Bride to the King (12 page)

“Quite right,” Autal said, “and pass a law that anyone who makes one should be exiled for at least a year!”

“A splendid idea!” the King exclaimed, “and the sooner that is put into operation the better!”

“You would have to allow them to make speeches in Parliament,” Zosina said.

“As long as I don’t have to listen to them, they can talk their heads off!” the King replied.

Zosina, however, was not listening to him.

They had left the grounds of the Palace and were now in the open street and she could see crowds of people walking about under the gaslights that illuminated the main thoroughfares.

She had somehow expected, because it was so late, that most people would have already gone to bed, but the streets were crowded and she could see many passers-by wearing fancy costumes and carrying paper streamers on a stick or windmills in their hands.

“It’s very festive!” she exclaimed.

“You wait,” the King said. “It is far better than this where we are going.”

There was a sudden explosion and Zosina started at the noise, before she saw fireworks silhouetted against the darkness of the sky.

“How pretty!” she exclaimed, as it looked like a number of falling stars descending towards the ground.

The King did not reply and she saw to her surprise that the
aide-de-camp
was pouring wine from a bottle he held in one hand into a glass he held in the other.

“Autal, you are a genius!” the King exclaimed. “I was just thinking I was beginning to feel thirsty waiting in the cellar for you with everything locked up.”

“It will not be long before we can see what is hidden there,” Autal replied.

“No, and I bet my damned uncle keeps all the best wines for himself!” the King moaned. “I know he has a whole lot of Tokay secreted away somewhere!”

“Perhaps he will bring it out to celebrate your twenty-first birthday,” the
aide-de-camp
said with a smirk.

“To celebrate?” the King laughed. “You know he will not be doing that, not when it means ‘goodnight’ as far as he is concerned.”

“Well, we will drink to his departure,” Autal said, “and good riddance, if you ask me.”

The King raised his glass.

“Goodbye, Uncle Sándor!” he toasted, “and here’s hoping we will never meet again!”

Again the
aide-de-camp
laughed and Zosina told herself that it was not the way a King should behave and most certainly not with one of his
aides-de-camp
.

It was obvious that Autal was inciting him to be more rebellious than he was already and she thought it was a pity that someone older and wiser was not in attendance on the King.

‘I suppose,’ she considered, ‘that the Regent thought it would be better for him to have somebody of his own age.’

The King finished his glass of wine, then somewhat ungraciously said to Zosina,

“Do you want a drink?”

“No, thank you,” Zosina replied. “I am not thirsty.” The
aide-de-camp
sniggered.

“You don’t have to be thirsty to drink,” he said. “Come on, Magi, have a sip of mine. It will get you into the spirit of things and that’s the right word for it.”

He laughed at his own joke and Zosina found herself stiffening.

How dare he speak to her in such a familiar manner?

Then she told herself that she had to remember they were all incognito and she was not a Princess and the prospective Queen, but Magi, a girl who was fast enough in her behaviour to go out after midnight escorted only by two young men.

Autal had not waited for her reply, but thrust a glass from which he had already been drinking into her hand.

As she felt it was impossible to refuse to do what he wanted and she was afraid the King would sense her reluctance, she drank a little of the wine which was quite pleasant, but rather heavy.

“That’s better!” Autal said, as she handed him back the glass.

Then, putting it to his own lips, he appeared to tip it down his throat.

The King finished off what was in his glass.

“We are nearly there,” he said, “and one thing is we will have plenty to drink if Lakatos has anything to do with it.”

“If he is still waiting for us,” Autal remarked.

“He will know I am not going to miss this party,” the King said.

As he spoke, Zosina thought for a moment that he slurred his words, then she told herself that she must be mistaken and perhaps he had not swallowed all the wine he had in his mouth.

The carriage came to a standstill and Autal threw the bottle, which was nearly empty, down on the floor.

The King got out of the carriage first and Zosina saw with a little constriction of her heart there were huge crowds outside and the sound of some very noisy music.

The crowds were moving slowly and were obviously in a mood of gaiety and excitement.

The majority of people on the street, Zosina thought, were peasants who appeared to gape at everything and everybody.

But there were also a number of anonymous figures wearing dominos and masks, who were moving in through a huge doorway lit with dozens of electric globes and festooned with bunting and flags.

Because she felt nervous, Zosina moved closer to the King as he elbowed his way through the crowds to the door of what she guessed must be a beer hall.

She knew they existed in Lützelstein, although she had never actually been in one. She had heard that dances and entertainments often took place in them.

When she walked through the door, holding her domino tightly around her and afraid because the King was moving so quickly that she would be left behind, she found herself first of all in an entrance hall.

There were a great number of people standing about apparently waiting for new arrivals.

They were very noisy and the band playing inside seemed almost deafening.

Then Zosina heard a cry of,

“Gyo! Gyo! Here you are!”

A moment later several men hurried towards them holding out their arms towards the King and when they reached him, shaking his hand effusively and slapping him on the back.

“We’d almost given up waiting for you,” they said. “Come on, Gyo! Everyone’s here but you.”

They started up some stairs and Zosina and Autal followed.

She wondered where they were going and a few seconds later they opened a door off a wide corridor and she realised that they were entering an enormous box.

She felt, with a sigh of relief, that she would not have to cope with the crowds on the dance floor beneath them and she would be able to watch without immediately taking part in the dancing.

Then, as she saw who was waiting for them, she felt her eyes widen in surprise beneath the velvet mask.

A lot of the men had pulled their masks from their faces letting them hang round their necks and she could see that they were all young but a very different type from the sort of gentlemen that she would expect to find in the company of Royalty.

She told herself not to be censorious, but there was something she thought rather common and coarse about the men that made them different to those she had met before.

