It had been years since my last visit to Belgrade. And I was missing it. I was curious to see what twenty years of Austrian rule had done for the place. The last time I’d seen it, it was an Oriental bazaar, the skyline bristling with countless minarets, the air filled with the stench of tallow and the wailing of muezzins. In Pest I’d heard how the city was nearly destroyed in the siege of 1717 but that the fortifications had since been tripled, making it even more impregnable than during its time under the Turks.
We made our way on to the bridge over the Sava, our vision obscured on every side. I stuck my head out as far as it would go but was unable to see the city. All was blanketed in thick fog. I could just make out, at the very top, the fortress of Kalemegdan.
We stopped while my servant spoke to the guards, and soon I heard the heavy gates creak open. The imperial and other state credentials I carried were the work of Jewish master craftsmen. I’ve got every conceivable pedigree – from German princedoms, Italian city states, the empires of Austria and Russia, the Kingdom of France … Although some thing tells me the French papers have nearly outlived their usefulness.
Once again I was Otto von Hausburg, Graf.
‘Master,’ said my servant, ‘the guards say to go straight to the regent’s.’
This struck me as odd, but I merely nodded, and the carriage jolted back into motion.
At long last we reached our destination, and servants dashed out to meet us and unhitch the team. A promising welcome, I thought to myself. I watched my man speaking to the servants, and the servants all shaking their heads. At once I beckoned him to me.
‘What are they saying?’ I asked. If you want to learn something important, always ask the little people.
‘Master, they say that no one must go about once the sun goes down.’
‘Ah well,’ I said, playing the part, ‘it’s always that way in a city, isn’t it? As if one would go wandering about Pest or Vienna at night! No shortage of cutpurses and brigands anywhere, is there? And here we are in the middle of an entire garrison, so one can just imagine what they get up to when they’ve been drinking …’
‘No, master, they don’t mean soldiers or brigands or any of the other things that strike fear into a city. Soldiers may be soldiers, but at least they’re flesh and blood, and robbers are flesh and blood, too, as you yourself know, master – but the danger in the night they are speaking of is something else.’
‘What?’
‘They wouldn’t say. They’re afraid. The regent doesn’t want it spoken of.’
Well, of course he doesn’t, I thought. His position as regent was at stake. But keeping quiet never saved anyone – quite the contrary, you might say.
I didn’t pursue the matter, not wanting my servant to grasp the real reason for my presence. I couldn’t trust him. Naturally, when he’d first learned of our destination, he was beside himself. ‘Why, master? Why Serbia? They’re still fighting the Turks.’
‘Because it is good for you to see your homeland.’
‘I cannot believe you’d do such a thing to me, master.’
‘Then don’t believe,’ I’d answered.
And yet I must bear with him, as it’s so hard to find good help these days, willing help. I’ve got any number of people actually working for me, of course – practically everyone you can think of, in fact, but more in a roundabout sort of way, inconspicuously. Very few people directly on the payroll. However, my Serb was an exception in every sense.
After losing the war the Serbs beat a hasty retreat from the Turks. This particular Serb hadn’t stopped for breath until he had reached Pest. Which is where I’d found him in 1706.
The first time I laid eyes on him was in a tavern called the Fat German. He was roaring drunk, but I liked him instantly. I don’t know why. He had an intelligent look about him, and beautiful hands. What’s the use of a clever servant with nice hands? I wondered. The second time I saw him was outside a tavern called the Second Encounter. To this day I wonder at the name. Such an odd choice for an alehouse. It was indeed our second meeting, and I took it as a sign. This time I couldn’t resist. He was drunk again, and I had to crouch down to speak to him.
‘Would you like to come and work for me?’
He fired his answer back like the best Austrian cannon. ‘For you? Get thee behind me, Satan!’
‘Yes, quite. Although, frankly, I don’t know how you expect to get ahead in today’s Europe with such an intolerant attitude.’
‘No use being open-minded when I’m always drunk,’ he retorted, and right away I knew I was dealing not only with a clever man but a wise one. Just the sort of servant I like. Without wasting time I got straight to the point. The meaning of life.
‘I’ll pay you ten forints to be my servant.’
‘Seeing as you’re the Devil, sir, you could be more generous.’
