Then he stopped at the window to look out with unseeing eyes.
“How can I make you understand,” he said, “that a Princess of Royal blood cannot and should not be interested in a commoner?”
“My mother’s mother had Royal blood, but she married a commoner,” Thekla objected.
“He was a Duke, which is a very different thing,” Drogo replied, “and she was not the daughter of a King.”
Thekla moved across the room to stand beside him.
“If there were – no such difficulty,” she asked in a very small voice, “would – you marry – me?”
“It’s not a question I am prepared to answer,” Drogo said. “The sooner we arrive in England and I can then hand you over to your family the better.”
He paused a moment and then said firmly,
“Now sit down and write what I have told you to.”
Because of the strain of controlling his own feelings, he spoke more sharply than he meant to.
Then, as his voice died away and Thekla did not answer, he turned to look at her.
He saw the stricken look on her face and her eyes filled with tears.
Just for a moment he prevented himself from taking her in his arms.
Then, as she gave a little broken sob, he could hold out no longer.
He pulled her roughly against him and kissed her, not gently but fiercely and demandingly.
He knew that what he was doing was wrong, but every nerve in his body told him that he loved her as he had never thought it possible to love anyone.
Chapter Five
The clock chiming on the mantelpiece brought Drogo to his senses.
He forced his lips from Thekla’s and, pushing her a little away from him, he said in a voice that was curiously unsteady,
“We must not waste time.”
As he spoke, he saw that she was looking radiant.
Her eyes were shining and her lips quivering from the ardour of his kisses made her so utterly desirable that it was with the greatest difficulty that he walked away from her.
“When you have finished making the new passport,” he said, “we must pack.”
Because he dared not look at her again he went down the stairs to find Maniu.
He was in the kitchen cooking something for their supper.
“Listen, Maniu,” Drogo said, “the Captain of the ship has asked me for a Marriage Certificate. I must get Her Royal Highness away, but I am afraid that if I don’t produce one he may refuse to take us.”
“Very important, sir,” Maniu replied. “People asking in market where Princess.”
Drogo felt a streak of fear run through him at the thought that he might fail.
“Then I must have a Marriage Certificate,” he said.
He felt helpless, wondering how in the short time available he could procure such a vital piece of paper.
Then to his surprise Maniu smiled.
“I arrange,” he said. “I know Priest. Old, but very good man.”
Drogo’s eyes lightened.
“Ask him to give us his blessing,” he suggested, “and while he is doing that, see if you can remove a Marriage Certificate from the Register. He is sure to have one in his Church.”
“Priest have small Chapel,” Maniu said. “Not far from quay.”
Drogo sighed through sheer relief.
“The sooner we get packed the better,” he said.
“Meal first,” Maniu insisted. “Food on ship not good.”
Drogo knew this would be true and saw the logic of having something to eat before they left.
Then he said,
“We must take what clothes we can with us. I am wondering how we should carry them.”
He knew that to walk down the streets, however empty they might seem, carrying any form of luggage, would be to attract unwelcome attention.
Maniu thought for a moment and then he said,
“Pack in bolster-covers.”
Drogo laughed.
“Maniu, you are a genius! Bolster-covers will look like a seaman’s grip and let’s pray that no one will take any notice.”
He went up the stairs and knocked on the door of the room where Thekla had been sleeping.
He found her piling the clothes he had brought from the Palace onto the bed.
When she looked at him and their eyes met, they were both still.
She would have moved towards him if Drogo had not said,
“We have to hurry. Maniu has had the brilliant idea of putting everything we want to take with us into bolster-covers. They will be much less noticeable than if we pack a trunk.”
“Of course.”
She looked at the bed and then she said,
“I am sure there must be a linen cupboard somewhere.”
Drogo went into the passage between the two rooms and found a cupboard there.
He pulled open the door and saw that Thekla was right. There were shelves with linen, blankets for the winter and a number of lace curtains for the windows.
Drogo found three bolster-covers and took them back into the bedroom.
“Now pack everything you possess,” he said. “I am going to augment my own wardrobe, which at the moment is somewhat limited.”
He pulled open a wardrobe as he spoke and went on,
“I feel, if my cousin does come back, it’s very unlikely in any case that he would find anything left in the house!”
“You must tell Maniu that he can take anything that he wants for himself,” Thekla said. “He is such an honest little man I am sure that he would never take anything away unless you told him he could do so.”
“That is very sensible and practical of you,” Drogo said.
She smiled as if she was pleased at the compliment and he added,
“In fact, as of course you know, you are behaving magnificently as few other women would do in the same circumstances.”
As if she could not help herself, Thekla put out her hands towards him but he turned away.
“We have to hurry.”
Obediently she started to fold her clothes so that they could be slipped into the bolster-cover.
Drogo took a number of garments that belonged to his cousin, which he thought would make him appear respectable until they reached England.
