Trouble In Svardovia 3

 

 

Chapter 3

 

The stranger was remarkably handsome, with flowing flaxen locks framing a chiselled face, and a long pair of moustaches which ended in ringlets. His eyes were as green as emeralds, and Sophie tore herself from staring at him to curtsey in greeting.

“I presume you have an explanation for this rude intrusion,” she said. She spoke in Latin, being the language of the educated in Eastern Europe.

“Well, obviously, I have an explanation, Victorina. I’ve come to take you hostage.”

“Well, it is fortunate that I keep an overnight bag packed,” said Sophie, her heart hammering.

“Do you think I am fool enough to let you bring a suitcase with your favourite explosives in it?” said the young man, with scorn.

“Do you want me to start to smell?” snapped Sophie. “There are certain essentials for women for their monthly manifestation of womanhood, not to mention clean underwear. You may look through the bag.”

“Aloft, my dear cousin; for then I can throw it overboard, and not be delayed. Up the rope ladder, if you please!”

Sophie ascended the rope ladder with an aplomb which startled her captor; Sophie was used to travel, but did not always have the sort of courtesies given to a princess when boarding ships, flying or waterborne.

“I will go with my mistress; she will need someone,” said Magda, firmly. “Now, do not look up my skirts while I climb, Prince Dmitry!” She followed Sophie. The young man followed behind angrily, feeling somehow that his cunning plan had been usurped by the beautiful, but poisonous, de facto ruler of Svardia.

Sophie had time to whisper to Magda, as she helped her off the ladder.

“You called him Prince Dmitry; is it the prince himself?”

“Yes, and I am so glad you pretended to recognise him, or who knows what might have happened!” Magda whispered back.

“I did not know if I would be supposed to recognise an agent of the prince, as I thought him, so it was best to be neutral,” said Sophie, helping Magda into the strange craft, and climbing in herself.  Dimitry followed, frowning in puzzlement at mistress aiding maid.

“This boat is the pinnace of the British warship ‘Warspite,’ for it is written on the transom,” said Sophie, accusingly, to him. “And that is why it has liftium to allow it to fly. How did you acquire it?”

“It was deemed lost in battle in the Russian-European war, dear cousin, and I found it,” said Dmitry, mockingly. “And I added wings and an engine to help it go faster.”

“It looks like nothing on earth; a mad dream from the head of some anti-hero in a novel by Jules Verne,” said Sophie.

Dmitry grinned with very white teeth, causing Sophie to look at him askance that a gentleman, a prince at that, should reveal his teeth so readily.

“I take being likened to any character in a Jules Verne novel to be a compliment,” he said. He pulled on a short rope which somehow started his engine revolving, the big blades of a propellor installed at the aft of his vessel springing into life.  He concentrated as the vessel lifted ponderously off the train’s roof, his take-off along its length as he gained the height to lift over the high walls of the cutting through which it ran, waving to the small zeppelins which guarded the front of the train. They immediately lifted and fell in behind him.

“Now, open that suitcase, and make sure the lid is fully opened before reaching into it, so I have no surprises,” he said. Sophie did so, blushing furiously that a man should see her underwear and intimate garments. “What, can you still blush, cousin?”

“These are garments no man should ever see, save a husband,” said poor Sophie, burning with embarrassment.

Dmitry laughed, cynically.

“What, do you undress in the dark for your lovers?” he sneered.

“You are insulting,” said Sophie, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “And if you have finished with my underthings, I should like to pack them again, and close the case.”

“If I did not know you of old, I would almost believe that you were a frightened virgin,” said Dmitry. “You have learned how to act the innocent; is that the next phase of your career? Are you looking to make a dynastic marriage?”

Sophie bit her lip, a bad habit of hers, to stop herself crying at the sneering tone of this young man who looked so fine, and yet whose features contorted in hatred.

Magda took her hand, and Sophie clutched it convulsively.

“Scared of me, cousin?” sneered Dmitry. “You did not think I would forget the slaying of my fiancée in so short a time?”

“What?” blurted Sophie. “What do you mean?”

Uncertainty lurked in his green eyes.

