“And if she falls?” Nick asked, trying to understand the deeper meaning of what he said and what motivated them. They were gladiators in a way, prepared to ride into battle and face their death every day. But they weren’t staring death in the face, Christianna was. And he didn’t want her to do it anymore. He loved her too much to lose her to the high wire.
“She won’t,” her father said with confidence. “She’s too good at it. Much better than her mother was. She won’t fall. And every day she learns that she can do something difficult, something that may frighten her, and she conquers it again and again. It will make her strong.” It could also make her dead, Nick knew, but he couldn’t convince them of that. They were warriors who were letting a tiny, graceful girl fight their battles for them, at her expense. He hated it, but he didn’t want to say too much the first time they met. It was obvious how he felt about it. “You could break your neck falling from a horse. It doesn’t stop you. You know what you’re doing. So does she.” He had a point, and Nick could see he wouldn’t win the argument, at least not tonight. “It’s hard for other people to understand.”
“Maybe we’re all very brave and foolish,” Nick said philosophically, but he and Christianna were taking all the risks, they weren’t. Her father had, and her aunt and mother, but her brothers were nothing more than observers on the ground who ran along next to the princess when she came back down to earth. It was the princess who fought the dragons every day, fearlessly. And she did it because they expected her to, and so as not to let them down. As far as Christianna and her family were concerned, it was her heritage and her duty.
Her youngest brother poured a third round of shots, which this time Nick refused, and their wives put dinner on the table, and a moment later they all sat down, crowded into the trailer, holding plates heaped with food, and Christianna sat down next to Nick, in the only empty seat, which she didn’t realize her brothers had left free for her. It was their way of saying they approved of him. He wasn’t one of them, but they respected his honesty and clear, simple way of expressing what he thought and who he was. Her father talked to him at length over dinner, and afterward they cleared the dishes and invited Nick to play poker with them. He was happy to oblige, as it was a game he loved, too, and played well. They beat him, but not without a fight, and all the men pounded each other’s backs and embraced when he left. Her brothers were fairly drunk, but Nick and her father weren’t, and their eyes met as Nick was leaving. The women had gone to bed long before, and Christianna had played a quieter card game with the boys. Lucas was winning, and squealing with delight.
“Thank you for having dinner with us,” Sandor said diplomatically. It was his way of saying he approved, without uttering the words.
“Thank you for having us. It was delicious.” Nick smiled at the man in the chair, who was looking at him with curiosity and new respect.
“You’re an honest man. I like that. And don’t worry about Christianna. She won’t fall,” he said again. He could see now that Nick cared about her, although he didn’t know to what extent or for how long. And he didn’t want his daughter getting hurt or having her heart broken, going after a man who was from another world, which her father understood too well Nick was. And if he went back to Germany, he would never take her with him, back to his old life. She would never be accepted there, nor fit in.
“I hope not,” Nick said quietly, referring to his assurance that Christianna wouldn’t fall. It would be an unthinkable loss to him if she did, but he didn’t say that to her father. He didn’t have to. It was in his eyes. “I hope you’re right.”
“Just don’t let her fall off one of your horses,” her father warned him, and was only half-joking.
“I would shoot the horse myself if she did,” he said with feeling. He was deeply in love with her, and he wanted to protect her from all harm.
“Come to visit us again.” Sandor Markovich meant it, and smiled as he and Nick shook hands, and Christianna watched from where she sat.
“Thank you. We will. I would invite you to our trailer, but I’d have to buy hot dogs from the mess tent. I’m a miserable cook,” Nick said humbly, and the man in the wheelchair laughed.
“We’ll take you to a Polish restaurant,” he promised. “They have very good food, better than what my daughters-in-law cooked tonight. We go there a lot during the break.” It sounded like fun to Nick. He rounded up his sons then and told them it was time to leave. They picked up their jackets, and Christianna walked them out into the cool air of the Sarasota night. It had been raining, and finally stopped, and the air was fresh. They could see stars in the sky.
“They liked you,” she said softly, so no one else could hear, and the boys were a few steps away, talking to each other and not paying attention to them.
“They just liked beating me at poker.” He had lost ten dollars, which was a lot to him, but he was willing to sacrifice it in the interest of better family relations between their two camps. He thought the evening had gone well too. And he liked them, although he hated their attitude about her, and how cavalier they were about the dangers to her, as though they were satisfied to leave her well-being in the hands of fate, and not protect her.
“No, they really liked you, and so did my father. You were very nice to them.” She thanked him with her eyes.
“They were nice to me too.” They were rough around the edges, but he could see their merits, and they came from a different culture than he did, and lived by the mores and traditions of the circus, but he respected it. He just didn’t want it hurting her. “See you tomorrow,” he said, wishing he could kiss her, but he didn’t dare, in plain sight of her family and his boys. He still wanted to protect what they shared, although they had been together now for many months. They had taken an important step that night, with her father and brothers, and he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize it now. He had proven to them, or tried to, that he was an honorable man worthy of their daughter and sister, and hopefully in time, they would respect what he and Christianna felt for each other. And in the meantime, he had held his own among the men. That was important in their culture, and he knew it was to Christianna as well. He wasn’t the elitist that they had believed he was. He kept no secrets from them, about why he’d come there, or how long he planned to stay. In truth, he didn’t know his plans. They all lived in an uncertain world. But he had shown them that he was an honest man, and could be one of them, and fought his battles bravely too. It was enough for now.