“Gyo! Gyo!” they cried triumphantly as the King appeared. “We thought you were never coming!”

“Nothing could have prevented me from being here tonight,” the King replied.

“Have a drink. Lakatos has brought us some champagne – what do you think of that?”

“I bet you are several bottles ahead of me already,” the King exclaimed, “but give me time and I will catch you up!”

Somebody handed him a glass which he filled to the brim and he drank deeply before he said,

“Give Autal a drink and Magi. She is with me.”

He jerked his thumb at Zosina as he spoke, but she was for the moment looking with astonishment at the women whom she had not noticed at first because they were leaning over the box, waving and shouting to their friends on the dance floor.

Now, as if they had just realised that the King had arrived, they turned towards him with cries of delight and she knew that, if the men were different, it was impossible to find an adjective to describe the women.

Most of them had removed their masks, if they had ever worn them and their eyes were heavily mascaraed and in striking contrast to the gold or red of their hair which was so vivid that Zosina was certain it was dyed.

They all had crimson lips and their faces were powdered and rouged. One or two of them looked like a Dutch doll that had been Katalin’s favourite when she was a little girl.

The dominos they wore were open and beneath them Zosina could see they had gowns cut very low, in fact one or two were so revealing that after one glance at their bulging bosoms, she looked away in embarrassment.

“Gyo! You’re here! We’ve been waiting for you.”

Their shrill uncultured voices rang out, all saying the same thing.

Then they were kissing the King and Autal, leaving smears of lipstick on their faces and on their lips.

Zosina stood to one side feeling as if she was invisible. Then one of the men with a bottle of champagne in his hand said to her,

“Have a drink, Magi. You look far too sober, which is a mistake.”

The way he pronounced his words told Zosina that he was definitely the reverse.

But, because she thought it better to agree to anything that was suggested, she took a glass from him and held it as he poured the champagne into it.

“Now enjoy yourself,” he said. “What do you look like behind that mask?”

He reached out his hand as if to remove it, but Zosina edged nervously away from him.

She thought he would persist in unmasking her, but at that moment the King shouted.

“Hey, Lakatos, I am dying of thirst. Are you out of wine already
?
”

“You need not be afraid of that, Gyo!” Lakatos replied. “I’ve enough bottles to float a battleship!”

“We’ll need it,” one of the blonde women, who had her arm round the King’s neck, replied. “He’s no fun unless he’s full to the brim are you, my pet?”

She kissed the King’s cheek as she spoke, but he appeared to be more concerned with having his glass filled than appreciating her attention.

Because Zosina had no wish for Lakatos to notice her again, she moved along the side of the box and edged her way to the front of it.

Now she could look down at the dance floor which was certainly different from anything she had seen in her life before.

At one end there was a huge band of what must have been nearly a hundred players. At the other was a bar that stretched right across the hall from one wall to the other.

Behind it barmaids in national costume were filling china mugs of beer, which were being passed over the heads of those waiting six deep to be served.

On the floor itself the dancers were either gyrating wildly about or dancing close to each other in a manner Zosina felt was very improper.

There were also a number of men who she knew were drunk because they were staggering about with or without partners and often falling down as they did so.

If the women in the box looked fast and vulgar, there were far worse specimens below and Zosina felt a little tremor of fear in case her grandmother or, worse still, the Regent should know where she was.

At the same time in a way it was a fascinating spectacle that she had never imagined she would see and because it was unique she thought that she must take in every detail.

As she watched, a voice beside her said,

“Finished your drink? If so we’ll go down and dance.” It was the man called Lakatos who spoke and she started nervously before she replied,

“I think I had – better stay up here with – Gyo!” “You can’t do that!” Lakatos replied. “He’s already dancing. Come on! That’s what you’re here for.”

He spoke almost roughly and now Zosina was certain that he had had far too much to drink and she thought that he might make an exhibition of himself as some of the other people were doing.

“I think perhaps – ” she began.

Before she could finish what she was going to say, he had seized her by the hand and jerked her towards the door of the box, so roughly that she upset most of the champagne she was holding in her other hand.

She wondered wildly who she could appeal to to save her from what she was sure would be a humiliating performance.

Not only the King had vanished but also Autal and the only men left in the box were drinking and laughing uproariously over something one of them had said.

There was nothing she could do but allow Lakatos to drag her out into the corridor, having with difficulty put down her almost empty glass on a table at the back of the box as she passed it.

Then they went down the stairs, Lakatos holding onto the bannisters, Zosina noticed.

The noise seemed even worse when they started to mingle with the crowds and there was also what Zosina thought was an unpleasant smell of beer, cheap perfume and what she was sure was sweat.

It was, however, impossible to think of anything once they had taken to the dance floor except of how to keep in time with Lakatos.

The band was now playing a Viennese waltz and he swung her round, but not in the graceful prescribed fashion that Zosina had learned with her dancing teacher, but violently as if he wished to sweep her off her feet, frequently staggering as he did so.

Only by holding tightly onto his arm could Zosina keep her balance.

They kept bumping into other couples, who shouted at them to look where they were going – an instruction that Lakatos completely ignored.

It was all a very unpleasant experience and, before they had circled even a quarter of the room, Zosina was wishing she had never said she was fond of dancing or had agreed to come with the King on this wild escapade.

As if to think of him was to conjure him up, the next couple they bumped into was the King with the fair-haired woman who had kissed him.

“This is jolly good fun!” the King said, as he danced beside Lakatos and Zosina, “but it’s damned hot!”

“It always is,” Lakatos replied, “but there’s plenty of champagne to keep you cool.”

“You are a sport, Lakatos, I will say that for you!” the King crowed. “One day I will repay you, make no mistake about that.”