A Princess Prays (9 page)

Samson joined them and Attila knew that he was so well-trained that he would come back if she called him.

Lamos and Kilkos started to build a fire and Attila appreciated that they had procured enough fresh food from the Monastery for them not to go hungry.

She sat a little bit away from the fire thinking how beautiful the flames were, rising against the darkness of the trees.

She wished she had someone to talk to.

She had so enjoyed the meals she had shared with Father Jozsef as he always had such interesting things to say to her.

She knew that if she had been with her father there would have been many topics on which they would both have very definite opinions.

Lamos was cooking something in a saucepan over the fire and from the smell Attila guessed her meal would start with a soup with many different ingredients.

Lamos, as it happened, was a very good cook and she noticed that Kilkos had been sent to find mushrooms growing in the moss.

Quite suddenly a man riding very swiftly came out of the wood and headed towards them.

Attila watched him in surprise because he appeared to be in such a hurry.

When he reached her, he pulled in his horse and shouted,

“For God's sake hide me
or I am a dead man
.”

Attila sprang to her feet.

Almost as if she was being guided, she knew what to do.

The young man flung himself off his horse.

Kilkos dropped his mushrooms and ran to Attila as if she had called him.

“Take off his saddle and bridle,” she ordered him.

And to the young man standing beside her she said,

“Come with me.”

She ran towards the carriage.

As he followed her he was looking apprehensively towards the wood which he had just come from.

“They are right behind me,” he muttered, “and they intend to kill me.”

Attila did not answer.

She merely opened the door of the carriage on the side where Father Jozsef had slept.

As she expected a cassock was hanging by the bed.

“Put this on quickly,” she urged. “Then shave away your moustache and lie down as if you are asleep.”

The young man did exactly as he was told.

He put on Father Jozsef's cassock, pulled the hood over his head and climbed into the carriage.

Attila closed the door and walked back to the fire.

She noted that Kilkos had obeyed her instructions and the horse free of its saddle and bridle was trotting away to join the other horses in the stream.

She sat down where she had been sitting earlier.

She thought that this was the most extraordinary experience that had ever happened to her.

Then out of the wood in the same place where the young man had appeared came four men on horseback.

The leader galloped up to her.

As she looked up at him, he called at her sharply in a language she only just understood,

“A man came this way, where is he?”

Attila thought that he had an unpleasant face, although he was broad-shouldered and could have been quite good-looking.

But there was something mean about his eyes and she felt instinctively he was not to be trusted.

“There is no man here,” she replied firmly.

Then pointing towards the way they had just come, she told him,

“There are a number of pilgrims going to the Shrine of St. Janos.”

“I am not interested in pilgrims,” he snapped, “only a man on horseback.”

As he was speaking, two more rough-looking men joined him while the third stayed by the wood.

They were looking to the right and left searching for the man Attila had just hidden.

“I was sure he would come through this way,” said the leader. “Are those your horses by the stream?”

“Yes, they are ours,” responded Attila.

“There are five and only three of you!”

He was looking towards Lamos and Kilkos.

Attila knew the answer.

“Father Jozsef is not well,” she said. “He is asleep in the carriage.”

He dismounted.

“I want to look at him,” he said aggressively.

For a moment Attila felt her heart stop beating and then she replied,

“He is asleep. He has been very ill and the reason we visited the Shrine was to pray for his recovery.”

“All the same I wish to take a look at him,” the man insisted in a truculent voice.

“Very well then, but as he is asleep you are not to disturb him.”

He was already walking towards the carriage and there was nothing Attila could do but to go with him.

At the same time she was praying fervently that the man who had come to her for help would not be killed in front of her eyes.

She was hoping by this time he would have covered himself.

Fortunately the man with her was leading his horse and he could not move as quickly as he wished.

“Why do you want the man you have lost?” Attila asked him.

“That is my business,” he replied sharply. “I have to make sure you are not hiding him.”

Attila managed to laugh.

“Why should I do so?” she asked. “As I have just told you, I am a pupil of Father Jozsef's, who is suffering from a strange illness that the doctors cannot diagnose. That is why we have come to the Shrine and I am sure our prayers will be more effective than their medicine.”

“It would not surprise me,” the man muttered.

By this time they had reached the carriage.

The sun was sinking and the shadows from the trees made it difficult to see clearly.

Attila pushed herself in front of the man.

She put her right hand on the handle of the door and a finger of her left hand against her lips.

Very quietly she whispered,

“He has been very ill and I cannot allow him to be disturbed.”

The man made a grunting noise, but did not speak.

Slowly and softly, so as not to make a noise, Attila opened the door.

As she had hoped it was almost dark inside and it was just possible to see that there was a man in a cassock with a hood over his head lying on the floor of the carriage.

It was impossible to make out his face and the man lent forward and tried to look under the hood.

He could just see a little of his chin and his upper lip.

With a feeling of huge relief Attila realised that he had done as she had told him and removed his moustache.

The leader drew back.

He did not speak and Attila closed the door of the carriage and then, as he realised that she had been right, he mounted his horse.

He rode back to where the other men were waiting for him a little way from the fire.

“He is not here,” he said to them. “He must have doubled back into the wood.”

One of the men shrugged his shoulders.

“Then it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. If you had not been such a damned fool as to arouse his suspicions, we would have got what we wanted.”

He rode off and the others followed him.

They went a short way down the grassland before turning into the wood.

As the last man disappeared Attila gave a deep sigh of relief.

