Go out into the streets.’

Then, with great self-denial, he shut himself up in his small room at the back of the building and took no part in the proceedings that followed. He had no food that day. He disconnected the telephone. He sat watching the falling snow. Markoi was a purist.

Grandos also kept himself aloof. But he opened his doors to the refugees who fled from the hills. He fed them with broth and wine, and he gave them warm clothing - it was extraordinary, refugees said afterwards, how he seemed to be prepared for calamity - and he was unfailingly thoughtful, full of assurances of help, ready with medicines and bandages, going from one to the other panic-stricken individual. ‘Keep calm. You have been fearfully treated, terribly misled. But I promise you everything will soon be under control.’ He did not mention the palace or the Archduke. He put one single telephone-call through to Markoi before Markoi disconnected the telephone, and the message was this: ‘Let the people be told that a pipeline, connecting the palace with the spring on the Ronderhof, has been filled with radioactive water, and that at a signal from the Archduke this pipe-water is to be turned on to the Rondese in the palace square. The first jet will scald and blind and maim.’ Then he hung up and distributed more food and clothing to the weeping refugees.

So there it was. No one can say the revolution was the fault of one particular man, although Markoi and Grandos played so large a part in bringing it to a head. It was the awakening of a seed, a seed that must have lain dormant in the hearts of the Rondese for centuries. Fear of the snows, fear of the flood, fear of annihilation, and, because of fear, resentment of the Archduke, said to control these powers, and envy too, envy of eternal youth.

Wicked? No, of course they were not wicked. What the Rondese felt was very natural. Why should one being control the elements? Why should one spirit possess the gift of eternal youth? Should not these things be shared by humanity at large? And if one being alone is trusted, is it not placing in that being the most tremendous faith, a faith that might not be justified? After all, the Archduke did control the spring-waters. I don’t say the avalanches had anything to do with him. It was true that the royal ski-ing grounds were on the east face of the Ronderhof and the avalanches always fell on the western face, but that merely showed his wisdom in choosing the best playground. There was never any proof that the snows were deliberately diverted. But it was not beyond the bounds of possibility.

The point is, when a people begins to doubt there is no end to it.The doubt splits up into so many altered moods, and nothing is safe any more, no man is true. He who loses faith loses his own soul. Yes . . . yes . . . yes . . . I know what you are trying to say. So many tourists from across the border have said it, since the revolution. The Rondese had no moral standards by which to live, no dogma, no system of ethics. Therefore, as soon as doubt and fear seized them they were wholly possessed. I say, with due respect, that the tourists and yourself are talking nonsense. The reason why the Rondese had lived in such perfect harmony for centuries was surely their freedom from standards, their freedom from dogma, their ignorance of ethics? All they asked for was life, and life was given them, and happiness, which springs from within. It was unfortunate that one of their number, Markoi, should have been born lame, and another, Grandos, greedy; but there it was. It happened. These handicaps - for handicaps they surely are, greed being an excess of hunger and lameness the faulty balance of a human structure - infected two persons, and those two persons infected others; but you have to remember that excess of hunger and faulty balance are one and the same thing, creating a driving force that sweeps everything before it. Like the original flooding of the Rondaquiver. So . . .

In the meantime, while the snow was falling and the short day was turning to darkness, and the Rondese people were converging upon the capital, what was happening inside the palace itself ?

Opinions will always differ. No one will ever be sure. The hotheads of the revolution declare to this day that the Archduke was in the laboratory making the final adjustment to the machinery which would loosen the springs from Ronderhof upon the plains, and fixing too the powerful jet of radioactive water which would contaminate and maim the Rondese people. They also declare that he and Anton were engaged in some refinement of torture upon the Archduchess, who, imprisoned in the cellars, begged for the life of the people. Then there are others who say that nothing of the sort was going on at all. That the Archduke was playing the violin - he was a fine musician - and the Archduchess and her betrothed were making love. Others again insist that panic had seized the palace, and hurried preparations for departure were being made.

All these things could be true. When the palace was sacked a pipeline
was
discovered in the laboratory leading up underground to the caves of the Ronderhof, from which flowed the spring-water. The music room
was
shown to have been lately used, as were the royal sleeping-apartments. And there
was
evidence of packing, though this could have been the usual preparation before leaving for the chalet. Certainly there was no evidence of torture, though when the Archduchess was found it was seen that her eyes were wan as though from fatigue, and from weeping too. But this could mean anything.

All I can tell you is this - and it is the sworn evidence of the servant spy who at midnight admitted the revolutionaries inside the palace. (How did he get there? I have no idea. There are always servant spies in all revolutions.) His statement is as follows:

‘There seemed to be nothing unusual going on during the morning of the spring festival. The heavy fall of snow during the night made it seem likely that the festival plans would be cancelled. And indeed, shortly after ten we had word - that is to say, the door-servants - that the gathering of the Rovlvula flowers and the holding of the Games was cancelled. I have no idea if there had been any preparations for going to the chalet, not being a servant of the royal apartments.

‘At eleven o’clock the Archduke held a council with members of the royal family. I don’t know how many were present. I never found out in all the three months I served at the palace what the numbers were of princes and princesses of the blood. I knew Anton by sight. He was present, and the Archduchess Paula. And three or four others I knew by sight but not by name. I saw them come down the stairs from the royal apartments and pass into the white room. We servants called the room with the balcony, overlooking the palace square, the white room. I was stationed at the foot of the stairs at the time and I saw them go in. Anton was joking and laughing. I did not hear what he said, and anyway they spoke a special patois, the royal family, a kind of old-fashioned Rondese. The Archduchess looked pale. Then the door was shut, and they remained in there for a full hour.

