CHAPTER 5
“YOUR MAJESTY,” AUNT ARIADNE UTTERED, bowing deeply.
Cordelia and Uncle Tiberius bowed too.
The king’s chamber was in turmoil. Papers and clothes littered the floor, a peacock flapped on a footstool, and the curtains blew at the open windows. The king’s curly white wig was perched, lopsided, on a statue of a Greek goddess.
Princess Georgina stood tense beside her father’s throne, dressed in a beautiful gown of pale-pink silk. She was holding a shimmery purple cloak in clenched fists and seemed to be trying not to cry.
Lord Witloof stood on the king’s other side. He looked even more tired than he had at the Hatmakers’ door last night. But he was there, dutifully prepared to catch His Majesty if he lost his balance and fell.
“Ah, my hat people!” the king declared. “A spoon is a spoon until it is holey, and then ’tis a fork to eat jam roly-poly.”
Uncle Tiberius inclined his head gravely. “Indeed, Your Majesty.”
“Write that down, Perkins,” the king said to the peacock, plucking the radish from his nose and munching it.
Cordelia giggled and Aunt Ariadne poked her in the ribs.
The king looked keenly at Cordelia. “A child’s laughter is the best medicine,” he said, waving the radish leaves. “Excepting, of course, in cases of excessive hiccups. Then one must be sat upon by a springer spaniel until it stops.”
Cordelia nodded politely.
“Clap this madman in irons!” King George bellowed, leaping down from the throne, crunching a silver fobwatch underfoot as he landed. Then he kicked up a great pile of papers and sniggered as they fell around him like autumn leaves.
“Majesty, I beg you, do not kick those papers,” Lord Witloof implored. “They are important documents to ensure we keep peace with France!”
“Shall we try again, my lord?” the princess suggested, shaking the purple cloak.
Lord Witloof nodded.
“I shall ready the documents,” he whispered, shuffling the papers back into order as the king became distracted by his own reflection in a golden plate. Lord Witloof piled the papers onto the desk by the window and dipped a swan’s-feather quill in the inkpot.
“Will you please be bait again?” the princess asked him.
Lord Witloof sighed, before holding the quill up over his head like a cockatoo’s crest.
“Come and get me, Your Majesty,” he cooed.
The king stopped pulling faces into the shiny plate and crept toward the lord like a cat stalking a sparrow. When he paused to pretend to wash his whiskers, the princess threw the cloak over his shoulders.
For a moment King George stood rigid and tall, suddenly regal. The cloak flowed around his shoulders and Lord Witloof swept him toward the desk.
“Sign here, Your Majesty! Just GR, that will do,” Lord Witloof said, in a jovial, encouraging sort of voice.
The king took the quill, gazing down at the papers.
Nobody breathed as he raised it, twirled it once in his hand—and suddenly tickled Lord Witloof’s nose with it.
“Nah–CHOOO!” Lord Witloof sneezed.
Cackling with furious glee, the king swept the entire pile of papers out of the open window and smashed the inkpot for good measure.
The princess sobbed.
“Enough of that guff!” the king cried, jumping up. “Watch my polka!”
His Majesty twirled round and round his disordered room, flinging the purple cloak out behind him like a pair of thistledown wings.
Lord Witloof stared despairingly out of the window at the papers drifting down to the ground.
“It is well past the time those papers were meant to be delivered,” he sighed, fishing in his jacket. He pulled out a glass pocket watch with a blue butterfly on its face and groaned. “Lord above, horribly late! And His Majesty’s behavior is getting worse! He began by just being a little flighty—playing with his food, doing silly voices and such. But it’s so bad now that he can’t concentrate even for a minute! It’s all farting and dancing and refusing to put on his trousers!”
Cordelia could see how difficult it must be to have an excessively silly king running amok in the palace, though she did think he danced an excellent polka. The king tried to whirl his daughter into the dance, but she pulled her hands away.
Her father is lost too, in a different way from mine, Cordelia thought.
“Everything he’s tried only works for a moment or two!” the princess burst out. “The Watchmakers’ Logic Watch only worked for two seconds, and now it’s smashed to bits; the Bootmakers’ Pondersome Boots didn’t even reach his feet; the Heavy-handed Gloves from the Glovemakers wouldn’t stop him fidgeting even for a minute. And the Cl—Oh, no!”
The king had thrown the cloak off the state balcony and was gazing in wonder as it swam down through the air like a strange purple jellyfish.
