Sent: Wed, September 12, 2007 3:03 am
THE GILDED CAGE by Andrej Koymasky (C) 2007 written on November 8, 1993 translated by the author English text kindly revised by John
USUAL DISCLAIMER
"THE GILDED CAGE" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be my welcomed guest.
CHAPTER 10 - War at court, on all fronts
When Friedrich turned twenty, he married Theresa and a double apartment was set up for the couple, with adjoining bedrooms. They both were happy and in love.
In that occasion the queen mother Margaretha said to Jakobus, with whom she had meanwhile made a kind of armed truce, that he also had to marry.
"No, maman, I absolutely do not intend to marry."
"But it is for the nation, for the throne. You must beget heirs to the throne."
"No, maman. You should have understood at this point whom I love. I have no intention of leaving him."
"Nobody is asking you to leave him..."
"Ah, so should I do as my father did, and also you did? In bed a little with one and a little with the other? No, I'm sorry. I have only one promise, and I aready gave it to Reinhardt."
"You are... you are... impossible! I am trying to meet your choice, but you..."
"Meeting my choice by spreading rumours throughout the court, so that the poor Reinhardt is haunted by little sneers and witticisms in bad taste? You call this meeting my choice?"
"When you forced me to leave my... my lover, I accepted it, you know, without complaining. But you..."
"You could follow him, if you truly love him."
"But... but... I am the queen, I could not!"
"You made your choices, maman, I have made mine."
"But a king cannot think only of himself. He has to sire his heirs. He has to!"
"I shall name the first-born son of Friedrich as my heir."
"You are stubborn! But a nation cannot have a sovereign who... who has sex with men!"
"Do you really think so? I can't believe I'm the first in history. And I'm sure I'll not be the last."
"That is not a good reason. You will be laughed at in all the Europe courts."
"If you take good care to inform them, then very likely I will be. And you are quite able to do it, from hatred towards Reinhardt and I."
"Yes, I hate that Reinhardt, I hate him! He is ruining you."
"He? Listen, there is no more honest, kind-hearted and innocuous person than Reinhardt. And so full of love." Jakobus said, with a smile.
"You are crazy, crazy! This is now a state problem. I will inform the Cabinet, and the Council and... and the Archbishop!"
"Only them? Don't you have enough paper and envelopes, maman? And tell me, will you send anonymous letters or will you sign them? A mother trying to shame her son in front of everybody - such noble behaviour, indeed!"
"I have my duty towards the nation, towards my family, and towards my conscience..."
"Ho-ho, more and more noble! You have forgotten your duty towards God, towards human beings, towards history... and who else?"
"Do not think you can solve anything with your sarcasm. We'll see how long this ridiculous little passion of yours will last. We'll see!"
"Very well. You can certainly cause me many problems, but you will never succeed in separating me from my Reinhardt. I swear, I swear it on my life, you will not be able to undermine, to stop our love. Not even if you have us both killed."
"Don't be melodramatic, now. We are no longer in the Middle Ages."
"And I bet you regret it! Who would you have killed, if you could, me, him, or both of us?"
"There are much more refined methods, nowadays."
"Refined? Elegant and fashionable, you mean? Are they explained in your Journal des Dames?"
The queen mother stood up angrily, "Right! I shall not talk with you again until the day you manage to come to your senses!"
"This means we will never talk with each other again ... Anyway, if you change your mind, from now on you will talk with me only in the presence of Reinhardt and two witnesses or I shall refuse to receive you."
The queen mother glared at him widening her eyes, "Would you dare inflict such an outrage on me?"
"You've inflicted worse outrages on me. You can go, now."
The queen mother went out of the king's study slamming the door, and Jakobus yelled behind her, "A regal behaviour indeed!" and sat down all of a sudden, his head between his hands.
From the secret passage Friedrich entered, "Forgive me, Jakobus, but I took the liberty of listening to everything..."
"So much the better; now I don't have to make the effort of telling you. Where is Reinhardt?"
"In the park, with Stefanie. Do you want me to go and call him?"
"No... I'm sure our mother will tell the Cabinet and all the others. And I will have all of them against me. What shall we do, now?"
