Under her hostile, accusing eyes the Princess of Weldart blenched. She knew perfectly well the hidden meaning of the words, and felt grateful that the charge which she would have found it difficult to rebut was not framed more definitely. The best policy was to say nothing, and she adopted it.
In the meantime Cyril, armed with the newly written letter as a guarantee of good faith, had paid the all-important visit to the Scythian Minister. As he had expected, he found Baron Natarin by no means averse from accepting his view of the case. In any circumstances, it would have been difficult to decline to surrender a missive which had been surreptitiously obtained and presented without the knowledge of the Queen, probably in order to gratify the spite or vanity of the man who had stolen it; but there was a failure in Scythian diplomacy to be covered as well. Prince Soudaroff had not gone beyond his instructions, but, as Cyril had divined, he had mistaken his man. The words which had been intended to initiate a long and persistent agitation, extending throughout the country, had kindled in the Archbishop’s breast an enthusiasm which had wasted itself in stirring up the short and abortive riot at the capital, and fanaticism had undone what policy had hoped to effect. The Scythian Minister returned the letter, expressing a hope that it would be found possible to allow the Metropolitan to escape lightly, and Cyril retired, retaining the second letter, which was to be forwarded to the Thracian Minister at Pavelsburg, and presented by him to the Emperor in due course.
Baron Natarin’s pious aspiration, which was in reality a request, almost a warning, as to the fate of the Metropolitan, was not allowed to remain unfulfilled, although it required a good deal of ingenuity to bring it to pass. The Archbishop was tried privately, and sentenced to a year’s residence in a monastery remote from the capital, and now the difficulty presented itself—how was he to be released? It had been absolutely necessary that he should be brought to trial, in order to vindicate the prestige both of the law and of the reigning house, and also to prevent similar outbreaks in future; but to enforce the sentence would raise awkward questions as to the necessity of depriving the prisoner of his important post, whether permanently or merely for the year. The Queen could not pardon him, since her doing so would seem an insult to the Emperor of Scythia, of whose name, according to the now accepted view, the Metropolitan had made such an unwarrantable use. At the same time, the Emperor could not ask for his pardon without appearing to identify himself with the disloyal views to which he had given utterance. In this dilemma, it was necessary to arrange a little plot in order to effect the desired end, and the details were left in Cyril’s hands.
It so happened that the police barracks at Bellaviste had lately been enlarged, and that, as had been previously settled, the Queen paid an informal visit to the new buildings one morning, accompanied by the little King, who was deeply interested in all that he saw. The cells struck him most, and he catechised his guides about them during his visit, and talked about them all day after it, the horrors of prison-life appearing to be deeply impressed upon his youthful mind. The next afternoon, when his mother and he were driving along the New Road, which is the Bois de Boulogne of Bellaviste, they met a closed carriage surrounded by an armed escort. Inside the carriage sat the Metropolitan, with his chaplain and a secretary, on the way to the distant monastery appointed for his residence.
“Mamma, a prisoner!” cried the little King, jumping up in the carriage. “Oh, poor man, are they taking him to jail?”
“I am afraid so, my little son.”
The tears gathered in the child’s eyes. “Poor, poor man!—Oh, mamma, it is the nice old gentleman who gave me the funny picture!” The picture in question was not intentionally comic. It was a jewelled icon representing St Gabriel of Tatarjé, which the Metropolitan had presented to Prince Michael upon his last birthday.
“Yes, dear, it is.”
“But has he done anything wicked? Will they put him in one of those dreadful places? Oh, mamma, must he go?”
“Ask Count Mortimer, little son. He will be able to tell you.”