trouble in Svardovia 4

 

Chapter 4

 

On Dmitry’s advice, Sophie remained in the national dress of Svardovia, and Magda helped her plait her hair into two braids, which were then braided together for the last length of her hair. It kept it out of the way very well, and she could not reach either braid to absently nibble, another of her bad habits.

Another trip in the flying boat was undertaken, this time to the Krasnytsyan capital, Berzhostrov. The original city, like Paris, had been based on a river island, but had grown past that, with many fine bridges, and the shining domes of the eastern Orthodox churches which chiefly caught Sophie’s eye.

“We are going to the radio station headquarters first, to make a news announcement, whilst international reporters are summoned for a press conference,” said Dmitry. “Remember to call me, ‘Dima.’”

“I will think ‘Mitka’ when I do so, and remember your kiss,” said Sophie.

“Oh, now that will make me look suitably enamoured,” said Dmitry.

He was dressed in the uniform of his regiment, tight white trousers tucked into boots, and a green tunic over it, with much gold braid, and a black fur pelisse over one shoulder. Sophie thought him tremendously handsome.

 

The stir created when the prince walked into the national broadcasting studios with the hated enemy on his arm had to be experienced to be imagined.

He got a time slot to make an announcement right away.

“Rejoice, my people!” said Dmitry.  “I have managed to rescue my childhood companion, Princess Victorina Pyshkaya, from the vile machinations of the evil Baron Boris Slabynyski who has been keeping the King of Svardovia drugged, and also the real Princess Victorina, whilst a double has been making herself notorious across the world! Princess Victorina, my own true Victorina, is now free. I beg you, my people, be gentle with my bride, who is recovering from captivity so vile that I can barely speak of it. But she has pledged that independence for Krasnytsya is her wedding gift to me!”

He had coached Sophie in a few phrases.

“What Dima says is, indeed, the case,” said Sophie. “I am going to have to learn to be free, and to be in the public eye.”

She was glad that a letter should have already reached her father via a daring young man with a zeppelin, explaining everything.

 

oOoOo

 

In Warsaw, Edward Harmon agreed to receive one Karol Blatinski of Krasnytsya, who bowed low by removing his hat with a flourish, and drawing it across his body in a bow which was a bend in the middle, not the more western style presentation of a leg.

“I have the honour to convey a letter from  your daughter, sir,” he said, and handed it over.

“Do you mind?” asked Harmon. “Please, take a seat.”

The young man bowed, and seated himself as Edward Harmon opened the letter.

“Dearest Papa,

I was kidnapped by Prince Dmitry himself, in the belief that I was Victorina, but he rapidly realised that I was no such thing.  I am going to help him by pretending to be the real Victorina and denouncing the actual real Victorina as a fake, a puppet of Baron Louse, who is a nasty little man, and is quite capable of devising wicked plans even if he has not the stomach to carry them out himself.  Mitka is going to tell his people that the independence of Krasnytsya is my wedding gift to him, which will embarrass Svardovia more than a little, and oh, Papa, will you try to get the foreign office to support Krasnytsya and negotiate a deal? Even when it all comes out, as it must do eventually, if there is independence, nobody will mind except the Svardovians.

Sophie.

It was a rather muddled outpouring of what had happened, and Edward Harmon lifted one austere eyebrow over the use of the nickname, ‘Mitka,’ for the prince.

He would send a letter by diplomatic pouch to London, and take such transport as he could arrange to Krasnytsya as soon as he could do so. And he would send a telegram to London first. At least that was still a secure means of communication.

 

oOoOo

 

Sophie quailed before the collected press; but she smiled, and clung to Dmitry’s arm to be photographed.

The picture of the handsome couple would grace the front pages of every reputable publication, with headlines such as ‘Peace in Svardovia?’ and “Beastly Baron’s Base Blueprint” and “Princess a Pawn for Plot Perpetrated!”  and “The Real Victorina?”

With Magda’s skilful make-up, managing somewhere between the dewy schoolgirl and the sophisticated socialite, there would be very few questions asked about who was the real Victorina.

“Who is the false Victorina really?” asked one of the reporters, thankfully in English.