“You are our last chance, Hatmakers! If this hat does not cure my father of his baffling behavior, I don’t know what else is to be done!”
“We have actually called for the king’s doctor,” Lord Witloof told them. “To see if he can shed any light on this—please fetch him, Probert.” He signaled to a footman, who hurried out.
“Dear me,” Uncle Tiberius murmured. “A doctor. How modern.”
Moments later the footman returned, followed by a tall man wearing a serious frown to match his serious mustache.
“Ah, Doctor Leech, do come in,” Lord Witloof said.
“Good morning, Your Highness.” The doctor nodded gravely. “Lord Witloof.”
He raised one eyebrow at the Hatmakers before setting his black bag down on the desk.
“I was just telling the Hatmakers how it is vitally important that the king ceases this silliness,” Lord Witloof continued soberly. “France is threatening war. And if His Majesty cannot concentrate long enough to sign these papers, the whole kingdom will be in danger. It is a most distressing situation.”
Aunt Ariadne opened the hatbox and lifted out the Concentration Hat. Doctor Leech looked down his nose at it.
“I am sorry to tell Your Highness and Your Excellency,” Aunt Ariadne said, “that this hat is incomplete.”
Princess Georgina looked crestfallen.
“As Lord Witloof may have told you, Your Highness, my brother, Prospero Hatmaker, has been lost at sea along with the family ship,” Uncle Tiberius began. But he stopped suddenly, flourishing his green silk handkerchief in front of his face.
Princess Georgina’s hands flew to her mouth and Lord Witloof looked wretched. The king pranced gaily past them, riding his scepter like a hobby horse.
“He was bringing back a rare feather, from the Athenian Owl, which we are sure would have helped His Majesty …” Aunt Ariadne explained.
The doctor cleared his throat, but Cordelia thought it sounded as though he was smothering a scornful laugh. Aunt Ariadne’s voice tailed off and a sorrowful silence held the room, punctuated by the clip-clopping the king was making for his pretend horse.
“Prospero Hatmaker was a good man,” Lord Witloof declared. “We were at Cambridge together, though he was several years below me, of course, studying Alchemic Theory and Practice. He won the Dee Prize in his first year for decocting Spiritus Sancti, if I recall. England has lost a fine adventurer and an excellent Hatmaker.”
We shall see about that! Cordelia’s thought blazed, fire-bright.
Uncle Tiberius sniffed and said firmly, “We must be-hat the king, and, in the absence of the Athenian Owl feather, trust that we have done enough.”
“Of course,” Aunt Ariadne added delicately, “in the oldest customs of the Makers of the Royal Garb, the clothes are most powerful when all of them are worn together …”
She glanced around at the scattered clothes.
Lord Witloof sighed. “Indeed, but it is difficult enough to persuade him to put on one thing, Madam Hatmaker.”
All heads turned to the king, who had abandoned the scepter and was dangling upside down from a long velvet curtain. It was decidedly difficult (though not unheard of) to put a hat on an upside-down head.
“Your Majesty, please come down from there,” Lord Witloof wheedled. “You are the Commander of the King’s Army and the Grand Admiral of the Royal Navy, but you can sensibly be neither with your feet up over your head.”
“Majesty, here is a very fine hat for you to try,” Aunt Ariadne said in a sing-song voice.
The king looked sideways at the hat. Lord Witloof took a step forward and the king shrieked and tried to scramble up the curtains.
“He’ll fall!” cried the princess.
The king howled, clinging to the brass curtain pole. The princess, Lord Witloof, and the Hatmakers all beseeched His Majesty to come down. The doctor watched with folded arms.
Poor king, Cordelia thought. It must be very difficult to always have to be sensible. It must be awful for people to take you terribly seriously at all times. And it must be so lonely to have nobody to dance with.
So, without really thinking about it, she began to dance.
She held out her skirts and romped in a circle, whistling a shanty her father had taught her. She leaped into the air and threw her arms above her head and wiggled her fingers.
The king was enthralled. He gazed at the dancing girl, eyes filled with wonder. Slowly, he slid down from the curtains and Aunt Ariadne gently motioned for everybody to step aside.
The king inched toward Cordelia, joining in with her song.
She tapped her toe; he tapped his toe.
She twirled; he twirled.
She stood on her tiptoes and floated her arms out by her sides and so did he, and—
“There!” breathed Aunt Ariadne, placing the hat on the king’s head.
The king changed.
Cordelia was almost nose to nose with him when it happened: the Concentration Hat was working its magic.