‘And of course that is what they want to do,’ her Great-Aunt Eudocia said a week later, seconds after she had swept into the Vassilovichs’drawing-room, Vitza and Max in her wake. ‘Austria wants to incorporate Serbia into her monstrous empire, just as she has Bosnia and Herzegovina. Well, she’s not going to do so.’
Max looked towards Katerina. ‘Care for a walk?’ he asked, clearly unwilling to sit through another of his grandmother’s tirades.
Katerina nodded. She hadn’t spoken to Max since Natalie had left for Britain. Her father had told her that Max did not know Gavrilo Princip personally, that Princip had simply been pointed out to Max as being an undesirable and that when Max had seen Princip with Natalie and when he had told Vitza of Natalie’s sorties into the Golden Sturgeon he had, quite naturally, referred to him by name.
‘There is absolutely no link at all between Max and Princip,’ he had said to her with relief when he had returned from his interview with Max, ‘and the subject is not to be spoken of again. Is that understood, Katerina?’
She had nodded and asked one last, final question. ‘And Sarajevo? Does Max know about Natalie’s meeting with Princip in Sarajevo?’
‘Good God, no! Nor is he to! We have enough problems at the moment without compounding them by trumpeting them to your Karageorgevich cousins!’
She had found it interesting that her father hadn’t chosen to confide in Max and was about to ask him his reasons when she realized that it would be tactless to do so. Her father quite clearly didn’t want to say another word on the subject, and had no doubt told Max and Vitza not to either.
Now, as she and Max left the room together, she wondered if he had accompanied his grandmother to the house with the express intention of flouting her father’s wishes. As a small boy he had always been determinedly single-minded and it was a trait he hadn’t grown out of.
Her assumptions were correct. Almost the instant they set foot on the terrace he said abruptly, ‘What’s the truth about Natalie’s meeting with Princip, Trina? Had she met him before? Did she know what he was planning to do in Sarajevo? Is that why she’s been bundled off to Britain? Because she’s implicated in the assassinations?’
‘Don’t be an ass, Max!’ She tried to give a derisive laugh but it only sounded artificial and brittle. Wondering why on earth she had been foolish enough to have accepted his invitation to go for a walk she said with as much sincerity as she could muster, ‘Natalie barely knew Princip. The day you saw them together it just happened that he sat at her table. That’s all there was to it. Sorry to disappoint you, Max. If you’re looking for a great drama you’ll have to look elsewhere.’
‘To a scandalously hasty and highly unsuitable marriage for instance?’ he asked dryly. ‘If Uncle Alexis wasn’t panic-stricken over Natalie’s friendship with Princip why did he marry her so precipitately to an Englishman? And why did the happy couple hare out of the country minutes after the ceremony as if the hounds of hell were at their heels?’
‘You talk the most utter rot,’ she said crossly. ‘What sort of books do you read? English Bram Stokers? There were no hounds of hell at Julian and Natalie’s heels. Only a shoal of good wishes.’
He grinned suddenly. ‘Have you read Bram Stoker? Only an Englishman could have conjured up Dracula.’
For a vastly relieved moment she thought he had abandoned the subject of Natalie and then he said, ‘And there was no shoal of good wishes, Trina. There was no-one at the wedding to proffer them. Grandmama said it couldn’t have been a more hasty or shabby affair if Natalie had been eight months pregnant.’
‘It’s time Great-Aunt Eudocia kept her opinions to herself,’ Katerina said with a blaze of rare anger. ‘How dare she insinuate such a thing?’
‘Well, when was the last time you remember any member of the family marrying in such undignified haste and without there being a huge family gathering and celebration? And why were no explanations or apologies given?’
‘Why should there have been? Surely at the present moment people have more important things to worry about?’
‘You mean Austria’s reaction to Franz Ferdinand’s death?’
She nodded, hoping the conversation would now veer on to a more general topic.
He shrugged, beginning to walk in the direction of the rose garden. ‘Austria is old hat,’ he said dismissively. ‘Anyone in their right mind knows she’ll attack us sooner or later. I’m more interested in the subject you’re so keen to get away from. Namely, why Natalie was coerced into marrying an Englishman.’
