Congress of Secrets

by Stephanie Burgis

  But it was a different door that opened as he passed.

  “Riesenbeck.” Karl’s broad shoulders filled the doorway of the men’s communal dressing room. He crossed his arms and regarded Peter steadily. “On your way?”

  “As you see.” Peter paused but didn’t turn. “Wish me luck, my friend.”

  “It’s a fine time to be gallivanting off, with less than two hours left before our first performance.”

  Peter let out his breath in a sigh. “Would you have had me turn down such an invitation? Such a chance, for all of us?”

  “It wasn’t necessary to turn it down. Had you only asked for a different time—”

  “Oh, indeed I could have done. But if another time had not happened to suit our prospective patron …”

  “How would we know, when you didn’t bother to ask? Meantime, if our first night’s audience is held waiting while you dally—”

  “Karl …” Peter gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, praying for patience.

  He’d known from the very first month of the company’s existence that Marta’s husband seethed with impatience for his own company. Peter had hoped that the trip to Vienna would calm Karl’s ambitions, but instead it seemed to have kindled the lurking flames. He would challenge Peter for control at every turn if Peter let him.

  But only if Peter let him. Peter forced himself to tamp down the flaring irritation in his chest. He summoned up a cheerful smile as he relaxed his shoulders and turned to face the other man. “The attention of a nobleman is rich and fleeting, I’m afraid, and their whims, if not fulfilled upon the instant, may pass just as quickly and leave us grasping for a lost opportunity.” He clapped Karl on the shoulder. “Have no fear, though. I’ve a head for timing, even if my host does not. I’ll make a case for our company and be back in plenty of time.”

  “That’s what you say now.”

  “It is indeed,” Peter agreed genially. “And so I’d best be off now, with no further ado, or else find myself eating my own words.”

  “Ha.” Karl glowered but didn’t move to stop Peter as he started down the corridor. “We’ll be waiting for you.”

  “Excellent.” Safely out of view, Peter rolled his eyes and called back, “If I’m not back in time, my friend, feel free to begin the play without me.”

  Karl’s answer followed him down the corridor. “We might at that.”

  Peter escaped through the back door into the fresh, cold air of early evening. The bite in the air tingled against his skin as he shook off the encounter. No time for fretting: the evening’s first performance had already begun. The sky was already blue with gathering twilight, and the narrow alleyway behind the theater was unlit. Still, Peter had no difficulty in recognizing the figure waiting in the shadows.

  “Herr Riesenbeck.” Vaçlav Grünemann’s quiet voice purred with satisfaction as he stepped forward. “My employer awaits you.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Caroline dismissed the servants at half past six for an evening’s holiday. Spies or no, not one of them stepped forward to complain. She heard their muffled voices through the drawing room door, talking in excited whispers as they left the apartment.

  And none too soon.

  She drew a shuddering breath as the outer apartment door closed with a thud behind the last of them. She’d been pretending concentration on her embroidery for the past half hour. Her frozen fingers hadn’t managed to set more than a dozen stitches.

  When she heard that door reopen, only shortly after it had closed, Caroline dropped her embroidery and hurried forward to open the drawing room door herself. Anything to keep from thinking of what was about to happen.

  The door opened before she could reach it. Charles stepped inside, glowing with barely suppressed excitement.

  “They’ve all safely left the building,” he said. “I watched the last of the maids turn the street corner before I came up.”

  “And the apartment door?” Caroline asked. Her voice sounded steady, she thought. How odd.

  “Locked.” Charles lifted the books and candles he’d brought. “We should move to—that is …” He took a deep breath. “My lady, where would you recommend that we begin?”

  Caroline found a thin smile at the forced submission in her secretary’s voice. “Here will do as well as any spot, I think. They’re bound to notice the smell of smoke tomorrow morning, but we can bring in several candelabras afterward and burn the candles down to create an explanation.”

  “Well thought, Your Ladyship.”

