A King In Love Page 8
She would have turned Pegasus round, but, as she did so, the King with a swift movement bent forward to catch hold of his bridle.
Surprised, the horse reared, but the King did not relinquish his hold.
He only said,
“You cannot leave me. I want to talk to you.”
“I am not certain that I wish to talk to Your Majesty!”
Then, as Zita spoke, her eyes met his and she recognised that it would be impossible for her to leave.
They looked at each other.
Then, as if she compelled him to do so, the King said quietly,
“Forgive me, but you must be aware that everything you say and do puzzles and perplexes me. In fact, unless you can give me an explanation and answer my questions, I think I shall go mad!”
Because he spoke seriously, Zita felt shy and looked away from him before she said,
“I cannot imagine why Your Majesty should – concern himself about me.”
The King released Pegasus and replied,
“That is the only foolish remark you have made since we first met. Let’s continue our ride.”
Zita turned Pegasus round and they moved side by side into the sunshine.
The mist had now fully cleared from the lower part of the valley, but it still hung over the trees which the sun had not yet reached and obscured the Palace in the distance so that it seemed as if they were in an enchanted land of their own.
They rode on and the only sound was the tinkle of harness.
Zita, aware that the King was looking at her searchingly and penetratingly, was glad that he was puzzled and thought it right that everything was not so straightforward and simple that he knew before she spoke what she was about to say.
“I am waiting,” the King remarked after a little while.
“For what?”
“To hear what you have to tell me.”
“Why should I tell you anything?” Zita asked. “Is it not more amusing to know that we have met, perhaps through the manipulations of Fate? As in a dream, there is no need for explanations or for everything about it to have a reason.”
She spoke as she might have done to her father and, when the King did not answer, she went on,
“Dreams are lovely only if one does not wake up and try to make them come true.”
“Are you seriously suggesting,” the King asked, “that when you leave me this morning I shall know no more about you than I do at this moment?”
“Why not?” Zita enquired. “I did not mean to meet you here.”
“Fate brought us together again,” the King said. “That and the fact that I could not sleep for thinking about you.”
Zita looked at him sharply.
It seemed strange that he should say that when she too had been unable to sleep for thinking of him.
“Now Your Majesty is exaggerating,” she said. “If you did not sleep, it was doubtless because of the food you ate at supper or perhaps you imbibed too much champagne.”
“That sounds very plausible,” the King replied, “but you know as well as I do that it’s not true and I am not speaking lightly. Ever since I saw you yesterday at the inn, Zita, I have wanted you.”
“How strange!” Zita murmured and nearly added that she had wanted him.
The King was about to say something more when a butterfly fluttering at his stallion’s feet flew up and brushed the animal’s nose so that he shied.
The King quickly brought him under control and then said,
“I must talk to you! Let’s find somewhere where we can sit instead of riding.”
As he spoke, he glanced towards the woods.
“About a mile ahead,” Zita replied, “there is a small inn used by those who climb the mountain above it. I am sure that they can supply us with coffee, if you have not yet had your breakfast.”
The King smiled.
“To be honest, I sneaked out without disturbing anybody. I thought it might cause a commotion if I demanded one of my horses so early and I was quite certain that they would think it strange that I should want to ride alone.”
Knowing exactly what he was saying and that a very early order would disturb the servants in the Palace besides the grooms in the stables, Zita gave a little laugh.
But she knew she must not show that she understood.
Instead, she touched Pegasus to make him move quicker, the King followed and they rode on in silence.
The inn was one that Zita had visited last when she was with her father on one of their climbing trips.
She thought it was unlikely that the same people would be in charge, but even if they were strangers they might know who she was since everybody in Aldross knew the family of their Ruler.
The inn was a small chalet surrounded by trees, which had been built a little way up the side of the mountain, but not high enough for the horses to have any difficulty in reaching it.
As Zita had expected, there were tables and chairs in front of it, some of them enclosed in little vine-covered arbours so that anyone wanting to talk intimately could be almost isolated from the other guests.
It was so early in the morning that there was nobody at the tables ordering either the thin light wine that grew in this part of the valley or the beer that came from the Capital, which was therefore more expensive.
“Shall I put your horse in the stable?” the King asked as they dismounted.
“Pegasus will be quite all right. He will not wander far and will come when I call him.”
“So Pegasus is his name,” the King remarked. “I would not be surprised if he grew wings and you flew away on him.”
“I promise not to do that until I have had my coffee!” Zita answered lightly.
She knotted the reins on Pegasus’s neck and set him free.
Then, after a moment’s hesitation, as if he could not concede that Zita could control her horse better than he could, the King did the same.
“I think, as it is so early, you will have to go into the house to order the coffee,” Zita said. “I imagine they will not be expecting customers until the sun is fully risen.”
