A Carpathian Campaign: The Powers Book 1

by Alma Boykin

  Janos waved a hand, or started to before he recalled the cup and saucer. “You will have them. I am now part of the government. You are aware that we are in a regency?”

  “No! What happened to his majesty?”

  “Another stroke.” Janos set the cup and saucer on the mantle and warmed his hands at the fire, staring into the flames. “It is not to be spoken of to anyone, you understand, but he is with Katherine, at least in his own mind. He can sign papers and make some brief official appearances, but his highness Josef Karl, Archduke Thomas, and Archduke Rudolph are leading both the empire and the House.”

  István crossed himself. He could not imagine watching his father waste away piece by piece as the emperor was doing. Holy Lord, have mercy on him, please, and grant him Your eternal rest. Blessed Lady, intercede with your son for mercy, please, for his majesty is a good man.

  “My lord?” István and Janos both looked to see a determined older woman in severe dark brown shooing Ludmilla into the library ahead of her.

  “Good. You, clear out this tray and shut the doors. Mistress Nagy is not to be disturbed,” Janos commanded. “István Joszef Imre Martin, you will obey Mistress Nagy or I will thrash you from here to Constantinople and back. On foot. I will be in your office.” He all but drove the poor confused maid before him, spun on his heel, shut the door, and vanished.

  “My wife?” István sounded plaintive to his own ears.

  “She is well and the child too. First births can be tiring, but the midwife is very good and knows to call me. Nothing will happen for several hours more, my lord.” Mistress Nagy dragged a small chair over, sat directly in front of him, and folded her hands in her lap. “Tell me everything you can recall about the injury and your treatment, young my lord.” Her solid black eyes unnerved him, and he swallowed hard. “From the beginning, young my lord.”

  He told her. When he finished, he had begun to shake from strain. “And the pain was worse today, even from Lord Janos just brushing my shields.”

  “I see.” She closed her eyes for an instant, then opened them again. “Lower your shields, young my lord, and extend your hand.”

  Trembling, István reached out with his left hand, pulling his shields in as he did. Quick as a striking snake the Healer grabbed his hand and slid into his mind. He felt her touch, then fire lanced through his head. His body arched back, unable to bear the agony. Then darkness.

  He woke on the floor, on a pallet someone had made of blankets. His head felt numb but not painful. His ribs hurt less, as did his arm. On the other hand, his bladder ached in a way that boded ill for his dignity. Without thinking, he rolled onto his left side and started to stand. Szambor appeared and helped him balance, then opened a half-hidden door to reveal a very old fashioned close stool now waiting in the servant’s passage. Then he retreated. István took care of matters, suppressing a sigh of relief. He closed the top of the box and returned to the library to find his father waiting. “Come.”

  Too tired and hungry to argue, István followed Janos to the smaller dining parlor. Soup of some kind, potatoes, and other hearty, plain food waited for them. “Mistress Nagy says you need to eat. And drink the milk. Healing drained the milk-white out of your bones and you need to replenish it.”

  “My bones? She Healed everything?” Dear Lord, she must have drained herself. That’s wrong. It’s not an emergency, she had no call—

  “She had every reason and raise your shields before you wake the dead,” Janos snapped.

  István did, then realized what had happened. “Mistress Nagy is a mind Healer?” As soon as he said it he felt like an ass and a fool. Of course she was.

  “Yes, primarily. I brought her because I was concerned about Barbara’s reaction if your child proved to be a True-dragon. Mistress Nagy is also a general Healer, but her greatest strength is as a mind specialist. Apparently the shell blast and subsequent trauma badly damaged that part of your mind that grants you control over your Gifts, as well as over your emotions. Had you gone much longer, you would likely have gone mad, or lost any control, leading to the same final result.” Janos sat and unfolded the white cloth napkin with a snap. “I will not pretend to understand what she said. She is resting. And do not try to remove the cast for another day at least.”