  Caroline looked away from Charles’s eager face to the windows at the far end of the room. Outside, the night sky was a deep, dense blue, shading into black. Candles lit the windows of the opposite apartment in the building across the street, creating a rectangle of light within the curlicued façade. Through the windows, Caroline could see a party assembling for the theater, slipping on greatcoats and pelisses and passing around opera glasses.

  “Pull the curtains,” Caroline said, in a voice she barely recognized as her own. “We want no observers for this.”

  Peter Riesenbeck matched his footsteps to those of his companion and forced himself not to chatter. Excitement pressed against his chest, but he remained as silent as Vaçlav Grünemann, beside him, as they crossed through the dark, crowded streets bustling with pedestrian and carriage traffic. Music filtered out of the taverns and restaurants they passed, brass bands mingling in the concatenation with Hungarian violins, full chamber orchestras, and lilting female voices. The Kaffeehäuser burst to overflowing, spilling customers to sit out on the streets despite the deepening darkness and the chill in the evening air.

  How many of them would move on to one of Vienna’s many theaters afterward? Perhaps some of the men Peter saw drinking now would be sitting in the Theater an der Wien in less than two hours’ time to watch the Riesenbeck troupe’s first Viennese performance. And perhaps, just perhaps, they might be startled and impressed as well by a public announcement of the company’s new patron …

  Peter’s feet quickened, despite himself. Even Karl wouldn’t be able to mutter about his management when he brought back such a prize. And once Peter was freed of his financial terrors …

  Well, he wouldn’t be able to give the actors their pay rise quite yet, unfortunately; he’d raised too many debts with this trip, all of which needed to be paid off before the company could feel the change in their circumstances. But the compliment, the glory of it, mixed with the promise of far greater rewards to come …

  “This way, Herr Riesenbeck,” Grünemann said, and touched Peter’s elbow softly to turn him.

  Peter blinked, taking in the darkened façade before him. No torches were set outside this entrance. Half-hidden by shadows, a small wooden door was set, nearly hidden, in a plain stone wall. It was the same wall that ran all along this side of the Herrengasse, surrounding …

  “My God.” It came out in a whisper of reverential terror. “It’s part of the Hofburg!”

  “You are observant.” Grünemann’s small, prim mouth curved into a smile.

  “But then …” Peter’s head whirled as he stared, his feet frozen into lead, at the door.

  If Grünemann’s employer lived here …

  Well, half the crowned heads of Europe, at least, were staying as honored guests in Emperor Francis’s Hofburg Palace, as well as three courts in exile.

  But Grünemann was no mere visitor to Vienna nor foreign equerry. And only one family claimed ownership of the Hofburg palace.

  “Will you not enter, Herr Riesenbeck?”

  Peter took a grip on himself. Don’t be a coward. It’s only stage fright. He’d presented himself to noble patrons before—he’d had audience with a visiting French count, even, once in Prague.

  But the emperor himself …

  Just think of how Périgord will curse at the news, Peter thought. So much for all his old mentor’s warnings of certain failure, eh?

  He licked his lips and straightened his shoulders. “Ready.�
� His voice boomed out, sounding as confident and easy as when he stepped onstage.

  He’d always known that coming to Vienna was the right thing to do. But he’d never imagined such an opportunity as this could unfold before him.

  Was it possible to feel more fright than joy at such news, so sudden and unexpected? He’d never thought so before.

  The door handle turned beneath his hand.

  “It’s unlit,” Peter said. He peered into the unremitting darkness. “Do you think we’ve come to the wrong door?”

  “There’s no need to worry,” Grünemann said. “It’s the first door on the right—you need no light for that. I’ll guide you, have no fear.”

  “Of course.” The emperor was spending fifty thousand florins a day on each of his royal guests, by all reports. That had to strain even the grandest treasury to its breaking point. Why waste candles on a servants’ entrance?

  Peter took a deep breath and stepped into the blackness. He heard the door swing closed behind him.

  But Grünemann hadn’t followed him.