“I love you,” she whispered to Nick before he left, out of earshot of the boys.
“I love you too,” he mouthed back, and then he walked to his trailer with his boys.
“They were nice,” Toby commented, surprised that the evening had been as pleasant as it was, and the food had been good.
“I beat Christianna at cards,” Lucas chortled, and his father laughed.
“Well, that’s a good thing. I hope you made some money at it, because her brothers beat me at poker. They’re a tough bunch.”
“I like her, Papa,” Lucas said quietly with a yawn as they got home.
“So do I,” Nick confessed just as quietly, and Toby smiled at him. He had already figured that out for himself, months before. “Now go to bed,” Nick said, not ready to admit more than that to his sons. And five minutes later, their teeth were brushed, they had on their pajamas, and they were in bed. He went in to kiss them in bed and could hardly get around it, their bedroom was so small. And then he went and sat in the trailer’s living room, thinking about the evening, and the family Christianna had grown up in.
He had said the truth, they were a tough bunch, but a lot of people in the circus were. They played by their own rules, and they respected the hierarchy established by what they did. And in circus life, they were nobility, just as he was in his own world. The Princess and the Count, he thought to himself, as he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, thinking about her. In his mind’s eye, he always saw her now standing on Athena�
��s back, as they performed their act together, with him on Pegasus. He never thought of her on the high wire anymore, only as the magical elf who rode the Lipizzaners with him. And in his mind, they always rode around the ring together on the two spectacular white horses, holding hands. It was the only image he wanted of her. She was the woman of his dreams.
Chapter 14
At the end of November, while Americans celebrated Thanksgiving, things continued to get worse in Europe. Polish Jews were forced to wear a yellow star of David on their chests, or an armband, to identify them to others. Five days later, the first Polish ghetto was established.
In Germany, rationing had been introduced when war was declared, but only to a mild degree. Hitler didn’t want Germans severely deprived, and to affect morale negatively, so despite ration cards, the changes were not too extreme. There was enough food and clothing, although shortages of fuel. And Jews were allotted lower food rations, in keeping with Hitler’s views about them.
Young men were drafted when war was declared, and men in uniform were everywhere, even in the sleepy Bavarian countryside where Alex and his daughter lived. And although they had enough food, it was almost impossible to heat the schloss now with the fuel available to them. They constantly built wood fires in the fireplaces, but the schloss was large and drafty and Marianne was cold all the time. She had stopped attending classes, and spent her time at home, running the household for her father, and rolling bandages for hospitals to be used for the injured men.
All Alex’s grooms and stable boys were gone, drafted into the army, and he and Marianne were caring for the horses themselves, with the help of young boys from their farms, who were still underage to be drafted. It was a full-time job tending to the horses now, and Alex had been warned that the Wehrmacht might commandeer them, since they were so fine. Civilians no longer needed horses of that caliber, he’d been told, when two officers of the cavalry came to visit him, and examined his stables. They were a country at war.
The meals Marta served them were still healthy. She used their rationing cards with “marken” on them to obtain the food they needed, even if in slightly lesser quantity. But she managed to prepare the same excellent meals. The only things noticeably missing were coffee, oranges, bananas, and chocolate. But they had enough meat, eggs, and produce. The rationing cards were used in restaurants too.
Alex was just grateful that he had no sons to send to war and could keep Marianne with him. He was relieved for Nick now that he had escaped with his boys before war broke out in Europe. Alex hated Hitler and everything he stood for with a passion, and he knew that Nick’s father felt no differently, after what had happened to them. The revelation about Nick’s mother had left Paul alone and lonely in the manor house on his estate, hungry for every letter Nick sent them.
Alex went to see Paul almost every day, and he had watched him age radically in the year since Nick had left. He was a different person, angry, bitter, disgusted by everything he saw happening around him. He went for days without speaking to anyone, unless Alex came to visit. He had no desire to go anywhere, and was losing interest in running his own estate. There were no young men to help him, and if Nick and his sons could not inherit the property, it began to lose all meaning to Paul.
Alex didn’t like what was happening any better than he did, but he was younger and could still envision a world and a life after the war, where Hitler would hopefully no longer exist. Paul could only imagine the total destruction of his homeland, and had lost hope of ever seeing his son or grandsons again. The days were long and the nights longer, as Hitler continued to devour the smaller countries of Europe, which were defenseless against him. And Alex noticed just before Christmas that Nick’s father had developed a nasty cough. He had been sick several times in the last year, which weakened him, although he wasn’t very old, but he didn’t look well. Alex had invited Paul to spend Christmas Eve with them, but by then Paul had a fever and couldn’t come. Alex rode over to see him instead before having dinner with Marianne. And when he got to the von Bingen schloss, he found Paul delirious from the fever and asked his housekeeper to send for the doctor, and she promised she would.
