by Alma Boykin
He ate an uneventful, if plain and expensive, supper. Prices should be going down soon, once the Entente lifted the last of their damn blockade and all the men and animals returned to the farms. If the Entente pounded sense into Romania, or the Army did, that would also help. They’d been beaten soundly once already, but apparently the fools still clung to delusions of competence. István sneered, but in the privacy of his own mind. Szombor had a hot bath waiting when he returned, and István dismissed him to go get some supper. They’d be fasting tomorrow, along with everyone else in the city.
After he dressed the next morning, and once Szombor satisfied himself that István’s collar and tie would stay both present and presentable—to the valet’s demanding standards—the two men set out to Mariahilferstrasse. István did not care to join the crowds within the remains of the city wall. They wound through the area behind the university and the stable and barracks, reaching the wide thoroughfare just before nine. His Majesty would be entering the Schottenkirche, but István preferred the monastery church on Mariahilf. The airy, light Baroque interior soothed him, and he and Szombor genuflected deeply. Then, as they had agreed, Szombor departed to the Protestant church nearby. István wasn’t happy about his valet’s defection from the true faith, but he wasn’t going to punish him or release him, either. A priest led those present in a series of prayers for the country, whatever that might be, for the Habsburg family, and for peace, and offered a Mass of supplication and gratitude for the end of the war. The sound of bells flowed in through the open door at the back of the nave as every church in Vienna rang out the hopes of the people.
Mass ended, and István added a few personal devotions, then departed. Instead of leaving the district, though, he walked a block east, toward the inner city, and stopped to watch for the imperial cars. The large crowd gathering along the street made István uncomfortable, although most people seemed quiet and prayerful. A few sported red and white ribbons, the colors of the crown lands of Austria and Galicia. After several minutes watching the peaceful throng, István decided that he just did not enjoy being around large groups of people. He was a rural Magnate, after all. He stepped back a little, finding a clear space beside a large red postbox, and looked for Szombor. As he did, a muted cheer began, along with some hisses and catcalls, and people pointed up the street to a trio of motorcars. Those must be the imperial cars.
Before another thought could enter his mind, Pannonia surged, slamming into István’s shields, driving him into contact with it and the Matra. He staggered against the mailbox.
Bang! Rattattat.
The postbox saved István—the postbox and instinct. Pressure and distress rippled through both the Matra and Pannonia, and István dropped for cover, dignity be damned. As he did, something on the other side of the postbox exploded. He heard rapid gunfire over the ringing in his ears. Or was it just the sound of slow shots echoing? People screamed and fled to the side streets, leaving him almost alone beside the short metal pillar. He crouched behind the remains of the box as bits of smoking, shredded paper fluttered down. Horses screamed in front of him, their cries echoed by injured and terrified people. The crowd surged toward him again, then back, trying to get out of the way, thousands of individuals all seeking survival. István saw a gap and rushed forward, keeping low, ignoring the pain in his leg and back. He had to get to Their Majesties and Rudolph.
Boom-bang! Rattatttat!
“Kill the traitors! Kill the enemies of the People! Up with the workers’ revolution!” The man stood with his back to István, his machine pistol pointing up, into the air. István moved before he thought, using momentum and surprise. “Comrad— Urk!”
István pulled his hunting knife out of the man’s back, twisting the machine pistol away as the Communist fell. István kept moving, eyes on the cars with the imperial family in them. The lead vehicle accelerated, then spun, reversing direction and charging back past the imperial car and into the ambush. István caught a glimpse of Rudolph at the wheel. God save us all if he’s driving, István had time to think, before the heavy car rammed into the knot of red-clad assassins. István looked away from the carnage and continued to the imperial car.
A surge of power and Powers slammed into him. He felt Josef Karl staggering as he tried to give orders. Rudolph’s mind flared up, shoving itself between the Emperor and the wounded Power. Wounded? What? István shielded and kept running as best he could. But that motion drew attention, and he felt a sting in his leg. Probably a bullet, but he could still move, and he got to the imperial car’s running board.
