“Oh, Karel!” Ekaterine exclaimed, rushing to intercept him. “Just the person I wanted to speak to.”
“What?” Karel stammered.
“Are you familiar with Mister Chambers?” Ekaterine asked. “He’s an American.”
Startled and confused, it took Karel a few seconds to manage a simple reply of, “Not personally. Should I be?”
“You must!” Ekaterine insisted. “You see, he’s written a book about a play that drives people mad!”
“A what that does what?”
“But you see,” Ekaterine continued, “Mister Chambers only wrote a little bit of the play down, so I thought it would be tremendous fun if you and I wrote the rest of it and then performed it. I’ve always wanted to be a theater producer, you know.”
Karel’s bloodshot eyes widened, and he shook his head. “No, no, no! I am finished with plays! I am finished with poetry! I am finished with artists and romantics and revolutionaries!”
It was then that Friedrich noticed the dark circles under Karel’s eyes and asked, “I say, have you been sleeping properly Karel? You look dreadful.”
“Of course I’ve not been sleeping properly,” Karel answered frantically. “Freddie, our friends are dead! Men came into your house and killed them! I might have been killed myself! And now Erzsebet says that Stanislav was carried off and murdered too!”
Friedrich nodded and placed a hand on Karel’s shoulder. He had suffered bad dreams too in the wake of recent events. It was only to be expected.
“I am not surprised, Karel,” he said. “Now don’t you worry. I have just the thing for restless nights: laudanum, and lots of it.”
“What? No!” Karel exclaimed. “You may dull yourself with drink and opium if you want, Freddie, but I have had enough. I am leaving!”
“Leaving? But Karel—”
Karel pushed past them and carried his luggage toward the front stairs.
“You can’t stop me, Freddie!” he called back. “My father wants me to join the family business, and that is what I am going to do! I am going to pretend that none of this ever happened and, God willing, I will never see any of you again!”
And with that, Karel stumbled down the stairs to the foyer and was gone.
“Should we give chase?” Ekaterine mused. “He might talk.”
“Doubtful,” Friedrich said. “Poor fellow, he’s terrified. I suspect he’ll be silent about the whole business simply out of fear.”
“Some people are simply not ready to be artists,” Ekaterine said lightly.
“True.”
“But what if he does tell the police?” Ekaterine asked.
“Then more’s the pity for him,” Friedrich replied. “I may only be a baron, but legally I am answerable only to His Majesty the Kaiser. Even in Austria, I suspect that the police would be more willing to take my word over that of a factory owner’s son. Besides,” he added, “Karel might be afraid, but he’s a good fellow. I trust him.”
Ekaterine sighed at Friedrich and shook her head, but she did not comment. Without another word, they continued on to the upstairs sitting room where Friedrich’s friends had been sequestered, sheltering them from the outside world while also sheltering the rest of the house from them. It had been the best compromise Friedrich could bargain from Mother.
Friedrich found Zoya painting a portrait of Erzsebet, who sat by the curtained window, slowly twisting a flower in her hands. Erzsebet looked toward Friedrich as he entered, and her face lit up. Friedrich found it only right to return her smile with one of his own. She was still shaken by her ordeal, but at least she was recovering in peaceful surroundings. Friedrich saw red around her eyes: she had cried recently, most certainly in memory of Stanislav.
“Hello all,” Friedrich announced. “How are you?”
Zoya glanced away from her work and said, “Well, Freddie, well. Ah, Muse!” she exclaimed at Ekaterine. “A most welcome addition.”
“Hello Miss Chromoluminarist,” Ekaterine replied, joining Zoya at the easel. “What a delightful painting. Most chromoluminary.”
Zoya sighed. “The compliment is appreciated, Muse, though undeserved. I fear this latest work does no one due credit: neither my subject.” She motioned to Erzsebet. “Nor my audience.” She waved her hand to indicate Ekaterine.
“Still, though, lovely colors,” Ekaterine said brightly.
“It is the surroundings,” Zoya grumbled. “Utterly bourgeois. I will be content as soon as I have a factory or a field to surround my model. Until then, I am stumbling in darkness!”
Erzsebet seemed distressed at Zoya’s reaction to her own painting, so Friedrich approached her with some words of reassurance.
