H.R.H. (8 page)

“If you ever want to come to work for us,” Marque said quietly, and meant it, “call me. I think you have a gift,” she said honestly. She had discovered her own after her children had died, and she had made the children of Africa her family. In her years of service, she had loved and comforted children all over the world. She had turned her own devastating loss into a blessing for others.

“I wish I could,” Christianna said, still looking shaken. She knew too well that working for them wasn't even a remote possibility. Her father would never allow it.

“Maybe you could for a short time. Think about it. I'm easy to find. Call the International Red Cross office in Geneva—they always know where to find me. I don't stay anywhere for long. If you want to, we'll talk.”

“I'd love that,” Christianna said sincerely, wishing she could convince her father, and knowing at the same time that there was absolutely no chance she ever would. He would have gone insane at the thought. But this was so much more meaningful than anything she could do at home, or even through the foundation. For the first time in her life, she had felt alive and useful that night, as though her existence were not an accident but had a purpose. And she knew that even if they never met again, for the rest of her life she would remember Marque. There were people all over the world who felt that way about her.

The two women embraced again, and as the Red Cross trucks began to leave at dawn, she, Max, and Samuel went back to where they had left the car. It had several bullet holes in it, and the windshield had vanished, smashed into tiny pieces on the floor of the car. The two men cleared it out as best they could. It was going to be a chilly ride back to the airport. They left not long after the Red Cross as the sun streaked across the sky. There were still soldiers and police in the area. All the bodies had been removed. The ambulances were gone. And the children who had died there would never be forgotten.

It was a long silent ride back to Vladikavkaz. Neither Christianna nor her bodyguards said more than a few words to each other. They were too exhausted, and too shaken by what they'd seen. Max drove this time, while Samuel slept in the front seat, and Christianna stared out the window. They had been there for one day and two nights, which seemed like an eternity. Christianna stayed awake for the whole trip, thinking about the young pregnant girl, a widow now, with three children. She thought of Marque and the gentleness of her face, her limitless kindness and compassion. She reflected also on what she had said at the end, and wished that there were some way to convince her father to allow her to do this kind of work. She had no desire whatsoever to get a “license,” a master's degree, at the Sorbonne. It meant nothing to her. But most of all, she thought of the faces she had seen that night, the people who had died, the faces of those who had survived as they wandered shell-shocked among their families and parents …the gifts, the losses, the tragedies, the terrors, the terrible people who had done this to them, and their complete lack of conscience. She was still silent and wide awake when they reached the airport. They returned the car and assured the rental company that they would be responsible for the damage. Christianna said to put it on the credit card she had given them initially. She saw people staring at her as they walked through the airport and had no idea why, until one of her bodyguards put his own jacket around her shoulders.

“It's all right, I'm not cold,” she assured him, and handed it back to him, as he looked at her sadly.

“You're covered with blood, Your Highness,” he said quietly, and as she looked down at the sweater she had worn, she saw that she was. The blood of hundreds of children, and nearly as many adults, as many of them as she had touched. She glanced in a mirror and saw that it was in her hair as well. She hadn't combed her hair in two days, and she no longer cared, about anything except the people she had seen in Digora. Now they were all that mattered.

She went to the ladies' room and tried to make herself look respectable, which was relatively hopeless. Her shoes were covered with mud from the fields she had stood in. Her jeans and sweater were caked with blood. It was in her hair, under her nails, she could still smell it. It had seeped into her soul. She showed her passport as they left, and this time no one commented. On the way out, it didn't seem to matter as much. And late that night they were home.

The bodyguards had called ahead, and her car and driver met them at the airport. They had asked the driver to cover the seats with towels, which mystified him until he saw her. At first he didn't realize it was blood. He looked shocked when he did, and said nothing. They rode to the palace in Vaduz in silence. As the gates opened, they entered, and she looked at the place where she lived, had been born, and would probably die one day, hopefully when she was old. But all she knew now to her core and soul was that nothing there had changed in the past three days, but she had returned a different person. The girl who had left Vaduz three days before no longer existed. The one who had come home after the siege of Digora was forever changed.

