Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

On the day of the fair, they were all assembled outside, but the Duke was nowhere to be found.

"He's not here, Mama," Hecki said as he jumped down the stairs. He'd banged on the Duke's bedroom door and found him gone.

"What can we do? We can't wait for him to return." Lena was irritated at the Duke's inflexible attitude. She was adamant not to let this disrupt their day. "Let's go."

In the carriage, the children abused the Duke all the way to the fair, calling him everything from ‘rigid as a stone gargoyle' to ‘starchier than an ironed collar' to ‘as humourless as the dead eyes of a trout.' When they all agreed that he was ‘a tyrant worse than Nero', Lena lifted a hand to put an end to it.

"Children. He is an English Duke . With his rank and name, he is accustomed to rules and behaviour that are quite alien to us. No doubt, our way of life must seem more than strange to him. He is like a fish trying to adapt to life on land. While I don't condone autocratic behaviour, we must understand that this is what he is used to: giving orders and having people do his bidding."

"Maybe it is best that you don't remember too much of him then, Mama," Mona muttered under her breath.

"He's just like Napoleon. And look what happened to him: he got crushed by the allies!" Les piped up.

Hecki nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. We are the Allies! Let's banish him to Elba immediately."

Lena rolled her eyes and leaned back in her seat, while Hecki and Les planned all the ways and means of banishing the Duke to Elba.

The fair was a vibrant event, the streets and stalls filled with people, smells, sounds, and lots of eating and dancing. Arriving late, they had no time to check on Kurt and Emma, who had arrived earlier to set up their stall. They immediately went up to the small wooden stage and started to perform.

Lena and Mona both wore blue dresses with fitted, sleeveless bodices, white blouses, full skirts, and red aprons. White stockings and buckled shoes completed their look. The boys, meanwhile, wore red and white chequered shirts and lederhosen .

As Lena's pianoforte was too cumbersome to take to the fair, she played the recorder flute with the boys, while Theo played violin and Mona the viola. It was an unlikely combination of instruments, but strangely enough, it worked. They played cheerful pieces and soon people were dancing to their lively tunes.

In the middle of one piece, Lena almost dropped her recorder flute. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man standing somewhat apart from the crowd with his arms crossed. Surely it couldn't be him, standing there in simple leather breeches with suspenders, a linen shirt, and a short dark grey jacket—exactly the same clothes the farmers wore. A round hat with a wide brim shaded his eyes. After she blinked, once, twice, he was gone. Confused, she looked around, but the people had crowded around the stage and she could no longer see the man.

She shook her head. The Duke had been so much on her mind that now she saw him everywhere.

After the performance, Mona walked around with her tin box, collecting coins from the audience. A couple of young men, already drunk from too much wine, bumped into her and she dropped the box, spilling the coins on the ground. As she scrambled to collect the coins, one of them kicked the box away, forcing her to scramble after it, and just as she was about to grab it, one of them kicked it again, while the other picked up the coins and put them in his pocket. As she stumbled and fell on her knees, they burst out in raucous laughter as if it was the funniest thing ever.

"Stop it!" she cried, but one of the men just kicked the box again.

Lena, who was in the process of packing up the instruments, saw Mona on the floor scrambling for the coins and the two drunkards mocking her. Her mouth pressed to a thin, hard line, and she clenched her hands to fists. Then she turned to Theo. "There's trouble with Mona."

Theo didn't have to be asked twice. He leapt off the stage and elbowed his way through the crowd, followed closely by Lena, her hands clenched into fists. Someone was attacking one of her children. She would not allow it. She was ready to swing at them in defence. She crashed into Theo's back, who had come to a full stop.

A small circle of curious onlookers had formed around Mona—the two men, and a third who stood wide-legged in front of them, bending a horsewhip.

"I said, pick them all up." A voice, cold and quiet, sent shivers of dread down their spines. The silence was thick enough to cut with a butter knife.

Lena pushed through the crowd and saw that the situation had reversed itself: The two men were on their knees, scrambling about to pick up the coins.

"And if I find that you have a single coin in your pockets that doesn't belong to you, I will…" He did not finish the sentence but flexed the whip demonstratively.

The men turned pale and scrambled about even faster.

"You should whip them anyway," a voice shouted from the crowd. "They're good-for-nothing drunkards who need to be taught a lesson."

"Aye, bullying such a pretty girl. ‘Twould serve them right if you were to whip them," a woman agreed.

