‘He said he would find me again – and I must trust him,’ she told herself over and over again when she could not sleep at night.
But how could she trust him to find her when he did not know her name?
The Professor would not dare tell him and she was in an inaccessible place where he would never think of searching for her.
The Grand Duke, however, was looking forward eagerly to the King’s visit and was having long conferences with his Prime Minister.
Tora knew that they were concerned not only with the arrangements for the King’s visit personally but also how the linking of their two countries by marriage would benefit Radoslav.
He reported a certain amount of this to Tora, but being a very unimaginative man, he did not notice the misery in his daughter’s eyes or the way she seldom spoke except to say,
“Yes – Papa. Of course, Papa,” in a dull voice.
Only when she was able to leave her father and go to her own room did Tora fling herself down on the bed and weep bitterly.
Whatever she said or did, she was moving inexorably nearer and nearer to the moment when, like the French aristocrats going to the guillotine, her life would end.
Sometimes she felt that God had deserted her and the sun had ceased to shine.
Then she could only cry despairingly, convinced that Mikloš had been wrong and they had lost each other now and forever.
“I love him – love him!”
The words became a mockery.
*
The day of the King’s arrival was brilliant with sunshine.
With the flags flying, garlands of flowers encircling every lamppost and the window boxes of every house brilliant with blossom, the City looked very beautiful.
The Grand Duke insisted that Tora should drive with him through the streets the day before to view the preparations that were being made and she felt as if each one of them was a wreath laid on her coffin.
The Grand Duchess had fussed over what she should wear and, by working day and night, the dressmakers had completed two new gowns in record time. Tora tried to thank them, but the words seemed to stick in her throat.
She could not even bear to look at herself in the mirror in case she should look attractive for a man she hated.
She kept telling herself, because she had always believed in Fairy stories and her own fantasies that by some miracle at the very last moment Mikloš would find her.
In some magical way he would spirit her out of the Palace. She would be with him, perhaps on a star or another planet where nobody would ever find them!
But when she awoke on the morning of the King’s visit, she told herself those were children’s stories and now she had to behave like a grown-up woman.
She had only to think of the King to see him as she had when she was presented to him at his Palace and now he considered her beneath his condescension.
What was more, he had made no effort to hide his boredom at the thought of the musical evening ahead of him.
‘How can I live with that?’ she asked and, because there was no answer, she wanted to cry again.
It was typical that neither her father nor her mother had the slightest idea how much she was suffering, because, as she had always known, they did not really think of her as having any identity apart from themselves.
She was their child and all she had to do was to obey them and, if that meant she could do something for the good of her country, then her personal feelings about it were quite unimportant.
“It has been arranged,” the Grand Duke had informed his wife and daughter the night before, “that I shall meet the King on the outskirts of the City. We will drive together to the Civic Hall, where he will be received by the Prime Minister and representatives of the City.”
“May I come with you?” the Grand Duchess enquired.
“There will be no women present,” the Grand Duke replied sharply. “You and Tora will wait here until I bring the King to the Palace, which will be just before luncheon.”
He paused for a moment before he added,
“You will receive him in the Throne Room. That will be the most appropriate place and I presume that we shall have to provide food and wine for about fifty people. ”
“That is already arranged,” the Grand Duchess informed him.
Her husband ignored the interruption and he continued,
“You and Tora will stand in front of the Throne, which will make an impressive background and I will first bring the King to you and then present our guests in order of their rank.”
“I was just wondering – ” the Grand Duchess began.
“There is no need to wonder,” the Grand Duke interrupted. “Everything has been planned. All you have to do is to make yourself pleasant and you too, Tora.”
The Grand Duke looked at her intently before he continued,
“Remember, if the King does not take a liking to you, he might return back to Salona without asking you to be his wife.”
With difficulty Tora prevented herself from saying that was what she would prefer more than anything else in the world.
“If that happens, we will certainly lose face,” the King said. “I was thinking only last night that there are several other Princesses who might qualify to be Queen of Salona.”
“I am sure, Papa, they would be – much more suitable,” Tora murmured.
Her father stiffened.
“That is an extremely foolish remark,” he thundered, “and typical of the attitude you have shown from the very beginning over this visit! Get it into your stupid head that you are extremely fortunate to have the chance of being a Queen of any country, let alone one as prestigious as Salona!”
He was working himself up into a rage and the Grand Duchess said soothingly,
“I am sure that Viktorina was just being modest. After all she is well aware that few girls of eighteen have such an advantageous offer before their coming out ball.”
“It will certainly save that expense,” the Grand Duke growled. “At the same time I suppose the wedding will cost us more than we can afford.”
“I am sure that everybody in the country will enjoy it tremendously!” the Grand Duchess said. “And Tora will make a very lovely bride.”
