A year slipped by. The young King and Queen lived all that time in almost perfect happiness, for there was nothing now to mar their joy except Gamboy’s tantrums. And though these were growing more frequent and more violent, yet they gave less trouble than before, because, now Courtesy was King, he took the law into his own hands and refused to let her come into the Presence unless she would behave herself. Violet agreed to this with great reluctance. She saw that it was necessary, but the coolness between herself and Gamboy was an increasing load of sorrow about her heart, a load which she could still feel in the midst of all her happiness, and one of which she longed to rid herself.

But what of the Silver Trumpet? Would not that serve to soften her sister’s heart and to bring them together again, at least for an hour? Alas, it was lost! It had never been seen since the

night of the wedding. On that night Queen Violet had asked the King to give it to her to play with. He had refused at first, for when he left home his Father had bidden him never, never to part with it, no, not even to save his life. But when he told Violet this, she only laughed and pouted a little, saying:

“Pooh, sir, you have small faith in our happiness, if you think it hangs on such a toy. Keep your old trumpet!”

She was merry with jest and dancing and meant small harm; yet Courtesy, who had never heard her speak so before, was troubled inwardly and felt his heart ache for a moment, as though he were alone. So, to ease his little pain, he gave it to her with a forced smile, saying:

“Guard it well, then, and at night see you keep it under lock and key.”

Whereupon she took it and tossed it up like a ball for joy, but that very night left it lying on a couch in the Throne Hall. And when she woke in the middle of the night and remembered what she had done, she was sorry, but she would not trouble to go and put it away. For it seemed to her then that nothing could ever make her unhappy again, and that she and the King had no need to be careful of anything.

And now nobody knew where it was. Nobody? Yes, one person knew: Princess Gamboy.

She had found it in the Throne Hall early the next morning, and taken and hidden it in an old disused loft above the stables. Princess Gamboy had come to hate and fear the strange power which that trumpet had over her. She was too proud, you see, to surrender to anything except her own self-will. And the thought of the new King everlastingly blowing his own trumpet drove her hopping mad.

But there were the five musicians with their five fiddles. Why could not they be brought in to make life more smooth at the Castle? Surely the King had not forgotten that wonderful moonlit evening in the West Corner of the Queen’s Garden? No, he had not forgotten it, but (how sad it is to tell!) all was not well in the land over which King Courtesy ruled. Last year’s harvest had failed, and his subjects were growing very poor. There would have been a famine in the cold winter, and all the little children would have starved or frozen to death, if the King had not sent abroad to the neighbouring countries to buy grain and fuel for his subjects. But the rich merchants of the neighbouring countries would not yield up their grain and their coal except for money. Consequently the King’s Treasury grew emptier and emptier, the musicians had to be dismissed, and the King and Queen, although they lived in a great Castle, were very, very poor. In the evenings, while King Courtesy was racking his brains for ways and means to relieve the distress, the Queen would sit by the fire (such a small one!) mending up his old socks and turning his old clothes inside out to make them look like new. And this was a great hardship to the King, who until that year had always been given a new pair of socks every day. For the hardest of all trials in this world is to have to do without something you have been accustomed to all your life, and just at first I believe it was very nearly as hard for the King to do without his socks as it was for the poor people to do without their fires. But he knew, all the same, that fires were very much more important than new socks, so he said nothing about it to anyone.

Yet even this was not the saddest part of the story, for the people, in spite of all their King’s efforts to help them, in spite of his empty Treasury and his tired, white face, began to growl and complain and even to threaten. They had never had a famine before, they said, and they had never had a King Courtesy before; therefore the one must be because of the other.

Moreover there were many ill-natured people going about the land, who stirred up and increased this hatred as much as they could. And in particular there was one woman, whose fame soon spread abroad, because in that country it was not usual for women to get up and address a crowd.

“Citizens,” she would cry, standing on a tub in the market-place, “fellow citizens, we’ve had enough of this! What happened last night? What will happen again tonight?” and she would pause, as though waiting for a reply. Then, as there was none, she would reply herself: “Why this will happen—some of us will be cold. Some of us will be frozen! ALL OF US WILL BE HUNGRY!”

And from the crowd of listeners would come a loud growl of assent. Then she would raise one accusing arm and sweep it round in the direction of Mountainy Castle with its rows of blazing windows: “Are the people in there cold? Are they hungry?” she would ask fiercely, and the crowd would raise its voice as one man and thunder out an indignant

“No!”

till the market-place rang again with the noise. When she had finished her speech, the people would gather into knots and talk in low voices, threatening to march up to the Castle and drag the King from his bed and kill him, while all the time, if they had only known, the poor man sat shivering in his fireless study signing papers, interviewing farmers, and devising schemes for the distribution of food and fuel to his subjects. But in the end they always decided to stay at home; for however much, in their ignorance, they had begun to hate King Courtesy, they still loved Queen Violet far too well; they had all loved her devotedly ever since she was a child. So for the present the King and Queen were safe.

