“Look how pleasant and peaceful this square is,” I protested.
It was quite a beautiful square, paved with huge blocks of red and black marble. The roadway ran around the four sides, but the two cars that passed us had driven across the center. Royal prerogative, probably. Facing us rose the great bulk of the Cathedral, built of some dark stone, so weathered that it seemed almost black. Its twin spires had once been gilded, but were now a rusty red. To our right and left were the two large grey buildings of obviously official character, and further to the right rose the Royal Palace on its rocky, park-like hill. A stone wall ran around it, and, toward the square, where a tower jutted down, it almost touched the wall, just beyond two colossal wrought-iron gates. Farther back, a light and fanciful covered bridge had been added, reaching from the wall to the Cathedral, and offering the members of the Royal Household a private entrance to the church. Its architecture was Renaissance, and it might have been a part of Versailles, so graceful and completely French was its style. It was a noticeable contrast to the Cathedral and the Palace. Through its rows of glazed windows I could see the blue sky beyond.
“Let’s stay here a few days,” I suggested. “We can amuse ourselves, though the place looks so quiet and tranquil I don’t suppose anything will ever happen here again.”
“That’s a fine reason for staying in a place.” John snorted.
“You could paint,” I offered.
“Let’s find a hotel,” he said. “I’m hungry, and I’d like to get a bath before dinner. You probably have to announce your intention to bathe well ahead here.”
Artists and actors, I have noticed, are always thinking of food. In John’s case it is not poverty but appetite. If he had less money he might be a better artist. Not that he can’t paint, but that his money buys him so many more vivid amusements that he doesn’t. He stepped on the starter, but before he got the motor running a great bell began to toll. At first we thought it came from the Cathedral in front of us, but in a moment we realised that it was in the great tower of the fortress-Palace. It was twenty minutes past three, too early for an Angelus, and no clock rings at twenty minutes past an hour. It boomed solemnly, funereally.
“Sounds like a death knell,” John said. “But if any member of the Royal Family were dead the Queen wouldn’t have been driving around the city as she was half an hour ago, bowing to the populace. She’s supposed to be hard boiled, but she’d have to be pretty icy to manage that.”
The bell tolled on, and as it rang, people began running into the square. They were excited, gesticulating, talking rapidly. Obviously the bell had some serious significance. I called in German to several people before one would stop. And, as he answered, the Cathedral bell began ringing, and others all over the city followed it.
“Der König ist tod!”