Bride to a Brigand Read online

  Then everybody had appeared to be happy, laughing, enjoying life as she did, and she had always believed that every couple was as content with each other as her father and mother were.

  Now it was as if an evil fairy pointed out the flaws in everything that before had seemed perfect and unblemished.

  She discovered that the Baron paid attention to every new face, leaving a trail of broken hearts behind him.

  The Baroness grew paler, thinner and sadder and, although Ileana never found her crying again, she was certain it was something she did often in the privacy of her own room.

  She felt even more angry and resentful when she learnt that an irate husband had challenged the Baron to a duel, which had been fought in the Palace grounds at dawn.

  Unfortunately and unfairly it was the husband who had been wounded, while the Baron bounced back, gyrating as usual in the direction of the latest pretty face to arrive in the Palace.

  He certainly had a wide choice, because the Zokālan ladies were exceptionally lovely.

  Then, quite by chance whilst out riding, Ileana saw the Baron behaving outrageously with a very young, very beautiful peasant girl. Immediately understanding what he was really like, she convinced herself that all other men were the same.

  From that moment she decided that she would never allow herself to be so humiliated.

  No man should treat her as if she was a flower to be plucked and enjoyed for a short time, only to be thrown aside when the scent no longer attracted him.

  Almost as if the rose-coloured spectacles through which she had seen the world as a child had been whisked away from her eyes, everywhere she looked she found men being unfaithful to their wives.

  Then the women they had finished with were thrown aside to cry miserably and presumably were expected to be content with their memories.

  ‘That will never happen to me!’ Ileana vowed.

  Yet now, at this moment, she was confronted with a problem she could not ignore or push aside.

  She had taken it upon herself since her father’s illness to rule Zokāla.

  How could she refuse to give the country she loved and which she thought of as belonging to her, the Leader it required – and who traditionally must be a man?

  Chapter Two

  Ileana looked round the table in the Council Chamber and decided that the Senior Officers of the Army were all too old.

  They looked magnificent in their uniforms glistening with medals and gold braid, but many of them had baldheads, a number wore spectacles and there was almost no Officer who had not begun to show grey hairs on his temples.

  She had called an Army conference first thing in the morning and she knew as they stood and bowed when she joined them that they were apprehensive about what she had to say.

  Because she wished them to forget that she was a woman she was wearing her riding clothes.

  She was aware they averted their gaze from her legs, which showed beneath the tailored coat with its Cossack-like silver cartridge holders and the severe leather belt encircling her small waist.

  But however masculine her clothes were, she could not disguise the very feminine beauty of her red gold hair, her large dark-fringed green eyes or the translucent quality of her skin.

  Her voice, however, was strictly formal as she began,

  “Good morning, gentlemen! I have called you here having received very grave news from the Prime Minister.”

  She knew that they thought she was referring to the proximity of the Pallikares, but when she went on the expressions on their faces changed.

  “I am astonished, in fact astounded,” she said, “to learn that Colonel Bartik’s place, after he died, has not been filled!”

  She looked severely at the General sitting next to her and asked him,

  “Can you explain this omission, General?”

  There was a perceptible pause before the General replied,

  “We considered, Your Royal Highness, that our Army was efficient enough without the need for the type of service supplied to us by the Colonel.”

  “And now you have been proved wrong,” Ileana retorted sharply, “for nobody appears to have any idea how many of the Pallikares, if that is who they are, are camping in the mountains and whether they come in peace or with the intention of causing trouble.”

  Her voice was harsh and she was aware that the Generals sitting next to her shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

  “I can only condemn in no uncertain language,” she went on, “this omission and ask you to inform me what you intend to do about it.”

  The Officers sitting round the table now looked even more uncomfortable than they had before.

  They glanced at each other surreptitiously and she was aware that the problem had not been raised until this moment and they had no answer.

  After a very uncomfortable silence Ileana asked,

  “How many of the men in our Armed Forces are experienced mountain climbers?”

  Again there was silence until one Officer said tentatively,

  “We have always relied, Your Royal Highness, on the men whose sole occupation it is to climb the mountains, either for pleasure or, because they have constituted themselves a rescue team, to help anybody who is in trouble.”

  “That appears to me to be a very slipshod way of conducting the defence of our country!”

  As if at last she had aroused them into making some report, a senior General, a man of over sixty said pompously,

  “I am quite certain, Your Royal Highness, that if the Pallikares are here and do intend to attack us, our Army will not fail to distinguish itself and drive them away.”

  “That is all very well, General,” Ileana countered, “but you speak as if you expect them to be drawn up in front of you on the plain, advancing in the old-fashioned manner with swords or spears in their hands!”

