Last Act (33 page)

“Proving a point,” he told her. “We love our country; we don't worship it. After what you've done for us, no one's going to care if you have five ex-husbands and a whole hostel full of illegits. Though, frankly, my darling, I find it hard to believe.”

“If it was only that.” As the lights went on along the front of the Wild Man, she let him help her out of the car. His arm was warm under hers. An electric charge shook through them. He bent and kissed her, lightly, gently, as if they had all the time in the world for passion. “No matter what,” he said, “Lissenberg and I are yours till death us do part.” And then, feeling the shock of it go through her. “What is it, Anne?”

But Hans was at the door making great roaring noises of welcome. “Michael and Anne. The people in the world I most wanted to see!”

“We want to see
you
.” Anne reached up to brush a kiss against his cheek. “You saved our lives the other night, and I fainted before I could thank you.”

“A pleasure.” He beamed down on her. And then, mock
formal, “Your Hereditary Highnesses, welcome to my poor house.”

“Hereditary,” said Anne. “It's a funny word for it.”

“It's a funny place, Lissenberg,” said Michael. “But I like it. Is young Hans home yet?” he asked Hans.

“Not him. Out celebrating with the rest of the union, I reckon.” His huge smile embraced Anne. “My son had the honour of sitting in front of you in the Rathaus today.”

“My shield.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I love you all.”

“And she wants a hunter's breakfast.” Michael was shepherding her to a secluded table. “We both do. And a bottle from the back of the cellar, Hans. Seems Anne's got a problem. We have to talk.”

“Talk away.” Hans had swiftly set their table and produced two glasses of slivovitz. “The place is yours. Even I can't produce a hunter's breakfast in under twenty minutes.”

Anne sipped burning liquid and faced Michael across the table. “I'm dying,” she told him flatly. “I knew it when I took the job. The doctor gave me six months to live. I've got five now. I thought I might as well make the most of my time. Michael”—his face was breaking her heart—“I'm sorry.”

“Dear God, so am I.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “You're sure? You believed him? Beyond a shadow of doubt?”

“Oh, I believed him. With pain like that … I tell you, Michael, before I came here, found so much that was worth living for, six months seemed too long. Even here, once, on a bad day, I looked at my pain-killers and thought, why not take them all? Have it over with. Michael, when you look like that, I almost wish I had.”

“My darling, no!” His hands were chafing her cold one. “There are things you must never forget.” He winced at his own unlucky phrase, and she smiled at him.

“My ‘never' is a short one. You'll need another Marcus when you have rebuilt the opera house. Oh, Michael, forgive me. I meant it for the best.” Idiotic, hopeless words.

“Forgive!—Nonsense. Whatever happens, I wouldn't have missed you for all the world.” His hands closed hard on hers.
“We've a ballad, here in Lissenberg, a legend, an old one—older than the country. Called ‘The Other Road.' It's about a hunter and his young wife, riding through the forest. They come to a fork in the road, and choose one turning. It's a long ballad, they meet brigands, she's killed and he rides on alone.” He hummed it for her, quietly, now holding both her hands:

“There were two roads through the forest

And we took the one on the hill.

If we had taken the other,

Would you be with me still?

“And then the last verse:

There were two roads through the forest,

We chose one, and you are gone,

But I'd rather have had you, my darling,

And lost you, and ride alone.”

He leaned across the table and kissed her lightly, tenderly, first on one cheek and then the other. “I shall have you for five months, God willing, and then I will miss you for the rest of my life. But at least, I shall have you to miss. Forever. I knew, that first time, when you ran in front of the car; hair in rat's tails, coat soaking, eyes huge, like something frightened in the woods. Frightened! I didn't know you then, did I, but I loved you, that's for sure.” They sat quiet for a moment, while she thanked him in her heart for accepting it so swiftly, so absolutely. “We'll be married at once,” he said at last. “The Prince Bishop's a friend of mine. He'll see us through.”

“But Michael; your Father! We can't.”

“I owe him nothing. Everyone in Lissenberg knows that. Less than nothing, you could say. He hated me, Anne—did his best to destroy me. It's not funny to be declared a non-person at twenty. If I hadn't got that Oxford scholarship, I don't know if I'd have survived.”

