By My Sword Alone David Black (best story books to read txt) 📖

bang on the Princess Maria Clementina Sobieska’s door. Hopefully, there would be a lady in waiting of some description to intercept him so he could gather his thoughts.

After three respectful raps on the big, panelled door, it opened, and there before him stood a diminutive girl, no more than a teenager, in an elaborate, embroidered, full length peasant-style night coat of a richness no peasant could ever afford. But it wasn’t her coat James noticed first, nor the pure, alabaster perfection of her face. It was her fine dark-blonde hair, that fell in one long tress, all the way down to her ankles.

‘M’sieur?’ she said, giving him a quizzical frown, then looking over his shoulder to the two Austrians, ‘and the officers of my protection?’ All delivered in a clear and lilting French.

‘My protection’ – this was obviously the princess herself. So, no lady in waiting to give him time.

He felt a push from behind and suddenly he was through the door and in the room, which was presumably the parlour of Princess Clementina’s suite, with the more senior Austrian babbling away to her in a language James could not understand but guessed was German.

It was rather a grand room for a hotel, with several comfortably upholstered chairs, and a high-backed, three-seat sofa; all brocade, studded cushions and intricately crafted legs and arm-rests. There were blazing candelabras and closed drapes that could have defied an alpine blizzard, and a writing desk, from which the princess had obviously just risen.

James was fresh from his ride, having passed through Innsbruck’s gates less than an hour previously. His body was heavy with fatigue and he could feel the sweat still drying on his skin.

He had approached Innsbruck from the west, after a long ride along the valley of the River Inn, and had entered some way into the city, heading for the establishment where he’d been told Mr Teviot would be waiting for him, under the name of Herr Domogala; a gentleman of commerce from the northern Adriatic dominions of the Austrian empire. In reality, this Mr Teviot was the emissary of the pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart, to the Habsburg court, travelling incognito. He would explain everything in detail to him, Mr Dillon had assured James, before James approached the princess.

Why he was going to be approaching an incarcerated Polish princess, in the name of James Francis Edward Stuart, was long story, said Dillion; but the essence of it was this:

When the pretender’s mother, Queen Mary, died, her substantial papal pension had died with her. So, James Stuart had been forced by immanent penury to contemplate marriage. Several eligible brides had been suggested, including the daughter of the Duke of Modena. Alas, said Dillon, although Pope Clement regarded James Stuart as the rightful King of Great Britain, and in his exile as no less than a Catholic martyr, the Italian aristocracy were not so well disposed. The Pope might have agreed to fund him until a more secure income could be found, such as a substantial dowry, but the stipend was begrudged, because the aristos saw only a titled vagrant – not a king. Because, as they pointed out, that title was in name only.

No Italian family, and no dowry had been forthcoming, and so James Stuart’s court in exile had to trawl further afield.

It was a move that produced the perfect choice.

Princess Maria Clementina was the grand-daughter of King John III of Poland – known throughout Christendom as ‘John Sobieski’, and the man who had raised the Ottoman siege of Vienna and saved the city. And when the suggestion was put to her family that she marry James Stuart, Clementina’s father, Prince James-Louis Sobieski had thought the idea of his daughter becoming the Queen of Great Britain alongside a restored King James III a splendid idea; and so had the 16-year-old Princess Clementina.

Also, she came with the requisite, very impressive, dowry, Mr Crawford had added.

‘However, the idea of it has reduced King George to an apoplectic rage,’ Dillon went on to explain. ‘Especially the idea that James Francis Edward Stuart might produce an heir from such impeccable lineage. When news reached George several months ago that the lass would be travelling from Poland to Rome for the wedding, he immediately sent word to his old friend and ally in Vienna, the Emperor Charles, demanding in the name of their future relations that he put a spoke in it. Charles, not really knowing how best to respond, and to buy himself time, had the princess met as she passed through Innsbruck, with an offer to stay awhile and enjoy the alpine air. And now neither he nor anybody else knows quite what to do about her, or the stand-off that has resulted. To deal with it all, the Emperor Charles has his best military man on the scene. Feldmarschall Heister. It was he who first met Clementina, inviting her to stay initially in the Schloss Ambras, an imposing fortification standing on the southern hills above the city, but her presence there looked too much like incarceration ... and too much like the Holy Roman Emperor was dancing to wee Hanoverian Geordie’s tune. Also, old Heister had fought with her grandfather at the siege of Vienna, so there is something of a sympathy between him and the girl, and rumour has it he does not enjoy his role as gaoler. Anyway, the old fellow has since moved her to a suite in the Kaiserhof, a rather grand coaching inn in the city. And the guards around her now are more a subtle presence than a ring of steel. After all, no-one intends her any harm. They just don’t know what to do with her. And it’s not as if she could escape, at least not on her own.’

And that was why Dillon and Crawford had wanted James to go to Austria.

Get to Innsbruck, meet with Mr Teviot,