by Alma Boykin
The Powers, Book 1
Alma T C Boykin
Kindle Edition
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EPUB edition ISBN: 978-1-77342-000-4
Kindle edition ISBN: 978-1-77342-001-1
Paperback edition ISBN: 978-1-77342-002-8
Copyright 2016 Alma T C Boykin, all rights reserved.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Map: Austria–Hungary, 1913
I will lift up mine eyes...
1: A Shot in the Afternoon
2: Diplomatic Exercises
3: On the Streets of Lemburg
4: Wedding and News
5: War, Red War
6: Ride to the Guns
7: First Blood, Fall’s Mud
8: White and Red
9: Respite
10: Vows and News
11: Remounting the Red Horse
12: Price of Power
13: Coils Tighten
14: A Dragon Passes
15: Ceremonies and Uncertainty
16: Duties and Honors
About The Author
The Powers
The Colplatschki Chronicles
The Cat Among Dragons Series
Levavi oculos meos in montes, unde veniet auxilium mihi. Auxilium meum a Domino, qui fecit caelum et terram.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help comes from the Lord, who made Heaven and Earth. (Psalm 120: 1-2 [Vulgate; {Psalm 121: 1-2 Authorized Translation}])
1913.
Crack! The rifle shot echoed through the deep woods. István worked the bolt, keeping the rifle’s muzzle pointed at the boar. The huge beast squalled, then fell over, eyes glazing. István took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of crushed plants, blood, and his own fear. By St. Hubert’s horn, that was close!
He lowered the rifle and walked across the small glade to look at the black boar. Its yellowed, curving tusks had to be at least twenty centimeters long, and István shook his head, impressed. He thought he saw a lingering hint of piggy hate in the dead eyes, and he saluted the old woods king. “Your reign’s over, old man,” he told the animal’s spirit, if it had one. “Well done.” It had almost killed him, and had earned the respect due a worthy foe.
He felt his father’s touch against his shields. «I’m here, Pater. Unharmed.» He included a mental image of the boar.
«Blessed St. Hubert! I’ll send Hans to help you clean the beast.»
«Thank you.»
István lit a cigarette and noticed that his hands had begun shaking a little. He smiled at the tremor and took a deep, welcome drag. He’d finished for the day, after all, and had earned a little treat.
But burning tobacco would not get the boar cleaned. István finished his smoke, ground the last bit of ash out against some damp soil, confirmed the safety on the rifle and set it against a tree along with his shell bag, then checked that he’d loaded his service revolver. “Never, ever, be unarmed in the woods with wild pigs and wolves loose,” he heard in his memory. After seeing what pigs had done to one of the peasant children, István took the warning to heart. He drew his hunting knife and began work.
Hans, the assistant huntmaster, arrived not long after István had gotten the carcass ready to hang and clean. The green-and-brown True-dragon’s whiskers went rigid with surprise as he helped rope the beast and haul it up to hang from the thickest tree branch at the edge of the clearing. Hans measured the beast against his own seven feet in length, his round ears twitching. «Lord István, that’s a woods king if I ever saw one.» Once Hans finished cutting the boar open with his field knife, his sharp and nimble talons made quick work of gutting the animal while István dug a hole for the offal they’d leave behind.
“Agreed,” István panted. I hate digging. I’m an officer and a nobleman. Officers don’t dig. That’s what enlisted and servants are for. Except he had no enlisted men to pass the task on to, and his father would skin him if he tried to order Hans to do the work. The reptile dumped the kidneys, lights, large intestine, and stomach into the hole, after checking the health of the organs. Neither hunter saw any sign of excessive parasites or disease, not that they expected such a big beast to have more than usual. It didn’t have many ticks either, István noticed, although the cold snap the week before may have helped with that. He walked over and studied the carcass. “We need more help.”
«Yes, my lord, we do. Your honored father got a deer, very nice one, and—» The sound of snuffing and a branch breaking sent both males lunging for weapons. István grabbed his rifle just as a small bear strolled into view, black snout poking out of the bushes to the right of the hanging boar. István slid the safety off the rifle as he eased it to his shoulder. He didn’t want to kill the bear if he didn’t have to. Then he noticed the drool hanging in ropes from the bear’s jaw and his heart began racing.
