by Alma Boykin
“This is quite lovely, dear,” she said with a little headshake. “And why didn’t the House want you traveling?”
He shrugged, watching the other pedestrians more than the sea. “I’m not certain. They didn’t give me a good reason. I have enough leave time, Father is in good health, there is no pressing business that needs my attention . . .” He let his words trail off. He’d been frustrated with the House’s vague protests, almost as frustrated as they were with him. Since they couldn’t present him with an iron-clad reason to remain within the borders of Hungary and the Crown Lands, he’d compromised with Trieste. He almost missed the constant presence in the back of his mind, but only almost.
“Is that the new castle?” Barbara pointed to a small, Renaissance-style building at the end of the harbor.
“Yes. Although, by local standards, the old castle is barely middle-aged.” They turned, looking inland toward the Castel San Giusto and Festung Heilig Vitus perched on two hills above the old city.
A week later, he got a hint of why the House might have wanted him close by. They’d gone on an overnight trip to Fuime, on the other side of the Istrian Peninsula, and returned in time to find an Italian nationalist holding forth in the Piazza della Statione, the park south of the main railroad station. István found the speaker’s waving hands amusing. Barbara listened for a few minutes, then began patting her foot and gave a little headshake. “It’s all about the glories of the noble Italian fatherland, now oppressed and held in bondage by foreign tyrants, calls to restore the glories of Rome’s empire, pleas to return Trieste—the daughter of Venice—to her grieving mother, and so on,” she told him under her breath in German.
“The usual then.” He didn’t think much of the orator, who’d begun waving his hat around in one hand while flailing the other arm, his face turning red and his words growing more and more agitated. He must be from southern Italy. The Florentines and Milanese don’t carry on like that.
“I wonder if he’s a Neapolitan,” Barbara said, echoing his thoughts. She eased closer to her husband. “I don’t like those men there, on the edge of the crowd.”
István didn’t either. The two glowered around at the people in the audience. They had their hands jammed into the pockets of their ill-fitting black coats, shiny at the elbows, and kept their heads down when they were not darting quick, angry glances left and right from under the brims of dark, somewhat battered hats. Apparently István wasn’t the only one worried—people had begun edging away from the pair, while several nearby police officers seemed increasingly interested in the angry men. “Let’s go on, dear,” István urged, tugging a little on Barbara’s arm.
They’d gone three steps when one of the men erupted, screaming something in a Slavic language. István made out a few words, including “great Serbia,” “Habsburg Turks,” and “justice.” The police surged into motion, as did István. He swung Barbara around so he stood between her and the scene and all but dragged her down the closest side street, away from the riot about to ensue. The swell of angry voices and shrill tweel tweel of police whistles accompanied their steps. “This way,” he urged, alert for danger. A roar started behind them that raised the hair on the back of his neck and made Barbara shiver. He caught himself starting to shift into full danger mode and took a deep breath, then another, calming himself before he went too far.
Two blocks inland the Via Chega opened onto the Zeughaus, the arsenal, and the military square. István debated stopping there, but changed his mind and led Barbara south, parallel to the waterfront, through the new part of the city. “Should we leave?” she asked, panting a little.
He slowed down, shaking himself. No one’s chasing us, so you don’t need to drag your wife across town like some Croat robber-groom! “No. I’m sorry dear, didn’t mean to rush you like that. No, we should just get to the hotel and let the police deal with the matter.”
The neighborhood was worth a slow stroll. New buildings lined the blocks, very much like the new districts in Budapest and Vienna with their mix of Renaissance, neo-classical, and faux-medieval styles, all pastel colors and creamy plaster trim. The new city hall and its square reminded him a bit of the one in Vienna, but without the tower and false buttresses. “Would you like coffee and pastries?”
“Not yet,” Barbara replied. “I’d like to put my valise away first.”
Good thought that. “An excellent idea,” he agreed, eyes on the people around them. He spotted a few Gypsies, and one or two country folk, but mostly burghers and businessmen, women with baby carriages or shopping bags, and the usual tradesmen making deliveries or working on the latest construction project. Everyone seemed calm and interested in his own business, and István relaxed more.
Barbara wanted to have coffee at a café instead of the hotel, since the afternoon had turned sunny and warm. The concierge at the Hotel Di Mare recommended the Caffe degli Specchi, with good coffee and liqueurs, excellent pastries, and discreet service. After they ordered and the waiter brought their coffee and cakes, Barbara clicked her tongue. “What were those two shouting about? I thought I heard something about Serbia, but I couldn’t follow the rest.”
He finished his bite of cream cake. “I couldn’t tell either, my dear. Something about Serbia, and justice, and the Turks and Habsburgs, but I don’t speak Serbian or Russian.”
She pursed her lips, frowning down at her chocolate cake. “Wasn’t there something in that newspaper from Berlin about some group of wild Serbians trying to claim that Istria as well as Montenegro belonged to Serbia? The writer said that—” She paused, as if searching her memory. “That was it! The writer said that some historian had found a document from before the Turkish wars, showing that this area had belonged to the Serbian empire.”
