Grasping for the Crowns (The Powers Book 2)

by Alma Boykin

  “No doubt, Brother, no doubt. How did we and Judit live to adulthood?”

  “Because the Lord still works miracles, and because staking us out to be eaten by bears would have driven every deer, boar, squirrel, wolf, and trout out of the mountains.”

  After that, the House meeting felt like an uneventful evening of discussion. All adults of age and mental competence participated, so after the initial meeting it took another week for the word to pass to those who lacked telepathy, and then back to the seniors and the Head. Everyone had heard the rumors of secret treaties and of the Emperor’s decision to allow the various peoples within the empire to gain more autonomy within the empire’s aegis. Even so, many House members had questions and expressed doubts about the need even to discuss such things. István, Aunt Claudia, Master Gellért, Mistress Nagy, and the other seniors insisted. In the end, by late August, House Szárkány-Kárpátok agreed to remain a single House, ignoring any new borders that might be imposed on them. The proposal to reassign the House’s properties, at least on paper, met with more resistance.

  That is, until one of the retired hunters spoke up. «My Lord, seniors, House members, you know that I have kin-by-marriage in Russia. Or had. They may still be alive, but they have lost all property, and some also lost their places because they were married to, or had enough money to be counted as, bourgeois. I will not speak of the fate of some True-dragons. My lord, seniors, divide our holdings on paper, give each family a parcel to keep in trust, and let us pretend that we are all small-holders. What the Eszterházy family does not own, the government cannot claim.» The mental images that came with the sending horrified several of the seniors, but they did not question the truth of it.

  After the vote, after he’d released the House and the Power, István lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Barbara had not finished her preparations for sleep, and he listened to her humming a quiet tune, one he almost recognized. It’s done, and we’re ready for whatever comes next, God willing.

  “Hold the borders and let the rest go to hell,” one of the other diet members had said. István listened to the increasingly angry debate in progress on the floor of the Chamber of Magnates and wondered if they stood on Hell’s doormat, looking in. I should have guessed, but I didn’t. Imre and Mátyás both had it right, for different reasons. He wondered if he would hear bullets breaking the windows next.

  If the MSP had won the elections, the monarchists would be better off. To the gleeful delight of the MSP and Communists, the common people turned their anger at the continued hardship and the word of the Entente’s looming victory against the government. Everyone still agreed that Josef Karl was doing his best and that he did not bear personal blame for everything—although some pointed to him as the cause of all woes other than the previous year’s excess rain. But many glared at Fiodor Frankopans, acting Prime Minister and leader of the Crown and Land Party, crediting him with the losses and defeat, and the lack of improvement over the year. How Frankopans could be to blame for the American naval blockade of half the world, and the American’s military success against the Germans, remained a mystery to István. The commoners’ failure to understand the situation confirmed his suspicion that the vast majority of humanity could not be trusted to govern themselves, the Houses excepted.

  “That is why we must enact land reform immediately!” Kevante Freiherr Kan finished a tirade, pointing at Frankopans. “Immediately!”

  A few voices in the MSP seats murmured “hear hear,” and clapped slowly in rhythm. The rest of the chamber members present looked either bored or disgusted. István just wanted to be in Kassa with his family. They had three days until the session ended. They’d already approved the budget the lower chamber had presented, after a debate that ended with black eyes and a few cracked ribs from a fight on the floor. And land reforms, some much needed, had been passed. But of course that was not enough for the MSP, or for the Communist papers with their giant black headlines, all but shrieking about the near-treason of the feudal classes and the perfidy of the MSP. And that’s just what the censors allow to get past. I wish His Majesty had banned the Communists as Franz Josef, God rest him, did.

  “Thank you for your opinion, Freiherr Kan,” Count Szecheny said with commendable calm. “Does the speaker hear further calls for debate?”

  Kan looked smug at the silence that filled the chamber. István raised a hand.

  “The speaker recognizes Count Colonel Esztherházy.”

