by Alma Boykin
István shrugged. It was not raining, so the small vehicle posed no problem. Janos handed Jenö his bag, saying, “I am glad my lady is using her time well.”
“And I am glad that Lady Barbara is well enough to go out.” That’s a relief. Perhaps her sickness has passed already. István certainly hoped so.
They crossed the bridge to Buda. The imperial palace had been touched with black as well, and István suspected the palatine was wondering if he would continue in his position. The leaders of the Hungarian Council quite likely would be looking for new work, or so István hoped. This was not the time to be making noise about a greater role for Hungary in the empire and more Magyar rights.
The trap stopped in front of the wooden gates of their town palace. The large carved panels swung inward, and Jenö drove into the inner courtyard. Ferenk appeared, and Janos handed him his bag. István climbed down unaided as Ferenk offered Janos a hand, which he took. “I’m not twenty, I fear.” He sounded rueful. “Train travel is more draining than before.” He walked with measured steps to where István waited at the foot of the broad stone staircase leading up to the private entrance and the first floor of the palace.
As they reached the top of the stairs, Janos began to perspire. He lagged, climbing more slowly, and István went ahead to the open door. When he looked back, his father had stopped. Janos leaned against the column at the top of the steps. He’d turned grey and was gasping for breath. “My . . . chest . . . pain . . . can’t . . . breathe.” He sagged down, sitting hard on the edge of the portico. “Someone . . . sitting . . . on . . .”
István yelled into the house, “I need a Healer or doctor. Father’s ill.” He rushed to Janos’s side. “I’m here, Pater and help is coming.”
Janos fumbled with his collar and István helped him loosen it, and eased his coat off as well. István felt for his father’s pulse but had trouble finding it. “István,” Janos gasped. “Mother. Take care of,” he stopped speaking, instead fighting for air. “Care of mother.”
“I will, Pater, I promise. Just relax, please. Mistress Nagy should be here.” Where was she? István looked among the servants appearing from the house, but could not see the Healer among them. “Get Lord Janos inside,” he ordered.
István grabbed Gabor, his father’s valet. “Where’s Mistress Nagy?”
“I do not know, sir. I believe she’s tending to patients in Eger.” They followed the men carrying Janos into the front parlor. István knelt at his father’s side. “I’ve sent for Fr. Gellért,” Gabor assured him. “And the doctor.”
But as István watched, praying with everything in his body, Janos closed his eyes. His hand moved in a weak, cross-like motion and his lips moved in what looked like an Act of Contrition. Then the pulse beneath István’s fingers stopped. No, please no Lord no. His father couldn’t die: he was too young, too strong. HalfDragons almost always lived over a century. No father, don’t go, please. I need you. I can’t do this alone, father—please, don’t die, please, István begged, rubbing the limp hand, eyes full of tears. “I need you,” he whispered.
Only when the doctor arrived did István let go of his father’s cold hand and leave the parlor. Doctor Zweig found István in the dining room, pacing back and forth, an unlit cigarette in his fingers. “My lord?”
“Yes? How is he?”
The sympathy in the man’s eyes and voice told István the unwanted truth. “I am very sorry, my lord, your father has died. I suspect his heart failed him. I understand he had been under a great deal of stress recently?”
Numb, István said, “Yes, especially three days ago, while attending his Majesty Josef Karl. He looked faintly ill afterward, but assured me that he was only tired, not sick.”
“Ah. My lord, I fear your father was ill—he had suffered a second small heart attack. His man told me about the first one,” Zweig added before István could ask how he knew. “I am very, deeply sorry, my lord.”
“Thank you,” István said automatically. I’m glad we are already in mourning. The irrelevant thought bubbled up out of nowhere. Then he realized he had no idea what to do about his father’s next step.
Fortunately the doctor did, and initiated the process to have the body moved first to the mortuary chapel, then to Eger for the start of Janos’s final journey to the family burial ground. István accepted a copy of the death certificate and gave the servants orders to close the parlor and not allow anyone inside until the coroner’s men arrived.