"First of all, try to cool down, Jakobus. Then we'll hold a meeting, all of us. I'll go to call the others. Is it all right if we meet here in your study?"
"Yes, alright. I'll go and lie down for a while. Send Reinhardt to me, please. Then when you everybody is here, come and call us."
Jakobus was on his bed, wearing just his trousers and shirt, when Reinhardt entered in the bedroom.
"Love! Friedrich told me... How are you?"
"I don't know. Tired... Come here, near me."
Reinhardt took off his shoes, the jacket, and laid on the bed with his lover, embracing him tightly. For a while they remained like that, in silence.
Then Jakobus said, "We will have everybody against us... she will put all of them against us. But I shall fight. She will not succeed in parting us, will she?"
"No, she will not succeed."
"Will you stay near me?"
"Whatever happens."
"It will be hard for you too. They'll become cruel. And they will put pressure on you ..."
"I am feeling strong. What could they do us?"
"I have no idea. Possibly have me declared mad..."
"They will have to demonstrate that but they will not succeed, because you are not."
"In our kingdom there are no laws against two men loving each other... luckily. In other kingdoms there are, even in the great and civilized United Kingdom. I don't know what they can appeal to. The king is still me... They could put pressure on you to make you leave me..."
"They would waste their time and effort. If your father was still alive, they could have me put in prison, or possibly have exiled me... But now you are the king."
"Right. Therefore, knowing they cannot touch you, they will try to do something against me."
"Anyway, we have good friends... they will help us, advise us."
"Yes, certainly. But we will have to count mainly on our own resources, Reinhardt. You and I, by ourselves..."
"I love you Jakobus. I have nothing else to give you, but my love and all of myself."
"I need nothing else. The rest doesn't count." The king answered with a tired smile.
An hour and half later, Friedrich knocked at the bedroom door, "We all are in your study. If you want to come..."
Jakobus entered, followed by Reinhardt. Friedrich was there along with with Theresa, Stefanie, Johann, and Franz Julius with Anthon.
"Friends, thank you for being here. Friedrich has already informed you, I presume..."
"Yes, Jakobus, we have heard," Johann said with a grim face, "And things are turning bad. Your mother enjoys a remarkable support here at court..."
"Do you know if she has already taken any steps?" Franz Julius asked.
"No, so far as I know she hasn't, but she will very soon."
"Well, you're in the Cabinet and I'm in the Council. If she wants to arouse their interest, we will come to know it at once."
"She knows you are friends with Jakobus, Franz so you will be the last to be informed."
"But at the Council meetings all the members have to be summoned, therefore I too."
"For the official meeting that is so. But you will see that they will try to keep you away..."
"It is different for you, Johann..." Friedrich said.
"Yes, partly it is. Also because until now I never openly took Jakobus' side."
"Well, so much the better. You will, officially, side against me. So, at least, you will be kept informed..." Jakobus said.
"I don't know. They will already know that I am here with you..."
"The fact that I summoned you here today doesn't automatically mean that you are siding with me."
"True, but this means that in future it would be better for me not to take part in meetings like this."
"We will solve this problem later." Jakobus said. "Right now we have to try to guess what moves the queen mother can try to make and how we can neutralize them."
"Whatever she can try, is based on the fact that you and Reinhardt are lovers. But nobody has proof of that. You can just deny it, say it is an infamous calumny." Franz Julius said.
"Not really. First of all there is the my father's attendant who surprised me with Walterus, my page, and testified that I like having sex with men. Then my former attendant who was ordered by my father to control me... And also the fact that Reinhardt has been with me for years, and as soon as I became king made him count and my personal attendant... and that before that I wanted him with me in Berlin and in London..."
"But Petrus was always with you as well..." Stefanie said.
"This is the point. He was and I didn't make him a count. No, I don't think that denying it... And then, sincerely, I don't feel like denying my love for Reinhardt. It would feel like betraying you." he added looking at Reinhardt.
"The queen mother told you that if you married, then you can do as you please... Why don't you just marry, then?" Johann asked.