“I do not know; but she is welcome to the embraces of the Louse,” said Sophie. “He makes me feel dirty, and he gives parasites a bad name.”

This raised a laugh, and pens busily recorded the quote.  As it seemed that any attraction was one way, it was Sophie’s revenge on Victorina.

“How will we tell two Victorinas apart?” asked another.

“You will have to learn to tell which is which,” said Dmitry. “My Victorina is considering changing her name, however, to Sophia, her baptismal name, to be free of the taint of the imposter.”

He had explained that most people took a second name when baptised as adults in the Catholic or Orthodox church; and since Sophie had been baptised in the Church of England, and Sophia was the version of her name in Dmitry’s country, it was not even too much of a lie.

“It cannot be mangled as the Louse does to call false Victorina ‘Trina,’” said Sophia, with malicious intent that the press take up this vulgar nickname.

It was very trying; and it was the reporter of ‘The Times’ who scooped the photograph of Sophie, looking very vulnerable, looking up at the prince, to say, “Dima? Can we go soon, please?”

The ‘Times’ was to run this photograph alongside one of Victorina, pouting at the camera, and the headline, “Which is the real princess; the gentle young girl, or the notorious woman?”

 

“I’m beginning to wonder if I just did something I will regret,” said Sophie, as Dmitry flew his odd vehicle back to Castle Baba Gora. “I just told a big lie in public, and the truth will out.”

“Hush, harna, I will take the blame, and say I took advantage of a schoolgirl who had been set up most cruelly by the real Victorina, and your natural desire to play a practical joke on her.”

“Oh! If you think we can pass it off as partly a practical joke – which I suppose it was – then I am happy to take equal blame,” said Sophie. “But perhaps we should set up a press release, an exclusive with a few selected newspapers, where I tell my story about how she was, and the letter she wrote to her father, where she hoped you would kill me, which would garner British aid. And how frightened I was until it became apparent that you believed me, because I was, I was terrified.”

“You did not show it; you were like a true princess,” said Dmitry. “More so than Victorina could ever manage. And this, I will tell them.”

“And I will say that I was so angry that I was to be sacrificed for Victorina, I wanted to pay her back,” said Sophie. “Which I do. Of course, your people will be disappointed, but at least you will be able to marry a bride they will not disapprove of.”

“Harna, I am going to marry you – if you will have me,” said Dmitry. “You are brave, regal, honest and true, and my people will take to their hearts the English schoolgirl who defied the formidable Victorina and called Baron Slabinysky a louse to his face. I am also stirred by you as I thought I never would be again, when my Maryla was murdered three years ago.”

“Oh, Mitka, truly? I… I am not too young and callow for you?”

“Age is cured by time, and if you are ignorant about my country I am sure you will quickly learn.”

“I will, and your language too,” said Sophie. “I want to be worthy of you.”

“Oh, Sophie! I want to be worthy of you, and to be able to bring you to a home in peacetime, not torn with war. But the taxation on my people is unfair, and our slightly different customs suppressed by Svardovian governors until I threw them out, even our titles denied. Victorina said that if I surrendered myself to her in chains, she would consider independence for Transnystya, but I doubt she would consider long enough to do more than laugh at me, and say, ‘no,’ for she is cruel enough to raise hopes and dash them. Once, you see, she desired me, but I would not play her games; and since then her grip on our poor little country has been vicious.”

“What part does her father play?”

“He is king, but I fancy he mostly plays at it, permitting Victorina to make the decisions,” said Dmitry. “I need to kiss you, but I cannot do so whilst we are flying.”

“Then you must take twice as long over it when we have landed.”

“Sophie! I love you!”

 

The interview with representatives of ‘The Times’ and ‘The New York Times’ was arranged for the next day, to take place in the royal palace in Berzhostrov. The building was built in blocks of red and white, in a restrained baroque style, around a central courtyard, which was overlooked by open galleries, with staircases at east and west corners. Turrets arose on the north and south corners, with tops not unlike the onion domes of Orthodox churches. The interior was opulent, the walls of various salons covered in exotic brocaded silks.