"Mona!" Out of breath, Lena reached the girl and drew her to her chest protectively. "Are you well?"

"I am now, Mama," Mona said. "He intervened just in time."

The Duke of Aldingbourne, dressed as a common peasant, towered over the two men on the ground, who were clearly terrified of him.

Lena gasped.

"I swear it's all the coins," one of the men stammered. "She can have all of mine, too." He added a handful of Kreuzer and emptied his pockets to show him that there was nothing left. "Please let us go. We will never do this again."

The Duke grabbed him by the collar. "If you do, I will know about it and come after you." He brought his face close to his. "I have connections with the secret police, you know."

Wide-eyed with panic, the drunkard began to blubber forth apologies. When he let him go, both men scuttled off and disappeared into the crowd.

The Duke picked up the tin box lying on the ground and shook it so the coins rattled together. "The show has ended. If you enjoyed it, your contribution is greatly appreciated."

People pulled out their purses and generously dropped coins into the box as the Duke walked around.

Lena and the Arenheim children stood by, jaws dropping.

"I've never seen anyone do anything so cracking fantastic." Les finally said.

Hecki nodded mutely and stared in awe at the Duke as he continued to make his rounds holding out the box, and the coins kept dropping, dropping, dropping. Then he reached Lena and stopped in front of her, shaking the box.

"This should be enough, don't you think? If you add more coins, it will overflow." He held the box out to her.

Lena took it. "When did you arrive?"

"Long before you, apparently." The Duke shrugged. "I came with Karl and Emma Bauer to help them set up the stall. We nearly sold all the biscuits before you arrived."

Lena uttered a puff of incredulous laughter.

"Wait." Theo had pushed himself forwards. "Did you just say you sold our biscuits?"

"Yes, he did, every single one of them," a booming voice said behind them. Karl beamed at the Duke. "We made good work of it, didn't we? Although it has to be said that it was really he who did all the work. He sold most of it while I helped our neighbour with his stall, which had collapsed on him. Julius was on his own most of the time, weren't you?" Karl clapped his hand on the Duke's shoulder.

"Business went well," he replied laconically.

"Business went well," Lena echoed, stunned.

"I see your performance has come to an end, too." He nodded at the children, who gazed at him with open mouths, as if seeing him in an entirely new light.

"Thank you for helping me," Mona said shyly.

A thundercloud passed over the Duke's brow. "And that is precisely why I so vehemently objected to you doing this in the first place." He put his arm gently around Mona's shoulder. "It isn't safe for young ladies like you to be out in this crowd alone. The two men are not the only drunks here. When the wine flows freely, there will be more unruly behaviour as the day progresses." He looked up directly at Theo. "Which is why you, Achilles, and Hector are to accompany her and remain next to her for the remainder of the fair. "

"Yes sir," Les and Hecki said in unison.

"Can we buy some sausages? We're starving!" Les said.

Lena nodded. "Of course." She gave each of the children a few coins. "Spend it well."

" Famos !" They disappeared into the crowd.

The Duke watched Lena, and she imagined seeing a fleeting look of tenderness cross his face as he looked down on her. She blinked, looked away, looked back again, but now his face was neutral. She couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"And you?" she asked. "Are you hungry?"

He shook his head. "Frau Bauer has been feeding me all morning."

They made their way through the fair. "I didn't know you left with them this morning. I thought that maybe you'd gone to town to do some work."

"Adam asked me if I could help him set up the stall." He frowned as he took Lena's arm to help her over a puddle.

"I confess I did not think you had it in you, Your Grace," Lena said. "I think you have earned the respect of the entire family today. And Mona has begun to idolise you."

A smile flitted over his face so quickly that Lena thought she must have imagined it. "Nonsense. Now. Shall we have a look at those stalls over there?"

"They sell lebkuchen , too," Lena said. "But they must not be as good as ours, since there is still an entire basket full of them left. How did you sell them, by the by?"

He shrugged. "It wasn't difficult at all. I first studied the price at which everyone else sold them, and then I decided to lower the price of ours. They went away almost immediately."

Lena laughed. "So that was your secret. You gave them away for almost free."

Once more, he nearly smiled. "Not for free. It would never occur to me to give away something you made with your own hands for free."

Their eyes met. Her stomach flipped. Her heart began to pound. Blinking rapidly, Lena looked away quickly.

"I'm glad you came," she said, shyly.

He nodded gruffly. "I'm glad to be here."