Bride to the King (10 page)

Zosina thought that, while this was true, she was not the companion he needed.

At the State Banquet she was dismayed to find that because the King was the host and she and her grandmother were the guests of honour, they were once again seated on his right and left.

As the dinner began, Zosina was at first so fascinated with looking at the beauty of the scene that she could think of nothing else.

Again a profusion of exotic flowers decorated all the tables, which were also laden with magnificent ornaments of gold and silver.

Enormous crystal chandeliers which held hundreds of lighted candles sparkled overhead.

There were too, Zosina noticed, as a concession to progress a number of gas-globes in the room, which she was sure was the regular way of lighting the enormous Banqueting Hall except on very special occasions.

Tonight the candlelight was very becoming and she thought that the ladies of Dórsia had a beauty which certainly exceeded those of her own country.

The men too were extremely handsome, tall and broad-shouldered with clean-cut features like the Regent.

He was seated on her left and, as if he read her thoughts, he asked, as she stared round her,

“Do we pass muster?”

She turned to smile at him and he saw her eyes were shining with excitement.

“It is all so beautiful!” she exclaimed, “and I was thinking that the people of Dórsia are beautiful too.”

“You are very flattering,” he replied, “and I am sure that the Queen Mother would claim it is due to the preponderance of Hungarian blood in our veins!”

“Of course that could account for it,” Zosina agreed.

“Also due to our Hungarian ancestors,” the Regent went on, “you will find a great many Dórsians are red-headed and fair skinned.”

Zosina longed to add, “It is a pity that the King should have inherited the Albanian appearance of his mother rather than that of his Dórsian father.”

Instead she remarked,

“I have never been to a State Banquet before. I feel it is rather like taking part in the most glamorous and exciting production in a theatre.”

She remembered that Katalin had said that she looked like a Prima Donna in an opera and it crossed her mind that, if her sister could see the Regent, she would certainly think that he qualified as the leading man.

Tonight, like the King, he was wearing a white tunic, but as his was a military one, it had heavy gold epaulettes and his collar was also embroidered in gold.

While the King’s decorations were those traditionally worn by a Monarch, many of the Regent’s were battle honours that Zosina recognised from those she had been shown when she was inspecting the armoury in the Palace.

There was also something in his bearing and his air of authority that told her he would be a good commander in the battlefield and certainly a leader of men.

He pointed out to her one or two celebrities amongst the diners, then, because she recognised that she must do what was expected of her, she turned politely to the King on her other side.

For a moment it seemed impossible to think of anything to say and she thought that, if she annoyed him, they might start fighting again.

Because it was the first uncontroversial thing that came into her mind, she asked,

“Do you ever give balls at the Palace? This would be a lovely room in which to dance,”

“We do have them, but they are very formal and boring,” the King replied in a rather surly voice.

There was a pause and then he added,

“But I will soon change all that.”

“It would certainly be fun to have a ball,” Zosina said, trying to be agreeable.

“Not if the guests are all as decrepit as these creatures!” he said, looking fiercely at the people dining with them.

Zosina was about to say instinctively, ‘do be careful in case they should hear you!’ then realised it would be a rebuke which the King would undoubtedly resent.

Instead she said,

“I am sure, Sire, you have a great many young friends who would enjoy dancing, as I do.”

“I have,” the King answered, “but you don’t suppose I am allowed to invite them here? Oh, no! My friends are not good enough for Uncle Sándor!”

Zosina gave a little sigh.

They were back on the same subject of his dislike of authority and especially that of his uncle.

There was a pause when she could think of nothing to say. Then the King remarked,

“If you want to dance and meet my friends, you can come with me tonight.”

“Come – with you?” Zosina asked. “Where?” “To the masked ball.”

Zosina stared at him in astonishment.

“The – masked ball? It is taking place
tonight
?”

The King nodded, then with a note that was almost one of enthusiasm, he said,

“It will be very different to this! I am meeting my friends there when all this ceremony and pomposity is over.” Zosina looked at him wide-eyed and he said,

“Are you sporting enough to come with me or are you too afraid to play truant?”

There was a jeering note in his voice as if he knew her answer without her giving it.

“What are you – suggesting I – do?” Zosina asked, almost in a whisper.

“You will have to slip out when everybody has gone to bed,” the King answered. “That is what I always do.” “And you will – take me to a – masked ball?”

“I bet you are not brave enough to come!”

It was a challenge, Zosina thought, rather of the type of ‘dare’ in which her sisters, especially Katalin, indulged and which had often made her afraid – “I bet you are not brave enough to walk along the parapet! I bet you are not brave enough to climb over the roofs!”

They were the sort of ‘dares’ that had always made her frightened and yet she had often forced herself to undertake them, just so that the others would not think her a spoilsport.

But this was an even greater ‘dare’ and she knew how angry the Queen Mother would be if it was discovered that she had left the Palace un-chaperoned.

And yet this, in a way, was the chance she had been looking for of making the King feel that she was not against him, but sympathised with and understood his difficulties.

There was a cynical twist to his lips and she was quite sure that he felt she was far too cowardly and too conventional to accept his invitation.

It was then she suspected that he had offered it merely as an act of defiance because he knew it was so outrageous. Zosina made up her mind.

“I
will
– come!” she said. “If you can make quite – certain it is not – discovered. I know Grandmama would be very – angry and so, I am sure, would the Prince Regent.”

The King laughed.

“You bet he would! In fact, he would stop me if he had the slightest suspicion of what I was up to.”

“You have done this sort of thing before?” Zosina enquired.

“Dozens of times!” the King boasted, “and nobody has ever yet caught me!”