"No, I could never do that! I couldn't be the man of two different persons. Cheating on my wife and betraying my Reinhardt."
"You could just marry but not have physical contacts with her..."
"Oh, poor queen! No, I could never do such a thing."
"It could be possible to find a lady who, just to become a queen, would agree to..."
"No no. She would have to be either a schemer, or... just think if she takes a lover and then produces an heir to the throne!" Johann said.
"I cannot understand why maman is so ruthless against Reinhardt." Stefanie said loooking at him, "If she just knew you..."
"No, in reality she is ruthless against me because I am not living as she wants, because I don't do what she wants. The problem of the heir is just a pretext - how many sovereigns did not have direct heirs! I told her I would make my heir your first-son, Friedrich, but she did not accept that. The real problem is not my heir and the real problem is not Reinhardt. The real problem is that she still wants be the queen, have power, give orders. She wants her lover back with her but she wants to separate me from mine. And she will do everything she can to succeed. Anyway the real problem is not the reason why, but what she will do and how she will act."
They continued their discussion for a long time. Several propositions were advanced but all were discarded as unrealisable, inopportune or not really useful. The only conclusion was that they all had to be very sensitive to the least clue and keep all the others informed ... They had to just wait; it seemed that there was nothing else they could do.
About a month passed, when everything seemed quiet. The only news was that the queen mother was always dining in her quarters and no longer with the family. So Jakobus, after asking his siblings their opinion, took advantage of that to ask Reinhardt to be at table with them. Jakobus sat at the head of the table, on his right sat Theresa then Friedrich, on his left Stefanie and Reinhardt and directly opposite him was a place for the queen mother, which Jakobus insisted should always be set, "She decided not to come, it is not I who doesn't want her here." He said.
Then one day the Archbishop requested an audience with the king. Jakobus asked his brother to stay in the secret passage and to listen to all they would say. He received the high prelate in his study, while Reinhardt and Franz Julius with two monsignors of the Archbishop's retinue remained in the antechamber.
"Your Right Reverend Excellency, to what do I owe the pleasure..." the king said.
"Your majesty, it is a thankless task that leads me here to meet you..."
"Thankless? Tell me..."
"I was a young bishop when I had the honour to christen Your Majesty. I saw you grow up. It was I who administered you your First Communion, then also the Holy Chrism... You were so beautiful, a real heaven's angel. And it was I who give you the Anointing as our king and set the crown on your head..."
"It is certainly so, Excellency."
"All this, and the fact that I am the unworthy shepherd of this kingdom, the humble representative of Our Lord Jesus Christ in this flock, imposes on me and authorizes me to talk to you with an open heart."
"Very well, Excellency."
"Now, you see, a king wears his crown because it is God's will. Therefore he has to give to God an account of his life... be it his public or his private life..."
"It is certainly so."
"Now... Your Majesty, I am here to give you advice, to guide you, with the shepherd's solicitude... to beseech to go back onto the right track..."
"Onto the right track!"
"Majesty, king David sinned against God when he took Uria's wife and sent Uria to die in battle, so as to keep that woman for himself. The prophet Nathan reprimanded him and king David repented and received God's forgiveness..."
"Yes, I know David and Bethsheba's story very well. But I haven't stolen anybody's wife, and haven't sent anybody to his death, therefore I cannot understand..."
"Oh, Your Majesty, you very well know what I am talking about!"
"No, Right Reverend Excellency. I do not know. Would you have the goodness to explain me?"
"Your... the fact that you... that you are committing ignominious acts with a man! Saint Paul says that sodomites will not inherit the Kingdom of God!"
"Yes, Excellency - first letter to the Corinthians 6, 10, am I right? Then is this the reason why you requested an audience? Because of the fact that I love a man?"
"Ah, so you acknowledge it!"
"Did you expect me to deny it? That I would tell you, hypocritically, that they are just mean rumours, just calumnies? You of course would not have believed me, but you would have pretended to, so washing your hands of it like Pontius Pilate?"
"I have at heart the health of your soul and of the nation over which you rule. A king has a heavy responsibility, he ought to be an example to the nation. Now, what kind of example are you offering? You are not an example, but a scandal!"
