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  ‘Of course you do,’ Katerina said exasperatedly. ‘You were seen with him for goodness sake!’

  It was early evening and still warm and they were in the garden of their home. Katerina had judged it to be the safest place in which to speak to Natalie. In the garden they would not be overheard by her parents or by servants.

  Natalie plucked a petal off a Belle de Crécy rose. She had never been any good at telling lies or prevaricating and though she knew it would make life enormously easier if she did so now, she was unable to summon the necessary guile.

  ‘Vitza Karageorgevich is a despicable busybody,’ she said crossly. ‘Why should it matter to her where I go and who I meet? And what was she doing in the Golden Sturgeon anyway?’

  Katerina mentally filed away the name of the café, saying with as much patience as she could muster, ‘It wasn’t Vitza who saw you. It was Max.’

  ‘Oh, Max.’ Natalie’s voice was heavy with irritation. ‘I might have known it would be Max Karageorgevich. He’s never liked me. Do you remember the time when we were children and he…’

  ‘I’m not going to be side-tracked, Natalie,’ Katerina said firmly. ‘Max liking you, or not liking you, doesn’t alter the fact that he saw you.’

  ‘Oh, I dare say he saw me,’ Natalie admitted with bad grace. ‘I just don’t see why he has to make such a big thing of it. Goodness knows who else he’s told and…’

  ‘Of course he would make a big thing of it!’ Katerina never lost her temper but she was coming close to doing so now. ‘You’re only seventeen! Mama and Papa may give us a lot of freedom, but even they would draw the line at your wandering around Belgrade unaccompanied. Why wasn’t Miss Benson with you? As your governess she should chaperone you to your music lessons. If they knew you had gone into a student kafana they would have ten fits!’

  Natalie began to shred the rose petal with short, pearl-buffed nails. Despite all her rebelliousness she loved her parents dearly and had no desire to cause them hurt. ‘You don’t intend telling them, do you?’ she asked, her winged eyebrows pulling together in a slight frown.

  ‘I don’t want to tell them,’ Katerina said truthfully, ‘but unless you explain to me just why you were there, and unless you promise never to do such a thing again, I shall have to tell them.’

  They had been strolling aimlessly, too involved in their conversation to care where their route was taking them. Natalie paused now, knowing that she would have to tell Katerina something about her involvement with Gavrilo and his friends and knowing that she would have to be very careful not to reveal too much.

  ‘Gavrilo and Nedjelko attended the Conservatoire earlier this year and…’

  She had come to a halt near one of their mother’s much-loved rose bowers. A garden seat was carefully positioned so that her mother could enjoy the fragrance and Katerina sat down on it, her alarm growing. Until now, she had imagined that Natalie‘s foray into the kafana had been a single, isolated, incident. Now it was beginning to seem as if she had been there before, perhaps several times.

  ‘… we became friends when they accidentally walked into my classroom and…’

  ‘But your classes are private!’ Katerina protested, appalled at the thought of the city’s riff-raff having such easy access to a member of the ruling house. ‘Where was your tutor?’

  ‘Monsieur Lasalle was late. He’s often late. Sometimes he doesn’t even arrive for my class at all.’

  Katerina blanched. What if the person in the empty classroom had been Sandro? It would have been a heaven-sent opportunity for an assassin. She wondered how accidental Gavrilo and Nedjelko’s walking in on Natalie had been. If they were young Bosnians, in Serbia in order to gain support for a revolt against Habsburg rule, then waylaying a Karageorgevich would make a great deal of sense. Through such a contact they would have the ear of the heir to the throne, perhaps even of King Peter himself.

  ‘And are Gavrilo and Nedjelko political activists?’ she asked, already sure of what the answer would be.

  Natalie remained standing, a spray of delicate pink Belle Isis almost touching her hair, a thick truss of parched-gold Jeanne d’Arc brushing her skirt. She couldn’t lie to Katerina and yet she didn’t want her to know the depth and seriousness of Gavrilo and Nedjelko’s commitment to Slav unity; or of her own.