  István got to his feet and smoothed the lapels of his coat. “Freiherr Kan, Mr. Speaker, my lords of the chamber, a question for Freiherr Kan. You propose to break up all properties greater than five hundred hectares of arable land, and to give every farm laborer and tenant no less than one half hectare, but no more than five. Yet you have also argued that larger farms are more efficient, and that perhaps fields of two hundred fifty hectares are the smallest grain farm that can feed the farmer and the cities both. Which is it, Freiherr Kan?” István kept his tone polite and curious, and sat once he had finished.

  “Small holdings worked collectively, Count Eszterházy,” came the swift reply.

  “Thank you.” István left it there, knowing the other men would grasp what he intended. In sum, the MSP called for the same thing as the Communists, only under the guise of law instead of at naked bayonet point. The growing murmur, and frowns among the non-MSP members, suggested that they understood the implication.

  “Are there any further questions for Freiherr Kan?” Szecheny asked. After thirty seconds of silence, he said, “Thank you. Discussion is ended.”

  Before he could say more, a page rushed into the chamber, sketched a bow to the lords, and began a heated and whispered conversation with Szecheny. Zoltan’s face paled. Dear holy Lord, please may His Majesty and the imperial family be safe, please most merciful, Most High.

  “My lords of the chamber, King Wilhelm of Prussia, Emperor of Germany, has abdicated the throne, and the government is now seeking a cease fire with the Entente in order to pursue peace. Riots have erupted in Berlin, Frankfurt, Hanover, Hamburg, and other cities. The army has not said if it will obey the new government yet.” Szecheny handed the telegram back to the messenger as a roar exploded in the chamber.

  Szecheny did not attempt to regain order for two very long minutes. Even then, it took a great deal of pounding and the presence of the Sergeant-at-Arms to quiet the Magnates. He continued, “His Majesty has acknowledged the change of government and states that this relieves the Imperial Foreign Office and armies from the need to coordinate with the Germans. More decisions may come when additional news arrives from Germany and the situation clarifies.”

  The end was in sight at last, István knew in his bones. The Habsburg Empire no longer had any duty to its former ally and could operate freely to look after its own interests and people. The war would end, and soon. Thank you, Holy Lord, and please have mercy on Your people.

  István’s prayer failed to reach the Lord’s ear, or perhaps the sins of the nations had not yet been expiated. So it appeared by late September. The land reforms failed to placate the MSP and Communists, although they did bring distress to a number of the Magnates, including the lowland branch of the Eszterházy family. The rumors about the Entente’s plans for the empire and Germany began to congeal into either ferocious triumph or solid, cold fear, depending on one’s political persuasion. And Cousin Imre’s nationalist blather proved all too true.

  István read the list of Entente demands placed on the empire and Germany, compared them to the latest word from Prague, Belgrade, Warsaw, and Moscow, and wondered what next. The French and British had already announced that they would base the reconstitution of Eastern Europe on Wilson’s nationalist prattle, although not in those exact words, of course. The Romanian Army had re-formed over the past two months, supplied by the Russians, and had begun massing on the borders of Transylvanian Hungary and Serbia, while the Romanian government made noises about freeing all Romanians-by-blood from the Magyar
yoke and reclaiming that which had been stripped from their noble Dacian and Roman ancestors by the Slavs and Turks. The Serbs disagreed with that claim, and against the Emperor’s orders had begun moving soldiers east.

  The Balkans made Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, and Galicia look like an island of calm in contrast. They only had street riots and plans for a special election, open to all native Czech-speaking men, to decide if they stayed in some form of Commonwealth or broke completely free of the Habsburgs and Hungarians. Galicia teetered on the brink of civil war, with only the real civil war to the east and the presence of the Habsburg army preventing another massive flight or fighting. Or both, since Russia wanted Galicia as part of the new Ukraine and had taken to calling on all true “workers and peasants of Ukraine” to rise up and join the world proletarian revolution, overthrowing their feudal tyrant masters, and so on. From what he heard and read, most Ruthenes within Galicia preferred not to join the civil war on either side, and seemed likely to vote to remain within a commonwealth, or to join the new country of Poland, or perhaps both. The Galician Poles inclined to unifying with the new Poland, except for the Jews.