  Ahead of him he heard a sudden scuffle of feet.

  “Hello?” he called softly.

  There was no answer.

  But suddenly, he knew.

  Blinded in the darkness, Peter spun around. He threw himself at the door, landing hard against it. He fumbled desperately along the smooth wood, searching for the inside handle. It was hidden in the darkness. Before he could find it, strong hands fastened on both his arms, pinning them behind his back.

  A hood dropped over his head. Gasping for breath, Peter jerked his head back. It crashed against a taller man’s face. A curse sounded behind him, and the grip on his arms loosened.

  Peter lunged forward, pulling away. Somewhere before him, he heard the door open. If he could only get there fast enough, find his way out into the busy street—

  He ran straight into another man’s chest.

  Vaçlav Grünemann’s sigh sounded in his ears. Small hands pushed Peter firmly backward, into the waiting grip of his attackers.

  “Do calm yourself, Herr Riesenbeck.” Grünemann’s voice was as dry and emotionless as ever.

  The door fell closed again as Grünemann pushed past Peter in the pitch-black corridor.

  “I told you my employer was expecting you.”

  It wasn’t what Michael had expected.

  The Hôtel de Ligne was an unprepossessing, unusually short building set on the Mölker Bastei, the sloping, cobbled street built on top of the old walls that had once encircled Vienna’s inner city. When Michael was a boy, this street had been full of the noise and flurry of building works, as the middle classes competed in building new homes to match the grand palaces in the city below. Now, with the building works long gone, the narrow street possessed an air of quiet but modern elegance. The houses that surrounded the Hôtel de Ligne might be modestly sized and painted in tastefully muted colors, but each one glistened with fresh paint and visible pride of place—except for the Hôtel de Ligne.

  The best that could be said of the Prince de Ligne’s own home was that the house itself looked … not ill-built. In the shadows, it even hinted at an atmosphere of past grandeur, albeit faded and long-distant. Only dim lights shone in the windows, though music and laughter sounded through the door.

  The Prince de Ligne’s name and lineage were known across Europe; his military exploits, published letters, and memoirs would have made him a force to be reckoned with in high society, even had he not been by birth a prince of the former Holy Roman Empire. From his clothes and manner, one would expect him to be a gentleman of vast wealth. Even if his own resources had run out over the years, considering his military and political distinction, it would be nigh-on unthinkable for the imperial government not to have stepped in to fill the gap. At the very least, they would surely have created an official post for him to act as excuse for an elegant state pension, to comfortably support him through his grand old age.

  And yet … the shabby interior of De Ligne’s carriage had offered the hint of another possibility, had it not?

  Michael studied the faded paint on the knocker and the scratched and crumbing stone above the door and wondered if De Ligne might not be, in truth, as much of an adventurer and illusionist as Michael himself.

  “Ah, my dear Prince Kalishnikoff.”

  A dry voice spoke in French behind him, and Michael turned, his hand dropping away from the untouched door knocker.

  The French foreign minister stood on the pavement below, leaning on his cane while his carriage drove away.

  “Monsieur de Talleyrand.” Michael bowed. “What a pleasure to meet you again.”

  “A pleasure indeed.” Talleyrand’s disconcertingly flat, uninflected manner of speaking shaded the phrase into ambiguity. He smiled, though, tilting his head. “A lovely evening, is it not? Perhaps you’d do me the honor of taking a turn with me around the neighborhood before we venture inside.”

  “But of course.” Michael ran lightly down the steps to the pavement, feeling his pulse quicken.

  So he had succeeded, after all, in catching the man’s attention that afternoon. Satisfaction mingled with a tinge of nerves at the thought of it. The attention of Monsieur le Baron de Talleyrand could be a double-edged sword for a professional deceiver.

  Michael fell into step with the older man, slowing his pace to match the ambassador’s lopsided steps. Lights glittered along the street, sparkling within the houses, but this far from the center of town, only one solitary carriage rattled by as they walked.

