The King of Alberia. A romance of the Balkans

Front matter

A ROMANCE OF THE BALKANS BY LAURA DAINTREY ' METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. LONDON TO TRAVIS COLES VAN BUREN April 28, 1889— April 28, r8o,4 V CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. FREDEGONDE I II. WALDEMAR 10 III. LOVE AND DEATH 22 IV. " TO THE KING ! " 34 V. STROIMIR 46 VI. SECRET INSTRUCTIONS 58 VII. "SAVE HIM!" 65 VIII. MARA, THE OUTCAST 7 1 IX. THE COUNTESS ILONA 8l X. BESIDE THE FALLS 92 XI. THE FLUSH OF DAWN 97 XII. SOKOL THE FALCON 102 XIII. DIPLOMACY 112 XIV. THE FEAST OF THE KRALIZE 126 XV. REVENGE I36 XVI. WAR ISI XVII. THE WILD HUNTSMAN l6l XVIII. DRAGON'S TEETH 174 XIX. BY THE DEVIL STONE 190 XX. ON THE WING ... .... I96 CONTENTS CHAP. pACE XXI. SORCERY 202 XXII. THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM 210 XXIII. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 226 XXIV. THE DAY OF SAINT JOVAN 236 XXV. THE DIE IS CAST 250 XXVI. TREASON 258 XXVII.

THE PROCESSION OF THE DODOLA .... 263 XXVIII. MIRAGE 275 XXIX. A DAUGHTER OF EVE 286 XXX. IN THE GREEK CATHEDRAL 292 XXXI. JUDAS 302 XXXII. THE LEGACY OF PEACE 3 10 XXXIII. THE PRECIPICE OF THE LOM 319 XXXIV. THE GREAT UNKNOWN IDEAL — ♦ —

Chapter I Fredegonde

"Thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exaltations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind . . . High sacrifice, and labour without pause, Even to the death, else wherefore should the eye Of man converse with immortality ? " William Wordsworth. DAY spilt his life-blood in the reddened west. The lake's slow waters rippled red from the horizon. The western windows of Konigslust let in the sunset's sanguine glare, faced, through the eastern windows, by a dim red rising moon. At opposite ends of a saloon, visions of the van quished sun and the victorious moon showed, pictures set in shadow. A dense hush dwelt there, the mysteri ous and sinister hush of disaster and suspense. Through a shut door a sound pierced, a brief acute faint cry. The silence was startled by a nearer groan of answering agony.

Against the shut door leaned a man, hardly distinguishable from the shadow ; he grasped the handle which he dared not turn, and, like a victim waiting for the next wrench of the rack, stood listening. . . . Silence again, and silence doubly dense : silence intolerable. Before the man's eyes, open or shut fast against it, started out a single sight, with all his sick brain's ruthless iteration. A forest glade, between whose huge-armed trees a man and woman rode : she was as fair as the gold and rose of dawn which breaks upon a silver sea. They passed on wordless — life had love upon his lips instead of song. . . . A bird whirred up before the horses' feet. He saw her for a breath's time carried headlong on by hers, then thrown. . . . Another moan through the shut door. The man let go the handle, and clenched his hands upon his ears.

He reeled, and muttered to himself persistently, " I shall go mad ! — I shall go mad ! . . . " Suddenly the voice within wailed, "Waldemar! Where is he ? Waldemar ! " The man turned like a tiger, bounded to the door, and burst into the room. . . . His step grew slow as he advanced ; his limbs shook as he saw the shape inert on a rich bed. Towards him two physicians came, in long black priestly robes. "Your Majesty," the elder said, "all we can do is done." He still looked towards the bed, and not at these ; then with a gesture ordered privacy. As the last attendant disappeared, he walked like a somnambulist to where she lay. She saw him come, and tried to lift her hand in welcome, but it fell back nerveless. Their eyes met in a gaze of comprehension tragic as farewell. " Fredegonde ..." His tone was a protest, an appeal ; he sought to break the spell of silence.

