The Proud Princess

CHAPTER ONE 1872-2

There was something in the tone of his voice which made the words which were on Ilona’s lips die away.

She looked down at him and was still.

“I do not know who you are, or why you should come here,” he said. “Presumably you are a visitor to this country. But let me beg you for your own sake and everyone else’s to go away quickly. Forget what you have seen!”

“What have I seen?” Ilona asked. “A lot of men gathered together in the centre of a wood talking of injustice.”

“So you heard that, did you?”

“I heard it,” Ilona replied. “But I am prepared to forget it if you will give me a good reason why I should do so.”

“I thought I had given you one already,” he answered, “but if you want to do a great deal of harm, perhaps unintentionally, if you want to destroy men who are important to Dabrozka, then chatter about what you have seen and heard.”

There was a note of sincerity in his voice that had not been there before.

Because she had the feeling that he was telling the truth and that it was important Ilona capitulated.

“Very well,” she said quietly. “You have my word that I will not tell anyone that I have been here.”

She thought she saw an expression of relief in his eyes.

At the same time, because she thought he was likely to be too pleased with himself for having got his own way, she added,

“Nevertheless I see no reason why you should be so intolerably bossy and order me about.”

For the first time the man smiled. It undoubtedly made him appear even more attractive than he had been before.

“How would you like me to be?” he enquired. “Humble and conciliatory?”

He was mocking her and there was a little spark of resentment in Ilona’s eyes.

Then astonishingly, before she was aware of his intentions, he put out his arms and lifted her from the saddle.

Before she could fight against him, before actually she had the slightest idea of what he was about to do, his lips came down on hers and he kissed her!

She was so astonished that she was stunned into immobility as his mouth held hers captive and his arms encircled her.

Then as swiftly as he had lifted her down he put her back in the saddle .

As instinctively her hands went out to the reins to steady herself he said,

“You are far too lovely to be concerned with politics! Go home, pretty lady, and flirt with your beaux!”

She stared at him for the moment speechless, unable to collect her senses or realise what had happened.

Then as he finished speaking he slapped her horse hard on the behind and as the animal jerked forward Ilona saw the river just ahead of her.

She reached the water and the horse was wading through the river before she realised what was happening.

“How dare he – how dare he kiss me?”

It was incredible! Unbelievable! An outrage!

And yet, she thought helplessly, she had done nothing about it!

She should have screamed, hit him with her whip, or at least have fought him furiously and frantically as any respectable girl would have done.

But in actual fact she had done nothing!

She had just let him hold her in his arms and kiss her lips.

Ilona had never been kissed before.

In fact no-one had ever attempted it, and she had not realised that a man’s mouth could hold one completely captive or that his lips would be so firm, hard and demanding.

She had always imagined that a kiss would be something very soft and gentle, but this stranger’s kiss seemed to violate her in a manner she could not explain even to herself.

It was as if he possessed her and she had been subservient to him.

She felt her cheeks burn at the thought.

She was so intent on her own thoughts that she did not realise until she reached the other side of the river that standing on the bank waiting for her was her escort.

The Army officers and the grooms were looking, she thought, exceedingly disapproving! As well they might, if they knew what had happened.

“Thank goodness Your Royal Highness is safe?” Colonel Ceáky ejaculated. “But you should not have crossed the river.”

“Why not?” Ilona questioned.

“We realise, Princess, that your horse bolted with you,” the Colonel said slowly as if choosing his words with care, “but it was very unfortunate, Your Royal Highness, you should have been carried into Sáros territory.”

“Apparently no harm has been done,” the other officer remarked.

“No, of course,” the Colonel agreed. “At the same time Princess, we must beg you to be more careful another time.”

Ilona turned her horse towards the open steppe in front of them.

She was well aware that the Colonel, in speaking of her horse having bolted, had found an excuse for their own incompetence in letting her escape them.

But she was not concerned with that.

What interested her was the serious note in his voice when he said that she should not enter Sáros territory.

“As you know, Colonel,” she said aloud, “I have not been in Dabrozka since I was ten years old. I cannot remember there being any restrictions in those days about crossing the river. Of course, I may have forgotten.”

She was aware that Colonel Ceáky glanced at the Major as if in doubt of what they should tell her.

There was also an expression almost of fear in his eyes, but that, she thought, could be accounted for by the fact that they were afraid of her father.

Who was not?

Even in the twenty-four hours she had been at home she had realised that everyone in the Palace almost grovelled before him and watched him apprehensively.

“Why did I not stay in Paris?” she asked herself.

Then she remembered she had no choice in the matter.

“I would like to know the truth,” she said to the Colonel. “What are you suggesting by saying that I should not enter Sáros territory?”

She paused and added with a faint smile on her lips,

“Whatever you tell me I will not repeat it to the King.”

She was almost certain that the Colonel relaxed a little as he answered,

“Our country, although Your Royal Highness may not be aware of it is divided into two sections. Radák and Sáros.”

“But surely Papa reigns over the whole of Dabrozka, as my grandfather did and his father before him?”

“In theory,” the Colonel replied, “but in the last five or six years things have altered dramatically.”

“In what way?” Ilona asked.

She was very interested, and although they were not on the flat grassland of the steppes she made no effort to gallop her horse as ordinarily she would have done.

