“I don’t know about demanding, but I had one, naturally. It happened just then that Drakovics was nursing a grudge against the Three Powers. He was supposed to have looked with a friendly eye on the agitation which was being fomented against Roumi rule in the territory of Rhodope, and Hercynia had stirred up Pannonia and Magnagrecia to put pressure on him to disavow it. Therefore he had an idea that it would be a good thing—convey a salutary warning and so on—to score off the Three Powers by marrying Otto Georg to a princess whose sympathies were somewhat Scythian, without being dangerously so. The only difficulty was to find the lady. The most suitable of the rival beauties appeared to be the Princess Ernestine of Weldart, but he was afraid that the fortunes of her father’s family were altogether bound up with those of Scythia.”
“And then came your innings?”
“Well, I did happen to remark that the lady’s mother, who was originally a Hercynian princess, aunt or cousin or something of the Emperor, had been for years on bad terms with her husband, and would undoubtedly have brought up her daughter as a German rather than a Slav. That was one of the many useful pieces of information I picked up in that fortnight which you and I spent at Schloss Herzensruh. The Queen of Mœsia is a sister of the Prince of Weldart, you remember?”
“I really don’t; I had other things to think of at that time. You seem to have these wretched Germans at your fingers’ ends.”
“It’s my business, you see. Well, that settled matters. I undertook to bring Otto Georg up to the scratch, while Drakovics managed the necessary ceremonial details. And you know what the end was—a big wedding at Molzau, with two Emperors present and a Grand-Duke to represent the third, and royal and serene highnesses without number.”
“I know that you got into some sort of trouble on the occasion which I never could make out.”
“Not exactly trouble—just a little bother. The fact was that I found myself a fish out of water in that gorgeous company. Otto Georg insisted on my accompanying him, and tried to get me a precedence to which, being merely his secretary, I was certainly not entitled. You know the awful fuss those smaller Courts make about things of the kind. Then the Weldarts treated me with marked coldness—I have to thank the Queen of Mœsia for that, I believe—and it spread to the Hercynian people. Their attendants imitated their behaviour, and when I resented that sort of second-hand contumely, one of the Hercynian officers sent me a challenge. If I am a bit of a dab at anything, it is at fencing, as you know, and I was not surprised when I wounded him. Every one else was, though, and Sigismund of Hercynia was nearly wild on hearing that one of his officers had been beaten in sword-play by a civilian. The rest of the Hercynians got together and laid a little plot, the principal feature of which was that they should all challenge me in turn, so as to make pretty sure of finishing me off at last. Somehow it got to Otto Georg’s ears—he must have felt suspicious about my absence on the day of the duel, for we had to settle matters at a decent distance from the Court and from the festivities, and then I imagine he questioned Dietrich, who had guessed the whole affair, and disapproved of it vigorously;—and he laid it before his brother-in-law, the Emperor of Pannonia. They put their heads together and devised a plan, which they sprang on the illustrious assemblage. Otto Georg took a leaf out of the books of the Scythian Court, and invented a new portfolio for me as Minister of the Household, and the Emperor—I don’t know how he managed it—created me a Count. That settled the question of precedence for the future.”
“I am sorry you should have discarded your own English title for a Pannonian Countship,” said Caerleon.
“It is only when I am abroad. I should never dream of sporting a foreign title at home; but the courtesy designation caused endless difficulties over there, although the Germans have so many of them.”
“And after that all went merrily?”