The Slavonian Ambassador yielded with a bad grace, but she was certain that he would make every effort to listen at the door while her lessons were in progress.
But the moment the ship reached the Bay of Biscay, both he and Lady Bowden retired to their cabins and were not seen again until they reached the Mediterranean.
Giona was, in fact, a very good sailor, and so was Captain Darius, and they laughed to find that they were almost the only members of the party on their feet.
“At least,” Giona said as the ship pitched and rolled, “no one will find it possible to keep their ear to the keyhole now, so we can talk without being overheard.”
“I know what you are saying to me, Your Royal Highness,” Captain Darius replied, “and I beg of you not to tempt me into any indiscretions which later we may both regret.”
“I shall never regret knowing the truth,” Giona pointed out, “and I know without your telling me, Captain, that you are apprehensive about what will happen when I reach my new country.”
“I have not said so,” he murmured quickly.
“But you think it.”
Captain Darius looked at her for a moment before he asked,
“You are too young, too sensitive and too beautiful, Your Royal Highness, to be a political pawn.”
“I am aware of that,” Giona said, “at the same time forewarned is forearmed and, if I knew what to expect, it would make things a little easier for me.”
Captain Darius shook his head.
Because she felt that he was not going to tell her what she wanted to know, Giona said,
“At least explain to me why there is this terrible haste to get me to Slavonia. As you know, most Royal marriages in Europe take place after an engagement of at least six months, if not longer.”
There was a short pause and then Captain Darius, drawing in his breath, said,
“I cannot believe that you are not aware of the situation in Slavonia at this moment.”
“Of course I can guess what it is,” Giona replied sharply, “but you have all contrived to keep it from me from the moment you came to England.”
Captain Darius sighed.
“I suppose because it is so important to us, I assumed that it would be known in other countries and publicised in the newspapers.”
“I can honestly say,” Giona answered, “that I have never found anything about Slavonia in the English newspapers, although Mama takes only The Morning Post.”
She bent forward across the table where they had had their lessons and said,
“There cannot be anything wrong in your telling me exactly what the situation is.”
“What I say depends on who I say it to and who overhears it,” Captain Darius responded with a faint smile.
“Tell me the truth,” Giona begged him.
“The truth is quite simple,” he said. “Ever since King Ferdinand came to the Throne ten years ago the people have been dissatisfied not only with him as a person but also because of his insistence on making the country as Germanic as possible.”
He smiled before he added,
“The Slavonians are a very simple people. They sing when they are happy, they cry when they are not. They are passionately patriotic and like all members of Balkan States, are very susceptible to beauty.”
He looked at Giona again as he continued,
“That is why they will take Your Royal Highness to their hearts as soon as they see you. It would be impossible for them not to love anybody as lovely as you.”
“Thank you,” Giona said, “but please tell me the rest.”
There seemed to be a long pause before Captain Darius said reluctantly in a voice hardly above a whisper,
“There is a claimant to the Throne!”
Giona’s eyes opened wide.
This was something that she had not at all anticipated.
“A claimant?” she repeated.
“The son of the last King, who was considered too young when his father died to assume authority, but who is now grown up and old enough to resent a foreigner sitting on the Throne which is rightfully his.”
Giona was intrigued.
“That is exciting!” she said. “Tell me more!”
“It is not exciting, Your Royal Highness,” Captain Darius contradicted her. “In fact I am being extremely indiscreet in telling you this.”
“But you have told me,” Giona insisted, “and now I want to know more. What is the name of this man who is upsetting the King?”
“It is a name that is never spoken!” Captain Darius said surprisingly. “He is known as ‘Aoratos’, which means ‘The Invisible One’, because he is seen only by those who are his people. The King’s troops have searched everywhere for him only to be reprimanded for negligence when they returned to their barracks empty-handed.
As he spoke, Giona heard a note of elation in his voice, which she was sure that he was trying to suppress.
“Tell me – tell me about ‘The Invisible One’.”
“I really have no more to tell,” he said, “but you can understand that the King wants the support of Great Britain, declared, of course, by your presence as his Queen, in order to prevent a revolution breaking out simply because the Slavonian people want to be ruled by one of their own blood.”
“It seems a reasonable idea.”
Captain Darius gave a little laugh, but there was no humour in it.
“If you say anything like that to the King, you may have your head chopped off!”
He was teasing her, but Giona said,
“Perhaps a more pleasant punishment for me would be to be sent back to England in disgrace.”
Even as she spoke she knew how upset this would make her mother and how furious Queen Victoria would be.
She had visions of their being turned out of their Grace and Favour house and the small concessions they received from Windsor Castle. Perhaps even her mother’s pension would be stopped.
Quickly she said,
“I can only thank you, Captain Darius, for telling me what is happening.”
