CHAPTER 24

I was surprised how quickly I reached the forest on the banks of the Danube near the Gypsy encampment. It had seemed longer in a closed carriage. It occurred to me that before, the horses would have had to travel at a walking pace because of the rough ground, and that now I was probably running faster than that, leaping over the deep ruts, fear pushing me on despite my fatigue.

By the time I approached the clearing, I was doubled over, gasping for breath, feeling as if the entire breakfast I had consumed at Haydn’s house would soon be emptied from my stomach. I gulped some air and calmed my racing heart before crouching low to approach the camp. I thought it prudent to stay out of sight. I huddled behind a bush to watch and make sure it would be safe for me to enter.

Only a few sleepy women and children wandered around among the huts and wagons. A cauldron of gruel bubbled and steamed over an open fire. I was relieved to see Durril seated by it, wrapped in a thick blanket, head hanging. Perhaps he was sleeping. As I watched, Maya came out of her tent and crouched down beside him to whisper something in his ear. Soon after that, two other men led an old fellow in a torn uniform out from a hut into the clearing. His hands were bound together and he was gagged, but I recognized him as the general who had tried to purchase my favors at the ball. His eyes were fearful, but he did not look otherwise harmed. After all that had occurred, I wondered how long that would remain the case. I was almost surprised at how strong an impulse I had to leap forward and scratch his eyes out. It wasn’t like me to feel like harming someone. I restrained myself. He was valuable to Zoltán as he was. My one hope was that he would be punished for what ever part he had played in the entire wicked plot.

“Give him something to eat; then we must move him. It’s too dangerous to keep him here now.”

I heard Zoltán’s voice before I saw him. I was so relieved to see his handsome face and tall body that I suddenly felt weak. I wanted to call out to him, to run into the clearing and fling my arms around him, sob into his shoulder and tell him all that had happened the night before. But something held me back. Maybe I just felt ugly in my ill-fitting boy’s clothes, or maybe I didn’t want to see him in front of all these other people. Perhaps, I thought, if I just waited, I could signal to him and no one would notice.

I watched Maya offer the general some gruel, but as soon as they removed his gag and held a bowl to his lips, he spat it out and started yelling. They stopped his mouth again immediately. Then Zoltán and the others got him onto the back of a horse, although he struggled against them. Once he was mounted, they tied his hands to the pommel of the saddle. Zoltán himself mounted another horse and took a lead line from the general’s bridle, nodded a salute to the now bustling little community, and trotted away toward Vienna. Why is he going that direction? I thought. I wanted to run after him and yell out, “Wait!” But I knew that I should not do such a thing.

Still, watching Zoltán ride into the distance when I had just been so happy to see him again was almost more than I could bear. Something about the sight of my friend made me feel safe. I noticed how cold I had become only after he had passed out of my view around a bend in the path.

Now I didn’t know what to do. I had found Zoltán, and he was gone again. There was no sign of Danior here, but I’d seen Durril, who no doubt told what had happened in the cellar. But still Zoltán did not know about Schnabl. I guessed that I might as well show myself to the Gypsies and stay with them. It would be safer than going home, and perhaps they had a new plan. There were only so many places to hide the general. Some action must occur soon to bring everything out in the open.

Just as I was on the point of standing up and walking out from behind the holly bush that had been sheltering me from sight, a commotion arose all around me. The thunder of hooves approaching fast sent me scurrying into a deeper thicket, scratching my face in the process. The Gypsies dropped what ever they were doing and started to rush around, trying to uproot themselves just as I had seen them do once before when I was in their midst. Only this time, they had no warning from their own men. Before even a single hut could be broken down, the camp was surrounded by guards on horse back, their swords pointed at the huddled community. I caught sight of Mirela, her deep brown eyes wide open and terrified. She wore only a shift and a skirt, obviously having still been asleep until she was awakened suddenly by the raid, and she stood shivering and vulnerable. I wished I could spirit her into my thicket and protect her from harm. As it was, I had to clamp my hand over my own mouth to prevent any involuntary exclamation from escaping. I watched one group of soldiers bind everyone—men, women, and children, including the proud Danior—and rope them together into a mass while another group ransacked the huts and wagons.

I had been concentrating so hard on watching this horrible spectacle that I had not noticed another smaller group of riders approach. I gasped when I saw my uncle among them, seated atop a large warmblood, holding the reins in one hand. His left arm was bandaged and hung down at his side.

“Do you see your assailants here, Councilor?” asked one of the guards.