‘She wasn’t coerced. She’s very much in love with him.’
Max snorted derisively. ‘Don’t give me that, Trina. Natalie in love with an Englishman? Natalie is Slav through and through. Can you imagine Natalie wanting a son who is half-English? I can’t. Where will he be educated? Eton? And can you imagine Natalie choosing to live anywhere but Serbia? The idea is ridiculous.’
‘You’re talking rubbish as usual, Max,’ she said, wishing her throat wasn’t so painfully tight, wishing she had remained in the drawing-room and endured Eudocia’s opinions on Austria-Hungary. ‘Natalie will be happy living wherever her husband lives.’
Max halted, his hands gracelessly in his trouser-pockets. ‘Glad it wasn’t you,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘I thought it was when I surprised the pair of you strolling around here the night of the Summer Ball. What was he doing? Trying to drum up family support? I should think he needed all he could get.’
They were standing beneath a huge truss of roses. Katerina remembered her happiness that night; her certainty that Julian was about to propose to her. Instead he had waylaid Natalie in the Italian room and he had asked her to be his wife. And Natalie had refused him. She wasn’t remotely in love with him and if it hadn’t been in order to spare their parents from being separated, she would never have married him.
‘What will you do if it comes to war, Max?’ she asked, changing the subject, hating the lies she was being forced to tell about Natalie’s feelings for Julian, knowing that if she continued Max would most certainly see through them.
For once he looked at her as he spoke to her. ‘Don’t you know the slightest thing about me?’ he asked bitterly. ‘I’m an army officer and a Karageorgevich and Karageorgevich men have always fought.’
She had the grace to blush. Four years ago, when he was only twenty-one, he had covered himself with military glory while fighting the Turks. She had forgotten only because it was so difficult to imagine Max as a hero.
‘I’m sorry, Max. I wasn’t thinking …’
A bird landed in the roses and a shower of carmine petals fluttered down on to his shoulders. ‘Do you ever think?’ he asked abruptly. ‘About me, I mean?’
‘In what way?’ The question was so odd she didn’t know how to answer it. ‘As an army officer? I so rarely see you in uniform that …’
‘No,’ he said tersely. ‘Not as an army officer.’
For a moment she thought he was going to explain what he had meant but instead he merely shrugged his shoulders and turned away from her, beginning to walk back towards the house.
She stared after him in exasperation, relieved that his questions about Natalie had come to an end and hoping that she wouldn’t have to suffer a similar barrage from Vitza.
Reluctantly she began to follow him back to the house, taking care not to catch him up, wondering if he gained pleasure from being so insufferably rude; wondering if the day would ever come when she would have a pleasant, civil conversation with him.
Eighteen days later, the tension under which they were all living, came to a climax.
‘It’s arrived,’ Alexis said tautly as he hurried into the house on returning from the Konak. ‘The Austrian Minister delivered it by hand to Pasich a little over an hour ago.’
Katerina put down the book she had been reading. Zita said sharply, ‘Delivered what? An ultimatum?’ She had been arranging white roses in a shallow bowl. Now she dropped them, hurrying across to him.
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He nodded, sinking down into a chair, covering his eyes with his hand. ‘It’s a quite ridiculous document. Utterly insolent.’
She knelt down by the side of his chair, taking hold of his other hand, saying sombrely: ‘What is going to happen? What kind of reply is going to be made?’
He dropped the hand that had been covering his eyes. ‘We’ll acquiesce to their demands. One of them was the arrest of two Serbians. Bizarrely enough there was no mention of the Black Hand or Apis and there was no mention of Natalie, thank God.’
‘If we acquiesce to their demands will it be the end of the affair?’ she asked uncertainly.
He shook his head, squeezing tight hold of her hand. ‘No, my love. I doubt that Austria has the remotest intention of accepting any reply made to her. Sandro has decided to mobilize in order to be in readiness for every eventuality. I’m to go to Shabatz to take command of the irregulars who are already volunteering in droves.’
