Friday, July 16, 1683
Katja
Vienna
After two days of siege, Katja had almost gotten used to the constant boom of the cannon, but she would never get used to the height of the church steeple she now approached. She wasn’t scared of heights, not exactly. They just made her stomach clench and her head feel a little unsteady.
“Come, Fräulein Katharina. We’re almost there.” Maria led the way, as she had the day before. Maria was like a cat, and tall towers didn’t seem to bother her at all. She stopped when she reached the top, and her easy movements turned stiff.
Katja hurried up the remaining stairs, keeping her hand on the wall next to her for support. She glanced to the south, beyond the walls, to see what had so shocked Maria.
“I can already see the lines,” Maria said.
Katja followed Maria’s finger, but she needn’t have pointed. The Ottoman trenches were visible, little scars of darkness on the otherwise green earth. “I didn’t expect them to begin so quickly.” Beyond the newly excavated trenches, a mass of tents encircled the city. Her position didn’t show the whole city, so she couldn’t tell if the tents formed a complete ring around Vienna, but they surrounded everything within view.
The enemy army was enormous. And the tower was so high. Katja stepped closer to the solid portion of the wall. She’d wanted to see what progress had been made, but she’d feel more settled once her feet were back on solid ground. Besides, they needed to report for their daily assignments, probably sewing more sandbags.
“I’m going back down,” she said.
Maria nodded. Her blue eyes scanned the horizon, and a frown dug into her face, much like the trenches dug into the earth. “I’ll be down in just a moment.”
Katja made her way along the winding stairway, and by the time she was at the bottom step, Maria was right behind her.
“Are you scared, Fräulein Katharina?” Maria’s voice was a whisper and hinted at fear. “I never expected to live through something like this.”
At first Katja assumed Maria was speaking of the height, but she meant the siege. “Call me Katja, please. Or just Katharina.” Katja had made the request before, but under Wilhelm and Urszula, proper terms of address had always been used, so it would take some reminding to break the habit. “And yes, I’m frightened. It’s most unnerving to be surrounded by an enemy, but one of the reasons the emperor left was so he could negotiate with allies. I’m sure he’s trying to raise an army as we speak.”
Maria’s fingers squeezed together and then relaxed. “But what if no one will help?”
That was a real possibility, one Katja didn’t want to think about. She had been so certain that staying in Vienna was right, but now that the enemy had arrived, the full consequences of staying were heavier than she’d imagined. “We’ll hold out the best we can, regardless of what happens.”
Maria nodded, and the two of them walked side by side as they left the church. All the paving stones had been pulled up on the road they strode along because stones were needed for the defenses and enemy shells were less dangerous when they exploded in the soft, exposed earth.
Maria flinched at a louder-than-average artillery boom. Her eyes drew upward to the patch of sky between the tall roofs, and Katja followed her gaze, checking for signs of an incoming cannonball. When nothing came, Maria exhaled relief and smoothed the fabric of her bodice. Katja and Maria were roughly the same height, something Katja was grateful for because it allowed her to borrow Maria’s clothes. The simpler cuts and sturdier materials were far more practical for work or for traversing a city under attack.
A crash rang through the air. Katja froze for an instant before turning toward the sound.
“Was that a Turkish cannonball?” Maria asked. “It must have caused a lot of damage to make a sound like that.”
They rushed toward the growing commotion. It could be dangerous, but someone might be hurt and in need of help.
Yet when they approached the walls and the source of the noise, it wasn’t something the Turks had caused. The playhouse was coming down.
“What are they doing?” Katja asked a passerby.
“It’s too close to the walls and too easy to catch fire.”
Katja had watched more than one play there. A worker yanked on a support beam and pulled down another section of the playhouse, and physical pain tugged at something inside Katja’s chest. So much had changed since the emperor had left nine days before. So much destruction, a sacrifice they hoped would ensure survival.
Vienna would never be the same again.
“I always wanted to go to a play there.” Maria’s tone was wistful. “Get dressed up in my finest gown and do my hair just so.” She tucked a stray strand of blonde hair back into her cap.
“Maybe they’ll rebuild it when this is all over. And then you can attend a performance.” Katja put a hand on Maria’s arm, hoping to offer comfort. Sadness hung in the air around the destroyed playhouse, but it wasn’t the deep tragedy she’d felt on hearing about Toby’s shop. Someone would reconstruct the playhouse in due time, and wealthy patrons aplenty would attend after the siege, so long as the city remained in Christian hands. But who would help Toby rebuild?
Maria led them away from the playhouse. “I’m luckier than most women of my station. At least I can listen to you play. And to your father for a time, God rest his soul.”
