“The Palace was always a place of laughter when my father was the Grand Duke and the Ovenstadts are a happy people if they are left alone.”
“That is what Papa used to say.”
“Your father was a true Ovenstadt. They sing, they dance and, because they are happy, they want everybody else to be happy too.”
She made an expressive gesture with her blue-veined hand as she finished,
“If you tried to explain what I have just told you to that woman, she would have no idea what you were talking about.”
“Go on about the King,” Laetitia suggested.
“In answer to the second part of your question,” the Princess said, “Of course he has gypsy blood in him, just as there is the same blood in this family.”
“Cousin Augustina says that is untrue.”
“She believes what she wants to believe, but you, my child, are beautiful because you have the black hair of our gypsy ancestor.”
“I am so glad that you believe in the legend,” Laetitia said. “I have never liked to ask you about it before because I should have been so disappointed if you had said it was untrue!”
“Of course it is true!” the Princess said sharply. “My great-great-grandfather took his wife to every doctor, quack and spa before he came home and allowed a gypsy to produce what he was incapable of doing.”
The Princess spoke without thinking, then, remembering how young and innocent Laetitia was, she said quickly,
“It was magic, of course, it was magic and the son who was born to my great-great-grandmother was, I understand, so handsome that the ladies of the Court could never take their eyes from him and many of them fainted if he spoke to them!”
Laetitia clapped her hands together.
“I am so glad you have told me all this. It is what I have always believed and it makes us all seem very romantic.”
Then, as if she remembered Stephanie’s problems, she said,
“Now please tell me how the King has gypsy blood in him.”
“His connection is nearer than ours,” the Princess replied, “because his great-grandfather actually married a gypsy.”
“Married her!” Laetitia exclaimed.
“She was a Russian gypsy and the Russians have always treated their gypsies far better than other Europeans have. Because they can dance and sing so superbly, the Grand Dukes and Princes of Russia have always outbid one another in engaging them to appear in their houses and private theatres.”
She paused, realised that Laetitia was listening wide-eyed and went on,
“King Viktor’s great-grandmother, Saviya, was the most famous gypsy dancer there has ever been. She danced before the Char and the King of Zvotana, who was staying with him in St. Petersburg, fell madly in love with her.”
“And she agreed to marry him?”
“Gypsies, as I expect you know, are in their own way very strict in their morals. Saviya refused to become the King’s mistress, since she intended, I suspect, to marry eventually a man of her own tribe.”
“But instead she married the King!”
“Legend has it that they were blissfully happy, but, when he brought her home to Zvotana, there was as you can imagine, much consternation and criticism and a number of his relatives refused to accept her.”
“What happened?”
“She died giving birth to their first child who was a daughter.”
“How sad!” Laetitia said.
“The King, I believe, was broken-hearted, but, of course, he had to marry again and produced an heir who eventually succeeded him and whose grandson Boris was, as I have already told you, killed in a duel.”
“What happened to Saviya’s daughter?” Laetitia asked.
“By a twist of fate or perhaps gypsy magic,” the Princess replied, “she married a cousin of the King and they had a daughter who married Boris’s uncle, the younger brother of the late King. Their son was Viktor who thus succeeded his uncle when Boris was killed.”
“It’s a fascinating story,” Laetitia enthused, “and does he look like a gypsy?”
The Princess smiled.
“That is one question I cannot answer for I have never seen him, but if your family is anything to go by, the gypsy strain should have made him as handsome as Kyril.”
The Princess’s words brought Laetitia’s mind back to the problem of Kyril and Stephanie.
“However handsome the King may be,” she said almost as if she spoke to herself, “it would be impossible for Stephanie to love him as much as she loves my brother.”
“That may be indisputably true,” the Princess said, “but Royalty have to marry whom they are told to marry, and that woman will see to it that Stephanie is unable to defy her.”
“There must be something we can do to stop it,” Laetitia said desperately.
“I wish I could help you, my child.”
The Princess paused for a moment.
Then she went on,
“What I will do is to find out all I can about King Viktor’s feelings in the matter.”
“Why should he want to marry Stephanie, whom he has never seen?” Laetitia asked.
“He has seen a portrait of her.”
“How do you know that?”
Before the Princess could reply, Laetitia gave a little cry.
“Of course! I remember Stephanie was being painted a month or so ago.”
“Exactly!” the Princess said. “It was that woman’s idea to send it to Zvotana, although I understand that she told Stephanie at the time that she was having it painted as a present for the Grand Duke.”
“But although Stephanie looked very pretty in her portrait,” Laetitia pondered, “that still does not explain why the King should wish to be married.”
“I think it is a case of a ‘Roman Circus’,” the Princess said drily.
Because Laetitia was well read, she was aware that, when Roman rulers wanted to divert the people’s minds from some reversal they had suffered on the battlefield or from the privations they were suffering, they put on magnificent exhibitions in the Circus Maximus, consisting of dramatic performances, chariot races and the hunting of wild beasts.
