Thomas Ochiltree
Page 24
This time a searing pain slashed at the side of his right arm, and his pistol fell from convulsed fingers. He felt the blood ooze from his wound. His knees gave way under him, and he fell on them hard.
Like a beast at bay, he looked up at his tormentor. And he knew that Putzi had intentionally hit him in the arm, so that he could have no chance of firing an effective shot at him. Putzi knew he would shoot with his left hand if necessary as a gesture of defiance. But Putzi would have nothing to fear, and then could savor the pleasure of striding up to his troublesome victim and putting a bullet into him from ten paces like someone shooting a dog.
The whirling in von Falkenburg’s brain and the throbbing in his arm did not prevent his thoughts from racing. He knew that Putzi had tried to kill him on the first shot and been unlucky. In part he was taking that vexation out on him now.
But that was just a part of it. Just a part. Von Falkenburg knew now what that expression on Putzi’s face was. It was something beyond mere cruelty. It was Putzi’s self-satisfied, delighted contemplation of his own evil.
As he knelt before his foe, von Falkenburg turned to glance at Wroclinski and Rubinstein. Both of them, the normally impassive-seeming Wroclinzi as well, wore looks of horror on their faces.
That was because they were good, von Falkenburg realized. Because they knew what compassion and friendship meant. Because they were the exact opposite of Putzi, who had voluntarily chosen evil and who gloried in that choice.
Putzi was planning on shooting him down like a dog.
He was, was he?
Putzi saw all his schemes about to be realized, including the betrayal of his country.
Not yet, Putzi.
The gun was in von Falkenburg’s hand again as he forced his fingers to grip it.
Even though the pain that burned in his arm made him want to scream, he clenched his teeth instead and slowly brought the muzzle up.
Up…up…up….
The bone in his arm must not be broken, he realized.
His head was still spinning, but he paid it no mind.
His blood had soaked the sleeve of his tunic through, but still he raised the pistol.
His hand trembled so that the muzzle danced in front of his eyes, but he steadied it by gripping his wrist with his left hand.
And more than that, he steadied it with an overpowering surge of raw will.
Not yet, Putzi, not yet….
Putzi still stood in front of him, still showing no fear, even though von Falkenburg knew that Putzi realized what was going to happen.
But the expression on his face had changed.
It showed puzzlement.
Puzzlement, perhaps, that good, with all its weaknesses, has at least some chance against evil.
Puzzlement and…
…respect.
Von Falkenburg fired.
Epilogue
It was three weeks after the duel, and although von Falkenburg’s arm was still in a sling, Rubinstein had assured him it would recover fully.
Von Falkenburg sat in an ornate anteroom, feeling as nervous as he felt excited; eager for the call to pass through those doors on his right, but hoping too that the call would not come right away.
The doors opened, and a chamberlain said, “this way if you please, Captain.”
And on the other side of those doors, standing next to the high desk where he worked as many as sixteen hours a day, was his Imperial and Royal Majesty, Franz Joseph.
Von Falkenburg bowed very low.
“Good morning. Captain,” the old man said. “I trust your arm will soon be fully healed?”
“Yes, thank you, Your Majesty,” von Falkenburg replied. He could have added that the only reason his arm was still in a sling was because his doctor was also his friend, and extra cautious on that account. But he decided against it. He had no practice in addressing his Emperor. But he suspected that it was better to say less rather than more.
“I am glad it will soon be healed, Captain. I need all the loyal, strong arms I can get.”
Von Falkenburg was not quite sure how to reply to the compliment, but fortunately he did not have to, for the Emperor took up a dossier that was lying on his desk.
“I have here the final report on the affair in which you had the misfortune to be embroiled, Captain. I am sure that Military Intelligence and the General Staff labored long and hard to prepare it. I assume you have been told that it fully exonerates you.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“But Captain, I have been an Emperor for many years. And during that time there is at least one thing I have learned: the greater the responsibilities God entrusts one with, the harder it is to get the information one needs in order to carry them out. What sergeant dares tell his lieutenant that there is indiscipline in the platoon?”
Von Falkenburg hoped that he was right in assuming that he was not supposed to answer a rhetorical question such as that.
“Captain,” the old gentleman with the snowy whiskers said, “I am going to ask you to do something which I know your loyalty towards me may make difficult. Tell me what you understand this to have all been about.”
Von Falkenburg had never been shown the complete report. But it was not difficult for him to guess what aspect of the affair the Emperor correctly guessed it glossed over – the involvement in the plot of his young relative, the Archduke Karl-Maria.
What was difficult was to confirm to the old man the unpalatable truth he clearly already suspected, and thus add to the heavy burdens he already bore as he struggled to keep the Empire together.
Still, von Falkenburg knew where his duty lay: in telling the truth.
“You Majesty,” he said, “from what I saw of the documents on which this report is based, and from what I learned from a certain Colonel von Lauderstein, I believe the story is as follows: Prince Robert von Lipprecht and…and, I regret to say, His Highness the Archduke Karl-Maria…conspired with the Russians to split the Empire and to set up a nominally independent Hungary under Russian domination.”