“A non-person? Michael, I wish you'd explain. How could he?”

“I got in his hair,” said Michael. “I didn't like what he was doing here in Lissenberg, and, of course, being young, I let it show. So, he announced in full Diet that I no longer existed. Anyone who mentioned me was an enemy of the state, with penalities to match. I'd made him very angry. Oh—I was full of bright ideas.”

“Trades unions and such?”

“Exactly. Profit sharing—oh, all kinds of things. Of course”—he smiled at her—“it cut two ways in the end. When Winkler got me into the country on the United Nations passport a college friend helped me get, there wasn't a great deal he could do. Except play along with the conspiracy of silence he had started and go right on hating me.”

“Poor man.”

“But not a nice one—even if he was my Father. It's all over now, done with, unimportant. And it's most certainly not going to affect our wedding. Mind you, we'll keep it as quiet as we can. It will have to be in the cathedral, though. Do you mind?” And then, “Good God, you haven't really got a couple of divorces round your neck? That
would
be a problem for the Prince Bishop.”

Extraordinary how little they knew about each other. “No,” she told him. “I had a husband, but he died—in a car smash with another woman. Pregnant. He'd been living with her on the side.” How long ago and far away it all seemed. When had she decided not to tell him about Fritz and his obscene, horrible suggestions?

“Poor fool,” said Michael. “Well, that's all right then. Father's funeral tomorrow and the wedding next week, just as soon as the Prince Bishop can organise it. It will make a change from bad news. I reckon that's what Lissenberg needs right now. They've had a hard time, you know. Father was a disaster in more ways than I want to tell you. And Mother … well, I was meaning to apologise for Mother.”

“No need.” Her eyes were full of tears. “Oh, Michael, no need.”

“That's settled then.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. “And here, in good time, come our hunter's breakfasts. You won't
believe it, but I'm still hungry.”

“Oh, Michael, so am I.”

“Now,” said Michael, when Hans had put the two heaped platters in front of them and opened a cold, dusty bottle, “we are going to talk about the past. I want to know all about you. It strikes me, looking back, that I've told you a lot about myself, and you've just kept quiet and listened with those big eyes of yours wide open, and said nothing. I know you by heart, and yet I know nothing about you. So, begin. Parents, brothers and sisters, school, the lot … I believe I even want to know about that crazy husband of yours, if you feel like telling me.”

“I'll tell you everything … Anything … No parents; no brothers or sisters. Oh, Michael, I've been so lonely …” For a moment she was back in the bleak bed-sitter, looking out at spring flowers, facing—alone—the fact of death.

“You'll never be lonely again. I may not be able to promise much, but that I can. You've a whole country to care for you now, and they do, you know. They did already, before you stood up in the Rathaus today and saved them from tyranny.”

“Today. Was it really only today?”

“Hard to believe, isn't it?” He refilled their glasses with the golden wine. “Eat up, my darling. It's late, and you're tired. We've”—he paused—“five months to talk. Five months are a long time.”

She smiled, and drank to him. “A lifetime, Michael.”

It seemed like a lifetime indeed since she had left the hostel. Only four days ago she had hurried up the arcade to the dress rehearsal, with the crowds seething and shouting in the valley. Now, all was quiet. Frensham's men had cleared the last straggler out of the valley before the Diet met. They too were gone now, most of them allowed just to melt away over the border into the obscurity from which they had come. After all, as Michael had pointed out, it would have been awkward for Herr Winkler and his twenty policemen to try and hold them all in custody, in Lissenberg's apology for a gaol.

“I love you, Michael. Always.” Still trembling from their last kiss, Anne turned back to him at the top of the hostel steps. She
was tired now, almost beyond speech, beyond thought of all the things she should be saying to him.

“And I you.” He kissed her hands, one after the other. “You're asleep on your feet, my darling. To bed with you, and dream of me.”

But in her room, Gertrud was waiting for her. “I thought you'd never come.” An ashtray loaded with stubs spoke of her long wait. “I have to talk to you, Anne.”

“Tonight? It's very late. I thought you'd be gone by now. Can I help you, some way?” How strange suddenly to find herself in a position where she could help people.

