trouble in Svardovia 13

 

Chapter 13

 

Sophie went through the things they carried in her own mind. Spare clothing would be expected, and laundering might be paid for in various inns and Gasthofen in which they might stay, as some specie of German was spoken by the upper class, though the peasantry spoke their own tongue, which Dmitry declared was akin to Czech, and like, yet unalike, his own. This was why they were to be Austrian Wandervögeln.  Svetelina and Karol would be coming, to add a verisimilitude to their story, and Sophie sniggered and quoted Gilbert and Sullivan, “Adding verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.” The ‘birds of passage’ movement was very popular in Germanic countries, as young people walked where they might, singing folk songs, in protest at industrialisation, and evoking so-called simpler days.

“Well, it would be, if we weren’t being smuggled over, and dropped off to be coming in from the Austro-Hungarian side,” said Dmitry. “Courtesy of Admiral Thorndyke, who can sneak in, in absolute silence, and out again.”

“Can we make any guess how far Zbiggy managed to get?” asked Sophie. “As far as Karol’s description went, he was floundering about like a precious princess aged about six trying to be one of the grown-ups.”

“That does more or less cover it,” said Karol. “But he had help. Both to get him out of his cell, and to get him out of the country. He took the train dressed as a widow in a veil, with a maid to help him.”

“I wager he didn’t carry it off as well as you would have done,” sniggered Sophie.

“I’ll have you know that my Lady Sneerwell, when we did ‘School for Scandal’ at Winchester was much celebrated,” said Dmitry. “I did not have whiskers then, or at least, not so you would notice.”

“Such pretty whiskers when not tortured into curling up,” said Sophie, stroking them. Dmitry and Karol had both waxed their moustaches into the Germanic up-turned fashion. Sophie had not dyed her hair – Dmitry had also objected – but wore it tightly braided in several narrow plaits under a long blonde wig, as Dmitry’s sister, even as Svetelina was openly Karol’s sister. “You look every inch an Austrian hussar on holiday, pretending that he does not have an artificial spine made of rattan.”

“Ja, the very image of an upright Junker, I am,” said Dmitry. “Almost could I pass for Prussian, mit der silly pointy helmet and triple salute.”

Sophie giggled.

“If you were Prussian, you would need to have the instruction manual of how to relax and go on holiday,” she said.

“Ach, ja, ja! First, remove iron rod from arse and lead from trousers! Er… I was just coarse in front of my beloved and my best friend’s sister. I am sorry,” said Dmitry.

“We do not regard it,” said Sophie. “And having removed sundry metal, iron and blood,  practise der merry laughter. Ho, ho, ho!”

The young people fell about laughing over a Prussian instruction book on relaxing. The men were wearing lederhosen, and Sophie covertly admired Dmitry’s legs. She and Svetelina wore dirndl skirts to mid calf, with bodice over white blouses, and white stockings. It was, like the lederhosen, peasant garb but plainly made for recreation for people of higher estate, pretending to be carefree peasants, much after the manner of Marie Antoinette’s pretence at being a shepherdess over a century beforehand, and about as realistic.

“I wonder how much real peasants laugh at such travesties?” asked Sophie.

“No end,” giggled Svetelina. “But, isn’t that the whole point?  Everyone laughs at the stupid aristos, but does not question them, because this is the way aristos are.”

“It’s a middle class sort of thing, really, but we have clothes appropriate to that,” said Dmitry. “Town dwellers of sufficient wealth and leisure to be able to go tramping for a couple of weeks, protesting the machines that have made sure that they have the wealth and leisure to go tramping for a couple of weeks by increasing the wealth of the general economy; because they have the sort of jobs, and parents with the sort of jobs only made possible by a machine economy, and the fools fail to recognise without such wealth, not only would they be grubbing in the soil alongside the peasants they ape, but they would not have the level of education to be reading the sort of newspapers who tell them this nonsense, on pages made by machines, printed on machines, the presses,  using ink using chemical processes undreamed of to their simple ancestors.”

“Yes, dear, but it’s their problem, not yours,” said Sophie.

