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  As Linetta did not speak, he went on,

  “But there will be no room for the dreams such as you awoke in me last night. There will be no answer to the question I want you to pose to the special place where I am taking you.”

  As if he could not bring himself to say any more, he spurred his horse forward.

  Linetta then had some difficulty in catching up with him.

  In fact they had almost reached the trees which lay ahead of them, before the Prince pulled up his horse once again to a walk.

  “You must forgive me,” he said, as Linetta came beside him. “I have lain awake night after night thinking of my future and I am afraid, desperately afraid, that it will never be the same as it has been throughout these past few years.”

  “Tell me about it,” Linetta suggested softly.

  “When I came to the throne, as you may say,” the Prince began, “I was still dreaming that one day I would have with me someone I loved who would help me bring to my people not riches but happiness. I want Samosia to be a happy country not just a wealthy one.”

  He paused before he continued,

  “And a country where children are born of love and my people as a whole are content to obey me as their Ruler and would therefore make Samosia the most original and outstanding country in the whole of the Balkans.”

  “Do you really believe that it can happen?” Linetta asked.

  “Given the right leadership, given that a man and a woman who will really dedicate themselves not only to the success of the country but the success of each individual in it, I am sure it is possible,” the Prince replied. “That is my most important mission.”

  “In what way?” Linetta enquired.

  “In every way. I believe that each one of us has as a present from God, if you like, something that makes us individually unique however poor we might be born.”

  He stopped for a moment before he went on,

  “It is in our minds and in our thoughts. Put those two concepts together and teach the people how to do it and they will find that they have capabilities beyond their greatest dreams.”

  “Of course you are right,” Linetta said positively. “I have always believed it myself. But the leader, whoever he may be, must guide them to develop individually until they become themselves leaders to the next generations.”

  The Prince smiled.

  “Of course that is putting it in even better words than I have managed to do. You do realise that, if I am to make Samosia great and important and the envy of every Principality in the Balkans, I just cannot do it unless I have someone to help me.”

  He made a gesture with his hands as he asserted,

  “And where is she to be found? I can assure you I have visited most of the Courts in Europe and discovered that, on the whole, their young Princesses are dull, stupid and, although it is a word I hate – ignorant.”

  He spoke almost violently and Linetta said softly,

  “Surely they cannot all be as bad as all that, Your Royal Highness.”

  “No, that was an exaggeration,” he replied. “But most of them would not understand what you and I are saying to each other now. Nor would they believe that your music could awaken in those who listen to it all the ambitions that not only Rulers should have but every man should aim to encourage in his own children.”

  By this time they had reached the trees that they had seen in the distance.

  Then the Prince turned to Linetta and said in a very different voice,

  “That is what I hoped I could awaken in my own sons when I have them. But you know as well as I do that the chance of my doing so is now high up in the clouds and I should be a fool if I did not face reality.”

  As he finished speaking, the Prince dismounted.

  He tied his horse’s bridle to a fence which encircled several of the trees.

  Without saying anything more, Linetta dismounted too and tied the bridle of her horse beside his.

  She patted her horse before she turned away from it and then realised that the Prince was waiting for her.

  Having slipped off her gloves, she put her hand into his.

  “Now I have something to show you which is very important to me,” the Prince said. “I would like you to know, Miss Lane, that you are the very first person I have brought here since I was a child.”

  “Is that really true, Your Royal Highness?” Linetta asked.

  “Perfectly. I come here early in the morning, but I am not accompanied by anyone else as I am today.”

  There was a slight pause.

  “But because this will remind you of the music you were playing last night,” he continued, “just as your music told me I must bring you here because there is an affinity between us that no man could possibly put into words.”

  As he finished speaking, he drew Linetta forwards.

  His fingers closed over hers.

  She felt a little quiver running through her, which somehow was different from anything that she had ever felt before.

  Then it seemed as if they were entering what was a tunnel of old bricks and ancient trees that had grown up between them.

  Just ahead where the trees were thicker and their branches shut out the sunshine, there was what looked to Linetta to be a pool of water in the ground.

  It was so unusual and different from anything she had seen before that for a moment she wondered just why it seemed to mean so much to the Prince.

  And why he had never, as he said, brought anyone here.

  Then before she could ask him any questions, he said very quietly,

  “This is an ancient wishing well. It is so old that it was here almost before this country had people living in it and certainly very few houses.”

  “A wishing well!” she exclaimed. “How exciting, how did you find it, Your Royal Highness?”

  “From very antique records that most people would find impossible to read. I had them deciphered by the most brilliant professors in our University.”

