“I am quite confident that we shall find the passage my brother showed me is easily negotiable,” Ilona replied.
She thought for a moment, then she said,
“It seemed very large to me at the time, but certainly Julius could stand up-right in it and he was tall, nearly as tall at sixteen as the Prince is now!”
“And the width?” the Count asked.
“I should imagine it would be possible for at least two men to move abreast in it at the same time.”
“Thank you, Ma’am,” Count Duźsa said.
He moved from her side to convey the information she had given him to an Army Officer and Ilona could see the relief on his face.
There was no sign of the Prince, but after Ilona had been in the Hall for about five minutes he came in through the front door, giving instructions as he did so to an officer who walked at his side.
He saw Ilona and came towards her. She felt her heart start to beat frantically.
“You are sure you are well enough to accompany us?” he asked.
“I will not allow you to go without me!” Ilona replied.
“It will be cold.”
“I have a warm cloak.”
“I see you have thought of everything!”
There was a note in his voice which was different from the way in which he had spoken to her before, but as she looked up at him questioningly there was an officer at his side and he turned away to give an order.
The sun had sunk and dusk was falling when finally they left the Castle.
Ilona had learnt, not from the Prince but from one of the officers, that the main body of the Sáros Army had already left.
They had moved off nearly an hour ago to intercept any other Russian troops who might be entering the country through the pass.
They had a long march ahead of them as they too must approach their objective by a tortuous route.
Those who were left behind were thirty of the Prince’s most trusted body-guard. These he intended to lead into the Palace once Ilona had shown them the secret passage.
When she heard what had been planned she could not help a sudden tremor of fear for the Prince’s life.
She did not expect him to be anywhere but in the forefront of the battle, because she knew that he would not ask any man to take greater risks than he himself was prepared to undertake.
But she felt desperately afraid lest he should die in his attempt to save Dabrozka.
Everything that happened tonight was crucial.
On it hinged the whole independence and sovereignty of their country.
There was no doubt that once the Russians got control it would be impossible to dislodge them. Neither Austria and Hungary, nor Rumania would contemplate an all-out war against the whole might of the Tsar’s Army.
Yet even so, with the country united, they might have been able to fight the Russians as the Caucasians had fought under Shammel for years before they were finally defeated.
But the people of Dabrozka were not united and their King had betrayed them.
It was bitterly humiliating for Ilona to realise that it was her father, a Radák, who had turned traitor in such a despicable and unspeakable manner.
His action would justify every complaint the Sáros had made against him, and she was well aware that they were as bitter and vengeful in their dislike of the Radáks as her father was of them.
Yet the Prince had never mentioned or refuted the accusations which the King had brought against him of being implicated in the murder of Julius.
Ilona had expected that he would deny that, if nothing else.
But silence had been part of his defence, that cold, impenetrable, icy silence in which he remained frozen, whenever they were alone.
She had learnt the truth from the Count.
She had not liked to speak of it until the third day after her arrival at the Castle. He had come to her sitting-room to discuss the guests who would be at dinner that evening.
“Will you tell me something, Count?” she asked.
“If it is within my power to do so, Ma’am.”
“I want to know how my brother died.”
The Count was silent and Ilona said,
“Please tell me. My father has accused the Sáros of killing him deliberately and with intent, which I am sure is untrue.”
“It is a lie, Ma’am!”
“I was sure of it! But at the same time I would wish to know what actually happened.”
“It might distress you.”
“It could not be worse than wondering, conjecturing and inventing explanations of his death,” Ilona replied.
The Count nodded.
“I am sure that is true. What we imagine is often so much worse than the reality.”
“Then tell me about Julius,” Ilona pleaded.
“There was a band of young men, led, we learnt later, by Prince Julius, who found it amusing to go to the local Inns patronized by the Sáros, and cause trouble.”
Ilona drew in her breath.
She could imagine her brother, head-strong, daring and bored with the gloom and restrictions of the Palace, fording such an escapade amusing.
“Sometimes they were quite light-hearted,” the Count went on, “and although a certain amount of damage was done in the Inns by glasses and bottles being broken, the landlords were amply compensated and therefore not disposed to complain.”
Ilona’s eyes were on his face as the Count continued,
“As you can imagine, it was inevitable that some of the Sáros young men should consider it their duty to form a rival group to challenge the Radáks and fight them wherever they appeared.”
The Count paused before he said reflectively,
“At first, I am sure, it was just a game. The rival groups had to be intelligent enough to guess where their enemies would appear and try to be in positions of advantage before they arrived.”
His voice was grave as he went on,
“Then things began to get out of hand. I have no way of estimating what the casualties were amongst the Radáks, but a number of Sáros youths lost their lives or were badly injured.”