“There is no need for you to be afraid,” Captain Darius assured her quickly. “The Palace is guarded very effectively by a large number of troops and every time the King goes anywhere he is surrounded by so many soldiers that it is almost impossible to catch a glimpse of him.”
There was a sarcastic note in his voice, as if he despised the King for being afraid of his people.
Then Giona, who had been listening wide-eyed, said,
“Is the fact that he is an Austrian the only thing that makes him so unpopular?”
The minute she spoke she saw from the expression in Captain Darius’s eyes that she had touched the vital spot with a perceptiveness that he had not expected.
To her surprise he hesitated before he said quickly – too quickly,
“That, I am sure, is the only reason, Your Royal Highness.”
But Giona knew that he lied.
*
It was difficult once they reached the calm waters of the Mediterranean for her to have any more frank conversations with Captain Darius.
For one thing she knew that he wished to avoid them and for another she was quite certain that the Slavonian Ambassador was once again setting his spies on them.
When they were talking in the cabin that they used for her lessons, there always seemed to be sounds outside the door and Giona had grown too fond of Captain Darius to wish to put him in any danger.
Equally she overheard several conversations that she thought were very significant.
Once she was sitting on deck in the sunshine, when through an open porthole immediately above her head she heard two guttural voices talking in German.
At first she had taken no notice until she heard one say,
“I am sorry for the poor little Fraulein. She is far too young and inexperienced to cope with him and anyway the English dislike that sort of thing.”
“I suppose it will be a shock to her,” the other man said, “b
ut because she is his wife he may be more restrained where she is concerned.”
“I doubt it,” the first man said. “He likes them very young and it will seem lucky to him that he is not being paired off with some elderly Princess whom nobody had previously looked at!”
The other man laughed.
“That is true. At the same time I am sorry for the child because she is in for a nasty shock!”
“That is what you will have if somebody hears you talking like this,” his friend replied. “Come and have a drink. At least there is plenty of that on this Battleship!”
They walked away laughing and Giona realised that she was clenching her hands together and could hardly breathe while she had been listening to what was being said.
She took a deep breath and wondered frantically what she should do.
And then knew that the answer was – nothing.
Another conversation was one she herself had with Lady Bowden.
By this time they had reached the Ionian Sea and it was only a day or two before they would reach the Port where they were to disembark.
Giona, going up on deck in the evening when it was cool, found Lady Bowden sitting in a deckchair, looking out towards the horizon.
She sat down beside her, saying as she did so,
“I always think the sea looks particularly beautiful just before the sun begins to set.”
Lady Bowden looked at her and then she replied,
“I agree with you, my dear, and I shall miss the sea once we reach Slavonia. But the mountains there are very lovely and so are the green fields of lush meadowland through which a beautiful silver river winds its way.”
“It sounds beautiful and romantic,” Giona observed.
Lady Bowden paused for a moment before she said,
“I hope, my dear, if there is anything I can ever do to help you in your new position, you will come to me. I know how much you miss your mother, and you will, of course, feel lonely in a strange country where there are very few English people and at Court few young women of your own age.”
Giona did not say anything and after a moment Lady Bowden went on, choosing her words with care,
“The King will seem to you rather old, as you are so young, but I am sure, as your mother’s daughter, you will make every effort to please him and make your marriage compatible.”
She gave a sigh before she added,
“I always feel it is the woman who has to do that and it is not always easy.”
“I realise that the King is very much older than I am,” Giona said, “so I looked up in the books belonging to Papa to see if there was anybody available older than me. But Her Majesty was right when she informed me that there was nobody else.”
“My husband said the same thing,” Lady Bowden replied. “So, dear, you have a very great responsibility on your hands to represent Great Britain and, however strange your life may be, you have to remember that you are British and at this moment of great consequence to His Majesty King Ferdinand.”
There was a note in her voice that said so much more than the mere formality of her words and impulsively Giona said,
“Tell me the truth, Lady Bowden. What is the King like as a man? Was his last wife happy with him?”
For a moment Lady Bowden stared at her not only in surprise, Giona thought, but almost as if she was afraid.
Then she said,
“You are making it very difficult for me because what one person finds attractive another may quite easily dislike. The King is a hard man and I think in many ways not a very happy one. I am hoping because you are so pretty that he may fall genuinely in love with you.”
“And if he does not?”
“He will – I am sure he will!” Lady Bowden said quickly.
Then, as if she was afraid to say anything more, she rose from her deckchair, saying,
“I think it is getting a little cold and I should go below. I have no wish to arrive in Dūric having caught a chill.”
“No, of course not,” Giona agreed.
But she knew that the Ambassadress was running away from her.
*
They docked in a Port in the most Southerly part of Albania late one evening and it was not until the next morning that the commotion started.
