A Rebel Princess

CHAPTER ONE 1869-1

CHAPTER ONE

1869Princess Viktorina Jasmine Eugenija was walking along the corridor humming quietly on her way to her music lesson.

As usual she was what her family called ‘daydreaming’ and was telling herself a fantasy where she galloped over the Steppes on a magnificent stallion pursued by a gypsy Prince who intended to carry her away into the mountains.

It was the sort of story that the Princess, who was always called ‘Tora’ because when she was tiny it was the best she could make of her own name, enjoyed so much and which she tried to express in the music she composed when she was on her own.

She had almost reached the music room when a footman wearing the elaborate and colourful livery of her father, the Grand Duke, stopped her.

“Excuse me, Your Highness, but you are wanted immediately by His Royal Highness!”

Coming back to reality with a jerk, the Princess looked at the lackey for a moment with unseeing eyes and then she asked,

“Did you say ‘immediately’, Jovan?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Tora made a little grimace to herself. She could not imagine what her father wanted that could not wait until after her lesson was over.

The one thing she enjoyed more than anything else was her music lessons with Professor Lazar Srejovic who was without doubt the best musician in the whole of the small Grand Duchy of Radoslav.

The Professor was growing old, but in his heyday he had been applauded in all the great Capitals of Europe besides those of the small Kingdoms and Principalities of the Balkan Peninsula.

Because the Princess was exceedingly musical, it was for her a joy and delight to be taught by him.

Although at the age of eighteen she had finished with the majority of her Tutors, she had no intention of allowing either her father or her mother to dispense with the Professor’s services.

She had in fact been looking forward all the morning to discussing with the Professor some new music that had just arrived at the Palace and which was being played in Paris by Offenbach.

However, she knew that she dare not disobey her father’s summons and she hurried back hastily towards the centre block of the Palace where the more formal rooms were situated.

She was aware that her father would be in what he considered his special sanctum, a large over-decorated room filled with a miscellaneous collection of pictures that Tora thought should have been sorted out years ago.

The Grand Duke’s Palace was exactly the same as it had been when he inherited it from his father and indeed was little changed since his grandfather’s day.

“We should move with the times, Mama,” Tora had said to her mother once.

But the Grand Duchess merely replied,

“You know how your father hates change and there is no point in upsetting him by suggesting it.”

This was palpably true, for the Grand Duke was liable to fall into a violent rage if requested to do anything he disliked and change was one of the things he disliked more than anything else.

A good-looking man, he had been exceedingly handsome when he was young and many women’s hearts had beaten more quickly when he smiled at them.

Now he had settled into what Tora privately thought was a rut in which it was impossible for him to assimilate new ideas or even be willing to hear about them.

He still, however, appreciated beauty in a woman.

As his daughter came into the room and walked towards him, he thought with a feeling of intense satisfaction that she was not only exceedingly beautiful but had a grace which was unusual and which he compared favourably in his mind with that of the ballerinas he had known in the past.

“You wanted me, Papa?” Tora asked as she stopped by his chair and her voice was as soft and musical as the pieces she composed.

“Yes, Viktorina, I want to speak to you,” the Grand Duke said formally.

Tora raised her eyebrows, knowing that he never addressed her by her proper name unless it was on State occasions or concerning a matter of great importance.

“What has happened, Papa?” she asked. “Actually I am in a hurry as the Professor is here to give me my music lesson.”

“Your music lesson can wait,” the Grand Duke replied. “What I have to say to you concerns your whole future.”

The way he spoke sounded so serious that Tora stiffened and her eyes seemed to fill her small pointed face as she waited for what her father had to say to her.

Because Radoslav was situated between Serbia and Rumania with Hungary on its Northern border, it was not surprising that the Radoslav women were exceptionally beautiful.

It often appeared to a newcomer that they had assimilated the best of the countries with which their blood was mingled and produced a race of their own that was unique in the whole of Europe.

Tora had touches of red in her hair, which was characteristic of Hungarian women, while her eyes held the mystery and the loveliness of the Rumanians, her skin and the athletic grace of her figure undoubtedly owed a good deal to Serbia.

But still that did not wholly account for the sensitivity and mysticism that was so much part of her personality.

While the Grand Duke had always been a positive and matter of fact character, the Grand Duchess, although she came from Bosnia, had a certain amount of Russian blood in her veins, which perhaps accounted for it.

Now, as she waited, Tora was perceptively aware that not only something unexpected had happened, but it was something that she would not like.

She immediately felt apprehensive and this feeling was intensified when she realised that her father, when he continued speaking, was not looking directly at her.

“I have just been talking with our Minister in Salona,” he began, “and he has given me what I consider most welcome news.”

“What is that, Papa?”

There was a little pause before the Grand Duke replied,

“King Radul has intimated to him that he would like to marry you!”

“King Radul?” Tora replied quickly. “Surely you mean his son?”

