A Revolution Of Love Read online

  There was only one room, which was obviously a dining room on the ground floor and a staircase leading upwards.

  The next floor consisted entirely of a sitting room and on the second was a large bedroom, which he knew was Gerald’s and a smaller room, which was presumably intended for any guests he might entertain.

  Drogo threw his bundle down on the floor, pulled off his dusty dirty clothes and washed.

  It was something that he had not been able to do for two days.

  Although the water was cold, there was a fresh bar of soap beside the basin.

  As he dried himself, he thought that he now not only felt clean but no longer itched from the heat or from clothes that were far too thick for the flat country where he now was.

  When he was dry, he walked into his cousin’s bedroom and found in a wardrobe a long dressing gown, which he put on.

  He had just covered his nakedness when the servant reappeared.

  “Horse happy,” he announced with a grin. “Food downstairs.”

  “Thank you, Maniu,” Drogo replied. “I am very grateful.”

  The food was plain, but he was so hungry that it tasted like the ambrosia of the Gods.

  Because his mouth was so dry, he drank two tumblersful of lemon juice before his lips felt as if he could move them normally again.

  When he had finished, Maniu took away the empty plates saying as he did so,

  “I go. Bring breakfast morrow mornin’. What time?”

  “Not too early,” Drogo replied. “I must sleep, so don’t wake me.”

  He saw the man understood and remembered hearing that the inhabitants of Kozan were very garrulous.

  He thought therefore that his cousin had been wise in training him to say as little as possible.

  Actually Drogo with his aptitude for languages had already understood a great deal of what he had heard being said as he rode through the streets.

  He knew that he was not mistaken in thinking that the Kozanian language would be a mixture of Russian, Romanian and perhaps too a few words of Greek, which seemed to be prevalent in all the Balkan languages.

  As far as he was concerned, he felt that it would take him only a few days to be proficient enough to make himself understood and within a week he would no doubt speak it fluently.

  He had no wish to experiment on the manservant at the moment as all he wanted to do was go upstairs to bed.

  “Thank you, thank you very much!” he said as he rose from the table.

  The elderly man bowed in response.

  Drogo Forde thankfully ascended the stairs and, taking off his borrowed dressing gown, he flung it down on a chair and climbed into bed.

  By now night had fallen and the servant had left one candle alight.

  He blew it out and stretched himself out.

  The comfort of the bed was almost like reaching Heaven after the way he had been forced to sleep for the last few months.

  He had slept in tents, in caves and on the hard ground.

  Also he slept in houses that smelt and where the bedclothes were pitiably inadequate, being usually nothing but rags.

  But now it was all over and he could sleep.

  He felt under his pillow where he had put the written record of the information that he had risked his life to obtain.

  Then he closed his eyes and knew no more.

  *

  Drogo Forde awoke and saw to his surprise that it was still dark.

  He felt that he had slept for a long time and he knew in Kozan that the dawn came early.

  Then, as his mind began to work, he had the suspicion that he had lost a whole day.

  As he pulled back the curtain over the window, he saw that it was dusk and over the tops of the houses was the last glimmer of the evening sun.

  He stretched his arms above his head and had no idea that he looked like a Greek God as he did so.

  Then he realised that he was hungry and, putting on the dressing gown he had thrown on the chair, he walked rather carefully down the stairs to the ground floor.

  There was no sign of the manservant.

  Then, when he entered the small dining room, he saw that there was a place set at the table in front of the chair where he had sat last night.

  Propped against a dish of cold chicken salad was a piece of paper. On it was written,

  “U sleep I cum back morrow.”

  Drogo laughed, threw the paper on one side and sat down to eat what the servant had left for him.

  He had the idea that it was very much the same as he had eaten the night before.

  When he had finished, he thought that he would have a nice glass of wine.

  Then he realised that his cousin, if he was a sensible man, would, when he went away, have locked up his wine and hidden the key or taken it with him.

  However, he thought that he would instead enjoy a glass of the local ale.

  Better still some wine from Romanian or Bulgarian vineyards, which he had sampled in the past.

  He then decided to go out into the City.

  The trouble was, he had no money.

  When he had gone upstairs to put on a shirt and a pair of trousers, he knew that, unless his cousin was likely to return immediately, he must buy some of the things he required.

  If the worst came to the worst, he could always go to the British Embassy, but this he was still reluctant to do.

  He tied a silk handkerchief round his neck instead of putting on a tie.

  Having made up his mind what he would do, he hoped that it would prove to be another of his more successful operations.

  It was not difficult to find that his cousin had a secret safe, which was concealed behind a rather ugly oil painting in his bedroom.

  One of the skills that Drogo had made himself extremely proficient at was opening safes.

  The Russians had thought theirs to be inviolate, but where he was concerned they were to be outwitted.

  It took him a few minutes and he was not surprised when he pulled the safe door open to find inside what he was seeking.