  The chaos made István’s head ache. He looked at the rain running down the glass, blurring the buildings across the square, and wanted to run away, or for the falling water to wash the madness out of the air. Why should borders be set by language? Or worse, by supposed race, which made no sense given that the good Lord had only made four races, not four dozen. He wondered how those House members in the area claimed by the Bohemian nationalists as Czechoslovakia would vote. He couldn’t ask them, wouldn’t ask them, but he wondered. And how could these people set borders when citizens of the empire had been marrying and cross marrying for a thousand years and more? Would a strip of land between the countries be set aside for those of half-Moravian, half-Hungarian ancestry?

  All of which might pale into nothing in the face of the lingering hunger. The end of the war might bring home men and horses, but what about those who could no longer work the land? And no one could summon from the dead all the pigs and cows slaughtered to feed the armies. If the nationalists or Communists, or both, insisted on starting trouble, how many more people would starve or otherwise suffer? István looked at the window, then back at his papers. The hands resting on his desk had no flesh to spare, and he knew very well that he’d been well fed compared to most. If the agitators and Entente had any ounce of sense, they’d back down, let things return to the way they’d been in 1914, and leave everything alone until the world recovered.

  Someone knocked on the door. István looked up to see Jozef Meciar standing behind the clerk. “My lord Colonel, Mr. Meciar to see you.” The clerk ducked out of the way.

  “Thank you, send him in, please.” Meciar bowed a little and entered. “Please sit.”

  “Have you seen this, my lord Eszterházy?” Meciar held up what looked like a memorandum from the Foreign Ministry.

  “Not unless it came last week. The land reforms and legal shifts . . .” he swept his hand toward the stack of books and papers beside the desk.

  “No, my lord, this is new. It seems His Majesty’s government learned through our embassy in Spain that the Entente is serious about dismembering the empire, all empires. They have plans to cut apart the Ottoman lands, chunks of Russia-in-Asia, Germany, and us. All colonies will be stripped away as well, but,” he shrugged.

  “But unless you count the summer crowds in Trieste, we have no colonies,” István chuckled. The laughter hid his growing sense of disaster. It felt as if he were seeing the first threads of smoke in a dry summer day, after an electrical storm had licked the mountains with its fiery tongue. “Have they determined the borders yet, or mentioned how they intend to impose them?”

  “No, my lord, and through military force. They will send armies and observers to supervise the Allied nations, or so the ambassador inferred.” Meciar seemed to consider something before leaning forward. He lowered his voice, “My lord, I am not certain what to make of news I heard from Zürich, from the Congregationalist leaders. They are cancelling our annual meeting set for November because of fears of contagion. It may be from the illness in Germany, and they are very concerned, although exactly what disease they did not say, my lord, but asked for prayer.”

  István nodded. He’d heard a story about a very bad fever appearing in Spain and Germany and moving east. The two men looked at each other. Meciar represented an area north of Kassa and slightly west, bordering the House’s northern land, and that contained several mostly Bohemian towns. “Lord willing, the Entente will see reason before it reaches that point,” István said at last.

  “May the Lord so will it.” The fervent words could not bring István’s smile back. “I fear that the nationalists will attack the Communists, or the other way around, in order to take over the country before the French and British get here. Or to turn it into a little Russia.”

  István and Meciar both looked out the window, to the wet and empty square. A few people, who appeared as darker blobs against the bulk of the buildings facing the parliament, passed through the scene, but the rain covered all. “Thanks be to God the harvest is in,” István said at last.

  “Amen.”

  I’m leaving. I’m going back to Kassa, to my House and family. I can do no more here. After Meciar left, István collected his papers, locked some away, and took the most delicate with him. He needed to be north, tending to the House. He’d done all he could here in parliament. There were no more votes scheduled until after All Saints, and the city felt cramped and tense. People kept coming to the cities despite the lack of food and housing, crowding the streets to the boiling point. István felt more and more penned in, and wanted to lash out, to carve a space for himself. Better to leave than to risk losing control.