Fr. Gellért’s message arrived a few minutes later. Or rather, a message saying that he’d taken ill and was not permitted to leave his quarters, but another priest would try to come later that evening. Damn. I hope he comes soon, so he can help me with Lady Marie and Barbara.
But his mother reached the house first. She and Barbara swept into the entry hall, removing gloves and hats and looking around. “Ferenk? Ferenk, where are you?” Lady Marie demanded. She saw her son and Dr. Zweig. “István! Who’s this?” The black bag on the hall table caught her eye and she said, “Are you ill?”
“Mater, no, I—”
“Where is your father?”
Before he could speak, one of the housemaids sniffed, “Lord Janos is in the parlor, my lady.” Marie turned, threw open the door, walked in, and screamed.
István and Dr. Zweig rushed through the doorway, took her arms, and forced her out of the parlor. István locked the door. Barbara stood in the hallway, face pale, eyes wide. Her hat and bag dropped from her fingers. “Janos! My husband! Janos,” Marie wailed, collapsing into István’s arms. He could not take her weight, and with the doctor’s help lowered her in a barely controlled fall to the cool stone floor.
Barbara gulped, then gathered herself and took charge, while István tried to calm Lady Marie. “You, get hot tea and take it to the . . .”
She looked at István, who mouthed, “breakfast room.”
“To the breakfast room. Ferenk, inform the rest of the staff of Lord Janos’s passing, and tell Luca that we will need a light supper in an hour, and to plan on her ladyship wanting a tray in her chamber. The rest of you, you have duties to attend to.” The gathered staff bowed or curtsied and dispersed.
The over-zealous housemaid picked up Barbara’s hat and bag, and those of Lady Marie, and held them as if she had no idea what to do next. “Put those in my day room,” Barbara ordered. Then she knelt beside István, who was trying to get Marie to her feet so they could lead her to her bedchamber.
Instead Marie reared back, shrieking. “You! You killed him, István Jozef Imre.” Her voice dropped to a hiss. “You killed him. If you had come back when he needed you, if you had left the army last year, this would never have happened. His fear for you killed him. You could have come home, taken up your duties, but no, no, you had to go play soldier.”
“Mater—”
“No! You caused his death. If you’d taken up your proper duties, he could have stepped aside, could have rested, and would never have taken ill.” Her words became incoherent, and after more noise she sagged against István, unconscious.
“Your pardon my lord, my lady,” Dr. Zweig said. He held up a small syringe. “In her state, after that shock, I feared she might do something rash.”
Like cause Barbara to lose our child, István snarled. “Thank you, Doctor.” Barbara got to her feet and hurried up the stairs. Not a minute later, two of Marie’s maids appeared, along with two of the strongest footmen. “Take her to her chamber, please. I fear Lady Marie is inconsolable and fainted from the shock.” After they’d bundled his mother up the stairs, István asked, “How long?”
“No more than an hour or two, my lord. I gave her a very low dose. I suspect she was close to fainting as it was, but one never knows.”
“Thank you. I believe we can take care of things now.” István wanted the man out of the house so they could grieve in private.
“You are welcome, my lord. Please accept my condolences, my lord. Lord Janos was a good man and will be missed.”
> “Thank you.” István saw the physician to the door, then sagged against the wall for a moment, allowing himself to breathe. Barbara appeared at his elbow. “Yes, my lady?”
“There’s tea in the breakfast room.”
He kissed her cheek. “Thank you. You are more precious than pearls and more valuable than rubies.”
István got to the breakfast room and sat. He drank half a cup of strong, black tea before the weight of his father’s death crashed down onto him. “I am Count Eszterházy,” he whispered. “I am Head of the House.” Dear holy Lord, what do I do?