  ‘They are students,’ she said prevaricatingly; ‘all students are politically aware. Did you know that the new editor of the Serbian Literary Herald was Paris educated? He is exactly the kind of cultured intellectual Papa would enjoy meeting and …’

  ‘Stop trying to change the subject,’ Katerina said, no nearer to knowing what she was going to do about Natalie’s escapade than she had been before they had begun talking. A new thought struck her, striking real fear into her heart. ‘They aren’t members of the Bosnia Youth Movement, are they?’

  Members of the revolutionary Bosnian Youth Movement were notorious for their recklessness and violence. Only four years previously one of their members had tried to kill the Governor of Bosnia. If they had succeeded Habsburg wrath might well have resulted in such repressive retaliation that a full scale uprising might have been provoked.

  ‘No, silly,’ Natalie said emphatically, deeply relieved at being able to speak the truth unequivocally for once. ‘Of course they aren’t.’

  She didn’t add that Gavrilo and Nedjelko were not members of Young Bosnia for the simple reason that they had come to the conclusion that Young Bosnia was pathetically ineffective and that they were, instead, members of a much more militantly orientated organization.

  Katerina sighed with relief. The scent of the roses was heavy as a drug, the air thick with the zoom of bees and she could feel herself beginning to relax. Natalie had behaved foolishly but no serious damage had been done. She hadn’t become embroiled in Bosnia’s fanatical revolutionary youth movement and it was quite obvious from the way she had spoken of Princip and his friend, that she hadn’t fallen in love with either of them. Her visits to the Golden Sturgeon had not been prompted by either nationalistic extremism or infatuation. All that now remained was for Natalie to promise her that she wouldn’t visit the café, or any other café, ever again.

  ‘It was crassly stupid of you,’ she said, feeling more like a governess than a sister. ‘It was a betrayal of Papa and Mama’s trust and Monsieur Lasalle’s…’

  Natalie was aware she had behaved badly where her parents’ trust in her was concerned and had no wish to be reminded of it, especially as it was a trust she had no choice but to continue betraying. Trying to exonerate herself of the guilt she felt, she said spiritedly, ‘If Monsieur Lasalle had not been so negligent about tutoring me it would never have happened. I would never have met Gavrilo and Nedjelko in the first place and I would never have been able to meet them again. I only ever went to the café when he failed to arrive for my music lesson.’

  Silently cursing Monsieur Lasalle for his negligence Katerina said, striving to be understanding, ‘I suppose it was exciting for you to be out without a chaperone and among people of your own age, but it mustn’t happen again, Natalie. It was an extremely dangerous thing to do. Anything could have happened to you.’

  Natalie was sorely tempted to ask for an example, but restrained herself. She loved Katerina dearly, but her temperament was so different from her own there were times when she found communication with her almost impossible. Why, for instance, was she so unexcited by the thought of a federated South Slav state incorporating Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and even, perhaps, parts of Macedonia? Belgrade would be its capital and a Kara-georgevich its king and it would be just like medieval times when the kings of Serbia had been known as Tsars, the empire they ruled stretching from Belgrade to the Aegean and taking in most of the Adriatic and Ionian coasts as well.

  Containing her irritation at Katerina’s lack of vision she said sincerely, ‘I’m sorry, Katerina. I didn’t mean to cause you anxiety.’

  ‘Then don’t cause me anxiety again,’ Katerina scolded, too
happy the difficulty had been resolved for there to be any real censure in her voice.

  Natalie’s relief was absolute. Katerina hadn’t asked her to promise never to see Gavrilo or Nedjelko again or to visit the Golden Sturgeon again. She had simply assumed she would not do so.

  ‘Did you know that Mama has invited every member of the British and French Legation to the Summer Ball?’ she asked, knowing that she would have to be much more careful in future and changing the subject before Katerina realized her carelessness. ‘And the Russian minister is to be in attendance and a party of Cossack officers. I do think Cossacks are handsome, don’t you?’

  Indulgently allowing Natalie to prattle on about their mother’s Summer Ball and the officers who would be in attendance and with whom she could innocently flirt, Katerina rose to her feet. She had her own romantic hopes for the Summer Ball and they didn’t centre on exotic Cossacks. For the hundredth time she wondered if Julian Fielding had meant her to interpret his remark about the eldest sister being the prize, personally. And if he had?

