Kingdoms Fall - The Laxenburg Message (33 page)

           
At last, there was a loud double knock on the door, Gresham and Wilkins stood,
a servant opened the door, and Charles entered. He had on the same formal
Austrian military uniform that he had worn to the Ball, and his drooping eyes
and mustache lent him the same appearance of boredom that he had worn at the
Palais Auersperg, as his boots clicked across the parquet floor. As he
approached Gresham and Wilkins, they bowed respectfully.

           
“Welcome to Laxenburg, gentlemen,” said the Archduke calmly, in near perfect
English and with only a slight accent. He did not hold out his hand, but stood
fairly still and subdued.

           
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” said Wilkins, still the one more comfortable with
the protocols of royalty. “You have done us a great honor by allowing us to
visit your home and meeting with us, sir.”

           
“Come, come, I expect this to be a mutually enlightening visit. It is not often
nowadays that we have visitors who are not members of the Austrian nobility,
you see. I have planned to show you the
Franzensburg
Castle, and we may
hunt this afternoon if you are interested in joining us.”

           
“Indeed, sir.”

           
“Come then, it is a short walk.” He led them to a side, exterior door in the
Library, where the servants helped the men into their overcoats, and they began
the short walk on a shoveled path through the snow-covered gardens to the lake
behind the New Castle. “You can see there the
Franzensburg
Castle. It
looks very much like a castle of the Crusaders’ time, does it not? It was built
by my Great-Great-Grandfather, Emperor Franz II, and took over 30 years to
complete. No one lives in it, however. It is a showpiece of a Crusader castle
of the Middle Ages. Here, you can see it is built on an island in the pond,
much like a moat. Both were constructed just for the castle.”

           
The pond was iced over, and before them stood the towers and curtain wall and
keep of a castle that looked like one built in a fantasy past. There was no
real moat other than the pond, no glacis, the curtain walls were not terribly
thick and the arrow slits impractically arranged. As a medieval castle, it
would have been impossible to defend. Nor would the castle have been of any use
during the Napoleonic Wars when it was actually built. Indeed, it was clear
that the castle had no practical military use whatsoever in any time period.

           
“My Great Uncle, the Emperor, claims he has never been inside the
Franzensburg
Castle, but that is difficult to believe. I am certain that as a boy he
must have played on the battlements, as I did myself. I would imagine the
Ottomans besieging Vienna and wave my sword at them.”

           
They walked across the ice to the gatehouse, followed by a small army of
servants carrying urns of coffee and blankets in case anyone became cold.
Inside the castle, fires had been lit. The interior was quite large and
comfortable; a great many people could have lived there, but instead the castle
was arranged like a showpiece, as the Archduke had indicated. In some rooms,
mannikins had been staged to portray the castle as it would have been used in a
fictional Middle Ages. Mannikin men in heavy chain-link armor sat at dining
tables, and others shot arrows in the reception halls (perhaps they had only
been brought indoors for the winter, Wilkins thought). In a medieval chapel, a
mannikin priest was blessing a mannikin Baroness. The medieval armory displayed
a variety of precious, gleaming, and impractically bejeweled swords under the
coat of arms of the Austrian Empire embossed on the ceiling. Portraits of the
Hapsburg emperors and empresses graced every wall. They visited the torture
room in the basement, where mannikins were stretched on the rack and bled in
iron maidens. On an ornate throne, a mannikin medieval king held his jewel
encrusted sword aloft and ordered his mannikin knights into battle.

           
After an extensive tour, they returned to the first reception hall for coffee.

           
“Did you enjoy the Ball at the Palais Auersperg, sir?” asked Wilkins.

           
“The Ball, yes; yes I suppose so.”

           
“And will you be returning to Vienna for Fasching?”

“Yes, the Archduchess and I plan to return for
the premier of Strauss’ opera. It is a comedy, though. I prefer the Germanic
ones, Wagner and so forth. Have you seen
The Ring of the Nibelung
? It is
a magnificent work. But Herr Director Gregor wished to have something light
hearted in repertoire at the State Opera for Fasching. One could hardly object
to Strauss.”