My uncle scanned the Gypsies with his heavy-lidded eyes, his mouth turned down at the corners. “There’s the ringleader!” he exclaimed, pointing so violently in Danior’s direction that he nearly fell out of his saddle. “He shot me. He’ll hang, on my word of honor!”

So, my uncle had, after all, seen Danior in the struggle down in the cellar. But why did he claim that Danior had been the one to pull the trigger, and not me? Alida was right to have been so distressed. My uncle knew that Danior had not fired at him, yet he claimed it, no doubt to ensure that he would be hanged. How could he get away with such a thing! It was Theobald Wolkenstein who was the villain, not the good Danior. I wanted to run out, pull my uncle to the ground, and hammer him with my fists. But I knew that I would pay with my own life if I did that. I stuffed my fingers into my mouth and swallowed my bitter tears. I would run immediately to Alida after this. Surely there would be something she could do. She always managed to do something.

In the meantime, the ransacking guards had made a pile of house hold effects, personal possessions, and a few rough weapons—mostly knives and clubs—to one side of the clearing. I watched with horror as a guard tossed Danior’s fiddle on the top of the pile as if it were a cooking pot. Although not quite as beautiful as my father’s Amati, it was a fine instrument, now no doubt damaged by its rough treatment. I saw Danior give it no more than a glance as the guards herded all the Roma in the direction of Vienna. Children had begun to cry, and the women started wailing and pulling on their hair. The commander of the small force removed a pistol from his sash and fired it into the air. This silenced everyone.

Somehow Mirela had ended up on the edge of the roped-up group. I saw her glance left and right and wait for a moment when everyone’s attention was engaged elsewhere. Then, so quickly I hardly noticed it—and I was watching her—she slipped under the rope and slithered into the space beneath a wagon whose wheels had been removed. Once there, she was so still she could have been a mound of dirt.

In the meantime, the guards had herded the rest of the community along, all clinging to each other for warmth and comfort. As they shuffled away through the cold, the commander yelled out to one of the guards who had been pulling all the Gypsies’ belongings out of their huts, “Did you find them?”

“No, there’s nothing but rubbish here. Only a few pistols, and our men have them,” he responded. “What shall I do with it all?”

“Burn it.”

My God! I thought. Surely they couldn’t intend to destroy the entire encampment. I wanted to stop them, most of all to yell to Mirela to get out of her hiding place and give herself up rather than risk being roasted alive. Yet I could do nothing. I watched as three of the guards yanked wooden supports from the huts and held them in the fire until they became huge torches, then touched them to each wagon and lean-to in turn, including the one that sheltered Mirela. Last of all, they ignited the pile of odds and ends, a mound of clothing, tools, even books—and Danior’s violin.

As the heat rose from the fire, the soldiers withdrew, leapt on their horses, and followed the others. I was no longer cold. One of the burning huts was near enough to where I hid that it would put me in danger if I remained there. But that was not my main concern. First was to get Mirela to safety. I called to her, but the roaring fire drowned out my voice. The wagon she hid beneath was small and old, and the wood had caught quickly, but only on one side, the one whose opening was wide enough for her to slide under. She would never get out from the other side unaided. I took a deep breath and held it, clutched some snow in my hands to keep them cool, and ran as low to the ground as I could. The heat was intense. I reached the wagon, lay flat on the ground, and peered underneath. I saw Mirela rigid with fear, but still alive.

“The guards are gone! Give me your hand!” I yelled over the increasing roar of the fire. At that moment, the side of the wagon that was ablaze collapsed, and the space through which Mirela would have to crawl narrowed even further. I grabbed hold of her and pulled her as she inched snakelike along the ground. My eyes stung and I didn’t know how long I could stay there, but I pulled as hard as I could. She was halfway out, and the wagon settled again.

“Argghhh!”

Her scream was unearthly. She was lodged there. I did the only thing I could. I started to dig with my hands beneath and around her. The heat of the fire had softened the ground, thank God, and I soon made enough extra space to free her body. She was near to fainting when I pulled her to her feet. She leaned on me heavily as we hobbled to the cover of the woods. We had gotten no more than five paces from the wagon when the flames engulfed it in a whoosh, and it crumbled into itself like a piece of paper in a stove.

Once we reached the cover of the woods, Mirela collapsed, gasping for air. “You... saved... my life,” she said.

“Just be calm, and then we must get away from here.”

But Mirela lifted her head and stared at the encampment. The look of horror on her face was painful to see. With great effort she pointed toward the pile of belongings. “The violin!” she whispered. “Get the violin!”