“My father worked hard to introduce industrialisation to the principality, and we lived frugally because he used a lot of his own wealth to do so,” said Dmitry. “He sent me to Winchester to learn the ways of the foremost industrial nation, and bring back those ideas. I get irritable about fools who have no idea about the realities of life mocking his efforts, who have no idea how much better their own lives are because of it. My father was killed by an anarchist who was protesting industrial processes, who did not seem to feel the irony of having been to school because of my grandsire’s efforts, reading books in our own language from our own presses, going to university in Berlin on a scholarship paid for by the milling factory owned by my family, only to pick up such ideas whilst he was there.”

“Oh! I did not realise that it was personal,” said Sophie, as Dmitry scrubbed the back of his hand impatiently across his eyes.

“Mitka was seventeen,” said Karol.  “And he had settled enough to court Maryla, when Victorina had her brutally murdered.”

“Life has not been kind to you, my love,” said Sophie. “I promise to try to make it as good as I can.”

“Thank you,” said Dmitry. “I love you for yourself, but having British patronage is also useful.”

 

 

The four young people slipped down a ladder from the silent bulk of the ‘Thunderchild’ at around three in the morning. They had canvas to set up shelters, and landed in an area where Dmitri knew there was plenty of bracken to pull for sleeping on, and in their sleeping bags.

“Russian Army surplus, purchased from the inventor, in Wales,” said Dmitry, who had regained his good humour. “Used by Krasnytryans in Vandalia.”

“An international endeavour,” giggled Sophie.

“Indeed,” said Dmitry. They were speaking German to make sure they did not sound out of place; and Sophie was fluent enough in French and German, as well as Latin, and could get by in Italian. It is to be noted that she was blithely unaware that her Italian was a trifle inappropriate for polite company, having been taught several phrases and expressions of surprise by the Italian ambassador’s son in the Embassy in France.

Sophie and Svetilina started to sort out breakfast as Karol and Dmitry gathered firewood and got a fire going.  Sophie was happy to cook porridge and make coffee, after they had eaten an apple each.

“I can cook omelettes,” said Sophie, “But I’m not a great cook.”

“You are probably better than many wandervögeln,” said Dmitry. “We’ve got a real itinerary, though we are going to look carefree and footloose. One thing we are going to do is to divert via Archduke Ferdinand’s country retreat, where we will kill Yaromar Zbignevosky. If I thought for one moment that he had merely fled into exile, I would leave him be, but he is not a man who is likely to be content with flight into exile.”

“How are we going to get into the country estate?” asked Karol.

“You have to ask the difficult ones first,” grumbled Dmitry.

“Why don’t we just stroll in the front entrance?” said Sophie. “We have a camera with us, to take pretty pictures, we will marvel at the rustic finery, or baroque excess, whichever it is, and demand to have photographs taken with the Archduke if he is there, and be thoroughly obnoxious. One of us manages to hide, and lets the rest back in later.”

“He’s likely to have us beaten or killed.”

“Not if you’re an officer in the Austrian army.”

Dmitry started to grin.

“Victorina had a lover, one Major Ferencz Ónodi in the Austrian Archduke’s personal guard. I bear a passing resemblance to him, which is why she picked him; but I am, of course, infinitely more handsome,” said Dmitry.

“Are you more modest as well?” giggled Sophie.

“Of course, my sweet,” said Dmitry.

They spent one night in an inn; it had come on to rain, and Dmitry decreed there was no point being uncomfortable for the sake of it, and Svetelina was looking a little drawn. Hot stew with dark, nutty bread was better than a fifteen-course meal served by high class chefs to hungry young people, followed by apples, dried fruit, and almonds in a light pastry topped with icing sugar and served with cream.

“I want to steal this inn’s cook,” said Sophie.

 

It was easy enough to drift onto the wrong road, and wander in at the huge iron gates, pointing and giggling at what was, indeed, a baroque monstrosity.

Karol, by common consent, dropped into a shrub and lay flat on a piece of canvas; here he would wait until dark.

Several flunkeys came to try to shoo the three tourists, and Dmitry was loud, demanding, obnoxious, and kept asking, ‘Have you any idea who I am?” he was finally allowed to tell someone who he was, and they were led into a salon.

Sophie had the uncomfortable feeling of being observed, and continued gawping and giggling. She and Svetelina were to be a pair of sisters who were ‘entertaining’ the supposed Major, and they hung on his arm and giggled at him whilst he told them it was nothing to the Archduke’s palace in Vienna.

