Coronets and Steel

by Sherwood Smith

  “My usual battery of cosmetics?” I repeated. “I’ve never worn makeup, except for dance recitals. You keep doing that. I would like to know who the hell you think I am.”

  “And I would like to know if it’s money, fear, or perversity that inspired you to run this game on us. Or is your brother behind it, as I’ve suspected all along?”

  “First tell me who my brother is supposed to be, and I’ll tell you if I’ve ever met him,” I retorted. “Seems to me you’re the one running games, all this yap about brothers and makeup. Take the clue bus, Gus! I. Am. Kim. Murray.”

  “Aurelia—” he began.

  “All right, Aurelia Kim Murray. How did you know that, anyway? I never use it.”

  His face tightened, even more skeptical. “You’re enjoying this charade, damn you; do you know what it’s done to my father, to your parents?”

  “My parents,” I stated, revving up for battle, “are happily at home, waiting for my latest postcard to hear about my wonderful trip to Europe, and they will be furious when they hear what happened to me, and by the way, what did you put in the tea? Is this supposed to be round two?”

  A ridge of color touched his refined cheekbones, but he pressed his lips tight, as if holding in his own nuclear-powered comeback.

  I went on with exaggerated patience, “I’m beginning to think it’s a waste of time, and what I should contact is not an embassy but the guys with the straitjackets. Look. For the millionth time I am Kim Murray, born and bred in Santa Monica, California—”

  “Yes, so it states in that fascinating pile of fiction I found in your valise. What I want to know is where you managed to obtain such a realistic passp—”

  “You did thieve my stuff! You thieved it, and you nosed through it!”

  His mouth twisted. “And most interesting I found it.”

  “You rat bastard!” I exploded out of my chair, fist aimed straight for that scornful face.

  He flung up a hand and caught my wrist.

  For those two glorious seconds I’d forgotten my hurt ankle, until it promptly collapsed under me. But for Alec holding my arm I would have fallen into his lap. His grip kept me upright but the jolt caused the towel turban rocking unsteadily on my head to tumble off, and my hair rolled down over my shoulders and across his chair.

  The effect on Alec was so odd my rage shifted into overwhelming confusion. I stared down at his face, which had changed from sardonic disbelief to astonishment and then blankness. Devoid of any expression whatever.

  So there we were for a long moment, me leaning on the chair, him sitting in it, my wet hair draped in limp wet waves over us both as his eyes traveled slowly up the hair to my face, and then to the clean pink part on my scalp.

  He released my wrist, pinched his fingers to his brow, and rubbed his eyes slowly. His expression was the remote one I’d first seen at the ballet.

  And when he spoke, the scorn and disbelief were utterly gone.

  “What was your mother’s maiden name?” he asked.

  EIGHT

  “ATELIER,” I SAID NUMBLY.

  He watched in silence as I sank back into my chair, pulled the comb out of the dressing gown pocket, and began to comb out the tangles. His eyes followed the movement of my hand with the comb, his expression still blank. Finally he said, “Where was she born, and when?”

  “During the war. We’re pretty sure in Paris, but it might have been Vienna. That’s one of the things I was there to find out.”

  “Your maternal grandparents’ names?”

  “Aurelia and Daniel Atelier. Are you going to tell me why you ask?”

  “Yes,” he said, his gaze flicking from my face to my hand to my face again. “Go on, please.”

  “There isn’t much more.” I shrugged. “Mom thinks she has an early memory of a flat in Paris that had a lot of flowers, though she’s not certain. Her first real memory is aboard the ship coming over to the States, probably when Gran was widowed. All she knows about my grandfather is that he was sent to fight against the Russians.”

  “Does your mother remember him?” he asked quietly.

  I frowned in concentration. “Maybe. She doesn’t know if it was real or a memory she made up from looking at his picture, which always sat on Gran’s bedside table. Said he was tall. Thin. Laughed a lot. Smelled like tobacco, which would be a real memory, wouldn’t it? Gran never smoked.”