One night the Queen lay in bed very ill, and beside her in the bed lay a tiny little daughter, two days old. The Physicians had spoken gravely to the King, telling him that the young Queen-mother must be kept absolutely quiet for a long time, as the slightest shock now might cause her death. Her death! The poor King was distracted with anxiety, but his Counsellors told him that he must not allow it to appear in his face, as the people were so discontented that they feared a revolution if it was known that the Queen lay in danger. “They would be certain,” said the Counsellors, “to blame Your Majesty for it.” This made King Courtesy very sorrowful, for he loved his subjects dearly and would have given his life for them. But what could he do? “Moreover,” said the Counsellors, “Your Majesty would be wise to order every room in the Castle to be lit up tonight, so that the people down in the City and the shepherds far away on the snow-covered hills may see the lights and be persuaded that all is well in Mountainy Castle.” Then the King gave orders accordingly, and the lights blazed forth from the windows into the dark night.

But down in the City the same wicked woman, who had stirred the people up before, was speaking again:

“Look at those lights,” she cried, pointing to the Castle: “nobody is cold in there; nobody starves there; big fires blaze all day on the hearths of empty rooms, burning up the coal that might be warming your wives and children; the tables in there are loaded with peacocks' breasts, while you are left to starve!” and the hungry men, shivering in the freezing east wind, their wet feet numbed by the snow about their boots, did not stop to ask if the woman were speaking the truth. Is it any wonder?

Nobody knew who she was or where she lived. Only one night a man had sworn that he saw her disappear into the Castle itself. That was strange. Tonight, too, she seemed to make off in that direction.

“She has gone to set fire to the Castle,” suggested a young man in fun. “She has gone to set fire to the Castle,” shouted his neighbour.

“She has gone to set fire to the Castle. She has gone to set fire to the Castle,” cried everybody, and everybody, except the young man who had suggested it, believed that it was true; for people will believe almost anything when people are excited and hungry enough.

“Stop her!” cried one. “No!” said another. “Yes!” shouted a third.

“What about Queen Violet?” cried another. “Are we going to let her be burnt alive?” “No!”

“No!”

“No!”

“No!”

came the shouts from all sides, and everybody began talking at once at the top of everybody’s voice. At last they decided that they would march to the Castle in procession, with flaring torches to show them the way, to rescue Queen Violet when the Castle was set on fire. But Princess Gamboy and the King, they said, they would leave to burn to death. Then they thought what a fine big blaze the burning Castle would make, and of the red glare that would go up into the sky, and their hearts grew warm within them as though they had drunk brandy. Half-an-hour later the procession started off; some of the men carried pitchforks and some axes, and their red faces peeped from the black night beneath the glare of the flaring torches. And as they marched they sang this song:

“Left right, left right,
No more flour in the sack—
Left right, left right,
No more coal on the stack—
But we’re going to get warm tonight,
My Boys,
Before we all come back."

“Do you see the flames bursting out?” said one.

“Look how the roof is smoking already!” cried his neighbour. But they only thought they had seen these things, because they wanted to see them.

“Ah,” said a third, “I wonder how the woman got into the Castle. It is well guarded, neighbours, very well guarded.”

“And I wonder who she is,” said a fourth. They did not know that it was Princess Gamboy herself who had been speaking to them half-an-hour ago, and who had now gone back into the Castle simply because she lived there. You see, as she grew wickeder and wickeder, she had grown more cunning too, and she had taken to disguising herself and going out to try and stir up rebellion against her brother-in-law, the King, whom she hated so much. Many a time she had tried to tell the citizens how Violet lay ill, knowing that this, which was true, would inflame them against the King more than all the lies she could invent. But somehow the words stuck in her throat; she dreaded the outburst of indignation which would follow, for it would remind her of the great love which the people bore to her sister. Princess Gamboy still loved Violet more than she loved anything else in the world. But that was so little that even her love for Violet had become a kind of hatred. So she said nothing about her when she spoke to the citizens. And then, you see, she didn’t want them to attack the Castle, because she lived in it herself. Besides, she had another plan on foot for satisfying her ugly jealousy of the King and Queen. She was hurrying back now to see if it had been successful.

She did not know, as she crept into the Castle, that the citizens were marching with their torches up the hill. She had heard a low, strange noise like the buzzing of gnats in the distance, and wondered for a moment what it was. That was all. But if she had listened very carefully she might have heard low, like the angry murmur of the sea, but getting steadily louder and louder:

“Left right, left right,
No more flour in the sack—
Left right, left right,
No more coal on the stack—
But we’re going to get warm tonight,
My Boys,
Before we all come back."