  “Yes, my lord father.” He bowed as Janos gave thanks for the food, and the men devoured the frugal meal. Frugal by pre-war standards, anyway, though by the time he finished István felt full indeed. He was not happy about the milk, but drank two glasses. The fat coated his tongue worse than hangover fuzz did.

  “Now. You are going to bed. I gave your man orders to wake you when the baby came.”

  Damn it, I am not a child. “My lord father, this is my house. Szambor is my valet. I am a man grown and warrior. You have no cause to order me under my own roof.”

  “And I am Head of House Szarkany, war lord, and your father. By law I could have you horsewhipped if I so chose, if you care to remember. And you are going to fall over onto your nose very soon from the aftereffects of a major medical procedure, so unless you care to spend the night on the floor of your foyer, you will go to bed.” Janos sounded calm, rational, and detached. The fire snapping in his gem-colored eyes warned otherwise.

  István considered challenging his father. Are you really certain you can overpower him? Because if not, the artillery round’s effects will seem like a moth touch compared to the pain he can inflict on you. And that without Janos using his Gifts, just his tongue. “Very well. Then I bid you a good night, Pater.”

  “Good night.”

  Just after seven, Szambor woke him. István dressed and rushed down the hall to Barbara’s chamber. He heard women’s voices, and a faint wail that grew louder. The door opened and he stepped into an over-warm, dark room. Barbara lay propped up with pillows, panting and sweat drenched, exhausted but happy looking, as one of her women wiped her face.

  “My lord,” Sonja, the midwife said. She held a fussing bundle of blanket out to him. István peered through the shadows and saw a small, wrinkled, red face—apparently very unhappy about something. “Your son.”

  István felt a stupid, foolish smile spread across his face. “My son.”

  “And?” Janos waited outside the bedroom door, looking far more awake than István felt.

  “A healthy boy, with all the parts and pieces. Mátyás Imre Dominic. Barbara is exhausted but fine.” István could not stop smiling.

  Janos smiled as well, his shoulders dropping as if he’d just set down a heavy burden. “That is excellent news.” He reached into his jacket pocked and drew out a jewelry box. “One for you, one for him, although he’s probably a bit small to wear it yet.”

  István opened the box to find two silver saints’ medals, touched with gold. One for St. István and one of St. Imre. “Thank you.”

  “Your mother’s idea. She worries.”

  István had a sudden, shrewd idea that his father worried just as much. But he said only, “Ah. I see.” He yawned, then yawned again, blinking as the hall swam a little. “Thank you. I think I need to rest. Healer’s orders.”

  A soft smile danced in his father’s eyes, one he’d not seen for quite a while. “Go then. There is nothing that cannot wait until morning.”

  After breakfast the next morning, István made his way down to the office. Servants had brought in another chair, so his father could sit facing him across the desk. István sat with a little care for his ribs and arm, just in case: Healing could mend bones, but they remained weak for a few days, and the muscles still ached a bit.

  A depressing pile waited on the desk. Black-bordered death letters sat in three equal stacks. István counted one stack and leaned back, aghast at the sheer number of fatalities among his family’s friends, relatives, and social peers. Forty-five letters waited for him to open, read, and acknowledge. Were they all war related? Surely not—they couldn’t be. Things were bad, but not that bad—not really, surely. He saw that someone, probably his father, had already
slit each envelope, making his task much easier. He shivered, crossed himself, and began reading.

  After an hour, István could bear no more. He rolled the chair back and stood, staring out the window through a tiny gap between the dark green curtains. A drizzle of snow sifted down from grey clouds. People walked by the town house, heads ducked against the wind and cold, intent on their tasks and errands. A few wagons and a carriage rolled past, but not many, not as many as he’d expect four days before Christmas. He wanted to take Barbara and little Mátyás and flee, hide away in some place that had never heard of war. Because thirty-five of those envelopes bore tidings of the death of a man called to the front, east or south. Half had belonged to one of the Houses, and István crossed himself again. The wind-whipped flurry outside could not possibly be as cold as his marrow felt just then.

