With certain apologies to
@Thande ...
18 October 1865
Private billiards room, Third Floor, Tricorne Club,
Stockholm, Kingdom of Sweden.
“There’s no way that the Norwegians will ever agree to such a settlement as is being proposed with regards to their fishing rights,” the Henrik said, picking up the white ball, and putting it down at the upper centre of the billiard table, “And the settlement over the Duchies will never hold water. The Danes will have to concede to more reforms on that front. The German-speaking population will need to be brought in
full, or else it’s just a question of time before we get ourselves a Second War of the Copenhagen Interpretation. I did not send out the Baltic fleet in winter only to see my great accomplishment undone in less than a generation.”
“The Danes will object to that, Your Excellency,” Hugo said, leaning slightly on his cue stick, waiting for his boss and patron to blow up the triangle of balls at the other end, “They insist that they already have gone far enough to pacify the Slesvigians and the Holsteners.”
Henrik shook his head, and aimed his cue stick.
“Enough perhaps to pacify the ruling class down there, upon which Herr Andersen’s party depends, but there are yet people calling for liberty. A province ruled entirely by landlordism is but a recipe for disaster. No, no… I think me and Herr Andersen will have to have ourselves another little
tête-à-tête he and I.”
He put all his force through the cue stick, and the white ball duly speeded down the table and broke the triangle. Three balls fell down in the holes, one full and two striped. Henrik shrugged.
“But it is of course only a first draft,” he added, “And as a first draft, I like it. I think I’m going to go with the striped ones.”
He handed over the table to Hugo who seemed positively pleased in his never-smiling way at getting to solve the geometry problem of finding out what was the most suitable full-coloured ball to try to shoot into a hole.
Henrik reflected on the discussion for a little.
Nordic Reunification. For generations this would have been inconceivable. Now it was all a matter of sorting out a few pesky details regarding fishing and lumbering rights.
“Still,” Henrik continued, “Those fishing aspects really mustn’t be ignored. The Norwegians are aching to give me hell over it. Have you seen the man they have appointed to head the negotiations on that part? I hear he never drinks, never gambles, don’t partake in society life? Is it even possible to do business with a man like that? Oh, well, if I could do business with the Sultan, then I suppose I can-…”
A sudden bolt of pain went through Henrik’s chest, and he almost collapsed on the table.
“Your Excellency?” Hugo blurted out in shock, displaying a rare sign of emotion.
“God damned it, it must be the-…”
Another bolt of pain, this time, sending Henrik down on the floor. Hugo ran over and helped him sit up. Henrik coughed, got out his handkerchief and wiped the area around his mouth.
Blood.
“Your Excellency, you’ve been-…”
“For once in my life, could you please call me Henrik and dispense with formalities!”
For once in
his life.
“Of course… Henrik,” Hugo added.
Was that fear in his eyes that Henrik could make out?
“You go run downstairs, and ask that a proper physician be sent over, and then-…” Henrik hesitated, then uttered the words he was dreading to say, “Then go to the liquor cabinet in the blue salon. There’s a bottle of Irish whiskey there. A small distillery in County Sligo.”
“Your Exce-… Henrik…!”
“The proprietor of that place, he-… Well, the specifics of our relationship you would never understand. But I have saved that bottle for a long time. And tonight you’re all going to need it. Now go, go…!”
Hugo nodded and got up. He ran to the door, but just as he was about to get through it, he looked back once more at the man sitting on the floor.
“Henrik, I want you to know that you have always been-…”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, calm yourself, sir! After all, dying is the last thing I shall do…!”
Hugo left the room, and Henrik collapsed on the floor. In silence he lay there.
No, not complete silence.
There was a ticking sound.
Henrik turned over to his stomach, and raised himself on one elbow.
There, on the top of a barstol, he was seated. The little dwarf, as always dressed as a perfectly dapper gentleman, looking into his fine, engraved watch, the same way he had done with Henrik had first met him. The dwarf removed his eyes from the watch and looked down at the Chancery President lying on the floor.
“Barnabas…!” Henrik coughed up in shock and confusion. But that soon evaporated, and a smile appeared on his face. “You knew all along, didn’t you?”
The little man smiled in return.
“I suppose it would greatly add to our mystique if I now replied ‘
but of course’, but I would be perjuring myself. We did not know all along. But we did eventually figure it out.”
Henrik reached once more for his chest. The pain was still there, still as intense as ever, but now, it felt different. It has a soothing quality to it, as if but medicine which though foul to your tastes, you feel that its foulness is but the proof that it is effective.
“And as for why I was here…? Why I was sent back…?” Henrik asked, “I mean, you knew the date and the hour.”
“A lucky guess.” Barnabas said with sad shrug, “Sometimes lightning does strike twice, you know. But as to
how or
why you came here, that remains an enigma to us too. We did not lie when we said that the lead you gave us turned up nothing.”
For the first time in the many years that Henrik had known him, had worked with him, had helped to forge a new nation with him, he did not in fact feel a lingering sense that there was something of importance that Barnabas wasn’t letting him in on.
“So what will happen to me now?” he asked.
“Now…?” Barnabas replied, nonplussed and shrugging, “You will die, I suppose.”
“I fear that dying truly will be the last thing that will happen to me,” Henrik coughed again into his handkerchief, and looking at it, he saw more fresh blood, “I hate this part, you know… It’s all so excruciatingly boring.”
“If it is of any consolation, your colleague, Herr Andersen, has always had a very optimistic view of passing away. Weaving comforting tales that soon angels will surround you, and carry you off to the next great adventure… And to paraphrase that other great Dane, ‘there are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in our philosophy’.”
“I believe you’ll find he was an
Englishman,” Henrik interjected with the traces of a smug smile.
“All the best Nordics are secretly Englishmen,” Barnabas said, smiling back, fully sincere, “And we much appreciated having you on loan.”
Henrik nodded, grateful of the acknowledgement.
“Did I play my part well?”
“You took a country that had lost faith in itself, and breathed life back into its mythology! You forged an empire that will stand long after you are no longer here! You ended the bloodfeud with the Dane, and went to war with the Russian and you won! Why, you were the most Hattish of all the Hats there ever was!” Barnabas sang out, merrily, then stopped, and added “Except, of course, in one respect.”
“I was lucky.”
“Precisely,” Barnabas nodded, “And we sorely needed some luck.”
“Well, then, if this is how this chapter ends, the most central questions all unresolved, then I shall embrace the role fully, and instead of quoting the Dane, I shall quote the true and loyal Finn!”
Henrik leaned back trying to recall the precise words, hesitated for a moment, but then the canto from the Kalevala came to him:
“
Thus the wise and worthy singer, sings not all his garnered wisdom; Better leave unsung some sayings, than to sing them out of season!”
“Beautiful,” Barnabas somberly noted.
“It was.” Henrik coughed again, “And now, if you will do the final honours?”
“Of course.”
Barnabas jumped down from his chair and walked over the Henrik who lay down on his back, his arms stretched out. He closed his eyes.
“Do you believe in the regeneration of the world through Jesus Christ?” Barnabas began.
“Oh, surely.”
“And as for this new model draft of a Treaty of the Unification of the Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian realms… What do you think of it? I think it’s far too long, almost one hundred articles in fact, far too wordy. But they
end it rather neatly, I think. ‘As our sister nations thus are joined, Nordic brotherhood shall stand forever’.”
Henrik smiled.
“That’s Article 98,” he said. “Now, we go on to the next!”
He breathed out one last time. Barnabas nodded his head in respect of the great man who once more had fallen.
“Good night, sweet Prince Harry.”
Henrik Johan Palmstierna
20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865