Tora wanted to scream that it was for a man who was not interested in her and from all she had seen of him would not even look at her.
Instead she said nothing and walked away to stare out of the window in case her father should see the tears gathering in her eyes.
Now in a few hours she would see the King again.
While every instinct in her body told her she must escape from him and the terrifying future that was being planned for her, she knew that such ideas could never be translated into action.
If she ran away, she would be brought back, if she hid, she would be found.
Even if now at the last moment she said that she would rather go into a Convent, she was quite sure that her father would forbid it, in which case no Convent door would be open to her.
‘I am cornered – and there is no escape!’ she told herself miserably.
She had put on an ordinary gown first thing in the morning and, because there seemed to be nothing else she could do, she went to the music room to play over again, until it echoed and re-echoed in her ears, the Professor’s love song.
Later her Lady-in-Waiting, an officious and fussy woman, came bustling in to tell her that it was time to change.
“You will not want to be late, Your Highness, on such a very important occasion,” she said coyly.
Tora did not answer.
She only shut down the lid of the piano as if she was shutting away the last of her dreams and went lethargically upstairs to where her lady’s maid was waiting for her.
The gown that had been made for her in such haste was, in fact, very lovely.
It was of white, because that was expected of somebody so young and a future bride, the bustle was caught up with small bunches of pink roses and t
he same roses outlined the low neck of the tight bodice that revealed the curves of her figure.
They also trimmed the sleeves, which ended just above her elbows with a row of exquisite white lace.
At any other time she would have been thrilled at possessing a gown, which would have made her think of the music of Johann Strauss and of waltzing under the stars.
But now she would have preferred a dress of sackcloth and a handful of ashes to sprinkle on the red lights of her hair.
“You look lovely, Your Highness, absolutely lovely!” her lady’s maid exclaimed when she was dressed, but Tora did not even bother to look in the mirror.
What did it matter what she looked like to an old, bored, indifferent King who was marrying her simply to provide him with a son and to quell the ambitions festering in Prince Boris’s breast.
‘I hate him and I hate Salona!’ Tora said beneath her breath.
Then she remembered that magical moment when Mikloš had held her in his arms at the back of the inn and kissed her under the stars.
She had thought then that if she died at that moment it would be the most perfect Fate that could ever happen to her.
‘Why did I not die?’ she asked.
Once again her whole being was calling out to him frantically – desperately, despairingly,
‘Save me, oh, Mikloš, save me! I love you!’
She was however, although very pale, quite composed as she joined her mother.
“You look charming, my dear!” the Grand Duchess said. “That gown is certainly worth the trouble I took getting it ready on time.”
“It was – kind of you – Mama,” Tora managed to reply.
“Now make yourself really pleasant to the King,” the Grand Duchess admonished, “otherwise your father will be annoyed. He has worked himself up about this visit and, if anything goes wrong, I think he will have a stroke!”
Tora did not answer.
She was following her mother into the Throne Room, which was already filled with the people who had been invited to the Royal luncheon party.
The ladies all curtseyed to her mother and the gentlemen bowed as they took their places, as her father had commanded, in front of the Throne, which stood on a raised dais.
Above it was a canopy of crimson velvet ornamented with the regalia of Radoslav.
If Tora had not been so unhappy, she would have thought with a smile that her father was doing his best to impress the King and would undoubtedly fail.
As she now knew, the Palace of Salona was far more beautiful and far better furnished than their own.
She was certain therefore that the King would be unimpressed and more condescending than usual because he was honouring a less significant country than his own.
Then, as she heard in the distance the cheers as her father and the King arrived in the State Coach outside the Palace, she felt once again that she must run away.
She could imagine herself holding up the front of her gown and with her bustle flowing out behind her escaping through one of the open windows that led into the garden.
She would run across the green lawn, vanish into the bushes and somehow, perhaps on a magic carpet, fly away to the woods of Salona where she would find Mikloš.
As he had done before, he would come riding down the path and see her sitting waiting for him on a fallen tree.
Because they belonged to each other, she would melt into his arms, his lips would come down on hers and she would be his and they would never be separated again.
Lost in her fantasy, Tora was almost oblivious to what was happening in the Throne Room.
Then she heard her mother say beneath her breath,
“Here they come!”
There was a rustle and murmur of the people around them as her father and the King came through the door.
There was, Tora knew, a long walk along the carpet before they reached them.
Because she could not look at the King, knowing how hard his eyes would be or see the lines on his forehead and his greying hair, she bent her head.
She shut her eyes as she did so and thought of Mikloš.
‘I love you! I love you!’ she said in her heart. ‘How can you let this – happen to me? How can you forget – that you said I was yours and – you would never lose me?’
