Chapter 5: Meeting the Princess.

The creation of the British Peloponnesian Protectorate had been the result of an unfortunate setback in our foreign policy in the Eastern Mediterranean. None had foreseen the formation of the Macedonian-Ottoman Axis and the invasion of northern Greece had taken all by surprise. The slaughter of British tourists on the streets of Kavala by rioting Ottoman troops had outraged Parliament and stung an unusually complacent Government into action.

The response had been too slow to prevent Macedonians occupying Athens and the majority of the Greek mainland but the action of the Navy had prevented invasion of the Ionian and Aegean Islands. The British colony on the western coast of Anatolia continued as a precarious foothold on the Ottoman mainland.

Simultaneous landings by the army at Patras and Nafplio had denied the Axis their chance of occupying southern Greece. Corinth had become a border town and the capital of the Protectorate. It was the home of the exiled Greek royal family now installed as Heads of State of the Protectorate. A royal palace had been fashioned on the hill amongst the ruins of ancient Corinth. Looking down across the coastal plain the royals were far enough from the Macedonian gun lines to be safe.

Amelia arrived with a horse drawn carriage (Corinth had by my estimate no more than three steam taxi-cabs) at the hotel ready to accompany me to the palace for my first meeting with Helena. The road to the palace was steep and stony and it took us a good hour and a half to reach the top.

To one side of the building, shielded behind newly planted trees, a swimming pool sat glistening in the morning sunshine. The pool was an extraordinary construction. Apparently built within the ruins of some Graeco-Roman bath house, the pool was surrounded by ruined walls. A part of the pool itself seemed to have once been Roman, with large stone slabs marking the sides. At least two columns had toppled into the pool, their stone drums providing a place where swimmers might pause, their Doric and Ionic capitals (curiously, no sign of the Corinthian style) lying poised so that they stuck out of the water. A solitary swimmer disturbed the surface of the water. As we approached a young woman pulled herself from the water displaying dark hair, tanned skin and the smallest of white, two-piece, swimming costumes.

I recognised Helena from her photographs in the dossier I had studied during my flight. From a physical perspective, her husband-to-be would certainly be satisfied with his new bride. Her photographs had failed to convey the perfection of her proportions, the luminosity of her skin or the sparkle of her dark eyes.

She waved to a dark-skinned servant that was standing close to the far end of the pool. The girl looked up, questioning. "If you don't get your sorry Ottoman arse indoors and find me a fucking beer, you're gonna bleeding wish you'd never been born, darling," she bellowed. The servant looked shocked and scuttled off.

"I thought you said she'd been educated in England," I hissed at Amelia, scandalised by the girl's language and wondering how on earth I was going to convert her to an appropriately behaved royal starting with this.

"Yes. Bermondsey Free School. It's a rough area."

"Just how close to the Greek Royal Family is she?" I was beginning to think there was more missing from the dossier than I would have liked.

"Her father ran a kebab shop in London in the Mile End Road. He brought her over here on holiday. They got stranded by the invasion. His brother-in-law is the King's second cousin once removed."

I began to understand how the Office for Genetic Responsibility considered that her genes presented little danger of the consequences of inbreeding.

Helena turned and noticed Amelia and myself. "Oops," she said, "pardon my French. Lovely day, innit?"

I was beginning to fear that the task of preparing Miss Voutrakis for marriage was one more suited to that gifted student of language Professor Higgins than to myself. "Indeed," I answered. Then, thinking that I should try to introduce some measure of formality, I said, "Thank you for seeing us, Princess."

"Nah, don't fuck about with that! It's Helena, innit? 'H', me friends call me." She pulled a towel from a chair beside the pool, wrapped it around her shoulders in a way that completely failed to cover her in any significant manner, and walked towards us. "Ello, Emily," she said to Amelia. "Who's this skinny looking fucker? This the bloke you wanted me to see?"