“You could almost make me believe you innocent of complicity,” he said. “But then, I remember that you said you would take away everything I valued and everyone I loved.”

Sophie felt a roaring in her ears, and she fell back from the narrow bench on which she sat, in a swoon.

She came to, cradled against the faithful Magda.

“It looked quite genuine, you know; you fell most inelegantly,” said Dmitry.

Magda spoke  up in Svardovian, which Sophie could only partly follow.

“Enough of this farce! Your highness, she is not your cousin, she is an English girl tricked into playing the part of the princess, and she has no idea of what she has got herself into!”

“English? I speak some English,” said Dmitri, in that language. “But of course, Victorina is quite fluent. It is an interesting way to avoid my vengeance. And what name are you supposed to have?”

“Sophie Harmon,” said Sophie. “My father is a diplomat in Warsaw, and I was on my way to school, and the princess asked me to impersonate her, so she could avoid the attentions of the press.”

He gave a harsh laugh.

“Well, that’s a lie!  You love the attentions of the press, Victorina, so don’t try to fool me.”

“The English girl thinks it reasonable to hate the attentions of the press, your highness and believed the lie,” said Magda.

“You may laugh at me for being taken in by the romance of impersonating a princess, and enjoying playing dressing up in her clothing, and for being royally fooled until the Louse let it slip that an attack was expected and that I was supposed to be the target not the princess,” said Sophie. “And if I had not found out that the princess cares not a jot if you kill me, but hopes that it will bring England into the war against you, I should have been happy to impersonate her indefinitely as a hostage for the sport of it. But if she is a murderess, I am not going to be treated as guilty of her crimes.”

He laughed, cynically.

“A multiple murderess,” he said. “This I will have to verify.”

He manoeuvred his vessel over a jagged row of mountains, and Sophie heard a whirring noise in her beaded bag.

“What, can altitude set off a clockwork musical box?” she asked, of nobody in particular. “Dear God! It is a bomb!”

She took the small, decorated box from her bag, and hurled it over the side of the ship. It was scarcely in time, for the little box exploded on the way down.

“She meant to kill us all,” said Sophie, her voice trembling. “She meant to kill us all and use that to drag in England.”

“Either I owe my life to your quick wits in realising that, or Victorina plays a very deep game. You are identical to her,” said the prince, who looked shaken. “Plainly the clockwork was set to unwind by the removal of an obstacle, which broke under the low pressure of our altitude, which must be known to be on the route I have to take, crossing the Baba Gora ridge – Baba Gora, the mountain up to which it runs resembles an old woman in the mist,” he explained.

“Baba means old woman, and Gora means heights,” Magda told her. “And she is not so like the princess under the makeup, for the Princess looks what she is, under her makeup, a woman of twenty-two, with the marks of her lifestyle on her; and Miss Sophie also looks like what she is, which is a young girl with a fresh and dewy complexion, which needs none of the artifice the princess uses.”

“It does cover my freckles,” said Sophie, wistfully. “They are a sore trial to me, which lemon juice does not remove.”

“I am beginning to be convinced,” said Dmitry. “Victorina would not admit to freckles.”

“Nothing so honest as a common freckle would go anywhere near her,” said Magda. “Miss Sophie’s freckles give even more sweetness to her pretty face, which is not beautiful, no, but it is wholesome. And it will be more beautiful than the princess when Miss Sophie is two-and-twenty, because it will be serene and kindly, with a ready smile.”

“Well, we shall see,” said Dmitry. “We are coming in to land.”

 

Dmitry switched off his engines, and took in the sails, and turned on the liftium inhibitors to bring the small vessel down onto the turret of a rugged castle, built out of a mountain spur. He jumped out of the boat, and assisted Sophie and Magda to climb out.

“You may show your teeth like a barbarian, but you are a gentleman to assist Magda,” said Sophie.

“What is wrong with showing my teeth? There is nothing wrong with them,” said Dmitry, mystified.

“It is not considered proper for those of the upper classes to do so, at least, in the west,” said Sophie. “If it is not taboo here in the east, then I apologise for the solecism in mentioning it.”