Von Falkenburg looked closely to see how Franz Joseph would take the blow. As it happened, there was not the slightest change in the old Emperor’s expression, except for a quick blink of the eyelids.
“Thank you, Captain,” he said. “That is what I suspected after reading this.”
Clearly the authors of the report had not dared omit all mention of Karl-Maria’s activities, aware as they must have been of the Emperor’s legendary attention to detail and insistence on being kept informed.
The old man looked pensive.
“Karl-Maria, King of Hungary…wearer of the Crown of St. Stephan,” he said with more sadness than bitterness in his voice. Clearly, he had no illusions about his young relative’s abilities.
“Your Majesty?” von Falkenburg said. For all his reluctance to speak without being spoken to, there was something he had to say, for the simple reason that he believed it to be the truth.
“Yes, Captain?”
“If Your Majesty will permit me an observation, I suspect that the author of the scheme was Prince von Lipprecht, who drew His Highness the Archduke into it.”
Certainly, von Falkenburg could not imagine Putzi taking a back seat to anyone.
“Perhaps you’re right, Captain, perhaps you’re right,” the old man replied.
“Tell me, Captain,” he went on, “how did you learn of the plot?”
“It was by inspiration, so to speak, that I realized what the plotters were up to, Your Majesty. Only later did I discover that my inspiration was well-founded.”
“Inspiration?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I went one night to the Imperial Crypt. And there the sight of the Four Crowns of Empire on the sarcophagi made me realize that while the plotters could not promise the Russians the whole Empire, they might be able to help them to a part of it – for their own benefit.”
“You sought inspiration in the Imperial Crypt, Captain? Ah, but that does not surprise me from a
member of your family.”
There was a ghost of a smile on the aged lips.
“And central to the arrangement with the Russian was to be the ongoing delivery of military secrets which would eventually so weaken the Empire that it could not defend itself against a Russian attack, is that not so, Captain?”
“I believe it is, Your Majesty. The Empire defeated, a puppet Hungary could be set up to serve Russian interests.”
“Was Prince von Lipprecht such a friend of Russia, Captain?”
“Prince von Lipprecht was a friend only of himself, Your Majesty. He doubtless intended to wield effective power in Budapest, with His Highness the Archduke serving as figurehead king. And whatever the Russians may have planned on, I am sure the real interests Prince von Lipprecht would have served would have been his own.”
“What happened next, Captain?”
“According to the account I received from Colonel von Lauderstein, whom Prince von Lipprecht later murdered, the actual espionage was carried out by underlings: by himself and by a Lieutenant Röderer, who shot himself while under arrest. But someone must have been clumsy. Military Intelligence discovered that espionage was going on, and began an investigation. Presumably it was initially focused on Röderer, but there was no guarantee it would stop there – particularly if Röderer, under arrest, decided to talk.”
“So the conspirators decided to cover their tracks by diverting attention onto someone else?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“But why you, Captain? That is the thing I find most puzzling about this whole affair.”
“Precisely because it would be puzzling, Your Majesty. They sought to divert attention as far from themselves as possible by framing someone with no connection to them of any kind. Someone they had never even met.”
“Someone chosen at random?”
“Virtually, Your Majesty. Certain categories of people were excluded because they were felt to be unsuitable. Prince von Lipprecht refused to allow an officer of Jewish background to be chosen, for instance, because mindful of the French Dreyfus affair, he feared that would attract too much attention and publicity.”
“So, Captain, they decided upon a member of the old aristocracy, one who had not kept up his connections at Court, and who had no influential protector.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Someone who in order to protect his family would ‘take the honorable way out’ rather than face a hopeless trial?”
“Exactly, Your Majesty.” For all his age, von Falkenburg realized, the Emperor still had a perceptive mind.
“And then, I suppose, Captain, having narrowed their choice down in this fashion, they more or less picked you by chance.”
“That is what I understand from Colonel von Lauderstein, Your Majesty.” He did not wish to point out that his poverty probably also made him desirable as a scapegoat.
“Ah,” the Emperor said, “but for all their would-be cunning, they made a fatal mistake, did they not?”
“Your Majesty?”
“They chose a von Falkenburg as their victim! There are some things, Captain, which connections at Court and ruthless scheming cannot match: the courage and loyalty of a family such as yours.”
“Your Majesty is too kind,” von Falkenburg said.
“Not at all, Captain, not at all,” the old man replied, warming to his topic. “What was it your great grandfather cried at Leipzig? ‘The 23rd Dragoons, follow me!’ That was before my time, of course. But your grandfather stood in my lines at Königgrätz, and gave his life there!”
Despite the Emperor’s snowy side whiskers, it was hard for von Falkenburg to grasp completely what after all was a simple historical fact: that as a young man, Franz Joseph had commanded the army at the ill-fated Battle of Königgrätz, where von Falkenburg’s grandfather had lost his life a half-century ago. Perhaps hardest of all was to imagine Franz Joseph as having ever been young, for his elderly appearance had a sort of timeless and perpetual quality to it.
“No, Captain,” the old man went on, “your family has never been forgotten. Not by me. And like your ancestors, you have served me well, although success came to you only in the nick of time.”