  I hesitated, sure I was being boring, but Alec listened intently. So I went on. “I have a copy of the picture in my suitcase . . . which is out in a field somewhere, argh, argh, argh. Anyway, she also has a picture of my mother when she was a toddler, but I didn’t bring a copy of that, as I didn’t think it would lead anywhere. Mom’s wearing this amazing antique-looking baby dress, all lace and pearls, that I guess had been Gran’s. Mom thinks they sold the dress during the war.” I shrugged, but he was listening closely.

  “Your grandmother and mother came across to the States when?”

  “In forty-five, right after the war ended.”

  “Were they alone? How did your grandmother survive once they arrived?”

  “They were alone, and Gran first was a governess, teaching French and deportment and the like to some rich girl. When that family came to Los Angeles, she quit and taught piano for years and years.”

  Alec let out a low whistle, his eyes narrowed. “Easier to believe—no.” He shook his head, rubbed his eyes again. He muttered something short and pungent in that Slavic language I’d heard a few times, then his hand dropped. “I haven’t slept in four days. I can’t think.”

  He gave me that real smile again, but this time between it and any sense of aesthetic appreciation lay the matter of a superlatively rotten twenty-four hours. “I knew that powder was a stupid idea, but I didn’t know how stupid until this morning. This afternoon. Now.” His hand passed over his face, fingers briefly pressing his eyelids. “I beg your pardon. For everything, beginning with that damned dosed wine.”

  I stared stonily back at him. “Not that it makes it okay, because it doesn’t, but you had a reason?”

  He leaned his head back against his chair and said, “Aurelia von Mecklundburg is probably capable of imitating an American accent, and she could have bought a forged passport, the California clothes, and all the rest, but the one thing she could not have done is grow her hair a meter and a half in less than six months.”

  “Aurelia von Mecklundburg?” I repeated, totally confused.

  He nodded, his blue gaze appraising. “You are her size, and shape, you have the same complexion, and you’ve got the same eyes the color of honey. You’ve even got the same single dimple in your left cheek when you laugh and the same mole on the nape of your neck. You could be her twin. You could be her!” And, as I stared in disbelief, he went on with some of the old irony, “I wondered what had inspired her to whack three years off her age in the passport, yet dress like—well, like a student from California. But Aurelia—or Ruli, as she likes to be called now. Still trying to get used to it. She’s what the French call BCBG.”

  Bon chic bon genre—not merely the height of fashion, but always perfectly put together. I nodded, for neither observation would fit me. “Well, I must confess my style in haute couture could best be summed up by ‘LA laid-back.’” I laughed. “Meanwhile, is craziness contagious?”

  “So you’ve never heard of Aurelia von Mecklundburg?”

  “Never.”

  “Armandros Danilov von Mecklundburg?”

  “Nope.”

  “Marius Ysvorod?”

  A shake of my head. “Wow, when they were first graders, did it take half a week to write their names?”

  “How about—” His tone softened, more tentative. “—Maria Karoline Sofia Aurelia Dsaret?”

  “Nada. Except the name Aurelia, of course. Must be a more widely used name than I’d thought.”

  “Particularly in Dobrenica. Heard of it?”

  I rubbed my forehead, trying to call up an image of the age-battered Eur
opean map tacked to the wall above my desk. “I think, um, ah I might have heard of it. Only there was something funny about it, but I don’t remember what. It would be one of those little Eastern European burgs swallowed up by the Germans during the war, and the Soviets after, right? Somewhere in the Carpathians?”

  “Somewhere in the Carpathians,” he repeated, smiling.

  Then I remembered the train, and I said slowly, “You weren’t taking me there, were you?” And at his nod, the comb dropped out of my numb fingers. “What?” I moaned. “Nothing makes any sense at all.”

  He glanced down at his watch. It was a thin, discreet type that cost a year of my parents’ salaries. “We’ve a few minutes till eight. Why don’t you drink your tea. I could use some myself.”

  He leaned down, poured a cup of the now lukewarm tea, and drank it straight down.

  I picked up my own cup and gratefully sipped.