“Majesty?” the driver was saying. “Your Majesty, what’s—”
“Move!” István roared, reaching in the open window and grabbing the man’s collar. “The way’s clear, move, move, move!”
“Who, what, but—”
“Damn it man, get them out of here or I’ll throw you out and do it myself.” He started to open the unlocked door and drag the grey-clad idiot out.
That seemed to do the trick, because the car shot forward, knocking István back onto his ass in the street. He rolled, ignoring the sudden numbness in his left leg, and came up on his left knee. The revolutionaries seemed to be trying to swarm Rudolph’s car. István sighted and fired at the pack, dropping first one, then another. Their comrades began looking for cover, or firing at random around them, adding to the mass confusion.
«Ground me!» Rudolph demanded. István dropped shields and grabbed at the Archduke’s mental hand. He felt Rudolph pouring everything he had into the shield between the Power and Josef Karl. The Matra sensed it as well, and House Szarkany, and István caught the energy they poured into him, somehow adding it to Rudolph’s efforts. «It’s Galicia. Something’s killing it. It’s backlashing into everything around. Attack from Ukrania, can’t—»
Oh shit. And it’s slamming Bohemia and the Matra as well as— István clenched his teeth as the streets of Vienna shifted to the black, green, and silver of the Powers. He could see Galicia writhing, throwing energy in all directions, as something poisonous stabbed into it from the east. The Power of the Matra staggered, and István held as steady as he could, acting as a lodestone and focus. He was on fire, burning as the energy coursed through and around him. He broke the link to Rudolph and concentrated on his own battle, trying to steady the Matra against Galicia’s wild flailing. He sensed Bohemia raising a shimmering curtain, deflecting more of the energy away, and Pannonia shifting, moving, gathering like a wild animal preparing to spring. István “looked” away, unwilling to know.
He came to his own body in a rush. “My lord? My lord are you hurt?” It was Szombor, God bless him.
“Yes, my leg and back. His Majesty?”
The valet looked past István, up Mariahilferstrasse. “Gone. Probably north of Praha the way his man was driving, my lord.”
Thanks be, holy Lord, blessed Lady, St. Leopold thank you. “Good.” He looked up, to the men in police uniforms and the white coats of St. John’s men clustered near Rudolph’s vehicle. “His Grace.”
“His Grace is a blood-thirsty, idiotic, stupid, incompetent, suicidal bastard who should never be permitted to drive anything faster than a stick horse,” a familiar voice from István’s past growled from behind Szombor. Duke Felix Starhemberg came around and knelt at István’s other side. “He slammed that damn car right into the main Red group, it looks like. And now they’re red in truth.” Felix sounded rather pleased with the mess in front of them. “Does he always go armed?”
“No. Although I suspect that when he failed to keep His Majesty from participating in the Mass, he decided to plan for the worst. He’s a bit,” István thought as Szombor and a St. Johns’ man bandaged his leg. “It’s not paranoid when people really do want to kill you, is it?”
“Not here and now, no.” Felix’s head turned left and right, as if he were searching for someone or something. “Ah, there he is.” He turned back to István. “So, István, how is the family?”
Good Old Felix. “They’
re fine, mostly. It’s been a difficult eighteen months.” He took a breath to answer more, but heard gunfire. “Cover.”
Felix and Szombor helped get him to his feet, and they started working their way to the protection of the church. Three men and a woman joined them. “My people,” Felix said, switching to Croatian as he gave orders, then back to German. “In here.” They started up the steps.
István felt a strange and abrupt stillness in the House and Power. “Up shields if you can,” he managed. Then backlash slammed into him once more as the House and Matra tried to absorb or deflect Galicia’s extinction. Not just Galicia, István realized with horror. Ukrania to the east also dissolved. The other Powers turned and grabbed what they could of the sudden energy release, and István felt something far to the west shifting a little. The pain and fire built, crested, and it took everything in his body to hold on, to keep silent, to shunt the energy away from the House, to protect his people. He felt Josef Karl, and a very faint trace of Rudolph, as well as other Power-linked House Heads and Guardians, trying to protect. Then, suddenly, there was an enormous flare from Josef Karl, and a shield formed with the Emperor at the core. The shield raced out around the edges of the empire’s borders, absorbing the last of the death cry, transmuting it into something safe, returning life to the land where it could.