As she ate, a waiter refreshed their tea. István cudgeled his memory for a date. “Um, I think, yes, that’s it. Trieste petitioned the Habsburgs for protection and signed a treaty with them, ah, a long time ago, while they were still Dukes of Austria. Ah,” the number flitted around the edges of his mental vision before he recalled it, “in 1382. So Trieste couldn’t have been part of the Serbian empire.”
She nodded, her mouth full, and he turned his attention back to the cake.
The near-riot proved to be the only bit of untoward excitement on their honeymoon. Barbara read the papers the next day, listened in on some hotel gossip, and reported, “The two were Serbian agents, according to what the concierge told the manager this morning. The speaker is a local who spent too much time in southern Italy—apparently his father swooned over Garibaldi and is one of those who think Garibaldi was murdered by either the emperor or Napoleon III.”
“How Italian—blame someone else for murder when you could be draining the swamps.” Everyone knew that Garibaldi had died of typhoid fever.
She pursed her lips and tutted. “Now, my lord husband, you know that conspiracies are far more gossip worthy than are bad air and putrid fevers. Oh, yes, speaking of which, the Serbs? The manager wondered if they were part of one of those secret nationalist societies or if they were government agents. The concierge said they were probably anarchists trying to make the Serbs look bad.”
István kept his thoughts about Serbs and anarchists to himself. “Would you like to go out on the water today?” he asked. Sunny skies filled their room with brilliant warm light despite the brisk bite in the air.
“Oh yes!”
The weeks passed too fast for István, and they returned to Hungary long before he felt ready. Barbara, too, wanted to stay longer, and for him to stay with her longer. “Must you go back?” She asked the first night they stayed in the town palace in Kassa.
“Yes. But this will be my last year. After St. Martin’s Day I will have finished my duty and will go into the reserves, and then it’s parades and training once a year for five years.” He sat beside her on the settee and put his arm around her shoulders. “Nine months,” he assured her. “And I don’t have to go back for another week.”
“Oh good.” She leaned over and kissed him.
In early March, Felix stormed into their shared office and tossed a newspaper down on the table, scattering István’s papers in a puff. “So much for a quiet spring.”
“What did—” he caught himself just in time, “Emperor Wilhelm say this time? Or was it the French? Or the Bulgarians?”
Felix shook his head. “His Highness Archduke Franz Ferdinand, telling the Russians to back away from their support of Serbia and Bulgaria and to quit claiming to be the defenders of Christendom.”
István closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, forestalling a headache. “His Highness said that officially?”
“As Chief Inspector of the Imperial Armies, while visiting Belgrade,” Felix confirmed. He planted his elbows on his own desk. “And it’s in the papers, so it must have been approved.”
The two majors shared wary looks. This wouldn’t be the first time that the imperial heir had made life interesting with intemperate words. Franz Ferdinand loved Hungarians almost as little as he loved Serbs, although he managed to hide it better. István picked up the paper and skimmed the story, snorting at the reporter’s insistence on mentioning the presence of Countess Chotek and her ladies. Emperor Franz Josef still couldn’t stand the sight of his heir’s wife. István wondered how much of the marriage was truly love and how much was to spite the Emperor. Probably half and half by now, he decided. I do not understand why Franz Ferdinand and not Josef Karl is the heir, I really don’t.
“Oh, you’ll love this,” Felix interrupted his speculation. “There’s a new rumor that his majesty will disinherit his highness and make Archduke Rudolph heir.”
István almost fell out of his chair laughing. Felix joined him in the mirth at the thought. “I,” István struggled to catch his breath. “Can you imagine the Foreign Ministry trying to keep up with Archduke Rudolph? Even if only a quarter of the stories are close to true, he makes His Highness seem, what’s the term? Well adjusted and calm, that’s it.”
“It took all I had to keep a straight face when Paulus passed the story along,” Felix said, wiping his eyes. “I can’t imagine such a thing.”
“Me either.” Especially if the stories about Rudolph serving as a buffer between Pannonia and Franz Ferdinand are true. “And speaking of strange imaginings, have you seen the new battle plans?”
Felix shook his head, and István passed him the latest revision. The Bohemian’s eyes flashed wide and his jaw sagged a little before closing, then opening again, and closing again, reminding István very much of a Christmas carp. “That’s . . . donnerwetter.”
“Ja, genau.” István took the pages back as Felix shook his head and muttered something unflattering under his breath in Bohemian. István agreed with the general sentiment, although he wasn’t going to say it aloud. Why send them all the way to the southern border? If the Russians did attack, it would be against Galicia and Transylvania, so why send a regiment stationed in Moravia all the way to the Serbian border in order to block the Serbs from trying to capture Bosnia-Herzegovina? And if the Russians attacked Germany, well, how could the empire support its ally from down there? I wonder if someone got us mixed up with another regiment farther south, and this is a mistake. It has to be. I know we train to fight in Galicia or Transylvania, or anywhere on the edges of the Empire, but to send us south when the enemy is attacking due east of us? It has to be a mistake.
“Do you think we’ll have a war this year?” Felix asked after half an hour or so of work.
“If you go by the papers, yes, but that’s what they’ve said every year for how long?”