They kept those who watched them thinking not of their own troubles but of the shows that excited them and the phrase became used later by other nations to describe a political diversion.
“So Stephanie’s and the King’s marriage is to be a Roman Circus for Zvotana,” Laetitia said.
“The women of every country enjoy a wedding,” the Princess replied, “and you will see that here the crowds will forget for one day at least how much they dislike that woman and the new laws and taxes which are being imposed on them in poor Louis’s name.”
Laetitia looked at her great-aunt in surprise.
“Do the people really dislike Cousin Augustina as much as we do?”
“A good deal more,” the Princess replied, “and if Zvotana needs a Roman Circus, so do we in Ovenstadt.”
“I had no idea it was as bad as that,” Laetitia sighed.
“The Prime Minister’s policy has put up the cost of living in an almost astronomical way and, when the people are hungry, they rebel.”
“Rebel?” Laetitia gasped.
“I only wish Louis would realise what is going on.”
“Could Mama perhaps talk to him?”
“I have thought of that,” the Princess answered, “for I believe she is the only person who could make him realise that he must assert himself and stop the rot before it is too late.”
“Then why do you not tell her what you are saying to me?” Laetitia enquired.
The Princess paused for a moment before she responded,
“I have thought of it, my dear, I have thought of it for a long time. But I know how much you are suffering already because of that woman’s dislike of you and her jealousy and it might only complicate matters even more.”
Laetitia knew without the Princess saying it that, if their Cousin Augustina suspected that the Grand Duke was talking pol
itics with her mother, she would somehow make life very uncomfortable for both of them.
“Then what can we do?” she asked.
“Enjoy the Roman Circus, I suppose!” the Princess replied.
“No, no!” Laetitia cried. “We cannot be so limp as to do nothing and make both Stephanie and Kyril unhappy for the rest of their lives.”
The Princess smiled.
“You sound just like your father when he wanted to help somebody, which was something he never failed to do.”
“If Papa was here now,” Laetitia said, “he would insist that we must not sit back and let two people suffer through no fault of their own.”
“I am sure he would,” the Princess agreed, “but even he might find it difficult to find a solution this time.”
“There must be one!” Laetitia said firmly. “And as today is Tuesday we have exactly a week from tomorrow when the King arrives at Thor Castle.”
She spoke with an intense note in her voice and, watching her, the Princess thought how beautiful she was.
‘Too beautiful to be shut away in that pokey little house across the courtyard,’ she told herself, ‘and far too beautiful for that woman to tolerate!’
Suddenly she felt very old and useless.
Then, with a perception which sometimes comes to old people when they are nearing the end of their lives, she said almost without thinking,
“I don’t know how you can do it, but I have an idea, my child, that because you are so determined and because you are fighting for what is right, you will find a way to help Stephanie and Kyril!”
*
Going back to her own house Laetitia felt as if the Princess’s words were ringing in her ears like a trumpet-call summoning her to action.
And yet her brain seemed full of cotton wool, so that she could not even think of how to begin the task she had set herself.
After they had finished luncheon, a meagre meal which they consumed without noticing what they ate because they were preoccupied in talking about Stephanie’s marriage, Laetitia said,
“I think, Mama, I will go riding this afternoon.”
“Of course, dearest,” Princess Olga agreed, “but Gustave must accompany you. You know how it shocks Cousin Augustina if you ride alone.”
“Gustave is growing so old that he finds it hard just to look after the horses, so why should I take him on a tiring ride as well?” Laetitia replied. “I will keep well out of sight of the Palace, Mama, and hope that Cousin Augustina does not see me, nor any of her spying servants who report to her whatever I do.”
The Princess sighed, but she did not say anything.
They all knew that the Grand Duchess had introduced into the Palace a number of Prussian servants, who reported to her everything that was going on, especially, Laetitia was sure, anything that concerned Prince Paul’s family.
She went, however, to the stables at the back of the house where they had only two horses left from the number her father had kept when he was alive.
They had had to sell all their horses when they moved into the Grace and Favour house, except for two very young stallions which were extremely well-bred and for which the Prince had had great hopes when he acquired them.
Now he would have been pleased to see that his judgement had been right, for both horses were superlative in their own way and an endless delight to Laetitia and Marie-Henriette when Kyril was not at home.
Then, unless he could borrow a mount from the Palace, he monopolised the horses and they had little chance of riding them until he returned to his Regiment.
Now Laetitia, in a very becoming but almost threadbare riding habit she had worn for years, mounted the stallion which was called Kaho.
It was a name that the Grand Duchess would certainly have disapproved of if she had been aware of it, because it meant ‘chief’ in the Romany language.
It had amused Prince Paul to give all his horses’ gypsy names and Kaho, Laetitia thought, looked like a chief and certainly performed like one.
She rode out of the stables at the back of the Grace and Favour houses and, moving at once away as far as possible from the Palace, kept in the shade of the trees until she was well away from the City and out into the open country.