Hans moved and the bear’s head jerked up. It sniffed, growled, and charged for the True-dragon. Oh shit! Hans leaped almost four feet across the clearing and scrambled up a tree, his tail curled up his back to get it clear of the sick animal’s teeth. The bear tried to follow and István fired, catching the bear just behind the shoulder. It staggered and turned, intending to attack the man. Hans got one forefoot free, drew his own heavy revolver and fired, snapping the beast’s spine. Its back legs folded and the bear screamed. István finished it off, then sat heavily on a log. “A rabid bear. Just what we need.” After a minute of relative silence, Hans slid his revolver back into the holster on his heavy leather carry-harness and climbed down.
The True-dragon approached the brown body with slow steps, sniffing the air around the animal but not touching it. István heaved himself to his feet, found a thick stick, and poked the bear, turning it so he could get a good look at the head. He relaxed. “Thoughts?”
«I wouldn’t keep the body, my lord. Perhaps the hide, but the beast could still be rabid.» Hans picked up another stick and prized the jaws open. He pointed with one forefoot talon to the festering wound and missing teeth. «Or perhaps not.»
“And this hind leg is badly healed.” István used his stick to trace the crooked bone. He straightened up. “But you are right, all I want is the hide.”
Hans sent a mental call for more help, and István worked on skinning the small bear while Hans concentrated on the boar. It was too bad, István thought. He’d always wanted to hunt a big bear, and this one looked as if it had been on the way to growing into a good-sized beast, if the paws told truth. But not anymore. Maybe I should just go to North America like everyone else and get one of those gory bears, or greying bears, or whatever their name is.
“By St. Hubert, that’s huge,” he heard his father exclaim. “I can see why you need help.”
István straightened up from his task as Graf Janos Josef Eszterházy, head of House Sárkány-Kárpátok, strode into the clearing. His father took after his grandmother, tall and pale with chiseled features and almost turquoise blue eyes. The odd color and slit-pupils marked him as a HalfDragon, much as István’s own amber eyes did. “And that was before this fellow arrived and chased Hans up a tree, Pater.” He sent his father the scene as he returned to his work.
“Good decision, Hans. I’ve heard stories about rabid bears and wolves, and I’d just as soon they remained stories.” Janos looked at the bear as István finished freeing the head. “This was mad with pain, but not rabid. He probably wanted the offal,” Janos guessed, leaning on his hunting stick and studying the animal’s mouth.
Two more servants appeared and helped Hans quarter the boar. They had an easy walk back to the lodge, r
elatively speaking, although it was a bit of a distance. They’d gone south along one of the flatter trails instead of hunting the rugged ground to the north and east of the House’s hunting lodge. Even so, they’d be carrying the loads uphill until they reached the wagon. A mental relay had sent word ahead and they’d not have to haul the meat all the way to the house. “Archduke Josef would be disappointed in you,” Janos teased. “Only two large animals for an afternoon’s hunt.”
“Not as disappointed as Archduke Franz Ferdinand would be,” István retorted. “Or the English king, Willi’s cousin. Four hundred birds in a day, wasn’t it, Pater?”
Janos frowned and shook a reproving finger. “King Wilhelm and even if we are alone you need to be respectful. Do not get into bad habits.” He left unsaid, “that upstart Hohenzollern,” because everyone in the group knew where their loyalties lay. Only Franz Josef Habsburg deserved the title of Kaiser, even if his stroke three years before had left Franz Ferdinand as heir and War Lord, and Josef Karl the de facto Head of the Empire and of House Habsburg. “So, let us return to the lodge before your mother finishes cleaning out the last blackcock in the woods.”