  He put the cup down and said, “I’ll give you the rest of it over dinner. No interruptions. Right now I’d better see to some things.” He held up his cell and left.

  I reached for the tea, then heard clatters and thuds lumbering up the steep stairway. Madam and her helpers toiled in, bearing heavy trays of food. They set places for two; Alec reappeared as they finished. No sign of Mr. Big.

  Alec sat down, politely said, “Bon appétit,” and I devoted myself, with the dedication inspired by nearly twenty-four hours of enforced abstinence, to a splendid dinner. Slovene-style veal stew with corn dumplings, sharply spiced, and savory chicken Djuvec, Sarma in cabbage leaves . . . My mouth waters today when I think about how good that meal was.

  The atmosphere had altered from anger to truce. For a while neither of us spoke, except about easy things—the food, the rain. At last I sat back, toying with the last few bites of the layered apple gibanic. He was already finished.

  One of Madam’s waiters brought fresh coffee, steaming tea, and a small golden bottle of cognac. He set these down on the low table, carted away the dishes, then he left.

  Alec passed me a cup of tea then poured himself some coffee and laced it liberally with the cognac.

  I settled back, curling up my feet, and cradled my cup in my hands. “Well, that was a great meal,” I said. “But. I’m not ready to be grateful. Good as it was I’d rather not have to whet my appetite with a hundred-mile hike.”

  “A hundred-mile hike,” he repeated. “I thought it was typically perverse of you—being, as I thought, Aurelia—to have learned courage at this late date. Imagine poor Emilio’s shock on entering that train compartment with a peace offering of tea to find you gone and the window open—”

  “Hah!” I gloated. “So what is this Aurelia von Whatever’s terrible crime?”

  “She disappeared without word or trace about a month ago. A couple of months before she and I were to be married.”

  “Married? You?” I snorted, almost slopping my tea, and as he signified assent I could not resist adding, “Well of course she’d take off! Who wouldn’t?”

  Humor creased the corners of his eyes. My cracks had no power to provoke, now that I wasn’t his Aurelia.

  I sighed. “So the next question is, why are you chasing after somebody who has obviously changed her mind?”

  “Because it’s not so obvious.”

  “What? If your courting manners are much like what I saw today . . .”

  He made a quick, impatient gesture. “You do not understand the situation. She may not have changed her mind. I think it’s been changed for her. If it has been changed. When we spoke in March she was willing enough to get on with it—” He set his coffee down, got up, and moved to the window. He glanced over his shoulder and added, “—though no more enthusiastic than I was.” He flashed that sudden smile again. “The motivation for this event, I feel constrained to add, is mostly political.”

  “Political?” I squawked. “Politics? Political marriages these days? That’s stupid.”

  “But politics are always stupid,” he retorted promptly.

  “He shoots, he scores!” I gave him a double-finger point-and-shoot. “Okay. So we know I’m not involved in whatever mess you’ve got going. I guess you could say it’s none of my business. But I’m curious, and—” I patted his dressing gown significantly “—not going anywhere, and since you’re the reason why I’m not going anywhere, I think you owe me an explanation.”

  “I do owe you an explanation,” he agreed, as outside rain began tapping gently at the window again, and far away lightning flickered. “You said you know little about Dobrenica.”

  “An isolated country like the Falklands and Granada and Kuwait that you never hear about until the superpowers steamroller them in their own pursuits, except this one doesn’t always show up on old maps. I’ve always assumed that that was because of the way kingdoms swapped borders and allegiances back in the bad old empire days.”

  “Yes,” he said—somewhat ambiguously.

  At the time, I didn’t notice, but plowed right on, eager to show off my two cents’ worth of knowledge. “Apparently they speak a weird combination of ancient Latin and Slavic that drives the purists nuts when they try to isolate origins. The USSR controlled it, right?”