“No, it is something to know if I can treat with England, through you, in our struggle for our traditional freedoms,” said Dmitry, leading the women down a stair. “I had intended this room a prison for my cousin. But, forgive me, I must tell you to remove your makeup, and then to make a final test.”

“I hope you will permit Magda to help me; you see, I had not used makeup at all until she put it on for me to impersonate the princess,” said Sophie.  “It is a comfortable looking room, even as a cell, and well-appointed, and not at all the dank and rat-infested dungeon I confess I had half feared.”

“Oh, we have them,” said Dmitry. “I am becoming more convinced; Victorina would not describe such a room as ‘well-appointed.’

“Why, the bed seems broad, and well-equipped with covers, I perceive a closet in what must once have been a garderobe, a desk and chair, writing paper, a bookcase with books, though probably not those I can read as yet, if they are in Svardovian, but some international magazines, and some gay rugs on the floor,” said Sophie. “I will sit at the vanity for Magda to remove my makeup; is she to share the bed with me, or will she have her own room?”

“I will have a trundle bed brought up for her,” said Dmitry.

Magda swiftly cleaned off the makeup, and Dmitry examined Sophie’s face in the light of the broad window, which looked out towards the mountain which did, indeed, resemble an old woman with a headscarf, an overhang like a hooked nose adding to the illusion.

“Remarkable,” said Dmitry. “But there is one thing I know Victorina could not fake.”

He pulled Sophie to him, and as she looked up at him in surprise, he crushed his lips to hers. Sophie gasped, and put her trembling hands to his chest to steady herself.

Her lips parted under his insistent kiss, and she found herself trembling, and quite overcome by a feeling of softness which flowed through her entire being.  His lips softened on hers, and moved sensing and feeling her mouth, and his hands on her upper arms loosened their grip, but drew her closer. He lifted his mouth from hers, and his green eyes, softer than Sophie had yet seen them, gazed into hers, the veins blue under them seeming to give him a look of vulnerability. Sophie put her hand wonderingly to her lips.

“You’ve never been kissed before,” said Dmitry.

“No; but how could you know?” asked Sophie, tremulously. “I should be slapping your face, or fleeing in confusion to sob on my bed, at least, that is what heroines in books do. Am I the scarlet woman you seemed to think me because I would not mind if you did it again?”

He laughed a genuine laugh, his eyes crinkling with mirth.

“What a nice, natural girl you are,” he said. “I am taken by surprise that I want to do it again, and for that reason, I must not. For if I start, I may not stop.”

“It is a pleasant way to pass the time,” said Sophie.

“No, little girl; I mean, I might not stop at kisses,” said Dmitry, letting go of her and taking a deliberate step back. “I did not think I would feel again after Maryla was murdered.  But you move me, and I… I must think hard.”

“And you must also consider what to do about your cousin’s attempted murder of us both, for I doubt she realised Magda would come.”

“She wouldn’t count her as a person to care about,” said Dmitry, with a cynical sneer.

“Don’t do that; it spoils your looks,” said Sophie. “Your highness, it will be given out first, will it not, that Princess Victorina was abducted, before they want to use my supposed death?”

“Yes, very probably,” said Dmitry. “Then the news that I took the wrong girl, and managed to kill her and myself in the mountains.”

“Then why do I not continue the imposture?” said Sophie. “And claim that the real Victorina is an imposter, and that you… you rescued me from the wiles of Baron Louse, whose name I cannot be bothered to remember, and… and that we are betrothed to end the tensions between our countries?”

“Josef, Mary, and all the saints, it might work, at least to keep them off balance,” said Dmitry. “You shall call me ‘Dima,’ in our press releases, it is what Victorina called me when we were children, though I prefer the diminutive, ‘Mitka.’”

“Very well; but you shall have a messenger sent privately to my father, who should have received my message that I have been kidnapped by Victorina, and that she expects me to die to involve Britain,” said Sophie. “I will write to him that you have been the soul of courtesy, and seek aid from Britain to mediate in the differences between the Principality of Krasnytsya and the Kingdom of Svardovia.”

“I like it a lot,” said Dmitry.