It seemed to him that in this gulf of stillness life with all its freight was foundering. " Fredegonde, I came to ask you how you are — FREDEGONDE 3 whether you suffer — whether — " He was kneeling: his voice, suppressed and strenuous, broke. He began to kiss her hands with passion. She divined the dread that sought to spend itself in these caresses. She supplied the sentence he had left unsaid. "Waldemar, remember love, which is immortal. There is no death for those who love." The King rose, as a man struck to his knees in battle rises, dizzy with the blow. "Then . . . you ..." He trembled bodily. "You shall not leave me," he resumed, with calm. " It can not be. I will go with you." She met his look, in which a sombre triumph mixed with passion : from her eyes, at his words, leapt respon sive a lightning of love.

Then gathering her utmost strength, " No," she said, " Waldemar — no, no ... " " No ? " he repeated. " Are you the woman I adore, who loves me, Fredegonde? Are you my soul's best part, my sweeter self, and yet would leave me here behind you ? We have lived and loved together; let us die together, now that life has done with joy. I say, ' Together let us challenge the Unknown ! ' — and you refuse ? " She sought to speak : emotion and exhaustion stilled her. " Fredegonde," he murmured, with a smile such as she alone, perhaps, ever evoked, "is it that you fear the end for me, while you wait for it yourself with calm ? " His look and smile, courageous, compassionate, caressing, gave her too keen a pain. Forgetting the high promptings which forced her to refuse what, next to life itself, she wished for most, she remembered only their parting — " the end," the abhorred inevitable — and wept, tears which her pale hands no longer had the strength to dry.

" Ah ! you regret ! We will leave it together, this world which I hate and you abandon. Together, Fredegonde — forever together ! " He knelt again, throwing his arm across her breast. In their kiss was the delirium of this flight, the passionate vertigo of this escape into immensity. . . . He felt her repulse him. " Waldemar, we dream, we love — but for how long ? It is coming, at every kiss another step : I am afraid ! Oh, I love you too much not to fear it. ... I tell you I must go alone — alone ! I tell you it must part us ! " " When I swear that it shall not ? " " Alas, my beloved ! " The King's hand went to his brows. " I feel one of those frightful hours coming on me ... " " Waldemar, have pity ! Be calm ! — O God ! how can I leave him like this ? " "You shall not leave me." Their eyes met in a look profound as love, sombre as death.

She summoned all her strength, and spoke again. " If you were dying, I might say, ' I follow ' — if you were dead, I too might die, because you are my universe. No one else claims my life. No one else claims my care. In leaving existence I should break no vows, neglect no obligations. But you ! What of the throne you have just mounted, the oaths you have just taken? What of your people, who are also your children ? — your kingdom, which is also your country ? " He stood before her, arms crossed and head bowed — a noble head, whose fair and spiritual beauty be trayed a trace of that poetic mysticism which marks the German race's highest types. She, turned towards him, raised a little on her arm, poured into this argu ment her life's last force, watching with kindling but despairing eyes her words' effect on his decision.

FREDEGONDE 5 He looked up. " I shall not be missed. My reign has only just begun : I have marked out no new paths of policy. My father, the experienced ruler, they may miss ; not I, whom any other can replace." " Waldemar, give me your hands, sit here beside me. Ah ! these last hours and tears, these last caresses ! ... Is it not for you, my best-beloved, to royally sustain your royal part? Once I hoped in the future to hear it said of you, ' His country is his debtor.' It seems to me that a king has the power, if he will, to be the greatest of all patriots." " Fredegonde, I hear you, and I love my country — this strange adopted country where my boyhood has been passed, and where we have been happy. . . . But why I ? — I, of all others ? The part of a king is sad to play ; I was not planned for it.