‘You’re going now? Today?’ Her face was almost as pale as the roses she had been arranging.
‘Yes, my love. With God’s good grace the precautions Sandro is taking will prove to be unnecessary, but if they aren’t …’ He left the remainder of his sentence unsaid. If they weren’t they all knew the hell that would follow.
‘I think you’re being ridiculously close-mouthed,’ Vitza said to her pettishly two days later as she sat beside her on the large garden swing. ‘I’m not asking you to talk to me about Natalie, though goodness knows I think you should. I’m simply asking you to tell me why an army major has walked into the house as if he owns it. It’s quite obvious something is going on and it’s utterly selfish of you not to tell me what it is.’
‘There is nothing going on that you don’t already know about,’ Katerina said placatingly. ‘Prime Minister Pasich is delivering his answer to Austria’s ultimatum this evening. No-one believes the Austrian government is going to accept it. Major Zlarin is here because two of his men are being detailed here over the next few days.’
‘I still think you know more about the situation than we do,’ Vitza persisted mulishly. ‘Max does as well. He thinks Natalie’s marriage is definitely connected with the Princip affair. He thinks it is all very odd and it is very odd …’
Major Zlarin emerged from the house, two young soldiers in his wake, and began to walk round the side of the house towards the stables.
‘What did you say the major’s name was?’ Vitza asked, changing the subject suddenly.
‘Zlarin. Ivan Zlarin.’
‘He’s very attractive, isn’t he? Very Slav and very male.’ The major and the men with him disappeared from view and she said meditatively, ‘I could have understood if Natalie had married a man like Major Zlarin, but why has she married a whey-faced Englishman?’
Katerina seldom lost her temper but she came close to doing so now. ‘Julian Fielding is not whey-faced! And why should Natalie marry a man like Major Zlarin? He’s nearly old enough to be her father!’
‘I think older men far more attractive than young men,’ Vitza said, trying to sound as if she had many mature admirers and failing badly. ‘If there is a war, Max has arranged that I go with Grandmama to Nish. He says it’s where Mr Pasich intends to move the government if Belgrade should ever be taken. It will be funny living so far south.’ Her eyes were still on the corner Major Zlarin had so recently disappeared around. ‘Do you think the major will be coming back?’ she asked, clearly longing for him to do so. ‘Do you think we could ask him what the latest news is?’
‘No,’ Katerina said firmly. Though she knew very little about Major Zlarin’s character and personality she was quite sure he was a man who would have very little patience with the kind of fatuous questions Vitza would ask, or with the embarrassing simpering to which she would undoubtedly subject him.
The wait for Austria’s reaction to the reply they had been given was nerve-wracking. Unable to bear the tension of waiting passively at home for news, Zita took Katerina with her to the Konak. Many other family members were also there, though not Eudocia or Vitza.
‘Max has bundled them off to a friend’s estate at Nish,’ Zita said when Katerina wondered aloud where they were. ‘He doesn’t look remotely efficient, but there’s far more to Max than meets the eye.’
It was Sandro who broke the news to his aunts and cousins that Austria-Hungary had declared itself to be at war with Serbia.
‘It is what we have expected,’ he said gravely. ‘But we are not friendless and the bullies of Vienna and Budapest are going to get an ugly shock. Russia is coming to our aid. The Tsar has already mobilized his armies. We are not going to be overrun by Austria-Hungary nor are we going to be forcibly annexed as Bosnia and Herzegovina were annexed. Every able-bodied man in the kingdom is being called to arms and is answering the call. My great-grandfather freed Serbia from Turkish domination and his spirit is far from dead. Austria-Hungary will come to regret bitterly the decision she has taken today. It will result not in victory for her, but in the destruction of her empire.’
He looked years older than he had done two short months ago when his unofficial engagement to the Grand-Duchess Olga had been announced in the same room. There was no sign at all now of endearing boyishness. The young man who had teased Natalie and played with Bella was now a sombre, grave-faced war leader.
‘I think we should go home now,’ Zita said quietly. ‘That is where the hospital authorities will contact us should we be needed.’
