“I hereby renounce the throne and crown of Hungary. May God have mercy on us all.”
And with those words, His Majesty took off his ermine-edged cape and the holy crown, draping the cape over the arm of one of the soldiers and handing the crown to Cardinal Leonti, who inclined a slight bow as he accepted the heavy, ancient artifact in silk-gloved hands. Josef Karl turned and walked to a waiting motorcar, disappearing before the gathered crowd could respond.
István, watching from the edge of the throng, turned and slipped away, Ivan Denisovich following close behind. Both went armed at all times now. The disgusting anti-Jewish fliers had only been the beginning. Now anyone not wearing the black arrow, or who was known for tolerating Jews and other non-Magyars, was fair game for assault and abuse by the gangs of thugs claiming to be “defending the honor of the Magyar nation.” Wherever you are, Wilson, Poincaré, and Lloyd-George, I hope you realize just what evil you released into the world.
István walked neither slowly nor quickly to the riverside, then downstream toward the Chain Bridge and his waiting car. The Houses would be meeting at House Bathory’s Buda property, a few kilometers west of the palace. Attila Gabor opened the property for His Majesty on occasion, as had his ancestors, and it seemed fitting that the final meeting of the Royal House Council gather there.
As Petr drove over the bridge, between Buda and Gellért Hills, and west toward the Gabor estate, István brooded. What had he done to live in such a terrible time? My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken us? What have we done to earn Your wrath? Why does evil prosper and why do the good perish? Did he truly want to know? Perhaps they had grown too proud and complacent, forgetting the lash and scourge of the Ottomans and the Mongols. What of poor Galicia and the peasants there, his conscience asked. What did they do to deserve the war that had destroyed their lives? Nothing, István knew, watching the Russian Army devouring the goodness of the land in his memory’s eye once more. They had been innocents caught between powers and Powers. How many generations, oh Lord? How long until You hear the cry of Your people and grant us peace? István covered his face with his hands for a moment, took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders. His ancestors had guided and protected their people through the dark days of the past, and he could do no less. “Non nobis Domine, but Thy will be done,” he whispered.
How can people without shields bear it? he wondered, as he watched the gathered House members surrounding Josef Karl. The emotions would have swamped anyone with weaker defenses. Confusion, resignation, despair, anger, and in some cases relief that at least something had been done, and the dreadful waiting had come to an end. It reminded István of the feeling when the war, which had loomed so long on the horizon, had started at last, the tension breaking.
“Who will lead House Habsburg, Your Grace?” Gabor asked Josef Karl, now Prince-Royal of Austria. He had already renounced his titles to the crowns of Austria and Bohemia.
“The House has decided that I shall remain Head and War Lord.” An odd expression crossed the prematurely gray man’s face, and István braced himself as Josef Karl’s eyes shifted color to rose-gold. “I remain Guardian, with Archduke Rudolph as my Second and buffer.”
Confusion and puzzlement followed these cold words, and István peered around until he spotted Rudolph. The former king’s cousin appeared as surprised and confused as István felt, and as Josef Karl appeared to be. Rudolph met István’s eyes and gave an eloquent shrug, as if to say: Your guess is as good as mine, Little Stephen. Rudolph looked as tired as his cousin, and István wondered what the House and Powers would demand of him now.
“My lord, how can you be Guardian if you are not the monarch?” Zoltan Szecheney recoiled from the creature that answered his question.
“He is mine until I release him,” Pannonia said through Josef Karl’s voice. “I yet require a mortal instrument.” The being looking out of those rose-gold eyes caught each man and woman’s eyes in turn, and István had never seen such fear and shock outside of combat. Did they not know what the Guardians worked with? He bowed to Pannonia as its gaze passed him.
«They have never seen what we live with, Little Stephen,» Rudolph—and Rudolph alone—said into his mind, despite István’s shields. «Blessed are the ignorant, for they shall be spared nightmares.»
István crossed himself and nodded.