Instead of the crown reflecting its dignity upon its servants, it seems to absorb all theirs. Instead of seeing men who love their country's glory round me, I see men who live but for their own. They cringe, they scheme, they pander, lie, betray : this one wants a decoration, that one wants a place. And this per petual abasement and intrigue is to gain what seems to me not worth a para ! " " Best-beloved, your arguments but turn against yourself. Is it not here, where all are egotists, that one should sacrifice himself to save his country? I know your weariness ; I share your pain ; but beyond it all I see, like a white dawn, reunion, peace . . . Think ! the young nation lies between two despotisms : Turkey and Russia, the old and the new. Your father's work must be carried on, or all that has been done in these twelve years will be in vain.

After their centuries of slavery and strife, it is your privi lege to lead the people on to light and freedom. Waldemar, the nation's fate is in your hands ; if you die now, you kill your kingdom ! " " And if I live ? " A ghastly change came livid on his face. " I may go mad. . . ." There was a long and heavy silence : he seemed to see the spectre of his race upon its way. Madness ! the incubus of all the royal houses of the civilised and Christian world ; the taint of all the royal blood of Europe ; the scourge of Nature on unnatural pride, which, seeking to stand high above her laws, falls doubly low ; the writing on the wall, whose blazing letters will be seen at last, but seen too late. . . . Down Fredegonde's pale face two tears rolled, the only answer she could make. The King roused, sombre-eyed, and spoke again.

" Say that it spares me, and I work out my release: I shall leave behind me no successor. You know my resolve: I will not transmit this curse to children of mine. ... If I dared to, I should feel I had their blood upon my head to all eternity. . . . Compare a man's few waning years with a nation's centuries ! When I am gone — what then ? Will anything have changed ? Russia will still be on Alberia's track ; yes, and still as hungry as her wolves — " "But you will have done your duty; you will have earned your rest." " Fredegonde, you have no mercy ! " "No, or I should have sweet mercy on myself" — The last word was a murmur ; she had swooned. The King poured cordial between her lips, and stared into her unresponsive eyes. "Death is like this," he muttered. "This is how I shall look at her when it is over.

This is how I shall remember her. This is the pain that will devour me. . . . Self-sacrifice and patriotism — well enough, but before that I shall have gone mad. . . ." "Waldemar . . . what is it you say? ..." FREDEGONDE 7 " God's mercy ! I say, I suffer too much ! I say, let me come ! I say, you will leave behind you a madman, not a king, to play the patriot ! " She lifted her hand in dumb appeal. He branded on it frenzied kisses ; and then, collapsing, leaned his forehead on its palm. " Will it never help and comfort me again ? " he thought. She heard him groan. There was long silence in the room — the silence death and peace share with despair. Night had fallen ; the lake become a shield of shadow, not a field of blood. The risen moon stood wan above the hills, like the spectre of all the trouble of all time.

"Waldemar," murmured the dying woman, laying the hand he was not holding on his hair, " has not our love been comradeship and confidence?" " ' Has been ! ' The past already ! Fredegonde ! " " No, not the past ; the future. I think our souls are wed too close for even death to sunder. Nothing can send me very far from you. Listen : I will be with you when you suffer ; I will be near when you despair. A day of pain seems everlasting if one does not dream of beautiful to-morrow ; a life's unrest seems but a day's, if one looks to the eternal calm. And afterward, when pain is past and work is done, we — " " — May find that the soul dies with the body ! " " Cruel ! when I . . . " "Yes, cruel. Suffer, and understand my pain! I have always doubted : now I fear — with all the pangs of hell ! What if I, a shadow, mourn a shadow, in an unsubstantial dream ?

To die with you ! . . . Then at least we should have touched the truth together ; dreamed out the dream, or passed beyond dreams. How can I let you go — not only beyond sight and sound, but even soul's embrace — into that impenetrable night, and wide upon that chartless sea! Fredegonde, how can I let you go, thinking as I do, feeling we may never meet again — " " We must ; we will ! " "'Must'? What are must or will of ours against one of nature's ordinances ? " "Ah, dear, you dread, but do not know. My faith—" "May faith not fool you? . . . Fredegonde, what in all this jarring world is left to me when you are gone? Inexorable duty; deadly doubt; alternate torments for my days and nights, and the thought of madness for a pastime ! " The King laughed loudly, and tossed away her hand. " Who cares ?

