The Queen Saves the King Read online

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The situation described in this book in 1874 merely anticipated what happened the next year when Serbia declared war on Turkey and thousands of Russian volunteers poured into St. Petersburg.

  The Czar Alexander had no wish for a war, but he was pushed into it by the Czarina and her ladies who fluttered about referring endlessly to Russia’s Holy mission.

  Finally the Czar began to believe it and in November 1876 the Grand Duke Nicholas started his march with a huge Army towards Constantinople.

  The conflict lasted for nine months and took a terrible toll of life. In one battle alone the Russians lost twenty-five thousand men without gaining an inch of ground.

  The Army was, however, within six miles of Constantinople when finally Queen Victoria, who was frantically agitated by this time, suddenly persuaded the Cabinet to send Admiral Hornby with six ironclad Battleships to move into the Dardanelles to remind Russia that Britain would not stand aside for ever.

  Russia was obliged to retreat and a Treaty was hammered out at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.

  What was more important than anything else was that Russia had been denied access to the Mediterranean, which she had hoped to reach through the Balkans back door.

  CHAPTER ONE ~ 1874

  “What the hell do they want?”

  King Alexius of Vultarnia spoke angrily.

  He was just about to go riding when his aide-de-camp informed him that the Prime Minister and three other gentlemen had called to see him on urgent business.

  “I have no idea, Your Majesty,” the aide-de-camp replied apologetically, “but the Prime Minister would not have come at this hour had it not been of importance.”

  “Importance! Importance!” the King exclaimed testily. “Everything is important to them except what interests me.”

  He had been looking forward this morning to riding a new horse that he had recently acquired.

  It was a magnificent stallion which had been bred in Hungary, a spirited animal that the King had already enjoyed numerous tussles with and which was beginning to realise that he had met his Master.

  “I am damned if I will give them long,” the King declared.

  As he spoke, he knew that he was being optimistic.

  He knew how long-winded the Prime Minister could be, while most Members of the Cabinet were even worse.

  As he was young compared to them, he found that these sessions when he had to listen to speech after speech extremely boring and frustrating.

  Vultarnia was a small country bordered by Montenegro and Albania and on the South by Macedonia.

  It was outstandingly beautiful, but poor and undeveloped.

  The King had only recently come to the throne after his father had died at nearly seventy.

  He had so far few ideas of what he should do about it.

  He was in fact, slightly resentful at having had to come back to his own country when he was enjoying himself travelling in Europe. He had spent a considerable amount of time in Paris.

  An extremely handsome man, women found him irresistible, which was exactly how he found them.

  Now he walked out of the room without another word to his aide-de-camp.

  He strode along the passage, all the more irritated to see that the sun was shining through the windows.

  The Palace was a large building which had been added to over the centuries and had acquired a rambling charm of its own.

  The King’s mother had improved the main rooms with chandeliers from Venice and inlaid furniture from France and she had also employed a number of local craftsmen.

  They had carved and painted in the traditional manner which was prevalent all over the Balkans.

  The King walked briskly down an impressive staircase.

  In the hall a footman ran ahead to open the door into the Council Chamber. This was actually a far more attractive room than its name suggested.

  The King’s mother had added pillars in front of what had previously been long bare walls and Italian artists had embellished the ceiling with a painting of Venus rising from the foam.

  The chairs on each side of the oblong table were upholstered in a deep shade of pink which matched the cascading curtains.

  Now the room seemed uncomfortably large for the four men who waited at the top of the table.

  They rose to their feet as the King entered the room.

  He saw, as he had expected, his Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

  But the fourth man was a stranger to him.

  As the King reached his chair, which was almost like a Throne at the top of the table, he said,

  “Good morning, gentlemen,”

  “Good morning, Your Majesty,” the Statesmen answered in unison.

  The King seated himself as the Prime Minister began,

  “May I, Your Majesty, present Count Kojotski, who arrived home last night?”

  The King smiled.

  Now he knew who the stranger was.

  He had been told some months ago that a man who was half-Russian and half-Vultarnian was helping and advising the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

  His mother, who had married a Russian Nobleman, was a Vultarnian by birth. But the Count lived in Tolskari, the Capital of Vultarnia, where many of his relatives lived.

  At the same time he often went back to Russia and His Majesty was aware that the Secretary of State had been using him to all intents and purposes as a spy.

  “The Count has come to The Palace this morning, Your Majesty,” the Prime Minister said in his pompous voice, “to inform you of what we think is a very dangerous situation which will affect not only our country but the whole of the Balkans.”

  The King raised his eyebrows and he was wondering what information from Russia could possibly be of such import to Vultarnia.

  A number of people, he knew, were highly suspicious of Russia and her territorial ambitions

  The King himself, however, had always thought that they were ‘making a mountain out of a molehill’.

