A Great Prince: A Royal Bad Boy Romance (10 page)

Nikolas sat on a rock in the forest, and he knew it was Barnabas behind him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder; there was no mistaking that two-fingered grip.

“Your Majesty. It’s time to go.”

Nikolas scratched his nose to hide the fact that he was wiping away a tear.
Karl…I should have spent more time with him, learned from him, learned how to be a good king. I should have made them accept him on the council. I should have…

“Niko,” Barnabas said, less softly this time. “You didn’t kill him.”

Nikolas sighed. “I know. It just feels like I did.”

“Then there’s only one thing left to do.”

Nikolas nodded, his features composing, darkening. “Yes.”

István was clever, Nikolas thought, sitting on a stump and looking through the woods at the Army troops guarding the radio tower. He must have seen Francesca’s speech, he thought.

He’d watched it on his phone, and even on that little screen, the image of the princess sitting tall and proud on a white horse, ordering her people to storm the Palace and arrest…everyone, had filled him with… what? Everything. Pride, shame, excitement, admiration, despair.

I can’t be like her. She’s the real thing, and I’m a joke. If Karl was here…

He shook himself.
If Karl was here, he’d tell me to snap out of this and be a leader. To fake it if I had to.

Nikolas had lost half his men in the battle of the basement, and he was outnumbered three to one. The building that housed the tower’s control center couldn’t be taken by force.

“We can take out half, maybe,” Erik said. “Then, you can negotiate with the rest, see if they’ll come to your side.”

Nikolas shook his head. “No. That’s not it.” But he had no idea what “it” was.

Yes, he did. He knew perfectly well what “it” was. The only question was whether he’d carry it off, or die trying.

He stood up. “Erik. Circle your men around back. I’ll create a diversion.” He started walking toward the tower.

“Niko, no!” Erik said, but Barnabas threw an arm out, barring him.

“He’s right,” the old count said. “It’s the only option here.”

Nikolas was oddly calm. His heart hammered, a droplet of sweat trickled down his face, but these were only bodily reactions.
You are the last of the Danubian Almásy. Your grandfather was a Duke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This is your birthright.

Absurdly, he thought of King Arthur in
Monty Python and the Holy Grail,
walking up to a bunch of peasants and announcing, “I am your king!” And the cockeyed peasant looking at him and saying, “Well, I didn’t vote for ya!”

The soldiers noticed him. A lieutenant shouted at him. “Hands up!”

Nikolas refused, kept walking towards them.

“We’ll shoot! Identify yourself!”

The voice that came out of him was the voice he’d been born with, the voice that circumstances had silenced. His legacy, his inheritance, that he had squandered until now.

He looked the officer in the eye, calm, steady, assured.
Francesca. I won’t let you down.

“I am Nikolas, your king. And I order you to lower your weapons.”

The lieutenant paused. “We have orders to arrest you.”

“You have been ordered by traitors to their king and their country. You have been ordered by men I have declared outlaws and rebels against their rightful sovereign. Lower your weapons.”

He felt it then, for the first time. What it was
really
like to hold this power. What it was
really
for. It wasn’t a toy, a trick to use to get laid and party. He stood alone against them, and yet he did not. He felt the authority of rulership… and the burden of responsibility.

A Great Prince did not lead his army into battle from the rear. He fought at the head of his army, and took the risk his men took. And a Great Prince won his battles that way – by driving terror into the hearts of the men who saw him there, invincible, overpowering, confident. Sometimes he died… but mostly he won.

“I have a warrant…” the lieutenant said hesitantly.

“I countermand it, Lieutenant,” he said firmly. “I am going to enter this tower and I am going to speak to the people of Danubia.” He looked at the men behind the officer. “Will you obey the orders of usurpers?”

They didn’t have time to think about it – suddenly Barnabas, Erik and the other men were behind the soldiers, guns planted in their backs.

“Where’s the technician, the man who runs the tower?”

“Inside, Majesty,” the lieutenant said. “I’m sorry, I…”

Nikolas clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. You were doing your duty, as you saw it. Now you know to whom your duty belongs, yes?”

He saw it then, to his surprise, in the young lieutenant’s eyes. Admiration, respect… loyalty.

“Yes, Your Majesty. God bless you.”

They hustled into the tower, where a little man sat, pale and sweating.

“Get to work,” Erik said. “The king will address the nation now.” The man fumbled with his equipment, preparing to hijack the radio signal of the state-run station, overriding the broadcast from the studio in the city.

“How long will it take?” Nikolas asked the man.

“T-ten minutes, Majesty.”

“Make it five. The rest of you, leave me alone.”