She had won the battle of nerves and they had gone away without finding their victim.

She realised, however, that she must be careful. If the leader was suspicious, he might be watching them.

Lamos, who had continued his cooking by the fire, looked round.

“Is Your Royal Highness all right?” he asked her anxiously.

Attila put her hand to her lips and ran towards him.

“Be careful what you say. I don't wish those men to know who I am
–
or the man who has just arrived.”

“I'm sorry. It just slipped out.”

She had told both Lamos and Kilkos not to say who she was when they had been at the Monastery.

“They think I am just a pupil of Father Jozsef's,” she said, “and that indeed is the truth.”

They had understood that she did not want them to make a great fuss over her.

And now she was sure it would be a great mistake for the stranger, whoever he was, to have any idea that she was a Princess.

As if Lamos was upset at having made an error, he said,

“I will have something ready for you in about five minutes. Do you expect the stranger will be hungry too?”

“I will go and ask him,” replied Attila, “but he will be wise to stay where he is while those men are about.”

“I agree with you,” said Lamos. “A nasty lot they seemed to me.”

Attila went back to the carriage where she looked towards the trees and then opened the door.

“They have gone,” she announced.

The stranger sat up and pushed back the hood from his head.

“How can I ever thank you for saving my life? I cannot think of any woman who would have been so quick or so skilful without asking a great number of questions.”

Attila smiled.

“In which case they would have caught you.”

“And killed me!”

Attila glanced over her shoulder again.

“I think they were convinced you were not here, but one can never be sure. It is very difficult to hide out in the grassland and they think you have returned to the woods.”

“It is only because you were clever enough to tell me to shave off my moustache that he believed I was a priest.”

“Why does he want to kill you?” enquired Attila.

She thought she must seem rather inquisitive, but at the same time this young man, nice though he seemed, had maybe committed some terrible crime.

“As you have been very kind to me,” the stranger answered her, “I am more than prepared to tell you the whole gruesome story. But for the moment I can only feel gratitude that at the very last moment I found an angel to befriend me.”

Attila laughed.

“I am delighted that you think of me as an angel, but actually I am only a humble pilgrim.”

“And a very beautiful one,” he added.

As Attila was not used to being paid compliments, she blushed and then said quickly,

“I am sure you must be feeling hungry and supper, I am told, will be ready in five minutes.”

“Will it be safe for me to come out of the carriage?” the stranger asked.

“Only if you wear the cassock and you should keep the hood over your head. If they spy on you from the wood, they might recognise you, even though very soon it will be dark.”

“You think of everything and I am just so grateful. Is my horse safe?”

She liked it that he was worrying about his horse.

“He is with the other horses down by the stream,” she told him. “Ours will come when they are called and I hope yours will do the same.”

“He is young but fairly obedient. In fact he is one of the fastest horses I have ever ridden and there is Arab blood in him.”

“Then I must take a look at him,” suggested Attila. “I love horses and, if you do too, you will admire mine.”

“I am prepared to believe everything about you is perfect!”

Attila blushed again and then she turned away from the carriage.

“Come and join me at the fire if you think it is safe. If they are moving through the woods, we will hear them and you will have time to run back to the carriage.”

She did not wait for him to answer but walked over to the fire.

Lamos was already putting what he had cooked into a large china bowl.

Instead of going into the open field, Attila changed her mind. She moved away from the carriage, but kept in the shadows of the trees.

She knew it would be more difficult for anyone to see the stranger if he joined her and as the sun was sinking fast, it would soon be dark.

When she had seated herself, Kilkos spread a small tablecloth over the ground and arranged two plates and two glasses on it.

There were two bottles of Father Jozsef's wine left and Attila told Kilkos to open one of them.

She had only just been seated for a few moments when she saw the stranger coming towards her, wearing Father Jozsef's cassock with the hood firmly over his head.

She considered it would be impossible for anyone watching them to suspect that he was in fact a young man in smart riding clothes.

She noticed that he kept glancing at the wood.

When he joined her, he remarked,

“We shall hear anyone coming long before they see us.”

“That is just what I thought.”

“You are so clever I cannot believe you are real, but as you are really an angel from Heaven, I am so very very grateful to you.”

“Because I am hungry I feel, at the moment, very much on this earth!”

They both laughed.

The soup Lamos produced was really delicious and the stranger enjoyed Father Jozsef's wine.

“It is different to anything I have ever tasted,” he exclaimed.

“That is because Father Jozsef, who you are now impersonating,” explained Attila, “added healing herbs and special fruit which makes it not only delicious to drink but heals you if you are ill.”

“What has happened to the Father you are speaking about and whose cassock I am wearing?”

There was a little pause before Attila answered him.

“Just when we reached the Shrine he died and was buried this morning.”

“I am so sorry,” said the stranger quietly. “It must be very upsetting for you.”

“I shall miss him more than I can possibly say,” she replied. “He was an old man, but I know he was happy to go.”

“How could you know?”

Again there was a pause while Attila thought what she should say and then somehow it seemed easier to talk to him.

“While he was praying on the mountainside, he saw someone he had loved for many years and who had died.”

The words came out slowly yet she felt she had to say them.

“Then he has found what we all seek.”

Attila looked at him in surprise.

“Is that what you are seeking?” she enquired.

“Of course. Every man believes in his heart he will find the Golden Fleece or rather the true love which most of us only read about in books and which does not seem to exist in ordinary life.”