Grasping for the Crowns (The Powers Book 2)

by Alma Boykin

  István gulped. “Yes, Your Grace.” A terrible feeling swept him, as if he were standing on the peak of the mountain as a storm bore down on him. “The Unites States are making trouble again.”

  “The United States are at war with us.” Rudolph held out a page. István took it, noting how his own hand shook. “This is their formal declaration of war against the Habsburg Empire, due to His Majesty’s refusal to break the treaty of mutual support with Germany. And the demands of their Entente allies, which include the dissolution of the empire, the exile of the imperial family, and transferring half of Hungary to Romania and a new Slovak country.”

  István’s blood began to boil as he skimmed the list. “This is unacceptable, Your Grace,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “I do not disagree with your assessment. And the Germans want Silesia and more of Poland.” Rudolph sat back and lit a cigarette. He must have noticed István’s longing gaze, because he slid the case of little white tobacco sticks and the lighter across the desk. “Have one.”

  István did not suck the entire cigarette down in one long pull, though he wanted to. “Thank you. Your Grace is most kind.”

  “Fortunately, my cousin His Majesty has a weakness for the occasional cigar, or I would not be permitted to indulge, because of austerity.” The two smoked in silence for a few minutes, listening to the ticking of the ormolu clock on the shelf by the door and the wind hissing past the top of the hill. “I was on my way to Szekesvehervar and then east when your little difficulty came to my attention, so I sent for you,” Rudolph explained at last.

  “Your Grace, I cannot apologize for disturbing the peace. I needed to bring the House’s judgment to bear in a delicate situation, one that may have diplomatic repercussions.”

  Rudolph sat upright with a snap. “How so?”

  István recounted the week’s adventure. When he finished, Rudolph made a cutting motion with his free hand. “There will be no repercussions. Russia is no more, and if your Ivan chooses to stay, speak with Major... Major... oh bah, the one in charge of POW assignments. Forestry is as good as farming, and is legal under international law, especially if the young man agrees not to take up arms again.”

  “I suspect that will not be a difficult thing for him to agree to, Your Grace.”

  “Besides, we have so many more pressing problems facing us that one POW and a rapist are not going to cause an incident.” Rudolph let his exhaustion show for an instant. “God help us.”

  Both men crossed themselves. “Amen, Your Grace. Amen.”

  István thought of it as “the Slovak Problem,” when he had a thought to spare. Felix Starhemberg had summed it up in a letter just after Christmas. “Why wouldn’t the Entente wage diplomatic war in secret? They are the Turkish sappers, undermining Vienna’s walls.” And with the Americans involved as well, István wondered what else could go wrong. The year ended too well. We had more food, and more fuel, and all but one border secure. And then the Americans barged in. Well behind his shields, and only when alone, he wondered if the situation could get worse. Oh, he knew they could, judging by the rumors from Russia and the tensions between the Powers, but weren’t things bad enough already? Didn’t the Lord temper the trials to the weakness of His people?

  He stared out of his new-to-him office in the parliament building and wondered, then took a deep breath and forced his attention back to the task at hand. He needed to finish up before heading north to look at the transition camps for the returning soldiers. Barbara remained in Kassa with the children at least until spring. She seemed happier there, and had said, “After what happened in Vienna, it’s safer here.” She’d looked to the window, one hand touching the lace on her collar, the other plucking at her skirt.

  “My lady, the Italians cannot reach Budapest.” They could no longer reach Vienna, not after the Imperial Air Force and the Army destroyed their planes on the ground and captured the Italian landing field closest to the border.

  Barbara didn’t argue, but she didn’t seem convinced. “The children do better here. The air is fresher.” That he believed, at least in summer. And they had more wood in Kassa, and people asked fewer questions about the firewood that came into the townhouse. Imre and Erszébet did better in the warm. Barbara preferred it as well, although the past few days before he left, István noticed that his wife seemed to be wearing fewer shawls and sweaters. She’d been warmer during her pregnancies as well, and he had a suspicion. Please may she be pregnant, he half prayed. But for now I must work.

  He studied the petitions for release from duty. The men’s mothers and wives wanted them home before the end of the month. One request István decided could be passed to the army, but the others he could not. Not enough time in service, not enough time since they’d left the lines, in one case the man had requested to go south and participate in the Italian campaign. The strident tone in his wife’s letter suggested why he might prefer continuing in service to going home, and István set that one aside as well. The other eight he answered with pre-written letters, adding enough specifics that the families would know their petition hadn’t been dismissed out of hand. His Majesty had been emphatic about that, making István and others shake their heads. But it seemed to keep the families loyal to the Crown, so the army and bureaucrats complied.

  By early afternoon he’d cleared his desk, shaking his head as he did. How much had the world changed since that carefree May in 1914! War no longer meant cavalry charges and quick fights between small armies. But the empire stood, even if the Russian Tsar had failed. Well, István sighed, Russia had perhaps been due for a change of some kind, and might still end up a constitutional monarchy, like England. He started to put out the lamp when he heard the sound of shots. “What?”