“They used knives?” Ilona asked.
“And pistols!” the Count replied. “In fact the encounters became shooting-matches in which innocent bystanders, who had only gone to the Inn for a glass of wine after a hard day’s work, were killed or wounded.”
Ilona clasped her hands together.
She could understand all too well how easily such an explosive situation would escalate into what must have amounted to open warfare.
“Your brother was killed in a small Inn near the river where there had never been any trouble before. The landlord catered mostly for courting couples who sat in arbours in his garden, drinking the local wine, and making love.”
He paused before he said sadly,
“Three betrothed men, all decent, industrious workers, were killed the same night as your brother died and six of the Sáros group.”
“And the Radáks?” Ilona enquired.
“Besides your brother, four men were killed, one blinded and another lost his leg!”
Ilona gave a little cry of horror.
“Your brother’s identity was not known until the following morning after the bodies had been taken to the local Church for their relatives to claim them.”
It had been a senseless way for Julius to throw away his life, Ilona thought.
Yet she could understand that he found such nightly excursions exciting and entertaining simply because he must have been so bored at the Palace.
She did not suppose that as he grew older he had found it any easier to put up with his father’s autocratic behaviour, and she suspected that the King might have become jealous of his son.
There were many explanations, many excuses which could be made for Julius’s death.
But the fact remained that he had thrown away his life in a manner which had helped no-one and had merely made the gulf between the Sáros and
the Radáks even wider than it had been before.
“Thank you for telling me,” Ilona said quietly to the Count and they had gone on to speak of other things.
Riding away from the Castle through the darkness, Ilona thought now that perhaps because Julius had shown her the secret passage he would in fact be instrumental now in saving Dabrozka.
“How did you ever learn of this?” she had asked.
Her brother had taken her through the passage and shown her the concealed entrance which was indiscernible unless one was actually looking for it.
“You remember old Giskra?” he had asked.
“Yes, of course,” Ilona answered.
Giskra had been Julius’s first valet once he had become too old to be looked after by a Nanny.
He had served their grandfather and had always seemed to Ilona to be incredibly ancient.
He looked in fact like a little gnome, and as a child she had thought there were numbers of Giskras working away in the mountains, chiselling out the amethysts and other precious stones which her mother treasured.
Giskra had adored Julius and had followed him about like a faithful spaniel, asking nothing more of life than the opportunity to serve him.
“Giskra learnt of the passage through grandfather,” Julius told Ilona. “He had apparently wished to examine it one day and Giskra had gone with him to hold the lantern.”
“And Giskra told you?”
“He took me down it when I wanted to go fishing and Papa had forbidden me to leave the Palace.”
“For any good reason?” Ilona enquired.
Julius shrugged his shoulders.
“You know Papa. Any reason that is disagreeable and unjust is good in his eyes!’.’
The Prince had crossed the river a long way from the Palace and now as they left Sáros land Ilona felt frightened.
Supposing the King’s Armies had anticipated that the Prince would oppose the Russians in defiance of orders to the contrary?
They might be hidden, ready to ambush the Sáros troops and, if the Dabrozkans fought each other, that would be exactly what the Russians wanted. .
But the woods near the river were very quiet. The trees were not so thick nor were there the dense pine forests as on the other side. But at least they sheltered the troops from observation.
The only noise was the jingle of the bridles and the breathing of the horses blowing through their nostrils.
Before they left the Prince had said,
“We move in silence. As you all know, voices carry, especially at night. No-one will speak unless it is absolutely necessary and then only to an officer.”
The Prince’s band of thirty men were all mounted.
They wore dark Cavalry cloaks over their uniforms and beneath them every man had a pistol at his belt and there was a rifle strapped to his horse’s saddle.
So that they would move more quietly the Prince had ordered them all to remove their spurs.
Dabrozkans were such magnificent riders that spurs were nothing more than a decorative part of their uniform.
No Dabrozkans riding for pleasure or dressed as a civilian ever wore spurs.
Despite the fact that they had crossed the river there was still a long way to go.
They had to make a great detour over land that was first wooded, then rough and uneven, covered with huge boulders from some volcanic past.
It would have been impossible to travel quickly, even in the day-time.
At night it meant that every step might mean a twisted fetlock or a fall, even for the sure-footed Dabrozkan horses which were used to such terrain.
They must have been travelling for an hour-and-a-half before the Prince rode to Ilona’s side.
She was vividly aware of him as he drew his horse alongside hers.
Now the moon was rising in the sky, and although its light was still pale and not of the strength it would be later she could see his face and the outline of his handsome features.
His eyes were pools of darkness and she could not guess at the expression in them.
