An Unexpected Peril

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  I raised my glass to Duke Maximilian. “To your very good health, Your Grace.”

  He grinned and touched his glass to mine.

  CHAPTER

  13

  The rest of the performance passed in a golden haze from the faery-tale circumstances—heightened no doubt by the excellence of the champagne as well as the liminal magic of the opera itself. The librettist had clearly been inspired by Handel’s work of the same name, but his handling of the myth of Atalanta was altogether darker. The first act saw the princess thwart her father’s attempts to see her matched with a man who could best the fleet-footed heroine in a race. In this version, a suitor dropped enchanted golden apples to distract her, but Atalanta was guarded by Artemis, protectress of chaste maidens, and the goddess gave her heightened speed so she might win in spite of the conspiracy of men to cheat her into marriage. The act had finished with the princess singing of her triumph but also of her loneliness, her longing for someone of her own choosing to share her victories as well as her woes.

  The second act had been set upon an enormous ship, the Argo, as Atalanta and a crew of heroes sailed for the Golden Fleece, a quest in which the princess distinguished herself by her daring although the men around her plotted to take her share of the spoils. Enraged, she took her revenge upon them before running away to hide out as a shepherdess. Her disguise was penetrated when the hunt for the Calydonian Boar passed and she must join or die. Reaching for her spear, she embraced her true destiny at last, spitting the beast and saving the kingdom from his ravaging. When the other hunters disparaged her, a young huntsman named Meleager stood alone in her defense. The tenor cast in the role was heartbreakingly young, bewailing the fact that he would never be worthy of her love, but vowing he would take her side against his own uncles, who plotted to kill her. Finding at last a man whose honor was as great as hers, Atalanta bestowed her hand upon him, and a tremendous wedding chorus was sung as the lovers were joined in marriage. But the goddess Artemis, petitioned by Meleager’s uncles and angered at losing her devoted handmaiden, cast the bridegroom into a pyre, causing Atalanta to deliver a widow’s aria, shivering the rafters with its eldritch lament. It was a thing of fire and rage, her grief smelted in the crucible of loss into purest anger and a vow of revenge against those who plotted against her. The opera ended with Atalanta, silhouetted by fire, spear raised against a dying sun, triumphant even in the knowledge that she will go to her death, destroyed by the goddess she once served for her blasphemies.

  “We do not much care for happy endings,” Duke Maximilian murmured in my ear. “We are too pragmatic for that. But I think it disturbs you British,” he added with a nod towards the audience below.

  The English crowd, rather uncomfortable with equivocal endings, applauded politely. Suddenly, I realized all eyes were fixed upon the royal box. My reaction, for good or ill, would determine whether the work was a success or a dismal failure. In that moment, I held the fate of Mademoiselle Fribourg, of the entire cast, of the composer Berton, of the world’s opinion of Alpenwalder culture, in my gloved hands.

  Slowly, deliberately, I rose to my feet and began to clap. The kidskin muffled the sound, but still it echoed throughout the opera house. The applause began haltingly, like drops of rain pattering on a roof. I fancied I could hear each pair of hands, clapping alone in the darkness. Then more, and still more, the sound rising to a storm, then a deluge of approbation as the curtain rose and the cast took their bows, the chorus and lesser performers first. Then the goddess and the suitors, and finally Mademoiselle Fribourg herself. Bouquets were hurled along with cries of “Brava!” and the lady curtsied deeply, gesturing towards the orchestra pit. The conductor, Monsieur Berton, who had also composed the work, leapt onto the stage at her invitation. They joined hands and faced the royal box. As one, the entire cast and orchestra bowed deeply to me, Mademoiselle Fribourg’s nose nearly touching the stage. When she rose, I saw tears glittering on her cheeks, and Berton seized her hand, kissing it ardently. Whatever else happened that night, I told myself, I had done some good for these people.

  * * *

  • • •

  When the ovations were ended, the chancellor shepherded us out of the royal box just as the ambassador appeared, his moustaches quivering in delight.

  “A triumph! An absolute triumph!” he exclaimed. “And all due to Your Serene Highness’s enthusiastic response.”

  “I think it is rather more to do with the quality of the music and the performance,” I told him.

  “So gracious!” he murmured. “Naturally, you will wish to pay your compliments directly to the performers and the composer, madame, so I have arranged for a private audience backstage. If you would step this way—”

  He bowed low, extending his arm. I looked to the chancellor for help, but he merely lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug. I should have to make the best of it, I decided. I followed the ambassador, the rest of the Alpenwalder entourage trailing behind. The cast and orchestra and stagehands were arranged in a long line in the wings. The proprietors naturally took pride of place, beaming and bowing, and obviously enormously relieved, as their gamble on a new production would pay handsomely now that they had a bona fide success on their hands.

  I accepted their fervent thanks with a solemn inclination of the head and a few words murmured in the faint Germanic accent the baroness had made me practice. They pressed bouquets of roses upon me—heaps of blooms, all tied with Alpenwalder blue. The baroness fairly staggered under the weight as she tottered behind me. The proprietors presented the various singers and musicians and I felt my face would crack with the effort of smiling at them all.