That was true enough, von Falkenburg knew. When Wroclinski and Rubinstein half carried him into his colonel’s office with the documents, not merely was the fatal eight o’clock about to strike; Rogge was also there, explaining to the colonel that one of his officers was guilty of murder.
Franz Joseph stepped to the window and looked out at the beautiful gardens stretching towards the Gloriette – for they were in Schönbrunn, and not the downtown Hofburg. Von Falkenburg waited for him to speak again, but it was several minutes before he did.
“Captain,” he said, “Prince von Lipprecht, Colonel von Lauderstein, Lieutenant Röderer…they have all received the just reward for their treason here on earth. How God will deal with them, I do not know. But there is one culprit left unpunished.”
Von Falkenburg knew who that was.
“Command of a Regiment in Bosnia-Herzegovina may seem a small punishment for treason, von Falkenburg, although to a young man accustomed to the temptations of Vienna, it may seem harder than you think.”
“But, Captain,” the Emperor continued, “you know the forces that threaten my Empire. My family is the symbol of its unity. I trust you understand why I cannot do more, and I know that as you are a von Falkenburg, I can count on your discretion.”
“Of course, Your Majesty, of course.”
The case then, was to be dropped. Nothing about it had appeared in the press. Nothing would. The assignment of the young Archduke Karl-Maria to one of the most godforsaken ends of the Empire would be announced as taking place at his patriotic wish. As for Putzi’s family, for all their influence they would have to accept that nothing would be done to von Falkenburg for killing him.
Von Falkenburg found he had no quarrel with the Emperor’s decision. He knew who his real enemy had been, and he had faced him man to man, and won. The Archduke Karl-Maria had just been a tool of Putzi’s. A tool like von Lauderstein and the others.
And suddenly, for all the majesty that surrounded his Emperor, von Falkenburg suddenly felt very protective towards this old man, who along held the Empire together, and whose age symbolized its glorious past.
And its future? For that, von Falkenburg intended to strive with all his strength as long as life was left in him.
“I see you do understand,” the old man said. “You understand because you are a von Falkenburg.”
“My day is full,” he went on, “and I fear I cannot spend much more time with you, much as I would like to. Let me turn quickly then to a happier matter. I understand that the banns have been published for your marriage?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“That is as it should be, for the Habsburgs who rule Austria-Hungary after me will also need the loyalty of the von Falkenburgs to come. Captain, I give to you and your betrothed my congratulations, and a small token of them.”
He took an envelope from the desk – a rather thick envelope – and handed it to von Falkenburg. Von Falkenburg was not sure whether he should open the wedding present now or later. But then he sensed that the audience was, indeed, at an end.
“I thank Your Majesty with all my heart, and on behalf of my fiancée,” he said. He bowed low, and stepped backward out of the room. The Emperor had already turned to his desk to continue his work.
Von Falkenburg waited until he was seated in the carriage that Wroclinski had lent him before he opened the packet.
The documents did not bear the Imperial double-headed eagle at the top, but rather the legend, “Effrussi and Company Bankers, Society with Limited Liability.”
And written across then was the notation, “paid in full by the Clerk of the Privy Purse.”
They were the mortgage papers on the Falkenburg estates.
* * *
Von Falkenburg did not drive directly back to Helena to te
ll her how his audience with the Emperor had gone. Instead, he had Wroclinski’s coachman take him to the Central Cemetery.
The first grave he visited was marked with just a small wooden cross that was already leaning. Almost effaced by the rain and sun were the painted words, “Anneliese Hupfnagl, June 15 1885 - May 3 1904.”
Annie.
Endrödy’s grave had a stone marker for which his comrades had taken up a collection.
Annie…Endrödy….
Lasky’s headstone was inscribed with incomprehensible Hebrew writing, but also with his name in regular letters. Von Falkenburg had been very glad to learn from the cemetery office that Lasky had a grave of his own. Presumably Eimerband had seen to that.
And von Lauderstein? Did his body ever reach the Black Sea after all? Putzi had doubted that it would.
The final monument von Falkenburg paused before was a great Gothic pile that bore the names of various members of the family which had erected it. But the name that caught von Falkenburg’s eye was freshly cut in the weathered stone: “Prince Robert von Lipprecht.”
And below it, the inscription, “God called him home, to be a faithful angel.”
Von Falkenburg wondered what Putzi would have thought of that.
“Good bye, Putzi,” he said half aloud.
And then he turned and walked away. The past was buried, and he could turn to the future.
With Helena at his side.
The End
About the Author
Thomas Ochiltree (pronounced OH-kul-tree) was born in New York but grew up in London and studied in the U.S. (Harvard Class of ’70). He is a retired Foreign Service Officer who served in many countries during his 22 years as a U.s. diplomat. Fluent in German, he has long been fascinated with the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and with its glittering capital Vienna – the background against which his novel Waltz of Death in Vienna is set. In addition to devoting himself to his various literary interests he works part time on line as a translator, translating documents from German, French, Spanish and Italian into English. He does not have a Facebook page or twitter account, but would be glad to receive and respond to any reader comments on his novel at ochiltreeth@yahoo.com