As he stuffed them into a bolster-cover, he only hoped that they would not be snatched away from him on his way to the ship, leaving him in the rags he had on at the moment.
The third bolster-cover was almost filled with the fur-lined cape he had brought Thekla from the Palace.
“Perhaps I had better wear it,” she suggested.
“I have a better idea than that,” Drogo replied.
He looked at the bedcover as he spoke, but realised that in that bedroom it was in a bright shade of yellow.
He knew that when they walked through the streets to the ship it would look black.
He pulled it off the bed and carried it back to Thekla.
“This is what you will wear,” he said. “Put on as much as you can underneath it.”
She looked at him in surprise and he explained,
“You will look like a Muslim woman and, as Muslims are fiercely protective of their wives, it’s doubtful if any revolutionary, however bold, would dare to touch you.”
Thekla clapped her hands.
“It’s a brilliant idea! And if anyone sees us, I will shuffle along behind you as I have seen the Muslim women doing.”
Drogo looked at the clock.
“We have to leave in fifteen minutes as we have something to do on the way.”
Thekla looked at him enquiringly and he explained,
“We have to try to get a Marriage Certificate, which the Captain insists is necessary. He is a Scotsman and, as he says himself, ‘a very God-fearin’ mon.”
Drogo imitated the Captain’s Scottish accent and Thekla laughed.
Because she sounded happy, Drogo smiled at her and then said seriously,
“We have to be very
careful. Remember it is essential for me to take you to safety. If this ship leaves without us, there may not be another.”
“I promise to do everything you tell me to do,” Thekla asserted.
“Then hurry.”
He carried the bolster-covers downstairs and put them down in the hall.
Then, as Thekla joined him, they went into the dining room where Maniu had prepared a meal for them.
Because he was watching the time and feeling anxious about what lay ahead, Drogo ate but without really tasting the food.
When they rose from the table he said to Maniu,
“Now I think we should be off. You and I will carry the bolsters and Her Royal Highness dressed as a Muslim will walk just behind us.”
As he spoke, Drogo took from his pocket ten of the gold coins that he had taken from the Palace safe.
“They are for you, Maniu,” he said. “To pay for the food we have had and also to thank you for all the services you have given us.”
“Too much, sir,” Maniu replied. “You need money, voyage.”
“We shall manage,” Drogo said with a smile. “Also Her Royal Highness has suggested, very sensibly, that you take everything you can from the house, because I am quite certain that the looters will come here before order is restored under a new Government.”
Maniu nodded and Drogo went on,
“My horse is, of course, yours and I know you will be kind to him.”
“Take him, my father’s house in country,” Maniu said. “Safe there!”
“I hope you both will be. Now I think we should go.”
While he was talking, Thekla had put the bedspread over her head.
As she was so small, it reached to the ground and, when she wrapped it round her, it was impossible to see her face or guess her age.
Drogo had a last look around the dining room just in case there was anything he had forgotten.
Then he walked into the hall and picked up two of the bolsters.
He put them on his shoulder and Maniu picked up the other one.
By this time it was dark outside, the stars were coming out and the moon was creeping up the sky.
The street was quiet, but, as they hurried down it, they could see lights in the windows of some of the larger houses.
There were sounds that told them there were looters inside and they had undoubtedly opened the cellars before they started to carry away what they wanted from the other rooms.
The road went down the hill.
They walked quickly in silence, only stopping twice in the shadow of a dark building when there were strange men coming up the road on the other side.
They were nearing the harbour when Maniu turned into a narrow side road.
He walked halfway down it and then stopped at a small building that Drogo thought looked something like a Chapel. It was attached on one side to a house.
Then Maniu spoke for the first time,
“Stay here, sir,” he said in a whisper. “I speak with Priest before you come into Chapel.”
Drogo nodded to show that he understood.
Maniu opened the door of the house, which surprisingly was unlocked and went inside.
Thekla moved closer to Drogo.
“You are not frightened, my darling?” he asked.
“I feel safe with you,” she answered. “At the same time I am praying that we shall get away to safety – both of us.”
There was a little pause before the last words.
Drogo knew that she was worrying in case they did not obtain the Marriage Certificate and the ship’s Captain would not take them.
He was about to reply when Maniu came out of the house and shut the door behind him.
“Priest wait in Chapel,” he said. “Register there.”
“Thank you,” Drogo nodded quietly.
Maniu led them to another door, which opened into the strange conical shaped building that was attached to the house.
There was the scent of incense and the flickering light of candles.
It was a tiny Chapel. So small that it could not hold more than a dozen people at a time.
But the altar was beautifully carved and the seven hanging silver lamps told Drogo that it was either Greek or Russian Orthodox.
As they entered, the Priest, who Maniu had warned them was very old, came slowly from another door beside the altar.
He was wearing an elaborate vestment and he knelt down in front of the altar.