Pannonia withdrew, leaving more questions than it chose to answer. Once again, István wondered how that long-distant first Guardian had come to make an alliance with the Power of the plains. And once again he decided that he did not care to know. Instead he accepted a drink from the maid’s tray and discovered that he needed the taste and rush of cider punch just then.
Some of the heads gathered with Josef Karl to discuss House matters, as well as how to cope with the problems that the Black Arrow and the MNP would cause them. István drifted toward the glass doors leading out to the old hunting house’s grounds. Here, in the main reception room, he could detect traces of the border baron’s dwelling and hunting lodge buried beneath the later neoclassical additions. The winter-quiet garden and grounds stretched toward Buda, and István could see the palace on Buda Hill if he looked closely. The long approach also provided defenders with open fields of fire, and made it difficult for anyone to sneak up on the residence, not that anyone worried about such things today. The monotone dark green hedges in their orderly squares around the grey and tan gravel paths bored István’s eye.
“Your thoughts, my lord?”
István turned and bowed to Rudolph and Duke Gabor.
“That perhaps some topiary might not be amiss, Your Graces. My upcountry eyes need lumps and spikes amid the order.”
Gabor frowned, and István realized that he’d touched a sore spot, but the older man spoke before he could apologize.
“Hmm. Perhaps a double eagle?”
Rudolph shook his head. “Too complicated and fragile. Maybe a figure like those in the garden of the Belvedere?”
István bit his tongue as Gabor realized which figures the Archduke meant.
“Ah, Your Grace, I do not believe—that is to say,” he recovered his aplomb. “That is to say that styles have changed since Prinz Eugen’s time, Your Grace. Something simpler and more geometric would better suit the pattern of the landscape.”
“Quite, Your Graces,” István said, giving Rudolph a firm look.
Somehow, Rudolph managed to appear perfectly innocent, tan eyes wide, half gesturing toward his chest with two fingers of the hand holding a small glass of plum schnapps. He reminded István of a very young Imre or Petr, trying to convince the adults that the glass of the window had broken of its own accord, or that they had been outside of the house when someone pulled a sister’s hair or used one of her dolls to play toy soldiers. Judging by Duke Gabor’s expression, he harbored doubts similar to István’s own. Well, he had a few sons of his own, as István seemed to recall.
“On a more serious subject,” Gabor said, changing from Hungarian to accentless Latin. “The Guardianship. Pannonia and I presume the Matra are accounted for?” He looked a question at István, who nodded. “What of Siebenburgen?”
Siebenburgen? Oh, the German name for the Saxon area of Transylvania—the place supposedly tied to the legend of the Pied Piper. It has a Power? I’ve never sensed one.
“I do not know, Your Grace. I would think that a Transylvanian House . . .”
Rudolph pursed his lips as he thought. He opened his mouth, then caught himself, closed it, then started again. “My understanding is that that Power remains both unaligned and hmmm.” He stared into the distance, forehead wrinkled. “Not sleeping, but, ah, deeply buried and aloof from the affairs of shorter-lived creatures.”
“That is what we,” Gabor’s gesture took in all of House Bathory, “thought as well, Your Grace, but something—well, there are reports of something moving. I do not know what, but not something good.”
István and Rudolph sighed at the exact same moment and both reached up with
their free hands to rub their temples. Gabor looked from one to another, a little smile appearing on his perpetually dour face.
“You are certain that you are not brothers, Your Grace, Eszterházy?”
“No!” they said together.
After a startled pause, all three men began laughing, drawing the attention of the room.
“Private joke, Cousin?” Josef Karl inquired.
“No, Your Highness, merely an unfortunate accusation of shared ancestry.”
Rudolph glared at István, who tried to imitate Rudolph’s earlier look of innocence.
“You do share a certain, one might say, tendency to action before thought,” the former monarch said, his hand rising to cover what appeared to be a smile. Duke Szecheney rolled his eyes. Neither István nor Rudolph ventured to contradict his observation, and he returned to his earlier discussion.
