Chapter Five

“...Seven . . . Eight . . .”

Franz wept, spread-eagled on the public whipping block, and saw only fire in his vision.

“. . . Nine . . .”

The bastinado crashed down again, hard wood-and-steel rod against bruised and bleeding skin. The bones of his back would surely never stand such assault. They would shatter and leave him broken, useless.

“. . . Ten . . .”

Bloody useless waste. Him. Antonicek and Madame Delacroix. Everything.

He’d thought he’d pay Delacroix back, strike for justice. Have a laugh at the old sot’s expense. Useless.

“. . . Eleven . . .”

Flame arced down his back as new skin broke open. Franz screamed, uncaring of Delacroix salivating over his pain, that filthy bastard, or Herr Rahier, the Prince’s administrator, watching coldly to see that every stroke of the bastinado landed on target.

No good, no good, no good . . . Franz had tried everything, but no pleas, no amount of desperation, could ever have been enough to change the Prince’s mind. Cold as aristocratic ice, ordering this torture.

Franz broken, Antonicek and Madame Delacroix dragged back to suffer more, and bloody Delacroix soaking the whole mess up . . .

“. . . Twelve!”

The heavy bastinado smashed down one last time, and something cracked in Franz’s back.

He convulsed, spitting and crying. In the red haze, he barely noticed strong hands removing the straps from around his wrists, throwing a shirt across his mangled back, and finally carrying him across the courtyard.

He’d meant to spit at Delacroix’s feet as he passed. But he couldn’t even open his eyes against the pain.

They deposited him in a cold, dark room. He crumpled onto the floor when they let go of his arms. Voices spoke, but Franz couldn’t make out the words. Only the closing of the barred door sounded clearly through his haze. He was alone.

Shivers racked his body until at last, mercifully, he lost consciousness.

When he awoke, a candle stub flickered at the far end of the room, next to a bowl of water and another filled with bread.

“Naught but bread and water for one week’s imprisonment,” the Prince had pronounced, with that Godalmighty aristocratic chill.

Franz began to laugh, although it hurt his throat.

That bread might as well be on the far side of the world, for all the use it was to him. What good would any finer food do him? For he could surely neither drag his burning body across the floor to take it, nor swallow any food without vomiting it back up again.

Laughing, he laid his face down on the cold stone floor and fell willingly back into sleep.

When he woke again, he blinked against the total darkness. The candlelight was gone, yet he could feel the presence of another person in the room.

He hurt too much to feel any fear. What more could be done to him?

“Franz Pichler,” a man’s voice said coolly, beside his ear. “You’ll need water. Your jailers say you haven’t drunk yet.”

Franz couldn’t answer. His throat was too dry. But when he felt the rim of the water bowl at his lips, he managed to tilt his head back and suck down the cool, stale water. If his eyes hadn’t burned dry, he would have wept again, in gratitude.

“Now,” the voice said, once Franz had finished. “You’re to be kept here for a seven-night, I hear—which time you’ll need to heal yourself. But in the meantime, I want to give you something to think about. You are no friend, I think, to your director, Monsieur Delacroix?”

Franz snorted, painfully.

“I thought not. Nor, dare I say, to our esteemed local despot, the Prince?”

Franz swallowed. If this was a trick . . .

No. Prince Nikolaus Esterházy ruled with a grimly paternal certainty. He would punish, aye, and care nothing for his victim’s agony, but then he’d consider the debt discharged. Not for him the creeping paranoia that would send spies into the darkness of his own prison cells.

So Franz licked his dry lips with his swollen tongue and told the truth to the voice in the dark.

“Never.”

“Ah,” said the voice. Franz could almost hear its smile. “In that case, I have a proposition to lay before you . . .”

Violins twined around each other, rising, pleading. Flutes seconded them below, adding soft voices to the plea. The cellos and basses pushed the harmony achingly wide, until Charlotte’s whole body vibrated with the need for release. They were about to resolve—they must resolve—

But no, for each seeming resolution revealed itself to be only another twisting turn in a string of modulations, stretching the tension tighter and tighter yet. The sweet voice of the horns drove forward a tone that turned more dissonant with every beat until—

Pain stabbed up through Charlotte’s fingers, wrapped so tightly around each other that the knuckles had gone white. She released them with a gasp and returned her attention to the orchestra just in time. Herr Haydn’s violin bow swept high to lead the rest in a final, sweeping downbeat of resolution so sweet and right that it brought tears to Charlotte’s eyes.