"Oh... did you prefer the example given by my father who laid with a concubine, while his wife was lying with another man? Is this the example that you are proposing me I should give? Or possibly you already came here to tell my father about king David? And did he perhaps listen to you?"
"We are not discussing king Heinrich, peace be to his soul, but you! You who, in a deadly sin, have the effrontery to receive the Holy Communion!"
"I learned from my parents, Excellency."
"I am not here to talk about other people, but about you!" the prelate thundered, his face crimson, "Abandon the sin of Sodom and you will get God's forgiveness and mine. Erase from your life this abomination and make it shine with purity! Give a queen to the nation and an heir to the kingdom, as God commands!" the old man said, fuming.
"Speaking of God, Right Reverend Excellency, you said, when you entered here, that I am king by the will of God, is that so?"
"Certainly so. All power comes from God."
"That's curious... Are you really convinced about that?"
"Absolutely! This is why it was me to place the crown on you and not some state official. I, the man of God!"
"Good. Now, if I am not wrong, God knows us from our conception, is it not so?"
"It is certainly so..."
"He knows me much better than you know me, am I right?"
"Of course, but..."
"Good. Therefore God knows that since I was fifteen, that is for eight years now, and for six years before my coronation, I carnally loved people of my own sex. And yet, He wanted me to become king. If it really was such an abomination, why would he have chosen me? Why should I not have died, instead of my father?"
"But... but... God's ways are mysterious..."
"And you, the man of God, you want to oppose the mysterious ways of God?"
"Now you are going too far! Would you affirm that God actually wants a sodomite on the throne? And that therefore God approves your filthy behaviour? Do you want to add to your sins that of blasphemy?"
"What further need do we have of witnesses? Look, now you have heard his blasphemy!" Jakobus said.
"Do not quote God's Holy Gospel! Do not dare to compare yourself to Our Lord! Do not now to pose as a victim! You, a sinner!" the prelate almost yelled.
"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone... Are you without sin?"
"Shut up!" the Archbishop yelled.
Jakobus stood up, furious. "Rather you have to shut up! Remember that you are my subject and that you live on the income of this kingdom! You, little, minute, self-important being, who dare to come here to censure my choices, to blame my life! You who are not able to tell the difference between love and carnality, you who bless the union of a man with a woman whom he uses as a mere object for his pleasure, without love, and who cheats on her, and you call all this a sacrament! But you anathematise the union of a man who loves another man, of a true, faithful love and call it a sin!
"You who, instead of sounding out the man's soul and conscience, dare to measure only the appearances and rise to judge! One judge only I recognize superior to me, God! And to Him I appeal, to Him I present my love! Not to you, mean man, who loves neither men nor God! You, about whom everybody knows the greed, you servant of Mammon, who bought your bishopric's dignity with your gold! You who shut your heart to the widow and to the orphan, but spread open your doors to the wealthy and the powerful.
"You, whited sepulchre who appears right and just in front of men, but who inside is full of hypocrisy and iniquity! You who would like to shut heaven's door on me, and that by so doing you are just shutting it on yourself. Shut up? Shut up? Not a word of charity, not a word of love have I heard from your lips. Shepherd, yes, but the shepherd leading his flock to the slaughterhouse and hastily counting the coins he is gathering.
"Did you try to understand? A sinner, and I too am one, needs loving words, understanding, not condemnation. I am the publican who stood at distance, you are the Pharisee who stood up in front of the altar. You... poor, little, mean nonentity." Jakobus concluded, making a great effort to calm down.
The Archbishop had remained seated, turning pale, nonplussed, mute.
After some moments of silence, the Archbishop stood up. "I will pray for you, Majesty..."
"And you do well. I too will pray for you..."
"... asking Our Lord to touch your heart..."
"... hoping he will make you able to love..."
"I ask to be allowed to retire."
"It is allowed, Excellency."
After the Archbishop left, Friedrich entered first, then Franz Julius and Reinhardt too.
"You treated him very badly. You've made an enemy of him." Friedrich said.