  She looked round the table with a contemptuous expression in her eyes as she continued,

  “I am interested to know what you would do if they opened fire on us from the mountain heights where you cannot reach them and then if, while you are withdrawing ineffectually, they swooped down to pillage our crops, our herds and anything else on which they can lay their hands.”

  Again there was a pregnant silence until Ileana said sharply,

  “I wish to receive a report promptly on what defence you intend to put up against the Pallikares and also any other information you can obtain about them.”

  She paused to add bitterly,

  “I can only say that if my father was well enough to understand what is happening, he would be appalled at the complacency and lack of initiative in the Zokālan Army of which he has always been so proud.”

  With that she rose from the table and walked away in silence, leaving the Officers standing and staring after her with a grave look on their faces.

  Outside she told herself she might have routed them, but it would not be so easy to do the same to General Vladilas, if he had superior weapons that were more modern than those they possessed.

  In that case he could, if that was what he intended, take over the whole country.

  ‘How can it possibly have come to this?’ she asked herself angrily.

  She knew that even before her father had sunk into his present coma he had been content to let things drift, to believe what old men like himself both in the Army and Parliament told him.

  And worst of all, to be positively against any change in the status quo.

  Now as she reached the library where she usually sat when she was dealing with Affairs of State, she wondered frantically what she should do, and how she could with a wave of a magic wand transform an ancient and creaking machine at a moment’s notice into a modern efficient one.

  ‘It’s impossible!’ she admitted.

  At the same time she told herself that the Prime Minister’s idea of her quickly finding a husband to lead them was about as useless as the guns they used would be against men who were camped high in the mountains where
the shells would never reach them.

  Too restless and worried to sit down, she walked up and down the room, striving to find some solution.

  She knew as she did so that if she failed – if the Pallikares took over the country or even merely raided and devastated it – the outside world would blame her.

  “The woman should have married long ago!” the neighbouring crowned heads would say. “Her husband could have introduced new ideas, modern methods and certainly new weapons!”

  It was an argument that would end with their saying scornfully,

  “Women know nothing of Armies, of strategy and tactics, and why should they?”

  ‘How could I have been so blind, so stupid as to not have thought of this before?’ Ileana asked herself.

  For the first time she realised that she had spent too much time with the Cavalry Officers because they rode so well and shared her love of horses.

  She had forgotten that guns and rifles were what an enemy would use in modern warfare.

  Two months ago she had attended the manoeuvres that took place every year and in her father’s absence had taken the salute as the Regiments of soldiers marched on the level ground below the Palace.

  It had all been very impressive and the music of the bands, the waving pennants carried by the Cavalry, the ceremony of Trooping the Regimental Colours, were very moving.

  Now she felt that it had all been a sham. She should not only have admired the horses and the men who rode them, but should have demanded to know what other weapons the Zokālan Army had at its disposal.

  She had the uncomfortable feeling that the guns, each drawn into the Parade Ground by six magnificent horses, were out of date and capable of little more than firing a Royal Salute.

  She also remembered there had been remarkably few of them and wondered how her father could have omitted to ask for a detailed account of expenditure on defence during the last few years.

  He should have made sure that the money allowed to the Army was spent not only on horses and uniforms but also on weapons.

  What was worse was the loss of Colonel Bartik. She had the feeling that he had always been treated as something of a joke by the older Ministers – and by her father.

  “The Russians have spies everywhere,” she had heard him say once, “although, Heaven knows, most countries would be only too willing to tell them what they are trying to find out without their sending ferret-faced men to look under the beds and listen at doors.”

  There was, of course, a roar of laughter round the dining table and he went on,

  “The only advantage of such curiosity from our point of view is that many of the Czar’s secret agents are very beautiful women and it is a pleasure to whisper secrets into their shell-like ears!”

  His remark had caused a great deal of laughter and one General, whom Ileana had always thought of as a ‘stick-in the-mud’, remarked,

  “Personally, I have no secrets and I doubt if the most astute and beautiful Russian could find anything worth investigating in Zokāla!”

  This statement had been received with applause, and Ileana now thought that they had been living in a ‘Fool’s Paradise’.

  The smaller Balkan States had always been in fear of their larger neighbours.

  Dobruja had been shuffled backwards and forwards between Rumania and Russia and there had been beady eyes on Montenegro both from Bosnia and from Serbia.

  ‘How could we have been so blind as not to realise that Zokāla would be a feather in the cap of Hungary or Rumania?’ Ileana asked herself.

  She longed to talk over what she was thinking with somebody who would understand the dangers that were only just beginning to present themselves to her mind.

  But who was there?

  The Generals had not been prepared to admit that they were at fault and the politicians were, none of them, fighting men.

  ‘There must be somebody I can consult!’ Ileana told herself.

  She shied away from the thought that the Prime Minister would undoubtedly tell her that it should be her husband. But even if she consented to do as they wished and marry, who could understand their problems better than she could herself?

