An Adventure of Love Read online

  “I – am – sorry,” Zorina began to murmur.

  “Why did you knock him about like that?” the woman demanded furiously.

  She spoke Hungarian and Zorina could understand and answer her in the same language.

  “I am very – sorry. I did not – mean to – hurt him. He was trying to molest me!”

  “Well, you have knocked him out, that’s what you have done.”

  “I did – not mean – to do so.”

  “You are going to be his Queen and that should be enough for you,” the woman snapped. “You keep to your part of The Palace and don’t come barging in here where he belongs to me.”

  “Belongs – to – you?”

  “If nobody has told you, you might as well know the truth,” the woman retorted. “We have lived together as man and wife for the last twelve years. I would not give him up to the last Queen and you are certainly not having him now.”

  Zorina could only stare at her, feeling that what she was saying could not be the truth.

  “You can have his children, which is what they are all fussing about,” the woman went on. “I have given him three sons, so there is nothing wrong with him. Not like his son, Karl, who can produce only girls.”

  The woman was spitting out the words contemptuously.

  She paused to look down at the King and then slipped her hand inside his shirt to rub his heart.

  In a voice that Zorina did not recognise as her own she then asked,

  “Did you say – that the King has given you – three sons?”

  “I did and fine boys they are too,” the woman replied. “And there’s another one on the way.”

  She withdrew her hand from the King’s shirt and asserted,

  “There is no point in you standing there gaping. You’ve done enough damage, so get out and leave him to me. Don’t you come down here again, do you understand?”

  Zorina gave a gasp and then she turned and ran to the door.

  As she reached it, she realised that Josef had come into the room the same way as the woman had.

  She knew that he would tend to the King and quickly she opened the door in front of her and found that the corridor was empty.

  By instinct Zorina found the staircase that she and Josef had used and she hurried up to the first floor. Then she ran as rapidly as she could to her own bedroom.

  She went to the wardrobe and took from it the cape that she had travelled in on the ferry that had carried her to Ostend.

  She put it round her shoulders. Then she snatched from a drawer a chiffon scarf that she covered her head with and pulled it forward to conceal her face.

  Leaving her room, Zorina went a little way back the way she had come and found a staircase that she had been told led down to the garden.

  There was no one about and again, largely by instinct because her brain had ceased to function, Zorina found the door into the garden and let herself out.

  It seemed then that she knew where she was going and what she intended to do.

  The trees were already casting long shadows over the garden and the sun was sinking behind the mountains as she walked until she found herself at the West Gate of The Palace.

  Among the Wedding presents had been a gift from the Master Bakers of the City who had modelled in sugar a replica of The Palace and its gardens.

  The Master Baker had laboriously pointed out to her the entrances and, indicating the West Gate, he had said,

  “I am sure that Your Royal Highness will be taken through this gate to view the falls, which are very famous.”

  “That is true,” the Crown Prince remarked, “and they are also very beautiful.”

  The Master Baker had then gone on,

  “The Falls were there before The Palace itself was built. The water comes from some hidden stream in the mountains and falls hundreds of feet into a lake in the valley below.”

  His voice had been proud as he had added,

  “It is the most magnificent sight in the whole of Leothia and will, I am sure, delight Your Royal Highness.”

  “I am certain it will,” Zorina had agreed as she smiled at him

  She knew now that this was where she must go.

  As she reached the West Gate, she pulled her cloak around her so that her white gown was hidden and bent her head to hide as much of her face as possible.

  The sentries paid no attention to her, they were talking together at the side of the gate, which Zorina thought could not be in frequent use.

  She started along a dusty lane that, a little farther on, petered out into a path running between olive trees.

  She could now hear the sound of water and realised that the Falls were not far away from where she was.

  The path made it easy for her to reach them and they were indeed, as the Master Baker had told her, magnificent.

  The water rushed tempestuously in a silver torrent down the bare mountainside.

  Far below Zorina could see the beginning of the lake that the water was falling into.

  It stretched out for some distance and she thought, although she was not sure, that on the far side there were bathing huts.

  From what she could see, looking down through the spray, below her there was no sign of human habitation.

  ‘I shall be dead when I touch the water,’ Zorina told herself.

  In front of her there was a large rock jutting out of the ground.

  She sat down on it, thinking that she would wait a little just in case there was anyone in the vicinity who might be so foolish as to try to rescue her.

  ‘I will fall in my cloak,’ she thought ‘then, if my body is found, they will believe it was an accident.’

  By now she had begun to think clearly.

  The horror of the King’s attempted kiss and the way that he had fallen was still vivid and horrifying in her mind.

  Zorina knew that the deep shock that she had experienced at first was gradually wearing off.

  Now she realised that he drank, which she had been too ignorant to realise before.

  She was now sure that it had not been his wish to marry again and have more children, but perhaps that of the Prime Minister and senior Members of the Cabinet.