Drogo took Thekla by the hand and, when the Priest rose, they were both kneeling in front of him.
He began a long prayer in Greek.
He was so slow that Drogo began to worry in case the blessing should take too long and they might not reach the ship in time.
He was thinking of how far they had to go, when he realised that Thekla was giving him something.
As he looked at what she held in her hand, he was aware that it was a Wedding ring.
Then he knew with a sense of shock that the old Priest was not just blessing them, but was actually marrying them.
For a moment he wondered if he should stop the Ceremony.
Then he found himself saying in Kozanian,
“I Drogo, take thee, Lillian, to my wedded wife – ”
The Priest took the ring from Thekla, blessed it and handed it to him to place on her finger.
There was nothing he could do but obey the Priest and accept the fact that he was unexpectedly being actually married to a Royal Princess.
It flashed through his mind that he would never be accepted as her husband.
Then he told himself that this was what would eventually set her free from a marriage that was only taking place because they were in a desperate situation.
He felt her hand quiver as he put the ring on her finger.
Then she held tightly onto him as the Priest said the prayer that made them man and wife so long as they both shall live and then he blessed them.
As they rose to their feet, Maniu held the Register so that they could both sign their names.
Thekla signed hers first, and Drogo saw that she had written “Lillian Janet Bela Ross”.
He guessed that ‘Bela’ besides being the Valley of Grapes, was one of the King’s titles that she was legally entitled to.
It might make the marriage more difficult to annul, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment.
He signed his own name and the Priest signed his.
When he had done so, he knelt once again in front of the altar and Drogo that knew they were now free to leave.
Maniu had taken the Marriage Certificate from the book when, as he turned to put it down, Drogo stopped him.
It took him only one second to alter the date from the year 1887 to 1885.
It took just a twist of the pen and he knew that it would convince Captain McKay that they had been married for two years.
Then he put a gold coin on the book that Maniu put down on a table near the altar and they moved from the Chapel.
Drogo had laid the bolsters on the floor just inside the door.
As he put two of them on his shoulder, he saw Thekla genuflect once again and cross herself.
He saw from the expression on her face that she felt a rapture that came from her soul and he thought that no one could look more beautiful, more spiritual and so different.
‘I love her,’ he told himself. ‘I only wish that she could be my wife, my real wife, if it were not utterly and completely impossible.’
Then he told himself sternly that all that really mattered at the moment was the urgency of getting away.
He walked from the Chapel and Thekla followed him, leaving Maniu to close the door.
The moon now seemed brighter than when they had left the little house and they walked as quickly as possible down to the harbour.
The ship was still moored where Drogo had last seen it, but now the great pile of wood had vanished into the hold and there seemed little activity on deck.
&nbs
p; It was, however, with a sense of relief that Drogo saw that the gangplank to the quay was still in place.
As they reached it, he saw the Captain come on deck above them.
Drogo went aboard first.
The Captain was now wearing not only his cap but also a naval jacket and he looked tidier and more authoritative than when he had last seen him.
“Good evening, Captain,” Drogo said. “May I present my wife? She is dressed somewhat strangely as we disguised her as a Muslim woman in case we met any of the revolutionaries, who are making a nuisance of themselves in other parts of the City.”
“I’ve heard that,” the Captain said. “But I’ll be thankin’ ye, Mr. Forde, to let me see your passport and the Certificate of your Marriage to your wife afore ye go any further.”
“I have them with me,” Drogo responded quietly.
He handed both papers to the Captain as he spoke, who moved into the moonlight so that he could see them more clearly.
There was certainly no reason for him to be suspicious, but at the same time Drogo felt tense while he waited for what seemed a long time before the Captain said,
“As these appear to be in order, Mr. Forde, let me welcome ye and Mrs. Forde aboard The Thistle.”
He held out his hand as he spoke and Drogo shook it and so did Thekla.
Then he looked enquiringly at Maniu.
“This is my manservant,” Drogo explained, “who has helped carry our luggage.”
He took the bolster from Maniu as he spoke and held out his hand.
“Goodbye, Maniu,” he said. “I am more grateful than I can say in words and I hope that one day I shall see you again.”
“May God go with you, sir,” Maniu replied.
He bowed to Thekla and walked down the gangway.
“Come with me,” the Captain said.
Carrying the three bolsters it was difficult for Drogo to squeeze down the companionway that led to the bowels of the ship.
He realised as soon as he was below that cabin accommodation was limited and he felt somewhat apprehensively that Thekla was likely to be very uncomfortable.
Under the light of a lantern the Captain stopped.
“There be somethin’ else, Mr. Forde, ye haven’t yet given me.”
For a moment Drogo could not think what it was and then he remembered the money.
He had already set aside what was the equivalent of one hundred pounds from the foreign currency that he had removed from the King’s safe.
A Revolution Of Love Page 8