“Is he very sick, Papa?” Marianne asked him with worried eyes, and her father nodded, as they dined on chicken that night, with an excellent sauce Marta had made, and potatoes. It was a very good meal that showed no evidence of rationing, although Marta had used their cards with marken to buy the food.
To some extent, Alex was considered untouchable in the area because of who he was, but he was also expected to do everything possible to support the efforts of the Third Reich, materially and in attitude, to set an example in the community. And Marianne looked tired and pale. She was working hard in the stables, to take care of the horses with him. She was doing men’s work and freezing in their house at night. The hardships of war had come quickly, and Alex was worried about her, and keeping her in a country at war. He almost wished that she was in America with Nick and the boys. At least they were safe there, and America had no intention of entering the war. Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured everyone of that, so the Allies had to defend themselves in Europe, with no hope of help or rescue from abroad. It was a frightening situation, the importance of which was not lost on Alex, although he didn’t discuss it with Marianne.
Toby’s tales of life in the circus seemed even more surreal to her now, compared to what they were living in Germany. What he was doing sounded so interesting, riding the Lipizzaners with his father, and traveling all around the country, while Lucas played with the clowns, and rode an elephant in the finale. Nothing in her experience now or ever bore any resemblance to her friend’s life, particularly while Germany was at war and they were living with the stress and worry of that at home. In addition, it was a freezing cold winter, by contrast. Toby said it was warm in Florida. They were back in the winter quarters at Sarasota, where he was going to school and enjoying his friends. She felt a hundred years old whenever she read his letters, and she couldn’t tell him just how depressing it was in Germany, or censors would black out her letters or destroy them, so she had to say that all was well and they were fine, which wasn’t true at all.
“Yes, I think he’s very sick,” Alex told her honestly, about Nick’s father. Worse, he had the strong feeling that Paul had lost his will to live. He hated what had happened in his homeland, he had been deprived of his family, and the war was liable to last for a long time, too long for Paul. He had lost a considerable amount of weight in the past few months, and was malnourished, never wanting to eat alone. Alex feared he was too old and frail now, and mostly disheartened, to survive long years of war.
“I hope he’ll be better soon,” Marianne said quietly as they finished dinner, and when she saw her father leaving to visit him again later, she asked if she could come. He hesitated, not wanting to take her out in the cold so she didn’t get sick herself, but when she begged him, he finally relented. They rode over together on horseback, so as not to waste gas for their car, which was harder to come by now.
They tied up their horses outside the manor house, after riding past the darkened schloss. There were never any lights on there at night, since no one lived there. Paul’s housekeeper Ursula came from one of the farms where she had spent her entire life, and the rest of the time, Paul was alone. Ursula was still there that night, looking concerned. The doctor had just been there, and had said he would come back in the morning. He had few medicines to give him, as medical supplies went to the army to be used for soldiers, and were in shorter supply. But Paul said he didn’t want medicine anyway, and insisted he was fine.
Alex went into Paul’s bedroom alone, and left Marianne with Ursula in the kitchen, where they drank hot water to stay warm. The manor house was almost as cold as the Hemmerle schloss.
When Paul opened his eyes, when he heard him, Alex didn’t like what he saw. Paul’s eyes looked glazed, and his cheeks were flushed and blazing. He looked tired and wanted to go back to sleep.
> “How do you feel?” Alex asked him as he pulled up a chair next to the bed and sat down, and gently stroked the old man’s hand. It was thin and veined and covered with spots Alex had never seen there before. Until Nick left, Alex had never thought of him as old. He had never seemed it, but he did now.
“Tired,” Paul said in a whisper, and then was seized by a racking cough. Alex waited until it subsided, and gave him a sip of water, before speaking to him again.
“You have to get better. Nick won’t like this. He’s counting on you to keep running everything here until he gets back.”
“I’ll be dead by then,” Paul said simply, as though he had made peace with it himself.
“No, you won’t. Nick will blame me if that happens.” Alex smiled at the man who had been like a father to him since he had lost his own at an early age. Paul had frequently advised him on how to run his estate, and taught him everything he knew, although he had been unable to teach his own son. But Alex had inherited all his lands when he was young. Nick had been able to rely on his father.
“It will be a long war,” Paul said quietly after he caught his breath again. “The British will fight hard, and hopefully so will the French. And others. They won’t let that little monster take over Europe. Who knows? The Americans might come into it one day. But it won’t be over soon. He won’t give up until they destroy him, and by God, I hope they do, before he destroys all of us and everything this country stands for. I’m too old to watch them wage this battle. I’m tired.” He turned to Alex with eyes so sad it nearly tore Alex’s heart out. He could sense the man dying right before his eyes, and had no idea how to stop it. Nick’s father had lost his will to live. “I miss my son. When I die, tell him how much I love him. This will all be waiting for him when it’s over. I want him and the boys to come back then. Everything is his. They can’t prevent him from claiming his inheritance forever, especially once that monster is gone.”
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