  But little Mátyás and Barbara were the reason he was fighting, the reason the empire had gone to war. Because a mad fanatic had killed a father, a husband, and the Russians thought they could devour all of Europe under the guise of pan-Slavic glory, slaughtering Jews, Catholics, and anyone else they feared. No, he’d taken the officers’ oath in order to protect his family and House from that, to uphold the honor of the Empire and the Eszterházy name. He heard footsteps on the wooden floor and turned to see his father walking across the room. István pointed to the death-letters. “This is why you were relieved about Mátyás Imre’s birth.”

  Janos opened his mouth, closed it, and sat before he spoke. “In part. I am happier that my grandson is alive and well, and healthy, and that his mother is also well. I am a man as well as House Head, István.” He seemed to think as István returned to his own chair. “And to see my son healed and whole means more than you can imagine, although you will soon learn.” He reached forward and lifted one of the letters. “God forgive me, but I never, ever thought I’d be pleased to have a son who could not ride or march.”

  “Are things that bad?”

  “Not entirely. May I?” he held up a cigar case.

  “Only if I can too.” Szambor had filled all his cigarette cases with real cigarettes, not the powdered floor sweepings surrounded by wood chips that the army handed out.

  Janos lit a match and they shared a quiet, smoky moment. “Things are not as delightful as one would hope, as you well know. I shudder to think what they would be like if that,” he caught himself, lips pressed tight, and exhaled through his nose with a sound that István knew all too well—something approaching a snort. “Fool—I will say fool—General Conrad von Hötzendorf had remained in command of the general staff. Him and that dunderhead Poitorek. Archduke Thomas still has trouble believing that Poitorek wanted to attack Serbia by pouring all his troops through the mountains, cutting overland through the roughest terrain in the empire east of the high Alps. I’m not a military man, but even I know better.” He inhaled a little smoke, then sent a grey-white stream up to the ceiling. “As it is, we are fighting harder than anticipated. But so are the Germans, especially in the west. The damn British warships are violating international law, the French keep squalling about ‘brutality,’ and the Americans really do believe that the German army burned down the library at Louven and toasted babies on bayonets in the flames.”

  István felt green at the very idea. “Not even the Russians would do something that barbaric. That’s . . . that’s as bad as the Turks, as the Mongols. How can the Americans imagine that the Germans would do such a thing?”

  “Because the French and British twisted the truth out of all resemblance to reality. The library burned, yes, in part because the Germans dealt very harshly with some franc tireurs and the people hiding them. And some other soldiers panicked, thought they’d been attacked when they were more likely drunk. Not that anything official has been said, of course.”

  “Of course,” István said. He could easily imagine what had happened, given the problems the imperial officers had faced dealing with Galician peasants and the Polish nationalists, as well as the blasted Serbian mountain bandits.

  “Well, the books, most of them, did not burn. His majesty’s cousin Prince Matias Wittlesbach had stripped the library and the books arrived in Bavaria unharmed, or so he told his Highness Josef Karl, but the Americans had already taken the bleating of the Belgians and French as truth.” Janos tapped some ash into the golden glass ashtray on the desk, a wedding gift from one of the House members. “The Germans disciplined the troops involved, but the newspapers . . .” He shrugged.

  “Americans are rather naive, as I recall.” István savored the smoke, and the comfort of the cigarette. His eyes fell onto the letters. “This is why I need to meet Archduke Rudolph?” He tapped a stack with one finger, careful not to drop ash on the paper.

  “Yes. Among other things. He is in Silesia, Olmutz I believe, trying to find out exactly what is going on with the factories there. I don’t envy him.”

  “Neither do I, Pater.” I’m glad the House never got involved in heavy industry. Forestry is hard enough to learn.

  Janos and István smoked in silence for a few more minutes. “Your mother and I answered the most pressing of those,” he said at last. “Please God, may this war end soon. The Russians have to give in once we retake Galicia and the Germans run them back to the border. Without their help, the Serbs will collapse and the Poles should settle down as well. Although his Highness has spoken of—perhaps, should the situation require—accepting the crown of Poland and reconstituting the nation within the empire.”