I followed her gesture. The mound crowned by Danior’s beautiful violin was starting to burst into flame. Soon the heat would start to melt the varnish on the instrument. Then it might as well be destroyed, for it would never be the same again.

Not fully realizing how foolhardy my actions were, I ran to the pile of house hold goods, looking for a place around the edge where the flames had not yet started to lick up and catch. Smoke curled out from the middle of the heap, and I knew that I had only moments to act or it would be no use.

I found a spot and scrambled up, grabbed the neck of the violin, and leapt from the top to the icy ground beyond the flames. My ankle twisted when I landed, but not badly. The bottom of my cloak had caught a spark and started to smolder. I quickly scraped snow off the ground to douse it, then crawled into the forest on my knees and one hand, holding the fiddle out of harm’s way with the other.

I made my way back to where Mirela lay, still wheezing from the smoke. I stopped to calm the beating of my heart and examine the violin. From what I saw, it appeared unharmed. I plucked a string, wanting to reassure myself with its rich sound.

Clunk. That’s what I heard.

I plucked again. Clunk.

This fine instrument offered no resonance at all. What had happened to Danior’s fiddle? I peered inside the F holes, angling the violin so the slanting sunlight illuminated the interior.

There I saw the cause. Wedged up inside and pressed against the body of the fiddle was a wad of papers. I could see that they were covered with writing. I could also see that I would not be able to remove them without taking the violin apart.

I crawled back to Mirela.

“You see,” she said, her voice a little recovered now that she had been breathing the cold, winter air, “that’s why the fiddle is so important. We must get those papers to the emperor somehow, now that everything has gone so badly wrong.”

Mirela’s shoulders began to shake and tears poured from her eyes, tracing paths through the soot on her face. She started to shiver. I removed my cloak and wrapped it around her.

Now I began to put all the pieces together. Zoltán had told me that my father had recently found documents that proved the atrocities against the Hungarian serfs and that he had hidden them in his fiddle case. He said that he was to give them to Danior on the night he died. Danior would have secreted them inside his violin until they could be safely taken to some other stronghold. It would have been the final transfer of papers, he told me. Danior must have kept the others somewhere in his hut, and decided—perhaps because of the increased danger, with the capture of the general and our failed excursion last night—that he should hide them for the moment inside his instrument again. But how could we know if the papers Papa had found were among these? Surely they were not. If Danior had them all along, why would he have said nothing to Zoltán?

I shuddered when I thought of how close complete disaster had been. If the fiddle had burned, we would have been left with no written evidence to lay before the emperor—assuming we might be granted the opportunity.

“How are you feeling now?” I asked Mirela. She had stopped crying and sat up.

“Better, I think. I can breathe.”

“Are you hurt? Can you stand?”

The two of us leaned on each other for support and rose to our feet. Together we took a few steps. My ankle was a little sore, but I could bear it.

“My back hurts a bit. I think mainly I scraped it.”

“Show me,” I said.

Mirela turned and lifted the cloak. I saw that her shift had been sliced through at the back where the edge of the wagon had pressed down on her, and that she had a large, ugly bruise, but the skin was not broken. She must have been in considerable pain nonetheless. But I did not want to alarm her. “You have no cuts to speak of. Do you think you can walk far?”

“It will ease as we go. We cannot stay here. We have evidence that might save the others. We must give it to someone who can help.”

By now Mirela had recovered a little of her spirit. I was glad, not only because I did not want her to be hurt, but because I needed her assistance. “We have to find Alida. She will know what to do.”

“That is Zoltán’s sister, no?” Mirela said. “Where is she?”

“In the Hofburg.” I looked down at my dirty boy’s clothes and at Mirela, who was very little better. No one would ever admit us to the Hofburg in such a state. I doubted we could even get into the kitchens looking as we did. “We must change into fine clothes, and I have an idea. Let us go.”

I had only one hope. My uncle had given me unlimited credit for the period of one week at Mademoiselle Helene’s. If Mirela and I boldly walked in and I demanded they furnish my personal maid and myself with elegant clothes at my uncle’s expense, there was a chance they would not, and would simply toss us out into the gutter. There was also a chance they would. And right then, I could think of no other course to take.

I wrapped the violin in the folds of my cloak, linked my arm through Mirela’s, and took the first steps on the long walk back to Vienna.

“Let’s make up a story on the way,” I said. “We have to have something to tell a girl at an elegant shop that will prevent her from slamming the door in our faces.” I saw Mirela’s impish expression, and I knew by the time we got to Mademoiselle Helene’s, we would have at least a fighting chance of success.