“Why should I be gone? Oh, the rats have all left, now the opera's sunk, but I'm a Lissenberger, remember. That's why I'm here.”

“Oh?” Drugged with fatigue, Anne hung her borrowed coat in the closet and sat unwillingly down to listen, to try and keep awake.

“You've got to listen to me.” Gertrud lighted another cigarette. “I'm the only person who can tell you the truth. The only person who will.”

“The truth? What are you talking about?”

“About this nine-day-wonder between you and Michael, of course. About the friend he bribed to shout for you in the Rathaus. About what they are really saying in the town tonight.”

Anne passed a hand across her forehead. “I don't understand.”

“Of course you don't. What do you know about Lissenberg? Cooped up in this fake valley of Prince Rudolf's, how should you know? Oh, you're the little heroine today. Naturally. But don't count on it lasting, Anne Paget, because it won't. We care for our own in Lissenberg, and everyone in the place knows I'm engaged to Michael.”

“You?” Was she stupid with fatigue? What was this?

Gertrud laughed, not pleasantly. “Never bothered to ask who I was, did you? Just some young local had in to play a minor part in the opera. Passable voice … not bad-looking … unimportant. Right?”

“Who are you then?” Anne asked into a lengthening, nightmare silence.

“Michael's cousin. A Liss like him. The family voice. You might have guessed. My parents were dead. I grew up at the castle. Cousin Rudolf … liked me. Michael did too.” She reached into the low-cut neck of her blouse and brought out a ring on a chain. “That's Michael's signet ring. I've had it since I was sixteen.”

“A long time ago.” Anne's voice sounded dull to her own ears.

“Would you like to see the letters he wrote me from abroad? I've got them all. Love letters. If you hadn't turned up, with your fancy voice and your pitiful waif's eyes, it would be official by now, and Lissenberg would be wild with joy. Anne, don't you see?” Now her tone changed, became friendly, pleading. “If it was just that, I'd have stepped back, disappeared, left Michael to be happy, returned his ring. But it's not just that, is it? He's not going to be happy; you're a dying woman. Oh, God, even I, who should hate you, have felt sorry for you, have admired you for what you've done, how you've coped … But not this. Don't you see what you'd be doing to Michael? Every minute you keep him in the dark, let him think he's happy, you make it worse for him. Harder for him to find happiness afterwards. How long have you got?”

“Five months. But how did you know?” Now she had moved from mere fatigue into the black tunnel of nightmare.

“Oh, that! I've a friend works for Dr Hirsch. She thought it odd the way he dropped everything and came running when you called. When she found out why, she thought it her duty—as a Lissenberger—to tell me. Don't you see, Anne? Michael must have an heir. Alix is out of it. She renounced her rights today. That settles her. And Lissenberg needs a family, not a mourning Prince.”

“His young brother and sister?” But this was a new, a heart-shaking idea.

“Them!” Gertrud's tone was withering. “That just shows how little you know about anything. Everyone here in Lissenberg knows that whoever's children they may be, they're not Rudolf's. He was ill, fifteen years ago. After that there were no
more of his little bastards here in Lissenberg. Oh, no, I'm not one of them—in case you were hoping so. I'm the only child of Rudolf and Josef's elder sister. By our law, I've as good a claim as Michael. That's why our marriage will solve everything.”

“Nobody mentioned you today.”

“I told them not to, of course. It was Michael's day.” She fingered her ring lovingly. “I had no idea he was taking this crazy affair with you seriously. Well, romantic stuff, I can sec, escaping together and all that. But—a passing fancy, Anne. He'll wake up soon enough and see where his duty lies. Easier for you both if you've seen it for him first. And—more dignified for you. The Prince Bishop would have to get the Diet's approval to marry you—did Michael tell you that? I wouldn't stay quiet then. I couldn't. It would be my duty as a Lissenberger to speak. And Dr Hirsch's. Just think what an unlucky beginning to Michael's reign, whichever way they decided. And what misery for him. Anne, I'm begging you, because I love him. Because you do. Spare him that. He's been through so much—what his father did to him, the public exile. It was done in full Diet, you know. Wicked. And Michael standing there, quiet, taking it, because he would not call his father, his Prince, a liar in public. You couldn't put him through something like that again, Anne. Not if you love him.”