The next month passed in a blur of grief and exhaustion. The House agreed to delay the testing until after all of Emperor Josef Karl’s accession ceremonies had concluded, and Lord Janos had been buried, and the first memorial service held. Four days after his death, the mortal remains of Janos Leopold Ferenk Martin Eszterházy were laid to rest in the family graveyard at St. Gellért’s chapel, near the road between Eger and Nagymatra. István received permission to absent himself from the imperial arrival in Budapest, but he and Barbara took their places with the other House and noble family representatives at the great cathedral in Vezprém.
In light of the war and Franz Josef’s recent death, the simplified, dignified, ceremonies departed from tradition. Empress Sofia Marie was a vision of loveliness in her simple, elegant white-and-light-red coronation gown. She wore her long red hair loose, woven with black ribbons to show that she remained in mourning for Franz Josef. Emperor Josef Karl carried himself with dignity, even when his horse reared and threatened to upset the entire procession from the citadel gate to the cathedral. Only a select few were permitted to enter the small, brightly painted church, and István and Barbara joined the ranks of those waiting outside. Priests celebrated mass in the courtyards leading to the ancient church, as well as at every other church in the city. István knew the moment when Josef Karl offered the crown of Hungary to the Blessed Virgin, because he could feel the House members inside the church responding as all the bells tolled. Tears filled his eyes, and he felt Barbara’s hand tighten in his where they knelt on the hard, warm stone.
That evening, under glittering candles augmented with gaslights and surrounded by the first ranks of imperial nobility, István formally presented Barbara to their majesties. She curtsied low, then stood with grace as Her Majesty said, “You may rise, Countess Eszterházy.”
After being excused, the couple made their way to stand with those of like rank. They attended the celebratory banquet, frugal to the point of seeming penurious by traditional standards, and dined on carp, beef, boar with apples, and—“Gingerbread?” Barbara whispered. The pieces of flat sweet bore images of the Habsburg and Hungarian crests, the Hungarian crown, and other symbols of empire, accented with colored sugars.
“Something like. It goes back to medieval coronations, or so I am told, my lady,” István whispered back. And it uses unrefined flour, probably not only wheat flour. Very wise, your majesty, he thought.
Because of Janos’s recent death, the court excused István and Barbara from remaining for the rest of the ceremonies, and István was torn about it. He wanted time to recover and grieve, but the intricate formalities of the Habsburg court had at least kept him from thinking about what he faced next.
A week before the agreed date for the testing, Dr. Zweig and Mistress Nagy separately approached István and Barbara. “My lady, you are correct,” the doctor told Barbara after she called him in to check on Marie. “The dowager Lady Marie needs time away from Budapest. The heat and the constant reminders of Lord Janos’s passing are wearing on her nerves.”
“Would you be upset if I went with her to Marianbad?” Barbara said after she reported her conversation to István.
“No, my love, not at all.” Because Mistress Nagy said the same thing, in stronger terms. Mother’s not shielding as she should. “I will miss you, but the fresh air and quiet will do you good. Take the nursemaids as well, if you want, and Little Mátyás. I suspect it will be very quiet there, so you probably should take books as well.” Nothing killed a social season like the death of a monarch, once the funeral ceremonies and coronations had been finished, István knew. Or at least, it had in the empire. The war did not help, even with things going well in the east and south.
She kissed him. “Thank you. I must admit, the parlor bothers me now, even with the settee removed.” They’d found a very nice replacement under cloth in the storage attic, probably put there by his grandmother thirty years before. “Maybe, later in the year, we can change it a little while we take down the summer things.”
“Once everything quiets down we’ll go to Nagymatra, I promise, or Kassa. There will not be a hunting season, but some things need my attention personally even so,” István said before kissing her in return. If I’m alive when you come back to Budapest. He buried the thought as deep as he could.
Lady Marie protested the suggestion with more energy than she’d shown since her collapse. “I cannot leave Budapest, especially not now. I need to be here, overseeing the household and making certain your wife is not over-stressed.”