“I have not set foot in this place since Maryla was killed,” said Dmitry. “But I abrogate my responsibility to avoid it. I must rule as a prince, not just as a guerrilla leader.”

“I will try to be your helpmate in all things,” said Sophie. “I am not knowledgeable about military matters, but Papa made sure I am proficient with a pistol, and I have it with me, in the beaded bag I stole from Victorina.”

Dmitry stared.

“You mean, all the time I was examining your frillies, you could have shot me?” he said.

“Yes,” said Sophie.

“Why ever did you not?”

“I did not like Victorina, and I wanted to know what you had against her, and so I was only going to use it if you planned to kill me,” said Sophie.

“I adore you!” said Dmitry.

There was an interlude before they went to meet the gentlemen of the press.

 

 

“I have a confession, gentlemen,” said Sophie. “And it comes with a fantastic story, which led to a desire to pull a prank in revenge for ill-treatment. My name is Sophie Harmon, I am seventeen years old, and I am an English schoolgirl. I was on my way to a finishing school…” she spoke of seeing and being seen by Victorina, and how this had left her playing a part, and the conclusion she had rapidly come to, that she would not have been given any choice had she baulked.

“Magda, who was her maid, and who came away with me, tells me that there was a syringe prepared in a hurry to make me what Victorina described as ‘tractable,’ said Sophie.  “And I suspect that Dmitry would have assumed me to be a dope fiend or something, had I been in such a state of lethargy.”

“It is said that Victorina has been known to take cocaine,” said Dmitry. “I would have assumed that my arrival had been inopportune for her.”

Sophie showed the reporters copies of the letter draft.

“I sent the original to my father, in Warsaw,” she said. “I know it was reprehensible to use the world press to entertain my desire for own-back on Victorina, but it also brought Dmitry and his people’s struggle to the world press, so I cannot be truly sorry, for Victorina is not the socialite she projects, but a ruthless, callous woman.”

“Is that how she struck you, miss?” asked the reporter from the ‘Times.’

“Very much so,” said Sophie, with a shudder. “She was known to slap her maids about, and her utter indifference to the fate of the foolish young schoolgirl, me, flattered by her attention, was chilling.”

“So, what will you do, now? Go back to school?” asked the writer of the ‘New York Times.’

“Scarcely; it is in Svardovia, and I would fear for my life if I entered Victorina’s realm,” said Sophie. “I do not know what she might have intended to do, had she not seen me, but I cannot think she meant to face Mitka. I am going to marry him; we fell in love.”

“I know what she planned, Miss,” said Magda. “She had decided that because I am a grandchild of her lascivious grandfather, and have some bone structure in common, I was to have my hair bleached and then dyed red. And the drug was for me, for I did not want to follow through with this plan, I was afraid. I had to stick by you, for you were so brave!”

Magda then found herself answering many questions about Victorina, whose cold nature was shocking to the reporters who had followed her devotedly, like many others.

The reporters promised to hold this story until Victorina had countered the original press release.

 

oOoOo

 

It was several days before Victorina discovered what the English Schoolgirl had done, for she had slipped out of the train in Vienna, her distinctive titian locks hidden under a headscarf, and wearing tinted spectacles, dressed in a most ordinary-looking blue gown. She was accompanied by her other maid, who did not have the way with her hair that Magda did, but was untroubled by the honesty and scruples which made Magda less useful. Here, she had made her way to the home of one Major Ferencz Ónodi, of the household guard of the Archduke of Austria, and a former lover of hers. He was happy to rekindle the flame of their affaire, and Victorina was pleased to pretend more interest in him than she felt. He was similar in looks to her cousin Dmitry, if older, with a long hussar moustache and long golden hair, which was why Victorina had chosen him. Perversely, she found Dmitry physically attractive, though her deepest dreams regarding him had him begging at her feet.

She enjoyed the solitude for a day or two, and then began wondering if Dmitry had wrung the silly schoolgirl’s neck as he had threatened to do to Victorina; and sent out a servant for a newspaper.

Major Ónodi found his house devoid of anything breakable, as the princess had already broken it in sheer rage.

“I will not rest until she is dead!” swore Victorina.