Katja hadn’t played her violin in days. Her lips twisted as she imagined Urszula’s reaction. She would be even more sure that her husband’s sister was a fool. Katja had risked so much—for a twin she still hadn’t seen and for a violin she hadn’t played since that night the emperor had fled. Maybe Xavier wasn’t even in Vienna. Maybe she’d made the wrong choice when she’d left that coach. But something inside her was incomplete without the release her music brought. The violin was more important than Urszula could ever understand. And Xavier was even more important still.
When Katja and Maria assembled for their assignment, they were tasked with sewing sandbags again, as Katja had suspected. Simply picking up the needle made Katja’s fingers ache, but if one of her sandbags prevented an Ottoman arrow or ball from hitting one of the defenders, it would be worth it.
Especially if that defender were Xavier or Toby. Was Xavier busy on the walls? Or was he with the bulk of the Imperial Army, withdrawing to the north, staying out of reach of the vastly more numerous Ottoman forces?
“Fire!”
The call jolted Katja from her thoughts.
“It’s the arsenal!”
Katja dropped her work and ran. If the arsenal exploded, she was running toward death. But if they didn’t stop the fire, they were facing death regardless. If all the powder stored there went up, it would cause a breach in the walls, simultaneously crushing their ability to defend themselves and opening the city to the enemy.
She joined a line of men and women passing buckets of water from a well to the door. The monastery beside the arsenal was on fire too, but the firefighting efforts focused on the arsenal, the door of which was currently lit with flame.
They had to get that door open. If a mere spark came in contact with the powder inside, Vienna was lost.
A pair of men armed with axes hammered at the door. Katja prayed under her breath as she passed bucket after bucket forward. The smoke dried her throat, and steady toil beneath the sun made her body perspire. She grabbed a pail. Passed it on. Clutched another. Clasped it a little tighter so it didn’t slide from her grip. Handed it to the next person in line. Took a new one.
At last, the door came down, and those nearest the arsenal rushed inside. Katja followed with a bucket of water and used it to douse a flame licking at the wooden frame. She ran for another pail, and after using the water on another smoldering bit of building, she looked around. The blaze nearest her had been extinguished.
A group of uniformed soldiers marched through, examining everything. Katja made her way out so as not to interfere. They would know what to do better than she. She left the armory and joined the bucket brigade working to put out the fire in the neighboring monastery. The blaze had begun there, but monasteries didn’t explode the way arsenals did. Katja passed along pail after pail until her arms ached. She wasn’t so close to the fire as to feel the heat, but the smoke stung her eyes.
She stood upright and rested her hands on her hips when the call came that the fire was out. Still, she didn’t rush back to her sewing. She was out of breath, and in case there was a need for helpers at the arsenal, she wanted to stay close. Paul and Aloys, the footmen, had joined the fire brigade, but their faces weren’t among the men in the crowd now. Maybe they were putting out smolders from Ottoman cannon in a different section of the city.
“Fräulein Schor?”
She turned, and standing behind her was Toby Vischer, sweaty, with black smears on his face. His clothes seemed familiar—she’d seen that hat recently. “Goodness, was that you breaking down the door of the arsenal?”
“Yes. The man with the keys is abed with fever, and we didn’t have time to fetch them.” One side of his mouth pulled up—a teasing smile that she remembered well. “I don’t think I’ve seen you so dirty since the day we fell into that mud patch.”
Katja was still warm—the rush to put out the flames and the summer sun had seen to that—but now something else added to the heat. Embarrassment? Or pleasure at seeing Toby, even if he was covered in soot? “The way I remember it, we didn’t fall into the puddle. Xavier wanted to go through it rather than around it, and we followed him in quite willingly.” She ran a hand across her forehead, hoping she didn’t look as dirty as Toby did, but since most of the other men and women who had been fighting the fire were covered in a layer of grime, she probably was too.
Toby’s lips swished up, and he looked away, trying to cover a laugh.
“Tobias Vischer, are you laughing at me?”
His chuckle was audible now. “Forgive me, Katja, but you made it worse when you wiped at your forehead. You’ve a black line there now.” Toby dug in his pocket and walked to the nearest bucket, dipping in a handkerchief. He held it up as he returned to her. “May I?”
She nodded her consent and held perfectly still while he softly swabbed the cloth over her forehead, across her nose, and around her cheeks. He held her jaw to keep her face steady, and his hands were calloused but gentle. The smoke had left a layer on his skin, but she examined what was visible while he worked. His hair was still the same—untamed—but now stubble covered his cheeks. She supposed he’d been a pleasant-looking child, but that hadn’t seemed to matter back then. Now she found herself searching for reasons to see his face again and again.
