Against a Rising Tide

by Alma T. C. Boykin

  Agmánd shrugged his tail when István inquired.

  «Tadeas does her job quite well, my lord, and is training two new general work maids at the moment. No one has spoken to me about her comportment or failure to do her duties, my lord.»

  That decided István. He would invite Rudolph and offer a compromise that might appease Weronica.

  “Thank you, Agmánd. His grace Archduke Rudolph will be visiting in mid-October for the start of the season. Unless he says otherwise, we will observe the customary protocols, given that he remains Archduke of Inner Austria and the Tirol.”

  Agmánd’s tail sagged limp and his whiskers drooped with relief.

  «Excellent, my lord. We had wondered about new protocols.»

  “Given his secondary duties, I do not believe that any changes are warranted unless his Grace specifies otherwise. And the usual staffing arrangements will be fine—again, unless his Grace requests an alteration.”

  «Very good, my lord,» came the reply, with an emphatic emphasis on the word “very.”

  The question of Rudolph and Tadeas proved to be much easier to deal with than what Imre brought from the Army.

  “My lord, you’ve grown!”

  Imre looked himself over, then back at his father. “How so, Pater? I’m still shorter than most of the men in my unit.”

  István held his hands shoulder width apart.

  “You’re filling out. Your muscles have muscles.”

  “No, Pater, it’s just the uniform.”

  “Oh! Oh dear.” Father and son both turned to see Catherine Novak standing in the doorway, one hand on her mouth. “Oh dear, young my lord. I don’t believe, that is, your pardon, but I believe we will need to alter your hunting suit, my lord.”

  «Told you.»

  «I’m not that different, Pater.» Imre’s mind voice sounded amused and exasperated, both.

  Two hours later, he just sounded exasperated as he flopped into a chair in the library, then straightened up and accepted a cigarette from his father.

  “You and Catherine were right, sir. At least four centimeters in the shoulders, and more in the chest and upper arms, have to be let out or added to every coat I used to wear.” He drew a breath and puffed out the smoke. “Thanks be Great Uncle Lazlo was so big. I can wear his things for now.”

  “Army food will do that, or so I’m told.” It had not worked for him, but he was cavalry, not artillery, István recalled.

  After a few minutes, Imre began shifting in his chair, growing more and more uncomfortable. Before István could snap at his son, the young man tapped on his father’s shields.

  «Sir?»

  «Yes?»

  «Trouble is coming. Coming here.»

  István remained outwardly calm. «How long?»

  «Don’t know, but not tomorrow, sir. Months, maybe year or two. The Black Arrows are, well, look.» He sent his father a memory of stumbling onto the new Special Police as they tossed books and papers out the windows of a house in Szekesfehervar. Some of the black-clad men collected them as they arrested a man in his night-clothes for something. «We were told not to worry, that it was only enemies of the government and the Magyar people who needed to fear.»

  «And who declares who is an enemy?»

  Eyes that should not have been that cynical and wary met István’s own. «That’s what worries me, Pater. Is it true what they are saying about the Houses in Germany?»

  «That they treat True-dragons and HalfDragons only a touch better under the law than they do Jews? Yes.»

  Probably because True-dragons could fight harder in close quarters than most humans, István thought to himself, but not for much longer.

  “So we need to be ready, then.” Imre sounded tired.

  “Yes, but the Archduke doesn’t eat that much, I might remind you.”

  Imre caught the hint and changed the topic. “True. I have one man, my hand to the Lord, but he eats a whole cow worth of meat a day.”

  “I don’t recall any of mine like that, but there were stories about a dragoon who had to ride a heavy draft horse. Once they started moving, nothing short of a mountain would stop them.” István tipped his head a little to the side. “I suspect that story has gone around since man first rode horse.”

  Imre smiled and nodded.

  “I seem to recall a passage in Xenophon to that effect, Pater.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Is it true that His Grace Archduke Rudolph is going to race one of his cars in the Isle of Man race against the motorcycles?”

