‘Nobody can remove them, darling.’
‘Not even for misbehaviour?’
Her beautiful face took on an expression of slow understanding.
‘Do you think you can do that, Barton?’
‘We can have a look at it, Your Royal Highness. Now what about our bush marriage? When are you going to announce it?’
‘They won’t accept it, my marrying a commoner and in a foreign country with different laws. But I haff plans. Have! Have! Damn it, that bloody word has bothered me from my first moments in Australia. I HAVE plans. Please, darling, don’t go all Aussie on me now?’
‘What does that mean?’ I was puzzled.
‘There are two things I’d like you to do for me…three actually. First, swallow your Aussie independence and inverted snobbery. Don’t talk now!’
‘The second is to accept my wish that you become a Knight of the Order of Richard Coeur de Leon. It’s an ancient order and you’ll be the only knight. And it’s your honour for saving my life when I was bitten by the snake. And you did save my life, darling, and nobody can deny that. The other knights died years ago. Your knighthood will allow me to have you at my side at Royal functions and at meetings of the Royal Council. The third thing is to marry me in the Cathedral, as a Knight of the Order, which will make you a member of the Royal Family and ensure that there can be no challenge to you and to our children, who, after all, will be the heirs. So, my darling, will you marry me…again?’
I said, ‘Firstly, I deny that slur on Australians; secondly I will become your knight and liege, oh Madam; and thirdly, I was going to suggest a marriage in the cathedral anyway, provided we announce our first marriage soon after. And, incidentally, before you again besmirch my country, let me remind you, old mate, that you’re one of us now too.’
She embraced me hard and kissed me.
‘And now, the first little hiccup. As the Princess it will fall to me to make the happy couple’s wedding speech, not the husband. Can you take that, oh knight?’
‘Let’s get something straight, Tessadonna? I know I carried on like a dope over this difference in stations, but I have a huge love for you and nothing else counts. I made up my mind about that a long time ago. Speech away. I’m relieved not to have to make a speech in front of strangers anyway.’
She was very tender with me that night. In the course of it, she told me that Gerhardt and Sophie were already planning both ceremonies, away from the counsellors. My knightly garb was being prepared, subject to my approval, that said very hastily, and we’d soon start rehearsing, and her wedding dress was being made in Paris. Now that’s what I call forward planning!
20.
We went to Vienna and Paris for a week for Tessa and me to be fitted and just for a holiday.
Tessa had designed and supervised my uniform and it fitted. And that’s all I can say for it, really. I tried it on and paraded in front of the fawning staff of the tailor shop. They exclaimed in pleasure but Tessa was silent, with a calculating look in her eyes, a measured look, shall we say? I felt like a Gestapo officer, but anything to please my Tessadonna, so I stood while they fussed with the chalk and then I returned to the fitting room.
I looked in the mirror and said to myself, ‘No, Bart. To thine own self be true. Even if it hurts her feelings.’
I burst from the fitting room and there was Tessa, distressed.
‘If you really want that uniform, then that will be it, Barton. But I prefer your Inspector’s uniform. I admired you in it at the Coronation. You’re an Aussie Policeman, mate, and I have no right to try to turn you into anything else.’
‘I agree, Your Royal Highness. I feel like a pox doctor’s clerk in this!’
She smiled beautifully and cocked her head.
‘What is that, please? You have so many Aussie sayings. I get confused.’
‘An idiot!’
‘Oh! Agreed.’
I was expected to bear the revered sword of Richard Coeur de Leon and then present it to the Princess, standing at her throne, and she would knight me with it. It was unwieldy for her, as became obvious during rehearsals. It was unwieldy for me, so of course she had problems! At the end of the knighting she was supposed to hand it back and I would shove it in my scabbard, all this happening while trying not to behead each other.
Gerhardt was our coach and he was very demanding. We practised in the gym, handing that revered bloody sword back and forth to each other, loving each other. Gradually we became skilled and Gerhardt smiled, I think for the first time.
Sword safely stowed away, we had to sit side by side while the counsellors acknowledged me and then we would make a majestic progress down the aisle of the cathedral to the Royal balcony. There, Tessa would present the new knight to the people, and I would show them that I possessed the sword, as evidence of my knighthood. Once again I would be swishing the sword near my beloved and danger lurked.
Gerhardt urged more practice here. The sword was a long one, hence the scabbard was long too, and could easily get tangled in one’s legs. It needed manipulation when I took my seat beside Tessa while the councillors and other superior beings acknowledged me. So I worked at it, under my wife’s critical eye, until we all thought I’d achieved excellence.
Once, towards the end, I stayed behind to practise. I checked the sword, which was held in the Cathedral, and found that some idiot had sharpened it to a razor edge. I spent some time taking off that edge, but even then, I’d have to take care. I wondered who’d sharpened it and why.
There was some objection and some questioning by the senior councillor, Dr. Smid, who’d organised the coronation and would normally have organised this ceremony. But Tessa had been firm against his objections. She’d changed since being crowned---much more regal and commanding, and this detective sensed that there was some other undercurrent.
But let’s get the knighthood and then the wedding out of the way and I’d start to inquire more deeply.
****
The knighting ceremony, I’m here to tell you, went off without a hitch. I played my role perfectly but who wouldn’t with those beautiful green eyes looking into mine and the love emerging from her wonderful face, and, I guess, from mine. I’d counted my steps to perfection and arrived at the footstool in correct order, to kneel on the correct knee. I didn’t whack off my bride’s head with the sword as she took it from my hands and softly touched me on the shoulders. Here, they don’t call you sir anything. It’s Knight Barton and we almost leapt into each other’s arms as she said, ‘Arise, Knight Barton.’ And then more softly, ‘I love you, darling.’