  Now, as the Prime Minister glanced at him, Count Kojotski began to speak,

  “I believe you are aware, Your Majesty, that Russia has grown increasingly envious of Bismarck’s successful unification of Germany.”

  “I have heard that,” the King said, “but I cannot imagine what they can really do about it.”

  “The argument in St. Petersburg,” the Count said, “is simply if Prussia could form all the German States and the German peoples into a mighty Empire, why should not Russia do the same?”

  The King stared at the Count and then he asked,

  “And how do they propose to do it?”

  “The question being asked,” the Count replied, “is why should not Russia gather together under her auspices all the Slavs in the Balkans and in European Turkey?”

  The King was silent.

  He remembered now that he had in fact heard this suggestion before, but had not taken it at all seriously.

  As he did not speak, the Count continued,

  “I returned from St. Petersburg yesterday and I thought it only right to inform the Prime Minister that this aim is now being openly talked about in The Royal Palace and in every Ministry in both St. Petersburg and Moscow.”

  The Foreign Secretary leant across the table to say,

  “Even before the Count returned, Sire, I was told that this was happening, but I waited to have it confirmed.”

  “The Czarina,” the Count went on, “sees it as a religious Crusade. She wants to bring back the Church of Santa Sophia to its rightful Orthodoxy and to make Constantinople the greatest City in Christendom.”

  The King thought this was what
she might well be expected to want.

  “And the Czarevitch for his part, Sire,” the Count continued, “is determined to open the Straits to Russian ships and to acquire thousands of square miles of new territory in the Balkans.”

  “It seems impossible,” the King murmured.

  At the same time, because he knew that this was an age-old dream of the Russians, he could understand how much the idea appealed to them.

  “Have you any reason to believe,” he asked, “that things are going further than the mere chatter of tongues?”

  “Every reason, Sire,” the Count replied. “The Emperor’s brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas, is already mobilising troops into a large Army that he intends to invade the Balkans with and then march on Constantinople.”

  “You are really sure of this?” the King asked him.

  “Completely sure, Sire,” the Count answered. “Many of my friends in Russia are talking of joining the Army and quite a number of them have already done so. They sincerely think that there will be little opposition and they will undoubtedly start their offensive within a few months.”

  “I can hardly believe it!” the King exclaimed. “But if it is true, what can we, a very small country, do about it?”

  “That is the question, Your Majesty, which has kept me awake all night,” the Prime Minister admitted. “This morning, after a long talk with the Foreign Secretary and, of course, the Lord Chancellor, I am convinced that there is one action we can take which could protect our independence better than any other.”

  “What is that?” the King asked him.

  “That Your Majesty should request Queen Victoria of England to provide you with a wife.”

  The King stared at the Prime Minister in sheer astonishment.

  He had not thought of marrying, in fact he had no intention of doing so.

  He was at the moment having a wild and passionate affair with a very attractive and extremely exotic Russian Countess, who had come to Vultarnia after her husband’s death.

  The King had met her by chance and had been immediately attracted by her and she was certainly different in every way from the Vultarnian women.

  They were pretty, but definitely countrified compared with the women who had amused him in other Cities especially Paris. The Countess had spent a great deal of her time in France because her husband had been a Diplomat.

  Her excuse for coming to Tolskari was that she had many friends in Vultarnia, which was indeed true.

  But from the moment she met the King she appeared to have little further use for them.

  At first they had difficulty in meeting until he invited her to stay in The Palace.

  One wing was used as a guest house and was regularly filled with visitors from other parts of the world.

  There was no question of her not being discreetly chaperoned.

  The fact that she moved about The Palace had nothing to do with anyone outside the Royal precincts.

  The King found her very desirable.

  He could not help thinking when the Count was decrying Russia that the first thing the Prime Minister would do would be to hint that he should not be so intimate with the Countess.

  He had, however, no intention of allowing his Statesmen to interfere in his private affairs.

  But he had never imagined that so soon after he had become their Monarch they would demand that he gave them a Queen.

  Now it flashed through his mind that this was what he might have anticipated.

  Because he was au fait with foreign affairs he would understand exactly the way their minds worked.

  Queen Victoria had placed her relatives, and there were a great number of them, on at least a dozen Royal and Princely thrones in Europe and the Balkans.

  When he had been in France, he had heard her referred to as ‘The Match-maker of Europe’.

  Even so he had not expected to be caught up in her web of intrigue.

  Britain had become undoubtedly the strongest and the most feared power in the whole world and the King was aware that if Russia was afraid of anyone, it would be of Great Britain.

  “I have always heard,” the Foreign Secretary was saying, “that Her Majesty Queen Victoria is suspicious of Russian intentions.”

  The King thought that was more than likely true.