Several of the staff smiled at the thought, although no one spoke. Gräfin Maria could ride anything in the stable, and had once pulled geese at a riding festival on the Great Plain, but she refused to touch shotguns or rifles. The men in the family, and even her daughter, thought her reluctance a bit strange, but shrugged. “Not enough English in the family,” Janos’s father had decided, although Maria certainly rode madly enough to be English. Janos thought she looked magnificent in her riding habit, tight-stitched like the Empress’s late sister Elizabeth, even after four children, three still living. Maria also sported long, dark hair like Elizabeth Wittlesbach, but thanks be to God not the Wittlesbach madness. Empress Katherine, may she rest in peace, had also been sane, unlike her poor sister.
Hans coughed, shaking Janos out of his reverie. «My lord, we’re ready.»
“Very good. I’ll lead.” He picked up the pack with most of his deer in it and, with Hans’s help, heaved it onto his back. Other nobles let their servants take care of the heavy work, but not Janos. The Power of the Matra would not tolerate a House Head who failed to do his own work. There had been a few rapid changes in leadership over the centuries as different generations rediscovered that little fact. Janos flexed stiff knees and took the weight, then started up the trail.
They reached the wagon and returned to the house in time to wash for coffee hour. The hunting lodge called Nagymatra sat in a hollow in the foothills of the Matra Mountains, tucked away in the trees and out of sight of the casually curious. Rough stone walls hemmed in the lower two floors, then dressed stone and white-plastered half-timber finished the upper floors. A veranda around the uphill side of the house allowed guests and ladies to take the air without getting dirty, then opened to a covered porch on the southern side. A graveled drive led around the front of the lodge to the stables and hunters’ and foresters’ cabins. Guests called Nagymatra, “Great Matra,” small, but only in comparison to palaces such as the false-English folly of Hluboká.
Given his preferences, István would have stayed at the lodge rather than the family residence in Buda or Vienna, but duty demanded otherwise. The servants unloaded the day’s bag from the wagon, taking the bulk of it to the meat room under István’s watchful eye while his father and Hans dealt with the bear hide. Tasks done, both men changed out of their moleskins, leather, and loden for something more suitable to the presence of ladies—meaning something without bloodstains.
They met Countess Maria, her daughter, Judit, Herzogin Agatha Paula Rosenberg, and her daughter, Barbara Anna Rosenberg, at the door to the ladies’ library. Janos and István bowed, offering the older ladies their arms and escorting them into the airy, light chamber. István and his mother disagreed on many things, but once again he decided that she’d been right to have the former parlor redone. As he handed Herzogin Agatha into her seat, he mused, What on earth did Grandmama think we needed a parlor for in the hunting lodge? All the women come to hunt, not to receive callers. The very idea of someone arriving uninvited at the door for a formal social call made the young man boggle. People come here precisely because this is not Budapest or Vienna. And all the work the decorations made for the servants! He vaguely recalled the rows of delicate, expensive, porcelain things, the feather-work flowers, horse-hair furnishings and yards of lace and dark silk draped or “artistically displayed” on every otherwise empty flat surface. Sturdy but attractive furnishings now sat in clusters around the room, while books filled the shelves where once china shepherds had herded their immobile flocks. Light-colored draperies replaced the old-fashioned heavy red and brown curtains. The piano remained, tucked away in the corner and draped only with a practical dust-cover.
“I take it the morning proved successful?” Maria said once she and Judit finished pouring the coffee and everyone had taken what they wished from the plates of sandwiches, small savories, and sweets.
“Yes, it was,” Janos said. “I got a nice deer and István shot a boar and a bear. We did not bring home the bear meat, before you start worrying about finding recipes for it,” he teased.
Herzogin Agatha paled until her complexion blended with her delicate pink afternoon dress and feathery hat. “You would eat bear?”
“No, my lady,” István assured her. At least, not in front of you, nor would we serve it without warning you and providing other choices. Why waste bear on people who didn’t like it?
Barbara looked intrigued, tipping her head to the side so she could see better from under her hat. “What does bear taste like?”
Her mother made a faintly queasy sound and Maria replied, “I’m told it is a fatty meat.” She gave the men a warning look as she sipped from her coffee cup. “What news from Prague, Agatha?”
Agatha set down her sandwich plate and fingered one of her long strands of pearls. “Nothing worth repeating, I’m afraid. It is said that his majesty is much improved after his recent trip to Marianbad, and that, God grant it, his physicians believe he may be recovering from the most recent spell.”