I didn’t tangle or stumble in the progress down the aisle with that damn scabbard, but she had a firm hold on me. She was the experienced campaigner in these things. I was a humble Police Inspector from Queensland.
We progressed to the Royal balcony where I unsheathed the sword, again missing her, and then we adjourned to the Royal luncheon in the Palace.
And there the Princess made a speech---about me.
‘There was some concern in some circles that I should see fit to award this rare knighthood to this man—a commoner from another country. That’s in our terms. In Australia there are no commoners or upper class or nobles. All are equal. Knight Barton would, in Bassenburg du Mont, consider himself just as good as anyone else, and he’d be right. It’s not given to many people to save the life of a ruler of Bassenburg du Mont but that’s what Knight Barton did. We were in the Australian bush, where I was working on a cattle property—one of my great ambitions. Barton was my instructor, the training course was nearing an end, when I was bitten by a huge brown snake, one of the deadliest in the world.’
Big intake of breath here.
‘Barton frightened it off, at some risk, and killed it and then applied first aid to me until help could come. One of the main things is to keep the victim calm and Barton held me and soothed me. He applied a bandage to my bitten leg, which is essential as soon as possible, and he was calm and gentle until help arrived and I wasn’t frightened because I was with him. I was given an injection and taken away to hospital. I never had a chance to thank him. I was brought back here and we never saw each other for many, many months.’
‘Then I found him again and we saw each other often. And we fell in love.’
More murmurs. Dr. Smid and the counsellors were staring straight ahead, po-faced.
‘In two weeks, we will all be back here, celebrating our wedding. Now there can be no talk, and there will be no talk, that I’m marrying a commoner from another country. This ceremony today confers citizenship of our country on this man and elevates him to a station above that of a commoner. But he won’t consider himself any better than anyone else in our country. Und ich bin verbraucht mit Liebe zu ihm!’ It was a big stretch in this company, declaring her great love for me. ‘And I am consumed with love for him.’
She stood, and everyone stood. I seemed to know what to do. I took her hand and held it high and escorted her from the banquet room. We speeded up to the bedchamber and, taking care of my uniform, for I’d be married in it soon, prepared for love. She beat me by fully five minutes but she had another dress for the wedding, so could be speedy. As it turned out, it didn’t hurt things to keep her waiting a while. It was worth it!
All my cynicism, all my mockery and Australian reservations about Europeans’ quaint and ancient customs, had all disappeared.
Whoosh! Out the castle window!
****
And now on to the wedding and more rehearsals, and more practice with the sword which I had to bear back down the aisle, symbolically guarding my bride and Princess, as well as handing her down to the Royal balcony. The sword was quite heavy and pitted. That Richard must have been knackered at the end of a battle. I was buggered just carrying the thing around a bit.
The dependable Sophie briefed me on the wedding. My bride was very busy, organising and getting fitted.
‘You have family and friends attending, Bart. Tessa has aunts and uncles and even a couple of great ones. There’ll be 50 in all. You only have a few, Dennis and family and then your friends, so you’ll be outnumbered.’
‘That’s ok,’ I said.
‘Up to the point of the wedding photographs and then they all come into play, in different combinations. It’ll take some time and I’m afraid your patience will be sorely tried. But they all have to be taken, for the Royal family records. It’s what’s expected and it’s what Tessa will be expecting. Now, Aussie Barton, do you love her enough to put up with all that?’
‘Yes, I do!’
‘And now the bad news. While we’ve been talking you’ve been moved into another room in the Palace, your old one from the dark days of the Coronation. No contact with the bride until the wedding. Can you cop that?’
‘With her at the end, yes!’
****
The ceremony was beautiful and, as I waited and watched my gorgeous, slim bride walk to me, so graciously, smiling, and her green eyes watching me with so much love, I quickly envisioned her plump body flattening me in the mud as I went to help her on to her horse. When had I fallen in love with her? Was it then? Perhaps a little later, but certainly when I nursed her, leaning against the tree and holding her and trying to keep her calm. I desperately didn’t want to lose her but, at that time, I had no right. Now, she was advancing to me to become mine, in the sight of her countrymen, so beautiful—the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and I was so fortunate. Come to me Tessa, in your wonderful gown of silk and lace and taffeta and pearls and diamonds and sequins, with its wonderful floating veil, held by a diamond coronet, the veil so much like the one from Proctor’s Crossing but much longer and more fitting for a Royal bride in her flower-filled and perfumed cathedral.
Our kiss at the usual time was long and passionate, and brought some murmurs from the congregation. Even more murmurs when we paused for breath and kissed again.
The photo session certainly did test my patience and even Tessa was beginning to frown, or as close to a frown as her beautiful face could come. I was beginning to build up some steam over the counsellors being there, they who’d opposed me all the way. When it came time for them, they entered and began to dispute where they should be in relation to Her Royal Highness.
I walked to them and said, ‘Listen, you guys. You’re here only under sufferance. Stand right where you are and stand still for one picture. One picture, and then scram.’
I walked back to Tessa who had her hand over her mouth, concealing a smile, as in the old days.
And so it was done.
At last we got to the wedding feast and all that went with it. And that included the bridal waltz which Tess and I had been rehearsing for a while. We were pretty good. We were on the upper level, naturally, dancing on the floor where I’d been barred in less happy days. We did a couple of circuits, until we were joined by the other guests.
Sophie, the chief bridesmaid, dancing past with my brother and best man, Dennis, called, ‘You’ve made it, Bart!’ laughing.
Suddenly Tessa began to lead and guided me to the spot, the exact spot, where she’d stood to tell me to leave her country, on the disastrous night of the coronation, and me expecting an elopement.