Chapter 5

C
hristianna did not see her father the night she got home. He was in Vienna for a diplomatic dinner at the French embassy, and had stayed at Palace Liechtenstein, just as he had when he went to the ballet with her. He knew before he left for Vienna that she was safe. Their cell phones hadn't worked while they were in Russia, but her bodyguards had called him from the airport to reassure him. Until then, he had been wild with worry. And he came to find her the moment he got home. It was twenty-four hours after she had returned from Russia. She looked immaculate in jeans, loafers, and a Berkeley sweatshirt. Her hair was freshly washed and brushed. There was no sign of what she'd been through, or how harrowing it had been, until he looked into her eyes. What he saw there terrified him. She didn't look dead, but more alive than he had ever seen her, wiser, older, sadder, deeper. Just as she had known herself when she came home, after all she'd seen during those three days, she was no longer the same person. Looking at her, he was frightened. He knew everything had changed since he had last seen her.

“Hello, Papa,” she said quietly as he put his arms around her and kissed her. “I'm so happy to see you.” She seemed more adult than she ever had been, more of a woman. He wanted to hold her in his arms and keep her, and suddenly he knew he couldn't. The child he had known and nurtured was suddenly gone, and in her place was a woman who had learned and seen things that no one should ever have to know.

“I missed you,” he said sadly. “I was so worried about you. I watched the news constantly, but I never saw you. Was it as awful as it looked?” he asked, sitting down next to her and taking her hand in his. He wished she hadn't gone, but there had been no stopping her. He knew he couldn't. And he knew the same now.

“It was worse. There was a lot the press wasn't allowed to show, out of respect for the families.” Tears rolled slowly down her cheeks as his heart ached for what she'd been through. He would have done anything to protect her from it. “They killed so many children, Papa. Hundreds of them, as though they were just sheep or cattle or goats.”

“I know. I saw some of it on television. The families' faces were so terrible. I kept thinking of how I would feel if I lost you. I couldn't bear it. I don't know how those people will survive, and go on. It must be so hard.” She thought of her young pregnant friend then, the one she had never been able to talk to, but they had just held each other and cried … and Marque … all of them who had crossed her path in those few days. “I was relieved that the press never got you. Did they ever find out that you were there?” He assumed they hadn't or he would have heard about it, and she shook her head.

“No, they didn't, and the woman in charge of the Red Cross was very discreet. She knew it the moment she saw my passport. She said some of our cousins have worked with her before.”

“I'm glad she didn't say anything. I was afraid someone would.” If so, it would have been the least of her problems, although she wouldn't have liked it either, and was glad that she had been able to do her work undiscovered and undisturbed. It would have been such an intrusion to have photographers in her face, and offended all the grieving people. She had been lucky to remain anonymous throughout the trip.

She looked at her father long and hard then, and he sensed that something was coming that he wouldn't like. She tightened her grip on his hand and looked into his eyes. Hers were two bottomless pools of bright blue sky, very much like his, except that his were old and hers were young. And in hers he saw twin pools of hope and pain. She had seen too much for a girl her age in those three days. He knew it would take her a long time to forget all that she'd seen.

“I want to go back, Papa,” she said softly, and he looked startled, shocked, pained. “Not to Russia, but to work with the Red Cross again. I want to make a difference, and I can't do that here. I know I can't do it forever, but I want a year, six months … after that I'll do whatever you want. But for once in my life I want to do something that makes a difference, a big one, to someone else. Papa, please.…” Her eyes were filled with tears as he shook his head and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“You can do that with your mother's foundation, Cricky. You've had a shocking experience. I know what that's like.” He had gone to disaster scenes before, and seen the agony of people's grief. But he could not do as she asked. “There are many things you can do here. Work with handicapped children, if you like, or the poor in Vienna. Volunteer at a hospital for burn victims. You can soothe many sorrows, and console many aching hearts. But if what you're asking me is to go to dangerous countries, in high-risk situations, where you yourself are at risk, I just can't allow you to do that. I would worry about you too much. You're too important to me, I love you too much. And I owe your mother a responsibility here, too. She would have expected me to keep you out of harm's way.”