A hun dred years hence, as they say, it will be the same to all of us. I shall have passed out where you are going now : to nothingness, or dull oblivion in another state, to heaven with, or hell without you. . . . Fredegonde, my wife, my goddess ! — though we love ! — " She felt the fervour of his hands and lips, while passion wrestled giantlike with reason. " Have pity, Waldemar ! Duty forbids, not I — because your country calls you ! " At the instant there was a knocking on the door. " Sire, a courier from the capital," the elder of the two physicians said. Waldemar sprang to his feet ; her eyes replied to his eyes' portent. " Let him deliver his despatches here, Gadatz." The King of Alberia entered the saloon, and gave audience to the messenger. . . . Ten minutes later he returned, pale as the dying woman on the bed.

" There has been an outbreak on the Turkish frontier. They call me to Zarilov. . . ." To his stunned stare she answered one long gaze of infinite farewell. It is the summons of your country ; go." FREDEGONDE 9 "But you—?" " My soul goes with you." He knelt. She laid her hands on his bowed head in final benediction. "Fredegonde!" "Waldemar. . . ." His eyes met her despairing eyes, his lips her lips. . . . This look and kiss seemed to convey their last farewell of soul and body. . . . He felt her arms relax, her lips grow cold. She had swooned again ; he laid her back with pain and death upon her face. The King, as he turned away, cast on her the look of the damned who dream of heaven.

Chapter II Waldemar

" Cuando entre al vano estrepito dal mundo La melodia de tu nombre suena." Ramon Uriarte. A TRAVELLING carriage, drawn by galloping horses, plunged down a defile. Emerging, it followed the road, here hewn in the sheer rock, across the mountain's face. A thousand feet below lay the Konigsee ; a thousand feet above rose Konigslust. The King of Alberia was on his way. A shock, a shout : the vehicle stopped ; one of the horses was down. The King descended, watched the brute, struggling to its feet, stand quivering, and wondered why it had not rolled towards the verge and over, dragging him, its fellows, and the carriage on a final headlong journey to the lake. With a pang of rage fiercer than a curse, he looked once upward and re-entered. The four black horses, swift as the Wild Huntsman, tore through the echoing region of hills.

Their hoof-beat startled the great night calm ; they dashed across spaces made silver with moonlight, sudden and spectral as shadow steeds. " I should pursue her like this through all time," thought the King, "if I let her go." The horses' gallop began to trample a word out: "Forever — forever — forever ! " LO WALDEMAR 11 " Faster ! " shouted the King. " On ! faster ! " He wished to escape from the sound and the thought. They crossed a light bridge in the spray of a cataract, leaping thunderous, rainbow-crowned ; they forded a slow-flowing river where moonlight spanned it with unsubstantial gold. Owls, strong-winged, on nocturnal errands, hovered and hooted and stared as they passed ; from farther forests the howl of wolves came, famished but cowardly, hanging behind. The stars marked midnight ; the moon, at her highest, hung like a lamp in the dome of heaven.

The horses were checked beside lines of steel which shone to the shadowy mouth of a gorge. Waldemar entered the waiting train of a single sumptuous car. It moved away stealthily, shrieking no signal, but cries of disaster followed it. It left a man ground to death on its track as it vanished in the ravine. The King heard the shout, not of salute, and, leaning out, looked back. A head bounded ball-like between the wheels of the car, and rolled away. . . . When he thought at last of checking the train, it had thundered forward some miles. "Accursed journey!" muttered the King. "Delayed — blood-stained — accursed ! " The mountain -ranges were falling behind, like laggard bands of Titans. No longer the chasm, the cataract, the summit, but peaceful fields and farms. Waldemar watched with envy and fury these home steads lying asleep.