"He was already my enemy. And you can't say he treated me better than the way I treated him. I would have told him much worse things, if I had not calmed down and understood it would have been absolutely useless. Ha, the man of God! Well, what's done, is done. From now on, I want one of our men to listen to all his sermons and refer them to me, and I want him to be discretely watched - who he meets, what he does, to whom he sends and from who he receives messages."
"It will be done." Franz Julius answered.
Reinhardt then said, "We have the Church against us. Let's hope we do not have God against us as well!"
"This, my love, this we shall know only when we will be in front of Him. But as you said that night in the Great Chapel, if we have a humble heart we cannot be condemned. Yes, I committed a sin, it is true, and it is not that of loving you, but that of having in my turn judged the Archbishop. He has not the right to judge me, but then not even I have the right to judge him. I will confess this."
"Do you think that he... would deny you the sacraments?" Friedrich asked.
"To do so, he would have to publicly accuse me beforehand. But without sound proofs I could have him condemned for defamation. I do not think he is so naïve as to set a trap into which he could fall."
"But you admitted your relationship to him."
"His word against mine, and he knows it."
"You admitted it also with maman... You ought to be more cautious." Friedrich insisted.
"Friedrich is right, you know." Franz Julius insisted.
Then Jakobus turned and spoke to Reinhardt, "Do you think I have to lie?"
"I don't like falsehood, Jakobus, you know that. But I mean falsehood when it damages somebody, not when it is in self-defence. If this is the way, the only way we have to shelter our love... I don't need to deny it, but at least I don't have to affirm it. After all, our love is only our concern and does not affect anybody else, as after all, I have no power at court... I cannot be the queen, in other words." Reinhardt concluded with an amused smile, at which all the others nodded, smiling.
But, soon after the Archbishop, the attack from the Ministers' Cabinet started. Johann got the first sign. The Prime Minister had called an informal meeting of the ministers to put the problem straightforwardly on the table - the king is a sodomite and has no intention of getting married; what do we have to do? At that the Minister for the Foreign Affairs had asked what proofs there were to support such an outrageous statement. The Minister for Internal Affairs said that for some time now there had been at court the rumour that the king's attendant was in fact his lover. The Minister for Finance and Treasury then said that according to court gossip, he himself must be of Jewish descent, at which all the ministers laughed, and he added that therefore they could not give credence to court gossip.
The other minister had said nothing, apart from Johann who had exclaimed, "I cannot believe it! But if we had irrefutable proofs, this would be, to say the least, a really serious matter!"
When Johann reported this meeting, Anthon had noted, "The entire problem seems, for everybody, to be able to demonstrate that you and Reinhardt make love!"
"We will surely not be caught in bed together..." Jakobus said, with a smile.
"And anyway, the bedroom staff cannot say they ever saw us in bed together, besides, they all are trusted staff." Reinhardt added.
"Yes, but the communicating bedrooms..."
"Those of my father and his attendant were also communicating." Friedrich objected.
"Yes, but he had a wife and also a mistress... he was safe from any suspicion." Franz Julius said.
"But on the other hand it would be really odd," Friedrich said, "if all of a sudden Jakobus ordered his attendant's bedroom to be moved elsewhere. It would almost be admitting that there really is something."
Stefanie then said, "Reinhardt and I fit very nicely together. He often dances with me, he walks with me in the garden... Couldn't we make everybody believe he is courting me?"
"You are a darling, Stefanie. But you can understand that such a make-believe could last just for a few months... You cannot be officially engaged, then marry..."
"That's true..."
"No, there can be just three solutions - listen to them and separate, or be hypocritical and marry, or fight. And certainly neither I nor Reinhardt will never ever accept the first two solutions, therefore..."
The second step that the Prime Minister was to read to a Cabinet meeting the sworn deposition of the former attendant of king Heinrich, in which he affirmed that he had caught the crown prince in bed, naked, with one of his pages, whose personal particulars were given, who therefore had been exiled... Half of the Cabinet was "horrified" in the face of that "proof". But the Minister of the War urged them them note that at the time the prince was just seventeen... it could just have been a "juvenile itch" as often happens, mainly to youths who " are effectively barred from frequenting with women". But the Prime Minister opened a secret dossier in which he slipped that first "proof" from the attendant.