“Ignore Zoya,” he told her. “It looks lovely, as do you.”
Erzsebet smiled a little and looked down at the flower. “Thank you,” she murmured.
Friedrich knelt beside her and asked, “How are you?”
“I am…better than I was?” Erzsebet ventured, sounding uncertain that it was the looked-for reply.
Friedrich gently took her hand, careful to stop in case being touched caused her distress. But the physical contact seemed to comfort her, and she put her other hand on his.
“Good,” Friedrich said. “You are safe here, I promise. And you may stay as long as you like.”
“Ah…” Ekaterine began, raising a finger to correct him.
“We are not staying, Freddie,” Zoya said. “Erzsebet and I are leaving Prague soon, and I do not think either of us will return.”
“What?” Friedrich asked, very surprised and rather disappointed to learn that he was to lose even more friends in the same day. “When?”
“As soon as I have answered all of the Prince’s questions,” Erzsebet said, looking back at the flower. “Once all of our business here is done, I must be away from this place. Zoya is very kind and has agreed to join me.”
“But where? Why?”
“Paris,” Zoya answered, punctuating the name with a firm dot of her brush. “It’s far away, much safer than here. And I understand that Montmartre is a splendid place for artists. It seems the logical place to go.”
“You could join us!” Erzsebet told Friedrich, holding his hand tightly. “You would be most welcome.”
“And so would you, Muse,” Zoya told Ekaterine, smiling at her slyly. “I am certain you would be very popular.”
“I have always wanted to be an artist’s model,” Ekaterine admitted. She tilted her head and smiled at the thought.
* * * *
That evening, Iosef was roused from his studies by a knocking at the front door. The sound was unobtrusive, but it carried well enough that Iosef heard it clearly from the room where he had been reading. Under normal circumstances, he would have ignored it altogether and allowed the servants to attend the matter unaided, but he did not recall expecting anyone at that hour, and in light of recent events, it seemed prudent to be aware of any persons leaving or entering.
Perhaps it was young Friedrich’s poet friend, returning to trouble Iosef’s door again. Or perhaps the boy had revealed them to the authorities, and now Iosef would be obliged to dirty his hands with mortal blood. That would be most inconvenient.
To his great surprise, Iosef found Mordechai waiting in the foyer, having been just let in by the footman. He carried a pair of large and over-filled carpetbags, which he placed on the floor with a heavy thud. Smiling at Iosef, Mordechai stepped forward and offered his hand.
“Herr Mordechai,” Iosef said, unable to completely conceal the astonishment in his voice. “Why ever are you here?” As an afterthought, he nodded to the footman, who waited attentively nearby. “Thank you Pravec, you may leave us.”
“Yes, Highness.”
“Why am I here?” Mordechai repeated. “In your house? Forgive me, I had assumed I would be welcome.”
“In Prague,” Iosef clarified. “Of course you are welcome here, but in light of…events…I assumed that you had left our fair city days ago.”
“Ah, that.” Mordechai grinned in his usual jovial way. “I have been liquidating my properties and accounts in Prague in preparation for my journey. Twenty years of meticulously assembled assets do not make themselves portable simply overnight.”
Iosef nodded in understanding. “Of course. Is there any assistance I might render…?”
“It is all done,” Mordechai replied, “though I do thank you for the offer.”
“Where do you go? Yugra after all?”
Mordechai laughed. “It is tempting and I do so enjoy brisk walks, but in fact I have decided to take up my friend’s offer and visit him in America. It has been some time since I was there. I am given to understand that it is an interesting place.”
“That is a word for it, yes,” Iosef agreed.
“In fact,” Mordechai continued, reaching down and patting one of the carpetbags, “I am here to conclude my last piece of business before I quit the country.”
“What do you mean, Mordechai?” Iosef asked cautiously.
Mordechai’s expression became devilishly mirthful as he knelt and opened each of the bags. Inside, Iosef saw a collection of old books, carefully packed so that each one reinforced its companions, and together they withstood their jostling journey unharmed.
“I have sold off most of my store’s books,” Mordechai explained. “Most texts of true significance that I possess are far from here, kept safely out of the public eye, but there were a few pieces in my local collection that I felt deserved the consideration of a true scholar rather than soaking in dust on the bookshelf of an ignorant collector. And so, I have brought them to you.”