  And so it was that he picked up the newspaper in Kassa a week later and read the enormous black headline, “War in Budapest!! The City Burns!!” The Communists had launched their attack against the government. Shorter articles from the rural provinces told of peasant uprisings, with the traditional looting of manors and burning of records, and rumors swirled of similar goings on in Bohemia. He hid the paper from Barbara and prayed.

  István made himself pretend that nothing was wrong. Neither he nor the staff wanted to upset Barbara, who seemed to be having more trouble with this pregnancy than with her earlier confinements. As a result, he downplayed the events outside of Kassa. Kassa itself had a brief spasm of agitation that ended with a cold rainstorm and a group of students and Bohemian nationalists attacking the Communists and chasing them through the streets like the stupid dogs that they were. Jenö, who had come with István from Budapest, brought the tale with him when he escorted one of the kitchen girls to the market. “My lord, I don’t care for the coin kissers and blood suckers, but those red banner waving bastards are even worse.”

  “They want to create heaven on Earth, but sane people know that only the Lord has that much power.” Not that the nationalists are much better, but they aren’t killing people by the dozens like the Russian Communists are.

  “Ay, my lord. I don’t hold with killing priests just because they are priests.”

  István’s eyebrow rose. Then he decided he did not want to know more. “Indeed.”

  He needed to reach Mátyás, and to check on the House lands, so István left Kassa for Nagymatra. After confirming that all was well, and spending several days ensuring that the paper division of the holdings was not interfering with timbering and hunting, he began reaching through the House to Budapest, trying to contact Mátyás or Dobroslov or another of the House members staying at the town palace. He stopped himself after several minutes of straining, effort that left him gasping. “I can’t reach them,” he whispered.

  «My lord, perhaps they are too busy to respond.» Aunt Claudia raised a forefoot and gestured with one talon. «There are no strong telepaths among the staff, are there?»

  “No, except . . . no.” Mistress Nagy was in Iglo. And M
átyás had a very weak telepathic gift at best.

  «Then I would not assume the worst, my lord, not yet.» She lowered her forefoot. «If I might be so bold, I would return to Kassa, my lord. Trouble travels by rail and rumor wears seven league boots.»

  Since he’d been considering just such a thing, he decided to do exactly that. Instead of his hunting clothes, he put on his oldest suit and heavy coat, and ordered Szombor to wait and come after him. “I’ll send word. I am worried about what might be traveling on the wires as well as the rails.”

  “My lord Count Colonel, let me come with you. Two are stronger than one.”

  “No. Stay here until I send for you.” That ended the matter as far as István was concerned. He did not want to return to Kassa so soon, but he couldn’t leave his family and servants to face trouble without him. War and revolution would only lap around the mountains, not engulf them, unlike the cities along the railroad.

  The train stopped five kilometers outside of Kassa. “What’s going on?” A woman behind him demanded.

  “There is damage to the track, gracious Madame, and will be soon fixed,” the conductor assured her.

  “What sort of damage?” a man inquired.

  “I do not know, gentle sir, but I will inquire.” The efficient little man bustled past and István caught a glimpse of an odd, eager expression on his face. István went on alert. I do not like this at all, not one bit. What’s going on here? Trees and heavy woods lined the sides of the railroad track, and he began to feel nervous. I’m getting out and walking. Rank and station be damned, something felt terribly wrong.

  He wasn’t the only one to get out, and several other passengers carried bags and valises with them, probably as unwilling to let the contents out of their sight as he was. At least he wasn’t concerned with overseeing multiple servants, as he once would have been, or escaping a private train car. István walked into the woods to “stretch his legs,” along with a number of others, mostly men. Then he cut north, found a game trail going the direction he wanted, and followed it to a fence, then a track. He walked fast, striding as if he hadn’t a care in the world. The grey sky remained dry.