  István jumped from his chair and rushed to the window. Once there, he eased the side of the curtain open, staying well clear of the direct line of fire. He peered down into the square facing the University’s Agriculture school and the court building. A body lay on the wet stones, and men and women milled around, some waving guns. One carried a red banner. “Long live the people’s revolution!” he heard through the glass. “Workers unite! Throw off the parasites and rise!”

  “How dare you,” István whispered, fists clenching. He would go out and—

  He would do no such thing. István let the curtain close, moving with slow, smooth steps to the office door. He didn’t have a weapon, and he was exactly the kind of person the Communists preferred to shoot, at least in Russia and, according to rumor, in Prague as well—unarmed and well dressed. A little voice in his mind wondered if he should just stop coming to the Pest side of the river. Nothing exciting happened on the Buda side. No one shot at people or rioted on the Buda side. At least not until today, if these rebels manage to get across the Chain Bridge. István looked up and down the hall, listening hard. He heard voices, and shouts, but not from his floor and not close by. He needed to get out, but if the enemy held the square . . . Too bad the stories about a secret tunnel under the river to Buda Hill weren’t true. Part of István wanted to fight, and he hesitated.

  “My lord Colonel, this way,” Imre Lovász called. István followed and found twenty of the Magnates and several others in one of the smaller hearing chambers. “We’re going to stay here, away from the windows. There’s water and power, and,” the lights went out.

  “We have water.” Meciar said from a dark corner.

  If they had been armed, they could have also had an excellent chance of removing a number of Communists once and for all. István growled. He assumed they were Communists, anyway, because no one else used the red banner with a sickle on it. Unless they are pretending to be Communists for some reason. No, that makes less than no sense.

  “Are,” someone squeaked, coughed, cleared his throat, and resumed speaking in a normal tone. “Are they going to try to attack us?”

  Several of the delegates and staff turned to István for an answer. He dredged his memory, trying to come up with anything h
e could recall about revolutions and riots, besides how to fight them from horseback. “If they do, we have guards at the doors who should stop them.” Assuming the guards have not turned coat or fled. “And they may be just a distraction, trying to draw the garrison away from the real trouble, like an uprising on the factory islands.” Where’s Mátyás today? The office or down at the main shipping yard? Damn, I don’t remember. And Cousin Imre had better not be involved in this or—cousin or not—I’ll flame his ass, if I don’t kill him first.

  István began walking up and down the side aisle of the chamber, in part to work off nervous energy and in part to try to ease a catch in his back. He wanted to be out there on a horse, fighting back. He didn’t want to stay trapped in with the other diet members and clerks. If the Communists found their way inside . . . They should barricade the doors, István realized. Except the doors opened out, not in. That needed to change. A lot of things needed to change, like his not having a weapon of some kind, preferably a pistol—a rifle made no sense within the city. Even his hunting knife would make him feel better. A boar spear also had possibilities—he imagined skewering one of the banner-waving bastards and the thought made him smile.

  “Will you quit pacing?” One of the commons members snapped. “You’re making me nervous.”

  István didn’t deign to answer. Instead he listened for the sounds of fighting, of gunshots or shouts, of running feet and screaming horses. He heard none. According to his pocket watch, they’d been in the chamber for half an hour. That decided him, and when he reached the door at the rear of the chamber, he listened carefully, opened it a few centimeters, listened again, and slipped out. He heard feet behind him and saw Meciar and Lovász following. The lawyer held his walking stick like a sword and gave István a knowing and faintly predatory smile. “I read law in Heidelberg, among other places,” he said, so quietly István barely heard the words. He got the message, and smiled back.

  István led them up two floors, to one of the clerical offices that looked out onto the square. The shutters stood open, and the men eased along the wall to both sides of the window, then peered out. Nothing seemed to be moving. A red banner lay on the ground by the statue of Jan Hunyadi, and if he twisted and peered out toward the south, István thought he could see what looked like a puddle of something, and perhaps a body or two. Soldiers stood on the roof of the court building and the university’s agriculture building, facing the parliament.

  “Are those ours, my lord Colonel?” Meciar pointed without exposing himself.

  The wavy glass pane made it a little difficult, but István recognized the glimpses of uniform that he caught. “Yes, they are.”

  “So perhaps this was a diversion, and the attackers have gone elsewhere.” Meciar’s almond eyes narrowed, his expression making István wonder just how far back the Tatar or Turk in the family had been. Not that far, he suspected.

  “Or there were only a few of the fools and they are now dead,” Lovász said.

  Some sense of things made István shake his head. “I don’t know, but I think Imre has the right of it. If they are trying to take the city, capturing this building, or the court building, would be a bad way to start. There are no supplies or weapons here. The Communists in Russia started in the factories, and with the army and police, then captured the government. Or so the reports I’ve read claim.”

  “So what do we do, my lord Colonel?” Meciar looked out the window again.

  “We wait a little longer, then send someone nondescript to look at the bridge, in case someone has tried to take control of it. And,” István thought, then wanted to hit himself in the head. Why had he not tried to telephone the garrison? He had the number and a telephone in his office. But what if the Communists had grabbed the exchange? And was there anyone in the parliament’s telephone room? He would never know unless he tried. “And I will try a telephone call to someone, to get some news.”