“There.” He pulled his hand away. “That’s a bit more presentable.”
Katja studied the handkerchief in his hand, now covered in gray splotches. “We always got into messes together, didn’t we? And I seem to remember you doing most of the cleanup back then too.” She took the handkerchief from him and rinsed it out in the same bucket he’d used before. “Your face is also in need of a wash.” She turned toward him and tried to be serious, but something about Toby made her want to beam.
He reached to take the cloth from her, but she didn’t hand it to him. “I let you clean my face,” she said. “Now it’s time for me to return the favor. There aren’t any mirrors about, and you might otherwise miss something.” She had to reach up. “When did you grow so much? I don’t remember you being this much taller than me.”
He waited until she finished the corner of his mouth. “Frau Biener was a generous cook while I was an apprentice. I was much blessed by her kindness. My mother used to joke that I grew weekly.” He held still while she cleaned the skin around his left eye, then his right. “But I’m not as tall as my father was.” He lost his smile. “Not that I remember him.”
Katja slowed. Studying Toby’s face with her eyes had been pleasant, but exploring it with her fingers was even better. She was running out of skin to clean but wasn’t ready to be finished. And thinking of Toby’s dead father made her miss her own. “He died at St. Gotthard, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“A great victory, but I’m sorry it was so costly for you personally.” She turned the cloth over to the side with less soot. “I don’t suppose we’ll have allies like that this time. Nowadays, the French would rather attack against us than with us. And Brandenburg is so far away. Wilhelm said the emperor had to leave to gain allies, but will anyone come?”
Toby took her hand as she finished. She shouldn’t have shown worry. With men like Toby defending the city, they would stand strong. “We kept the arsenal from blowing up. For today, that’s a victory. I don’t imagine all the German princes will come to help us, but some of them will. And the Poles are bound by treaty to aid us.”
“The Polish king has a French wife. She may convince him to stay away.” Treaties could be broken far more easily than they could be made, and it had not been an easy treaty to win.
Toby still hadn’t released her hand. “We will put up a good fight for as long as needed. To the last man, if that’s what is called for.”
Katja squeezed his hand, grateful for the confidence in his words. The Turks were making approach trenches—but that was expected. And the arsenal had caught on fire—but the fire had been put out before it had lit the powder. “Are they keeping you busy?”
“Yes, with the militia instead of with the work parties.”
“Have you seen Xavier? I still don’t know if he’s in the city or not.”
“I haven’t. They’ve put most of the regular troops down by the Burg and Löbl Bastions. The city militia is mostly to the north. I was finishing a shift when the alarm came for the fire, so I’m off duty for a time. I’ll ask around and see if anyone knows whether Ensign Schor is in the city.”
“Does that mean you were at the walls all night?”
“At one of the ravelins, yes.”
That explained why his face was not recently shaven. “I’m eager for news of my brother, but I don’t want to keep you from your well-earned rest.”
“I am also eager for news of your brother. I’m happy to learn what I can.”
Their hands were still clasped, but Katja didn’t wish to let go. Having Toby in her life again was a comfort and a blessing. And it was something more. The draw she felt toward him was more than just the pull of friendship. That was a strong portion of it, but attraction, too, made her reluctant to say goodbye. “You must come and visit me, Toby.” She hadn’t thought her words through before she let them fly from her mouth, but she didn’t regret them. “Maria and I are off to work shortly after sunrise each morning, and we rarely return before twilight, but if you are away from the defenses and have had your rest, I would be very pleased to see more of you.”
Toby glanced at their hands and loosened his grip. “Fräulein Schor, you are most kind in your offer . . .”
Katja did her best to look cross. “If you insist on calling me Fräulein Schor, then I shall have to insist on calling you Master Joiner Vischer. That seems a bit formal for two people who often waded through mud together.”
Toby’s face relaxed into a smile. “Katharina, I will let you know what I hear of your brother as soon as I have news and as soon as duty permits.”
He hadn’t quite accepted her invitation to visit, but he had said he would bring her word. For now, she would take it, especially if he would use her Christian name. The way he said it, like he was a bit breathless, made her want to listen to him say it over and over again. “Thank you, Toby.”
The crowd had dispersed while they’d talked. Now few townspeople remained among the soldiers from the garrison and the monks from the monastery. Maria stood waiting. Katja hadn’t seen her since they’d rushed to put out the flames, and she’d forgotten to look for her in the thrill of seeing Toby again. She released her grip on Toby’s hand, and he did the same. “I ought to get back to my sandbags.”
“We’re bound to need them before this is all over.” He pulled on the brim of his hat in farewell. “I hope to have news for you soon.”