“I don't want to do those things here,” she said petulantly, sounding like a child again, but she felt like one with him. This was an argument she didn't want to lose, nor did he. “I want to go out in the world for once in my life, be like everyone else, work hard, and pay my dues, before I settle into this comfortable life forever, like Victoria, trying to decide which tiara to wear, and which dress, cutting ribbons at hospitals or visiting orphans and old people for the rest of my life.” He knew how much that life chafed, and he didn't disagree. But particularly as a woman, she couldn't go running around the world, risking her life in war zones, or digging ditches for the poor, to atone for the sins of being royal and rich. He knew better than anyone that she had to make her peace now with who she was.

“You've just come back from four years in the States. You had a great deal of freedom there”—in fact, more than he knew—“but now you have to accept who you are and all that goes with it. It's time for you to come home, not time to run away. You can't run away from this, Christianna. I know. I tried myself when I was young. In the end, this is who we are, and all that comes with it is what we must do.” It sounded like a death sentence to her as tears rolled down her cheeks, grieving the freedom she would never know or taste, the things she would never do. For this one year of her life, she wanted to be just like everyone else. Her father was saying that it was impossible for her. This was the one gift she wanted from him now, before it was too late. If she was ever going to do it, this was the time.

“Then why is Freddy still running around the world, doing whatever he wants?”

“For one thing”—her father smiled at her—“your brother is immature,” as they both knew, and then her father's face grew serious again. He knew this was an important subject to her. “For another, he's not in dangerous areas, or at least not technically or geographically, or due to circumstances like the ones you just experienced in Russia. Your brother creates his dangers himself, and they are far more harmless than anything you would encounter working for the Red Cross. You would spend a year, or however long, doing things like what you just went through. Nothing untoward happened this time, thank God, and you came to no harm. But you could have. If they had in fact blown up the school, without announcing it first, you could have gotten hurt, or worse.” He shuddered thinking of it. “Christianna, I am not sending you out into the world to be killed, or mauled, or exposed to tropical diseases or natural disasters, political unrest, or violence of any kind. I simply won't do it.” He was adamant about it, as she had known he would be, but she wasn't ready to give up yet. It meant too much to her now. And she knew that even if she went to work at her late mother's foundation, he would not allow her to travel to rigorous areas with them, even for visits. All he wanted was to protect her, but that was exactly what she was so tired of and didn't want.

“Will you at least think about it?” she begged him.

“No, I won't,” he said, and then stood up. “I'll do anything I can and everything you want to make your life better and more interesting here. But forget the Red Cross, Christianna, or anything like it.” He looked at her sternly, bent to kiss her, and before she could say more, he strode out of the room. The discussion was over. And for hours afterward she sat alternately depressed and angry, fuming in her room. Why was he so unreasonable? And why did she have to be a princess? She hated being royal. She didn't even answer her e-mails from the States that night, which she usually loved to do. She had too much else on her mind, and had seen too much.

She avoided her father entirely for the next two days. She rode her horse, and went running with her dog. She cut ribbons at an orphanage and another home for the elderly. She read on tape for the blind, and spent time at the foundation, and hated all of it. She wanted to be anyone other than who she was, and anywhere other than at home in Vaduz. She didn't even want to go to Paris. Above all, she hated her life, her ancestors, the palace, her father when she dared. She didn't want to be a princess anymore. It felt like a curse to her, and surely not a blessing, as she had been told all her life. She called Victoria in London to complain to her, and she told her to come back. But what was the point of that? She'd just have to come back to Vaduz again, and everything waiting for her there. Her German cousins invited her to come and stay, but she didn't want to go there either. And she refused to join her father for a trip to Madrid, to visit the king of Spain. She hated them all.