«Any sense from the Matra?»
«No, Your Grace. But I have been away too long this winter and early spring. And the Matra remains hard shielded from anything to the north and east, not turning inward,» he hurried to assure Rudolph, «but still exceedingly wary.»
The archduke acknowledged the sending, and the topic shifted to other matters. But István wondered.
Over the next few weeks, as winter faded into a beautiful spring, István found enough to worry him without inquiring with the Matra about the Power in Transylvania.
“ . . . and the Regency Council? What of it?” Weronica demanded.
She was trying not to demand, István could tell, keeping her voice low and pleasant, but her frustration with him showed in her narrow eyes and the restless way she turned pages in her magazine without reading them.
“What of it, my lady? If you mean am I going to be asked to serve on the Regency Council, I believe the answer is no.” The new “Regent,” Admiral Miklos Horthy, no relation to the former head of the Socialists, wanted no one but high nobles and his own military protégés and associates serving around him.
“But if you are asked?” She leaned forward in her chair, watching him intently.
“Then I will refuse, with sincere apologies.”
Anger flared on her lovely features. “But why? You’re Magyar, military, have experience . . .” She let the words fade away.
“Because I cannot in good conscience serve with members of the Magyar National Party, my lady.” He kept his words mild and calm, to keep her calm. “But it is highly unlikely that I will be asked in any event. The Regent has stated several times that he prefers people known to him, and that does not include me, I fear.”
“Surely there is someone in the new government to speak for you. You must have a place commensurate with our rank, Stephen.”
Weronica sat back and returned to her magazine, assuming that the discussion had come to an end. And it had, but not the way his wife had in mind. István stared at the newspaper from Berlin and wondered if he dared tell her the full truth. No, not until after she delivers—and even then, be careful. He could not grant her desire, because he could not stomach the compromises and dishonor required to find a high enough place in the government to satisfy her.
In his pain and worry about Josef Karl’s abdication, he’d not given enough thought to his lady wife and her expectations. István glanced over, admiring how the light from the lamp beside her chair made her dark hair shine. She’d trimmed it short in the new style. He didn’t approve of the barbaric cut but had said nothing, especially after her maid pointed out that it required less attention during “this delicate time.” Weronica, ah Weronica, who had expected to be treated as the sister of a prince of Poland and the wife of a high government official, had been rudely surprised by their changing status since the Nationalists had gained office.
No, István sighed to himself, call them what they are—fascists as much as the Italians and the so-called National Socialists in Germany.
He would not stoop to their barbarous levels, could not, when he was as much of a mongrel as they accused the Jews and Slavs of being. And dear Weronica, still very Polish, could not accept that. Well, he admitted to himself, he had not actually put the question to her, but from her comments about Count Salm and others, he did not care to ask. He preferred to remain ignorant of her opinion of Jews and others. He did know about her pride in the new Poland, because she reminded him of it on a regular basis, but that was to be expected from the sister of Prince Potoki.
He also refused to serve under the same roof with Georg Tisza. Tisza seemed to hover in almost every picture of the MNP leaders, or of Kevante Kan, the new Prime Minister, when he was at an official function. At least Tisza could no longer do as much harm as he once could have, but the thought brought cold comfort. Not as much harm through his Gift, István reminded himself, but more than enough through the political and financial resources he still commanded. A position in the Ministry of Trade, of course, István thought, staring at, and probably through, the newspaper. Is that kind of ability a Gift in itself, or just a skill that’s been polished and hones, with enormous experience behind it? Probably the latter. Count Salm and others had prospered through honest craft rather than Gifted guile, after all.
István brought his attention back to the latest news from Berlin and wondered if there had been some toxin in the Russian shells that caused all of Eastern and Central Europe to go mad. No, he decided as he turned the page. The Italians had never needed any help to behave like that. It must come from being surrounded by water. That would explain a great deal about the British, come to think of it. He filed the idea away and skimmed the results of the latest aeroplane races. People would race anything with an engine, it seemed.