  ‘Why should the King himself want another wife,’ she asked herself, ‘when he had that weird Hungarian woman and her sons?’

  Zorina’s mind still shrank from the knowledge that the woman was having yet another child by the King when it was intended that he should become her husband.

  ‘How can they expect me to do anything so horrendous or so degrading as to marry him?’ Zorina asked the cascading Falls.

  She was too intelligent not to know the answer.

  As far as Leothia was concerned, all that mattered was that there should be heirs to the Throne to help maintain its independence.

  ‘I cannot do it!’ Zorina told herself. ‘It is far, far easier to die.’

  She felt as if the Falls were gradually hypnotising her.

  The last rays of the sun were turning the rushing water to gold and then it was crimson, as though it ran with blood.

  She thought that she would be buried with glory and perhaps, when he learned what had happened, Rudolf, if no one else, would understand.

  ‘The sooner I die the better,’ she decided.

  She was half-afraid that, at the very last moment, she would shrink from what had to be done.

  Or worse still someone might find her and she would be forcibly taken back to The Palace and the King.

  She felt a sudden panic almost overcome her in case that should happen to her.

  How could she go back to be the wife of a man who drank so much, a man who was already married in everything but name to a woman who obviously cared for him?

  Zorina felt again the utter revulsion that she had experienced when he had tried to kiss her.

  She could feel again his moustache brush against her lips as he held her tightly in his arms dressed in an open-necked white shirt.

  It all s
eemed so coarse, so degrading and totally humiliating.

  How could she allow such a man to touch her and the idea of bearing his child was so revolting that she dared not even think about it?

  ‘I must die quickly,’ she whispered to herself.

  If they took her back, she might never be able to escape again.

  Zorina rose from the rock where she had been sitting and moved a few steps nearer to the Falls.

  The water was only a few inches away and she realised that, if she flung herself forward, she would be carried away instantly and forcefully down to be dashed to death on the rocks below.

  If, by some miracle, she survived that, she would be unconscious by the time that she drowned in the lake itself.

  It seemed so simple, so easy and she knew that, if there was a life after death, her father would be waiting for her and she would not be alone.

  ‘Help me – Papa. Help – me,’ she prayed to him fervently.

  Zorina now felt as if she could see her father and that he was smiling at her as he had when she was a child.

  She took a deep breath and put out her hands as though to protect her face from her first impact with the water.

  Then she gave a scream as from behind her she was pulled back violently from the edge of the Falls.

  She experienced a hideous moment of terror.

  And then there were two arms around her and a deep voice was saying,

  “My darling, my sweet, how could you do anything so wicked? How could you leave me?”

  For a moment Zorina could not breathe.

  Then, as Rudolf’s lips took possession of hers, she felt as if the whole world had just exploded into a dazzling light.

  He was kissing her, kissing her fiercely, demandingly and possessively, until it was impossible to think of anything except that he was there and that she was his completely and utterly.

  An Eternity passed before Rudolf raised his head to exclaim,

  “I love you, oh, God, how I love you!”

  The words seemed to seep into Zorina’s consciousness.

  Next his lips were on hers again, not so fiercely, but with slow demanding and passionate kisses.

  She felt as if he drew her heart from her body as well as her very soul.

  As she moved a little nearer to him, Zorina knew that she was merged entirely in him. She was his and there was no life for her apart from him.

  Then, as Rudolf looked down at her, she gave a cry of sheer agony as she stammered,

  “I cannot go – back. I will – not go – back. Please – let me – die!”

  “Do you really think that I could lose you?”

  “You don’t – understand – you cannot – understand.”

  “I do understand, my darling. I know now that it is impossible for you to do what has been asked of you.”

  “You realise – that?” Zorina asked him doubtfully.

  Rudolf did not speak and she carried on,

  “You knew – you knew what he was like – and the children he had – by that woman. How could – you ask me to – marry him?”

  Her voice broke on the words and she hid her face against Rudolf’s neck.

  He held her closer still and said,

  “Our Statesmen were all fully convinced that an English Queen was what my country urgently needed.”

  His lips were nestling against her forehead as he went on,

  “How was I to know, how was I to guess, that the little Goddess I fell in love with the moment I saw her would be the bride who had been chosen for my father?”

  “I – cannot go – back,” Zorina murmured as if any explanation would be superfluous.

  “I know that,” Rudolf replied. “I am taking you away.”

  She lifted her head to stare at him.

  “Where are – you taking – me?”

  He looked at her as if he had never seen her before and must imprint her beauty on his mind for ever.

  Then he said,

  “Are you brave enough, my darling Zorina, to cause a scandal which will mean that we shall both be exiled from my country and from yours?”

  “I will – do anything – anything in the world as – long as I can be – with you.”

  Rudolf smiled and his eyes were very tender.