“That is good news,” Janos nodded. István nodded as well, although he knew that his father had the right of it. Emperor Franz Josef’s last stroke had finished the man, who now ruled in name only. His body attended functions and signed papers, but his mind . . . God save me from growing old like that.
“Very good news indeed, Mama,” Barbara said. “Another sandwich, István?”
“Yes, please.” As he steadied the plate, he brushed the back of her hand with his fingers, the closest he dared come to flirting with her in front of her mother. He felt a light answering touch and her plump lips curved into a smile. A hint of mischief glinted in her brown eyes before she glanced back to the other plates on the crowded table.
At least Lady Agatha doesn’t insist on riding with us. Otherwise I’d never get a moment with Barbara, he consoled himself. She wasn’t as good of a rider as his mother, but she kept up with him. Lady Agatha no longer rode, if she ever had, and to István and Barbara’s delight, seemed to believe that the presence of horses would preserve her daughter’s honor. She permitted Barbara to ride out with István otherwise unchaperoned, unlike every other waking moment. Only three months, he reminded himself. Three months and they would be married and then . . . He brought his thoughts back to more decorous matters with some effort when he felt his father’s eyes on him.
“I am glad to hear of his majesty’s recovery,” Janos said. “I fear Wilhelm Hollenzollern’s youth and impatience need a steady counter.”
“If only King Wilhelm would listen to his mother, Empress Victoria, more,” Agatha sighed. “It is said that she has councilled steadiness, but,” she sighed again, more deeply, “young men will be young.” She shook her head, the feathers on her hat fluttering with the breeze from the open windows. “It is also said that he flew into a fury when his wife and daughter appeared at a function in
Baden wearing gowns from Worth.”
“Did they?” Maria’s eyes went wide. “I can hardly imagine such a thing, a Prussian queen wearing French gowns.”
“Oh no, of course not, but the style and trim, too similar, not appropriate for an empress it is said, and someone whispered that they had seen the princess’s exact dress on a French countess who only wears Worth, and . . .” Agatha tutted, then sipped her coffee. “Her majesty’s dressmaker had to leave Berlin immediately, that much I do know.”
István raised an eyebrow, but held his peace. She probably opened a shop in Russia, catering to all those Vons who serve the tsar. The realm of fashion remained an opaque mystery to him and he had no desire to be enlightened. He held his cup out and his sister, Judit, refilled it. She looked bored. Fashion and politics interested her as much as her passion for exotic plants and gardening fascinated her brothers. István wondered where he’d find a husband for her if his parents couldn’t. Maybe Mátyás knew of someone suitable from the university, one of the younger sons of a lesser magnate perhaps.
The conversation stayed on light topics suitable for the ladies, which really meant suitable for Lady Agatha. Maria Eszterházy and her daughters, born into powerful Houses, had learned early on about all aspects of the Houses and Powers, including the less pleasant side of things. Peter Rosenberg, on the other hand, had married Agatha Samsa for the estate she brought to the marriage, and after thirty years she remained entirely ignorant of just exactly what circles her husband travelled in. István knew the story far too well, since it seemed as if half his relatives and friends insisted on warning him not to mention any House business around Duchess Agatha, or Barbara for that matter. I wonder how I am to keep her from learning something, or if I even should? Pater has not been helpful, and Mátyás just shrugs and says ‘tell her something or she’ll nose around for more.’ Well, first we wed. Then I’ll worry.
When István and Barbara returned from their ride the next morning, he found that the House member who brought the post up from Eger to the village had carried his and his father’s newspapers and letters on to Nagymatra. The couple found Janos standing by the table in the entry hall sorting the stack, apparently too impatient to wait in the lodge’s small office. Lips pursed, Janos lifted up a cream-colored envelope with blue ink and a purple seal for all to see. As István and Barbara walked closer, the scent of perfume reached them and Barbara wrinkled her nose. Marie’s personal maid, bustling past on an errand, sneezed. “Oh no,” István groaned.