  “Bright stars I hope not!” István considered what little he’d heard about the race, and what he knew about Rudolph. “Ah, I don’t believe he will. As I recall, he prefers to go fast on pavement, and to not have to get out to open and close gates.”

  “He’s not really,” Imre touched a finger to his temple, “is he?”

  “No.” At least, not in the way that doctor in Vienna described. “He’s,” István shrugged, then got to his feet as Aunt Claudia appeared in the doorway. “There’s one in every generation, they say.”

  “Indeed, Pater.”

  Four days later, after the newspapers from Germany and Austria arrived with the mail, Imre and István faced each other across István’s desk.

  “We need to get ready now, Pater,” Imre began. He held a letter written in a sprawling hand, with heavy letters that seemed to drip from the thin paper. “Attila Hunyadi. They’ve been visited.”

  “And I trust the visit was quiet?” «How much trouble was there?»

  “As quiet as one could expect.” «Gellért, his uncle? Yes, his uncle was arrested, then released the next day, badly injured. An accident, the special police said, and the family is making special donations to the MNP. Half their papers were taken, and all of Gellért’s correspondence from his time in the Diet.»

  Imre folded the letter and István stood.

  “I agree. It is time and past that we clear out some of those ledgers, the ones duplicated in the Chronicles.”

  István did not think any member of the staff suffered from divided loyalties, but the episode with the blackmail at the lumber yard in Budapest had left him wary. Father and son started in István’s office, sorting correspondence and files that went back to István’s grandfather’s time. Some records and letters, too precious to consign to the flames, went into a box to go into the hidden room in the cellar. Others, many including personal information about other nobles or connecting the family to Bohemian and Romanian interests, went into the library fireplace. The pair also thinned out the library, removing rare books and part of the House Chronicle that had been stored there.

  “What about the financial records in Budapest, Pater?”

  “The Ministry of Finance went through those in early spring,” István reminded his son. “We are too boring for their taste, according to one auditor. ‘Too many trees,’ or so someone wrote in the margins of one of the lease books.”

  Imre laughed, a sound István had heard far too rarely in the past year. “Too many trees?”

  István straightened up, his back starting to cramp and sending flashes of fire down his leg.

  “Too many trees.”

  «I believe Master Gellért would disagree, my lord, young my lord,» Agmánd observed. His gaze swept over the large mound of ashes in the roaring fireplace, the empty ledger covers, and other evidence of destruction, but he said nothing about it. «Do my lords desire a late dinner?»

  Father and son ducked as they realized the time.

  “No, thank you, Agmánd, and my apologies to Luka for not paying attention. We will be ready in a moment.”

  «Very good, my lord.»

  Imre waited until Agmánd had moved out of hearing distance before asking, “Is there anything he doesn’t know, Pater?”

  “Not within the walls of Nagymatra, and not for the last seven decades.” István thought. “At least seven decades.”

  “I will have to tell Erzsébet that her ’Arkany is doing well.” Imre winked a
s he imitated his younger sister’s childhood voice.

  Be prepared to run if you do, István thought to himself, hiding a smile. His older daughter remained rather fierce when it came to her Gifts, as well as the little problem she’d had with speech as a young child. Sophia showed none of her older half-sister’s fire, for which István felt grateful. One energetic daughter was more than enough.

  The next day another unwelcome surprise arrived in the form of Cousin Imre.

  István blinked at the news, and Mátyás Imre gaped at Agmánd. “Did he walk up the mountain?” the latter asked.

  «No, my lord, he drove a car.» The butler held up one forefoot. «I did not ask why or how.»

  Ah, this is new. What do I do? István’s conscience and curiosity warred with his sense of self preservation—curiosity won.

  “Show him in, please, and ask if he will be staying.”

  Of course he’ll be staying after that drive. It’s too late to go back to Eger.

  Cousin Imre swept into the office, looking at the stacks of books and papers.

  “What are you doing?”

  «Should we?» Mátyás Imre asked.

