He looked back over his shoulder. ‘All that’s wanting is that bride.’
‘Why should someone so rich and powerful as you find it difficult to remarry?’ I enquired. ‘Surely it’s simply a matter of time, a respectable period of mourning after your wife’s death?’
The Prince chuckled grimly. ‘Simply a matter of time, you say, Dr. Watson? I wish it were so. You may comprehend the lack of enthusiasm a woman of standing might have for such a marriage. Think of the fate of the Empress Elisabeth two years ago, stabbed to death in Geneva by an anarchist with a four-inch needle file.’
Night was coming on rapidly. It was almost dark before we saw a sprawling complex ahead. A big half-moon hung out of the heavens. The Lifu came to a stop at the Convent of Kazalak on the slopes of the Balkan mountains where we were to spend the night. Nuns brought us cups of coffee with small plates of rose-leaf jam and glasses of water. The younger nuns vacated their cells for us.
The Prince went on a long walk. He returned looking relaxed, carrying several specimens of rare flowers snatched in the gathering dusk for his botanical gardens in Sofia. The Mother Superior, an elderly brown-faced peasant woman, invited us to lay offerings before a miracle-working ikon of the Three Persons of the Trinity before leading the way across a cobbled courtyard to our beds. The Prince ordered us to meet for breakfast at six, ready to set off on the final leg of our journey.
I slept fitfully in my cell. Strange fancies and surmises and distorted countenances crowded into my mind. We were approaching territory as remote, bare and sinister as anything I had fought in during my long years in Afghanistan, when the blood ran fast. Memories of desperate encounters amid rifle-blazing crags flooded back.
Chapter IX
THE STONE WEDDING
WHEN morning broke, a scene of marvellous though savage beauty met our eye. On the eastern horizon, the caps of the great mountains lit up one after the other. We were soon on our way. The weather smiled and promised a fine journey. The Prince replaced cap and white plume with fresh headwear - a blue toque bordered with white astrakhan fur. We left the cloister in the bright early-morning light, passing old grey churches and convents. Valleys divided and sub-divided into many gorges, impossible to distinguish one from the other. Low-built whitewashed cottages sat in lonely rolling plains guarded by fierce, shaggy dogs.
Three hours went by. The silence inside the vehicle became oppressive. Holmes’s characteristic disinclination to engage in small talk put the burden on me. I leaned forward experimentally.
‘I understand we are in a region known for the frequency of earthquakes?’
I had struck a good subject.
‘Certainly we are,’ the Prince exclaimed. ‘And I tell you, Dr. Watson, I adore earthquakes!’
‘Well, sir, you are the first person I’ve met who adores earthquakes,’ I replied. ‘It must be an acquired taste.’
‘I assure you, I adore them. The Earth gapes open, belching out scorching hot breath. Whole valleys like the one we are now in disappear. Once when I was over there’ - he pointed towards the Eastern Rhodopes - ‘we had an earthquake every day for a week. You hear them coming. First a faraway whistling sound, then the thud of great boulders crumbling and sliding down with incredible speed, pushed by a gigantic hand. All living things, even the trees, trembled - except me.’
Another hour or so passed, mainly in silence. The sun grew warm and high in a brilliant blue sky. After the frugal breakfast on offer at the convent my thoughts turned to the extensive larder accompanying us on the roof.
‘There!’ the Prince exclaimed suddenly, pointing ahead. He brought the vehicle to a halt. ‘Kamenna Svatba - the Stone Wedding. That is where we shall take lunch.’
The Prince re-engaged the clutch and we moved slowly forward, yawing on the badly-rutted track like the storm-driven cross-Channel ferry.
‘Forty million years ago all this was at the bottom of a warm, shallow sea,’ our host continued. ‘Our famous volcanic activity created these rocks. Legend has it a young couple asked to be married here. According to folk-custom no one was permitted to see the bride’s face. A strong wind came up and blew the veil aside and everyone saw her face. She was so beautiful even the groom’s father desired her. As a punishment all the humans present were turned into those white stones.’
As he uttered ‘white stones’ the quiet was shattered by an immense explosion scarcely thirty paces ahead. Boulders and vegetation rose high into the sky. Shattered pieces of rock crashed down on the wagonette’s roof. Angry voices yelled out from behind the rocky outcrop. The shouts were accompanied by a volley of reddish-yellow revolver flashes.
Shouting for Holmes to accompany me I fell out of the Lifu and crawled behind the sturdy vehicle, tugging at my revolver. Even before the debris ceased falling our host pulled out a silver-inlaid palm pistol. Displaying a reckless lack of concern for his own safety, he launched himself at the source of the shots, firing repeatedly.
The firing stopped. Two men jumped out from their hiding-place and sped away at a crouch, covering the boulder-ridden ground with remarkable speed. With a gesture of the deepest contempt, Ferdinand directed a torrent of words at them.
‘Your Royal Highness,’ I called out from behind the Lifu, standing up cautiously, ‘that was as brave a - ’
He cut me short with an airy wave.
‘One gets used to these things.’ He waved his empty pistol. ‘Un des risques du métier.’
He pointed at the lunch-boxes. ‘Now the cowards have fled, we can get down to more serious business.’
‘What was it they shouted at us?’ I asked.
He replied, tersely, ‘Tirani zai tooka ste luidi grabot ne Ferdinand!’
I gave him a quizzical look.
‘Macedonian. It means, “Tyrant! Know that here will be the grave of Ferdinand!”.’
I asked, ‘And your reply?’
‘I shouted, “Assassin scum, lackeys of the spineless Tsar of Russia, run for your lives”.’
‘What made them flee from such a vantage point?’ I asked. ‘They could have picked us off one by one.’
‘I also shouted, “I have here Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. If you do not flee at once, with unerring aim Dr. Watson will let fly with his Adams .450 Mark III, the very pistol he used to such good effect in The Hound of the Baskervilles”.’
Ferdinand stretched out his hand. ‘By the way, do you recognise this?’ he asked, showing the small pistol.
‘A Philadelphia Baby Derringer,’ I replied. ‘Rather old-fashioned but still deadly close-to.’
‘Not just any Derringer,’ came the reply. ‘The very one which John Wilkes Booth used in his assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on the night of April 14th, 1865.’
He clasped the pistol by the barrel and handed it to me. ‘I shall be forever honoured if you might accept this as a small token of my high regard, as a souvenir of the danger we encountered here to-day.’
I looked round for my comrade-in-arms. Through all the commotion he had remained resolutely in his seat.
When he had chewed the last of the ortolans, the Prince sat back against the bride-and-groom pillar. It became clear he was in expansive mood.