She had been raging for two weeks, in a deep gloom, when her father came to her. She had been avoiding him assiduously for days. He was well aware of her misery, and looked bitterly unhappy himself, as he sat down in a chair in her bedroom. In deference to him, she turned the music down. She had been using it to drown out everything that was in her head, and her sorrows. Even Charles looked bored, as he looked up at her, wagged his tail, and didn't bother to get up.

“I want to talk to you,” her father said quietly.

“About what?” she asked, still sounding petulant and surly.

“About your insane idea of signing up with the Red Cross. I want you to know I think it's an extremely bad idea, and if your mother were alive, she wouldn't even have considered talking to you about it. In fact, she'd have killed me for talking to you at all on this subject.” Christianna frowned as she listened to him. She was tired of his trying to convince her of what a bad idea it was. She had already heard it, several times too often, which was why at the moment she wasn't speaking to him at all.

“I know how you feel about it, Papa,” she said somberly. “You don't have to tell me again. I've heard it.”

“Yes, you have, and so have I. So you can listen to me one more time.” He almost smiled to himself, thinking that he might rule a country and thirty-three thousand subjects, but he was having a much harder time reigning over one daughter. He sighed, and then went on. “I spoke to the director of the Red Cross in Geneva this week. We had a long talk. In fact, at my request, he came here to see me.”

“You're not going to buy me off by having me volunteer in an office,” she said angrily, glaring at him, as he fought not to lose his temper, and succeeded. “And I'm not going to give a ball for them, here or in Vienna. I hate things like that. I find them disgustingly boring.” She crossed her arms across her chest as a signal of her refusal.

“So do I, but they're part of my job. And one day they may be part of yours, depending on who you marry. I don't enjoy all that either, but it's expected of us, and you can't simply decide that you don't want to be who you are. Others have done that before you, and made a mess of their lives. Christianna, you have no choice but to accept your fate here. We're very fortunate in many ways.” His voice mellowed a little as he looked at her. “Besides, we have each other, and I love you very much. And I don't want you to be unhappy.”

“I am unhappy,” she stressed again. “I lead a thoroughly useless, stupid, spoiled, indulgent life. And the only time I've ever done anything meaningful or worthwhile was two weeks ago in Russia.”

“I know that. And I know you feel that way. I understand. A lot of what everyone does, in any job, is meaningless and superficial. It's very rare to have an experience like the one you just had, where you are truly helping people in their direst moments. You also can't make a life of that.”

“The woman who ran the Red Cross operation in Russia does just that. Her name is Marque, and she's an amazing woman.”

“I know all about her,” her father said calmly. He had spent many hours with the head of the Red Cross who had come to see him from Geneva, and ultimately the prince had been satisfied with their conversation, although with grave reservations. “Cricky, I want you to listen to me. I don't want you to be miserable, or even unhappy. You absolutely must accept who you are, and understand to your very soul that you can't escape it. It is your fate, your destiny, and your obligation. And also a great blessing in many ways, although you don't see that yet. And part of that is that you must be a blessing to others, as you are, where you are, and not just try to deny it. You are a blessing to me as well, and one day, you will be to your brother. You know a lot more about this country than he does. And you will help him run it, even if from behind the scenes. In fact, I'm counting on you to do that. He will be reigning prince, but you will be his mentor and adviser. He can't run this country without you to guide him.” It was the very first time he had ever suggested that to her, and she was shocked. “How you deal with your responsibilities, your life, what you do about it, how miserable you make yourself ultimately is up to you. I want you to spend some time thinking about it. You cannot now, or later, or ever, escape who you are. I expect a great deal of you, Christianna. I need you. You are a Serene Highness. It is part of you, both your heritage and your job. Do you understand me?” He had never before made himself as clear in her entire life, and it frightened her and made her want to run away.

She wanted to avoid what he was saying but didn't dare, he was her father after all, whether a reigning prince or not. And she hated hearing what he said, because it was so painfully true, and she loathed being reminded of it. It was a burden she could not lighten, remove, or take off. Ever. And now he wanted to add Freddy's duties to her own. “I understand you, Father,” she said grimly. She only called him Father and not Papa when she was very angry. Just as he used her title, although rarely, when he was furious at her, which was rarer still.