As this was probably correct, he had no fear of being contradicted.

Dmitry also had a feeling of being watched, and twirled a moustache in the manner of the household hussars.

 

 

“That’s Ónodi, all right,” said Zbignevosky to his host. “He bears a superficial resemblance to Dmitry, but he’s loud and overbearing, where Dmitry is quietly-spoken. Not to mention his… women. Typical of a hussar, must show off, and doesn’t care how common they are as long as he gets his leg over.”

“I can’t just have him killed, then,” said the Archduke. “Was that envy?”

“Of course not! But no, you can’t really have him killed.  I suggest you drink wine with him, and then regret that you have visitors coming, for state business and send him on his way,” said Zbignevosky.

 

 

Svetelina and Sophie chattered and giggled, plainly embarrassing ‘Ónodi’ who apologised for them.

“They keep my sleeping-bag warm,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting to have to introduce them to anyone who counts.”

“Think nothing of it,” said Ferdinand. “But you understand, I cannot introduce them to the guests I am expecting. If you had been alone….”

“Of course, of course!” boomed Dmitry. “Come, girls, we are leaving now.”

“Oh, Ferencz, just one teeny picture of us with the Archduke!” pleaded Sophie. The Archduke smiled a mirthless smile, and as Dimitry was about to press the shutter, Sophie kissed the Archduke on the cheek.

“Now I’ve kissed a real Archduke!” she said.

Ferdinand was outraged, and stalked out of the room, whilst Dmitry shooed the girls out, and flunkies saw them past the gate, still twittering and giggling.

“The nerve you have!” giggled Svetelina.

“And would he expect anyone on covert business bent to be so outrageous?” said Sophie.

“I hope the photo comes out, his expression was priceless,” said Dmitri. They disappeared round a corner, and promptly left the road in a convenient wood.

 

Karol watched the little trio come out, grinning at how well his sister took to this sort of thing. Ferdinand came out after, with no less than Yaromar Zbignevosky to see them on their way.

“Victorina wasn’t very fastidious, was she?” he heard Ferdinand say.

“She was an alley cat,” said Zbignevosky. “But by God! She was hot in bed, and it made you forget who else had been there. I think Dmitry was the only person ever to refuse her, which is why she went for men like that brainless hussar to resemble him. I wager he lapped up her mistress act, though; loud men like that often just adore being dominated. And I wager she pretended it was Dmitri beneath her heel.”

“Knew about those predilections of hers personally, did you?”

“None of your damned business,” snapped Zbignevosky.  “Personally, I’d rather have her look-alike, that English girl. She’s clever, and once broken, I wager she’d be entertaining.”

“You Svardovians and your games of dominance! I like sex with the clothes off with a nice, stupid girl who knows better than to make any kind of conversation, or do anything but entertain me.”

“I am sure you have no shortage of entertainment. What about the machine you were going to show me?”

“Come round the back, it’s in the stable yard,” said Ferdinand. “Dmitry won’t know what has hit him when two dozen of them lumber up to interrupt his wedding. I’m still waiting for a date to be set, but it will soon be too late in the year to be anything but dreary so I imagine the date will be set soon.”

Karol assessed the likelihood of being caught, saw a wheelbarrow to dump his pack in, and pushed it, trudging like a man tired after a long day’s work, head down. His attire was wrong, but with the barrow to hide his lower legs, he hoped that nobody would give him a second glance. He was dressed in browns and greens, nice colours for wandervögeln, but also good camouflage. He and Dmitri wore unbleached brown woollen socks for that reason, not white; but it would be suspicious for the girls not to wear white.

Nobody took the slightest notice of him. Gardeners, like maids, are invisible. He raked up leaves near a decorative spinney, which gave him a long, but direct view into the stable yard. And there, sure enough, was the massive, squat figure, its legs bent, easily half as big as a railway carriage, with arms out in front holding weaponry.

Karol hastily managed to take a photograph or two whilst bending over piles of leaves. He got one as the legs extended, making it tower over the stable walls.

And as soon as he might, he faded into the spinney and made himself flat once again.

Karol had learned his fieldcraft playing fox and hounds at Winchester, and knew how to both give a good chase, and how to pick up the trail of a chap being sneaky with his papertrail.

Now all he had to do was to wait until darkness.