  Her heart began to beat faster. If he asked her to marry him, and if she accepted his proposal, it would mean her eventually leaving Serbia. Young diplomats never remained long in a posting. In a year or so, perhaps even less, Julian would be posted to Vienna or Paris or perhaps even St Petersburg.

  Natalie was chattering about Bella now. Sandro had said that, if her father didn’t object, he would give her to her.

  ‘And I spoke to Papa this morning and he said as long as Bella didn’t get under his feet or into his study, then I could have her. Do you think she could sleep in our bedroom, Katerina? She’s too tiny to sleep all alone.’

  Trying not to imagine the damage Bella would do to her clothes and shoes, Katerina said tolerantly, ‘Of course I don’t mind.’

  She wondered how hard she would find it to leave home. They were a very close-knit family and she would miss her parents and Natalie terribly. She thought of the pleasurable excitements of Vienna and Paris and St Petersburg and knew she would be able to adapt.

  Until her uncle had returned to Serbia as king, ten years ago, he and many other Karageorgevichs had lived in exile in Geneva and it was in Geneva that she and Natalie had been born. Whereas Natalie had loathed Switzerland on principle, vociferously claiming that it was far inferior to the homeland she had never seen, she had been happy there. She had liked the neatness of the country and the sensible level-headedness of the Swiss. There would be very little level-headedness in a Slavic capital such as St Petersburg, but she imagined that Vienna and Paris and other European capitals to which Julian might be posted would be very similar to Geneva.

  They had reached the house now and Natalie was saying, ‘I’m going to ask Mama if I can go to the Konak to collect Bella. Miss Benson can accompany me.’

  Their mother was sitting on the terrace with Eudocia and after Natalie had asked and received permission to go to the Konak accompanied by her long-suffering governess, Katerina joined them.

  ‘I thought both you and Natalie looked extremely elegant at the wedding announcement this afternoon,’ her great-aunt said to her generously. ‘Of course, yellow is a very ingénue colour and Natalie will soon have to stop favouring it. Blue would be a suitable alternative. Did you notice Vitza’s gown? It was a most wonderful shade of royal blue but royal blue would not, perhaps, be the right shade for Natalie. It requires a great deal of stylishness if it is to be worn successfully and I’m sure your mama will agree with me that though dear Natalie possesses many commendable qualities stylishness is not, as yet, one of them.’

  Katerina’s eyes fleetingly met her mother’s, their amusement mutual. It was quite true that Natalie’s kittenish exuberance could hardly be described as stylish but Vitza, who was showing incipient signs of one day becoming as stout as her grandmother, was hardly an example of it, nor was royal blue particularly flattering to her.

  ‘Vitza’s gown was stunningly head-turning,’ her mother said resourcefully. ‘Parisian dressmaking always shows.’

  The gown had been made by a local dressmaker as both Katerina and her mother well knew, but Eudocia didn’t trouble to correct her.

  Highly gratified she turned to Katerina saying, ‘I was just remarking to your mother that I really cannot understand why there have been so few court balls this year. There has been only once since Christmas. Can you imagine? Only one! It really isn’t good enough. I am sure that in London and St Petersburg there are balls every night of the week.’

  Aware of the British king’s introverted personality and the Russian empress’s dislike of socializing outside of her immediate family circle, Zita doubted it, but kept her doubts to herself.

  ‘I don’t think Peter is very well,’ she said with a slight frown, laying aside her embroidery. ‘He’s sixty-nine now and he tires very easily.’

  ‘Then he shouldn’t do,’ Eudocia said tartly. ‘I’m seventy-two and I don’t tire!’

  Katerina kept her eyes from meeting her mother’s with difficulty.

  ‘The last few years have been extremely stressful for him,’ her mother said patiently. ‘The military are constantly pressuring him to take a more aggressive stance towards Austria.’