“Since 1908 at least.” Felix sat back and counted off on his fingers. “1908, 1909, and then in 1911 when that mess over Morocco had the French in the streets calling for a war against Germany for insulting the honor of the nation. And that doesn’t include the Balkans for the past three years—we’ve been supposed to go to war over them.”
A light hand tapped on the doorframe and Lt. Joel Fleischmann appeared. “My lord Major Eszterházy? Lt. Col. Greenberg sends his regards and would like to speak to you when you have a moment.”
“I’ll be there in three minutes.” István tidied his papers, tossed the newspaper back at Felix, and grabbed the leather folder with the squadron’s yearly budget. Behind him, her heard Felix humming “In the Hall of the Mountain King.”
Despite Franz Ferdinand’s words, and the breathless speculations of the press and gossipmongers, nothing happened in March or April other than Easter and one last major storm that left three feet of snow on the ground in northern Moravia and blocked the passes in the Carpathians. István managed a week’s leave at Easter and celebrated the holy feast, and the rites of spring, with Barbara in Kassa.
“How much longer must you be gone, dear,” she asked, a little plaintive, as he watched her dress the morning before his return to the regiment.
“Until summer. I’ll apply for the usual harvest leave in late July. And then, come November, I will be in the reserves and home.” The ends of her long brown hair swung back and forth as she brushed and began braiding it, fascinating him.
She sighed. “I’m glad you were able to come for Easter. It’s nice here, but I miss having you with me.”
He glanced around the room. The town palace in Kassa boasted all the modern amenities except a motor car. Cars needed gasoline, and Kassa did not yet have a fuel depot, although the newspaper claimed that one would open within a month. And István did not feel able to hire a driver and mechanic to go with the car. Barbara’s dowry and his income covered their needs with a little to spare, but the House would not grant him a full income until he left the military. He understood why, but it rankled even so. Well, House Sárkány-Karpátok had not survived by being spendthrift, and he’d be able to indulge his tastes soon enough. “Six months, my lady. Six months and I will be home, underfoot all day and in the way every evening.”
She turned, smiling at him. “You are never in the way, my lord, my love.”
After he returned to Moravia, István, Felix, and their comrades in arms prepared for the parades and festivities associated with the emperor’s birthday celebrations, when they were not polishing brass, practicing parade drills, and grumbling about the lack of funds for all the other things they were supposed to be doing. Mátyás wrote in mid-May with a question about timber harvests that their father said István needed to be aware of, and he told his younger brother to do what seemed wise. Barbara passed word that his sister Judit had confided to her that she’d met a second son of a cadet branch of the Lichtensteins who shared her fondness for exotic plants and who seemed quite interested in her, in a stuffy, bookish sort of way.
“Encourage her, please dear,” István wrote back. “He sounds like a decent sort, even if he is a bit eccentric.” István asked one of his Army associates to check on the young man, in case the mutual interest turned serious. “I will be home in July, and we can go to Nagymatra if you would like. There’s nothing on the schedule, and Col. Marbach has already granted provisional approval for me to take leave.”
Spring passed as it always did, although the mutters from Russia raised a few eyebrows among István’s circle. Mátyás sent him long bits of Jan Bloch’s writings about the foolishness of modern warfare, which István burned before anyone could see them. “Mátyás, you are an idiot sometimes,” he muttered under his breath. “I know Cousin Imre’s opinions, and that he gets them from his parents, but Uncle Josef’s strength is business, not diplomacy. And he knows exactly nothing about the Army, except how to overcharge us for goods.” Josef had a knack for buying and selling, and with the House’s blessing had gone into business as soon as he got out of University. Imre, alas, got less of his father’s common sense but a full dose of his mother’s idealism.
A week later, Florian Bathory, now a major, toyed with his glass after supper in the officer’s mess. “Is His Highness still going to Sarajevo next week?”
Felix Starhemberg gestured with hi
s beer mug. “Yes. He’s inspecting the troops there, observing maneuvers, and opening construction on a new rail line, one that will run from Sarajevo to . . . Fuime?” He looked at István, who shook his head, peering over his own beer glass. “No, that’s right, Mostar, and then down to the coast.”
Capt. Radovan Stulich wrinkled his flat nose. “That’s going to give the engineers and builders fits, sir. There’s no easy route from Sarajevo to anywhere.”
“And won’t it cause the Serbs to protest, since it will run so close to Montenegro?” Bathory didn’t sound overly concerned.
Stulich nodded. “Of course. But what won’t? I’m just—eh, June 28’s bad luck, though. Nothing good happens on the feast of St. Vitus.”
“Yes it does,” Felix protested. “My sister met her husband at a dance on June 28.”
István swatted him with a napkin as Bathory and Stulich groaned.
The afternoon of June 28, 1914, István rode in from supervising a saber drill to find the stablemen in a state of shock. Some glared around, furious, others whispered amongst themselves, pale and sick-looking. Still more of the enlisted men simmered with anger. What’s going on? Has something happened to the regiment? István dismounted as Pieter, one of the local men, came up to take his horse. “What news?”
“The Serbs killed His Highness.”