‘Generous? Ha! And I suppose old Fishmouth is generous, is he?’
‘Fishmouth, sir?’
‘You know, that old Jew. The Jew with no teeth in his mouth. How much is he paying you?’
‘Nothing yet, but he’s very open-handed with his promises.’
‘Have you a name to go with all those wits, my man?’
‘The name’s Novak. Twelve forints.’
‘Eleven,’ I countered. ‘You’re quite the drinker.’
‘Twelve, because I do my best thinking when I’m drunk.’
Everyone’s always telling me how accommodating I am and how it’s one of my very best weaknesses.
I accepted, and he fired a question at me. ‘But tell me, sir, what is it you do exactly? I’ve always wondered.’
‘I deal in seven things and seven only. These seven things, in order – and the order is of the utmost importance, mind you – are as follows: pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger and the despairing neglect of eternal salvation called sloth.’
And that was how he came to work for me.
But that was thirty long years ago.
In such a fog, everyone was sluggish and in disarray, and it was quite some time before I was able to enter the hall. At least there was no fog indoors. The walls were mostly bare, with the occasional decorative halberd in that narrow-bladed Saxon style of Johann Georg I. There were also some tufted maces lying about, and some hussar sabres, and a pickaxe, nearly a dozen daggers, five or six rapiers, a two-handed broadsword that even Hercules would find cumbersome, a pair of yataghans, three katana, a pair of Scottish flintlock pistols and one otherworldly Chinese landscape on silk.
The man who received me was a Baron Schmidlin. He was an adviser in the administration and was just over forty years old. Already bald, shortish and sporting a beer gut. He had a hearty manner that went beyond the merely polite, and it didn’t take long for him to open up. As we all know, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
‘Herr Graf,’ he said excitedly, ‘I know that you are sent from Vienna to investigate the terrible events that torment His Majesty’s subjects.’
Excellent, I thought. The man thinks I’m one of the emperor’s special investigators. Why didn’t he just assume I’d been sent because of the war Austria was waging to the south? Following its initial victories and the conquest of Niš, the imperial army had suffered defeat after defeat. Caribrod and Pirot had already fallen, and Niš was under siege by the Turks.
‘Indeed,’ I said evenly, ‘I am a special imperial investigator, and I shall expect your full cooperation in bringing our investigation to a swift conclusion.’
‘I’ll tell you everything I know, but you must go and see it with your own eyes.’
‘See what?’
‘It,’ he repeated, ‘the thing with no name.’
‘Very well,’ I said, quite sure that I wouldn’t. ‘I shall.’
‘And you are not at all afraid?’
‘No,’ I said resolutely, although I was afraid. Had I felt no fear I would not have come to Belgrade. ‘Now tell me.’
‘When the time is right,’ said Schmidlin, nearly whispering. ‘We expect the regent to return from the hunt at any moment. You see how thick the fog is. The hunt is sure to have been a failure, and the regent is very angry when he comes back empty-handed.’
‘From what I hear, he’s always very angry,’ I said, making a bid for closeness with Schmidlin.
He grinned and nodded.
‘That is so. And please do not forget, he does not like to be called President of the Administration, which is his real title here. Address him as Regent of Serbia.’
‘I shall bear it in mind.’
‘One other thing. Tonight there is a ball here at the Residenz. You will certainly attend, but I beg you not to speak to the regent of your business here. It will only provoke him.’
‘But I am an imperial …’
‘Vienna is far away, Herr Graf, and here there are terrible crimes in the dark.’
‘Very well,’ I said, nodding, ‘but I must advise you that there is another commission on its way, one that knows nothing of me and has been sent by His Imperial Majesty to conduct an investigation alongside my own. They are not aware of me because, among other things, I must oversee them as well. The commission is led by a young doctor, Klaus Radetzky.’
‘It was to be expected,’ said the baron. ‘For Vienna to send a doctor was only to be expected.’
He said nothing else, and I felt that he was holding something back. As I expected, he was kind enough to escort me to the chamber that had been prepared for me. I entered the room, which was not especially luxurious, and lay on the wide bed. I was pleased with myself. I fell asleep and was only briefly awakened by the first cock-crow.