Zosina felt a little tremor of fear that this might be the first time, but aloud she said,

“I think it is very courageous of you! Supposing you are recognised!”

“No chance of that,” the King said. “You have forgotten, we will be masked.”

“How can I get one?” Zosina asked.

“I will see to that,” the King replied, “if you are sure you have the guts to come with me.”

It was a rather vulgar way of putting it, Zosina thought, but it summed up exactly what she needed in order to do something that she was well aware could land her in a great deal of trouble and outrage her father and mother if they ever heard about it.

“I will – come!” she said again, a little quiver in her voice, “but please let’s be very – careful and make sure – nobody sees us.”

“If you do exactly as I tell you,” the King said, “it will be quite safe, but don’t go squealing afterwards, if it turns out not what you expect and you don’t like being outside your gilded cage.”

Again he was sneering. At the same time Zosina thought that he was really rather pleased she had accepted his invitation. Then she knew the reason when he added,

“We are really putting one over Uncle Sándor! He thinks he has got your whole visit well buttoned up, down to the last detail! Well, I am ready to show you he is wrong!”

“You will – not tell him – afterwards?” Zosina asked nervously.

“And have one of his interminable lectures?” the King questioned. “I am not such a fool as to do that, but I shall feel jolly cock-a-hoop that I can outwit him.”

Zosina realised that because he was obsessed on the subject of his uncle’s authority, he found it impossible to talk of anything else.

Aloud she said,

“Tell me more details – later. I think I must now talk to the Prince Regent.”

“Leave everything to me,” the King assured her.

Zosina turned her head to find the Regent waiting to speak to her.

“I want tomorrow to show you what I think are rather beautiful pictures painted by one of the nuns in a Convent,” he said, “which is situated high in the mountains.”

“I would love to see them,” Zosina replied.

“A number of extremely intelligent and talented women live in this particular Convent,” the Regent went on, “and one of them is a poetess. I have had her poems bound and I am going to have a copy of them put in your bedroom. Perhaps before you go to sleep tonight, you will glance through them. I am convinced you will find them very moving.”

“How kind of you!” Zosina exclaimed. “You know I love poetry.”

“As we have said before, poets can often say for us things that are impossible to express in any other way,” the Regent remarked. “Perhaps one day – somebody will write a poem to you.”

Zosina had the strange feeling that he had been about to say, ‘I will write a poem to you.’

Then she told herself she had been mistaken and there had not been a perceptible pause before the word ‘somebody’.

She was looking again at the guests sitting at the flower-decorated tables, when the Regent quoted,

“
And bright the lamps shone o’er fair woman and brave men, A thousand hearts beat happily
.”

“Lord Byron!” Zosina laughed and continued,

“
And when music arose with its voluptuous swell
,

Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again, And
– ”

She stopped, as she suddenly remembered the next line,

“
And all went merry as a marriage bell
.”

The Regent understood her embarrassment and said quickly,

“I can see you are very well read.”

“I wish that were true,” Zosina replied, “but, because I have always had to choose my own literature, I often feel there are enormous gaps in my education which a real scholar would find lamentable.”

“I think the education we give ourselves, because we want to know is more important than anything a teacher could suggest.”

“That is a very comforting thought,” Zosina said, “but to me the real joy is knowing that knowledge is boundless and it would be impossible ever to come to the end of it.” “So you intend to study for the rest of your life?”

“As I am sure you intend to do.”

“Why should you think that?”

Zosina paused for words. Then she said,

“I have a feeling that you are always looking towards the horizon and you know that, when you get there, you will find there are more horizons further and further still. You remind me somehow of Tennyson’s
Ulysses
, who longed for,

“
that untravelled world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move
.”

As she spoke, she was not even certain how or why the words came to her and yet they were suddenly there in her mind and she spoke without considering whether or not she should say what she thought.

“What you have said is true,” the Regent said, after a moment’s silence. “But no one has ever realised it before.” “I am glad I am the first,” Zosina replied lightly.

Then, as her eyes met his, she had the strange feeling that there was so much more to know about him, so much that she could see and feel, that it was like opening an exciting new book.

And yet once opened it was so familiar that she already knew a good deal of what she would find there.

It suddenly struck her that, if she could talk and go on talking to the Regent, he could tell her so many things not only that she longed to know, but explain those that puzzled her.

‘He is full of wisdom,’ she thought to herself.

But she knew it was not only that, it was almost as if they thought along the same lines and she too looked towards the horizon as he was doing.

Then, as she felt they had so much more to say, she heard the King on her other side remark,

“It’s time you talked to me again.”

“I am sorry, Sire,” she said hastily. “I thought you were engaged with Grandmama.”

“She has been busy telling me what I should do and not do,” the King replied, pulling a grimace.

Zosina wanted to laugh.

Once again he was behaving like a naughty little boy.

As if there was no time to be lost, the King said in a low voice,

“I have worked it all out. When you say goodnight, go to your room, but don’t undress.”

“What shall I say to my maid?”

“Get rid of her somehow or else – ”

He paused and looked down at her gown.

“Perhaps you had better change into something not so elaborate and certainly without a train. If you are going to dance, somebody might tread on it.”

“I will do that.”

“Then wait until there is a knock on the door.”

“Do I open it?”

“Yes, you will find one of my
aides-de-camp
outside. We can trust him. He is a jolly good chap who would never betray me. I am going to give him a very important position at Court, once I have the authority.”

Zosina nodded and the King went on,

“He will bring you to me and then we will get out of the Palace without anybody being aware that we have left.”

“How can we do that?” Zosina enquired.

She remembered the sentries who were posted at every door through which she had entered the Palace so far.