As she spoke, she thought that perhaps as he imagined her to be a waitress the King would expect her to perform such a task. But for the moment, she argued with herself, they were on equal terms.
Without waiting for his reply, she walked towards the nearest little arbour that was covered with vine-leaves and bunches of grapes just beginning to ripen.
Zita sat down in the most inconspicuous seat and hoped that when the coffee came the person carrying it would not look too closely at her.
The King was away for some time and she was surprised that he should be so long.
When he did reappear, a large fat elderly woman carrying a tray and a tablecloth followed him. She plonked them both down on the table, saying as she did so,
“You must arrange them yourself, Mein Herr, otherwise my croissants will burn. I can’t leave them any longer.”
“We can manage,” the King replied and, without even a glance at Zita, the fat woman hurried away.
The King lifted the tray as Zita spread the red and white checked tablecloth over the iron table and then set it down in front of her.
It contained a large pot of coffee, two cups, a small bowl filled with thick cream and a basket in which was a selection of fruit.
“You were a long time,” she said. “I wondered what had happened.”
“The croissants were more important than I,” the King replied.
Zita laughed.
“I know why you are laughing,” he said.
“But of course!” Zita answered. “I was thinking how very chastening it was for His Majesty King Maximilian of Valdastien to find that there was an occasion in his life when he took second place to a croissant!”
“I am prepared to admit it is something that has not happened before.”
She passed him his cup filled with coffee and he added as he took it from her,
“And this is also
the first time I have ever been with anybody quite as beautiful as you!”
“You say that too glibly!” Zita replied. “I realise you have had a lot of practice. At the same time any producer of a play would make you repeat and repeat it until it sounded really credible.”
“So you are an actress!” the King exclaimed. “I told myself that your performance yesterday was too real to be true.”
Zita laughed.
“If that is what you want to believe, then you must believe it!”
“I want you to tell me the truth.”
“How disappointing it would be if after all you have imagined, I turn out to be just the daughter of a cobbler!”
“I doubt if a cobbler’s daughter would look as you do and would ride a mythical animal called Pegasus as if she too came from Olympus.”
“That is very poetical,” Zita teased.
“You are beginning to annoy me,” the King said. “Let’s stop pretending and talk sensibly.”
“I am sorry to disappoint you, but this is how I always talk, when I get the chance.”
“You do not disappoint me,” the King replied, “you speak in the same way as you look, as if you had stepped out of a dream. I am only terrified that I may wake up.”
“That is something you must not do,” Zita said quickly, “so stop prodding and pinching yourself to see if you are asleep! If you do, you will suddenly open your eyes and find yourself in your own bed and – alone.”
She said the last word without thinking about it and only as she saw the expression in the King’s eyes did she realise that he had interpreted her words very differently.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked. “What do you know about me apart from the fact that I am a Royal Visitor to your Capital?”
He spoke crossly and, because she could not help it, Zita laughed.
“Do you imagine that is all anybody knows about Your Majesty? Because you are our next-door neighbour, we have been talking about the love affairs of King Maximilian ever since I can remember.”
“And what did you hear about them?” the King enquired.
Zita wondered if she should tell him the truth.
She could hear Madame Goutier reading letters from her daughter about his exploits in Paris, the Professor describing the charms of actresses at Le Théâtre de Variétés and the singers who had taken the City by storm at the café concerts.
Her thoughts brought her back to La Belle, who was the guest of the King in the Château next to the Palace in Valdastien.
As she was thinking what she should say, the King was watching the expression in her eyes and he said suddenly,
“Who could have told you such things and why are you so ready to believe them?”
Zita turned her face away from him.
“You are – not to read my – thoughts.”
“Why not?” the King asked. “And may I say that because think I can read them, it is the strangest, most unaccountable thing that could possibly have happened to me.”
Zita looked at him as if she could not help it.
As her eyes met his, she knew that what he said was true.
In some strange unaccountable way he knew what she was thinking, while at the same time she could read his thoughts and knew that he was not only interested in her, but intrigued and almost mesmerised.
He had in fact lain awake thinking of her and he had felt that the only way to escape from those thoughts, which were so strange, so insistent and so uncomfortable, was to ride.
They looked at each other for a long time until the King said,
“Why has this happened to you and me, Zita?”
Because she felt a little frightened she replied,
“I-I am not admitting that it has.”
“Not in words, perhaps,” the King said in a low voice, “but just as I know what you are thinking, so I can feel you vibrating to me as I am vibrating to you.”
Zita drew in her breath.
“You are not to say – that! It is not – true!”
The King smiled.
“Why lie about anything that is so enchanting?” he asked. “I felt frightened last night in case I never saw you again. Now I know I need not have worried. We have been drawn to each other in the same way as the moon draws the tides.”