  The three men returned to István’s office. He found the number he needed and went down to the lower level of the building, to the parliamentary telephone exchange. To his surprise, he found one of the guards there, and the operator. “Yes, my lord Colonel?”

  “I need to make a call.”

  The guard gave him a careful look. “To whom, my lord Colonel?”

  “To the garrison, to see if it is safe to try to leave.”

  The small man acting as operator cleared his throat. “Ah, my lord, the police might be better.”

  “The police are rather busy right now. Call the garrison.” István handed the operator the number. With a gulp and a jerky bob of his head, the operator did as ordered.

  Only two hours later, István stood in the courtyard of the town palace. The wooden gate closed behind him with a solid and reassuring thump. Dobroslov and Ivan slid a heavy bar across the gate, locking it. István could not recall the last time they’d done that. Probably not since the foolishness in 1868, if then. István nodded and walked across the courtyard to the steps, climbed them, and turned, looking at the now empty courtyard. Servants with shotguns and knives now watched the street from the windows, and Dobroslov had told his Head that no one could get into the palace.

  Ferenk met István just inside the door. He had a small glass of something dark purple on a tray. “If my lord needs a restorative?”

  István knew better. He knocked back the plum brandy anyway, empty stomach be damned, then sank onto the bench along the hall. One of the maids helped remove his boots and took his coat and hat. Ferenk returned with potato bread and minced fish, which István ate as he sat. A few minutes later his head stopped spinning and he got up, walking to his office and sitting, with a creak from the chair and a wince for his back. “Have you heard from Mátyás?”

  “Not yet, my lord.” The butler hesitated, rocking back and forth a little. “My lord, if I may venture a thought?”

  “Yes?”

  Ferenk licked his thin lips. “My lord, I believe, and this is purely supposition on my part, my lord, but I believe that Lord Mátyás is at an apartment in the second district in Pest.”

  István put two plus two together. “Would he perchance be, shall I say, looking in on an old friend?”

  “I suspect that might be the case, my lord.”

  I wish he’d just marry her and be done with it. “Thank you, Ferenk.”

  István stared at the green-and-cream striped wallpaper in the office and considered what to do and what might be going on. How could the Communists possibly imagine that they could bestir the people of Pest the way they had the rabble in Russia? The factories didn’t resemble the hell of Russia, at least not based on what he’d seen. And the Hungarian people were not . . . well, they had not lost a war. And the Communists had not managed to overthrow the government in Prague, despite the blood and fire that rumor claimed had engulfed both sides of the city before the army restored order. If his cousin Imre was an example of the best of the Hungarian Social Democrats and Communists, well, they couldn’t organize an Easter procession in a monastery, let alone take over a city. Even the French commune in Paris had failed in 1871, failed spectacularly despite killing every priest and gentleman they could capture.

  But István had thought they could defeat Russia once and for all in 1914, his memory reminded him. He’d also thought the women of the House would be perfectly safe working away from the House lands and had not checked on them as he should have. István considered the rumors he’d heard, especially about Prague just after the New Year, and the stories of the soldiers returning from the Russian front. If the Communists couldn’t take over the city, they could still wreak havoc in the industrial area and the poorer districts by causing riots.

  “Right. So what do I do?” The walls and papers did not answer. Neither did the paintings and photographs of his family. He’d do his duty, support the Crown, and make a thanks offering that he had gotten away safely and that Barbara and the children had remained in Kassa. István also decided that the time had come to have a word with h
is brother about Mátyás’s mistress and child.

  Later that night, once the brandy wore off, István had a thought. Why had he not been surprised by the shooting and commotion outside the parliament? Four years before he would have been shocked out of his shoes at the very idea of someone with a red flag killing people in the heart of Budapest. Now? The world had changed beyond recognition. No. He shunted the thought aside. It was the war. The war and the revolution in Russia made it imaginable. And he was tired, slow to react to things. Tomorrow it would sink in and he’d be shocked and surprised. He rolled over, wishing Barbara were in the bed with him, and fell asleep.

  Two days later, the newspaper headline revealed a bit of the story. Indeed, the main bulk of the attempted uprising had been in the southern districts, and it had taken two days to finish sorting it out. He learned the rest when he made his way north, on a delayed inspection of what he’d come to think of as rest camps for troopers being released from the army. The main facility sat in Tetschen, the giant fortress on the Elba River that had never seen war. But the location provided a buffer between men coming from the war and civilians. And, not incidentally, it put the soldiers very close to the German border, should the Prussians make good on their threat to try to capture Silesia. Given their lack of success in stripping Belgium, it might be that Breslau, Kattowitz, and the mines and other industries would prove too tempting to the generals, despite the treaties and alliances. Frederick of Prussia had tried, and almost succeeded, and Hindenburg certainly seemed to consider himself Frederick reborn. István shook his head at the very thought as the train chugged north and west out of Prague.

  “You find something amusing, Colonel Count Eszterházy?” Duke Ladislav von Tischwitz inquired.

  “Not so much amusing as puzzling, Your Grace. The Prussian high command’s threats against Silesia,” István explained.