István started counting backwards from fifty to keep from saying something he would regret. Instead, his brother opined, “Mater, that is all the more reason to go with Barbara to Marianbad. You can oversee all the travel details, and probably should, because the trains are a touch chaotic at the moment, between moving the harvest workers and adding soldiers to the northern and western fronts.” Mátyás drank a little of his beer. “Although, if you truly want to stay here, I’m certain Agatha and Rose can manage every—”
“Absolutely not!” Lady Marie’s eyes went wide and she put a hand to her throat. “They have Little Mátyás to look after and Barbara will need assistance. Of course I’ll go with her to Marianbad.”
István turned his head just enough to catch his brother’s wink. He felt a little tap on his shields. «You owe me.»
«Yes, I do. Thank you.»
Which left the question of telling Barbara or not about the test. István thought and prayed about it, and came close twice, before deciding against speaking. The absolutely last thing Barbara needed just now was to hear “I love you dear, have a restful stay, and by the by, I may be dead when you get back.” Even István knew that women, in general, tended to react poorly to things like that, and he did not want the shock of the revelation sending her into labor. An accident she could understand, but the family choosing to let him die for reasons they could not tell Barbara about would be too much. Instead he savored every minute with her, quietly made certain that his will had been updated and amended, and increased his brother’s salary.
“Is this a bribe?” Mátyás demanded, glaring up from a paperwork tangle.
“No. It acknowledgment of the work you put in at this time of year, an attempt to keep up with rising prices, and a way to silence Cousin Imre.”
Mátyás blinked, set down his pen, and leaned back in his chair. “What is Cousin Imre saying now?”
“That the House needs to unionize and to shift our resources for a more equitable distribution of capital among the work—”
“Arrrgh.” His brother’s groan cut István off. “Oh St. Francis preserve us. Imre is such a weathercock. He’ll be preaching Magyar separatism next.”
“Again,” István corrected with a grin. “He’s also talking about joining the Social Democrats.” Both brothers rolled their eyes. “You’ve been warned.”
“Thank you. I see you are going up to the lodge after Mother and Barbara leave?”
“Yes. As you said, I need to look at several of our timber leases. The deer are so thick that they’ve become a nuisance, or so Hans claims, and there’s some House business.” And I need to be in the center of our House’s territory, in contact with the Power of the Matra, for the testing. “No wild parties, no entertaining dignitaries, I assure you,” István said.
Mátyás made a note on the pad beside his paper pile. “I envy you, this once. Not
the trip to Nagymatra, but getting out of Budapest and away from society for a space. It’s getting tight here, even for me.” He took a deep breath, then blew it out in a whistling sigh. “But Vienna’s worse.”
István struggled to keep a straight face. “Much worse. There are dreadful rumors that their majesties feel compelled to encourage their court to live up to their standards of behavior. Especially when it comes to marital fidelity.”
“The horror! That could bankrupt the theaters and better hotels and put the gossip papers out of business.” Mátyás pretended to catch himself. “But of course continence and fidelity are to be prized and encouraged among all classes.”
“Of course,” István intoned. Which was why he had never said a word about knowing about his brother’s mistress and their child, especially since Mátyás supported them.
“Now that you’ve scared me into swearing off visiting Vienna for the rest of his majesty’s reign, shoo, brother. I have work to do. So do you.”
István nodded. “I do. And Barbara wants to redecorate the main parlor later this fall. She and the staff discovered some old furnishings, Biedermeier at least, up in an attic, that might work with a little cleaning and touching up.”
“If she needs money, I’ll donate. The room bothers me as well. I wish father were here.”
“So do I, Mátyás, so do I.”
Three days after Barbara, Lady Marie, Little Mátyás, and their maids departed for Marianbad, István left Budapest for Nagymatra. The journey passed too fast, and he stepped out of the station at Eger with more than a little reluctance. Clouds hid the crest of the Matra, and the southwest wind carried a taste of rain. Please Lord no, we need good weather for the harvest. Much had been gathered, but much remained to be picked, reaped, and shaken down. He pulled his coat collar tight and walked down the platform, ignoring the looks cast in his direction.
“My lord?” He stopped and turned as Petr Klarfeld approached. “Welcome home, my lord, this way please. Andre is seeing to your bags.”