“And then you will be traveling to the Italian
front?”

“Yes, yes, I am very eager to take up my
command. It is rather frustrating to be an Archduke in a country at war.
Naturally, I wish to serve the Empire, yet I am required to stay out of harm’s
way. At the front lines, I will undoubtedly be expected to lead from the rear,
but I believe I will be able to show the men my mettle. I am a crack shot, you
know.”

“Are you indeed, Sir? I imagine you hunt
frequently here in Laxenburg,” said Gresham

“Yes, exactly. I don’t suppose you fellows
would care to do some quail hunting this afternoon; I think we still have a
little time before dark.”

           
“Are they not difficult to find this late in the season, sir?” asked Gresham.

           
Charles stared at him a moment.

           
“They are released, of course,” he said plainly. “
Erkundigen, ob Xavier und
Sixtus sich uns anschließen wollen, um von der wachtel jagen
,” he added to the
servant standing nearest. “I’ve sent for Xavier and Sixtus, if they care to
join us.”

           
It was only a very little while before the servants had prepared for the hunt.
Charles was directing much of the preparation, and it appeared to Gresham and
Wilkins that Charles was terribly uncomfortable talking with them. Xavier had
come out to join the hunt, and Charles paired him with Wilkins, while the
Archduke paired himself with Gresham to hunt.

Gresham and Wilkins glanced at each
other:  Charles was obviously orchestrating an opportunity to speak with
Gresham privately. Gresham and Charles walked into the woods and spent a half
hour shooting quail that the servants released from wicker baskets, and after
Charles had capably shot two dozen and Gresham had managed to shoot three,
Charles called his servants over and ordered them to fetch more ammunition.
Obediently, the servants retired.

Charles opened the breech of his shotgun and
laid it across his forearm. Off in the distance, they could hear Wilkins and
Xavier shooting, but in the forest it was very still and quiet and the snow was
still falling gently. Indeed, Gresham could not recall ever in his life being
in a place so quiet and peaceful. Ancient pine trees surrounded them and in the
distance the
Franzensburg
Castle towered like something from a fairy
story. Gresham took a deep breath of the sweet, clean, crisp air. There was a
slight, pungent smell of pine and of the gunpowder residue from the shotguns.
He closed his eyes and listened to the snow fall.

           
“Our intelligence people tell me you are a spy, Mister Kelly,” said Charles.
“Do you intend to shoot me?”

           
Gresham laughed aloud. Not because the idea was absurd. To the contrary, he
laughed because he
could
shoot the Archduke as they stood alone together
in the forest. What an astonishing opportunity to be given! Gresham looked down
at his loaded shotgun. He was certainly not above shooting the Archduke,
despite Wilkins’ assurances. He had broken his own word too many times to be
above breaking the word of another. The Archduke could simply die in a forest,
just as Franz Joseph’s only son, Prince Rudolph, had died so mysteriously at
the nearby Mayerling estate so many years ago. Perhaps that death was the real
end of the Hapsburg dynasty – the day Franz Joseph’s only son had died and he
had begun fishing in the pools of less reputable Hapsburgs for one pathetic
heir after another, until, at last, this one, this poor fool of a young man so
unprepared and so insulated from the world, became the forlorn hope of the
once-great Austro-Hungarian Empire. How could Gresham shoot Charles and leave
the empire in the hands of a dying old man and a cadre of the most belligerent
fools in Europe, men like Count Conrad? No, he thought, murder was too blunt a
tool.

           
“Yes, your majesty,” Gresham replied, still laughing and wiping a tear from his
eye, “I am a spy.”

           
Charles looked at Gresham anxiously.

“Did you look at the coin I gave you?” Gresham
asked.

“It is the first Vatican coin of His Holiness
Pope Benedict, is it not?”

Gresham laid down his shot gun and reached into
his jacket pocket. He withdrew the envelope with the red wax seal and handed
the envelope to Charles.

“Do you recognize that seal?”