Vaguely, as if she was enveloped in a fog, she heard the sound of her father’s footsteps as he reached them.
Then she heard him say in a voice that seemed far away,
“May I, Sire, present my wife, the Grand Duchess – ”
Tora was aware that her mother was curtseying.
Then as she drew in her breath and knew it was her turn, her father said,
“ – and my daughter, Viktorina, who has been greatly looking forward to meeting Your Royal Highness!”
A little dazed, Tora wondered why her father had made a mistake in the title and, as instinctively she began to curtsey, she looked up and thought that she must be dreaming.
For a moment her heart stopped beating.
Then incredibly, unbelievably, she saw it was not the King standing there bored and indifferent, but Mikloš!
Mikloš, resplendent in a white tunic blazing with decorations – Mikloš, unmistakably Mikloš – staring at her in the same way as she was staring at him, bewildered and completely astonished.
CHAPTER SEVEN
For a moment they could only stand staring at each other.
Then as it seemed to Tora as if a thousand fireworks flew up into the sky, she heard her father say to her mother,
“I must explain, my dear, that His Majesty the King is unfortunately indisposed and he has sent us in his place his son Prince Vulkan.”
It was then as if Mikloš came back to life that he managed to say in a voice that did not sound like his own,
“It is a great pleasure – to be here!”
Then the Grand Duke had taken him away to present the other guests to him.
Tora watched them feeling as if the whole world had turned upside-down and she was not certain whether she was asleep and dreaming or the miracle she had prayed for had occurred.
When they went into luncheon, she was not sitting beside Mikloš, but she could see him on her mother's right with the Prime Minister on his other side.
It was impossible to think of anything but him or to understand what the guests on each side of her were saying.
There was no chance of her being able to speak to him before her father took him off on the tour he was to make of the City and she knew that they would not be back until late in the afternoon.
Because she felt as if the very walls of the Palace constrained her, she went into the garden to sit in front of one of the fountains.
She was not really seeing the rainbows the water made in the sunshine, but feeling only a wild incredible excitement that seemed to sweep through her and make her feel as if she was thrown high up into the sky and never need return again to earth.
Later she went up to her bedroom to lie thinking of Mikloš and finding it impossible to believe that he was in fact Prince Vulkan.
Where had he been all those years after he had left Salona?
How was it that he had returned without anybody being aware of it just at the right moment to find her in the wood near the inn?
Whatever the answers were, it did not matter – he was here!
Like the strains of a love song playing through her body, she knew that they had found each other and now they need never be parted again.
When she dressed for the State Banquet that was to have been given in the King’s honour, she remembered with a leap of her heart that it was traditional that the guests should dance in the huge ballroom after dinner was over.
She remembered now her father saying that it was quite unnecessary to have dancing on the present occasion for the King would be much more likely to want to sit and talk to intelligent people.
He was really thinking of what he would prefer himself and it had been her moth
er who had replied,
“The King may not want to dance, but as Tora will not now have the coming out ball we promised her, it is only fair that we should have an orchestra to play in the ballroom.”
“No one will dance to it,” the Grand Duke growled.
“If you prefer to sit out every dance,” the Grand Duchess agreed, “that is your choice. I myself shall enjoy being able to waltz, which I have not done for a long time.”
Tora remembered that her father had then snorted as if he thought her mother was too old for such frivolities.
But now that she would be able to dance with Mikloš again, her heart was beating excitedly.
The State Banquet seemed to take so long that she was half-afraid that the orchestra would be sent away.
But at last, when she was almost despairing of ever leaving the dining room, her father, who disliked long-drawn-out meals led the way into the large anteroom that the ballroom opened out of.
Then, as she heard the strains of a Strauss waltz, Tora, ignoring the Courtier who was making conversation to her, took a step towards the Prince.
As if he had exactly the same idea, he moved towards her at the same time.
Feeling that he must justify what they were about to do, he then said to the Grand Duchess,
“I am sure, ma’am, you would wish your daughter and me to open the ball together?”
“Of course, Your Royal Highness!” the Grand Duchess replied. “It is something I should have thought of myself.”
She seemed a little flustered at the omission, but Tora thought with a smile that Mikloš had had his way and they moved rather more quickly than was correct towards the ballroom.
Only as he put his arm round her waist and took her hand in his, did she look up at him and ask,
“Is this true – really true – that you are – here?”
“I am asking the same,” he answered. “We have so much to tell each other, but all I want now is to dance with you and more than anything else to kiss you!”
The way he spoke and the fire in his eyes made Tora blush.
He said no more, but it was like suddenly finding herself in Heaven!
As he swung her round the room, they were together and all her misery and all her heart-burning was at an end.
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