The two grooms were some way behind them and she realised that if they kept their voices low she and the two officers could not be overheard.

“Please go on!” she begged.

“The Princes of Sáros have always been the largest and most powerful landowners in Dabrozka,” the Colonel said, “and in your grandfather’s time the head of the family, Prince Ladislas was, next to the King, the most important man in the country.”

“One might say they shared their power,” Major Kassa interposed.

“Yes, that is right! The two men together administered the country most ably,” the Colonel agreed.

There was a pause, then he said,

“It was very different when your father, Prince Jozef Radák, inherited the throne.”

There was no need for Ilona to ask why.

Her father’s irascible temper, his overbearing character and his cruelty had driven her mother from Dabrozka, and she herself had hated him ever since she was old enough to think.

“What is happening now?” she asked.

“Dabrozka really consists of two separate States,” the Colonel explained, “and the people live either in Radák land or in Sáros.’

“There is almost a state of war between the two sections,” Major Kassa explained.

“A state of war?” Ilona exclaimed.

She had hoped when she left France she need never think of war again, and yet it was apparently to be found even in Dabrozka.

“Dabrozkans are in a very difficult position,” the Colonel explained. “Because their Rulers are in enmity, some citizens find it an excuse to pay off old grudges, to renew feuds and revenge ancient insults.”

“You mean,” Ilona said, “that the Sáros section are fighting us?”

There was a pause. Then the Colonel said tentatively,

“Prince Aladár Sáros disapproves and rejects many of the new laws that have been introduced by His Majesty. He refuses to obey them and defends his people when they are arrested.”

“Does he defend them by force?” Ilona asked.

“Two nights ago,” the Colonel replied, “the prison in Vitózi was broken into and all the prisoners released!”

“Were the soldiers who were guarding them – killed?”

“None of them,” the Colonel replied. “They were all bound and thrown into the lake! It was not deep enough for them to drown, but it was a humiliation they will not forget in a hurry.”

The Colonel’s voice was grim.

Ilona laughed. She could not help it.

“It is not a matter for amusement, Your Royal Highness,” Major Kassa said reprovingly.

“I am sorry,” Ilona apologised, “but I was thinking only yesterday when I watched the guard at the Palace how pompous the soldiers looked in the new uniform Papa has chosen for them! To see them bound and sitting in the lake must have been amusing for the citizens of Vitózi, while the victims resented the indignity of it!”

“I am only trying to warn Your Royal Highness,” Colonel Ceáky said with a reproachful note in his voice, “that you should not go into Sáros territory. You might be insulted or worse still, I would not be surprised if you were kidnapped!”

He paused before he said impressively,

“It would certainly be a way to induce His Majesty to rescind some of his new laws.”

“What are these new laws which have caused so much trouble?” Ilona asked.

The Colonel looked uncomfortable.

“I think perhaps you should ask the King that question, Your Royal Highness.”

“You know perfectly well that I would not wish to do that,” Ilona replied. “I am just as frightened of Papa as you are, Colonel.”

“Frightened? Frightened!” the Colonel ejaculated. “I have a vast respect for His Majesty, and I obey his commands.”

“But you are frightened of him,” Ilona insisted. “Come on, be honest and own up! Papa is a very frightening person. That is why for me it has been such a relief, however difficult it has been, not to live in Dabrozka all these years.”

She gave a little sigh and looked around her.

“At the same time, I have missed its incredible beauty and of course our wonderful, wonderful horses!”

She bent forward to pat her mount. Then when she would have ridden on she sat up again and said resolutely,

“Tell me the truth, Colonel, and then we will gallop over this glorious ground.”

The Colonel looked at her and she thought his eyes softened, as if he found the appeal in hers irresistible.

“Very well then,” he replied. “I will tell you, Princess, that the two laws which have most infuriated a great number of people are first - the King has decreed that half of every man’s harvest shall be appropriated by the State!”

“In other words – by him!” Ilona said in a low voice.

“Secondly,” the Colonel went on as if he had not been interrupted, “he has banished all gypsies under pain of death.”

“But that is ridiculous!” Ilona exclaimed. “The gypsies have always lived peacefully with us. I remember Mama telling me how cruelly they were treated in Rumania and all the terrible tortures to which they were subjected.”

She paused before she went on reflectively,

“In Hungary too there is a long history of persecutions and tortures under Maria Thérèsa and then Joseph II.”

“That is true, Princess,” Major Kassa murmured.

“But here they have always been accepted as part of our way of life,” Ilona said.

“The King has said that they are to leave the country,” Colonel Ceáky remarked.

“But where will they go?” Ilona asked. “There is only Russia, and as the Russians dislike us so much it is unlikely that they will accept our gypsies.”

“These arguments have all been put to the King, and very forcibly indeed, by Prince Aladár.”

“You need not tell me that he would not listen,” Ilona murmured.

“There are a number of other laws which have recently been proclaimed and which are causing much dissension,” the Colonel said. “The Army is being reinforced, but the situation, I can say quite frankly, is not a comfortable one.”

“I am not surprised!”

Ilona smiled at the Colonel, then at the Major.

“Thank you, gentlemen, for what you have told me. You may rest assured that I will not betray your confidence?”