There was a booth here, a legacy of the old Communist days, installed as a safeguard in case the authorities needed to seize the signal quickly. Nikolas went in and shut the door behind him, encasing himself in perfect silence.

He sat down in front of the microphone, thinking hard. He had one shot at this.
It’s the “King’s Speech,” just like the movie,
he thought with a smile. Old Georgie had a stutter, but he had right, and necessity, on his side.
Just like I do now.

What would Karl say,
he wondered.
What great political philosophers would he draw on to compose his words?

How the fuck do I know? I’m just…

Yes. Yes, you are.

Then he knew exactly what to say.

The technician gestured at him from the booth, counting down with his fingers, and then the light went on. Nikolas was live.

“Citizens of Danubia. I am Nikolas, your king, descendent of a long line of Hapsburg aristocracy, and rightful heir to… a basket full of ribbons and sashes and medals and titles. But I am also one of you. I am Niko, a boy who grew up in a Stalinist housing project in Szombathely, beaten and mocked for that descent. I am Niko, a boy who became an orphan, who lived hand to mouth, squatting in an empty apartment, stealing everything I needed, from electricity to food. I am Niko,
gengzter,
enforcer, collector for János Kovács, ringleader of the criminal element in this country. And I am Niko, pawn in the game played by the oligarchs of this country, led by István Szabó.

“Those two men put me on the throne, to serve their own interests. And to my eternal shame, I served their interests, too, by disregarding you, your needs, your hopes and dreams, so that I could be the man you knew, the ‘Punk Prince,’ the playboy, the party animal.

“The night they made me king, was the night I met Karl Lengyel. And he offered me his hand in friendship, he offered me his advice, his support. And I failed him. I failed to put him in my government, I failed to exert the authority I had been given to enact reform. I let them send him into exile, and I forgot him.

“But then, they planned a wedding. A marriage of two people, but also of two states. Not as a love match, not even as a publicity stunt. No, the criminals of Danubia and the criminals of Burgenland want to unite our countries to make both their illicit enterprises more lucrative. They want to make it easy to smuggle drugs and counterfeit goods and, yes, our women, to be used as sex slaves.

“And I say no. I say they will not. Because I am not Niko any more. I am Nikolas I, king of Danubia by the grace of God. They gave me this power, and at long last, I will use it for my people’s sake and not my own.

“So I say to you. Rise up. All of you, rise up, take to the streets – take the train, drive your car, walk if you must, but rise up. March on Szombathely, march on the oligarchs and the
gengzters
and take back your country. March, and meet me there. Because that’s where I’m going right now.

“And if they shoot me, keep marching. If they shoot you, keep marching. Tonight, the old order falls at last, the last remnant of the old world falls at last. Tonight we create a democracy, a free and open society, where no man need fear the rule of criminals.

“I, Nikolas, your king, issue my last order as absolute monarch, the first I have ever issued for my people and not for myself. Rise up, and take this country tonight.”

The light went off and Nikolas fell back in his chair, exhausted.

And yet… not exhausted. Exhilarated. Free.

His phone buzzed.

“Francesca. How’d I do?”

“Nikolas… you… you were magnificent.”

He thought he couldn’t feel any better than he had a moment ago. Now he knew he could. “That means the world to me, Francesca. You have no idea.”

“I…” She faltered. “Try not to get killed tonight.”

He grinned. “Why’s that, princess? Would you miss me?”

“You know, I believe I might.”

“Well, I’ll do my best. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Yes. Soon.”

It’s the little things that change history. A fruit seller beaten by the police in public, a normal daily occurrence in a Middle Eastern country, until one day it’s not. Until the day the people rise up, and say enough, and it triggers the Arab Spring. A little old Socialist from a tiny American state declares his run for the Presidency, and it’s a joke like every other can’t-win candidate ever – until the people rise up and say, yes, enough of this bullshit, and he surges in the polls.

It’s a league of events, a moment in time when the tinder is driest, when a million straws break a million camels’ backs all at once, but the tipping point always starts with one man. And tonight, Nikolas was the tipping point, tonight it was Nikolas who had said enough, and the world held its breath and watched.

He and his men left the radio tower and began walking up Rumi út, a two lane road dotted with old houses and the occasional gas station. There were only ten of them, and they walked alone. The occasional car passed them, honking them out of the way.

So this is how it ends
, Nikolas thought.
We’ll walk alone into the city and die. The people know better than to follow me. They know I’m a puppet, a pleasure-seeker, and this is just a stunt.

What surprised him the most was how well he accepted that. Karl was dead, and Nikolas had failed him, had failed his country. But in his last moments, he would die trying to make amends.