He put out his hand to lay it on her arm and she felt herself quiver as if her whole body came alive at his touch.
“You are all right?”
He spoke almost, beneath his breath, and rather than break the silence, she nodded, then smiled at him because she was so happy.
He had remembered her and he was concerned with her well-being.
Then she told herself that perhaps it was only because she had her uses and if she should collapse now they would be unable to find the passage into the Palace.
He removed his hand, but Ilona had an irrational impulse to hold on to him, to ask him to carry her on the front of his saddle as he had done earlier in the day.
Even to think of the sense of protection and safety he had given her was to feel a thrill of fire run through her.
His arm had been very strong and she had been able to put her head on his shoulder and feel the roughness of his tunic against her cheek.
“I love him!” she told herself. “I love him so –overwhelmingly that even if we are both – killed tonight it will not matter as long as I am – with him!”
She thought that even the guns would no longer make her afraid as the German shells had done when they bombarded Paris.
Then, because her mother did not expect her to show any emotion, she had sat in the sitting-room of the small house sewing.
She had forced herself not to start or wince when they heard the loud report and the crash of the exploding shell.
She had gone with Magda sometimes to see the devastation that the bombardment had caused - the shattered skeletons of great buildings with their mangled and torn fragments of iron looked desolate and at the same time menacing.
Yet she had known that the German shells, filled only with black powder which could be heard all too plainly in the centre of Paris, had a demoralising effect which was a more potent weapon of war than the damage they caused.
The Parisians had screamed hysterically and run for cover, the women herding their children frantically below ground into cellars and basements.
Only her mother remained completely rigid and expressionless when a shell fell within a hundred yards of their house, and Ilona after one frightened gasp, had gone on with her embroidery.
She thought of the nights when she had listened tense and apprehensive and the days when to count the time between one shell and another had seemed interminable.
There was the same hollow feeling of fear within her now and yet it was a comfort she could not express to know that the Prince was near her.
‘He is so magnificent, so fine and noble,’ she thought. ‘No wonder his men adore him!’
He rode to the front of his troops leading the way and finding every possible cover for them whether consisting of trees or boulders.
Then at length when they had been riding for well over three hours Ilona saw the Palace to the left of them.
They had moved in a half-circle since they had left the Castle and having crossed the road to the Pass, which had been a dangerous moment, they were moving in less difficult country and gradually approaching the Palace from the back.
The trees were very thick around its base and it was an awe-inspiring and frightening sight as the moonlight revealed it, looking almost like a fortified town above the tops of the trees.
Ilona knew how strongly the walls had been built and that the Palace was capable of withstanding a long siege, if necessary.
She began to wonder frantically how many Russians were already inside.
She could only pray that the Prince had received his information before too many of their enemies had installed themselves and their guns.
No-one had said so, but Ilona was certain that it would have been the gypsies who had carried the vital information to the Castle.
Her father’s harshness and the manner in which he had exiled them would have turned them bitterly against him.
They would have bee
n only too glad to inform the Prince of anything which might discredit the King.
Gypsies could move surreptitiously and with a secrecy which ensured their going undetected by even the most watchful soldiers.
They had been persecuted for so many years and in so many countries and they had learned how to escape into the woods and mountains where no-one was able to follow them.
‘The gypsies would have told Aladár about the Russians,’ Ilona thought and wondered if their spokesman had been the alluring, exotic Mautya.
He would have been overwhelmingly grateful to her and to her people. How would he have shown his gratitude? The answer to the question was so painful that Ilona wanted to cry out in her distress.
Then she told herself severely that this was no moment for jealousy, no moment to be consumed, as she had been the night before, by a murderous hatred for the woman she suspected of being her husband’s mistress.
“All that matters is that we should succeed and that Aladár should remain unhurt,” she told herself.
They were now less than four hundred yards from the Palace and the Prince brought his horse to a halt.
Quietly the whole troop dismounted and gathered around the Prince, leaving six men to stay with the animals who were furnished with nose-bags to keep them quiet.
An officer helped Ilona to the ground and she walked to the Prince’s side.
She waited for his instructions.
“You will show me the entrance to the passage,” he said in a low voice. “Then when we have entered you will return with Captain Gayozy to the Castle.”
“I have no wish to do that,” Ilona replied.
“Captain Gayozy has my orders,” the Prince answered, “and you will please obey them. I will not risk your being in any danger.”
Ilona said nothing.
She wanted to go on arguing with the Prince, but she realised that although they were speaking in very low voices it was possible for the officers near them to overhear what they were saying.
“Shall we go now?” she asked.
“We will go together,” the Prince answered.
He took her hand as he spoke, as if she was a child being taken for a walk, and they moved ahead of the troops.
Princes and Princesses Page 29