  «Half truth.»

  “Good afternoon, Cousin. It’s good to see you too,” the youngest man said. “We’re going through the records and weeding out what can’t be read or is a duplicate of a duplicate.”

  Imre picked up one stack and leafed through it. “Keep these. The House will need them to prove our claims after the border shifts north and east again to the proper line.”

  Since those pages had been on the burn pile, István and his son just nodded. Once again István wondered how Imre had managed to live so long yet be so ignorant of the world. Well, he survived by being a weathercock, following the latest fad or fashion in politics.

  “What brings you here, Imre?” István tried to sound friendly and mildly curious.

  “I’m on my way across the border and thought I’d stop here.”

  “Indeed. You are always welcome here.” István gave Mátyás Imre a quick mental poke, in case he’d planned on saying anything to the contrary.

  Imre took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Am I? I might not be after my news.”

  “Who did you kill, Cousin?” István’s son inquired.

  Oh lord, save my son from himself.

  István started to fuss but Cousin Imre laughed, a nervous half-giggle that raised the hair on István’s neck.

  “No one, and I don’t intend to be killed, so I’m leaving Hungary. I,” he looked down. “I’m not abandoning the Socialists. A friend in Danzig got me a place on a ship for England, and I have a place with the Party there, translating and doing other work.”

  Now it was István’s turn to look stunned. He did a commendable impression of a landed carp, mouth opening and closing without a sound.

  “I think you made a good decision, Cousin.” Mátyás Imre spoke slowly, as if thinking before he ventured to say anything. “Nothing . . . that is, just based on some Army rumors . . . I’m not certain how much longer the Socialists will have people in the Diet.”

  “After what’s happening in Germany and Austria? A shorter time than a snowball lasts on a hot stove.” Imre sneezed.

  “Bless you,” István said without thinking.

  “Thank you, because I need it. We all need it, I suspect.”

  The fire in the smoking and trophy room danced and snapped that night as the three men smoked. None of them felt the need to talk, or at least István preferred to think, Imre brooded, and Mátyás Imre kept his own council for quite a while. At last he stirred, though, tossing the end of his cigarette into the fire.

  “Cousin Imre, why did you not join the Nationalists?” he asked.

  “Because of you.” The House Head and Heir stared at him and he explained. “The nationalists will destroy us. I don’t agree with what Stalin is doing, but Hitler and Admiral Horthy are worse. We,” he swept the room with the hand holding his drink, “are mongrels, we are corrupt, we are not loyal to the true Magyar soul. I’m an Eszterházy and they won’t forget that. The Socialists don’t care.” He amended his thought before István could mention the past. “Not anymore, anyway. The fascists, nationalists do. And they’re killing the Communists and chasing the Jews. Who’s next? Socialists, for all that that strutting fool in Germany calls his party the National Socialists.” He pulled on his cigar. “Horthy is a known danger, but that Georg Tisza makes me nervous. He’s got strings in the Ministry of Finance and the new national police. He’d be a strange creature even without those odd, off-color eyes, and there are rumors from Budapest that he’s got a list of noble families he wants to have humbled.”

  The floor dropped out from under István’s chair, taking all the heat from the room with it—or so it seemed. He reeled, trying to recover from the shock before he showed anything that would alert Imre or Mátyás Imre.

  “I won’t argue with your observation. I was at the track when he was banned from racing his horses, and hmm, he’s not a gentleman.”

  “There are no gentlemen left, not any more. I don’t know what’s coming, but no gentleman will survive it, that much I do know,” Imre laughed. “Those days are long dead and buried, my lord.” He drawled the last two words.

  “Perhaps.” István said nothing more, and neither did Imre. After another long quiet, the traveler stood.

  “Good night, my lord. I will write when I reach London.”

  “Please do, and let us, the House, know if we can help.”

  “It will be the other way around, I suspect, but I will do so.” And with that Imre set down his empty glass and left the trophy room.

  István’s son spoke first.

