He must also save Princess Marziale from breaking her heart and the heart of Comte Ruta.
For a time he could not think how he could do it.
Then he thought that the one thing he would like to be was an ordinary man and to be able to seek love as any man could do if he was not weighed down by a Crown.
It was a shackle he could not escape from and as long as he had to wear it, he had no chance of finding love, the love that others found because they were not hamstrung by their own position in life.
He sat for some time just staring with sightless eyes at the window in front of him.
Outside the sun was shining, but it seemed to him as if a darkness was gradually encroaching upon him.
‘I have to be free,’ he determined.
Then, almost as if a strange voice was telling him and perhaps the voice came from Aphrodite herself, he knew what he must do.
He picked up a pen and wrote quickly and without a pause on the thick engraved writing paper in front of him on the desk.
Then he placed it in an envelope and addressed it.
Putting it into his pocket he walked out of the room to find an aide-de-camp waiting for him to appear.
The Prince walked past him to the stairs that led to his private apartments. He went straight into his bedroom and found his valet was waiting for him to change after his ride.
“I hears Your Royal Highness was back,” the valet said, “and I expected you’d want to change afore you went down the garden.”
“I will change now, Texxo,” the Prince replied and then he changed his mind. “No, I want to send a message downstairs to say I don’t feel well and will not be down for luncheon. Then come back as I have something special for you to do.”
Texxo, who had been with the Prince ever since he left school, now looked at him in surprise.
“Your Royal Highness not goin’ to the luncheon!” he exclaimed. “But I understands it’s a special party for Her Royal Highness and the Prime Minister be comin’.”
“Do as you are told, Texxo,” the Prince scolded him sharply.
The valet hurried from the room and then the Prince walked to the window to stand looking out at the garden.
When Texxo came back, he turned round.
“There be a right old flutter downstairs, Your Royal Highness,” said Texxo. “The Lord Chamberlain wants to know if you’d like him to send for a doctor.”
“When I want a doctor, I will send for one. Now Texxo, you know I have trusted you since you first looked after me – I think I was about sixteen at the time.”
Texxo who was getting on for forty smiled.
“It were nearly eighteen year ago and Your Royal Highness has changed a bit since then.”
“I am going to change a good deal more now, and you will be the only person who knows what I am going to do until I am too far away for them to interfere.”
“What be you be goin’ to do, if I may ask?”
“I am going to be an ordinary man for a short time and I want you now to help me go away from the Palace without anyone being aware of where we are going.”
“Am I comin’ with Your Royal Highness?”
“Yes, at least as far as Venice. I am not quite sure where I will be going after that.”
“What’ll they do here?” Texxo asked nervously.
“If they follow my orders, they will do nothing.”
The Prince drew from his pocket the letter he had written and put it on his dressing table.
“They will find this when I have gone. But I want you, Texxo, to help me disappear without anyone having the slightest idea of what is happening.”
His voice deepened as he continued,
“We will have to be very very careful. Otherwise, as you know, I will be stopped before I am even free of the Palace let alone the frontier.”
“Well, I don’t blame Your Royal Highness,” Texxo remarked. “Equally there’ll be a real hullabaloo when they discovers you’ve gone!”
“I want you to tell them I have a splitting headache and I am not to be disturbed under any circumstances until I feel better. Say I know what it is and what has caused it and that I have no wish to see a doctor.
“You will pack just enough for us to take on the horses we shall be riding. Order one horse for yourself and one for another servant. Tell them you have a special letter to deliver for me and no one will be interested as to who you are taking with you.”
Quite unexpectedly Texxo laughed.
“It’ll be like old times, when Your Royal Highness was a young boy and you used to ask me to let you out of the side door and tell no one where you’d gone.”
The Prince laughed too.
“I remember that. It was because I wanted to play with children my parents did not think were smart enough for me. Thanks to you, I enjoyed every moment I spent with them!”
“And whose children will Your Royal Highness be meetin’ now?” Texxo asked cheekily.
“That is exactly what I don’t know. I just want to fly away from all this attention I am receiving and have a chance to be an ordinary person. A man like yourself, who can do just what he wants without people interfering and without being protected at every turn – ”
His voice became sarcastic as he added,
“Not from an enemy so much as from the people who claw at me because they desire something.”
“That be true enough and I don’t blame Your Royal Highness. But, as I’ve already said, there’ll be a hell of a fuss about this. I only hopes I don’t lose my head or find myself behind bars.”
“You know they will never touch you, Texxo, when you belong to me.”
“That’s all right as long as you’re here, but it’s not so funny when you ain’t.”
“I tell you what, you will stay away too and wait for me to come back with you before I return home.”
“Now that be talkin’ sense. Your Royal Highness must understand that if they thinks I had helped you run away they’ll force me one way or another to tell ’em where you be.”