Spring shifted to summer and then into autumn. István opened the door of the car himself, wishing Weronica had come to Nagymatra with him. The cool air always lifted her spirits and eased her heart, something especially precious right now. Summer and pregnancy had worn on her nerves, and she’d alternated between snapping at people and weeping. István had tried to sooth and comfort her as best he could, but his efforts never helped for long. She retreated from him, turning inward, or spending hours writing to her family when she wasn’t napping. It felt as if he reached for her and she drew back, although she never complained about her pregnancy or about their reduced social status, at least not to him. He looked up at the crisp blue sky above the trees and wondered if Saints Joachim and Anna had ever endured something similar, or if St. Josef had ever grown frustrated with the Blessed Virgin before she delivered. No, which was why they had become saints and why he need not ever worry about such a fate. István waved to Ivan Denisovich and climbed the steps to the verandah. Agmánd and the others waited, a familiar ritual now more precious than ever.
«Welcome home, my lord,» Agmánd said, bowing. «I hope your journey was uneventful.»
Actually, it had been too interesting by half, but István didn’t say so.
“Thank you, Agmánd. It is good to be home.” And it was, it truly was good to be home, here in the mountains where he belonged, where the House welcomed him and the land knew his name. He could not hide forever from the world’s woes, but for now . . . “Is there anything I need to be aware of?”
«A letter from His Grace Archduke Rudolph, my lord, but nothing else.»
Of course. István knew what the letter contained and wondered how to deal with it. Later, later. He would respond after he spoke with Tadeas, and that could happen on the morrow. More than soon enough.
István slept better than he had in several weeks, if not months. The next morning he lay in bed listening to the faint sounds of the servants moving to and fro, the quiet, sleepy chirps of a few birds outside the open window, and nothing. No crowd noises, no automobiles, and no typewriters banging away and disturbing his attempts to make sense of the new forestry and timber regulations—and then wishing he had not done so. No murmurs or tears as Weronica dreamed. He stretched, rolled onto his side, then got up.
Real coffee waited for him when he returned fro
m the washroom. Even better, a large country breakfast appeared the moment he sat down at the table in the informal dining room, with mixed meats, fresh bread, eggs, and honey and jam. His son, Imre, would be coming home on leave in a week or two, if all went as hoped, but for now István dined in solitude. He and Weronica usually ate in silence in the mornings, but not the companionable quiet they’d shared until this past winter. And now she broke her fast in Poland, visiting her brother and his family for a niece’s wedding. Mistress Nagy had approved of the visit, even as heavily pregnant as Weronica was, so István had said nothing against it. He’d not been invited.
Speaking of invitations, he’d smiled a little at the carefully phrased letter from Rudolph. In Hungary, on paper at least and in the eyes of the law, István outranked Rudolph von Habsburg. And so the remarkably tactful non-request for an invitation to come hunt in the Matra that lay on his desk. You step around things better than some of the professional dancers in Vienna, Rudolph. Must be a family trait, and it’s probably a survival skill in that House. Of course István would send an invitation, and would sort out what to do about Weronica’s demand that either Rudolph stay away or István fire Tadeas. The time had arrived to sort that out, at least, since Weronica would ask.
Or should he? István considered the question as he sat down at his desk in the office. He had no idea what had passed between Rudolph and Tadeas in the past and had never desired to inquire. The staff did not complain about the arrangement, and for all István knew, it could simply be that she’d acted as a skilled chambermaid and nothing more. The possibility existed that Rudolph may have found her presence soothing, or had appreciated her skill as a maid, and they had not engaged in any physical congress. István thought about it and decided that he preferred not to know. That was between Rudolph, Tadeas, and their confessors, as long as it did not interfere with the rest of the staff at Nagymatra.
Against a Rising Tide Page 17
