The Proud Princess Read online

  She reached the table in front of him and stood looking up into his eyes to ask,

  “Is it true that the Russians have entered the country and have occupied the Palace?”

  “That is what I have been told,” the Prince said quietly. “But there is no need for you to be frightened.”

  “I am not frightened,” Ilona said scornfully. “I have come to tell you how you can enter the Palace and take them by surprise before they can fire on us!”

  She saw the astonishment in the Prince’s face. Then the Army officer beside him asked,

  “Is there a way into the Palace, Your Royal Highness, without approaching it from the valley?”

  Ilona knew he was thinking of how the Palace had repelled many enemy assaults in the past, thanks to its strong fortifications and lofty position from which the defenders could fire down with a devastating loss of life on anyone approaching the gates.

  “There is a way into the Palace,” Ilona, replied, “which only I know. I doubt if even my father is aware that it exists.”

  Ever since Magda had told her that the Russians were being admitted into the Palace she had been thinking about the secret which Julius had imparted to her so many years ago.

  He had been sixteen at the time, and the King had discovered that he had been out at night enjoying himself in the Inns in Vitózi where there was dancing and drinking and many pretty girls to entertain the customers.

  There had been a row which reverberated through the Palace when her father had, as usual, indulged himself in one of his tyrannical rages.

  The King had threatened to beat Julius who had immediately picked up a sword and offered to fight his father.

  That he should be defied by his own son had infuriated the King to the point where he might even have killed Julius had it not been for the Queen’s intervention.

  Finally Julius had been punished by being locked in his room by his Tutor and told that if he went out again at night without his father’s permission he would be placed in one of the dungeons and chained to the wall.

  Ilona, then aged nine, had found her mother in tears and had gathered from what the Courtiers said and the chatter of the servants exactly what had happened.

  What had upset her was that Julius had not only been locked in his room, but her father had also given instructions that he was to be given nothing to eat for the next twenty four hours!

  When she had been put to bed at her usual hour she found she could not sleep.

  She waited until her Nurse had left the Nursery, doubtless to gossip with the other staff. Then putting her pillows under the bedclothes to make it look as if she was still there, she put on her dressing-gown and tip-toed along the passage to Julius’s room.

  It was very quiet and there appeared to be no-one about as she knocked tentatively at the door.

  “Who is it?” Julius asked. “It is me - Ilona!”

  Ire had come to the door so that he could talk to her through the key-hole.

  “I am locked in, Ilona.”

  “I know. Are you very hungry, Julius?”

  “Very hungry, and very cross,” he answered. “Where is the key of the door?”

  Ilona looked around her and saw it hanging on a nail above her head.

  She told Julius where it was.

  “Can you reach it?”

  “If I put a chair underneath it I can.”

  “Then let me out,” Julius pleaded. “I will not let you get into trouble - I promise!”

  “I am not afraid,” she answered.

  She pulled a chair into position, climbed onto it, lifted down the key, and opened the door.

  Julius came out, picked her up in his arms and kissed her.

  He was tall for his age and looked very much older than his sixteen years.

  The men of Dabrozka developed young and Julius was already a man.

  “Thank you, Ilona,” he said.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Out!” he replied. “You do not suppose I am going to let Papa keep me shut up like a rat in a trap?”

  “He will be very angry if he catches you!”

  “I know,” Julius replied, “and that is why I am going to ask you to help me, Ilona.”

  “You know I will help you – you know I will!” Ilona replied eagerly.

  Julius hung the key back on the nail and replaced the chair which Ilona had moved.

  “If I come and wake you up,” he asked, “will you lock me in again?”

  “You know I will,” Ilona answered. “But how are you going to get out of the Palace? The sentries will see you.”

  “Not the way I intend to go,” he replied.

  Ilona had realised it was a secret, and because she pleaded with him, Julius had good-humouredly taken her with him down a twisting staircase which was seldom used and led to the cellars.

  This very old part of the Palace with its thick walls and uneven floors was not in use.

  But Julius had found an old passage-way which must have been built hundreds of year ago and which burrowed under the ground to emerge hidden by some rocks at the back of the Palace where people seldom went.

  He had not shown Ilona the whole passage the first night, but after she had let him out subsequently half-a-dozen other times, she had managed to persuade him to take her down the passage in the day-time.

  He had shown her how well the entrance was concealed between some boulders and beneath the thick branches of the acacia trees.

  “It is a secret between us,” Julius had said. “You will never speak of it to anyone or I am certain Papa will cut off my head!”

  “You know I would never betray you,” Ilona had said adoringly.

  And she had never mentioned the secret passage, not even to her mother.

  She explained now to the Prince where it was and how it was possible to enter the passage from the outside without anyone in the Palace being aware of it.

  “It is not overlooked and there are no rooms in use in that part of the building,” she said.

  Her eyes were fixed on the Prince and she spoke as if addressing him alone.