Zita drew in her breath.
Then she said,
“That is a very good simile. The moon is far away in the Heavens and, although it may have an effect on the sea, there is no question of the moon and the sea, any more than of us, ever coming closer to each other.”
The King suddenly brought his clenched fist down on the table with a sound that made Zita jump and the cups and saucers rattle.
“Nonsense!” he exclaimed. “We have to see each other! And that is what I intend to talk to you about.”
“It is – impossible!”
“Why?”
“Because as I said, you are as far away as the Man in the Moon, who does not come down to earth to consort with human beings like myself.”
“I am a human being,” the King objected, “and if necessary I am quite certain that Pegasus would be able to fly you to the moon.”
Zita laughed because it was a reply she had not expected.
“I wish Pegasus could understand how flattering you are being to him.”
“Now we are back to Pegasus,” the King said, “and I am still waiting to hear who gave him to you.”
Zita did not answer and the King continued,
“You were angry when I made the obvious suggestion, but you cannot be so cruel as to leave me wondering and tortured by an emotion I have never felt before.”
Because she could not help it, Zita looked at him questioningly and the King said suddenly,
“Very well, I am jealous as I can never remember being in the past. Who is he?”
“I don’t think that Your Majesty has any right to ask me that – sort of question.”
“Then give me the right.”
“I – don’t know – what you mean.”
“I think you do, but I am afraid to put it into words.”
She knew then that he was offering her the place in his life already occupied by La Belle.
While she knew that she should be shocked by the suggestion and very angry, she could only sit wondering frantically what she could say without immediately quarrelling about it to the point where they could not go on talking to each other.
Because she knew that to talk to him was what she wanted to do, because to be with the King was the most intriguing exciting thing that had ever happened to her in her whole life, she could not suddenly end it like the letting down of the curtain at the end of a play.
The King was watching her face and she realised that he was trying to read her thoughts.
Then he said unexpectedly,
“I don’t believe you can look like you do and not be pure. Has any man possessed you?”
Because Zita had never in her wildest dreams ever imagined any man would ask her anything so intimate or so impertinent, for a moment her eyes only widened as she looked at him incredulously.
Then the colour flooded into her cheeks and she replied without thinking,
“Of course – not! How could you – think such a – thing?”
The King made an exclamation of triumph and put his hand over hers as he exclaimed,
“I knew it! Forgive me, but after you told me that you had been given Pegasus as a present, I felt as if all the devils of hell were taunting me!”
“I don’t want to – discuss myself, nor should you – talk to me in such a way,” Zita said hesitatingly.
She knew it was a weak reply, but, because the King’s hand was still touching hers, she felt as if the vibrations of which he had spoken were pulsating from him to her and she could feel them running up her arms and into her breasts almost like little shafts of sunshine.
“You are so beautiful!” the King said in a low voice. “So absurdly, ridiculously beaut
iful! I have always believed there was somebody in the world who would look like my mother, but I expected if I ever found her it would be in Hungary.”
“Then why have you not – looked for her – there?” Zita managed to ask.
The King gave a sigh.
“For several reasons. Firstly, I have no wish to marry and secondly, I never thought the Hungarian temperament, impetuous, impulsive, wild and emotional, would fit in with my wife as Ruler of Valdastien.”
Zita understood exactly what he was saying.
Although her grandmother and grandfather had been ideally happy as man and wife, she had known that as Grand Duchess of Aldross her grandmother had often scandalised and shocked the more staid citizens of her new country.
When she and her husband had quarrelled, the whole Palace had vibrated with the violence of it. When they had made up, however, everything had been enveloped, as one romantic old courtier had told her, ‘in sunshine’.
Aloud Zita said,
“There is a proverb in my country which says, ‘it is better to live than to exist’ and another, ‘it is better to be too warm by the fire than to freeze in the snow’.”
The King put back his head and laughed.
“How can you be not only beautiful but also intelligent and witty? Every moment I am with you, Zita, I become more and more convinced that I am in fact asleep and dreaming!”
“Then don’t try to wake up.”
She would have taken her hand from his, but he held on to it.
“I am not going to lose you,” he said, “until you promise that because we are both dreaming here together we can go on doing so in the future.”
His eyes searched her face as he added,
“We both know that what has happened since we met is not just exceptional but unique. We have found each other across time and space. If we lost each other again, it would be a crime for which we would never forgive ourselves.”
“It is something we – have to do,” Zita replied softly. “You have your life to lead – and I have – mine.”
“What is your life? That is what I am trying to persuade you to tell me.”
She did not answer and he went on,
“Whatever you are doing now, why should your future not be with me? I want you, Zita, I want you as a woman and also I want you to help me and to inspire me in ways that I have never thought of until now.”