  There were several small packets containing Kozanian money and he helped himself to what was the equivalent of two or three pounds and painstakingly wrote out an I.O.U. to put in the safe before he closed it and replaced the picture.

  He went down the stairs to find on the hall table a key that would open the front door and he put that too into his pocket.

  Then he went out into the quiet street.

  He walked in a direction that he hoped would lead to a market square around which the life of a City usually revolved.

  However, before he found it he moved through what was obviously a grander part of the City containing houses belonging to the richer citizens.

  Most of the houses had a garden surrounded by a high wall over which grew bougainvillaea with crimson, yellow or white blossom.

  It was so lovely after the bleakness of the mountains with their bare rugged surfaces and snow-capped peaks that Drogo felt his spirits rising.

  He thought what he would like at the moment was not only a glass of wine but somebody to drink it with.

  If possible somebody soft and attractive.

  Telling himself that he was expecting too much, he looked up at the sky and saw in its translucent dying light the first twinkling star appear.

  Vaguely at the back of his mind he remembered his mother or perhaps it had been his Nanny, saying, “wish upon a star!”

  Without expressing it aloud, but in his mind, or perhaps his heart, he wished for a glass of champagne and a lovely woman to share it with.

  Even as he laughed at himself for being so fanciful, he heard a voice cry in Kozanian and then in English,

  “Help! Help me – please – help me!”

  He looked up in astonishment.

  To his surprise he saw swinging above his head the figure of a woman.

  She was hanging from a rope down a high wall that he was walking along.

  It was obviously too short for her to rea
ch the ground without a drop of about six feet.

  For a second he could only stare at the woman, her skirts swinging out above him.

  “Save me – save me!” she cried again and she spoke in Kozanian.

  Drogo moved forward to assist her.

  He grasped her ankles and then, speaking in English, he said,

  “I have hold of you. Now lower yourself very slowly holding onto the rope until the very last moment and then you land on my shoulders. Don’t be afraid, you will not fall.”

  Because he was tall and very strong, it was not difficult to guide her with one hand while holding her firmly with the other.

  Finally, as he had told her, she was sitting on his shoulders and from there he lifted her to the ground.

  When he had done so, he could see in the dying light that she was young and at the same time extremely lovely.

  Her dark hair was arranged carefully behind her head, otherwise he would have thought that she was little more than a child.

  As he set her on his shoulders, he had been aware of a subtle and, he was sure, very expensive perfume.

  Now she looked up at him and the top of her head reached only to his shoulder as she said,

  “Thank you! How could I have guessed that on this side of the wall the rope – would not reach to the ground?”

  “I imagine it’s not your usual means of leaving a building!” Drogo smiled.

  Her eyes seemed to twinkle at him like the stars in the sky as she answered,

  “I have been clever and also very lucky in finding you!”

  “Thank you!” Drogo said. “But now that you have escaped, what are you planning to do about it?”

  “I am going to see a – little of life in the City!” she replied.

  As she spoke, he realised that, although she had a faint accent, her English was educated and she was, in fact, a lady.

  Aloud he said,

  “Unless you have somebody to go with you, I think that would be a mistake.”

  “If you had not been here, someone else would have helped me.”

  “You cannot be certain of that,” he replied, “and there are men in the street who will find you very attractive.”

  She looked at him in surprise and he realised that this was something she had not thought about.

  “But it’s the Festival of St. Vitus,” she said, “and I want to see – the procession and the dancers!”

  She sounded so young and there was a wistfulness in the way she spoke that Drogo found very appealing.

  After a moment he said,

  “You are quite certain you have no escort waiting for you around the comer?”

  “No, I am quite alone.”

  “Then will you honour me by being my guest?”

  The girl laughed and it was a very pretty sound.

  “I accept gratefully. It would be very ignominious after all my trouble in getting away – to have to go back through the front door.”

  “I can understand that,” Drogo said. “But I suppose if I was being sensible, it is what I should advise you to do.”

  The girl threw up her hands in horror.

  “If you say the words ‘sensible’ or ‘duty’, I shall run away!”

  “If that is what you feel,” Drogo said, “I suggest we walk on. Actually I had just wished upon a star for a glass of wine and somebody to drink it with!”

  “Then, sir, your wish is granted and perhaps the star should introduce us.”

  “Of course. My name is Drogo.”

  “And mine is Thekla.”

  She put out her hand as she spoke and, as she held it rather high, he realised that she expected him to kiss it.

  He did so in the perfunctory manner of a Frenchman, raising it to his lips but not actually touching her skin with his mouth.

  As she took her hand from his, Thekla gave a little skip and enthused,

  “You have no idea how exciting this is!”

  “But I have,” Drogo replied, “because I am excited too! I have met beautiful women before in many different and strange places, but never descending from the sky on a rope!”

  Thekla laughed.