           
“Yes. Yes, I do,” said Charles. “It’s the seal of the Piscatory Ring, the seal
of the Pope. This is a letter from His Holiness, isn’t it?” Charles tore open
the envelope like a child on Christmas, his face alight, laughing now himself.
But he quickly discovered that the envelope was empty. “There is nothing
inside. Where is the message?” he demanded crossly.

           
“I am here to deliver the message, Your Majesty. Yes, I am a spy, as von Stumm believes,
but I do not serve your enemies. I am from the Vatican. His Holiness Pope
Benedict has sent me with a confidential message for you and you alone. It is
this:

“The Great War must end. The death and
suffering of millions of Christians must end. His Holiness knows you will soon
ascend the throne of the Hapsburgs, and you will then represent the greatest
empire that Europe has ever known: the last true remnant of the Holy Roman
Empire. The fate of many nations and of many men will then lie with you. His
Holiness knows you will do your duty, not only because you are a good Catholic,
but because the suffering of millions of Christians weakens Europe when our
true enemies lie elsewhere:  In Asia, in Africa, and in the Near East.
Your Empire has nothing to gain from this war, some land in the Balkans ruling
over a people who will never bow their necks to the Austrian yoke. No, the only
nation which stands to gain is Germany, a nation which seeks to expand and
dominate Europe, just as Napoleon did a century ago. Germany, a nation led by a
Lutheran Protestant, a man who has steadfastly refused to defend Europe: When
His Holiness Pope Leo asked the Kaiser to be the Sword of the Church, the
German King laughed in derision. Germany’s gains will not only weaken your
Empire, they will weaken Europe and thereby strengthen our true enemies. You
must end this Great War. That is your purpose and your strength. When you
ascend the throne it will be Austria’s opportunity to set the future course of
Christendom. You will propose an immediate ceasefire. Each country will have
gained and lost territory, and they may trade their gains and losses as they
see fit, but the Alsace-Lorraine, which was wrongfully annexed by Germany after
the Franco-Prussian War, shall be returned to France; the independence of
Belgium shall be restored; and the kingdom of Serbia shall be independent. The
Ottoman hegemony over Constantinople must be broken, and the city entrusted to
Russia as the traditional seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church. This is the
message you must convey throughout Europe. His Holiness knows you will fulfill
this duty, and he guarantees that your message of peace will earn you accolades
both on Earth and in Heaven.  When you succeed in achieving a lasting
peace in Europe, His Holiness will canonize you: You will be Saint Charles the
Peacemaker, beloved of God. That will be your just reward for the great service
you will have tendered unto Christendom.

“That is the message His Holiness bade me
convey to you.
Benedictus est sermo Domini
.”

Charles appeared stunned. Gresham waited,
motionless, watching as the words slowly burned into the Archduke’s mind, the
gleam of understanding, the spark of jealousy and betrayal, the ember of
avarice and lust, and then, suddenly, panic, fear, and anguish: The shotgun
slipped from Charles’ arm and he fell to his knees, sobbing uncontrollably.
“No, no, no,” he cried. “No! It will be too late! I will become emperor too
late to stop it!”

“Have you no faith in your destiny?” asked
Gresham.

“I do, I do, of course,” Charles insisted
desperately. “But, you must see, I have only just learned of it myself. Germany
is preparing an attack on France. It will be the largest military offensive the
world has ever seen, a Final Judgment that will grind France to ashes. But I
see clearly now that it cannot be permitted!”

“How have you learned of this terrible
tragedy?” Gresham asked in a panic.

“I was briefed on the plans by the Emperor. He
only learned of von Falkenhayn’s plans himself at Christmas during a meeting
with the Kaiser. Crown Prince William is preparing to land the deadly blow at
Verdun, over a million men, and they will continue to smash Verdun until France
has expended every last shell, every last bullet, and every last man. France is
to be castrated, ruined. I tell you, countless men will die. You must tell His
Holiness I will fulfill this duty he lays upon me, but I fear my opportunity
will come too late.”