  There was a silence in the room and everyone else was listening.

  When she had finished the Prince took her hand in his and raised it to his lips.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  “This changes everything, Your Highness,” the Army Officer said excitedly.

  “I must – come with you,” Ilona said to the Prince.

  He shook his head.

  “That is impossible!”

  “Then you will never find the entrance.”

  He hesitated and she went on,

  “You know as well as I do you cannot afford to waste time, nor can you risk being seen by daylight.”

  “It is true that we shall have to enter the Palace as soon as it is dark,” the Prince agreed.

  “Then I will show you the way,” Ilona insisted.

  She saw his lips tighten as if once again he was going to refuse to take her into danger. Then she said, addressing the officer at his side,

  “I am sure, Colonel, you will agree that we should move as soon as it is dark enough to conceal our movements. That will be in about an hour’s time. I will go and get ready!”

  She turned to walk from the room.

  As she did so the men who had been listening, spontaneously cheered her.

  As the door closed behind her a babble of excited voices burst out.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ilona ran back to the bed-room to find Magda waiting for her with a shocked expression on her face.

  “Really, M’mselle!” she said in the tone of a scolding Nanny, “how could you go downstairs wearing little more than a néglige! What will His Highness think of you with your hair all over your shoulders?”

  Ilona nearly retorted that His Highness was not interested in her or her hair one way or the other, and that his preference was for long dark locks which fell below the waist.

  Inste
ad she said,

  “Magda, I have to be dressed and ready as quickly as possible. I require a riding-habit!”

  “You are going riding at this hour?” Magda exclaimed.

  “It is too much on top of what you have already gone through today!”

  “I am all right! I am perfectly all right!” Ilona replied.

  Refusing to listen to Magda’s protests and grumbles she began to dress herself as swiftly as she could.

  She would have put on the fiést thing that came to hand, but Magda sensibly chose a riding-habit of deep sapphire velvet and as Ilona covered her crisp white petticoats with the skirt she realised it was a wise choice.

  It was important that she should not be conspicuous, as she would be if she wore a lighter colour.

  What was more it would be cold once the sun had set and the winds carried the chill of the snows from the mountains.

  As Magda arranged her hair, drawing it back neatly and tightly into the chignon she always wore when riding, Ilona looked at her high-crowned, fashionable hat and said,

  “I have an idea, Magda! Did you pack that cloak I used to wear when we lived in Paris?”

  “That old thing?” Magda replied scornfully. “I meant to throw it away or give it to some poor beggar, but the beggars here are better dressed than we were in the past!”

  “I will wear it!” Ilona said.

  Magda tried to dissuade her but Ilona knew that the black woollen cloak with its hood would be just what she required as an effective disguise, and there would also be no need to wear a riding-hat.

  All the time she was dressing her brain was busy planning how to approach the Palace without being seen which meant, she knew, a long detour.

  She was quite certain that if the Russians were already in the Palace, they would have sentries watching for the approach of troops from Vitózi.

  As soon as the moonlight illuminated the valley, anyone moving on the twisting road which wound from the river to the Palace gates would be easily discernible.

  She was certain that the Prince and the Army Officers themselves would have thought of this. At the same time she felt responsible for the whole campaign.

  “How could Papa do anything so unpatriotic, so wicked, as to intrigue with the Russians against his own people?” Ilona asked herself.

  But she was well aware that the King when he was in one of his fanatical and tyrannical rages would do anything, however reprehensible, to get his own way.

  It was all part of his vendetta against the Sáros and particularly Prince Aladár.

  He could not forget or forgive the fact that he had been forced to allow his daughter to be married to his most despised enemy.

  Nothing else would seem to him to be of any consequence.

  Therefore if the Russians had approached him, as Ilona was sure they had after learning that their plans for creating a civil war in Dabrozka had been thwarted, then the King would have acquiesced in anything they suggested.

  Even though Ilona understood her father’s anger, his behaviour was still incredible. Nevertheless she did not doubt for a moment that the reports of what was happening were true.

  What was really of importance now was time.

  The pass over the mountains from Russia into Dabrozka was treacherous and narrow.

  It would be impossible for a large number of men to enter the country quickly and without being detected.

  What had happened, Ilona was sure,- was that small groups of soldiers doubtless on horseback had infiltrated under cover of night.

  They would have made their way over the narrow, rough road to the Palace to be welcomed by her father.

  Once the Palace was in their hands and they had established their guns it would be easy for the Russians to command all the known approaches and ensure a safe passage for the rest of their troops.

  ‘We can prevent this from happening, if Aladár’s men can take the Palace,’ Ilona thought.

  When finally she was dressed she left behind a tearful and protesting Magda and hurried downstairs to find everything in a buzz of activity.

  Senior officers were consulting maps and giving orders to their juniors, horses were saddled and waiting in the courtyard, and Ilona could see through the open door that there were too a number of mules with small, portable guns strapped to their backs.