  “Then it’s a new experience for you and – that is what I hope you will give me!”

  Just for a moment, almost without meaning to, Drogo glanced at her sharply.

  He felt that there could be several interpretations of what she had just said.

  Then he realised that she was not looking at him but ahead to where they could see a profusion of lights at the end of the street.

  Drogo was certain that in a few seconds they would also hear a great deal of noise.

  ‘She is nothing more than a child,’ he told himself, ‘and, when the evening is over, I will take her back.’

  As they walked on, he was aware that she was very simply dressed in a plain white gown that had a full skirt and quite a simple bodice with sleeves ending at the elbow.

  There was a blue sash round her waist, which, tied in a large bow at the back, constituted almost a small bustle.

  She wore no jewellery and there were no rings on her fingers.

  As they drew nearer to the lights and she was looking eagerly ahead, Drogo noticed that her very small nose was straight and undoubtedly aristocratic.

  Her eyes were very large and dominated her small pointed face.

  ‘She is lovely and very young,’ he told himself. ‘I expect she has escaped from a school and will get into serious trouble if I don’t take her safely back when the evening is over.’

  They had reached the market place, which, as is traditional. had a large fountain in the centre of it and there were stone mermaids clustered around a figure of Neptune.

  On the steps that encircled it were flower sellers, their baskets a blaze of colour and pedlars with their trays.

  There were several children playing in the fountain, cupping their hands to hold the water so that they could throw it over their friends.

  There was music from a man who played the guitar and a number of street carriages, which were small and only meant for two people.

  They were drawn by delicately-bred horses that were little bigger than ponies.

  Drogo looked down the road and saw a café.

  It had tables outside on the pavement and quite a number of customers sitting with cups of coffee on the tables in front of them.

  He steered Thekla towards them, taking her arm because she was so intent on looking at the pedlars and a boy who was turning somersaults.

  There was also a gypsy who was offering to tell the fortune of anybody who would pay her.

  Only when they were seated at a table and he was looking for a waiter to take their order did she say in a voice that seemed to lilt softly,

  “This is what – I thought it would be like and thank you – thank you for bringing me here!”

  Chapter Two

  When the waiter came to the table, Drogo ordered coffee and then hesitated.

  “What wine do you have?” he asked slowly, feeling for the right Kozanian words.

  The waiter understood, but said a name that was incomprehensible.

  “Ask for the wine from the Bela Valley,” Thekla suggested. “It is what my father always drinks.”

  She spoke in English and, as Drogo was unable to translate it into Kozanian, she did it for him.

  As the waiter went off to fetch their order, Drogo said,

  “May I congratulate you on your fluency in two languages and your English is perfect!”

  Thekla smiled.

  “My mother was English.”

  “Then that accounts for it,” Drogo said. “Can you also speak Russian?”

  He spoke lightly, but to his surprise a shadow came over her face.

  Her eyes, which he now realised in the light were grey and not dark, seemed to have a hard expression in them before she replied,

  “A little, but I hate the language and – the people!”

  Drogo was surprised knowing how close th
e two countries were and thinking that they must mingle with each other a great deal.

  But, as he had no intention of involving himself in local politics, he merely asked,

  “Have you ever been to England?”

  Thekla shook her head.

  “No, but it is something I would like to do. Mama told me so much about it before she – died.”

  There was a throb in her voice that made Drogo aware how greatly she missed her mother and he said quietly,

  “My mother died just before I left England, so I know what you are feeling.”

  “Everything changed when she had gone,” Thekla said, “but I don’t want to talk about it – not tonight – at any rate.”

  “Then we will talk about something else,” Drogo suggested. “Did you say there was dancing?”

  “Because the Kozanians celebrate the Feast of St Vitus there will be a procession and afterwards dancing, but I have never been allowed to watch it.”

  “Then we will find out where it takes place,” Drogo said. “We can ask the waiter when he returns.”

  “I will ask him,” Thekla said, “so that I shall know which part of the City we have to go to.”

  That seemed sensible and Drogo sipped his coffee.

  He was thinking as he looked at her across the table that she was one of the loveliest young women he had seen for a very long time.

  He thought that it was extremely reprehensible of her to have escaped from her home, or was it a school, in such a daring way.

  He was sure that, if he had not been with her, she would already have been in trouble.

  He was aware that quite a number of men sitting at the other tables were gazing at her.

  There was an expression in their eyes that did not need to be translated into words.

  He wondered if she was really as innocent as she appeared to be or, if she was putting on an act for his benefit, it was certainly a new approach.

  Yet, as he watched her, he could not believe that any actress could contrive the eagerness with which she looked around her or the excitement in her grey eyes.

  They were an unusual combination with the darkness of her hair, which at the same time was not the jet black of so many of the people who lived in the Balkans.

  There were lights in it that seemed to have almost a silver shine and he thought that, obviously due to her mother, her skin was very fair and English.