Princes and Princesses

by Cartland, Barbara

  His wife, who must once have been very pretty but had now grown fat and genial like her husband, also embraced the Professor.

  “You are to play at the Palace!” she said with awe in her voice. “We have often wondered why you have not been asked to do so before, but then His Majesty, I am afraid, is not very musical.”

  “That is true,” the innkeeper chimed in. “He is a man we all respect, but he has no ear for music and it’s a tragedy, a great tragedy!”

  Tora, Andrea and Kliment were welcomed too and the landlord swept them into a large room that was set with tables for use when it was too cold or wet to eat outside.

  On the innkeeper’s instructions a waiter brought them a bottle of special wine.

  “This,” he said with a note of pride in his voice, “comes from my own vineyard!”

  “You have your own vineyard?” the Professor exclaimed.

  “Although it may surprise you, I was able two years ago to buy a vineyard of my own and now I can sell my own wine to my own guests!”

  “Then I must indeed wish you every success,” the Professor said.

  “That is what we have already! The Three Bells is very different from when you were last here, Professor! Now we are fashionable and people come from all over Salona to eat our special apfelstrudel and drink my wine, the wine of The Three Bells.”

  With that they all toasted him and only when they were exchanging reminiscences and started to talk of the ‘good old days’ did the innkeeper’s wife take Tora upstairs to show her into her bedroom.

  It was a small but pretty room overlooking the garden at the back, which she had passed through to hide in the woods.

  “I have put you at the back of the house, fraulein,” the innkeeper’s wife explained, “because I suspect, as you are to appear at the Palace tomorrow, you will wish to go to bed early. Sometimes our guests sing and dance until the early hours of the morning.”

  “They dance here?” Tora asked.

  “In the winter they dance inside the inn,” her hostess replied, “but now when the nights are warm they dance outside and you may be surprised to learn that we have a special floor for dancing.”

  Tora looked puzzled and the innkeeper’s wife explained that they had constructed a wooden floor under the trees so that those who wished to dance were able to do so with the same comfort as if they were in a ballroom.

  Tora remembered that she had noticed as she looked at the little arbours and tables outside that a small area had been covered by a green tarpaulin.

  She had not thought anything about it at the time, but now she realised that it was the dance floor.

  She thought it a very clever idea and wondered with a little leap of her heart and a feeling of excitement if tonight she would see in Salona what she had imagined only existed in Austria.

  After the innkeeper’s wife had left her, Tora tidied herself and went downstairs to find the Professor.

  By now they were sitting outside under the trees in front of the inn and she learned that they were to have an early luncheon and then go to the room that had been allotted to them for their practice.

  “We have a lot of work to do,” the Professor said seriously, “for there must be no mistakes tomorrow night and, as I have not been in Salona for so long, my whole reputation is at stake.”

  “You need not worry, Professor,” Andrea said.

  “However many visiting musicians they may have entertained, no one can play like you.”

  “I hope that is true,” the Professor replied, “but we have already been told that the King is not musical.”

  “His guest may be,” Kliment remarked.

  “My friends have already told me,” the Professor answered, “that it is the Crown Prince Fredrick of Croatia.”

  He paused before he went on,

  “He is not as young as he was, but a great musician. I played for him years ago and he told me then that he had never enjoyed listening to a violinist as he enjoyed listening to me.”

  The Professor spoke without conceit and there was no doubt that he was delighted that the Crown Prince had praised him.

  “Then he must certainly not be disappointed tomorrow night,” Kliment said, “and having a newcomer the quicker we can get down to work the better!”

  As soon as they had seen how young she was, both Kliment and Andrea were nervous that she might let them and the Professor down.

  However, when she started to play the piano in the room that had been allotted to them, she hoped, knowing that she had played with them before, that they would no longer be apprehensive.

  She was not surprised to find that the room was the same one that had been occupied by Prince Boris and his followers.

  It was quite a large room with a conference table in the centre of it and there was also a piano and a number of chairs stacked on one another.

  She thought perhaps it was where informal concerts or entertainments took place during the winter months and she looked around wondering whether Prince Boris had left any incriminating evidence behind him.

  There was nothing on the table that she supposed they had sat round and she told herself that Prince Boris was obviously far too shrewd and crafty to do anything so stupid that might endanger his whole plot to overthrow the King and usurp the Throne.

  ‘How could he achieve anything so fantastic?’ she asked herself.

  Then she knew that there had been attempted revolutions in a great number of small countries like Salona, while every reigning Monarch in Europe was nervous of anarchists who wished to destroy them simply because they were in power.

  There had always been dissension amongst the peasants and the serfs, which was only to be expected.

  However, she was sure the situation Prince Boris was creating was unique and would therefore certainly be a surprise to the King and all those who supported him.

  ‘I am the one person who can stop him!’ she thought ruefully.

  She felt herself tremble at the responsibility.

