The Assassins by Alan Bardos (read novel full .TXT) 📕

had positioned himself at the outer gateway of the palace, alongside representatives from the Monarchy's oldest families and from Vienna's diplomatic corps. It didn't, however, seem like a good moment to try and add to his list of contacts. His chief had sent him on behalf of the Embassy, to pay last respects when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Duchess of Hohenberg were taken to their final resting place. The cortege was due to leave shortly at 10.00pm, and Prince Montenuovo, the preening martinet of a Court Chamberlain, was ensuring that everything ran like clockwork.

Pinkie looked at the crowd gathering opposite him along the Burgring. There wasn't a great feeling of mourning in the city, but during the prescribed four hours, thousands of people had filed past the Royal couple as they lay in state. Then the doors had been slammed shut, regardless of the mourners still waiting outside.

The Archduke hadn't been liked at court and it seemed the court would do no more than the protocol dictated for the Heir Apparent. Many, including the Court Chamberlain, were safe in their positions now that Franz Ferdinand had gone.

The overriding feeling at the Embassy, and Pinkie assumed with the rest of the diplomatic corps standing around him, was one of relief. Europe would be more stable without a wildcard reformer like Franz Ferdinand waiting in the wings to ascend the throne of one of the great powers. The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was useful only if it kept peace in the Danube Basin and the Balkans.

Pinkie suspected that the Austrians would, ‘go off half-cocked’ over the assassination, making inflated demands for recompense, but he had no doubt that the whole thing would blow over. He was more concerned about the Russians; they had started playing up in Persia again, encroaching on the neutral territory next to Britain's principal oil supply. In the midst of that emergency, Pinkie had been obliged to attend the official memorial service held that afternoon at the Hofburg Chapel, with his chief, Sir Maurice de Bunsen, the British Ambassador. Pinkie had been livid - he was supposed to be preparing for his summer vacation.

The whole thing couldn't have come at a worse time as far as he was concerned; he'd already had to postpone his departure by a week. To add insult to injury, there weren’t any heads of state at the service, so Pinkie didn’t get an opportunity to advance his career. The Austrian Government hadn't been able to guarantee their security after the fiasco in the Balkans and poor old Franz Josef wasn't up to entertaining an international event. Pinkie presumed that there must have been a number of problems with etiquette behind the scenes. It would have been bad taste to have invited the Tsar, considering Russia's connection with Serbia. However, it would have caused great offence not to have asked him, as a head of state of one of the great powers.

Consequently, only diplomats were allowed to represent their respective countries at the service. All in all, Pinkie felt that Prince Montenuovo was surpassing himself in making a shockingly third rate affair of the whole thing.

The Royal couple had been returned to Vienna the previous night with little ceremony. The small cortege made an eerie procession through the capital. Once at the Hofburg Chapel, the Duchess's coffin had been placed eighteen inches lower than the Archduke's, reflecting the Duchess’s inferior lineage to that of her husband. A black fan and white gloves were also placed on the lid of her coffin, the traditional symbols of a lady in waiting and a reminder of Sophie’s past. Pinkie usually approved of such distinctions being made, but in the circumstances, they seemed a bit churlish.

The memorial service itself had been thankfully quick and efficient. The Emperor had looked suitably impassive, reflecting the austere, medieval atmosphere of the chapel. Pinkie had heard a rumour that when Franz Josef was told of the assassination he'd said, “The Almighty cannot be defied with impunity. A divine will has re-established that order of things which I, alas, was not able to preserve.” This was believed by most to be a reference to the Archduke having married beneath himself. To Pinkie's mind, the statement didn't sound like the old man’s style.

Some questioned whether or not the Emperor felt any grief over the death of his nephew. However, Pinkie’s contact at the Hofburg told him that when the Emperor had met Archduke Karl, his great nephew and the new heir, he'd burst into tears, saying, “Nothing at all is to be spared me.” These were the same words he'd used when his wife, Empress Elisabeth, was stabbed to death by a lunatic anarchist.

Very few royal families could have had so much grief to bear, Pinkie reflected. The Emperor and his wife had lost a baby girl, Sophie, to illness. Their son, Crown Prince Rudolf, had killed himself in what was thought to have been a murder suicide pact with his lover. The Emperor's brother Maximilian, the Emperor of Mexico, was executed in the country's revolution. Franz Josef's youngest brother, Karl Ludwig, had died of typhoid after drinking water from the River Jordan and now the Emperor's nephew Franz Ferdinand and his wife had been assassinated, leaving three orphaned children.

The only wreath in the chapel, aside from those sent by the diplomatic corps, was one made up of white roses and was from Sophie, Max and Ernst. The children were not present at the service; they were in a state of total anguish and paid their respects privately.

On the way out of the chapel, de Bunsen had let slip that he wanted to send Pinkie to Persia to deal with the Russian business. Apparently most of the Diplomatic Service were already on holiday and they needed a safe pair of hands. Pinkie had said that he didn't speak Russian and that it might be better to send someone who actually spoke the language.