"Order a search the Prime Minister's study, take that document and destroy it." Franz Julius proposed.
"It would be useless, they would just have the former attendant make another..." Jakobus said.
" You can send that attendant far away ." Stefanie said.
"No, I can't make him disappear. They would find him anyway. And in any case the man only told the truth... or almost. Walterus was indeed naked and I was in my night shirt. And we were not both on my bed when he entered, I was the only one on it. Poor Walterus was desperately trying to dress himself, near the bed. But that doesn't change the substance of the matter very much. And I don't know if they would not even be able to get a deposition from Walterus..." Jakobus said.
At court the tension was increasing. Reinhardt was more and more often the object of knowing smiles and snide witticisms.
In May 1889, in occasion of the month of Mary, the Archbishop preached a sermon in which he talked about "Mary, Mother of Purity" and thundered against any kind of sinful sexuality, "like that of a man lying with a man as if he was a woman! Anathema be!" He didn't make any reference to the king, but at the end of his sermon he said, "A few days ago our sovereign, His Majesty Jakobus III, celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday. Let us pray to Our Lord for his bodily health, and even more for his soul. My God enlighten him so that his conduct may always be irreprehensible!"
Nobody could accuse him to have stated that the king was a sodomite, but that timing was certainly not a coincidence and many noticed it.
In June, Johann reported that the queen mother had sent a letter to the Prime Minister, in which she wrote that she was worried for the kingdom's destiny, "... as the King declared to me his intention not to marry, because he affirmed he has a predilection for his own sex instead of for the other sex." And she concluded asking the Prime Minister to exercise pressure on the King in order to persuade him to marry. Also that letter was appended to the secret dossier. The Cabinet with an overwhelming majority decided they had to put pressure on the King until he consented to marry.
Thus, when the Cabinet asked the King to be present at an "extraordinary" meeting, Jakobus already knew what it was about.
"His Majesty the King!" the mace bearer announced.
All the ministers bowed while Jakobus was going to sit on the royal seat at the table head. All the ministers sat after him.
"By Your Majesty's leave, I declare the session open." The Prime minister said.
"Certainly, Excellency. Would you please read the agenda?" Jakobus said, quietly.
"By Your Majesty's leave, there is one only point on the agenda of this extraordinary meeting - Your Majesty's wedding."
"Ah, well. Then the meeting is already concluded. I have no intention of marrying." Jakobus answered laconically.
"But, Your Majesty! We would like to know the reason..."
"Do I have to justify my choices in front of you? Are you possibly forgetting that I chose you, and not you me?"
"Of course not, Sire! But if we have to collaborate with Your Majesty for the nation's good... we have to know... The nation has the right to an heir and if Your Majesty does not marry..."
"The nation, Excellency, will have a heir. He will be the first-son of my brother, prince Friedrich."
"But, Your Majesty, if you married..."
"Are you trying to decide the nation's destiny even inside my bed? Is that so, Excellency?"
"God forbid, Majesty. In his bed His Majesty will do what he best pleases... But if you agreed to have a spouse, all would be much simpler. The people want a queen... To the nation a king without a queen is like a maimed man, a lame person. Quite apart from the consideration that a well planned marriage can be the way to strengthen the nation's face to the dangers menacing it, of which you are very well aware. An alliance with Vienna court, for instance..."
"Are we not already good allies with the Hapsburgs?"
"Yes, of course we are, there is the treaty signed by your late father, but if it was strengthened by a marriage..."
"Vienna didn't lift a finger in defence of Marie Antoinette, at the time of the French revolution, if you remember the history. Why should they stir themselves for an eventual spouse of mine?"
"Oh, Majesty... if not for political reasons, at least for internal reasons... The court murmurs about Your Majesty's penchant. A marriage could bring back serenity to the court and never so much as at present, we need unity and concord..."
"Are you referring to the rumours about my sodomy, Excellency?"
The Prime Minister coughed, embarrassed. "Well, Your Majesty, your private life concerns you only. But your public life... Get married, and live as best pleases you..."