  She stood looking around her, the red of her hair heightened by the blue of her riding-habit.

  She carried her black cloak over her arm. Count Duźsa crossed the Hall to her side.

  “I have been told of the secret passage, Ma’am,” he said. “Can you remember, when you last saw it, whether it was well-built enough to have remained passable after all these years?”

  Ilona smiled.

  “It had not collapsed, Count, during the hundreds of years since it was built, and I therefore cannot believe that the last nine would have made much difference!”

  “No, you are right, Ma’am,” the Count conceded. “Maybe I am over-anxious, but I am trying to decide what implements our forces would need if they had to clear away stones and rubble.”

  “I am quite confident that we shall find the passage my brother showed me is easily negotiable,” Ilona replied.

  She thought for a moment, then she said,

  “It seemed very large to me at the time, but certainly Julius could stand up-right in it and he was tall, nearly as tall at sixteen as the Prince is now!”

  “And the width?” the Count asked.

  “I should imagine it would be possible for at least two men to move abreast in it at the same time.”

  “Thank you, Ma’am,” Count Duźsa said.

  He moved from her side to convey the information she had given him to an Army Officer and Ilona could see the relief on his face.

  There was no sign of the Prince, but after Ilona had been in the Hall for about five minutes he came in through the front door, giving instructions as he did so to an officer who walked at his side.

  He saw Ilona and came towards her. She felt her heart start to beat frantically.

  “You are sure you are well enough to accompany us?” he asked.

  “I will not allow you to go without me!” Ilona replied.

  “It will be cold.”

  “I have a warm cloak.”

  “I see you have thought of everything!”

  There was a note in his voice which was different from the way in which he had spoken to her before, but as she looked up at him questioningly there was an officer at his side and he turned away to give an order.

  The sun had sunk and dusk was falling when finally they left the Castle.

  Ilona had learnt, not from the Prince but from one of the officers, that the main body of the Sáros Army had already left.

  They had moved off nearly an hour ago to intercept any other Russian troops who might be entering the country through the pass.

  They had a long march ahead of them as they too must approach their objective by a tortuous route.

  Those who were left behind were thirty of the Prince’s most trusted body-guard. These he intended to lead into the Palace once Ilona had shown them the secret passage.

  When she heard what had been planned she could not help a sudden tremor of fear for the Prince’s life.

  She did not expect him to be anywhere but in the forefront of the battle, because she knew that he would not ask any man to take greater risks than he himself was prepared to undertake.

  But she felt desperately afraid lest he should die in his attempt to save Dabrozka.

  Everything that happened tonight was crucial.

  On it hinged the whole independence and sovereignty of their country.

  There was no doubt that once the Russians got control it would be impossible to dislodge them. Neither Austria and Hungary, nor Rumania would contemplate an all-out war against the whole might of the Tsar’s Army.

  Yet even so, with the country united, they might have been able to fight the Russians as the Caucasians had fough
t under Shammel for years before they were finally defeated.

  But the people of Dabrozka were not united and their King had betrayed them.

  It was bitterly humiliating for Ilona to realise that it was her father, a Radák, who had turned traitor in such a despicable and unspeakable manner.

  His action would justify every complaint the Sáros had made against him, and she was well aware that they were as bitter and vengeful in their dislike of the Radáks as her father was of them.

  Yet the Prince had never mentioned or refuted the accusations which the King had brought against him of being implicated in the murder of Julius.

  Ilona had expected that he would deny that, if nothing else.

  But silence had been part of his defence, that cold, impenetrable, icy silence in which he remained frozen, whenever they were alone.

  She had learnt the truth from the Count.

  She had not liked to speak of it until the third day after her arrival at the Castle. He had come to her sitting-room to discuss the guests who would be at dinner that evening.

  “Will you tell me something, Count?” she asked.

  “If it is within my power to do so, Ma’am.”

  “I want to know how my brother died.”

  The Count was silent and Ilona said,

  “Please tell me. My father has accused the Sáros of killing him deliberately and with intent, which I am sure is untrue.”

  “It is a lie, Ma’am!”

  “I was sure of it! But at the same time I would wish to know what actually happened.”

  “It might distress you.”

  “It could not be worse than wondering, conjecturing and inventing explanations of his death,” Ilona replied.

  The Count nodded.

  “I am sure that is true. What we imagine is often so much worse than the reality.”

  “Then tell me about Julius,” Ilona pleaded.

  “There was a band of young men, led, we learnt later, by Prince Julius, who found it amusing to go to the local Inns patronized by the Sáros, and cause trouble.”

  Ilona drew in her breath.

  She could imagine her brother, head-strong, daring and bored with the gloom and restrictions of the Palace, fording such an escapade amusing.

  “Sometimes they were quite light-hearted,” the Count went on, “and although a certain amount of damage was done in the Inns by glasses and bottles being broken, the landlords were amply compensated and therefore not disposed to complain.”