It was then, once Giona was up and dressed, that a Slavonian General accompanied by the Foreign Secretary and a number of other dignitaries came aboard to greet her.
She had received them with the British Ambassador and Lady Bowden in the Saloon and, although, since they were still on a British ship, it was for Sir Edward to take charge of the proceedings, the Slavonian Ambassador kept interfering.
There were speeches of welcome, innumerable introductions and, needless to say, the conversation was mainly in English or German.
Apart from Captain Darius, who was ignored by the welcoming party, everybody including the Ministers was, Giona found, either German or Austrian.
They, however, made a great fuss of her and she was informed that, as soon as they were ready, the Royal train was waiting to carry her to Dūric.
It was Lady Bowden who had already told Giona that the scenery would be very lovely as they travelled through the mountains of Albania for the first part of the journey.
They would come into Slavonia through a mountainous pass, after which the train would descend down to Dūric, about a four-hour run from the frontier to the Capital.
“Unfortunately, however,” she had added, “as the route up through the mountains is very slow, we shall have to spend one night on the train. But I think that Your Royal Highness will be very comfortable because you will have His Majesty’s private coach which he designed himself.”
As Giona had never travelled on a private train before, she was looking forward to it and she was, she knew, in no hurry to reach Dūric and face the King.
They did not leave the Battleship until, after an early luncheon at which the visitors ate, she thought, an inordinate amount and expressed their appreciation not only in words but with an occasional hiccup as they left with the Battleship’s band playing and were carried away from the quay in numerous carriages to the Railway Station.
Here again there was more ceremony as they were received by the Mayor of the Port and several Town Councillors before Giona was finally allowed to enter the Royal Carriage.
It was, as she expected, very comfortable, and regally decorated with crimson velvet and heavy Persian carpets.
There was a drawing room, which was large enough to seat eight to ten people in comfort and out of it a bedroom.
This took up half the Carriage and could have been designed only for a man. There was oak panelling, a carved mahogany bedstead and everything fitted neatly around the walls without, from a woman’s point of view, there being enough mirrors and enough light to see her face properly.
Here too the curtains over the windows were of crimson velvet, the carpet was crimson, and so was the bedspread embellished with the King’s insignia, which was echoed on the bedhead.
‘His Majesty certainly makes sure that everybody is aware that he is Royal!’ Giona thought to herself, but she did not say it aloud.
As the train started, she took off her bonnet, helped by a maid who informed her in very badly spoken German that she was there to help her.
She was an attractive woman of perhaps thirty or more and after a moment Giona said,
“I think, if I am not mistaken, that you are a Slavonian.”
She spoke in the same language and the woman’s eyes lit up.
“You speak our language, Your Royal Highness!”
“I have been learning it all the while I have been coming here,” Giona told her.
“But that is marvellous! It’s indeed a miracle! No one has ever talked to me in my own language ever since I’ve been at The Palace.”
“How long is that?” Giona enquired.
“Over five years, Your Royal Highness.”
“Then you must help me to become more pr
oficient,” Giona said. “Will you be looking after me when I arrive?”
“That’s what I hope, Your Royal Highness, but it depends on whether it pleases you.”
“It pleases me very much that you are Slavonian.”
She chatted away to her for some time and then went into the drawing room where the Bowdens and the Slavonian Ambassador were waiting for her.
She had already learnt that there was a second coach attached to this one and she was relieved that she would be alone and not have to listen to them chatting in the drawing room if she wished to go to bed.
Almost as if she was aware of what Giona was thinking, Lady Bowden asked,
“Do you mind being alone, Your Royal Highness? His Excellency was just saying that if you are nervous, either your lady’s maid or one of the aides-de-camp could be on duty at night here in the drawing room.”
Giona laughed.
“I should hate that! I am sure that they would keep me awake either by coughing or moving about and I would much prefer to be alone. I am not in the least worried, I assure you.”
“We are only one door away, so to speak, if you need us,” Lady Bowden said. “When His Majesty designed the carriage, he said that he very much disliked having servants too near to him, whether they were senior or junior, and therefore insisted upon having a coach entirely to himself.”
“I am sure he was right,” Giona said. “It would be a great mistake for outsiders to know whether one snored or not!”
She meant what she said as a joke, but the Slavonian Ambassador looked shocked, as though she had committed lèse-majesté in suggesting that the King snored.
Because she wanted to see the countryside, Giona deliberately sat on the opposite side of the drawing room from the others so that she could gaze out of the window.
After she had answered them in monosyllables for a little while, they gave up trying to talk to her and, while the two Ambassadors conversed together in low tones, Lady Bowden dozed.
Later they stopped at a Station and dinner was brought into the carriage, where they were joined by the Senior Ministers for what was a long drawn out rather heavy meal, which Giona found extremely boring, although she chided herself for thinking so.
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