  “In that case, there are no problems. Come with me and the sooner we can get away the better.”

  He then held her closely and bent to kiss her.

  Now it was a very gentle kiss, a kiss of dedication.

  Zorina had no clear idea of what was happening, but it did not matter, nothing mattered except that she was with Rudolf and he did not intend to take her back to The Palace.

  They went a little way along the path that she had come by and she saw his horse quietly eating the grass under the trees.

  “I had just arrived back to The Palace,” Rudolf explained, “when one of the aides-de-camp, who is a friend of mine, told me he had learned that my father’s valet had taken you without their permission to visit the King.”

  “He – sent for – me,” Zorina murmured.

  “I arrived a few minutes after you had left. My father had just recovered consciousness and I then learned what had happened.”

  Rudolf’s voice was hard and Zorina was aware how angry his father’s behaviour had made him.

  “I went to your room to find you,” he went on, “and Hildegard told me that you were not there. But the wardrobe was open and I could see that your cape was missing.”

  “You – guessed where I – had gone?”

  “I think, my darling,” Rudolf replied as he lifted her onto the saddle of his horse, “that my intuition as far as you are concerned is very acute. I was desperately afraid that you would come here.”

  “I – meant to – die – ”

  “I knew that as soon as I saw you. I thank God in His mercy that I was in time.”

  Rudolf then sprang into the saddle behind her.

  He held her closely against him with his left arm and with his reins in the other hand and started to ride down the side of the hill.

  It was steep, but he zig-zagged between the trees. Then they were in the valley and he could move faster.

  The sun had sunk, leaving only a glow in the sky and by now the peasants had already left their fields and lights were beginning to shine from the windows of the small houses that they passed.

  Zorina felt as if she had stepped into a dream, but whilst she was dreaming she was acutely conscious that she was close to Rudolf.

  It was a sensation of security that she had always longed for and it made her feel as if she was floating among the clouds.

  Then almost as if she had asked him a question, Rudolf declared,

  “I love you, my darling, and whatever difficulties we may face, we shall be together and supremely happy for the rest of our lives.”

  “I love you – so overwhelmingly,” Zorina whispered, “That was why it was – easier to – die than to live – without you.”

  Rudolf let his lips touch her head and she felt as if forked lightning swept through her body and her whole being thrilled to such glorious sensations.

  It was so intense and so wonderful that she could only put her cheek against his shoulder and thank God that he was with her.

  They rode for quite a long way before Rudolf turned off the dusty track and started to make his way among the trees.

  “Where – are we – going?” Zorina asked hesitantly.

  “To be married.”

  She looked at him in astonishment.

  “Now – this moment?”

  “There will be no more arguments and no more decisions to make after that. You will be my wife and no one shall ever take you from me.”

  “Oh – Rudolf – ”

  Tears came into Zorina’s eyes and then resolutely, because she recognised that she must say it, she asked,

  “Are you – quite sure? Are you certain that you can bear having caused a – scandal and being – exiled from you
r own – country?”

  She paused to catch her breath and then went on swiftly,

  “I am – unimportant. No one worried about me until Queen Victoria told me that I had to to – marry your father. You are – different, you are – important to Leothia.”

  “Nothing is important except that you should be mine,” Rudolf answered.

  “Supposing you – regret – marrying me?” Zorina asked in a very small voice.

  “Loving you will be the most perfect and glorious thing that could ever happen to me.”

  “That is – different.”

  “There is no difference, my darling. We want each other, we need each other. We cannot live without each other. It is something that I should have realised before now.”

  As Rudolf spoke, he drew his horse to a standstill and Zorina saw that there was a small building in front of them.

  It was fashioned out of tree trunks and yet, before she even saw the Cross over the door, Zorina sensed that it was a Church.

  Rudolf smiled at the astonishment in her eyes.

  Then he dismounted and lifted her down from the saddle,

  “My precious, I am taking you to meet the man who has always been a good friend to me and whom I admire more than anyone else I have ever known.”

  He let his horse run loose and, taking Zorina by the hand, he led her up three wooden steps and through the door, which was ajar.

  Inside was the strangest Church that Zorina had ever seen.

  There were pillars made from whole trees and the walls were carved and painted with the expert craftsmanship that was found all over the Balkans.

  She wanted to look around, but Rudolf drew her forward and she saw, kneeling in front of the Altar at the other end of the Church, a tall man with white hair wearing a monk’s robe.

  He was praying and then, as if he became aware that they were standing behind him, he crossed himself and rose to his feet.

  Rudolf released Zorina’s hand and moved forward to kneel in front of the Priest.

  He put his hand on Rudolf’s bare head and said,

  “It is good to see you, my son.”

  “And I have missed you, Father,” Rudolf replied. “Now I need your help.”

  “You know that is what I am here for,” the Priest answered.

  Rudolf rose to his feet.