  Then she started to play with the rest of the quartet and forced herself to concentrate on nothing but the music.

  They went through the whole programme that the Professor had arranged for the King, not once, but three times, before finally he was satisfied and told them they could rest.

  By this time it was late in the afternoon and protectively he sent Tora up to her room to lie down.

  “We can have an early supper,” he said, “then we can all retire and sleep, I hope, soundly until the morning comes.”

  He looked to see if there was any opposition to this idea and, when no one spoke, he went on,

  “I shall want to practise again when we reach the Palace and try out the piano for one thing and also be certain that the acoustics are right. It is so important to me that we must not take any chances.”

  “No, of course not, Professor,” Andrea agreed.

  “We will do anything you ask us to do.”

  “Now you must all lie down and sleep,” the Professor said, “and I myself will perhaps take forty winks. I find travelling quite tiring and we left very early this morning.”

  It was really another way of saying, Tora knew, that he had had a sleepless night worrying because she was coming with them.

  To reassure him that there was no need for him to do so, she smiled at him, then obediently, because he had asked it, she went upstairs to her bedroom.

  She took off her peasant dress before she lay down on the bed, hanging it up carefully as her lady’s maid would have done.

  Without sleeping she lay thinking over all the extraordinary things that had happened so far, not only overhearing Prince Boris’s plot being discussed but also her meeting with Mikloš.

  He was certainly the most handsome man she had ever seen, but there was something about him, she thought, that made him different.

  His looks were not conventional and she had a feeling that he was like an eagle, aloof, dangerous and at the same time the King of the Birds, whom e
ven the largest down to the smallest and most unimportant would revere and respect.

  ‘I am sure I can trust him,’ she told herself.

  Then she asked why she should think so and if it was not too much of a risk to take.

  If she had confided in him, he might have insisted that she told her story at once to some higher authority.

  ‘Perhaps if I see him again,’ she thought, ‘I will ask him if he will meet me here when I am travelling back into Radoslav. I will tell him just as I am leaving what is going to happen, but it will be too late for him to stop me going home with the Professor. And if later he should come in search of me, he will never find me.’

  It seemed the only sensible solution to her problem.

  Equally she was terribly afraid that she might be leaving it too late and Prince Boris would strike before she left the country.

  In which case, if the Monarchy fell, it would be her fault.

  “There is nothing else I can do!” she said aloud as if she was pleading her case in front of a judge. “I cannot involve myself or the Professor in this mess!”

  It was impossible to sleep and after a little while she got up and sat at the window.

  She wondered whether if she walked in the wood she would find Mikloš again, and where he had gone after she left him.

  ‘It was stupid of me to run away,’ she told herself.

  But she knew her mother would think it very reprehensible that she wanted to see him again.

  While they were eating a delicious meal in one of the little arbours the Professor, somewhat embarrassed, told them that he had promised the innkeeper, because he was an old friend, that they would play just one or two pieces for his guests during the evening.

  “I had no idea before we came here,” he said, “that The Three Bells had altered so much, but as you can see, the place is filling up and Mine Host tells me that he has forty or fifty guests every night, and even more towards the end of the week!”

  “His food is certainly delicious,” Kliment remarked.

  “And his beds are comfortable!” Andrea added.

  The Professor laughed.

  “I am afraid that you will have to pay for such comfort,” he said, “not in cash, because my friend has said that he will not accept a penny from us, but by giving the performance he has requested.”

  “In the circumstances,” Kliment laughed, “how can we refuse?”

  “That was what I thought,” the Professor agreed.

  As he spoke, his eyes fell on Tora and she knew that he was apologising to her without words for something he could not avoid.

  It was, of course, quite wrong for her to play in a public place where she could be seen by anyone who could pay to be present.

  She accepted, however, that, as they were the guests of the innkeeper, it would be churlish and exceedingly rude not to make this return for their supper and their beds.

  She therefore smiled back at him and said in order to make him happy,

  “Of course we must do as he asks and I only hope our music not only covers the bill but ensures also that the pourboire is generous.”

  They all laughed at this and Tora thought, as she had done already this evening, that it was great fun to be alone with three men.

  They listened to what she was saying as her father never did and she was joined to them by the love and comradeship of music.

  It was music that carried them far above class, position or any distinction but that of the ability to express what was in their hearts and souls.

  The sun was sinking in a blaze of gold and now the servants from the inn were lighting the Chinese lanterns that hung from the branches of the trees.

  On every table there was a small candle-lantern, which cast a warm golden glow on those sitting around it.

  They were people who Tora felt would be glad to pay a good price for the best wine and food that was well cooked and as delicious as anything she had eaten in her father’s Palace.

  Now the green tarpaulin had been taken from the polished wooden floor for those who wished to dance and a piano had been carried out from the inn.