  At last, the presentation was finished and I moved to leave, Mademoiselle Fribourg doing her best to hold back tears of joy as Edouard Berton clasped her hand and the others crowded around, staring avidly at what must have been their closest sighting of royalty. It was astonishing to see the effect it had upon them. I was still myself, as much plain Veronica Speedwell as I had ever been, but since I had been presented to them as a princess, they believed it. The jewels and the gown and the fact that people called me “Highness” had somehow rendered me almost sacred, and there was a touch of worshipfulness I did not entirely like. Strip away the costly trappings and I was no more or less than any of them, I thought angrily. And yet they could not see past the dazzling display of wealth and power.

  The atmosphere of the theatre suddenly seemed oppressive. So many pairs of staring eyes, gleaming in the darkened wings, so many hands reaching out to touch just a fingertip to the hem of my gown. I remembered then that it had once been the custom for the common people to be given the carpets walked upon by medieval royalty, how the cloth laid for a coronation had been cut to bits by the flashing knives of a joyous, terrifying mob. How quickly they might turn, I realized in horror. How suddenly the mood of a group of people might shift from adulation to anger. And what might they do if sufficiently provoked?

  Something of what I felt must have shown on my face, for the baroness whispered urgently to the chancellor, and he stepped forward. “Her Serene Highness must take her leave of you now,” he pronounced in a tone that brooked no argument. I nodded to them all one last time and followed the chancellor gratefully as he forged a path for us through the opera house and out onto the pavement. The carriage was waiting, I saw with a sigh of relief. I suddenly could not bear the weight of it all a moment more. The jewels and corset and heavy gown conspired to make me feel like a draft horse, and I was exhausted from carting them about. I could scamper up and down hillsides from dawn ’til dusk in pursuit of my favorite butterflies, but the notion of keeping myself trussed up for another minute was utterly unthinkable.

  The Alpenwalder entourage and I moved towards the carriage, the operagoers gathered on two sides and penned by the Metropolitan Police in an orderly fashion to shout and wave their good-byes. I raised my hand to acknowledge them, turning to look behind me, and
just as I did so there was a pop, a flash of light, and a vibration that nearly knocked me off of my feet. The events of the next few moments were so swift, they seemed to happen simultaneously. There was a scream—I later learnt it was from the baroness—and a roar of outrage—this from Stoker. A scuffle ensued and I saw Stoker flying through the air and into the crowd in front of me and to the left. The captain rushed from my right side to hoist me into his arms. He did not bother to put me on my feet to enter the carriage but rather hurtled himself through the open door, still clutching me to his chest. We landed on the seat, my body crushed beneath him, knocking the wind from my lungs as he shouted for the driver to whip the horses.

  Behind us came the chancellor and the baroness, thrown through the door of the carriage by Duke Maximilian, who was still standing with one foot on the steps when the driver sprang the horses and they leapt from the curb. The duke turned, extended a hand, and Stoker emerged from the crowd just in time to grasp it. The pair of them fell into the carriage at our feet and the door swung madly on its hinges as we raced through the streets. Sounds were oddly muffled, but I could make out screams as I struggled to push the captain off of me.

  “What is happening?” I demanded. My voice sounded strange to my ears, distant and small.

  The captain sat back and helped me up, settling me gently into my seat. It took some time for us to disentangle ourselves and take stock, but apart from a burnt patch on Stoker’s uniform and medals torn from the duke’s and the baroness’s badly dented tiara, we were fine if badly shaken.

  “What happened?” I repeated.

  Stoker’s expression was grim and I had to watch his mouth move to understand his words. “You have just survived your first bomb attack, Princess.”

  CHAPTER

  14

  We traveled in stupefied silence—or at least I think it was silence. The bomb had set my ears to ringing, and I doubt I could have heard anything short of a foghorn. We were a dazed group, horror and disbelief mingling with a profound sense of relief that there had been no injuries to speak of, at least amongst our party. I thought of the crowds gathered on the pavement and wondered what had become of them.

  When we arrived back at the hotel, the onlookers had mercifully dispersed. A bitterly cold wind had whipped off of the river, and tiny splinters of ice once more danced in the nimbus of the streetlamps.

  I shivered and Maximilian wrapped his hand around my arm. “You must pretend to like the cold, Liebchen,” he told me. “Ice runs in our veins, you know.” I knew he was not speaking of only the weather. The fact that a bomb had been hurled mere inches from us had been upsetting, but the Alpenwalders were making every effort to behave normally. I suspected his little speech was as much for his own benefit as mine. His fingers trembled where they gripped my arm, and his expression was grim, but it seemed quite in keeping with his character to make a jest in order to lighten the mood.

  We hurried into the hotel, the chancellor leading the way as the captain brought up the rear. Stoker had given his arm to the baroness, and she leant upon it with a grateful look. The suite seemed a haven when we at last reached its security and bolted the doors behind us. I thought of medieval criminals who hurled themselves into churches to claim sanctuary, secure that they were safe within those walls.