  “I want to despise him for running away. But I can’t.”

  “No, I agree.” István watched a bit of log crumble and fall into the bed of dull red coals. The House stirred, prodding him, and he lowered his shields to it, giving it his voice.

  “We will need him, come the future. What cannot last will not, and his kind will be important to us.”

  The House withdrew, leaving father and son to their own thoughts.

  Archduke Rudolph von Habsburg arrived in time for the feast of St. Martin. István watched the dark green touring car rumble up the last bit of the road to Nagymatra and wondered what St. Martin thought of his homeland’s passage into madness. Probably sighed and exchanged his condolences with St. Adalbert, patron of Poland. The car moved more sedately than István thought it would, but then Rudolph and his driver knew the road and how bad it could be. The autumn rains turned one stretch in particular into a bog, and then a valley, no matter how often men added gravel and dirt. Should trouble come from the plains, that would also be the first stretch of road “washed out,” if it came to that.

  The car stopped, and the grey-clad driver hurried around, letting Rudolph out before the archduke escaped on his own. As always, the man sniffed the air, looking left and right like a sight hound turned loose in new territory. Agmánd and the others bowed as they once did, and István, too, bent low.

  «Not anymore,» the familiar voice ordered.

  István straightened up, surprised, as Rudolph raised Agmánd and the others.

  “Thank you. I am honored to be a guest here,” Rudolph said aloud, and István realized that the sending had come to his mind alone.

  István missed Weronica’s gracious presence as he greeted his guest. Weronica knew exactly how to welcome people and make them comfortable, knew the protocols and how to manage gatherings. István had come to lean on her, perhaps too much, he realized as he directed the servants to do things that he knew they knew perfectly well how to do. He should have asked Erzsébet to come and act as hostess for him—another thing he thought of too late.

  That evening he studied Rudolph as they enjoyed drinks after dinner in the trophy room. The archduke sprawled, or gave the impression of sprawling, even though his posture remained as straight-backed as a cavalry officer on parade. Eyes closed, he lea
ned his head back, one long-fingered hand holding a cigar, the other resting motionless on the arm of the chair. It took István a moment to realize that Rudolph had shifted fully into his true HalfDragon aspect, with heavy talon-like fingernails. I wonder why he’s done that? I can’t recall seeing him relax his guard since . . . since Josef Karl’s Testing, come to think of it.

  The dried-blood-brown eyes opened, and Rudolph tilted his head forward, reaching for his half-finished cognac with the hand not tapping a hint of ash off his cigar.

  “I had not understood the Scripture about ‘a prophet is without honor in his own country’ until now, my lord. The journey from Graz proved more interesting that I had anticipated.”

  István shook his head.

  “No ‘my lords’ here, sir. If anything, you still outrank me by time as Guardian and because you are still Archduke of Inner Austria and the Tirol, unless I misunderstood.”

  Rudolph smiled a little, eyelids sagging. “You do, but not by much. I am still buffer to the Guardian, and House Habsburg has shifted so that I am now only responsible for the Tirol. Thanks be to God, because that is enough to drive anyone to,” he lifted the glass of amber cognac and sipped.

  “My lord, I cannot believe that your mountaineers are less obstreperous, independent, cantankerous, strong-willed, taciturn, and,” István hunted for a word.

  “Impossible, I believe, is the adjective you want.”

  “Close enough, my lord.”

  Rudolph gave a sleepy smile. “Man-for-man they probably are, but you have more of them to deal with, I grant you. All I have to do is keep the pass closed and support Brixin. And find a home for two more extended True-dragon families, these from Italy. Brixin won’t, can’t take them.”

  “No space?”

  Rudolph shook his head. “The border. If that fat strutting Roman fool keeps pushing, there will be war, and Brixin will be in the middle. Again,” he added.

  “Shit.” István considered, closing his eyes and reaching for the House. The link came quickly and he sent his question, with the assurance that he did not need an answer immediately. He returned from the “conversation” to find Rudolph giving him an odd look.