‘At twelve o’clock the doors opened again and everyone came out, except the Archduke and the Archduchess. I had been relieved, so I did not see them come out. But one of the other servants told me, and I have no reason to doubt his word. Shortly after one, something happened of curious significance. We servants were all told to go up to the white room, one by one, because the Archduke wished to see us. I thought it was a trap and was alarmed, but I could not escape from the palace because at that time I was still off-duty, and could not go near the doors. Besides, I had my orders from the revolutionary leaders to remain within the palace until the hour came for me to admit those chosen to enter. However, I tried not to show my uneasiness, and waited for my turn to enter the white room.

‘The first thing I noticed was that the Archduke was wearing his white uniform, with the red ribbon of the Order of the Just, and he never wore this uniform except when he made the evening appearances and on days such as this, the spring festival. So I concluded at once that he was going on to the balcony, in spite of the cancelled festivities and the falling snow and the antagonism of the crowd. I thought to myself that he must have the jets prepared, that there was probably a tap and everything ready, concealed somewhere in the room. I had no time to glance about me. I could just see the Archduchess sitting on a chair, away from the windows. She was reading something and took no notice of me. As far as I could tell she showed no signs of ill-treatment, but she looked very pale. There was no one else in the room.

‘The Archduke came forward and held out his hand. “Goodbye,” he said. “I wish you happiness.”

‘Ah! I thought to myself. Now this means one of two things. Either he has planned escape and is going to leave the palace before midnight, or this is a supreme piece of cruelty because he knows he is going to flood the city and destroy us all. In other words, and whichever way I took it, his words were bluff.

‘“Is anything wrong, sir?” I asked. I put on the proper face of astonishment.

‘“That depends on you,” he answered. And he had the nerve to smile. “After all, our future is in your hands. I am saying goodbye because it is unlikely that we shall meet again.”

‘I thought very hard. It would do no harm to put a question.

‘“Are you going away, sir?” I asked, feeling rather frightened, nevertheless, as I spoke, for he might have turned the jet on me there and then.

‘“No, I shan’t be going away,” he said. “But we are unlikely to meet again.”

‘He had our death planned all right. There was no mistaking the note in his voice. It did something to my spine. I did not know how I was going to get out of the room.

‘“The Archduchess, too,” he continued,“wishes to say goodbye.” And then he turned - and you could not imagine anyone more cool and deliberate - and said, “Paula, I present your servant.” I stood where I was, not knowing what to do, and the Archduchess left her chair and whatever it was she was reading, and came up to me and put her hand in mine.

‘“I wish you happiness,” she said. She did not speak the palace patois but the Rondese we use in the capital.

‘Now it is my belief she had been hypnotized or drugged, or in some way interfered with by that archdevil, her brother. Because her eyes had all the grief in the world. And in the old days it was not so. I remember the Flower of Ronda riding through the forests of the Ronderhof, and she was a patron too of my own sister. She was gay and light-hearted then - this was long before the plans of the forced marriage to Anton. But standing there in the white room, holding out her hand, I could not look into her eyes. I took the hand and mumbled something, and I wanted to say, “It’s all right. Don’t worry. We are going to save you,” but of course I did not dare.

‘“That’s all,” said the Archduke. And, glancing up, I saw that he was looking at me, and the expression was strange. Frankly, I did not care for it. It was as though he read my thoughts and sensed my uneasiness. It proved one thing to me. He was a devil, and no mistake . . . Then I turned my back on both of them, and went out of the white room.

‘He was perfectly right, of course. I never did meet him again, alive . . . Like a true revolutionary, I paid my tribute to him when he was hanging by the heels in the palace square.

‘The rest of the day passed without incident. I took my turn on the doors with the other servants. None of us mentioned the falling snow, or the crowds gathering outside the palace. At one time there was a sound of music from the royal apartments, but who was playing I could not say. Lunch and dinner were served at the usual time. I kept myself to myself, for fear of anything going wrong with the plan. I expected to be arrested any moment. I could not believe that the Archduke did not suspect my intentions. But nothing happened, and nothing was said.

‘At ten minutes to midnight I stationed myself in my usual position beside the door leading to the main courtyard. I had been told by my leaders to open the door when I heard someone strike it three blows. Who was to strike it, and how they were to pass the Imperial guard, it was not my business to know. I felt uneasy as the minutes ran out, and fearful that something would go wrong with the plan. The music from the royal apartments had ceased, and there was a sudden silence throughout the palace. So far as I knew the Archduke was still in the white room, but he might have been anywhere; he might have been in the laboratory or the cellars, or he might have escaped to the heights of the Ronderhof. My job was not to ask questions or think out solutions. My job was to open that side door.

‘At three minutes to midnight, without preliminary warning, I heard the three blows upon the door. And at that same moment the servant who was standing at the top of the stairs flung open the door of the white room and called down to me,“The Archduke is going out on to the balcony.”

‘He has the jet, I thought, he’s going to turn it on to the people. I opened the side door and they brushed past me, those of the Big Knives. I had no further part in the business. I had done what I had been told to do.’

Here the report ended. It can be seen today in the museum, where it is kept under glass in the muniment room. Some of the Big Knives hang there too, on the wall. The muniment room is the same as the white room mentioned in the report, but it looks very different now.