Part 18 (2/2)
HELEN KOTTENNER
”To be a Queen, and a young Queen, and a widowed Queen in these stormy times, and in these stormy lands! Ah, Helen, Helen, that is indeed no light thing!”
”Indeed, madam, I know that it is not. I pray Heaven night and day for your Majesty, that strength and help may be given you!”
”Thanks, thanks, my faithful Helen. Sometimes I feel I have no one about me I can fully trust but thee. And oh, I have a load of care upon my head! I need a faithful and devoted servant, and where can I turn to find such an one?”
”Must that servant be a man, madam?” asked Helen. The sorrowful Queen turned her gaze upon the speaker, as though she understood the drift of the question.
”Ah, Helen, if we women were not such poor weak things!” she sighed, bowed down by the weight of her troubles. But, after all, woman as she was, the blood of kings ran in the veins of Elizabeth of Hungary, and after a long lingering sigh she lifted her head, and the light came into her eyes.
”Women are not always weak,” spoke Helen, with a cautious glance in the direction of the Queen's maidens at their tapestry work away at the other end of the great hall. But they were laughing and chattering amongst themselves, as girls will do, whatever be the century or the surroundings; and then the eyes of the Queen and her lady met, and Elizabeth paused and hesitated.
Helen Kottenner was the eldest and most trusted of her attendants, and was devoted to her and to the little four-year-old daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, called after her mother. Although little more than a girl in years, Helen's life had been full of strange experiences and many sorrows; so that she seemed to the young Queen to be a tower of strength to her in her hour of perplexity and distress.
It was only a short while ago that her husband, King Albert, had died; and although the crown had been bestowed upon him in right of his Queen Elizabeth, yet so soon as she was left a widow, with only a little daughter, the haughty Magyars, or n.o.bles of Hungary, repudiated the idea of being ruled over by a woman, and were casting about already to find some husband for her, whom they could make up their minds to recognise as King, in place of him who was dead.
”Helen,” said the Queen, ”thou dost know what the n.o.bles are talking of.
Hast thou heard more than they tell me?”
”I have heard, madam, that a powerful party is in favour of sending an emba.s.sy to King Wladislas of Poland, offering him the crown, together with the hand of their widowed Queen!”
The young widow started to her feet in uncontrollable emotion, and then as quickly sank back again.
”I have heard it too; but without my consent, without a word to me! They talk, and talk, and plot, and seek to settle questions, to dispose of the crown and a Queen's hand; and never so much as a word to her! 'Tis infamous!--'tis infamous!”
”That would doubtless come later, madam,” said Helen gently; ”at present they are scarce united among themselves.”
”Then long may they remain so disunited!” cried the Queen, with energy.
”It is time that I want, Helen,--time!--time! When the child that the good G.o.d is sending me is born, all may be different. I have prayed our Blessed Lady--ah, how I have prayed!--that she will send me a little son to reign in his father's stead. Verily I believe that she will hear my prayer. And shall my boy's birthright be given away before that happy day comes? Oh, the shame and injustice of it! I will not bear such a thing to be done. But how can it be stopped? Would it be enough were I to refuse, strenuously refuse, to have aught to say to such a marriage?”
Helen shook her head somewhat doubtfully.
”Madam, I fear, I greatly fear that it might not suffice. The wedding might, indeed, be postponed till your Majesty's pleasure. But if the Magyars once make up their mind, they will bring Wladislas. .h.i.ther and crown him King with St. Stephen's crown; and once so crowned nothing can change his right to rule, unless he grossly violate his coronation oath.”
”I know it! I know it!” cried the young Queen, in keen distress; ”if once that sacred circlet be placed upon his head, nothing can avail to change the thing that has been done!”
Queen and lady looked full into each other's eyes. They both knew that these words were the truth. In all the kingdom there was nothing so sacred as that sacred crown. Once let it press the brows of any crowned Prince, and his right was unchangeable and inalienable.
”You see, madam,” continued Helen gently, ”that the rule of an infant would be well-nigh as irksome to the proud Magyars as that of a woman.
It may perchance be this very thing that is causing them to hasten to some decision. An infant Prince might be a hindrance. A party might gather--probably would gather--in his favour; and the land would be distracted by faction, and, it may be, become imperilled from outside adversaries such as Poland, Bohemia, or even the wily and cruel Turk.
Doubtless those who urge that the King of Poland be crowned King of this realm too, think they are doing a service to their country, and perhaps saving her from a b.l.o.o.d.y war.”
”But are the rights of my child thus to be given away, ere we can claim them for him?” cried the Queen indignantly. ”Oh, Helen, Helen, dost thou think this thing will be?”
”Indeed, madam, I fear it. All are not yet agreed; but every day there come over fresh adherents to the cause. I trow before long they will dispatch an emba.s.sy. But they will send first to know your Majesty's pleasure!”
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