Here love and happiness sheltered like eave-building swallows ; life passed secure and serene. . . . He cursed the cynical fate which, seem ing to lavish, cancelled, and left him exalted, envied, and beggared. The weary white moon had done her vigil ; stars paled ; the view was a landscape of shadows. Night's reign had ended, day's not begun ; mystery held interregnum. The King, with sleepless and bloodshot eyes, looked out on a vaporous realm. The river which he had forded near its source in the mountains, swept into sight again, glassy under the moon's last light. Mists rose off it in silvery spirals, to mix with the hovering mist of the marshlands, where, dim balls of ambiguous fire, will-o'-the-wisps were at play. A few leagues lower the river flowed through the capital of Alberia. Waldemar, listening to the engine's throb as it ran its race with time, remarked a kindling of the eastern sky.

" Dawn already ! perhaps dawn of the last day she will see." . . . Still staring at it, his thoughts with the woman he loved and was losing, he noticed a curious fluctuation of the glow. " But is it dawn — ? " He let down the car's double window and watched. There seemed to hang above the light a cloud which sullenly reflected it. The train was speeding sixty miles an hour : the view grew momentarily more definite. The radiance seemed to rise, a steam of light. The cloud was smoke ; the light was fire. " Either the forests behind, or the city ! — " The railroad curved with the river ; the train rushed in sight. " God's mercy ! " breathed the King. Zarilov lay on the lower slopes of a group of wood crowned hills. White, save where the grim old Turkish fortress hugged its flank, and reaching to the waters of the green-waved Save, the beautiful city resembled a beautiful woman bathing her feet.

Now the water ran flame and blood, the city lay lurid, the hill behind it rose in a cone of fire. ... A wind blew the conflagration back from instead of over the town. The forests were burning, and roared aloft in volumes of flame-forked smoke. Waldemar watched neither forest nor city ; he looked towards the grand and solitary pile which capped the hill. Not kindled yet, though there spread between it and his sight a gleam- WALDEMAR 13 ing veil ; it was besieged, and above it the flag of the victor already shone. He checked the train. A line of windows at the black bulk's base glowed orange, one by one. The huge arched portal vomited smoke, then fire. Higher windows lit, and dimmed, and issued stealthy climbing flames. Shining serpents seemed to hang and wind and writhe on the facade. A dense cloud crowned the castle, suddenly splendid with an aigrette of sparks.

"Ruin," muttered Waldemar, "ruin! Death and war and fire ! " The incandescent walls enclosed a yellow devil's bath of flame. The roof fell, sending a gold column to the zenith : vacancy replaced the glowing windows. " The home she loved. . . . Those rooms were hers. ..." The summit was conquered ; the forest-fires, con verging, hid it with walls of flame. Soaring upward, their barren and terrific aspiration resembled that of vast frustrated hope. The King struck the signal, grinding his teeth. The train dashed into the city. Through the glazed arch of the railway station's roof the fire's reflection showed like daylight. Fear disturbed the faces of the court officials gathered to receive the King : only the pale mask of the Premier, behind which he had watched the world for forty years, remained impassive.

He came to secure a five minutes' private hearing during the King's drive to the palace. Once there, the Council of ministers, already assembled, awaited them. The first thing Waldemar's eyes marked, as the train's stoppage roused him, was Fokshany's figure. Tall, meagre, slightly bent, though rather by diplo macy's perpetual bow than statecraft's perpetual burden, with a face in whose ivory smoothness and pallor a few deep lines seemed carved, the Premier was not to be overlooked, and not to be forgotten. He remembered nothing which it was politic to forget, and forgot nothing which it was politic to remember. His vigilant repose revealed the man whose strength lies in knowing how to wait. The King met his eyes with a shock. Steadfast and indecipherable, their lower and upper lids were equally jealous of disclosing them ; it was said that no one had ever succeeded in determining their colour.