  ‘Quite rightly,’ Eudocia said hawkishly. ‘She should never have annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are predominantly Slav and should be part of a great federated South Slav state. Serbia would then have a window on the Adriatic again and…’

  ‘We should have nothing if we went to war with Austria,’ Zita said with unusual sharpness. ‘She has German backing, both countries have been arming Bulgaria and you don’t need me to point out how uneasy our relationship with Bulgaria is. If it came to war, we would be overrun within days.’

  Eudocia’s heavy jowls trembled indignantly at the very thought. ‘Not if we had Russian support. With Russian support we would soon rid the Balkans of Habsburg rule.’

  ‘And if Russia engaged in war against Austria-Hungary and Germany and Bulgaria, where would it all end?’ Zita’s cameo-like features were taut. ‘France has reciprocal agreements with Russia that if either are attacked, the other will come to her aid. And if France is involved in the fighting, it won’t be long before countries with which she has alliances are involved as well.’

  For the first time since the conversation had begun, Eudocia looked uncertain. She soon rallied. ‘Nonsense,’ she said robustly. ‘Once faced with the might of Russia, Austria-Hungary will back down and abandon her occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It will all be over within days.’

  Realizing that her aunt was not going to change her views Zita said merely, ‘If some foolishness triggers off a war then I only hope you are proved right.’

  The atmosphere had become sombre and it was Eudocia who lightened it. Changing the subject she said garrulously, ‘Did you notice the attention Monsieur Quesnai was paying Vitza this afternoon? It isn’t to be encouraged, of course. Vitza will marry into the Romanovs as dear Helene did and as Alexander is so splendidly to do. The Grand-Duke Dimitri has three eligible sons and it has long been understood…’

  Katerina ceased to listen. She had found her mother’s prognosis of what might happen if Serbia declared war on Austria, or if Austria was provoked into declaring war on Serbia, profoundly depressing. Her head had begun to ache and she rose to her feet, excusing herself. When she next saw Julian Fielding she would not only tell him all she knew of the Black Hand, she would also find out if his assessment of the dangers of Slav nationalism was the same as her father’s.

  It was two weeks before her opportunity came. The Vassilovich Summer Ball was customarily held in August but because of the dearth of parties and balls at the Konak, her mother had decided to hold it early.

  ‘At least the roses are in full bloom,’ she said as she surveyed the marble-floored ballroom, its dozens of french windows open to the terrace and the garden beyond, ‘and roses in moonlight are so romantic.’

  Katerina, her thoughts full of Julian Fielding, agreed
wholeheartedly. She knew that he would dance with her that evening and she knew that when she discreetly mentioned the Black Hand, she would have his undivided attention. Would he ask her out into the garden so that they could talk undisturbed? And when they had finished discussing things that were of professional interest to him, would the conversation take a more intimate turn?

  She was wearing a ballgown of white tulle, the heart-shaped neckline and bodice encrusted with seed-pearls, the skirt swirling behind her in a delicious demi-train. Her lustrous, copper-highlighted hair was piled high in a glorious confection of deep waves and curls and ornamented with fresh gardenias. Without being the least immodest she knew she looked lovely and she was yearning to see acknowledgement of the fact reflected back at her in Julian Fielding’s golden-brown eyes.

  ‘Guests will be arriving in a few minutes, Mama,’ she said, butterflies beginning to flutter in the pit of her stomach. ‘Shall I go and tell Natalie we are ready to receive?’

  Her mother nodded, casting a final look around the ballroom. The coffered-gold ceiling gleamed richly in the brilliant light of the chandeliers; huge crystal vases of orchids decorated every alcove; the orchestra was in position; the footmen were at the ready. Satisfied that there wasn’t a ballroom east of Vienna that could match it for splendour she turned on a satin-slippered heel and walked to the grand entrance hall where, with her family around her, she would formally receive her two hundred guests.

  Katerina slid the loop of her demi-train over her little finger and hurried up the crimson-carpeted stairs towards the room she shared with Natalie. When she had left the room fifteen minutes earlier Natalie had still not decided which of her ballgowns to wear and both she and her harassed German maid had been knee-deep in discarded confections of tulle and silk. On entering the room, the first thing that was obvious was that Natalie still hadn’t made up her mind.

  ‘Mama is ready to receive!’ she said, aghast. ‘You’ve only got five minutes at the very most!’