“Very well! As I have said, you can come with me and when I return, if I do return, I will pick you up so that we come back together.”
“What’s Your Royal Highness told ’em downstairs in that letter?” Texxo asked, pointing with his thumb.
“I have told them I have a special mission which is important and which will affect this country particularly. I therefore trust them to keep it a secret that I am not in the Palace. If the public ask questions, they are to be told that I am just suffering from a bad attack of influenza.”
“What about them doctors?”
“I have said that they are to say I am being looked after and I hope soon to be restored to perfect health.”
Texxo laughed as if he could not help it.
“All I can say now is that Your Royal Highness has always been different from any of them others, and as you knows I’ve much admired you for it. But this certainly be somethin’ we’ve never tried before.”
“We are going to try it now and if we fail, we fail. When we come back I expect them to applaud my decision when they have learnt why I made it.”
There was a small inflection in the Prince’s voice that told Texxo, who knew him so well, he was not certain that he would be successful.
Because he loved the Prince as he had ever since he had looked after him as a boy, Texxo added,
“I’ve never known Your Royal Highness not get your own way on everythin’ sooner or later. If that’s what you be determined to have, it’ll be what you want and I’ll bet my last penny on it.”
“Thank you, Texxo, that is just what I want to hear. Now start the packing and I only want the simple ordinary clothes that a man in the street would wear. I will also want plenty of ready money.”
“That’ll not be difficult. I’ve often thought it were a mistake to keep too much in the safe in this here room. But as usual you’re right, and now we wants it, it’s there!”
“Tha
nk goodness for that,” the Prince sighed.
“There’s one more thing I has to ask Your Royal Highness. How long do you think we’ll be away?”
“I have no idea, Texxo. I suppose until I find what I am seeking or come crawling back and admit I have failed.”
“That is something I’ve never known you admit yet and I hopes I never hears Your Royal Highness mention it in the future.”
He went out of the room as he spoke and the Prince laughed.
He had learnt of old that Texxo always had the last word.
CHAPTER TWO
The Palace was concentrating on the gala luncheon being given that day in honour of the Princess Marziale.
So no one heard the Prince and Texxo slip quietly down the backstairs.
Texxo had already been to the stables and ordered two of the best horses to be saddled. He told the grooms that they were for an extra special journey that had to be undertaken as soon as luncheon was finished.
The grooms, if they thought at all, assumed it was something to do with the Princess Marziale – doubtless an announcement of the marriage between her and the Prince.
Taking the horses from them, Texxo tied them up in a quiet part of the garden where no one was likely to go until the festivities were over.
Then he went back to find the Prince had already dressed in his ordinary clothes and was sitting at the desk in his bedroom.
“Has Your Royal Highness told them in the Palace where we’ll be goin’?” asked Texxo.
The Prince knew he was joking.
“No, for the simple reason I don’t know myself. What I have done, and you might just as well know all my secrets, is to give instructions that because of his excellent services in escorting here such a charming guest as the Princess Marziale, the Comte Ruta is to be made a Duke of Vienz. It is in my power to do so.”
Texxo looked surprised but he did not say anything.
The Prince was smiling quietly to himself as he was thinking that the Princess’s father would not be so adverse to his daughter marrying a Duke if she was unable to catch a reigning Prince.
Then they left his bedroom and concentrated on moving swiftly and silently out of the Palace.
Texxo was carrying their clothes packed into hardy saddlebags which soldiers used when they went on long journeys on horseback.
The Prince smiled as he saw that as usual Texxo had thought of everything.
On his return from the stables, he had brought up something for the Prince to eat when he passed through the kitchen.
It was certainly not the excellent fare they were enjoying in the banqueting hall, but it was a piece of foie gras of which His Royal Highness was particularly fond – and there was toast and butter to eat with it.
Fortunately there was champagne in the cupboard of the Prince’s sitting room.
As Texxo had poured him out a glass, the Prince suggested,
“Have a glass yourself, and drink to our success on this adventure which could dramatically change the rest of my life.”
“I’ll drink Your Royal Highness’s health,” Texxo replied. “But at thi very moment I am worryin’ about your future.”
“Well, stop worrying and let’s get on!”
He had eaten the pâté and now he finished his glass of champagne and went to the door.
“You have everything, Texxo?” he asked.
“I hope so. Your Royal Highness hasn’t forgotten the money?”
The Prince put his hand to his head.
“Fool that I am!” he exclaimed. “Actually I have, because I always have an equerry carrying any money I need.”
“Well, now Your Royal Highness has to be your own equerry, you’ll have to be careful about that sort of thing!”
The Prince laughed and went to the safe which was in his sitting room.
It had a special lock which only he could work and he was delighted to see the large amount of money stashed inside the safe.
He had deliberately always asked for more than he needed when he required money to buy gifts or anything for himself.