“I mean nothing of the sort!” the Grand Duke said sharply. “Prince Vulkan is a waster and a ne’er-do- well, who no longer has any contact with his father. In fact he left Salona years ago and has never returned.”

There was silence.

Then Tora said,

“But you said – the King wanted to – marry me.”

“His Majesty has made the suggestion, which would certainly be to the advantage of our country,” the Grand Duke replied. “I need not explain to you that Salona, which is very much larger than we are, could help us commercially and I have often thought that without the protection of a large State we might easily be swallowed up by the Austrian Empire.”

As Austria was a subject he could be very long-winded about, Tora said quickly,

“I still don’t understand, Papa. The King is a – very old man!”

“Nonsense!” the Grand Duke answered sharply. “He is several years younger than I am, in fact he cannot be more than fifty-five or six.”

“But – Papa – I am only just eighteen!”

“That is immaterial!” the Grand Duke said loftily. “What is, of course, in the King’s mind is that he should have another son to succeed him now that Vulkan is obviously out of the running.”

“Do you mean to say that he has disinherited his own son?” Tora asked.

“From all I hear and what my Minister has told me, Prince Vulkan has disinherited himself,” the Grand Duke replied. “There is another candidate for the throne, but that need not concern you.”

“I am concerned,” Tora said. “At the same time you cannot really mean that you wish me to marry a man who is so much older than I am.”

As she spoke, she sat down in a chair opposite her father’s as if her legs would no longer carry her.

“My dear child,” the Grand Duke said, “I do not have to tell you how much, if you become Queen of Salona, it will help us here in Radoslav. It would certainly enhance our prestige at the other Courts, which far too often treat us as if we were insignificant nonentities.”

The anger that rose in the Grand Duke’s voice proclaimed all too clearly that he had been extremely incensed at different times by the attitude of the other reigning Monarchs and Princes who surrounded them.

Tora remembered that only quite recently at the funeral of a member of the Serbian Royal Family her father had considered himself insulted when he had been forced to walk behind the King of Montenegro to whom he considered himself superior.

At the same time her mind, which seemed unable to work at all clearly at the moment and was in a state of shock, was asking her how she could possibly marry a man who was almost as old as her father.

As if she hoped to be told that it was not true, she asked a little childishly,

“Surely you are not really – saying, Papa – that King Radul – wishes me to be his – wife?”

“I cannot put it more plainly,” the Grand Duke retorted. “When he arrives here in two weeks’ time, Tora, and asks formally for your hand, you will accept him graciously.”

As his daughter did not reply, he continued,

“There are few unmarried Monarchs around at the moment, so you should be grateful not to be palmed off on some unimportant Princeling who could not help Radoslav as Salona will be able to do.”

The way he spoke swept the protest she was about to make from Tora’s lips.

She knew that once her father had made up his mind anything she might say would only put him into a rage and this would end in his shouting at her and refusing to listen to anything she might say on her own behalf.

As she did not speak, the Grand Duke went on,

“Of course in the meantime you will not mention this to anybody except your mother and myself. I shall be making plans for the King’s visit and that in itself should make the Prime Minister keep better order among his Ministers!”

The Grand Duke spoke irritably and Tora was aware that there had been a great deal of dissension in Parliament lately.

It was due mainly, she thought, to the fact that her father always vetoed any innovations that the younger and more ambitious members suggested with the consequence that the country was less prosperous than it might have been had it adopted new inventions and new ideas from other parts of Europe.

Still she did not speak and after a moment, as if the Grand Duke was a little apprehensive of her reaction to his news, he said,

“I thought, as this is a very special occasion, you should order yourself some gowns to look your best in.”

Then, as if he was reassuring himself that he was not spending money unnecessarily, he added,

“They can always form part of your trousseau, for I don’t suppose that His Majesty would want a long engagement.”

Tora rose to her feet.

She was very pale and anybody more observant than the Grand Duke would have seen the expression of horror in the depths of her eyes.

She went to her father’s side and kissed his cheek before she curtseyed saying,

“I must go now, Papa. I am late for my music lesson.”

“Well, you will not need them once you are married,” the Grand Duke replied, “so make the most of them!”

His daughter did not answer.

In fact, while he was still speaking, she had left the room, closing the door very quietly behind her.

Then she was running frantically, almost as if she was pursued by demons, back along the corridor that led to the part of the Palace where the music room was situated.

Only as she reached the door did she stand for a moment fighting to gain her breath before she turned the handle and walked in.

The music room, which had been added when the Palace had been redecorated in her grandfather’s time, was very large and in her eyes very attractive.

At the far end was a platform, which Tora often thought of as a theatrical stage, on which a huge Steinway piano stood in front of an exquisitely executed mural of the snow-clad mountains of Salona.

There were Ionic pillars on either side of the platform of a pink-veined marble, which came from the mountains.