But wait! A single proudly mustached figure strutted down the aisle in a blue uniform piped in silver. It was the equerry. He carried under his arm a plumed helmet, which he placed in the empty center seat of the royal stands. All the men in the area removed their hats.

Duncan, too, removed his hat, as did the other players.

It was as silent as a racetrack could be in a city, the distant roadway noise echoing and oceanic, as Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiserin Victoria paraded down the central aisle. She concerned herself with every step, resplendent in crème-de-menthe cottons (she despised the feeling of silk) and her Roman wax pearls, a sign she was shunning ostentation today. As the ladies made knix toward her, Victoria, known as Dona, brushed the air with small waving motions that at once acknowledged the ritual and begged off further display.

Wilhelm smartly returned each salute with a brilliant snap of his wrist, meeting every eye until the other person looked away. His cape covered him from throat to knee. The crowd scrutinized him even more closely than usual today to look for clues; no fortune-teller knew what was actually coming, but if beneath his cape Wilhelm was wearing full military attire, his chest blindingly decked with medals, there would be no rest for Berlin tonight or for many nights to come.

He knew of the intensity of their gazes. He was used to being such an object; it was part of what made him royalty. Hesitating before his seat, Wilhelm waited for the equerry to remove the helmet that had reserved it, and then, with a motion of unveiling, he let his cape go to reveal a tweed jacket buttoned up to the throat, a sash belt buckled above the waist. A groom handed him a homburg, which he tilted rakishly, inserting in its grosgrain band a single feather from a red-tailed hawk.

A hunting jacket! Brilliant! It was a sartorial choice that called for interpretation: he was informal and at leisure, which, being the Kaiser’s version of leisure, meant he was in no way relaxing. Instead, he was ready for sport and for the scent of foxes and deer and, if necessary, Serbs.

The hat was the bow that tied off all speculation: he was bringing back the style of homburg that Edward VII had spirited away and declared a hat for the English. What was removed from Germany came back to Germany, even if it took thirty years.

Duncan, who was not a party to these thoughts, let his mind bubble, hoping wit and charm would come to the surface. Once, Buffalo Bill had performed for the kings of Denmark, Greece, Saxony, and Belgium. They asked if he’d ever before done such a thing, knowing he hadn’t; no one had. Bill had responded, “Surely. But I never held such a royal flush as this against four kings.”