She clapped enthusiastically, ignoring the lingering remnants of pain in her fingers. Herr Haydn led the orchestra in a bow to the Prince, in the center of the music room. Charlotte flushed in pleasure as his bow took in her seat, only three chairs distant from the Prince. This glorious music was worth anything. Everything.

“Take care, Baroness,” Signor Morelli murmured. “I fear you may be losing your seat.”

It was true; she teetered at the edge of her chair. She righted herself, relieved to see no mockery after all in the castrato’s dark eyes.

She smiled at him, this time without the tightening in her chest that she’d felt before him earlier in the evening. “Herr Haydn’s music is marvelous, is it not?”

Sophie and the Prince were murmuring together already, while the Prince’s niece chimed in with a sardonic tone that brought them all to easy laughter. In the sudden din of conversation, Charlotte found herself unexpectedly grateful to be seated by the one other person who might feel all that she did.

“I’d never seen such concerts in my life before I came here,” she said.

Signor Morelli’s eyebrows rose. “Not even in Vienna?”

“Oh, our parents are not at all musical, I’m afraid. And of course I moved to Saxony upon my marriage, many years ago.”

She fixed her eyes back on the orchestra, hungrily observing the preparations for the violin concerto that would follow. The marble walls of the music room were ornamented with rich gilding, at what must have been a fabulous expense, and the musicians took visible care as they shifted their chairs for the new configuration.

“I’ve heard that even in Saxony, fine concerts do occasionally occur.”

Charlotte laughed. “Not in the depths of rural society, signor, I assure you.” Though I cannot imagine you ever finding that out for yourself. The idea of the sophisticated castrato, in his fashionable, expensive Parisian clothing, wandering the grass-covered roads of her husband’s estate and attracting the wide-eyed amazement of Ernst’s stuffy neighbors, was an absurdity that appealed to her strongly. She curbed her smile with an effort, and returned her focus to the conversation. “But I have been playing Herr Haydn’s keyboard sonatas for years. I’ve even read through the arias from his operas, although I’ve not the voice for them.”

“No?” His eyes lit with sudden interest at that, and he leaned forward slightly. “You are a . . . soprano, Baroness?”

“Hardly. An alto, if you please, signor, and a remarkably poor one.” She dared a flash of humor and met his eyes as she added, “Even my music master never flattered me on that score!”

“Indeed.” The interest flickered and faded, and he leaned back. His high, unearthly voice was cool again. “Apparently, not all of our fellow guests are such music lovers as yourself, madam. Neither of my traveling companions seems to be in attendance now, although I saw both here at the start of this concert.”

“So they’ve abandoned their posts? How shameful of them.” Charlotte kept her voice light with an effort. Foolish and beyond foolish to feel hurt. Music opened her too wide and vulnerable for the easy parryings and dishonesty of courtly conversation. For a moment, she had believed it to have opened him, too.

“It is a remarkably fine performance, especially as it was arranged and rehearsed at only the last moment.” The castrato leaned back to wait for a pause in the Prince’s conversation. “Have you had any news of the two, ah, fugitives, Your Highness?”

The sudden sound of hard rain on the windows covered his words so that he had to repeat them. Once made clear, Prince Nikolaus’s frown resolved into a stern nod.

“No word yet, signor, but have no fear. My men will bring them in before the night is out.” His fierce eyes narrowed, focusing into the empty air. “I have no doubt of it.”

Thunder rolled outside, in the distance. Inside the warm room, Charlotte shivered and wrapped her fingers around the bare skin of her forearms.

It would be a black, cold night to be afraid and in flight. She would not wish it on anyone.

The sound of thunder mingled with the deep-voiced chanting. It rolled down the long corridor, rattling the porcelain vases.

Through the open window, rain and darkness spattered into the palace of Eszterháza, but still the chanting did not stop.