Late that night there came the rare sound of a motor car roaring into the courtyard.
Abruptly Zita laid her embroidery down and walked swiftly out into the entrance hall, Katerina at her heels.
The visitor was Max. He was in army uniform and looked surprisingly authoritative.
‘Yes, Max?’ Zita asked anxiously. ‘Have you brought a message from Sandro? From Alexis?’
He shook his head, looking beyond her to Katerina. ‘No. I’ve just come to say goodbye.’
‘Then would you like some tea, some slivovitz?’ Zita asked, trying not to betray the surprise she felt.
‘No,’ he said gracelessly, still looking at Katerina. ‘I haven’t time.’
A startling suspicion occurred to Zita and she looked swiftly towards Katerina for confirmation of it. The suspicion died. Katerina was looking at Max with the same bewildered incomprehension she herself had done.
‘Shall we go into the drawing-room and sit down for a few moments?’ she suggested, wondering how any young Karageorgevich could be quite so charmless.
He shook his head. ‘No. I must be going.’
The front door behind him was still open and Katerina could hear the engine of his staff-car still running. She wondered where he was going; if he were going to join her father at Shabatz on the Bosnian frontier. Most of all she wondered why he had gone to the trouble of visiting them in order to say goodbye, only to do so in such an offhand manner.
‘Are you going to Shabatz?’ she asked, as he continued to stand in the centre of the entrance hall, his officer’s cap in his large, powerful hands.
‘No. Tser.’ He looked as if he were struggling to come to a decision. Finally he said abruptly: ‘Look after yourselves, both of you. If you’d been my mother and sister I would have sent you to Nish whether or not you wanted to go,’ and before either of them could make any reply he turned on his heel, leaving as precipitately as he had arrived.
‘What a peculiar young man,’ her mother said with a slight frown as they returned to the drawing-room. ‘There are times when I find it hard to believe he’s a Karageorgevich. Do you think perhaps his awkwardness stems from shyness?’
Despite all her tension Katerina giggled. ‘Max isn’t shy, Mama. He’s just very, very odd.’
There came a distant booming sound and her amusement faded. It came again, this time nearer.
‘It’s begun,’ Zita said tautly. ‘It’s artillery fire. The Austrians are trying to cross the Sava.’
Chapter Ten
He nodded, his arm tightening around her shoulders. All arrangements had been made days ago but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell her. Right up to the last moment he had been praying that Germany and Austria-Hungary would pull back from the brink. It could have been done. Sir Edward Grey, Britain’s foreign secretary, had been all for mediation and had put forward the suggestion that Austria should be summoned before a European court of justice and the matter settled there. Berlin had turned the suggestion down saying Germany couldn’t possibly be party to summoning Austria before a court of justice when she was so clearly in the right. As a consequence the pace of mobilization had hotted up, each country determined that its armies would be in the best possible position by the time war was declared, each preparatory military measure taken occasioning a counter-measure by the opposing side until war was no longer merely possible but inevitable.
‘But you can’t go tomorrow!’ Natalie protested as they were buffeted on all sides by a crowd running riot with patriotic zeal. ‘I’ll be all alone!’
‘Don’t worry, love!’ a woman squeezed next to them shouted. ‘You won’t be on your own for long! It’ll all be over by Christmas!’
‘Will it?’ Natalie’s eyes were fixed on Julian’s face. He, alone of everyone around them, was not in a celebratory mood. And he was a diplomat. He knew far more about the realities of the situation than the jingoistically singing and shouting Bank Holiday revellers did.
‘They say so,’ he said comfortingly, keeping the doubts he felt to himself. ‘Let’s get out of here. We’ve only a few hours left together and I don’t want to share them with half of London.’
Extricating themselves from Whitehall was nearly as difficult as entering it had been. Newsboys were everywhere, shouting at the tops of their voices, ‘Foreign Office official – ultimatum rejected!’ No-one seemed to want to go home. A group of Salvationists were lustily singing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’and nearby people were dancing to the rhythmic chant of ‘Down with the bloody Kaiser! Down with the bloody Kaiser!’
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