  The chambermaid—not J. J., I noted with some relief—was just kindling a fire upon the hearth in the sitting room to augment the steam heat of the suite, and she scuttled out as we arrived, curtsying clumsily to each of us, even Stoker, as she hurried away. The captain locked the door and went to assure himself that the remaining rooms were secure as the rest of us collapsed into chairs near the fire. The baroness and I shared the sofa, sitting as comfortably as possible given the constraints of our corsets.

  “Drinks,” the duke said succinctly. He did not ring for the maid to return but went himself to a cabinet in the corner and fetched a tray of glasses and a bottle with a label I did not recognize. The liquid inside was clear as ice and he poured a stiff measure for each of us.

  “Drink it quickly,” he instructed me. “In one go.”

  I tossed my head back and swallowed. It tasted of nothing, just a sensation of cold and then a ripe blooming heat took hold of my chest.

  “Better?” he asked.

  I nodded. He turned to the baroness. Her complexion was ashen, and I wondered if she was about to faint.

  “Drink, Baroness,” he urged. She took the glass he held out to her with an unsteady hand. She looked doubtfully at her glass, then took a deep, shuddering breath to steel herself before drinking. She gasped, and the color finally returned to her cheeks.

  “I am sorry about your tiara,” I told her as the duke moved on to offer restorative libations to the chancellor and Stoker. The baroness looked down at the badly damaged coronet still clutched in her gloved hands.

  “It is nothing, a bagatelle,” she said. It was clearly a valuable piece, but she was right; compared to the cost of human life, it was nothing.

  She looked at Stoker. “Mr. Templeton-Vane, I must thank you. If not for your swift action—” She broke off, pressing her lips together to control her emotion.

  Stoker flushed, the tips of his ears reddening adorably. “Do not speak of it,” he said softly.

  “Well,” I said, “we shall have to agree upon a story for the police. No doubt they will be here in short order to question us.”

  “We cannot afford scrutiny from the Metropolitan Police,” the baroness said, her lips compressed. “Miss Speedwell’s masquerade, as effective as it is, will not stand up to lengthy questioning by the authorities.”

  The chancellor’s expression was grim and Duke Maximilian sat slumped in an armchair in the corner, his face pale. He was clearly still shaken, and I was a little surprised at his lack of spirit. For all the courage he had displayed at the time, the experience seemed to have left him oddly cowed.

  “I do not think we need worry about that,” Stoker said slowly. “In fact, the Metropolitan Police can easily be put off on the grounds that this was not an assassination attempt at all.”

  “What do you mean?” the chancellor demanded.

  The baroness bristled. “My good man, we were there. We saw the explosion. Someone tried to harm our princess with a bomb.”

  “That is precisely the point, Baroness,” Stoker explained patiently. “They did no such thing. The bomb was a squib.” He looked around at our collective confusion and began to elaborate. “I spent a good deal of time near munitions in the navy. The bomb hurled at us tonight was nothing but sound and fury. There was a mighty noise and a flash, but no destruction. If we had really been standing so near a proper explosive, there would have been injuries, deaths even. The bomb that went off under the tsar of Russia’s carriage blew his legs entirely off, and we have sustained nothing worse than a little soot and some ringing in the ears. Someone wanted to sow a little panic without doing real harm. This was nothing more than a vicious prank.”

  “My God,” Maximilian said faintly. He dropped his head into his hands.

  “But who on earth would do such a thing?” the chancellor asked. “People might have been trampled to death trying to get away. It is a monstrosity.”

  I furrowed my brow and thought a moment. “Anarchists?”

  “Anarchists do not play at murder,” Stoker reminded me soberly. “Their intention is to kill, always. No, this was something entirely different, designed to frighten but nothing worse.” He turned his attention to the chancellor. “What will you say when the police come calling?”

  The duke gave a start, dropping his hands. “The police? The English police? We are not subjects of your Crown.” His bearing, always proud, took on a new hauteur.

  “No,” Stoker agreed, “but you are guests in our country and your princess is a head of state. This event occurred under the noses of the Metropolitan Police. I recognized one of their inspect
ors at the opera. Surely you do not believe they will simply let this go and not investigate?”

  The duke flushed angrily. “It is an outrage! To suggest we cannot protect our own—”

  The chancellor waved his hands. “Be calm, Your Grace. Naturally the English police will have questions, but we will simply give them a statement saying we believe it to be a silly prank and tell them the princess does not wish to pursue the matter. They will have no choice but to leave it there. And regardless of who was responsible, the fact remains that they did not succeed. We must move forward. And, as Mr. Templeton-Vane says, we must proceed with our objectives as if nothing untoward has happened.”

  “I do not believe I said anything of the sort,” Stoker began, but the chancellor carried on as if he had not spoken, turning to me. “Fraulein, you performed very well, although I am certain the baroness will have notes for you.”

  That august lady drew herself up stiffly. “Naturally, all performances may be improved upon. But I think the Fraulein has had enough for one day.”

  Stoker stared from one to the other in frank astonishment. “For one day? This was the arrangement, Your Excellency. Miss Speedwell impersonated your princess for the gala and it is finished. We will naturally be returning to our own lodgings now.”

  The Alpenwalders exchanged glances, and by some unspoken agreement, it was the baroness who appealed to him. She came towards him, her expression pleading.