  “It was with great reluctance,” the Foreign Secretary went on, “that Her Majesty agreed to the marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh to the Grand Duchess Maria of Russia.”

  As this had only taken place last year, the King remembered the occasion well. He had, however, not been present at the Ceremony.

  “What we are asking, Your Majesty,” the Prime Minister said, “is your agreement to send an Envoy immediately to Great Britain to ask Her Majesty Queen Victoria to suggest a suitable wife for Your Majesty and for the Wedding to take place as soon as possible.”

  The King stiffened.

  With difficulty he checked the words that came instinctively to his lips.

  He wanted to say at once that he had no intention of marrying anyone.

  Least of all some unattractive heavily-built young Englishwoman who he would have nothing in common with.

  He was not an admirer of Englishwomen as a whole and he thought that they compared very unfavourably with the grace, wit and the irresistible fascination of the French.

  In point of fact he classed the English, the Dutch and the Germans as boring in the extreme.

  But the French, the Greeks and the Italians were very different.

  He had also taken on a Spanish mistress at one time whom he had found alluring and intriguing.

  Unfortunately her passion for eating everything swimming in fat had brought the liaison to an end.

  He now tried to think of someone other than an Englishwoman who would ensure the safety of his country, anyone to prevent him having to be bored with, as he expressed it quietly to himself, ‘going to bed with the Union Jack’!

  “You do understand, Your Majesty,” the Secretary of State was saying earnestly, “that the only way we can preserve our freedom and avoid coming under Russian domination would be to have a relative of Queen Victoria on the Throne.”

  “Are you quite sure that the Russians would respect Her Majesty’s wishes when she is so far away?” the King asked sarcastically.

  “The British Navy is the largest and best-equipped in the world,” the Foreign Secretary replied, “and I am quite certain that, if the Russians really try to take Constantinople, Britain will intervene.”

  The King had to admit this this was indeed likely.

  He was therefore silent while the Lord Chancellor said, speaking for the first time,

  “I understand, Sire, that this has all come as something of a shock, but we all of us agree, and I know Parliament will too, that it is the only solution and the only safeguard that we could have against a Russian invasion.”

  The King could not answer this. He knew that with the very small Army they had a large power like Russia could defeat it at the first encounter.

  Too late he wished that at the very beginning of his reign he had insisted on strengthening their defences.

  He should have spent a large amount of money on armaments, but even so, he doubted if that would prove at all effective.

  Every nerve in his body cried out against being tied for the rest of his life to some bossy Englishwoman.

  She would be well aware that she was doing him a favour in being a lifeline for his Kingdom.

  Because the idea not only disturbed but repelled him, he pushed back his chair and then he walked across the room to stand at one of the windows looking out over The Palace gardens.

  The Palace was high above the City and he could see the towers and spires of the Churches and the dome of the Houses of Parliament.

  Through the trees there was an occasional glimpse of horses and vehicles moving down the main road.

  In the distance were the mountains, their peaks still white with snow.

  The sun was shinin
g on the red tiles of the roofs of the houses and it glittered on the river which divided the City and flowed from it into a fertile valley where peasants tended their crops.

  It was very picturesque, very peaceful and very beautiful.

  Because it was his and he reigned over it, the King, although he did not say so, was very proud of his country.

  There had been no revolutions as there had been in many other Balkan countries and his crown had descended from father to son for five generations.

  He had always known that one day his son would follow him.

  What he had not envisaged was having an English wife.

  How could he bear to have as a wife a woman who bored him?

  She would undoubtedly curtail the amusements that he had enjoyed ever since he had come home to take his father’s place.

  Although he had his back to them, he had a feeling that his Statesmen were looking at each other knowingly.

  They were undoubtedly thinking that he would have to send his Russian mistress away and as far as they were concerned the sooner the better.

  Of course, he had been aware that they disliked his being always with a woman from another country whether it was Russia or anywhere else.

  Now when the threat came definitely from Russia, Natasha would have to go.

  ‘I am damned if I will let them dictate to me!’ the King told himself fervently

  At the same time he felt as if Queen Victoria’s hand was reaching out towards him.

  Already, like a helpless fly, he was caught in the spider’s web and there was no chance of escape.

  That was the right phrase.

  ‘No chance of escape!’

  He repeated it to himself.

  He was being crushed between two great forces, Russia on his right, Britain on his left.

  It made him furiously angry to know that there was nothing he could do about it.

  He walked back to the table.

  The Statesmen then rose to their feet and he looked at the Foreign Secretary.

  “Very well,” he said, “you leave me no option. Send your Envoy to Queen Victoria.”

  He did not wait for a reply but walked hurriedly from the room.

  Although he told himself that it was a childish gesture, he then slammed the door behind him.