  He sighed before he went on,

  “They took a long time before they finally found that it was a wishing well and it had been believed by the people who came to this part of the world to have magical powers if they prayed into it and asked the demons or the fairies to which it belonged for anything they desired.”

  By this time they were standing looking down into the wishing well.

  As the Prince was still holding her hand, Linetta bent forward to gaze as far as she could into the depths of the water in front of her.

  She was thinking that the wishing well itself must be very deep when the Prince said,

  “I have been coming here frequently ever since I discovered it with all my problems and difficulties. Most I must admit have been ignored, but then some have been answered.”

  Linetta was listening very intently and he went on,

  “Therefore you must pray as I will and I can only hope that your prayer will be answered even if mine is refused.”

  “That is very generous of you,” Linetta answered. “But if you pray for me, then I will pray for you. I will also wish that you will find happiness.”

  “The happiness that you gave me last night?” the Prince asked. “I think that very unlikely. Look up and you will see why your sublime music told me that I must bring you here.”

  Linetta looked up which she had not done as she entered.

  Now she saw that the tall trees overhead with the sunshine behind them created a strange mystic beauty that was different from anything she had seen before.

  Yet in a way she could understand that, just as it aroused something strange within her as it was so lovely and the sunshine seemed to have turned the leaves of the trees to shimmering gold, the wishing well could, in fact, give those who prayed to it what they desired.

  Without being aware of it, her fingers tightened on the Prince’s hand.

  He looked at her with a faint smile on his face as he said very softly,

  “Now you understand. Now you know wha
t you gave me and what I am now trying to give to you.”

  Because in a way it was so moving, Linetta could not find any words to reply to him.

  Then suddenly their heads were turned up towards the flickering light of the sun that came through the trees and a harsh voice rang out,

  “Here they are!”

  Linetta then looked down and realised that standing opposite them on the other side of the wishing well were two men.

  It took her a moment to realise that they were in uniform and were very obviously Russians.

  As the Prince’s fingers now tightened on hers, they were almost painful.

  Then she heard him demand of the Russians,

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  To her astonishment he did not speak in his own language but in German, which she had always understood the Russians used when they were moving about Europe and not in their own country.

  “We have been looking for Your Royal Highness,” one of the men replied. “And, as we’ve been so clever in finding you, we’ll certainly be rewarded when we tell those who’ve sent us that your body lies at the bottom of this well from which it can never be recovered.”

  As he spoke, he pulled a gun from under his arm and the man beside him did the same.

  It flashed through Linetta’s mind that these men were about to kill the Prince and she felt the full horror of the moment and could only gasp.

  Then she remembered the pistols which were in the pocket of her coat.

  Swiftly, so swiftly that the two men on the other side of the wishing well were not even aware that she had moved, she pulled out both the pistols.

  Even as the man who had spoken brought his gun down towards the Prince’s head, she shot him between the eyes.

  The other man she then shot in the throat with the pistol in her left hand.

  The noise of the gunfire seemed to echo as the men fell backwards.

  Then the Prince, who appeared to have been almost in a dream, put his arm around her and drew her away from the wishing well and outside to where their horses were tied.

  Only as they reached them, did Linetta manage to stammer in a shaky voice,

  “They were going – to kill you.”

  “You saved my life, my darling,” he sighed.

  He pulled her into his arms as he spoke.

  Then his lips came down on hers and he held her closely against him.

  For a second Linetta could hardly believe what was happening.

  Then she felt something strange within her heart.

  It was a feeling that she had never known before.

  Yet it seemed to fill her mind and her body in a way that she did not understand.

  But she knew it was something wonderful that she had always hoped to find one day.

  The Prince’s lips were on hers and his arms were round her so closely that she could hardly breathe.

  Without saying a word he picked her up in his arms and put her onto Angel’s back.

  He set her free and then he just seemed to leap onto his own horse.

  Only as he started to move off with Linetta behind him, did he say,

  “There are sure to be others with them, they would not be alone. So we must ride as quickly as we can back to civilisation.”

  He did not wait for her answer, but bent forward to urge his horse into moving even quicker than it had done before and Linetta did the same.

  She knew that the Prince was right in thinking that the two Russians would not be alone.

  There was perhaps a Regiment of soldiers moving into Samosia with the intention of taking it over, just as in the North of the country there would be another Russian Regiment moving towards the City.

  If they had not hurried that much on their way from The Palace, they certainly rode back at a speed that Linetta was to think afterwards was faster than the wind itself.

  As they arrived at The Palace gate and the sentries came to attention, they galloped on into the stable yard.

  When their sweating horses came to a standstill, the Prince said,

  “I must warn the General in Command immediately as well as the Prime Minister of what I am now certain are the beginnings of an invasion by the Russians. Please tell the Count at once what has happened.”

