“But you are the King’s friend, are you not? Was the poor Queen really married at sixteen?”
“She was seventeen about a month after her marriage. She is not twenty-two yet. Yes, I am the King’s friend, and I have no particular reason to like the Queen; but for all that, I can see that their marriage was a hideous mistake. It’s quite clear to any one that she is not happy, but I own that my pity is chiefly for Otto Georg. He was driven into it as much as she was; but he is not such a picturesque figure, and therefore he gets no sympathy.”
“And yet you helped to bring this marriage about!” said Nadia, looking at him in astonishment. Before he could answer, he felt a light touch on his arm, and found Philippa beside him.
“Oh, Uncle Cyril, father says if you aren’t tired we might have a game in the picture-gallery. Please, please, don’t be tired!”
“I am afraid you are bringing up your daughter to be a tyrant, Nadia,” said Cyril, as he rose, perhaps not altogether sorry to break off the conversation at this point, and no more was said on the subject of Balkan politics or of the domestic troubles of the Court of Bellaviste until the two brothers settled themselves in Caerleon’s den for a talk late at night.
“Then you like your present berth well enough to stick to it still?” said Caerleon suddenly, without leading up to the subject in any way.
“Most certainly I do; or at any rate I am not quite such a cad as to chuck it and leave poor old Otto Georg to face things alone. The first two years I was at Bellaviste we were like brothers. Everything went swimmingly, and it might be doing so still if that old owl Drakovics had not got it into his sapient head that it was time seriously to set about securing the succession to the throne.”
“But the King’s marriage was talked of from the very first,” objected Caerleon, ignoring his brother’s disrespectful reference to the great Thracian Prime Minister.
“Yes; but so long as it was only talk it didn’t matter. When Otto Georg became nervous about it, I used to comfort him with the reflection that threatened men live long. But when I caught Drakovics one day with a lot of photographs of unmarried princesses spread out on the table in front of him, I knew that he meant business.”
“And you promptly demanded to have a finger in the pie?”