Then, as she galloped down into the valley, she thought as she always did, how beautiful Ovenstadt was and how much she loved it.
In the distance there was the range of mountains which they shared with Zvotana. They extended a considerable distance, making a natural boundary between them and other less friendly countries.
Some of the mountains were so high that there was always, even in the hottest summer, a touch of snow in the crevasses and on the peaks. Now, since spring was only just ending, their peaks were gleaming white against the blue of the sky.
The snows were responsible for the profusion of wild flowers in the grassland through which the river flowed and their colour was to Laetitia so beautiful that she felt it was wrong for Kaho’s hoofs to trample on them.
A cloud of butterflies diverted her attention and they seemed to her like fairy creatures fluttering in front of her as she rode Kaho through the thick grass.
As they drew away from the City, she began looking to right and left in search of what she was seeking.
Because of what the Princess had said about the gypsy blood of the King, she was sure the only chance of finding a solution to her problems and difficulties was through the gypsies.
Perhaps they would have some magic spell she could use on the King or perhaps they would give her the inspiration she could not find at the moment.
Whatever it was, some instinct so strong that she could not help obeying it, drove her in search of them.
Surprisingly, because at this time of the year there were usually plenty of gypsies to be seen, she had ridden for nearly an hour before she glimpsed in the distance what she sought.
There was no mistaking the round tops of the painted caravans and the gypsies moving around them.
She hoped that she had found a senior tribe and if possible a Hungarian one.
Hungary bordered Ovenstadt on the East and the Hungarian gypsies, although they had often been persecuted and abused, were more intelligent and certainly of an older lineage than many others Laetitia had met.
In Hungary the chief of the tribe was called A Duke of Little Egypt and the King of Hungary had at one time given the gypsies letters of protection.
As she drew nearer, Laetitia thought deep in her heart that she was certainly in luck, because she knew before she reached them that the gypsies she had seen in the distance were not only Hungarians but specifically Kalderash.
They were exactly who she was hoping she would find, for the Kalderash were not only the metalworkers who fashioned the magnificent gold goblets that the nobles in Hungary used to ornament their tables, besides working in every other metal, but they were also the gypsies most concerned with magic.
‘They are who I want,’ she told herself.
As she rode forward, sure of a welcome because they would know who she was, she felt her heart beating excitedly, almost as if already her instinct was telling her how she could save Stephanie.
There were eight caravans, some of them very elaborate and painted in brilliant colours.
As Laetitia appeared, a number of dark-skinned faces turned towards her and suspicious black eyes regarded her for a moment questioningly.
They were, Laetitia saw, a collection of exceedingly good-looking gypsies. In fact, with their high cheekbones, black eyes and dark hair the women were beautiful and the men handsome.
They were Hungarian, but she felt that they also had Russian blood in them.
As Laetitia approached them, slowly one of the women must have recognised her, for she heard her say some words in Romany which included her name.
Instantly the faces turned towards her were smiling and the children with their large gazelle-like eyes were running towards her.
Laetitia brought her horse to a s
tandstill.
“Good day!” she said to them in Romany. “I wish to speak to your Voivode”
Because she spoke their language, several of the women, with red handkerchiefs over their heads and huge gold earrings dangling from their ears, clapped their hands and exclaimed in delight.
Then one of the gypsy boys ran to a caravan surrounded by the others and a moment later a tall man appeared who Laetitia knew by his bearing and his clothes was A Duke of Little Egypt.
He wore a blue coat and very high boots. On his short jacket he had a number of gold buttons and there was a heavy gold chain hung with a pendant round his neck.
He carried in his hand a staff called bare esti robli rupui which Laetitia knew was the last remaining link with a King’s sceptre.
It was made entirely of silver and the hilt, octagonal in shape, was adorned with a red tassel.
The staff was engraved, although she could not see it at the moment, with the semno or authentic ‘sign’ of the gypsies, comprising the five ritual figures.
As he came towards her, Laetitia dismounted and instantly two boys of about sixteen went to Kaho’s head.
Then she walked through the watching crowd of gypsies to the Voivode and held out her hand.
“I think you know that I am Princess Laetitia of Ovenstadt,” she said, “and I would like, if it is possible, to speak to you alone.”
He bowed as he took her hand and she realised it was a greeting that was not subservient but that of an equal.
“I should be honoured, Your Highness,” he said, speaking her language.
They walked through the caravans to where outside a more highly decorated one stood a chair.
The Voivode snapped his fingers and a gypsy boy hurried to bring another chair and set it down beside the one that was already there.
“Will Your Highness be seated?” the Voivode enquired.
Laetitia did so and he sat beside her.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Not to your City, if that is what Your Highness suspects.”
“I was not thinking that,” Laetitia answered, “and I can only apologise for the new laws that prevent you from moving freely in my country as you have always been able to do in the past. I know it would have distressed my father, Prince Paul.”
Princes and Princesses Page 93