Iosef was astonished at Mordechai’s generosity, for among the Shashavani all knowledge was treasured, and the gift of a book of quality was counted far better than silver or gold. “This is most kind of you, Mordechai,” Iosef said, dropping to his knees in excitement as he began to rummage through the books, examining each one in turn. Their languages and subjects varied widely, but all of them were authentic, original, and of great academic interest. “I know not what to say!”
Mordechai chuckled and flexed his fingers as he and Iosef knelt together beside the books. “I am certain you will enjoy them,” he said. Coming to one in particular, he exclaimed, “Ah, yes! And I made a special point of including all of my texts pertaining to the Cults of the Black Goat. I think you will find them most interesting.” He paused. “That is, provided our recent encounter with men of the faith has not soured you from its academic study.”
“Quite the opposite, Mordechai, I assure you.”
“Nothing quite like attempted murder by cultists to prick one’s intellectual curiosity, eh?”
Iosef smiled a little. “That is certainly a way of putting it, yes.”
* * * *
In the pleasant stillness of the parlor, Varanus sorted through the mail that had accumulated over the preceding days. It was difficult to imagine that more than a week had passed since the unpleasantness in Prussia, and still they had all allowed the correspondence to pile up again. At least they seemed to have escaped without repercussion. There had been no inquiry by the police, though Varanus remained ready to quit the country at a moment’s notice. There was little reason to remain.
“Anything of interest, Liebchen?” Korbinian murmured in her ear.
As they were alone, they sat together in adjoining chairs, enjoying the pleasant fire as it burned low. Varanus smiled and kissed him on the cheek. With Julius’s death, he seemed to have returned to his old self. How strange that jealousy could incite such a change in him.
“Little at best,” she said, tossing an invitation aside. She would let Ekaterine decide whether it was for an event worth attending. “And I am very pleased that you have stopped moping about the place. You were most unnerving, my darling. Please never do it again.”
Korbinian raised the back of her hand to his lips and said softly, “But Liebchen, I was only trying to warn you. I simply lacked the proper words.”
“I think you were jealous,” Varanus replied. “And jealousy is most unbecoming.”
Korbinian grinned. “But Liebchen, what man could not be jealous of you?”
“Don’t start that again,” Varanus admonished, waving a finger. She turned to the next letter and frowned at the inscription. “Oh my. From our friends the Von Raabes.”
“Oh dear,” Korbinian said, his tone almost humorous, but still taut with curiosity. “And what have they to say?”
Varanus opened the letter with her knife and read the contents. She almost laughed. Under other circumstances that would have been horrible, but in light of recent events, it seemed fitting.
“With a heavy heart, dear Augusta informs us that poor Julius and several of his friends were killed in an unfortunate motoring accident while returning home late one night.”
“Goodness!” Korbinian exclaimed, his tone mirthful.
“As Iosef and I were such good friends of his, we are invited to attend the funeral and to perhaps stay a little while to commiserate.” She scoffed and threw the letter into the fire. “I think not.”
“You suspect a trap?” Korbinian asked.
“Possibly,” Varanus admitted. “And even if they are sincere, I do not consider it a risk worth taking. I fear that the message shall have been lost in the mail.”
She leaned against Korbinian and rested her head on his shoulder as he in turn rested his head on hers.
“But was it?” she heard him ask.
“Was it what?”
“Sent by mail,” Korbinian clarified. “It seems very quick to have arrived in time, especially sent from another country. What if it was hand-delivered?”
Varanus cast her gaze toward the letter where it lay in the fireplace, slowly decaying into ash amid the flames.
“What if indeed…” she agreed.
That would mean an agent of Julius’s family was in Prague at that very moment, possibly in the vicinity of the house. If their interest was sincere, there was no cause for concern. But if they suspected what had transpired, if somehow they had deduced that night’s events, their intentions would be hostile indeed.
Her eyes turned toward the mantelpiece. It was a rash assumption, but still it gnawed at her. And perhaps it was better to be safe, at least until they made arrangements to quit the city.
So, as the clock struck midnight, Varanus rose, took the shotgun from above the fireplace, and set it beside her chair.
A Sojourn in Bohemia Page 30