  “The Germans will not be pleased.” A prospect which, at that moment, delighted István to no end. That would serve them right after their noises about wanting Silesia as payment for assisting us. Fredrik the Great tried and failed, and Wilhelm is no Fredrik.

  “No, but they dragged France and Britain into this war.” His father’s savage tone set István aback—his father had always been the one cautioning proper respect for the self-styled kaiser, after all. Then Janos took another puff from his cigar. “Well, government can wait until after Christmas. Your wife and son need your attention, and I need the mental space.”

  And I need to fulfill my vow, once this cast comes off, István thought, his eyes resting on the small statue of the Virgin on the shelf above his wife’s desk. But after Christmas, not now—for now I intend to dote on my wife. “By any chance, Pater, did mother send a christening gown?”

  Janos nodded, a tired expression settling onto his features. “And instructions. Written and verbal. Many instructions and the threat of a dire fate if anything happens to the gown before, during, or after the ceremony. In which case, I may take this as my primary residence.”

  In which case I really will take little Mátyás and Barbara and flee. He loved his parents dearly, but he did not care to be under the same roof with his father if his mother came storming up the valley, bent on scolding them because something happened to the two hundred-year-old baby dress. “If you will excuse me?”

  “Certainly. This is your house, as you rather firmly informed me yesterday.”

  István bowed a little after he stood, snuffed out the remains of the cigarette, and went upstairs. He needed to see Barbara and Mátyás. Nothing else would drive away the ghosts lingering in the letters.

  He found Barbara sitting up, holding Mátyás. Her hair hung loose, reminding him of a painting of the young Virgin Mary. “May I come in?”

  “Of course, my lord husband.” She smiled, then turned her attention back to the bundle in her arms. She looked better than she had the night before. A quiet fussing noise escaped the swaddled form as István kissed his beautiful wife. “Now, now, little one, what’s wrong?” She soothed the baby, stroking one red cheek with her fingers.

  István just watched Mátyás for a while. He’d never seen a miracle before, and soaked up the sight of his son. “Pater is right, he’s a little small to wear a saint’s medal.”

  “Just a little,” Barbara agreed. István showed her the gift from his parents. “We can get them blessed when h
e is baptized,” she said.

  “An excellent thought.” He sat watching until baby and mother both yawned. Sonja bustled up and took Mátyás off to change and put in his cradle. “And I will let you nap, mother of my son, star of my heart.”

  “Such poetry! Are you certain that there are no Széchenyis in your bloodline?” she teased.

  “No Petöfies either, I fear. I am merely a man who loves his wife and is very, very grateful to her for the best Christmas gift he could have received.” He kissed her again, taking her hand and holding it against his heart. “And now he will let her rest, before her nurse drives him out with that fireplace poker.”

  “I would do no such thing, my lord,” Sonja stated, fists on her ample hips. “I would use the warming pan. It is traditional.”

  He had no answer to that except to kiss Barbara’s hand and retreat.

  The week after New Years, István made good on his vow. His father had protested, but Barbara supported him. “Go. A pledge delayed is a pledge forgotten, and I can survive a few days without you.” The army doctor had removed the cast, muttering about the benefits of Hungarian air and youth to speed healing. The words made István feel guilty.

  He’d tried to thank Mistress Nagy. She waved him away. “Of course I Healed all that I could, my lord, you are the Heir to the House,” she’d said, as if that justified everything. Once, István would have accepted the reason as well, but now he twisted, guilt-wracked, remembering better men who should have at least been given a chance to live, who could have benefitted from a true Healer’s touch. He shouldn’t have lived—the black-bordered letters on the desk told him that—but he had. He was heir to the House, true, but . . . István could no longer take his rank for granted. Or his vows.

  He’d gone up to Nagymatra, bringing Szombor with him. His right arm remained weak and the shoulder stiff, so dressing was still a bit of a trick. István also suspected that he’d need a great deal of help that night and the next morning. But he left Szombor behind at the house when he rode up into the mountains. A January respite from winter never lasted, especially in the mountains.