“And what is being said?” the King enquired.
“The Russians intend to exploit to their own advantage, the difficulties that exist in our country.”
“What difficulties? What are you talking about?” the King demanded.
“I am referring to the enmity which is almost a state of war, Sire, existing between the Radáks and the Sáros.”
“Good God! Did you imagine I was not aware of it?” the King ejaculated. “If you want the truth, Prime Minister, it is a state of war! I intend to destroy those who do not obey my laws and who flaunt my authority to the point of letting loose my prisoners!”
“That policy is exactly what the Russians are hoping for,” the Prime Minister said quietly.
The King glared at him but did not speak, and he went on,
“I have unmistakeable evidence, Sire, that they have infiltrated our people and are stirring up the trouble-makers with gifts of money and the promise of many benefits if the Monarchy be over-thrown.”
“You are crazy!” the King said. “Who is likely to overthrow me?”
` A civil war is what the Russians are encouraging, Sire,” the Prime Minister explained. “That would furnish a sufficient excuse for the Russian Armies to march in on the pretext of keeping order.”
Ilona gave a little gasp.
“Your Majesty is aware that should they invade this country when everything is at peace,” the Prime Minister continued, “both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Rumania would protest and might even actively support us.”
He paused and his eyes were on the King as he said slowly,
“But if we continue to fight amongst ourselves, if the country remains divided as it is at the moment, the Russians will take control. Once they are in power it would be extremely difficult to dislodge them.”
The King leant back in his chair, his under-lip thrown forward in an ugly expression of disbelief.
But Ilona knew that he was genuinely surprised at what the Prime Minister had said.
She was quite certain that it was a reasonable and plausible forecast of what would happen.
For years she had been told that the Russians coveted Dabrozka.
Actually the mountains on the Eastern side of the country where it bordered Russia and which were not very far from the capital were more negotiable than those on the boundaries of Hungary and Rumania.
Also Russia was very large and her Army was enormous!
If it came to war Ilona was certain that however brave the Dabrozkans might be they would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
The Prime Minister broke the silence.
“In the Council this morning, Sire, we found a solution!”
“A solution?” the King echoed. “What might that be?”
He still spoke in an aggressive manner, but although there was no outward evidence of it Ilona was certain he was in fact seriously perturbed by what he had been told.
“We have all heard,” the Prime Minister went on, “of Her Royal Highness’s return.”
He bowed to Ilona as he said:
“May I welcome you back, Princess? And may I say in the years that you have been away you have been greatly missed? Your beauty and your charm will, I know, open a new era in the history of our country.”
Ilona smiled at him.
“Thank you, Prime Minister,” she answered. “I am very grateful for your kind words and I wish I could in some way bring you peace.”
To her surprise every man in the delegation turned his eyes towards her and there was an expression on their faces which she could not understand.
“Peace is what we have prayed you would bring us, and which is within your power to give,” the Prime Minister said.
Ilona looked at him in astonishment and the King said sharply:
“What the hell are you talking about? I make neither head nor tail of it! If you have a solution, as you say, then let us hear it.”
“Our solution, Sire, is very simple,” the Prime Minister answered. “It is that this country which we all love so much and which we all wish to serve should be united and there should be no more fighting, no more dissension, between the Radáks and the Sáros.”
“And how do you hope to achieve that?” the King sneered.
“By the marriage of Her Royal Highness, Princess Ilona to Prince Aladár Sáros!”
For a moment there was an almost deathly silence.
Then as Ilona gave a little gasp her father sat forward hammering with a clenched fist on the golden arm of his chair.
“Do you call that a solution?” he yelled. “Can you really consider that I would give my only child, my daughter, to that devil who has defied me, murdered my son, and incited my own people against me?”
His voice seemed to echo and re-echo round the Hall of Mirrors.
The Prime Minister said quietly after a moment,
“If that is your final word, Sire, then we may as well open the passes to the Russians and welcome them as our conquerors!”
Again there was silence.
Ilona felt her heart beating violently, and although she hoped no-one noticed it she clenched her fingers together on her lap.
She tightened them as they were interlocked so that the hard pressure prevented her from crying out.
‘It is impossible!’ she thought.
Impossible that they should actually be asking her to marry a man she had never seen, a man of whom she knew nothing except that her father loathed him.
In Paris everyone had discussed love, the girls at the Convent had giggled about men and talked of being married as if when it had happened they would move into some special Paradise.
Ilona had not listened to them very attentively.
But now she knew she had thought that someday she might fall in love and since she was no longer a person of any particular importance she would not have to submit to an arranged marriage.
It was usual in France, she knew, but she was not French. She had read and listened to the Hungarian legends and their stories of lovers who defied the whole world and found a rapturous happiness.