  Tora had learnt that there was a small band of local musicians who performed every night and one of them was already walking around the tables playing on his violin any popular melody that was requested by the diners.

  It was all so very different from anything she had ever known before that she thought, if nothing else so exciting ever happened to her again, this was something she would always remember.

  The cups of coffee in front of them were filled and refilled and there were liqueurs made from local strawberries or raspberries for the ladies and cognac from the vines for the men.

  Then the innkeeper walked onto the dance floor and a chord was crashed on the piano to hush the diners into silence.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, my friends and my guests tonight, I welcome you!” he said in his deep resonant voice, “and I have a great treat for you, something so unique, so unusual, that it will be something you will remember for weeks or months or even for years and for the rest of your lives!”

  The audience was listening intently as he went on,

  “Tonight we are honoured and very delighted to have here one of the greatest musicians ever acclaimed, not only in this country but in the whole of Europe. He has played in Paris and Vienna and in Belgrade they applauded him until the very rafters of the roof shook! Tonight you will hear him with his famous quartet – the fabulous, legendary and unique Professor Lazar Srejovic!”

  There was an audible gasp from the more elderly guests and then an enthusiastic burst of applause.

  It seemed to ring out into the dusky night where the first star was just beginning to appear.

  Because the Professor’s delight at what had been said was obvious and also because Tora loved him and knew how much it meant to him not to feel that he was forgotten, she felt the tears come into her eyes.

  The Professor rose to bow a dozen times to the applause.

  “And now,” the innkeeper announced, “I am going to ask the Professor and his quartet to play for us.”

  The Professor led the way from the arbour towards the piano and Tora followed him with Andrea and Kliment coming along behind.

  She had, of course, not changed after resting, but had put on the same peasant gown she had worn all day.

  She had only taken a different blouse from her trunk, the one she was wearing now being more heavily embroidered than the one she had worn in the morning.

  Because her Lady-in-Waiting had been afraid in case she had bought her the wrong type, she had brought back a choice and Tora thought now that she must have been clairvoyant in thinking that one day she would need both blouses.

  She also put on a more elaborate headdress with flowers as well as ribbons arching over her gold-tipped hair.

  Like the peasant girls, she wore her hair hanging down her back.

  As she had taken a last glance in the mirror, she was glad that her hair was so thick and curly and reached below her waist.

  At the same time, as she walked behind the Professor, she felt it would be a mistake to look too conspicuous.

  As if the Professor was thinking the same thing, he ordered two of the waiters to turn the piano round so that it was sideways to the majority of the people watching.

  Then, as he picked up his violin and placed it under his chin, Tora was aware that he was deliberately standing in front of her.

  Kliment and Andrea were on the other and the Professor, facing his audience, started off with a light medley of folk songs that were known to most of those present and were as familiar as their National Anthem.

  There was a round of applause when they finished and the Professor then played a spirited waltz that Strauss had made famous and which made Tora long to dance.

  It was, however, a complicated pianoforte accompaniment and she had to concentrate on what she was playing and try not to think of anything else.

  Only as the waltz f
inished and the applause seemed like the roar of waves on the sea did she feel her eyes being drawn towards an alcove at the far end of all the others in the garden.

  Then, as she looked towards it, her heart gave a leap and she just knew that she would see Mikloš sitting there.

  It was him.

  He was alone, seated at a table and he was gazing at her.

  It was, she thought, almost as if he was standing beside her at the piano and holding her captive as he had in the woods.

  Then she heard the Professor say,

  “Thank you, my friends, and now, for my last item, I am going to play you one of my own compositions, which is dedicated to my own land which I love and all to the beautiful women I also love!”

  There was laughter and then the Professor played the piece he had composed himself which to Tora was the most beautiful love song she had ever listened to.

  It seemed to embody everything ever written by the poets and was part of the music that sang in her head as well as the love she sought in her dreams.

  She had played it so often with the Professor when he had given her lessons that it was as if she had no need to direct her fingers on the keyboard since they knew themselves what to do.

  And yet tonight she knew that she was playing better than she had ever played in her life before.

  Although she did not ask herself the reason, she was aware that Mikloš was listening to her.

  It was only when the Professor finished and for the moment there was absolute silence as his audience came back to reality, that Tora looked at Mikloš and wondered if he understood.

  Then the applause broke out and the Professor beckoned to his small orchestra and while Andrea and Kliment bowed, Tora curtseyed.

  The Professor would have walked back to the arbour, but a dozen people sitting at the tables insisted that he should have a glass of wine with them, saying how honoured they were to meet him.

  There was nothing the Professor could do but accept their hospitality and he sat down at one of the larger tables under the trees.

  Tora was glad of the way the Professor was praised, and as the glasses were filled, he was toasted again and again.

  By now the small band belonging to the inn were back in their places and, because for anybody to dance would be an anti-climax, they were all grouped together around the piano playing a waltz tune.