“Now listen carefully, Franz Pichler,” the voice said. “I represent an important and powerful fellowship of men. In Eszterháza, this prince may fancy himself supreme, but in the wider world, we could crush him at will. And if we are pleased with your service, we can raise you to great heights.”

Franz began to shiver again, only partly from the cold. “What . . . what heights?”

“Have you never dreamed of making a career in the capital? Free from the provinces forever?”

Franz’s voice came out as a scratchy, incredulous whisper. “The Burgtheater?”

“The Burgtheater in Vienna is yours for the taking, should you desire it. Lead roles, comic roles, a directorship . . . Certain members of our group are admirably placed to instate you in whichsoever role you fancy.”

“And the Prince?”

“The Prince will be helpless to lift a finger when we remove you from Eszterháza. But.” The voice tightened, shifting into aristocratic accents. “But. We are powerful friends, Herr Pichler, but we are even more powerful enemies. Should you try to regain the Prince’s favor by bringing him the tale of this meeting, for instance . . .”

“No,” Franz said. “I won’t. I swear!”

“Indeed,” the voice said, “you will not. You know that I found you here, in the Prince’s own prisons, and passed all of his guards to come to you. There is nowhere in the world that you could hide where I or another member of my fellowship would not find you. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” Franz swallowed. “What do I need to do?”

“Nothing, for the moment, but rest and heal yourself. It would be wise for you not to express your resentment of the Prince. But once you are free again . . .”

Something dry crackled as it was passed into his hand. A slip of paper. “Let no one find this. When your jailers light your candle once more, you’ll see that it is our mark. After you are released, you will receive your first instructions, and you will know them to be true by recognizing that mark.”

Cloth whispered across the floor. Soft footsteps stepped away from Franz.

“Do we have an understanding, Herr Pichler?”

“Yes,” Franz whispered. He clutched the paper in his hand. “Yes!”

The barred door opened and then firmly closed, leaving Franz alone in the darkness.

Smoke slipped in through the open window, pooled on the ground, and slid slowly back along the corridor, toward the sound of the chanting. It paused a moment outside the doorway, then, sluggishly, gathered itself and trickled, little by little, underneath the door.

A moment later, the chanting came to a final halt, leaving the air ringing with its absence. A deep-voiced chuckle of satisfaction sounded within the room.

On the wooden floorboards of the corridor, where the smoke had passed, spots of blood mingled with the raindrops from the open window.

“Your Highness!”

Rain-soaked soldiers burst into the music room, interrupting the violin concerto. Charlotte started in her seat and turned to stare, caught between irritation and curiosity.

“Your Highness.” The lieutenant dropped to one knee before the Prince, while his fellows bowed deeply behind him. Water dripped from his uniform, landing perilously close to the Prince’s bejeweled shoes.

“Well, lieutenant?” Prince Nikolaus’s eyes hardened. “How do you explain this intrusion?”

“I apologize, Your Highness. But we saw—you need to know—”

The lieutenant gasped for breath. Charlotte saw mud spattered across his uniform breeches. He’d been riding, then, and hard, to bring back his news.

“Well?” Prince Nikolaus leaned forward, his eyebrows drawing together. “What do you have to tell me?”

“We found the singers, Your Highness, as you commanded. That is, we think . . . The horses certainly came from your stables.”

“And the couple themselves?”

“I . . . I’m not sure, Your Highness.”

“Well? What did they have to say for themselves? Bring them in here—we’ll all recognize them.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that, Your Highness. The horses were unharmed, but the couple—the bodies—”

Charlotte drew in a breath. Against her will, she glanced at the orchestra. The instruments had been laid aside as the kapellmeister and all the musicians listened intently. To her and to the rest of the court, the singers were only names and faces, masked each night behind a different role. To the musicians, they were flesh-and-blood people, and colleagues, as well.

“The bodies had been disfigured, Your Highness. As if they’d been ripped apart and . . .”

“And?” the Prince prompted. His face was pale and stern.

“. . . And sucked dry,” the lieutenant finished weakly.

Charlotte closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. She did not care to hear any more music tonight, after all.