Without discussing it with her mother or indeed mentioning it to anyone, Ilona had decided that she would never marry until she fell in love.
She had a child-like confidence, despite their quiet way of life, that one day a man whom she could love and who loved her would come into her life.
She had always imagined him coming to her like a crusading Knight riding a fiery half-tamed horse over the green steppes and nothing would matter but their ecstatic love for each other.
But from such romantic dreams she was suddenly awakened to harsh reality.
She understood all too well what the Prime Minister was saying.
She knew without his elaborating on the subject that it would in fact be the only way for Dabrozka to find peace.
“But why must it be me?” she asked herself despairingly.
It was a question men and women had asked since the beginning of time when they were confronted with a personal issue of the heart.
The answer was quite simple.
There was no-one else!
Her father had already chosen her as the heir to the throne of Dabrozka.
Prince Aladár Sáros, although he was not Royal, wielded power and authority in his own territory which equalled that of the monarchy.
There was no other way by which the feuds, the enmity and the hatreds of the divided country could be dissolved.
“I will not agree!” the King said stubbornly.
“Well well, Your Majesty,” the Prime Minister said briskly. “In which case we can only withdraw to await the arrival of our enemies.”
“How can you be so sure that this is what the Russians are planning?” the King enquired.
“We have, as Your Majesty knows, our agents in Russia, besides the gypsies whom you despise,” the Prime Minister replied.
“You can rely upon their information?”
“What they have told us has
been confirmed in a dozen different ways,” the Prime Minister replied. “The trouble makers we have arrested in the City have, when they are questioned, confirmed our suspicions one hundred percent!”
The King was silent. Then one of the Delegation said tentatively,
“Would it not be in order, Sire, to ask the Princess if she would be prepared to save her country?”
Again everybody’s eyes were turned towards Ilona and she had the feeling that her father too was waiting for her answer. For a moment she felt she must cry out her repudiation of such an idea and the horror that it gave her.
Then she remembered her mother and the teaching which had been instilled into her from childhood.
“We must always trust God to guide us to do what is right,” the Queen had said. “We are not wise or clever enough to decide great problems for ourselves. God always knows best.”
“Did God think it right that you should leave Papa?” Ilona had asked.
“I prayed about it for many years,” her mother answered. “Not a day passed when I did not go down on my knees and ask for God’s guidance.”
She gave a sigh which seemed to come from the very depths of her being.
“I thought, in fact I was sure, that God wanted me to do my duty. I was married to your father. I had taken the vows of obedience and I intended to fulfil them.”
“What happened, Mama?” Ilona asked.
“When your father beat you for some quite minor offence until you became unconscious, I knew as if I heard a voice speak from Heaven that I must take you away to safety.”
She made a little gesture as she said simply,
“It was no longer a question of my duty only to my husband, but my duty towards my own child who could not protect herself.”
The Delegation was waiting, and almost as if her mother spoke for her Ilona heard her voice say quietly,
`I will do what you – require of me – if it will save –our country!”
There was a sound of relief which seemed to come from all twelve men standing in front of her.
“We can only thank Your Royal Highness from the very depths of our hearts,” the Prime Minister said.
“And what about Aladár Sáros?” the King enquired. “Have you obtained his consent to this crazy idea? Or are you so sure he will come crawling up the hill to the Palace on all fours to get himself accepted as my son-in-law?”
There was such an unpleasant tone in her father’s voice that Ilona felt ashamed.
How right her mother had been, she thought, that one should never parade one’s innermost feelings and that one should keep control of one’s emotions.
“It was our first duty, Sire, to put the proposition before our King before we discussed it with anyone else,” the Prime Minister answered.
“Most obliging of you!” the King remarked sarcastically.
“But now, when we leave here, we will go at once to Sáros Castle. Since the Prince is deeply concerned about the position in which this country finds itself, and since he is as aware as we are of the dangers confronting us, I am certain he will agree.”
“He would be a fool if he did not!” the King sneered.
The Prime Minister ignored the remark.
“There is one further point I must put before Your Majesty, and that is the importance of speed. The reports I have before me are that the Russians have already drawn up plans to enter this country within the next few days.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“We have already apprehended two men in the City carrying dynamite with which they intended to blow up Parliament, and also the bridge over the river!”
“God Almighty! What the hell are the police doing? And we have an Army!”
“It is impossible for either of the forces you mention, Sire, to keep control of undesirable aliens, when they are already fully occupied in keeping our own people from each other’s throats!”
There was a truth in this which the King could not gainsay and the Prime Minister went on,
“I therefore suggest, with your agreement, Sire, and Her Royal Highness’s that we arrange for the marriage to take place the day after tomorrow in order to resolve the situation as quickly as possible!”
It was with difficulty that Ilona prevented herself from crying out in denial.
