Following Bismarck’s lead, both of them had dropped the pretence of calling me “highness”—Bersonin’s “theory”, as Bismarck had called it, being well enough in my training period, I suppose, but now considered unnecessary. But they lost no chance of lecturing me on such subjects as the geography of Strackenz, the ceremonial forms of its court, and the details of the wedding ceremony. I suppose I took it all in, for there was nothing else to do, but it has all gone now.

We were three days on the road, and the last afternoon of the journey took us deep into forest country, all ghostly and silent under the show. It was very beautiful and solemn, with never a soul to be seen along the rough track winding among the trees, until about four in the afternoon we stopped in a little clearing where a small but stood, with thin smoke wreathing up from its chimney into the steely sky.

There were two or three brisk-looking fellows in peasant clothes to rub down the horses and usher us into the cottage—not that I took them for peasants, for I heard two of them in talk with Rudi. They were gentlemen, by German standards, but tough, active customers for all that—the kind who’ll cut your throat and send back the wine at dinner afterwards.

We had a meal, Rudi and I, while de Gautet paced up and down and peered out at the darkening sky and consulted his watch and fidgeted generally until Rudi told him to leave off, and made him sit down and have a glass of wine with us. I was getting fairly twitchy myself as the hours passed, and Rudi gave me a stiff brandy to steady me.

“Three hours from now,” says he, “and you’ll be tucked up in a silk night-gown with C.G. embroidered on it. God! I wish I was in your shoes. How many commoners have the chance to be royalty!”

“I’ll show you one who’s ready to resign his crown any time,” says I. The shivers were beginning to run up my spine.

“Nonsense. Give you two days, and you’ll be behaving as though you’d been born to the purple. Issuing royal decrees against virginity, probably. What time is it, de Gautet?”

“We should be moving.” I heard the strain in his voice.

“Heigh-ho,” says Rudi, stretching; he was as cool as though he was off for an evening stroll. “Come along, then.”

There was a slight altercation just before setting out when de Gautet, officiously helping me into my cloak, discovered my pistols in the pockets. I’d had them concealed in a pair of boots in my baggage at Schönhausen, and was determined that they were going with me. Rudi shook his head.

“Royalty don’t carry side-arms, except for ceremony.”

“I do,” says I. “Either they go with me, or I don’t go at all.”