"Yes, I know that that is your philosophy. Take a wife and cheat on her however and how much you like! I know that some amongst your Excellencies behave exactly according this philosophy, following the example of my late father, king Heinrich. But not I!"
The Minister for Internal Affairs asked leave to speak. "The population, the aristocracy, this Cabinet ask the king to behave so that the rumours harming the kingdom's prestige come to an end! Or yet, this Cabinet would have to consider the most serious actions to..."
"Forgive me, Excellency, if I interrupt you. But in what you are saying there are some points I would like clarified, before you go on. You said the population. Gossip about my private life has possibly been spread amongst the population? And by whom, pray?"
"It is not just gossip and Your Majesty knows it very well!" The Minister for Transport said.
"I would appreciate not being interrupted, Excellency. So, then, I was saying... it seems to me that the newspapers have not yet published anything. What can you tell me, lord Minister for Internal Affairs?"
"No, not yet, Majesty. But how long?"
"This depends on you, Excellency, does it not? And I hold you responsible for that. Then you named the aristocracy, to which by the way Your Excellencies belong. Aristocracy murmurs, I am well aware. But this has always been the favourite pastime of the aristocracy. If you like, I can refresh your memory about some other gossip... Is it true, lord Minister for the Foreign Affairs that you had your father declared of unsound mind in order to come into his estate before time? It 's just gossip, false I presume, but the rumour has it. And you, lord Minister for Transport, is it true that you had your son marry your young mistress, so as to have her more easily in your bed? Also this is just an unfounded rumour, I hope and presume. And you, lord Prime Minister, is it true that your wife takes her delight with your personal secretary, and that therefore you are both cuckold and merry, as your name is Felix Cornelius, but I heard this said only in the corridors of this court?"
"Your Majesty, these are just mean gossips!" the Prime Minister, protested, becoming purple.
"Yes, very right. But why do you call them 'just mean gossip' only when they concern you and not when they concern me?"
"Your Majesty, I have documents..." the Prime Minister started to say, but the king raised a hand and the man became silent.
"You know better than I, Excellency, that any document can be forged, extorted, bent, interpreted and even invented at one's will. Would you have me to put together a dossier filled with documents about you? Including for a start what we just talked about and many, many more subjects? It would be very easy for me to prepare it. But let's come back to the point. His Excellency the Minister for the Internal Affairs said that if I will not take a wife, this Cabinet will have to consider most serious actions... But the only serious actions that this Cabinet can take into account without my approval, are your resignations. Is that what you intended to say?"
The Minister for the Internal Affairs, with a grim expression, said, "If Your Majesty will force us, the whole Cabinet could present their resignations. And this would start a very serious political crisis. Are you ready to face that just to refuse our request to get married?"
"I am ready to face anything and everything in order not to allow anybody to poke his nose into my private life. And accepting your resignations would be the least onerous thing."
"This is politically a very difficult moment, Sire. A political crisis would deeply harm your kingdom. You cannot seriously put the kingdom in danger just to defend your private life. The duty of a king is before all in front of his kingdom and only in a second resort towards himself." The Prime Minister said, frowning.
"I am feeling tempted to make my reply to you - Let me die with all the Philistines! But I will not say so. You have reminded me of my duties, Excellency, and I am grateful to you. And to thank you, I will remind you of your duties - I chose you, and assigned you to your task, in order to help me for the good of the nation. Your first duty is, therefore, towards me and me alone. You are my Ministers, and the word 'minister' comes from the Latin 'minis', meaning the least, the smaller. Try never to forget it. You should be my collaborators, my supports, not my adversaries. Forget this just for a single moment, and I shall cut off your heads... metaphorically, of course.
"Now, whoever amongst you no longer feels like being my friend and is no longer able to keep the oath you have sworn in my hands, can immediately present his resignation which I shall accept at once... what, nobody? Not even you, lord Minister for the Internal Affairs? Good, I congratulate you for your renewed will to support me. I declare this Cabinet meeting closed and I thank you all, Your Excellencies. You can leave." Jakobus said, standing up.
CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 11
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