This was because when he wanted money he had to ask for it as if he was nothing more than a schoolboy. It was a strange regulation that had been passed down from one Ruler to another.
The Rulers had their money kept in the State bank and not in the Palace and this the Prince found extremely tiresome.
If he needed money he had to send an aide-de-camp to the Keeper of the Privy Purse, who then had to be in touch with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Eventually hours later the Prince received the money he required.
Not because he wished to conceal his finances but because it irritated him, the Prince had over the years put away a fairly considerable sum in his private safe.
Now he was able to take out a great deal more than he was likely to need on this escapade.
‘I will have to come back some time,’ he said to himself, ‘win or lose.’
They rode away keeping to the trees until they were outside the Palace grounds.
As they did so, the Prince told himself that if the Goddess of Love was keeping watch over him he would not come back a failure.
*
It was a lovely day and the sun was shining.
By the time the Prince reined in his horse they were on the borders of Vienz and crossing into Italy.
It was always quite impossible to guard every inch of any frontier and, although Vienz boasted a large Army, the frontier forts were several miles apart and it was easy enough to avoid them.
The Prince, in fact, had visited every fort in the last few months and he noted that they were strong enough to repel an enemy. They were also pleasant enough to make the men who manned them enjoy being posted to one.
He had built up his Army very carefully ever since he succeeded his father.
He was well aware that many small countries as well as large ones like Great Britain had, after the defeat of Napoleon, thought it unlikely there would ever be a great European war again.
He had been particularly astonished that the British, who were now busily creating an enormous Empire, should believe this and they had not, in his opinion, taken enough trouble over their Army.
He had visited England before his father died and he had thought then that the soldiers were badly fed and not enough attention was given to their training.
However there were exceptions to this as a number of aristocrats, like Lord Cardigan, raised their own private Army and paid for it out of their own purse.
The Prince had considered this idea for some time and then he decided that it would be inadvisable in his own small country.
There was always the likelihood that the owner of a private Army might have ambitious ideas of his own and he could use it to depose the Ruler and take over the throne for himself.
But the Prince did appreciate that Lord Cardigan’s Army was dressed more smartly than other Regiments, especially those in attendance on Her Majesty the Queen.
“Now we’re in Italy,” Texxo piped up, “where be Your Royal Highness aimin’ for?”
“We are now going to Venice, and if we go a little further before we stop for the night, we should be there by midday tomorrow.”
Texxo did not reply, but the Prince knew that he was enjoying himself.
The horses they were riding were not tired. Texxo had been sensible enough to choose not only the youngest of the trained horses in the stables but also those that were best bred.
The stallion the Prince was riding was one of his favourites and he knew that he would carry him for days without showing the least sign of fatigue.
He was thinking of the horses when they stopped for the night.
It was in a small village where there was an inn that appeared to be clean with a large stable attached.
When they asked if they could stay the night, the publican was delighted to accommodate them, and it was obvious that, situated in a rather barren part of the land, he did not often have visitors.
&nbs
p; The Prince saw that their horses were provided with fresh straw and the most expensive oats available.
Then he and Texxo walked into the inn.
It was a small place with a limited choice of wine, but there was a table where visitors could sit in reasonable comfort.
The food when it came was more or less edible and upstairs the rooms were without carpets and the beds were hard but they were clean.
As Texxo hung up the clothes the Prince had taken off, he remarked,
“I’m wonderin’ what they’ll be sayin’ at the Palace when they finds Your Royal Highness ain’t there.”
“I made it clear in the letter I wrote,” the Prince replied, “that I was going on a very difficult and secret mission. No one outside the Palace is to know that I was not suffering from the illness that explained my absence at the gala luncheon.”
“They’ll be in a real flap all right. Whatever Your Royal Highness has told ’em, they’ll find it hard not to send a search party after you.”
“I don’t think they will be stupid enough to do so,” the Prince said, “and if they do, we must be quite certain they don’t find me. Now go off to bed and stop worrying. And do remember you don’t address me as ‘Your Royal Highness’.”
“It just slips out,” admitted Texxo.
“Well, control it. If I have to go back without even a chance of achieving what I am setting out to do, I will never forgive you.”
“I’ll be very careful,” Texxo promised. “But after so many years it comes natural like.”
He pulled down the blind as there were no curtains at the window for him to close.
“Now what time shall I call Your – I means you?”
“About six o’clock, Texxo. We have a long way to go, but I am determined to reach Venice tomorrow.”
“We’ll do it,” Texxo called cheerily as he opened the door. “Goodnight and may God bless you, no one knows better than He do how much you’re needed in Vienz.”
He did not wait for the Prince to answer, but closed the door and went into the next room.
The Prince laughed to himself.
He reflected, as he had often done before, that he would rather be with Texxo on a special operation than with anyone else.
A Miracle of Love Page 3