  It was an order.

  Linetta then ran as quickly as she could through the garden until she reached the Count’s house.

  As she expected, the family were having breakfast.

  When she saw them in the breakfast room, she then entered through the French window, which like the others in the house, opened into the garden.

  The Count, who was sitting at the end of the table with his children on either side of him, looked up in great surprise as she came bursting into the room.

  “What has happened?” he asked anxiously.

  “The Russians are closing in on the City,” Linetta said breathlessly. “They are coming from the South and the North. Will you tell the Prime Minister that His Royal Highness is doing everything that he can, but you have a special message from Her Majesty the Queen.”

  “A special message?” the Count managed to say.

  He had risen to his feet as Linetta was speaking.

  He was staring at her as if he could hardly believe what was occurring.

  “What you have to do,” Linetta urged, “is to get the Church bells ringing and send out the Heralds – as many as possible – to tell the people of Samosia that Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain is sending the Prince a bride!”

  “So you have now made up your mind,” the Count managed to utter.

  In his surprise his words seemed to topple over themselves.

  “Yes, I will marry the Prince this afternoon at four o’clock,” Linetta told him, “and that will be more effective in stopping the Russians than any soldiers could be.”

  “This afternoon!” the Count exclaimed loudly as if he could not have heard her right.

  “I am going now to meet my mother and father, who I am certain will have arrived at the Port by now,” Linetta answered. “I will need a fast carriage to bring them back in.”

  “I sent one yesterday,” the Count replied, “thinking it might be wanted, but then I was not expecting anything like this.”

  “There is no time to tell you all about it,” Linetta said. “You must send an escort to meet us, as we will go straight to the Cathedral where all the bells must be ringing to welcome us.”

  She paused before she went on excitedly,

  “I want my bridesmaids to be there waiting too and they are to be chosen by your daughters who should be in charge. I want ten of them, as young as possible wearing white dresses with a wreath of pink roses and a bouquet of the same colour roses.”

  “That will be better than anything the Russians can think of!” the Count cried.

  “I want bands to be playing in the streets,” Linetta continued, “and a special band will drive in front of us after we are married and on our way back to The Palace.”

  The Count squared his shoulders.

  “I will see to it all immediately,” he said.

  Linetta turned back, as if to leave the same way she had come.

  Then she said,

  “I have just thought of something most important. Announce to the people of Samosia that it is the Queen of Great Britain who desires this and must be obeyed that the Prince and Princess are to be crowned immediately their marriage has taken place.”

  She paused before she added quickly,

  “It will be much more difficult for the Russians to fight a King and Queen than a Prince and Princess.”

  Without waiting for an answer she had gone.

  The Count knew that she was running towards his own stable where there were not only horses she could ride but soldiers who guarded The Palace.

  She could easily find four men to take her to the Port in safety.

  The Count did not follow her.

  He looked towards his wife who had been
staring at Linetta with amazement.

  “Come along, my dearest,” he said. “We have our orders. You must help me, as we have little time to carry them out.”

  He reached the door by the time he had finished speaking and then his wife asked,

  “Can you arrange for them married in such a short time?”

  The Count smiled.

  “To hear is to obey,” he said. “God be thanked that she has made up her mind to marry him so quickly.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Linetta reached the stables.

  Shortly after she had given the order four soldiers were ready to escort her to the Port.

  As they were soldiers, she spoke to the Officer in Command and found that he was of high rank.

  She informed him that the Russians were gathering in the South of the country and also, she suspected, in the North.

  “The one thing that is important,” she said, “is that the Prince should be guarded every moment of the day. From what I hear they are determined to kill him before he can be married.”

  The Officer was astonished that Linetta knew so much.

  At the same time he was wise enough to know that he must follow her instructions.

  “I will send a company of men immediately to The Palace,” he offered.

  “And,” Linetta added, “when the English party who have arrived get near to the City, there must be a Company of picked men to protect them until they can reach the Cathedral.”

  She paused before she went on,

  “I am quite certain that the Russians, if they get the chance, will make one last desperate effort to prevent the marriage taking place.”

  “I understand,” the Officer answered. “I can only hope that the lady, who the Queen of Great Britain has sent us, will not be frightened.”

  Linetta smiled to herself as she replied,

  “I am sure that she will be as brave as the English always are when they are in difficulties.”

  She did not wait for the Officer to respond, but mounted the horse that was now ready for her with a side saddle.

  The four soldiers who were to accompany her were already on either side of her and the Officer helped her into the saddle.

  She thanked him, feeling sure that he would carry out all her instructions.