It was one thing to discuss marriage with a stranger - a man she had never ever seen. But to be pitch-forked into it with hardly time to breathe was something she had not foreseen or imagined.
She did not speak and after a moment the King growled,
“If it has to happen I suppose there is no point in hanging about.”
“Very well, Sire. If you will leave it with me I will make all the arrangements, and with the Princess’s agreement the announcement will be made to-night by Criers in the Market Place.”
He glanced at Ilona as he added
“The decorations will go up to-morrow. The Archbishop will be invited to conduct the ceremony, the details of the celebration can be discussed later.”‘
“God knows what we have to celebrate!” the King ejaculated.
“It is the only possible way to save Dabrozka,” the Prime Minister insisted.
“Then get on with it, damn you!” the King said with a sudden burst of anger, “and get out - all of you! I do not want to see your ugly faces, knowing you are crowing over me because you think you have brought off a coup!”
He rose to his feet as he shouted,
“I warn you - no good will come of this marriage, and as far as I am concerned a million Russians would be preferable to one Sáros!”
He left the dais and stamped out of the Throne Room.
Ilona looked at the Prime Minister. Then feeling embarrassed and unsure of herself she rose.
He crossed to her side and taking her hand in his raised it to his lips.
“May I thank you, Princess,” he asked, “for your courage, and for showing that while you have been away from us for so long you still have your country’s well-being at heart?”
“I – thought – to-day,” Ilona said hesitatingly, “that some of the – happiness I remembered had – left our people.”
“You will bring it back,” the Prime Minister said reassuringly. “I am as certain of that as I am certain that you and you alone can save us.”
“Is the situation really as bad as you described to the King?”
“If anything it is worse!” the Prime Minister admitted. “His Majesty hates the gypsies, but because they pass through one country to another and because they have a kinship with other gypsies of all nationalities, we have known for the last two years what the Russians were planning.”
“Russia is – so large and we are so – small,” Ilona said. “Why should they want us?”
“Perhaps we are Naboth’s vineyard,” the Prime Minister said with a faint smile. “Anyway we know they have been working feverishly waiting for an opportunity to strike and Prince Julius’s death made them think that their hour had come!”
“They did not expect my father to send for me?” Ilona asked.
“I think if they ever knew of your existence, they had forgotten about it,” the Prime Minister replied.
“Then my – my marriage will come as a surprise.”
It was difficult to say the word ‘marriage’ and it seemed to stick in her throat.
“A great surprise! And a very unwelcome one for the Russian Generals.”
Then in another tone of voice the Prime Minister added,
“And now may I present to Your Royal Highness my colleagues, all of whom, I know, are as grateful to you as I am for your understanding.”
As they were introduced by the Prime Minister, each man in turn kissed Ilona’s hand.
When she looked at them she realised they were all responsible, serious-minded men who would not have been deceived by some spurious tale of invasion unless it were true.
Then, because they had a lot to do, the Prime Minister took his Delegatio
n away and Ilona, avoiding the rooms where she might find her father, ran up the stairs to her bedroom.
As she expected, Magda was there and she ran across the room to throw her arms round the old maid.
“Magda! Magda!” she cried. “I am to be married to a – man I have never – seen – whom Papa hates and who he swears killed Julius! Oh, Magda, I am afraid – terribly, terribly afraid!”
CHAPTER THREE
“Will Papa see me, Magda?” Ilona asked.
“The Aide-de-Camp said the King will see no-one, M’mselle.”
Ilona walked across the Boudoir which adjoined the Queen’s bed-room and stood looking out of the window.
Down in the valley she could see flags being hoisted in the City. They were blowing on the warm wind and silhouetted against the white buildings in brilliant patches of colour.
“It is absurd!” she said. “I must find out what is happening and what arrangements have been made for tomorrow.”
Magda did not reply and Ilona knew from the expression on the old woman’s face that she was worried.
“It will be all right, Magda,” she said reassuringly. “I am sure it will be all right.”
She was speaking as much to encourage herself as her maid, and as she spoke the fear and apprehension of what lay ahead of her mingled with the shock that she had received the night before.
After the Deputation had gone she had expected that her father would avoid her for some hours until he had recovered from his anger.
In a way she could understand what he was feeling and how it was so humiliating, after all he had said about Prince Aladár to be forced to accept him as a member of his family.
At the time Ilona felt that her father must realise that the country came first and the person who was really making a sacrifice was herself.
She tried to feel, without any conviction, that what was happening was natural and was only to be expected by one of Royal blood.
What was the difference between marrying Prince Aladár of Dabrozka or a Prince from another part of Europe?
At least he was not a foreigner and they were of the same nationality.
‘I suppose it is because I have lived like a commoner for so long,’ Ilona thought, ‘that the idea of an arranged marriage is so terrifying.’
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