“Blessed St. Leopold, can you feel that?” Starhemberg asked, voice harsh.
“Feel, see—taste almost,” István managed, throat aching and dry. “I wish I couldn’t. That’s not supposed to happen.” Especially since part of what the Emperor had done was to block the thing at Kutna Hora from any touch of the energies, while— István’s mind shied away from it all. I need a drink, a smoke, a few days at a spa, and to wake up and discover that it’s actually May 1914. He focused on the pain in his leg, and on trying to move his foot. It obeyed, so he shifted the knee. It too cooperated.
“My lord, how long ago was your initial injury,” a soft voiced man asked. Felix got out of the way, directing people to care for the injured and to assist the St. John’s men.
“December, early January, 1914, reinjured it in March of the next year.”
“Ah.” A familiar warmth touched István’s back. “The bone has shifted. I am moving it back into place, easing the pressure. My lord, I recommend strengthening the supporting muscles and doing stretching exercises as well.” Before István could protest, the Healer whispered, “The empire’s buffer needs your strength, my lord. And this is simple work.”
The empire’s buffer? Rudolph. István started to sag with relief, but caught himself before he moved too much. That meant that Rudolph was alive. István lowered his shields and reached through the House to the archduke.
«Rudolph?»
A faint, weary voice answered. «I think so.» The contact faded for a moment, just long enough for István to begin worrying again. «Yes, I’m here. Although if that ever happens again I’m going to resign my titles, move to Tunis, and spend the rest of my days basking in the sun and scandalizing the family.»
István smiled. «With all due respect to her Majesty, that won’t take much effort. How can I serve?»
«Catch.» And with that, István sensed a line of energy aimed at his head. He did catch it, fumbled, locked on, and realized that he was also in contact with the Emperor. «Just hold that and be István. Not permanent, but . . . tired . . . hurt . . .» The voice faded, but István could have sworn he heard Rudolph asking for his grandmother.
The shadows stretched across Mariahilferstrasse and well up the opposite buildings before István, Felix, and the others made it back to the Starhemberg palace within the walls. István accepted Felix’s hospitality and slept well into the next day, emerging from the guest room at eight. He smelled food.
Felix, mouth full, pointed to the giant black headline screaming on the front page of the Crown Herald. István looked at the image below and cringed. It showed a greying man attacking one of the would-be revolutionaries. “I never did look good at that angle, Your Grace.”
“No ‘Your Grace’ right now, István. Sit, before your valet attacks you. How’s the leg?”
“Sore. The bullet grazed the muscle, making a mess but not really damaging anything important.” István picked up the paper and read the headlines. He got through the editorials and shook his head. “Florian Horthy has no sense of timing. Neither does Andreas Lüger.”
“Oh, Lüger has a sense of timing, a well honed one,” Felix said. Cold fire danced in his eyes. “He made those statements five minutes before the attack on his Majesty.”
István’s jaw dropped, and his heart started racing. He wanted to kill the head of the Labour Party right then and there. “He knew.”
“If he didn’t, he knew that something major was going to occur. Perhaps not an attack on Their Majesties, but something.”
“Like München.” István crossed himself. “That’s the end of the Labour Party.”
A shrug met his words. “Of Lüger’s place as head, yes. Of the party? We’ll see. They are needed, and I suspect the Social Democrats may rebuild around them and domesticate them. And your eggs are getting cold.”
“Huh?” István looked around the paper and saw a plate with eggs and cold meat and sausages waiting for him. “Thank you.”
“Making good on your threat, your Grace?” István asked on a crisp, warm day in late September. The past months had worn heavily on him, and he’d accepted the Archduke’s invitation to visit with almost unseemly speed, timing it with his long-overdue pilgrimage to Mariazell.