The King for a second failed to sign his recognition. Fokshany stood before him the embodiment of Duty, of the Future, of the Actual. Waldemar conquered a singular impulse — to fly, returning swifter than he had come ; to elude them forever — and descended, entering his carriage, where he bade Fokshany follow. "The situation, Count?" he inquired. "Has it changed ? " " Not materially, your Majesty. It is critical, considering the attitude of Russia, but treated with policy — " " And your policy ? " said Waldemar, cutting short the preface. Fokshany knew when to be brief. " The Council, to a man, is set on war. Sire, there must be peace." The King did not answer; he seemed sunk in thought. The fire's pervading glare gave all it touched a ghastly hue. Fokshany wondered, as he watched, if it were this that altered the aspect of his master.

Waldemar was silent, looking down ; then — " Peace . . ." he muttered. " Peace ! " and threw his head back with the laughter of despair. Fokshany scrutinised his pale, harmonious profile, baffled by its symmetry. " Will he die, like his father, in council," thought the Premier, " or like his father's father, in a mad house ? " Weighing the chances, he let some minutes WALDEMAR 15 pass. Then, as he knew they neared the palace, " Your Majesty — " he said, intending to recall the King respectfully to the unsettled question. " Sire, your sanction to the policy of peace — " Waldemar roused. " What do you say ? " " May I hope for your Majesty's support in the measures I desire to — " " Yes," interrupted the King. " But after that I return. Let there be no pretext for delaying me, Fokshany." The minister, astounded, received the shock and Waldemar's commanding glance impassibly.

He knew that the King's morganatic wife was in danger, as an express had arrived some hours before to summon consulting physicians, but regarded her probable death with the double cynicism of diplomate and roue. That such an event could distract the attention of Waldemar from urgent state affairs had not occurred to him. At the same time he saw an opportunity, and seized it with the malice clashing temperaments engender. " Your Majesty will pardon my suggesting that your absence at this crisis is unfortunate." " I leave you in control, Count." " I am honoured by your Majesty's confidence, which I should not deserve if I did not make an effort to persuade you to remain." " Useless." " In that case, sire, I will do my best ; but the responsibility is heavy, and my control, unhappily, does not extend to public opinion."

" You are bold for a courtier, Fokshany," said the King. " No courtier, but your humble and faithful servant, sire, whose duty is to indicate the danger of arousing, at this crisis, the people's jealousy." " Ah ! " " Your Majesty's experience on the throne, though short, must have shown you something of popular unreason. The more insignificant they think its object, the more violent their jealousy. That a woman's whim, which your Majesty graciously con descends to humour, should outweigh — " " Count Fokshany, the subject is closed. You have amply done your duty to your conscience ; it remains for you to do your duty to your King." The Premier bowed. " May I hope that a loyal desire for your Majesty's welfare will be my excuse?" At the moment the carriage stopped ; the King's reply, made as he left it, was inaudible.

Fokshany was satisfied with his experiment ; he had been perfectly aware that his method of persuasion would confirm the King's resolve. The Premier was strong enough to bear the brunt of transient royal anger for this stake, and also divined that Waldemar would later on account his temerity devotion. Since Waldemar's morganatic marriage and refusal to contract a higher alliance with a view to strengthening the dynasty, Fokshany had been secretly antagonistic to him ; and, had Russia's Panslavist movement been less dangerous to the peace of all the Balkan States, besides a revival of feeling for the race of Vlastimir, the Haiduk chief, who had led the country on to liberty against the Turks, being possible, the Premier might even have countenanced the deposition of a ruler, childless and unpopular, whose tendency to madness would have furnished pretext and excuse for such a step.

As it was, Fokshany took every oppor tunity to prejudice the young King with his people, never certain that the wheel's turn might not make his master madman, himself regent ; or render a coup d'etat needful, on this pretext, by which they could WALDEMAR 17 be thus proclaimed. Fokshany was conservative by nature, but he knew the value of adaptability in countries where the political stage shows every day fresh changes. Besides, between him and Waldemar existed the bottomless and unbridgeable gulf which divides idealist and materialist. As the Premier stooped in descending from the carriage, his ivory mask showed a smile. Night passed ; dawn passed ; morning passed ; and the debate behind locked doors continued. Silence fell in the palace, as if its occupants held their breaths to hear. Telegrams in cipher were constantly received.