  “Yes. Until relatively recently, too. To sketch in the background, Russia is the ancient enemy, persistent enough through medieval times that Dobrenica became part of the Hapsburg Empire somewhere in the fifteenth century. For one reason or another—” He hesitated, then went on. “The empire’s control was nominal. As a kingdom protected by the Hapsburgs we existed in relative peace until the empire and its world crumbled after World War One. There succeeded a number of desperate years—”

  “Like the rest of Europe.”

  “Yes. Germany overran Dobrenica early in the war. The Dobreni conducted a constant losing guerrilla war, using long outdated weapons. And at the end of the war Stalin rolled over us from the east.” He lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug, but anger tightened his lips. “Those leaders who could left the country to make plans for regaining independence. We were prevented from gaining freedom as much by internal conflict as by being overrun by the Soviets.”

  “But now you’re free, right?”

  “Yes. Mostly. There are some dodgy treaties, but leave that aside. To Aurelia. Two families have been traditionally involved in Dobrenica’s affairs—”

  “You mean, like, ruling families?”

  “Yes. There are five ‘ruling’ families, with numerous cadet branches, but since the treaty with the Hapsburgs two families, the Dsarets and the Ysvorods, have been predominant—with the von Mecklundburgs their equal in ambition and influence. The former two traditionally passed the crown back and forth until the early twentieth century when the Dsarets ruled.”

  “So Aurelia is a—a lost princess?” I had to laugh at the unlikelihood of such a thing existing in a world dominated by fast food and reality TV.

  “No. But she is descended from an important ducal family, which is why the marriage was proposed. An attempt to unify the two families. And factions.”

  “Wait a minute. What’s your last name?”

  “Ysvorod.”

  “So the title went from the Dsarets, to—your father?”

  “Yes. That is, he was never formally crowned, but he didn’t lay down the title. Since the war and occupation he’s been king-in-exile.”

  “So.” I tried not to laugh. “That makes you a crown prince?”

  He smiled as he leaned on the back of his chair, the signet ring glinting cool blue. “Is that so astonishing? Or did you expect golden spikes to protrude from my skull like antlers?”

  “You have to admit crown princes are a dying breed,” I said. “Particularly in the States.”

  “Oh?” he replied. “I thought that’s where a lot of them ended up after the revolutions at home.”

  “Only if they didn’t keep the royal treasury. I think the rich ones all go to Paris. Or buy islands. So you and Aurelia are the high-born scions of two venerable houses.
But how’s the Romeo and Juliet stuff relate to politics? I mean, does it matter to anyone outside your social circle which heir marries which heir?”

  He gave me his ironic smile. “Step down for a moment from the democratic high ground and consider the nature of power and of the reasons why men follow other men, even to their deaths—”

  “Or women. Okay, go on. Though, as far as ruling families are concerned I feel like thrusting a caveat in here, from your own Lord Acton. Uh, yours as in where you were raised, not born—”

  “Superficially correct but fundamentally unsound,” he said. “Even with the oft-forgotten modifier tends to. Power is not the equivalent of corruption. You can find enough examples of rulers who had unlimited power and who ruled with a steady hand. Charles the Fifth comes to mind. The type of man, ah, person, if you will—”

  “I will.”

  He flicked his fingers up in the fencer’s hit. “And you are right, even if the roads to power used to be different for women than for men. Anyway, the type of person who usually seeks power is corrupt from the start, or at least carries the seeds of corruption among his motivations, if not in stated intentions.”

  “We definitely see that at home,” I said. “No royal families, but there sure are powerful ones. Go on.”

  “I am not arguing that birth selects for the best rulers. I don’t believe there is any foolproof system. Human nature is too wild a variable.”

  “With you so far. So . . . back to your princess.”

  “We are in many respects back in the nineteenth century in Dobrenica. Earlier, even. For good and not so good reasons. The people still have faith in their rulers and the rulers are still trained for their positions from birth. This being the case, the leading families serve more strongly than ever as the symbols of freedom, of independence. I will not go into the background alliances and personalities, but suffice it to say the marriage would be the equivalent of a truce between two factions, a badly needed truce. We were splintered during and after the Second World War by more than Hitler and the Russians.”