  “Is this your first visit to the Hôtel de Ligne, Your Highness?” Talleyrand asked. He leaned heavily on his cane as he walked, his attention apparently focused solely on the bumpy paving stones beneath his feet.

  “It is,” Michael said. “I haven’t been to Vienna at all since I was a boy, I’m afraid—I’ve spent most of the past decade wandering about Bohemia and Moravia.”

  “Have you indeed?” Talleyrand’s lips twitched, as if appreciating a private jest. “Prepare yourself for a true delight. Not in the atmosphere nor the food, I fear—furniture made nearly out of straw, you understand, and meals of the same consistency—but the company, ah, the company …”

  He paused, balancing on his cane, and gazed contemplatively up at the closest house, which flooded brilliant light from its broad first-floor windows. “Ah, now the company cannot be bettered. A school for conversation, we’ve always called it. Between the prince, his daughters—marvelous women, all of them, their wits as sharp as daggers—and the guests he always manages to gather around them … whether despite or because of the shortness of their memories …” He bent his glittering gaze on Michael.

  “Your Excellency?”

  “I’m intrigued by your mention of early visits to Vienna,” Talleyrand said. “Do you remember much, if anything, about them?”

  “As much as could be expected, I suppose, after a full thirty-year gap.”

  “Indeed? You astonish me.”

  Michael met the other man’s gaze steadily. “I’m afraid I don’t catch your meaning.”

  “No?” Talleyrand shook his head. “What a pity. You seem such a bright young man. And yet, you took a misstep today. You see …”

  In the same flat, dry tone of elegant disinterest, the French minister continued, “I’m afraid you made the wrong guess at luncheon this afternoon. You see, I did meet the former Prince Kalishnikoff in Paris, twenty years ago. But the prince did not travel alone.”

  “Ah.” Michael moistened suddenly dry lips. “Your Excellency, perhaps I ought to say—”

  “No, Monsieur, I believe you ought not. For the old prince traveled with his son as companion. His only son, who was a full twenty years of age at the time … and looked, I’m afraid, nothing at all like you. Therefore …” Talleyrand smiled thinly and looked at Michael, who stood fully exposed in the light from the window above.

  “I do not know who you may truly be, Monsieur, but of one thing I am certain: you are not P
rince Kalishnikoff of Kernova. And I imagine the Viennese secret police would be most interested to learn that.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Rough hands pushed Peter down into a chair. It was wooden, he could feel that much; wooden and bare of any cushion. They tied his hands to the back of the chair with thick cloth.

  He didn’t struggle. He was working too hard.

  Use all of your senses. That had been one of Peter’s first lessons, when Paul Périgord had plucked him as a seven-year-old off the streets of Prague and transformed him into an actor. Hard to do, though, when your head was swathed in a hood of coarse sacking. The material smelled of rank sweat and … what was that bitter scent that mixed with it?

  Peter fought down panic. It made his breath come too fast and loud; made it impossible to listen. He took slow, deep breaths and forced himself to focus. If he could focus on the clues around him, he could reason out where he was and why this was happening. Then, if he worked hard enough, he could think up some clever way to escape. That was how these situations worked, wasn’t it?

  In plays, things like this often happened. Heroes were taken prisoner for no known reason. They were held captive by villains, but they always used their wits to escape. In plays …

  Peter didn’t remember any hero on the stage ever expressing the raw terror he felt thrumming against his skin—the panic of a captured animal. Heroes gave noble speeches of defiance in these situations, didn’t they? He didn’t think he would be able to form a single coherent word through the choking knot that filled his throat … much less come up with a brilliantly cunning plan to escape the harsh ropes that bound his wrists.

  Things like this happened in plays, not in real life. In real life, he had to be back in the Theater an der Wien in less than an hour. He couldn’t miss the premiere of his own play. It wasn’t possible. This, now, was not possible.

  The world spun like a Catherine wheel around him, filling his head with sick dizziness, realigning what was possible and what was not.