Rudolph lay in a hammock, soaking up the sun on the deep porch of his hunting lodge in the Vienna Woods. The archduke’s fair coloring no longer looked like bleached linen, and he could walk unassisted. But he still tired easily and had yet to recover completely from the backlash, even after this long. He smiled a little, or at least his lips curved into a fair approximation of a smile. “Which one?”
“To resign and go bask in the Mediterranean sun while the rest of the family makes disapproving noises, Your Grace.”
Eyes closed, Rudolph smiled wider. “I should, you know. We’ve not had a good family scandal since that Italian count threw over Aunt Agatha. No, I take it back, it was the other way around. She had too much sense to let a creature like that deceive her.” A thoughtful pause stretched between the men before Rudolph added, “At least where money was concerned. If he’d been angling for her late husband’s cars, well, the ending would not have been as happy.”
Happy for whom, Your Grace? That was the most spectacular society murder in living memory, even if no one could figure out who killed the bastard. One should never irk a True-dragon. István sipped his sekt and watched the breeze fluttering the leaves.
“Thank you.”
“For what, Your Grace?”
Rudolph worked his way out of the hammock and onto his feet, waving for his guest to remain seated. “For stepping in. For helping save the empire, excuse me, Commonwealth. For saving my cousin’s life when his idiot driver panicked as his Majesty was trying to deal with Ga—” Rudolph shuddered, unable to finish. “With the second problem.”
“Your Grace, pardon the familiarity, and I apologize if I am out of line, but would it be better for your family to stay with horses and airplanes as means of travel?”
Rudolph, car-mad Rudolph, gave István a look of disdain and disbelief. “And not support the Emp— bah, Commonwealth’s valuable industries?” He accepted a drink from the footman. “Thank you. You may go.” He sipped before finishing, “It is not the motor vehicle that caused the problem. Not this time, at least.”
“No, Your Grace, it was not.” He considered if he wanted to ask his next question. Not really, but he needed to. “Has anyone determined if the two incidents were connected by ought save coincidence, Your Grace?”
Rudolph finished his drink and made himself a second, stronger version. “It appears not. Humans and others seem to have been acting in parallel, but not with each other. His Maj
esty is not certain if that is good or not. I think it is, because the other alternative scares me spitless.” He set the glass down as István decided that he, too, would take it as a good thing.
Rudolph paced up and down the verandah before sitting in a chair on the other side of the drinks table. He stared out at the trees. “The second problem.”
“Your Grace?”
Thin fingers began drumming the chair arm, and Rudolph shifted as István watched. Not physically, no, but he took on a different air and aspect. “Ukrania exists no more. A void remains unfilled and shall so remain.”
I . . . that’s . . . but why? What happened between the Powers? A terrible thought rose, and István felt for Barbara’s rosary bracelet in his pocket. What if it had not been instigated by one of the Powers? He recalled how Galicia had turned in on itself during the first months of the war. Had Ukrania sensed the weakness and attacked? No, that did not quite fit what he’d felt. It was more as if Galicia had been dying and Ukrania attacked despite that fact, not because of it, as if the easterly Power had been driven mad by something else. He wanted to ask the Matra but didn’t want to catch the attention of Pannonia—or Bohemia for that matter, or Austria, given the debacle unfolding to the south. The Italians couldn’t even manage a civil war without turning it into a farce, albeit a deadly one. “I see, Your Grace.”
“Do you?” Rudolph’s head turned and the black-pupiled, dried-blood eyes stared through István. They narrowed as the Powers measured and weighed István, the way a hawk studied a mouse. Then the gaze turned away. “The land is fed, but nothing sweet will grow from it, not for two or more of your generations, not until the corruption clears. Blood will serve.”
István closed his eyes and hung his head. Please Lord may we be spared that, dear sweet God, blessed Lady Queen of Mercy spare your children, please. Pannonia would know. How often had it fed on— His mind shied away. He felt the Matra stirring uneasily, and he strengthened his shields in response.