  Certainly not Tomilav who had never served in his own Army, except as Honorary Colonel-in-Chief of some Regiment that was not already represented by his two older brothers.

  Then there was Prince Georg, another suitor who came from Macedonia, but was far more knowledgeable about painting and mosaics and ancient history than anything to do with war.

  The same applied, she thought, to several of her other suitors with the exception of one, Prince Ivan. But he was a Russian and merely wanted to take her away to live on his vast estates where he ruled with far more opulence and authority than any King.

  ‘I shall have to do something about this myself,’ Ileana decided.

  The question was – what?

  Then she had an idea.

  The only people who might know something about the Pallikares, if that was who they were, would be the climbers, who the General had just said the Army relied on for information concerning the mountains.

  Ileana knew most of them well for they had guided her and ensured her safety when she climbed with them, although actually it was something she had not done since last year.

  It was not because she did not enjoy climbing, it was that she had become so absorbed in training her horses, buying new ones and breaking in those that were beyond the control of her grooms, that they had left her little time for any other outdoor activities.

  Now, as if the idea was like a light in the darkness, she walked from the library into the hall of the Palace and sent footmen scurrying in every direction.

  One ran to the stables to order horses, another to the aides-de-camp to bring the two men who habitually escorted her on horseback running to her side.

  When they reached her, they saluted smartly and she said,

  “Come with me, and tell anyone who is interested that we will not be back until late.”

  “Very good, Your Royal Highness!”

  In a few minutes they were on their way, Ileana riding Satan, the two men on the next fastest horses in the stable, so that they could attempt to keep up with her.

  She knew as she left the Palace behind that if any of the older courtiers had seen her go they would disapprove. They had always thought it extremely reprehensible that she should ride with only two escorts instead of a troop of Cavalry.

  What was more, they really thought that Queens and Princesses should travel wherever they wished to go in a carriage with a Lady-in-Waiting seated opposite them.

  Although the sun was already warm Ileana had not bothered to change from her severe Cossack-like uniform into one of her attractive habits that were made to suit all the seasons of the year.

  Instead she merely put on a fur cap, the lightest she possessed. It was made of sable and framed her face, throwing into prominence the quality of her skin and the light in her eyes.

  “Where are we going, Your Royal Highness?” Captain Heviz asked when they were some way from the Palace.

  “We are on a voyage of discovery,” Ileana replied, reining in Satan a little so that the Captain could hear what she said.

  Captain Pokal, who was riding on the other side of her, remarked,

  “That sounds exciting!”

  “I hope it will be,” Ileana answered, “because we three have to find out what our Generals have lamentably failed to do and then decide what can be done about it.”

  “I presume Your Royal Highness is referring to the Pallikares!”

  “Of course!”

  “I have heard of them for some years,” Captain Pokal said, “and if you ask me, there is too much fuss being made about their arrival in our country!”

  “Why do you think that?” Ileana asked.

  “They are nothing but a collection of bandits,” Captain Pokal replied, “and it is absolute nonsense to suppose that they wish to take over a country like ours! Wha
t they want is loot, food of which there is plenty in the mountains at this time of the year and when they can find one, a pretty woman!”

  He spoke impulsively.

  Then, as if he felt it was something he should not have said in front of Ileana, he coughed and looked away in an embarrassed manner.

  “I had heard that already,” Ileana said calmly. “At the same time it seems strange that they should be camping on Mount Bela, unless there are a great number of them.”

  Neither of the aides-de-camp had any idea what she was talking about, so she explained,

  “I have climbed Bela and on the other side of it there is a valley that is very beautiful, but almost uninhabited except for the occasional shepherd or game hunter.”

  She could see they were both listening and she went on,

  “It is a beautiful valley and one that I have often thought we should pay more attention to.”

  As if she was talking to herself rather than to the two men, she added,

  “We have always extended Northwards, but the South is warmer. There is plenty of water and the only difficulty would be communication between that area and the valley in which we are riding at the moment.”

  “Surely there is a way?” Captain Heviz asked as if he was not certain.

  “Yes, of course,” Ileana replied, “the Bela Valley is reached from the route we use to enter Bulgaria.”

  She remembered as she spoke how she had noticed the rough roads with high cliffs rising on each side of them when she had last travelled there two years ago with her father.

  It had been a tiring but exciting journey and they had been received with great pomp and ceremony despite the fact that the Monarchy in Bulgaria was extremely unstable.

  They had so many troubles of their own that Ileana thought it was very unlikely that they, at any rate, would wish to concern themselves with Zokāla.

  She was intelligent enough to realise that if the Pallikares created chaos in her own country, as they might easily do, then it would be easy for Austria, Rumania or Serbia to step in.

  The ostensible excuse would be to help the Zokālans to restore order. The next stage would be to annexe them to their own country.