When Rumi út turned into Sőlős u., widening at a fork in the road, he saw a commotion at the gas station. A few cars were backed up, and a family was yelling at the carful of men ahead of them to hurry up.
No doubt fleeing for their lives from the troubles,
Nikolas sighed to himself.

“Look, mommy!” a child shouted, pointing at Nikolas and his men. “There he is!”

Everyone at the gas station stopped. Then they rushed towards him. “Weapons down,” he commanded his men. “If this is the end for us, this is it. We won’t take any innocent lives with us.”

“Yes, Majesty,” Barnabas said quietly, composed, as ready to die as Nikolas.

The mob’s faces had been unreadable, in the glare behind them from the bright lights of the gas station. Then they came into view.

Smiling.

“Niko! Niko!” the boy screamed, outpacing his parents. “We’re here!”

Nikolas laughed. And opened his arms to welcome his people.

The city was packed with humanity, cars abandoned on the streets leading up to the town square where the crowd was too thick to drive through anymore.

Nikolas walked through them, and it was as if he was a wizard, the way the heads turned, the way the people grabbed at him, touching him, trying to hand him flowers. He walked through tens of thousands of people, Barnabas and Erik only using enough force to make a path for him.

“Let us through!” Erik shouted. “Let us get to the Palace!”

Nikolas could feel a change in the pressure of the crowd as he got near the steps – something pushing them back, crushing them.

“Niko! Niko!” Someone took up the chant and soon the multitude was chanting it, over and over. He was Niko, one of them, one of the people. They would die for him, and he for them.

“Uh oh,” Erik said as they neared the front of the crowd. “Bad news.”

Nikolas looked over the heads of the crowd. The men guarding the front of the Palace weren’t military, or police. They were János’ men, thick heads, flat faces, no brains. Nobody he could reason with, nobody who would bow to his authority.

One of them shouted into a megaphone. “Disperse! Disperse or be shot! You are illegally assembled!”

He stood still at the front while his men pushed the crowd back, leaving him exposed. The silence cascaded across the square, as each shouting person realized how quiet those in front had become.

Nikolas recognized one of the men. “Zsolt. It’s over. Look around you.”

“Fuck off, Niko.” He raised his machine gun and the crowd gasped. “I swear to Christ I’ll shoot you down.”

“These people will tear you to pieces.”

“We’ll take them with us when we go. But you’ll go first, Niko.”

Nikolas stepped forward.

And Zsolt fired.

He didn’t feel anything for a moment, the same amount of time it took for the crowd to begin screaming, panicking. Then his shoulder screamed with the crowd.

But instead of pushing back, they surged forward, enraged. The
gengzters
retreated back towards the doors of the Town Hall, their machine guns the only thing stopping the crowd from crushing them.

It wasn’t Niko’s first gunshot wound. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot and had to keep going. The
gengzters
were disbelieving – blood flowed from his arm, but he moved towards them, his face resolute, as if he was some inhuman entity, impervious to pain.

With his good hand, he reached up and grabbed the megaphone from the thug. He turned to the crowd and shouted into it

“STOP! Hold back! It’s over. We won.”

Zsolt seemed astonished that he’d shot his king, and just as astonished that Nikolas had acted as if was nothing. He turned to Zsolt.

“Put your guns down and step aside, or these people will trample you like grass.”

They were criminals, loyal to their boss. But most of all, they were survivors. They moved aside.

Nikolas turned to the crowd and spoke into the megaphone. “Stay here. This is my task now. I will return, with the criminals under arrest, with your freedom in hand.”

They cheered, insane with adoration, as Nikolas and his crew marched into the building.

When he threw open the doors to the throne room, János and István were standing there, handguns drawn.

“Go on then, Niko,” János smirked. “Let’s end this like the
gengzters
we are, in a hail of bullets.”

“Erik,” Nikolas said, thinking of a day when they were boys.

Erik the Marksman knew exactly what he meant. He fired twice in rapid succession, hitting each man in the gun hand, shattering bones.

János screamed in pain, doubled over, holding his gushing hand.

Niko stood over him. “I arrest you, János Kovács, for high crimes against the state.”

János looked up at him, enraged. “You should have killed me, Niko. You’ll pay for this.”

Nikolas walked past him, up the steps to the dais, where the Throne of the king of Danubia awaited.

He sat down on it, his blood soaking into the red velvet upholstery.
Let it. It’ll be a part of our history forever, the day the king bled for his people.

For the first time, he sat on that throne and knew that he belonged there.

“No, János. That’s your way. But great Princes rule by law, not by force. They govern with the will of the people. It’s time for the rule of law now, János. You’ll have a trial. A fair trial. And then a jury will decide whether or not you die. Take him away.”